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  • The Bible: it's one of the most influential books in human history.

  • It explores the big questions of why we exist.

  • It's inspired many people to do amazing things, and... confused many others.

  • And you've probably got one, sitting around... somewhere.

  • So. What is the Bible actually?

  • Well, the Bible is a small library of books, that all emerged out of the history of the people of ancient Israel.

  • And in one sense, they were just like any other ancient civilization.

  • But among them were a long line of individuals called prophets,

  • and they viewed Israel's story as anything but ordinary.

  • They saw it as a central part of what God was doing for all humanity.

  • And, these prophets, were literary geniuses.

  • Really?

  • Yeah, they expertly crafted the Hebrew language to write epic narratives,

  • very sophisticated poetry, they were masters of metaphor, and storytelling,

  • and they leveraged all this to explore life's most complicated questions

  • about death, and life, and the human struggle.

  • So, there's a lot of different authors writing this book.

  • Yeah and these texts were produced over a thousand year period,

  • starting with Israel's origins in Egypt.

  • Then leading up to their kingdom, with their first temple.

  • But eventually they were conquered by the Babylonians, who took them away into exile.

  • Then, at a crucial moment in their history, many Israelites returned to their land.

  • They built a second temple, they reformed their identity, and

  • this is when the Jewish Scriptures begin to be formed

  • into the shape that we have them today.

  • Okay, the Jewish Bible... what's in it?

  • Well in Hebrew, it's called by an acronym: Tanakh.

  • The "T" stands for "Torah." (Sometimes called "the law.") That's Israel's five-book foundation story.

  • The "N" stands for "Nevi'im," the Hebrew word for "prophets,"

  • and this section consists of the historical books

  • that tell Israel's story from the prophets' point of view,

  • then you get the poetic books of the prophets themselves.

  • The "K" stands for "Ketuvim" - the Hebrew word for "writings."

  • This is a diverse collection of

  • of poetic books, wisdom books, and more narrative.

  • And the Jewish people believe that through all of these literary works,

  • God speaks to His people.

  • Now, there are other Jewish writings being produced

  • during this Second Temple period as well.

  • Yeah, a really diverse group texts, and these too were

  • highly valued in Jewish communities.

  • And there was debate from ancient times,

  • about whether or not some of these should be considered part of their scriptures.

  • So... this is a lot of different writings, over a long period of time...

  • Why did they put them all together like this?

  • Well all together, these texts tell an epic story,

  • about how God is working through these people to bring

  • order and beauty out of the chaos of our world.

  • And it all builds up to a hope for a new leader who would come, and renew all creation...

  • And then the Tanakh concludes... and this leader never comes!

  • So it's an expertly crafted work but it's missing an ending?

  • That's exactly right.

  • Now, few centuries later, a Jewish prophet comes onto the scene, named Jesus of Nazareth.

  • He claimed he was carrying the Tanakh story forward.

  • Yeah so Jesus, did a bunch of cool stuff... was killed...

  • But his followers claimed he was alive from the dead.

  • Yeah, they said that Jesus was that long-awaited leader who would restore the world.

  • And so his earliest followers called "Apostles," they compose new literary works about the story of Jesus,

  • (they called these "good news," or "the Gospel"), they formed an account, called "Acts,"

  • about the spread of the Jesus Movement outside of Israel,

  • and then they circulated letters to different Jesus communities all around the ancient world.

  • And they saw these writings as part of the scripture.

  • Yeah, the Apostles wrote all of this is fulfillment of that epic story found in the Tanakh.

  • And they were continuing the literary genius of the Jewish tradition.

  • They also believed that God was speaking to His people through

  • these texts, alongside the scriptures of Israel.

  • So that's the Old & New Testament,

  • but what did the early Christians think of the other Second Temple literature?

  • Well different groups had different views about some of these books.

  • But we know they read them and

  • valued these texts, because they pass

  • them along with the Jewish Scriptures.

  • Okay, so we've got the Tanakh, (the Jewish scriptures),

  • we got these other Second Temple period works,

  • then the writing of the Apostles about Jesus.

  • And that's a lot of literature... so what's in my Bible?

  • So the Christian movement has taken different forms over 2,000 years, and from the beginning,

  • all Christians recognized the Tanakh and the New Testament as scripture.

  • And for centuries, much of the Second Temple literature was read that part of the biblical tradition.

  • The Catholic Church eventually made it official,

  • and called some of the books from this collection the "deuterocanonical books."

  • Some Orthodox churches used even more books from the Second Temple literature,

  • and then in the 1500's, during the Reformation,

  • Protestant Christians wanted to go back to the oldest writings of the prophets and Apostles,

  • so they accepted only the Old & New Testaments.

  • Okay. I think I got it.

  • But... how does a collection of books produced over a thousand years,

  • by all these different authors, tell one unified story?

  • Yeah, that's the question we'll address in our next video.

  • Hey I'm Jon, and I'm Tim!

  • This is The Bible Project, we believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus,

  • and has profound wisdom for the modern world.

  • So we're creating videos to show that!

  • This was the first in a brand new series, that we're starting,

  • "How to Read the Bible,"

  • But we have lots of other kinds of videos.

  • And you can find it all for free on our website, at jointhebibleproject.com.

  • In fact, there you can find a handout that will accompany this video; just goes into more detail

  • on the information that is video is about,

  • and... lots of other resources. So check it out,

  • and you can also be a part of this by supporting us at thebibleproject.com.

  • Our goal is to make all these resources available for free, to anybody, anywhere,

  • and we can do that because of your support.

  • So thanks so much you guys. Thanks.

The Bible: it's one of the most influential books in human history.

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