Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Why Study the Bible?

Someone read Ps.119

What is this Crazy Book?

Is this even English?

What is in Here?

How do I read this thing?

What I want to be doing in this is addressing assumptions.

We all bring so many assumptions to the Bible, it is impossible not.

They are influenced by our upbringing, our culture, pop culture, social media, recent history etc.

Therefore, instead of dismantling every assumption it is easier and more effective to just build from scratch correct assumptions and the let the Holy Spirit do the work in our minds.

I will give you an example, when I first started reading the Bible, I thought that it was supposed to be all about Jesus, the devil and some angels.

Now what I didn’t know is that underneath all of those things, I had built assumptions of what I thought each of those were.

Therefore, when I started reading if I saw anything that was contrary to what I thought I was looking for, it just wasn’t relevant or was misinterpreted.

What is this crazy book?

What is the Bible?

The Bible is a collection of scrolls and letters some of which pre-existed as oral tradition or rock carvings.

The Bible was written by over 40 Authors over a period of >1600 Years.

The Bible has not always existed in the form that we have it today.

When it was written which was after it was circulated orally the technology of the time would have been Scrolls.

For example: Here is the first writing of the Bible in the Bible.

Exodus 17:14a (NIV)

14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it...

Exodus 24:3–4 (NIV)

3 When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.”

4 Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said...

All of these would then have been compiled by Scribes, these are professional writers in a time when literacy was exceedingly rare, writing material exceedingly hard to make, the best way to communicate was still oral.

Now imagine not melting our brain on media these days, the common Jewish boy would have had the full Scriptures memorised starting with the book of Leviticus by age 6.

The design of the books is often Rhythmic and utilising memory aids.

It was designed to be heard, repeated and memorised.

These things were written to equip future leaders to instruct and remind the people the people.

Literacy.

Despite this schooling system, many children did not learn to read and write.

It has been estimated that at least 90 percent of the Jewish population of Roman Palestine in the first centuries CE could merely write their own name or not write and read at all, or that the literacy rate was about 3 percent.

According to our world in Data, literacy rates did not raise above 15% until after 1800 AD

We have to remember that scroll technology is different than a Codex (book), therefore how people engaged scripture was very different and how the Authors intended for it to be engaged was different.

How are we going?

Questions?

Is this even English?

The first challenge when learning anything is learning the rhetoric.

This is not untrue of the Bible.

rhetoric

(in writing or speech) the undue use of exaggeration or display; bombast.

the art or science of all specialized literary uses of language in prose or verse, including the figures of speech.

the study of the effective use of language.

the ability to use language effectively.

the art of prose in general as opposed to verse.

the art of making persuasive speeches; oratory.

Without spending time in Scripture it is really challenging to grasp what the Authors are saying.

Even with it being in English, many of the words have slipped into pop culture which gives us a false confidence that we know what the word means.

Think common words like Bless, Grace, Faith, Righteous and Love.

We can come to the scripture with the thought that we already know what the author means by these words based on what “WE” think they mean.

The truth is the depth of meaning that the biblical author is trying to convey is typically much deeper than our current understanding, so as we read this is something that is developed in us.

The technical term for this is semantic range.

This is a challenge that met by having something called a Bible Dictionary.

To add a layer of complexity, the Bible was originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic and the New Testament was written in Greek.

The Old Testament was translated into Greek which was called the Septuagint (greek for 70, there is a story about 70 translators that all arrived at the same translation separately) and Aramaic called the Targums.

In Jesus’ day the Septuagint would have been the Hebrew Bible that people most commonly studied in Synagogue.

We have to appreciate translating anything into a different language is a large work of Scholarship.

Words don’t mean the same between languages and not everything is an easy one to one translation.

For this reason there are many English translations because language evolves, grammar updates and decisions are made on what to translate certain words into.

How are we doing?

Questions?

What is in here?

We believe the Bible is one unified story that leads to Jesus.

Jesus himself affirms this:

Now the your Bible is organised into two main sections.

1.

The Old Testament (OT) or Hebrew Bible

2. The New Testament (NT)

The word Testament comes actually from an incorrect latin translation of the Greek word diatheke which means Covenant, which is a special kind of Promise/Contract which we will talk about more later in this series.

As discussed these were written by many authors over a long period of time >1600 years.

Like any piece of ancient literature the history of the Composition of the Bible is a field of study all on its own.

I am no expert on it but I find it fascinating, it is beyond the scope of this particular bible study but one day we may discuss it in a lot more detail.

Suffice it to say that, the Bible did not just fall out of heaven.

The Bible has more in common with Jesus than it does an average book.

It is the product of both the divine and the human and as such it has a very human history.

To be fair, I would be weary of any thing claiming to be a Holy Book that just magically appeared.

God does not work that way.

He always works through Humans, with the exception of creation.

In the Bible was have sections inside of the Old and New Testaments:

Old Testament (OT)

Hebrew Bible:

Arranged by purpose

Torah (sometimes referred to as the Law or Moses or a combination)

First five books same as in most English Bibles

Prophets

Separated into the Former Prophets, Latter Prophets and the Scroll of the twelve

Writings (sometimes referred to by Psalms or David)

Literally everything else

Called TaNaK

Books are arranged differently than in most English Bibles

Common English Bibles

Arranged by Genre

Torah (same as above)

History Books

Poetry (includes Wisdom Literature)

Prophets

Faithlife Study Bible (The Formation of the Old Testament)

The story of the origin of the Old Testament is multi-layered and complex, and no known ancient sources actually tell it.