for more information, see chapter 5 of nicky gumbel's "alpha: questions of life" and crusaders' "energize" training guide, from which material on these pages is adapted.
the bible
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bible overview
the bible is split into 2 sections - the old testament and the new testament. the word testament means "covenant" or "agreement" and the old testament tells the history of the world from creation to the coming of Jesus (God's original agreement with man about his relationship with God) and the new testament tells of Jesus' life, death and resurrection and what happened next (the new agreement God made with man through Jesus).the old testament starts with a lot of history - from creation through to within a couple of hundred years of when Jesus was born. after the first few books they don't always run in the right order historically and vary in their scope - from the story of one person (ruth, job), to several hundred years of history in one book (judges, kings, chronicles) via a diary (nehemiah), love song (song of songs) and even thoughts on life and its meaning (ecclesiastes). psalms is a book of poetry and songs, proverbs contains proverbs and sayings, lamentations returns to poetry. the second half of the old testament is made up of books of the "prophets" (God's messengers) - from the so-called major prophets (isaiah and jeremiah) to those who kept it short and sweet (malachi).
the new testament begins with the 4 "gospels" (gospel means "good news"), telling of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. acts and romans continue the story where the gospels leave off and tell of the growth of the early church. most of the rest of the books are letters written to some of the early churches which are full of good advice and teaching about real life issues. the final book of the new testament is a book recording a vision given to John by God.
a biblical timeline
- creation, cain and abel, the flood, abraham, isaac, jacob (renamed "israel") and esau, joseph (genesis)
- israelites (people of israel) become slaves in egypt, moses, the ten plagues of egypt, pharaoh lets the israelites go, moses parts the red sea (exodus)
- moses receives the law (10 commandments), 40 years of wandering in the desertexodus, leviticus, numbers, (deuteronomy)
- joshua leads the israelites into the promised land (joshua)
- israel ruled by judges (judges, ruth, 1 samuel)
- israel ruled by kings - saul becomes king (1 samuel, 1 chronicles)
- david becomes king (1 and 2 samuel, 1 chronicles)
- solomon becomes king (1 kings, 1 and 2 chronicles)
- civil war divides the kingdom into two - israel (north) and judah (south) (1 kings, 2 chronicles, jeremiah, hosea, joel?, amos, obadiah, jonah, micah, nahum, habakkuk, zephaniah)
- israel (north) destroyed by the assyrians (2 kings, 2 chronicles, isaiah, hosea, amos)
- judah (south) destroyed by the babylonians (2 kings, 2 chronicles, jeremiah, lamentations)
- exile in babylon (daniel, ezekiel)
- a remnant return to repair the temple (ezra, haggai, zechariah)
- a remnant return to repair the walls (nehemiah)
- a remnant remain in babylon (esther)
- 400 years of silence (malachi)
- the life story Jesus - birth, life, death and resurrection (matthew, mark, luke, john)
- the early church (acts)
- letters to help the church and individuals (romans, 1 and 2 corinthians, galatians, ephesians, philipians, colossians, 1 and 2 thessalonians, 1 and 2 timothy, titus, philemon, hebrews, james, 1 and 2 peter, 1, 2 and 3 john, jude)
- the end of the world (revelation (+ daniel, mark))
- other books which do not fit into the timeline (job, psalms, proverbs, ecclesiastes, song of songs)