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--- jn_en_2019_08_14 [2019/08/14 21:43] – created potthast
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 ====== The Bible ... ======
-Wednesday, Aug 14, 2019.
+Wednesday, Aug 14, 2019. What type of book is the bible? You might be asking yourself.
+How to approach it? How to read it? Who can be a good help to understand it.
+The bible is a very rich book. It covers the whole of world history. It has been written
+over many centuries. There are historical parts, wisdom literature, songs, and the unique
+stories about Jesus in the new testament, the gospels. There are letters by the first
+apostles, and the prophetic book of the revelation. There is a lot to discover.
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-**  ... **
+** Historical Setting ... **
+The bible is full of history. It is quite some adventure to discover the history of mankind
+and how deeply it is interwoven with the biblical stories and experiences.
+Indeed, there is no other book on the planet which is as deeply rooted in human history.
+We have some antique literature, but these are very view pieces and usually with copies
+hundreds of years later. The biblical books with the
+books of Moses, the historical books, with the prophets and wisdom literature, go back
+up to 1500 years before Christ. The Old Testament has been composed step by step until
+about 300 BC. The way people are portrayed is very lively. With all their strength and
+weakness, with triumph as well as guilt and failures.
+It is absolutely amazing to search back into the beginning of human writing, which
+developed slowly between 3000 and 1500 BC. If we date the origin of the ten commandments
+to about 1400-1300 BC, we realize that they came about the time when human writing achieved
+a skill such that full sentences of complex structure could be written down.
+But the biblical books are more than history!
+{{ 2019:2019_08_14_2.jpg}}
+** Words of Life ... **
+The bible claims to be more than words. It is words of life. From the very beginning the
+biblical books have been books of faith. They talk about the fathers of faith. They talk
+about the struggle of faith. And they talk about God, who want to talk and wants to be
+with humans.
+In the gospel of John, chapter 6, it is said about "the word":
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 </color>(from John 6, 68-69)
+In the Old Testament God talks to humans, usually to prophets who then communicate to others.
+With Jesus, this changes significantly. Here, God himself is there among humans, he talks
+himself through the son, through Jesus. And with the holy spirit it is claimed that God
+talks to all of them the same way: through the scriptures and the spirit to all
+who believe in Jesus.
+The bible is more than history, since its goal and purpose is to bring people into
+a relationship to God. We are all asked to open our eyes, our ears and our heart and
+start to live with the living creator, the beginning and the end. So there is a lot to
+explore and to learn, when we start to explore the biblical books, from Genesis
+to the Revelation.
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+Come and join us, with Christians all over the planet, to come to the Lord.
-**  ... **
 (Roland Potthast)
 [[http://www.jesusnetwork.eu/en/topics_collection_ix|... further texts]]