 Okay, good morning to all of you Students online. Good morning. Am I audible? You know, there's one camera on if you can just give me a thumbs up in case you can hear me online online students Cool. Yeah, so every I am audible so a warm welcome to all of you even as we start off with Old Testament survey Just to begin with a brief introduction, you know today We would just look at what the Hebrew original Bible how it was composed what it some of the Facts regarding that so we'll just look very briefly at that now next class onwards would be your actual You know sessions so today is more like an introduction. All right, so we will get into that without any further delay Now the Old Testament as most of us know was originally written in the Hebrew language the Israelite people they used to communicate in the Hebrew language so that was the language in which all the Old Testament books were written down and Right at the beginning, you know probably it was The the things which were being taught by the Lord were probably being conveyed in a oral Manor, you know, because in those days, they was not much writing being done. It was more It is more of an oral tradition where people would almost memorize Large chunks of teaching and then they would convey it to their listeners. So originally right in the beginning Moses would have started off that kind of a tradition where he would be conveying large pieces of teaching and The people who are with him would learn that they would memorize it. They would pass it on to other people So in the very initial stages They would have been a memory Memorization of genealogies they would memorize, you know the songs and poems which are there in the book of Genesis and slowly at some point of time when the people had settled down, you know and things were more Seed entry and they were settled down in one place at that point of time Moses would have started putting it down in writing The things, you know, which the Lord has been revealing. So The oral tradition is what would have been there right in the beginning And then at some point of time the writing on to scrolls would have started So When we look at our Old Testament, it's if you look if you look at the original Bible the Old Testament, it's all in Hebrew except for four Portions four passages which are actually in the Aramaic language. Now this was much later in the in in the period after the Exile and all of that by which time Hebrew was kind of on the way out. It was still very well known people were still understanding Hebrew but Aramaic a language called Aramaic very similar to Hebrew was Becoming the lingua franca, you know, just the language the people were used to the language that people were Communicating with on a daily basis So there are four passages in our Old Testament which are actually written in the Aramaic language and the rest of it Of course is in the Hebrew language so Just for those of us who may be interested in knowing about that Genesis 31 47 has an Aramaic word used in it and Then you have Ezra chapter 4 was 18 all the way up to chapter 6 where you have a decree being made by a king passage also is in the Aramaic language and Daniel chapter 2 And then up to a chapter 7 At which time Daniel was living in Persia where Aramaic was very commonly spoken So that passage also is in the Aramaic language rather than in the Hebrew language and this one The fourth passage is an interesting. It's just one verse actually Jeremiah chapter 10 verse 11 Which is written in Aramaic almost as though the Lord was very Particular that this particular verse should be understood by everyone, you know Whether they are Hebrew people or whether they are people belonging to other nations and so this Jeremiah 10 11 Maybe one of us seated here, you know in our class Over here physical class could probably just read out and for those of you who are online If you could just turn to Jeremiah 10 11 Why was the Lord so particular that this particular verse should be written in the Aramaic language Which would be understood by all the nations of that time And if one of us could just read out Jeremiah chapter 10 verse 11 Yeah, for those of us online who have been following in our Bibles Jeremiah 10 verse 11 It talks about how our Lord is sovereign and the Lord was declaring that all these other Entities that these people are worshipping they would one day be No longer even remembered or people would not even worship them any longer but the Lord would remain forever because he is the living God and the Lord stirred Jeremiah to Present this one single verse in the Aramaic language that everyone would have a very very clear idea of what the living God was saying to the nations so Coming to the way the Hebrew Bible was Composed now some of you may be familiar with this The Hebrew Bible is divided into three main sections now when the English translation was done We have rearranged the books in a particular order Because the English translators wanted to make it more chronological so they try to present the books in a chronological manner, but then if you look at the original Hebrew Bible, they had three main divisions and Maybe we could look at the PowerPoint for that. Sorry. I seem to be unable to share So there are three main divisions for our Hebrew Old Testament The first is for the Torah. That's the most familiar one, you know, which most of us who are familiar with The word Torah basically means instruction So the first five books were instructions given by the Lord to Moses and That would basically be from Genesis to Deuteronomy The second main section of the Hebrew Old Testament is what they call the Neveim Now the Neveim the word Neveim basically means prophets and so you have now Prophetic books which come under that particular section and the last section was called the Ketuvim. The word Ketuvim basically means the writings and that includes some of the historical books and also some of the other books Now in this Ketuvim, the third section, there was one particular section There were some subsections. Ketuvim was one of the third main sections But under the Ketuvim, there were some two to three minor sections into which this particular major section was divided and Yeah, just a minute please because I just want to show that so one of the Main sections in this third part Ketuvim was called the Megaloth and they were five major scrolls Now these five major scrolls were used on special occasions during festivals Where they would stand in the temple and publicly read out these particular portions so they were called the Megaloth and That should show up in the next slide. You could just hold on a minute, please right So the second slide Okay, so the second slide There are three subsections for the second for the third section the Ketuvim Sorry, just minor adjustments. We'll get organized as the days go by I'll just continue. All right Well, all right. Yeah, so the Megaloth the five scrolls are basically your song of songs and the book of Ruth and then you have lamentations Ecclesiastes and Esther and It's interesting for which particular festivals each of these was read out. So Yes, thank you so much. Yeah so the song of songs was basically used at the time of the Passover when the That was basically the festival you choose to attract the largest number of people people would