A New Introduction to The Bible

By Ken Hathaway

During his years of public ministry the author came to realise that the Bible was a closed book to the majority of people, whilst those who did read it were often confused by the apparent complexity of the work. This book sets out to demystify the Bible, setting each part in its historical, political and religious context, demonstrating that it is a record of the way in which God has made Himself known to succeeding generations. Being not several books so much as a series of narratives progressively disclosing the nature of God and His relationship with us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398419445

Ken Hathaway

Ken Hathaway comes from a family of clerics, with his father and two brothers also being ministers. Following his training for the ministry, he served for a number of years in a country parish before taking up a teaching post in a minor public school where he became head of the department, sixth form tutor and deputy head. He was also invited to act as an examiner at A levels by the OxfordLocal Exam Board before developing his interests in business, whilst continuing his ministry. He also published a number of articles. This book is the product of his years in teaching and church ministry, in which he came to recognise the need for a more modern approach to reading the Bible.

Book preview

About the Author

Ken Hathaway comes from a family of clerics, with his father and two brothers also being ministers. Following his training for the ministry, he served for a number of years in a country parish before taking up a teaching post in a minor public school where he became head of the department, sixth form tutor and deputy head. He was also invited to act as an examiner at A levels by the Oxford Local Exam Board before developing his interests in business, whilst continuing his ministry. He also published a number of articles. This book is the product of his years in teaching and church ministry, in which he came to recognise the need for a more modern approach to reading the Bible.

Dedication

In memory of my father, Rev W. G. Hathaway, to whom I owe so much.

In grateful thanks for the loving support of my wife, Julien.

Copyright Information ©

Ken Hathaway 2023

Scriptures quoted are from the Good News Bible published by the Bible Societies/Harper Collins Publishers Ltd UK © American Bible Society 1966, 1971, 1976, 1992.

The right of Ken Hathaway to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398419421 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398419438 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398419445 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

With grateful thanks to my colleague, Rev Tony Hearle, for his encouragement.

Introduction

Many people today, in the twenty-first century, want to dismiss the Bible as being out of date, irrelevant to modern society, relating to a small nation of deeply religious people but not reflecting modern society or the advances made in the understanding of man and his environment by modern scientific method. It is obvious that our knowledge of our history, the understanding of our genetic structure and the workings of the human brain have come about through the enormous advances made relatively recently by science, whilst the scientific advances in travel, communication and engineering are beyond the imagination of even fifty years ago. Equally, our knowledge of the universe acquired by space exploration is beyond anything which could have been envisaged one hundred years ago when mechanical flight was in its infancy.

Nevertheless, philosophically, to our knowledge, man has been exploring the meaning and purpose of life for at least some three thousand years. For example, we know that the Egyptians and, later, the Greeks and the Romans were doing this, as evidenced by our archaeological exploration and their writings. Archaeological studies of ancient civilisations have suggested that man’s knowledge was possibly more extensive than had previously been realised. So we must not fall into the trap of thinking that the search for truth and understanding are confined to our current and recent centuries, whilst our reading of Greek and Latin literature discloses a vigorous search for the meaning of things, which is challenging to our minds today.

We also have to accept that what the Greeks explored some 3,000 years ago still has value for us today. In fact, many of our institutional ideas are based on theories first proposed by the Greeks, for example, the concept and practice of democracy. Their ability to reason and explore concepts means that their ideas still resonate with us today. The Greek poets like Aeschylus and Sophocles explored the purpose and meaning of life, often by re-enacting ideas dramatically on the stage, as they did with political ideas. The Latin poets, in exploring their legends, were seeking to understand the vicissitudes of human existence, often by dramatizing human emotional responses. Their ideas are still valid today because they were looking for a different ‘truth’ from scientific ‘truth’. Even in those days, they had different approaches in their exploration, as for example Aristotle, who was a marine biologist, argued a priori from the observable fact to the principle, whereas Plato used Socratic dialogue to explore ideas intellectually, claiming that if even a novice were asked the right questions, he would be able to find the right answers.

