"And the Spirit of the LORD Came Upon Him"
Reading through the Old Testament, one will realize that God may sometimes "bend the rules" so that his people can survive or progress. One will see that there are situations in which, under normal circumstances, God's people should have been annihilated. Somewhere in these stories one will most likely see the phrase "and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him/them," followed by a swift and dramatic victory for God's chosen one/ones. These events may give rise to many questions concerning exactly what effect the "Spirit of the Lord" had on His people. Did those filled with His Spirit become invincible? Did our Almighty Creator possess them and then take over the battle? Did they physically win the battle, or did God destroy the enemy and name His chosen one/ones the victors?
An important thing that one must remember when trying to distinguish how these events actually happened is that the Lord is omnipotent and can do anything He wants in any way He wants. God could have acted in any of the ways mentioned above. Several times throughout the Bible God is referred to as having a "mighty hand." God uses His "mighty hand" to repeatedly deliver His people from bondage. Ezekiel mentions that God will rule over us "with a mighty hand." From the Scriptures, one can determine that God is (along with many other traits) mighty.
In the third chapter of Judges, the Bible says, "And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war: and the LORD delivered Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand; and his hand prevailed against Cushan-rishathaim." The Hebrew word for "Spirit" is ru^ach, and the entry in Strong's Concordance for this word is as follows: From H7306; wind; by resemblance breath, that is, a sensible (or even violent) exhalation; figuratively life, anger, unsubstantiality; by extension a region of the sky; by resemblance spirit, but only of a rational being (including its expression and functions): - air, anger, blast, breath, X cool, courage, mind, X quarter, X side, spirit ([-ual]), tempest, X vain, ([whirl-]) wind (-y).
From this definition we see that this spirit was one of wisdom but also of anger and even violence. Perhaps in order for a person to be used to deliver God's wrath upon an enemy, that person must be able to feel the anger that God feels toward that enemy and the discernment to know exactly how to handle the situation.
The mighty act of lord had two interpretations, the first one that were, that they were attacks against the deities of Egypt and the second one being that they were meant to teach Israel that the God of Creation was the God who had delivered them from Egypt.
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh of how he attained immortality. Interestingly, the story Utnapishtim relays to Gilgamesh is eerily similar to the story of Noah and the great flood found in Genesis. The city of Shurrupak was mature and flourishing with people, causing great uproar from the busy city. The gods that were worshipped in this city grew wearisome of the clamor the people there made. Their slumber was disturbed daily which lead Enlil, their counsellor, to petition the extermination of mankind. One of the gods, however, Ea had different plans. He approached a human by the name of Utnapishtim in a dream warning him of the eminent disaster. Ea kept the real reason for the calamity from Utnapishtim and falsely told him that Enlil was wrathful against only him and not the rest of the city. Therefore, Utnapistim must leave but Enlil will send great blessings to the people of Shurrupak. In the story of the flood in Genesis, God decides to exterminate mankind not because of the noise but rather their sinfulness which grieved God. He, however, saved one man and his family—Noah. God allowed Noah to warn the people of the calamity but no one heeded Noah’s words. The nuances that rose when contrasting these two very profound stories not only entail crucial information about the gods in the Epic of Gilgamesh and the God of the Bible but it gave deep insight into the character of the gods themselves.
The most highly referenced and revered as sacred are The King James Version, considered a masterpiece of English literature, The Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, The Aprocrypha, the books believed left out of some bibles, The Vulgate, the Latin Bible used for centuries by the Roman Catholic religion, and The Septuagint, the first ancient Greek translation of the Tanakh (Geisler and Nix 15, McCallum 4). The Bible is considered a sacred text by three major world religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Many believers consider it to be the literal truth. Others treat it with great respect, but believe that it was written by human beings and, thus is often contradictory in its tenets.
The Old Testament and the Bible itself has been studied extensively for centuries. Archeologists and Scholars have labored and pondered over texts trying to decipher its clues. It does not matter how many times the Old Testament has been studied there will always be something new to learn about it or the history surrounding it. In the book Reading the Old Testament: an Introduction, the author Lawrence Boadt presents us with a few different authors of the Old Testament that used different names for God and had a unique insight into the texts. These four sources are titled P for priests, E for Elohim, J for Jehovah, and Y for Yahweh (95). These four unique sources help us realize that there is more than one author of the Pentateuch. These authors took the text and adapted for their culture. This independent source is used by scholars to help gain insight into what was behind the texts of the bible so we are not left with an incomplete picture of what went into the creation of the bible. Julius Wellhausen used these four sources to publish a book to able us to better understand the sources and to give it credibility with the Protestant scholars at the time (Boadt 94). These sources that is independent of the bible as in the DVD Who Wrote the Bible? and the Nova website aide in shedding light on the history that surrounded the writers who wrote the text and what inspired them to write it in the first place. The DVD shows the discovery of The Dead Sea Scrolls and the extensive history of the texts and all its sources in an effort to try to find exactly who wrote the bible (Who Wrote). These scrolls have aided scholars immensely by giving us some of the oldest known manuscripts of the bible in the world today. It shows that the bible w...
