Session 4 - Old Testament (The Pentateuch)

Scripture

Holy Scripture is the highest part of Holy Tradition. Tradition includes teachings from writings of the Saints, Church Councils, Church services and hymns, icons, and other God-inspired sources in the life of the Church. It is common today to see many Christians, especially certain groups of Protestants, saying that they do not believe in "Tradition," but rather sources their belief from the Bible alone ("sola scriptura"). However, the Bible is itself part of Holy Tradition - it is a collection of God-inspired texts written by and for the Church.

The Old Testament

The Old Testament chronicles the history of our salvation from the beginning of creation through the period preceding Christ's incarnation. The Old Testament can be considered to be a collection of books of several different genres

The Pentateuch

The Pentateuch ("five books") is a title used for the first five books of the Bible, attributed to Moses. These are also known as the "Law" and the "Torah." These books detail the fall of man, and the beginning of God's plan of redemption. They also include the laws and guidelines which the Israelites of God's covenant (meaning promise, agreement) were to use in order to conduct their lives.

Genesis

God created the universe out of nothing (ex nihilo). God created not just matter, but all things including the heavens and even time itself. God spoke creation into existence - this is the power of His word. Furthermore, God said "Let Us make man in Our image." - Genesis 1:26. This is the earliest revelation to us of God as Trinity, as it is clear that God is a single being, but also multiple persons. Almost immediately after the creation of Adam and Eve, they are willingly deceived into disobeying God's commandment. As such, they have tarnished the image God created them in, and are cast out of the Garden of Eden.

Genesis goes on to recount the continued fall of man, as sin only continues to grow. The sins of the world grew so deep that God flooded the lands, saving only Noah and his family, and preserving the animals. He showed the rainbow as a symbol of His promise to us for redemption. From Noah's descendant Abram (later named Abraham) God selected a chosen people who were to travel and inhabit a promised land, which would be the future home of the Israelites. With Abraham God creates a covenant which is only to be superseded by the new covenant of Christ with His incarnation, death, and resurrection. One of Abraham's descendents, Joseph, is sold by his brothers into slavery due to their jealousy. Due to Joseph's humility and his gifts from God, he gained the respect of the pharaoh and those around him, and many children of Israel began to live in Egypt.

Exodus

Although Joseph gained the respect of the pharaoh, a new pharaoh came to power and saw the power the Hebrews (Israelites) had gained. Because of this, the pharaoh decided to enslave their people and make them a lower class of Egyptian society. To further decrease the chance of the Israelites gaining too much power, they would kill any male Hebrew that was born.

In this time, a Hebrew child was born to a mother who quickly placed him in a basket and placed him by the riverbank. When the daughter of the pharaoh was bathing at the riverbank, she then saw the child crying, and gave the child to a woman to be cared for rather than killed. When the child was grown, the woman returned the child to the pharaoh's daughter who named him "Moses."

God chose Moses to lead the Israelites out of captivity, showing him miracles. After Moses' pleas fail, God begins to send plagues to Egypt to get pharaoh to release the Hebrew people. In response to these plagues, pharaoh's heart merely hardens and he continues to persecute the Hebrew people. This does not end until God institutes the first Passover - the Hebrews are to leave suddenly to escape the bonds of the Egyptians, and God punishes the Egyptians for their injustices against the Hebrew people. It is in this time after the escape from Egypt that God delivers the ten commandments to Moses.

After the escape led by Moses, the Hebrews begin their journey back to Canaan in order to form a homeland for the people of Israel. However, even after God saved them from slavery in Egypt, many thought that they would have been better off to stay behind. Others begin to worship various gods instead of the One True God. Because of this, and to give the Hebrews time to prepare for settlement in Canaan, they are made to wander in the desert for forty years. While wandering in the desert, they are given the instructions to build a tabernacle in which God will reside and they will worship.

Leviticus

Leviticus is a book dedicated to the laws and instructions which are to be used for right worship. Within the old covenant, there were very strict laws regarding cleanliness, which would prevent a person from being able to enter the tabernacle for worship. The book also details laws for the priests to follow, and laws which regard the governing of society as a whole.

Numbers

Numbers concerns itself primarily with a census of the people. It also contains laws given by God to Moses, and further narratives about the movement of God's people through the wilderness to the land which God promised them.

Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy, which means the "second law," is again primarily a law code in which is told again the story of the ten commandments and the institution of the Mosaic laws of moral and ritual conduct. It ends with Moses' blessing of the people, and his vision of the promised land into which Joshua would lead God's people after his death.

Psalm 21 (22)

• My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
• O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
• But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
• Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
• They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
• But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
• All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
• He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
• But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.
• I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly.
• Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
• Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
• They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.
• I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
• My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
• For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
• I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.
• They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
• But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me.
• Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.
• Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
• I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
• Ye that fear the LORD, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.
• For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.
• My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him.
• The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.
• All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
• For the kingdom is the LORD's: and he is the governor among the nations.
• All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.
• A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the LORD for a generation.
• They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.