In the same way, the Bible, written in many cases at a similar period in history to the Greeks, is exploring not scientific fact but ideas about man’s character and his response to hardship, adversity and temptation and also his place in the universe. The difference is that in the Bible, the ultimate knowledge rests with God, and in that sense, to find Truth, one must first find God. So the Bible becomes a record of man’s search for God as the ultimate truth and the ways in which progressively God has made Himself known through the events of history and the beliefs of certain men and women, culminating with the final revelation through Jesus Christ who stated, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.

In this, there is no conflict between science and Christianity because they are completely different subjects. Science in its search for ‘truth’ mainly relies on observable evidence, and as Christians, we must not challenge that at all. Scientific fact is observed truth, and its unfolding revelation can bring us closer to the knowledge of the ‘how’ of creation so that now we have a much better idea of the way, the manner, in which what is has developed. The Bible is not concerned with that kind of knowledge; it is concerned with what science and academic study cannot define. It is concerned with that other dimension of humanity what has been described as the ‘soul’, that undefinable something which reaches out consciously or unconsciously to find the ‘why’ which has driven mankind from its earliest awakening of conscious thought to find an answer. It has given rise to various potential answers, often driven by limited knowledge. For example, the anthropological answers to human emotions, linking love, hate, envy, jealousy to gods; or the giving of names and personality to the forces of nature, the oceans, the wind, fire, the sun and moon and the planets and so on. The desire to placate unseen causes, to bring about fecundity, to regulate the seasons, to fulfil that untold hunger which exists in the human psyche. Even knowledge itself is an evidence of a something which cannot be explained by science. We cannot define what the emotion of ‘love’ is, or genius, but we know when we experience it and can observe its effect on others who experience it.

In the same way, much of the Bible concerns the observable effect on people who have had an experience of God. This was the basis of early Christian experience, when men and women who had met God in Jesus were prepared not only to die for their faith but whose lives were revolutionised by it. For example, the recorded changes in the lives and character of men like the disciples, Peter, James and John, Stephen and later the highly intelligent and educated Saul of Tarsus, the avid persecutor of Jesus, whose life and whose thinking were to provide the early Church with much of its theological doctrine.

The Bible, which is the source of our study, is a collection both of writings from a number of different authors written over a period of over 1,000 years and a verbally transmitted record of family history. Right at the start, one must state two things. First, that when we say that this is God’s Word, what that really means is that the writings were written by human beings who felt that what they wrote was inspired by their experiences of God. All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for reproof, for instruction (2 Timothy 3:16). Yet although inspired, the actual writers were subject to many of the human limitations of understanding and interpretation typical of their age. Later, the compilers recognised a certain defined spiritual connotation which marked the chosen scriptures from the many other extant writings which were not included. However, as the earliest-known writings date from the third century BC, in the main the older parts of their history were passed down verbally.

Then secondly, it is also important to realise that ‘TRUTH’ takes two forms: Literal Truth, that is what can be evidenced and verified by other sources, and Spiritual Truth, namely what the Holy Spirit can teach or we can discover from what may or may not be literal truth, such as an analogy, parable or metaphor. In other words, an account in scripture does not have to be literally true in order to contain spiritual truth. This is how God speaks to us through ordinary events and writings.

Jesus, for example, taught the ordinary people of his day by using parables which, in my young days, were defined as, an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Yet frequently, those people were unable to ‘understand’ the significance which lay behind the story. Even the disciples often required further explanation from Jesus.

An example of this in the Old Testament is the book of Job. Whether a man called Job actually existed is much less important than the truths which the book teaches. Note that this book was written at a time when the Greek writers were also exploring similar themes, notably the issue raised by several of their dramatists – why does the good man suffer? Aristotle, in his critical study, The Poetics, whilst relegating ‘poetry’ to the realm of unscientific knowledge, does admit that this method of searching for Truth can have benefits. For example, when an audience watches the portrayal of human frailty or tragedy, by observation, the persons watching can learn valuable lessons. Indeed, writing many hundreds of years later, Shakespeare in England takes up the same concepts in his own tragedy plays, like King Lear, Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, where he also asks very similar questions of how and why.