The Old Testament of the Bible gives many examples of how God interacts and provides for man. However, there are a few changes in God’s behavior with man throughout the story. A good example of these changes would be the God in the Book of Genesis compared to the God in the Book of Job. The ways in which God forms and maintains relationships with his people varies in these two stories but one thing that stays consistent is his ability to provide in the end.
“The wind blows wherever it please. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Within the poetic image of wind, the presence of the Holy Spirit is described as something that flows freely and affects everything. This Spirit cannot be contained or restricted. The Holy Spirit is a life giving wind that acts in all of creation, and wherever this divine wind blows something new begins. Furthermore, describing the Spirit as water expounds upon the innate characteristics of this life-giving Spirit.
Throughout the Bible God can be represented in a number of different ways. In some chapters of the Bible God can be found to be a compassionate, loving God, who would do anything for his people. To contradict this, in other chapters of the Bible God can be found trying to instill fear into people so that they believe in him, or do what he wants of them. In both instances it shows how different God can be seen and why believers can have doubts about how God really is.
(1) Name and define the three sections of the Hebrew Bible and explain how each section separately and collectively influence the Jewish people.
The Hebrew scriptures play a vital role in the revelation of God. There have been many events and stories in which God has expressed his message to people of the world. For example, there is the story of Abraham. In the city of Sodom, the people living during those times were living in very selfish and corrupt ways. God wanted them to renounce these sinful practices or else He would destroy their entire city. God ordered Abraham to find ten righteous people in order to save Sodom. In the end, Abraham failed so the city was destroyed by fire. This showed that God was serious about telling people that they needed to change. It gave them concrete proof that God would come through when He said that He demolish their city. Another example of God’s relationship with Abraham is shown when He orders Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. God wanted to test Abraham’s faith in Him and how loyal Abraham truly was. Abraham did end up taking his son to a mountain to sacrifice him but at the last minute God told Abraham to stop and sacrifice a lamb instead. This event showed that God would come through for Abraham in the end because Abraham’s fa...
...rds reveal that the god he believed in was similar to the gnostic depiction of YAHWEH. Neither man seemed to have been able to grasp hope from their worldviews, which is diametrically opposed to the view of God that the Bible depicts. The existence of suffering and death is not evidence of a “sadistic” god, but rather evidence of a loving God who allows men the free will to create or destroy.2 God is not a cosmic rapist who forces his creatures to love him, and He did not create robotic entities incapable of real love. Rather, God has subjected the world to futility causing men to see the evidence of existence apart from Him.3 Men see the human condition and are compelled to seek God for explanation and hope, and ultimately to cry out to Him for salvation. Yeshua is the master builder who can empathize with us, and has enabled a plan of hope to restore mankind.
After reading Genesis and Exodus from the Bible, I can see how there can many interpretations of some of the passages. Such as Eve giving the fruit to Adam it appears for generations females have been paying the price for this act (The Holy Bible). Even though it was the Serpent who convinced her to eat the fruit as well as give it to her husband (The Holy Bible). In addition, there are many other disappointments in which God has with man and he decides to destroy almost everything except Moses who he favors (The Holy Bible). Once God has destroyed everything with the exception of Moses and those who were on the ark, God has remorse for all of the destruction (The Holy Bible). God then decides this cannot happen again as it causes sorrow
The Old Testament serves as a foundation for the teachings of God, while the New Testament continues to build and preserve God’s principles. The Old Testament and New Testament have a very unique relationship, as they are complementary to each other. The Old Testament contains many prophecies that are fulfilled in the New Testament. God can be viewed as fearsome in the Old Testament, whereas God portrays a friendlier and more compassionate persona in the New Testament. Although there are many differences between the two, there are also many similarities due to the heavy influence that the writings of the Old Testament had on the books and passages of the New Testament. An example of similarity between the Old Testament and the New Testament can be examined between passages from the First Book of Samuel and the Gospel of Luke, located in the Old Testament and New Testament respectively.
Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, authors of How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, have written an easy to read book for those who want to learn more about what the Bible has to offer. The authors present distinct principles for interpreting different genres found in the Bible. The book has sold over a half a million copies and is one of the most popular books regarding biblical interpretation.
In the days of Christ’s life on this earth, believers did not have access to the Bible in its entirety as we know and are familiar with today. Believers in this ancient time period only had access to the Old Testament. However, through their access to the Old Testament, believers were provided a foundation for New Testament times. This foundation provided New Testament believers with the Lord’s established principles of right and wrong they were expected to follow. In addition, the Old Testament is overflowing with accounts of people whose lives exemplified the future life of Christ on this earth. These pictures allowed the Israelite nation to begin to have an understanding of why Christ needed to come as their Messiah and the work He needed to do on earth. Finally, there are common themes that are interwoven throughout the entire Old Testament. Three of these themes: transgression, redemption, and consummation point to the purpose of Christ’s atoning death on the cross. These themes portray God’s work both in the lives of Old Testament believers, but they also foreshadow God’s desire and plan for believers in New Testament times and beyond.
The Holy Spirit enabled Stephen to speak the truth boldly (6:10) until he was killed by the crowd (7:54-60). Saul the persecutor encountered with Jesus