Introduction to the Writings

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All right, this lecture represents a brief lecture to the introduction to the third section of the Hebrew Bible. We've covered now the law, the prophets, in the categories of the former and latter prophets, and now, we're moving into the third and final section of the Hebrew Bible, The Writings.

Speaker 2 (00:30):

This is a chart from our previous lectures, regarding the structure of the Christian Bible. It begins with Genesis, we all know, ends with Revelation. Both the Old and the New Testaments have three sections, Jesus called them, with regard to his Old Testament, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, which now we call, The Writings. And those three categories represent the covenant documents themself, covenant history, both the history itself and the interpretation of that history, and then covenant life.

Speaker 2 (00:59):

We're going to be talking about this covenant life section now, and that means how do think and live in light of the covenant. Okay? How do you think and live in light of the covenant? So these are the fun practical books, the fun practical books. And what's interesting about them is we know why Exodus and Deuteronomy together, they span the birth to the death of the covenant mediator, they're about Moses's life and teachings, naturally. These are all the historical books right here that run from Israel's entrance into the Promised Land to their exile. These are all the prophets that interpret them. So you've got narrative, narrative poetry, and then you get to the writing, and it looks like there was a car accident that happened in here. Right? Like what happened in there? Why do we have poetry and prose. Right? Why do them mixed up? Why aren't all the poets first, and all the narrative stuff later. Right? It seems to be troublesome.

Speaker 2 (01:50):

I'll give you a couple of quotes about how people think about this material. This is from Paul Wagner, the journey, From Text to Translation. He says, "The books of this section have few links with each other. They have diverse literary forms and many cannot be dated precisely." That's the pessimistic view.

Speaker 2 (02:06):

Also, I'm about to say the word, ketûbîm. Right? That's the Hebrew word for this thing, and I'm just going to be quoting someone, so ketûbîm just means writings. Okay? This is Graeme Goldsworthy, Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics. "Some suggest that the inclusion of Ezra and Nehemiah in the ketûbîm is due simply, to the lateness of their composition, presumably after the Nevi'im, the prophets, were identified as a group. There were of course, the three post-exilic prophets in the prophetic canon. So it is possible that these narrative books were excluded from the Prophets for other reasons. Obviously, they were.

Speaker 2 (02:36):

And here's Graeme Goldsworthy, again. He says this, "The fact that narrative, such as Ruth, Esther, and 1st and 2nd Chronicles, and Ezra and Nehemiah, are placed in the ketûbîm, does perhaps, raise some hermetical questions for us. Particularly, those about the intended effects of those accounts on the exilic community. Each of the books, in this section of the Hebrew canon, has to be dealt with on its own terms. There is no clear, specific umbrella that qualifies the writings for that grouping, other than the big picture of Israel before her God."

Speaker 2 (03:07):

Okay. So he is pessimistic at the end, but he hits the nail on the head. Israel before her God. How do you think and live, in light of the covenant? Now, no one, they all think like this is all kind of wackadoodle construction, and you have to take them on their own. But I'm going to argue to you, or I already have argued to you in previous lectures, but I'm going to summarize for you, that there is actually an intentional literary design to these 12 books, that we see here.

Speaker 2 (03:31):

In the Prophets, former and later Prophets, I told you that the former Prophets, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, are about life in the land. And then, the latter Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Twelve, are about life in exile. Right? The same grouping occurs here.

Speaker 2 (03:47):

The first six books are about life in the land. What is the first thing that's required when you live in God's covenant in the land with him? It's a life of worship. Psalms. But the number one type in the book of Psalms is lament, because you're living between promise and fulfillment. What does the life of lament look like? Job. Therefore, since we live in a broken world, we've got to suffer. How do we live wisely? Proverbs. What's the wisest thing you can do in life? Get a good wife. Proverbs 31. Right? She's called, the eshet chayil, the wife, the excellent wife, the wife of noble character. We're going to talk about her.