Noteworthy in this book of Job is that the so-called friends of Job all use variations of the ideas which were common in their day as an explanation of what has happened to poor old Job, that is, that basically Job must have behaved very badly in order to bring this terrible judgement on himself or, as the |Greeks would have put it, he was the victim of ‘fate’.

The Bible, as we know it, was formed by selecting from the many manuscripts which had been written presumably because the editors believed that they were faithful to the main thrust of scripture and were useful (2 Timothy 3:16) for teaching spiritual truth; but the canon of the Old Testament was not formally recognised until circa 314 AD even though it was in existence much earlier in the Hebrew language and later in Greek from about 250 BC. And the same is true of the New Testament which circulated from relatively soon after our Lord’s resurrection as a series of letters and collections of recollections but was not assembled as a complete document until about 100 years later.

However, by this time, around 140 AD, there was a general consensus that the scriptures collected together as The Bible were worthy of inclusion and that the very many other manuscripts were not, comprising in many cases fanciful tales of Jesus’ childhood and events which did not carry that sense of authenticity. The Bible was intended to be seen as a human record of the way in which God has revealed himself to mankind and one which showed, in human terms, the way in which God was achieving this – that He, God, is the ultimate creator of all things and that this is an unfolding revelation of man’s growing knowledge of God, as in turn, man became increasingly capable of understanding and responding to that revelation.

Beginning, after an introduction, with the introduction of two representative people who are faced with a moral choice, that of obedience, which in itself introduces the concept of a superior moral being, we are led to the development of a God people. This was to continue through people like the descendants of Noah’s son Shem, who became the ancestor of the Semitic people through one family, the children of Abraham, who himself had come to a personal knowledge of God in a remarkable manner. Here, the two Abrahamic Faiths find their source: the Jews through the miraculous birth of Isaac to parents who were far too old for childbearing and Islam through the natural son Ishmael, born to a concubine.

Through the miraculous birth of Isaac, the God line become more distinctive. It deals with the social and spiritual development of a people from wandering Bedouin tribespeople to a powerful nation which will be united into one by the king named David and brought to its height of power under his son Solomon, only to be divided into two by the poor behaviour of Solomon’s son Rehoboam.

From that point on, the kingdom was seen as two nations, Israel to the North with its Capital Samaria and Judah to the South with its capital Jerusalem. These nations were then conquered progressively by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, who were in turn were replaced by the Persians who then, after some seventy years, allowed the Jews of the Southern kingdom to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the city and its Temple. Then followed a period of Jewish independence which led to their final conquest by the Romans.

At this point, we are introduced to the new ‘prophet’ whose coming had been foretold and who was expected but who, when he came, was completely misunderstood and rejected by the Jewish leaders but whose coming, life and remarkable ministry and whose death by crucifixion and resurrection to life, as recorded in the books of the New Testament, would become the instigator of a new revelation of God, leading to the foundation of a new worldwide order, based on the ideas first introduced in the Old Testament which would bypass the Jews, because of their failure to recognise their Messiah, but not exclude them from a future destiny, and which would reach out to the whole of the rest of the world.

We must remember, as we read the Bible, that the earliest records were not written records but verbal memories passed down and probably collected by certain ‘elders’ or priests. Therefore, one can expect variation in the records as different people record similar events. Equally when it comes to interpretation, different readers may well be struck or impressed by different aspects of the same passage.

The earliest written records probably began about 700 BC or earlier and were written by the scribes on parchment scrolls in Hebrew. These were subsequently incorporated into the collection we know as the Old Testament by around 200/150 BC. And it is this that our Lord would have studied as a child and his disciples would have taught from. This was later copied and translated into Greek by a committee of 70 Jewish scribes and became known as the Septuagint. From the European view, the next major version of Scripture was the one translated by Jerome into Latin, around 405 AD, which was a revised version using both Greek and Hebrew texts and produced as a handwritten copy during the fifth century. These were then copied over the centuries in Latin by the monks.

