Old Testament

 

I have been studying the Old Testament lately, those books of the Bible that are sacred to Jews as well as Christians. To understand these Scriptures as well as I can, I have been using a Jewish Study Bible.
The most impressive insight so far is that roughly the first two-thirds of the Bible was gathered together, edited, and organized around the time of the Babylonian Exile (586 BC)to help the people deal with the exile. By the way they organized the material, the "editors" tried to show that throughout Israelite history there was a pattern of dislocation and restoration, exile and return, God's judgment and God's forgiveness. God gifts the people, they disobey, they lose God's gift, God forgives them and restores them, not because of anything they have done, but because of Who God Is.
We can see this pattern in our own lives. God gives us everything good. We disobey and turn away. We lose God's gift. God forgives us and gifts us again, not because of who we are but because of Who God Is. Being able to see all these books as a whole with the one message of God's grace and freely given mercy has enriched my relationship with God immensely.
(I took this picture a few years ago in Canyon De Chelly, New Mexico. Since I have never been to the Holy Land I was trying to find something desert-like.)