Speaker 2 (04:22):

The only person ever called that in the whole Hebrew Bible is Ruth. Okay? So look at this, exposition suffer. Illustration. How do you suffer? Exposition. How do you be wise? How do you get a good wife? Illustration. Here's how you do it. The principle of exposition and illustration is the arrangement of this. Okay? The Song of Songs is the correlate to Proverbs 31. Proverbs 31 is written for men to know how to get a good wife. The Song of Songs is written for young women to know what to look for in a good husband. Okay?

Speaker 2 (04:53):

Then you've got Ecclesiastes. If you don't believe me, and you want to live a life under the sun, then here's what life looks like. It's kind of anti-wisdom, or pessimistic wisdom, life without God under the sun. We'll talk about that. It's like this, that's the book that you would like read, if you have, let's say, a son or daughter, who's about to go to college, and you don't know if they're going to like follow the way of wisdom, or the way of folly. So you say, read this book. This is what life is like without God. Right?

Speaker 2 (05:18):

Or if you're that age right now, thinking about your future, and the kind of life you're going to live. Here's an example. If you want to know what it's like to live without God, it's this, right here. Meaningless, futile, vane, that kind of stuff. All right. So, that's life in the land. Then move over here, life in exile. What is exile, and how do we live in it? Lamentations is the funeral song of Jerusalem. Jerusalem has died. Right? And so whoever wrote this, some think, Jeremiah, there's five funeral songs, right here, for the city of Jerusalem.

Speaker 2 (05:51):

Then we have two examples of what it looks like to live in exile, faithfully, Esther, and Daniel. Right? The story of Esther and Daniel's almost the same. Two exiles who rise the power in the kingdom, second. Right? Who are plotted against, the plot overcomes, and enemy's destroyed. Right? That's the exact same story. There's no reason to go there. And then Ezra, Nemiah, and Chronicles, go together as a group. And they basically, document the failure of the return from exile. Therefore, look for the next exile. Chronicles ends with this thing, let him go up. It's a holy war verb. And the question you should be asking is, who will go up? Right? And we find in the next chapter of the Bible, Matthew, it's Jesus, who will go up. Okay? That's how it works. That's what we're looking at right here.

Speaker 2 (06:32):

Six books on life in the land, six books on life in exile. The writings, just so you know, if you want to know were probably, not probably, they were the last collection to be completed in the canon.

Speaker 2 (06:42):

Jesus calls them, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. The reason he calls them by the Psalms designation, is because that's the first book in the corpus. Right? It's a very common Hebrew tradition. For example, Genesis is called, Bereshit, because it's the first word in the book. Exodus is called we'elleh Shemot. These are the names. It's not a very sexy title for a book. It's just the first word. Leviticus is called Vayikra, and he called. It's just how they did it. Okay? And so it's a normal convention.

Speaker 2 (07:07):

In 132 BC, if you're interested, in 132 BC, so 132 years before Jesus, this guy, the grandson of a guy named Ben Sira, translates his grandfather's work from Hebrew into Greek. He writes a prologue to that translation, and he makes reference to the three fold division of the Bible in this way, three times. And he calls it an ancient tradition.

Speaker 2 (07:27):

So we know that the three fold division of the Bible predates Christ, by at least 200 years, I'm going to argue maybe, 400 years. And it comes in this form. All right? So this is not a wackadoodle form, it's got beauty to it, and it's going to help us understand. So with someone like Ruth, now we know how to interpret her. She's the virtuous woman. And Boaz, because he gets her, is the virtuous man. They're both the only two people called by that designation in the Hebrew Bible. So it's great stuff.

Speaker 2 (07:54):

I haven't said it this class, or this group before, so I will say it. Context is king. And where you have a book in the canon makes a big deal. It tells you, is it a covenant book? Is it a covenant history book? Or is it a covenant life book? And once you know that category, then you know how to go about interpreting it. Right? You know how to handle it properly. You work with a hammer differently than you work with a drill, differently than work with a shovel. Now I've tried to hammer things in with my shovel and it doesn't work as well. Right? You usually hurt something. And so you don't want to kind of hammer into, you don't want to kind of switch tools. You want to use the right tool at the right time.

Speaker 3 (08:31):

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