In Anglo-Saxon, the earliest-known versions were the translation of St John by Bede, eighth century, and the Psalms by Alfred, ninth century. The first English Bible was that produced by John Wycliffe in 1384. Then came two startling changes, first the discovery of printing by Gutenberg in Germany and the writings of Martin Luther in 1522 and then the rediscovery of classical Latin and Greek, in what became known in Europe as the Renaissance. These led to the first bibles printed in English, that of the New testament by William Tyndale in 1526 and then the first full English Bible, that of Miles Coverdale in 1535. Finally, in 1611, we had the Authorised Version, translated and printed under the authority of James 1st, and it was this version which was used in homes, churches and schools up until modern times, when the so-called modern translations appeared in the twentieth century.

It becomes quite obvious that the earliest compilers relied on several different manuscripts and verbal memories. For example, there are two different versions of Creation in the beginning of Genesis, Chapters 1 and 2. Whilst these are different, they are not contradictory; rather they are complimentary, i.e., two different views of what God did, written at different times by people who were not present when it happened. We also know that other similar versions of creation were written into the literature of other nations. The main difference being that the other versions referred to a variety of gods participating, whereas the Jewish version is totally monotheistic. In other words, where other nations believed in many gods, the Jews from day one believed in one God.

It is important to remember that from earliest times until the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem under the Babylonian Invasion, the focal point of all Jewish worship had been, first, the Tabernacle, the tent-like moveable structure constructed to a very precise detail, which the Israelite priests carried during their wanderings in the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt; and then, later, the Temple built by Solomon on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem.

When this temple was destroyed under the emperor Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC and the Jews were carried away captive into Babylon, the scribes began to accumulate the ancient writings, and they in turn became their point of reference. And although the Temple was subsequently rebuilt by authority of the Persians some seventy years later, the priests resorted to putting their corporate memories into a written form, to maintain their traditional religious practice, and as a focus of their history, as a practical illustration of the way in which God had ‘personally’ formed and guided them as a nation. This nation was, therefore, to become a physical revelation of the power of God but also of his justice and of his love and, most of all, a way of showing how God was making himself known to mankind, all recorded through the events of their history.

Sadly, after the temple was destroyed, the sacrificial rituals were fragmentary and not listed until, under the authority of the Persian Dynasty and its Emperor Cyrus, the Jews were allowed, encouraged even, to return to their own land and given authority and funds to rebuild the temple (as recorded by Ezra and Nehemiah) and the city, and then, the written records having been read to them by the scholar Ezra, Temple worship was re-established, only to be destroyed twice more – the last under the Romans in AD 70.

It is most important to state at this point that modern scientific discoveries do nothing to undermine or challenge the spiritual statements of the Bible, and Christianity is NOT in conflict with modern science, as many modern scientists have declared. Rather, the more science discovers about the wonders of space and the intricate working of the human body, the more one marvels at the power, the compassion, the majesty, the absolute immensity of ‘GOD’ the Creator. We also know that this book has not only endured for over 2,000 years but its impact on those who followed it has been enormous. It has changed lives.

In the nineteenth century, the established order of society and the beliefs of the Church appeared to be undermined by the ideas advanced by scientific discovery, and ‘faith’ and belief were shaken from their orthodoxy by the publication of Charles Darwin’s book on the evolution of the species. However, the idea that humanity may have taken a vast period of time to reach this level of sophistication, as we know it today, does not militate against the concept of God as the creator and His revelation of Himself as recorded in the Bible. Knowledge in the past century, for example, has increased at an exponential rate.

What we can say is that the Bible appears as an inspired record of the way in which God was revealing himself to a developing humanity and that man was himself making discoveries about God. But do not write Scripture off as totally unscientific, because modern archaeology has revealed that many things written there can be verified by external reference; rather see the Bible as the record of a journey of discovery so that, as we see evidenced, our God is a God of love who created the world as we know it for a personal and collective purpose of involving the people He had made, making sin the disobedience to His plans for us, redemption possible through the sacrificial life and death of His own Son, and the possibility of an eternal existence which, unknowable to us, He has planned.

