All 33 Topics - Jump to Any
Topics 1-7 - Foundations
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New to the Bible? No worries. Just scroll down through the cards below that give a brief summary of the various topics. Then click on a card of interest and begin exploring that topic.
Introduction
How to use these guides, a note on scholarship, and the relationship between faith and honest inquiry.
Explore Topic 2What Is the Bible?
Not one book but a library of 66 books written across 1,500 years in three languages by dozens of authors.
Explore Topic 3Authorship
What does it mean that God inspired the Bible? Who were the human authors, what do we know about them, and what does scholarship say about traditional assignments of authorship?
Explore Topic 4How Did We Get It?
From oral tradition to written text, from manuscripts to canon, from Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic to English.Here we'll cover the process by which the Bible moved from oral tradition to composition to the Bible translations of today.
Explore Topic 5How Is It Organized?
The Bible is arranged by type, not in date order of writing. Understanding its four major sections and that the books are not arranged in historical order helps one's understanding.
Explore Topic 6The Testaments: How They Relate
The Old Testament lays the historical and theological background necessary to bring much meaning to the New Testament. However, much of the historical and theological linkage between the Old and New Testaments is found in the history that intervened during the 400 year gap between the Testaments.
Explore Topic 7Why Should It Be Understood?
Faith and knowledge are not enemies. Jesus commanded us to love God with our minds. A thinking faith is a more durable faith - and a more honest one.
ExploreTopics 8-19 - The Biblical Story
The Biblical World
A brief flyover of the great sweep of biblical history: the Old Testament, the New Testament, the centuries between them, and the empires that shaped the world the Bible was written in.
The Old Testament
From creation to the return from exile - 2,000 years of the biblical story. The Torah, the Historical Books, the Psalms and Wisdom literature, and the Prophets.
Explore Topic 9The New Testament
Four Gospels, one history of the early church, thirteen letters traditionally believed were from Paul, eight general epistles, and one apocalyptic vision - 27 books that changed the world.
Explore Topic 10Between the Testaments
Four hundred years separate the final prophet from the first Gospel. Empires fell, a revolt reshaped Judaism, and the world Jesus was born into took shape.
Explore Topic 11Israel
The land, the monarchy, the exile, and the archaeology. Understanding biblical Israel,including its geography, its history, and the daily life.
Explore Topic 12Assyria
The most feared military power of its age destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE and began carrying away and dispersing the population. How Assyria shaped the prophets and what the book of Jonah says about God's mercy.
Explore Topic 13Babylon
Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, burned the Temple, and carried Judah into exile. It was the defining catastrophe of the Old Testament. How that crisis produced some of the Bible's most profound writing.
Explore Topic 14Persia
Cyrus the Great, having conquered Babylon, decreed the return of the Jewish exiles previously carried away by Babylon. The Persian period produced Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther and shaped Judaism that Jesus was born into.
Explore Topic 15Greece
Alexander the Great spread Greek language and culture from Egypt to India. As a result, Koine Greek became the common language from the 4th century B.C. and through the time of Jesus and the early church.
Explore Topic 16The Seleucid Empire
Antiochus IV Epiphanes desecrated the Temple and banned Jewish worship. This sparked the Maccabean revolt, producing the book of Daniel, and creating the festival of Hanukkah.
Explore Topic 17Earlier and Later Rulers
Beyond the great empires - Egypt, the Philistines, the Arameans, Edom, the Hasmoneans, and Herod the Great. The biblical neighbors and later rulers who shaped both Testaments.
Explore Topic 18Rome
Every person in the New Testament lived under Roman rule. Understanding Rome, its occupation of Judea, its roads, its violence, and its religions is important for understanding the Gospels.
Explore Topic 19The Church
From a handful of disciples in Jerusalem to two billion believers worldwide, the development of the Christian church across twenty centuries of history.
ExploreTopics 20-24 - The Biblical Languages
The Languages of the Bible
The Bible was written in three ancient languages and shaped by a fourth. Several other languages also touched the biblical world in important ways.
Hebrew
The primary language of the Old Testament. Hebrew is a verb-centered language whose vocabulary for spiritual realities is rooted in the physical world. Many Words carry more than any English translation can convey.
Explore Topic 21Greek
Every book of the New Testament was written in Koine Greek, the common Greek of the ancient Mediterranean world. Its precision and range of vocabulary shaped how the gospel was expressed across the Roman Empire.
Explore Topic 22Aramaic
The everyday spoken language of Jesus and his disciples. Portions of Daniel and Ezra are written in Aramaic, and the words Jesus spoke from the cross were Aramaic. It bridges the Hebrew and Greek worlds of the Bible.
Explore Topic 23Latin
Latin is not a biblical language but it became the language of the Western church. Jerome's Vulgate translation shaped Christian theology and worship for over a thousand years and influenced every major English translation that followed.
Explore Topic 24Other Early Languages
Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Ugaritic, Akkadian, and others each touched the biblical world in important ways through ancient manuscripts, neighboring cultures, or early translations that carried the Bible to new communities.
ExploreTopics 25-28 - Understanding the Bible
Practical Tools
Guides to help you read the Bible well, such as which translation to use, how to approach reading, and how to interpret what you find.
The Books of the Bible
This section will contain a study of all 66 books - who wrote each one, when, to whom, why and summary analysis.
Explore Topic 26Choosing a Bible
There is no single "correct" English translation. A guide to the major translations - what each prioritizes, what it sacrifices, and how to choose the right one for your purpose.
Explore Topic 27Reading the Bible
Six major approaches to reading scripture - devotional, historical-critical, literary, canonical, liberationist, and communal - and what each reveals that the others can miss.
Explore Topic 28Interpreting the Bible
Context, genre, original language, and the original audience. The four tools that prevent the most common reading errors. A practical introduction to biblical hermeneutics.
ExploreTopics 29-33 - Going Further
Going Further
Five extended explorations of the Bible's intersection with some of the most important questions readers bring to it, including prophecy, religious authority, history, science, and literature.
The Bible and Prophecy
What biblical prophecy actually is, how the prophets worked, the messianic texts and how Jewish and Christian traditions read them, and how to read apocalyptic literature honestly.
Explore Topic 30The Bible as a Religious Text
How the Bible functions as sacred scripture in Jewish and Christian communities, including its authority, its place in worship and devotion, and how it compares to other religious scriptures.
Explore Topic 31The Bible and History
What archaeology confirms, what it cannot confirm, where the Bible and the historical record diverge, and how to hold faith and honest historical engagement together.
Explore Topic 32The Bible and Science
Scripture and science are not natural enemies. A guide to the major points of intersection. Genesis and cosmology, evolution, the flood, miracles, and the scientific life of faith.
Explore Topic 33The Bible and Literature
The Bible as literary art and as the foundation of Western literature, its narrative techniques, its poetry, its parables, and its profound influence on writers from Milton to Toni Morrison.
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