Introduction to the old testament part 2

Despite the demise of their national political base in 586, the Israelites alone, really, among the many peoples who have figured in Ancient Near Eastern history--the Sumerians, the Akkadians, the Babylonians, the Hittites, the Phoenicians, the Hurrians, the Canaanites--they emerged after the death of their state, producing a community and a culture that can be traced through various twists and turns and vicissitudes of history right down into the modern period. That's a pretty unique claim.

And they carried with them the idea and the traditions that laid the foundation for the major religions of the western world: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So what is this radical new idea that shaped a culture and enabled its survival into later antiquity and really right into the present day in some form?

Well, the conception of the universe that was widespread among ancient peoples is one that you're probably familiar with. People regarded the various natural forces as imbued with divine power, as in some sense divinities themselves. The earth was a divinity, the sky was a divinity, the water was a divinity, had divine power. In other words, the gods were identical with or imminent in the forces of nature. There were many gods. No one single god was therefore all powerful.

There is very, very good evidence to suggest that ancient Israelites by and large shared this world view.

They participated at the very earliest stages in the wider religious and cultic culture of the Ancient Near East.

However, over the course of time, some ancient Israelites, not all at once and not unanimously, broke with this view and articulated a different view, that there was one divine power, one god. But much more important than number was the fact that this god was outside of and above nature. This god was not identified with nature.

He transcended nature, and he wasn't known through nature or natural phenomena.

He was known through history, events and a particular relationship with humankind.

And that idea, which seems simple at first and not so very revolutionary--we will see, that's an idea that affected every aspect of Israelite culture and in ways that will become clear as we move through the course and learn more about biblical religion and biblical views of history, it was an idea that ensured the survival of the ancient Israelites as an entity, as an ethnic religious entity. In various complicated ways, the view of an utterly transcendent god with absolute control over history made it possible for some Israelites to interpret even the most tragic and catastrophic events, such as the destruction of their capital and the exile of their remaining peoples, not as a defeat of Israel's god or even God's rejection of them, but as necessary, a necessary part of God's larger purpose or plan for Israel.

These Israelites left for us the record of their religious and cultural revolution in the writings that are known as the Hebrew Bible collectively, and this course is an introduction to the Hebrew Bible as an expression of the religious life and thought of ancient Israel and as a foundational document of western civilization.

The course has several goals. First and foremost, we want to familiarize you with the contents of the Hebrew Bible.