Genesis

The Old Testament, which is comprised of 39 books, deals almost exclusively with the history of one nation, from Exodus to Malachi. The first book, Genesis, covers a period of some 1,000 years and serves as an introduction to the rest of the Old Testament by taking us up to the life of Abraham who is revered as the father of the tribes which will comprise the rest of the Old Testament.

It begins with two accounts of how this earth was formed and how it was populated. Do not be put off by the apparent contradiction between modern history, archaeology and geology and this book. Basically, the original writers had no idea of how, what or why the earth came into being and no means of finding out or understanding if they did. However, most religions of the same period had also devised an account of the beginning, for example, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and later Islam, to fill the gap in their knowledge.

When the writers of the Bible began, they used what was an accepted (in their time) account, but where the others saw creation as being the work of several gods, the Jewish writers, knowing by this time that there was only one God, made the creator one God, and then as an instrument for teaching, they added the origin of sin, as a story which was simply the act of disobedience. To this, under inspiration, they included in the Adam and Eve story, the promise of someone to come (seed of the woman) who would break the power of sin and deliver humanity from evil (crush the serpent).

So right from day one, we have the precognition of what would be fulfilled in the New Testament, in the coming of the Son of God as the redeemer of humanity, in the ‘seed of the woman’. This is indicative of the unity of scripture as we have it. For in these opening chapters of the Book, we have clearly outlined for us a number of basic principles which will underline the whole Book. For example, right from the beginning, God is seen as a God of Covenant. His relationship with Adam and Eve, with Noah, with Abraham involved His promise of benefits and blessings but which required, in return, obedience and trust so that the people concerned were to believe and then to act upon that belief in order to activate the terms of the Covenant. In some cases, they had to act first, like Noah, and receive the fulfilment later. The same with Abraham to whom God gave a son in his old age and promised, amongst other things, that he, Abraham, would become the father of a great nation and that he would also be given a whole new country to call his own – and all this promised to a wandering Aramean, a Bedouin tribesman, who followed his flocks and herds.

This principle is well-illustrated in the case of Adam and Eve. The issue for them was not an apple or any metaphorical interpretation of that fruit. No, it is a clear example of God stipulating certain requirements as part of an agreement, which Adam and Eve lost by their disobedience. This can be seen as an example of the institution of a moral authority, of law and order and the recognition of a higher allegiance than to human laws.

It is John Milton, in his monumental seventeenth-century poem Paradise Lost, who puts his finger on the problem. He begins his opening statement: Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste brought death into the world and all its woe, with loss of Eden, ’til one greater man restore us, sing heavenly muse that on the top of Horeb… However, it is not until book 9 of that poem, that he introduces the human element when, after Eve has eaten and will face the consequences, he portrays Adam as torn between his love for Eve and obedience to God and, being human, he chooses in love to eat and face those consequences with his partner, rather than be isolated and continue a mystical relationship with God.

Once again, the book of Genesis is to set the theme of an awesome and feared deity of immense power, challenging human beings who are subject to human desires, which desires may be right in themselves but may be in conflict with one’s relationship with God.

Later, as this relationship between God and man develops, one is introduced to the aspect of a God whose love for humanity will, in mercy, be demonstrated by his willingness to forgive and pardon. Yet like a responsible father, He knows that it is necessary to discipline as well as to help, in order to shape mankind. Ultimately, the enormity of the love of God will be revealed more fully in the New Testament through the sacrificial love of Jesus on the Cross: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. (John 3:16).

As we move on, it is quite clear from a studied reading of the early chapters that there were other people on earth at the time of Adam and Eve. For example, when Cain kills Abel, he is marked so that no one else will kill him, and he then goes out, marries a wife and builds a city. In other words, Genesis is the genealogical beginning of a race of people who would become the people of God, namely the Jews; it is not a history of the whole human race. It is evident that for this purpose, God chose certain individuals. Abel was accepted, Cain not. Out of Noah’s three sons, it was Shem who became the ancestor of the Jewish nation. In the case of Abraham, Isaac the son born miraculously to parents way beyond childbearing age became the progenitor of the ‘God line’ through whom the nation of Israel, the Jews, would be created, whilst Ishmael the son born to the ‘servant’ Hagar becomes, ultimately, the progenitor of Islam. In other words, we see a race of people separated by their faith in God and obedience to his purpose from the rest of humanity.

