Bible According to the Hebrew

Bible

According to the Hebrew Bible, idolatry is in Hebrew (translated) is call avodah zarah, which is translated as meaning foreign worship," "idolatry" or "strange worship." The best translation is "foreign service," that is, literally the service of a god of a foreign nation outside of the experience and knowledge of Israel ("Avodah zarah," 2011). Again, learning the elements of a religion is many times dependent upon learning the language. The Shema or "Hear O. Israel" is the primary directive of the Jewish religion from which the total rejection of idolatry is stated in detail. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One" is this stated central principal in Deuteronomy 6:4-9. Very literally, idolatry translates into a complete nullification of central pillar of Israel's faith, which is to think that divinity is not one, but can be divided.

Unlike the surrounding nations that followed a bizarre variety of deities ( including animals, the sun, wind, etc.) that caused them to do immoral things or to offer their children as sacrifices, the God of Israel offers them singularity, simplicity and morality. In the ken of Judaism, there is a unity that was completely unlike anything surrounding it in its time. Abraham was the first in generations to figure it out and to rediscover the God of Israel who was above all other Gods and offered a humane faith of hope and reason over the rule of fetish and superstition that had ruled humanity before.

In our day, the idea of one God is a basis for the vast majority of humanity. It is difficult for us as a people who is descended spiritually from Abraham to think in any other way. God literally used the vessel of the nation of Israel to set the foundation for all monotheistic worship for all time and for all of those who came after the Jewish people, including the followers of Jesus Christ who are now the spiritual Israel in the corporation of the Church as a vessel for the transmission of this idea to all of humanity.

2.

It is interesting to compare and contrast the visions of the people of God presented in the books of Jonah and Ezra-Nehemiah. In this, we see the sign of the Messiah expressed in Jonah that is reflected later in the rebuilding of the Jewish temple in Ezra-Nehemiah that presages the foundation of the eternal kingdom by the universal priest Jesus. In Matthew 12:39-40 and in Luke 11:29-32, Jesus gives us the sign of Jonah for redemption symbolized by his survival in stomach of the great fish for 3 days and nights, presaging the rising of the future Messiah after three days in the tomb.

Before Jesus, the sign of Jonah presaged the reconstruction of the temple and the Jewish commonwealth under Ezra-Nehemiah as they returned form the exile under Cyrus in Persia. Like Jonah preaching to the people of Nineveh, the people of Israel in Ezra-Nehemiah repent and turn to God's law, divorcing their foreign wives and reembracing the covenant of the God of Israel. As with Moses, the covenant is reestablished and extended beyond what it was before. Just like this, the covenant of God with the Church through his Son Jesus is presaged by the sign of Jonah by the three days in the tomb and involving a triune Godhead where there is unity of purpose to save and reconstitute humanity on a universal basis. The new priest Melchizidek presages a universal priesthood that is not limited to the nation of Israel, but like Jonah is preached to and is available to all of humanity if they repent and accept it. As we see in Gen.14, Ps.110, Heb.7, Jesus the new Melchizedek, like Jonah, takes this message of peace to all of the nations to offer them the chance to repent and not be destroyed.

3.

In the case of the two suite-mates engaged in the heated debate about their ethical topic, the impasse of "the Bible is full of contradictions" vs. "there are no contradictions in the Bible" argument cn be settled by looking in Goldingay and the diverse views of marriage to foreign women in Ruth, Deuteronomy and Ezra-Nehemiah. Using this, we can certainly offer a carefully reasoned and well supported intervention into this dispute over character of the Old Testament and Hebrew Bible. Many of the seeming contradictions that we see are simply due to a lack of understanding of the language and the context of the Hebrew Bible. By immersing themselves in the concept of the Hebrew Bible, we will then understand the seeming different principles as expressed in the opinions about foreign wives.