What is so important about Genesis is that right from day one, there is a distinction between those who were acceptable to God and those who were not, with a clear statement as to why this was the case, most commonly, that reason being whether or not they believed in God and in faith obeyed him – as indeed both Noah and Abraham did. In each case, the choice was made on the basis of, what we later learn, was God’s knowledge of these people, their character often being defined by their actions, which showed a confidence or trust in Jehovah together with the willingness to act upon that; in other words, the ability to respond to God.

After Adam and Eve, the next major event (Chapter 6) is illustrated in the life of Noah. As the population of the earth increased, wickedness became dominant. To reduce this prevalence of evil, God chose one man and his family and, by means of a massive flood, separated one good man and his family from the rest. Historically, we do not know the extent of this flood. Whether it was confined to the area of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris or more extensive, we do not know, but the principle was there – the separating and choice of the one line of heredity. What is remarkable is that as early in the Bible as this, there was evidence of supernatural events, whether it be in Noah’s pre-knowledge of the coming flood as a result of which he built a huge boat on dry land or simply the ability to construct such a large vessel to a given design, at a time when boats were relatively small and of simple construction. The other interesting thing about the story of Noah is that it resulted in the introduction of another covenant between God and man. (Chapter 9:8).

In Chapter 11, we have the account of a tower built to reach the heavens and the reaction in the confusion of languages. What we now know is that such towers were a feature of that area and that time, known to us as ziggurats. Again, this might well be a later interpretation put on the two facts, the building of the towers and the fact that there was a diversity of languages. Once again, the writers put a religious interpretation on these events for teaching purposes.

Now, Chapter 12, we have the introduction of the person Abram whom the Jews would later describe as the ‘father’ of their nation. This was the beginning of God’s choice of a whole nation of people through whom he could make himself known to the rapidly increasing population of the rest of the planet. Abram, later named Abraham, was to become the founding father of twelve tribes, whose history was intended to reveal the purpose of God in creation to the rest of the world and whose history would demonstrate to the rest of the world, the enormous love and power of this eternal creator God but also demonstrate quite clearly the consequences of obedience or disobedience to his will. But first, we need to know the character and life of the man whose progeny would, through history, right up to this present day, provide evidence of the love, the power and the purpose of God in creating the world in the first place. Their history and their relationship with their God would shape the history of the whole of the rest of the world.

This is a remarkable story because it recounts in some detail the life and actions of a ‘chosen’ man Abram, later called Abraham. It shows him as a man of trust and belief in his God who is so very different from the gods of his neighbours. However, the ancestral list of the previous chapter shows him also to be descended from one of Noah’s sons, Shem. In other words, he has history, a Godly history which, even after so many intervening years, is emerging once again. He, Abram, is singled out by God and noted by the scribes, later, as a man with a purpose, a man chosen by God for a specific purpose.

In order that God might be able to reveal his purpose and his character through this man, he will have to be subjected to the most strenuous tests. The first being that, in order for him to fulfil his intended purpose, he must leave his family and kindred in Mesopotamia and move to a land far to the East, which would ultimately become, after many centuries, the land of inheritance. The importance of this action is highlighted many years later by St Paul in his Letter to the Hebrews 11:8 when he refers to Abraham in the words, It was faith made Abraham obey when God called him to go out to a country which God promised to give him. Verse 10 then states, For Abraham was waiting for the city which God had designed and built, the city with permanent foundations. In other words, Abraham was living on two levels, the purely physical, that of emigrating to a new country, and yet at the same time, he was looking for something which had a future purpose. This duality of intent, having a purpose other than the material one, will characterise the future generations.

Some years after they first settle in this new land, there is a severe famine, and the family move to Egypt where, unlike the mountainous Canaan, the country is sustained by the river Nile and watered by the annual flood. Here it is that Abram fails the next test, when instead of trusting God, he relies on deceit to save his wife Sarai