travel from all over Israel and Come to the temple because the Passover was considered a very important feast It was a reminder to them what the Lord had done for them where he passed over their homes and protected them from the Judgment and wrath of God So it was a very significant feast for them and at that particular feast It was the song of songs which was read out. It was that particular scroll which was read out Because it was a reminder to them that this God Almighty. We know who is above all chose to Chose to partner with them chose to form a covenant with them No, just a very small nation of people not a great powerful kingdom Just an ordinary bunch of people who are living as slaves in the land the king of kings and Lord of lords chooses to enter into a covenant with them and Almost it is almost as like a marriage covenant. He has chosen to be faithful to them generation after generation So at the Passover festival, they would read out this now at that time. They were still not aware of the Overall complete significance of the Passover because only in the New Testament We get to know who the Passover lamb is but even at that time They had a small appreciation of what this King of Kings has chosen to do for them by choosing to enter into a Covenant relationship with them So they would read out that and then the book of Ruth now that was read out during the feast of weeks and Then you have which is also called Pentecost that would be the feast of Pentecost All right, so the Ruth was read out at the feast of the Pentecost and then you have the book of lamentations which Was like a reminder of how girl, you know Jerusalem had fallen and That was read out on the day of atonement and of course we have ecclesiastis which was read out at the time of the feast of tabernacles and Esther Esther we know right if you look at the very last verse of Esther We talks about how this feast of Purim was started It was a reminder to the people that even though they were living in a key than nation Away from the protection of their own land the Lord was faithful to them and he protected them and took care of them so so the megalith were considered very important and The entire crowd would stand there and listen respectfully even as these scrolls were read out during the time of those particular festivals Now moving on to the next slide So if you look at the arrangement of the Hebrew Old Testament You have the Torah and then you have the Neveim the prophetic books And then you have the ketuvim which are the writings and in the ordering of the books Which they had the last one would be chronicles now of course in the English Bible We have split chronicles into first chronicles and second chronicles but then for them at that time it was just one large throne of chronicles and We see references to this arrangement of the Old Testament in the in Things which Jesus said for instance when we look at Matthew chapter 23 verse 35 Where the Lord says upon you will come the righteous blood from the blood of righteous able to the blood of Zechariah where the Lord is talking about how the people have become hard hearted and They have Chosen to murder the messengers who were sent to them and So with reference to that the Lord speaks about the first murder which happened in the book of Genesis Which obviously would be the death of Abel and he talks about the last Murder mentioned in the Old Testament if you're thinking about that arrangement of books where chronicles would be the last one And so he talks about Zechariah the son of Veraciah who was murdered even as he goes towards the altar for shelter They literally come there and they murdered him right there near the altar. So the Lord's Talks about this particular arrangement of the Old Testament books when he's talking, you know, maybe speaking in this particular verse Coming to the next reference I'm not sure they have included in this. Okay. The other reference would be Luke 24 27 where it says and beginning with Moses and all the prophets He explained to them what was said in all the scriptures Concerning himself. So over there the term Moses and beginning with Moses. It's talking about the Torah and And all the prophets that's talking about the Navy So using the Torah and the Navy and of course the writings which follow that the Lord explains This is how the Messiah is described and this is how he is explained in the Old Testament So we see that the arrangement of the original Hebrew Bible was different from the English arrangement of books which we see today now just to Talk about some other things which are there in our Textbook now The printed copy of the Old Testament serving you would probably receive it Maybe next class. All right, so that just has a brief introduction and for For those who are online that has I think already been posted. So you'll probably have access to that already All right So there's just a brief mention of something called the Samaritan Pentateuch in in the intro which is there in the textbook So just to talk about what exactly is a Samaritan Pentateuch Now at the time of the exile when the I need to keep track of my time as well It could I have one person who can help me in this we would need to finish at 1150 so at 1140 if someone could just kind of know a wave at me so that we can have 10 minutes for questions and the online students can post your questions in the chat and Because of the PowerPoint which is running. I may not be able to see it right away But what we would do each class without fail is that I Would go through all the questions which have been posted online And I will also take note of the questions which are being you know mentioned here in the class if we cannot cover them within 10 minutes That's all right. We will make sure that those questions are addressed in the next class. All right So all your doubts and clarifications will be taken care of but Let us restrict our questions to specifically whatever, you know, we are discussing in our particular class There would be other occasions when you will be able to voice your questions regarding the other things But let's stick to whatever has been discussed on that particular day for that particular class. So at 40 at 1140 if someone you know kindly wave at me so that I would stay on track Or that's just coming back to this term Samaritan penta took what exactly is the who exactly were the Samaritans again We some of us, you know, we have a background knowledge of this already at the time of the exile most of the people of Judah were taken away as exiles to Babylon and While they were living over there they Some other people were were shifted to live in the land of Israel the the international policy of the Babylonians was that they would mix and mingle all the People groups so that they would lose their national identity and they would no longer think of themselves as you know Being Israelites or think of themselves as Edomites, but they would all think of themselves down the line as Babylonians so While the Israelite people were moved out of their nation and taken to a power of place some people from other places were brought and resettled in the land of Israel and They began to call themselves Samaritans because they were in the surrounding area of Samaria and so They picked up some of the things which the Israelites had been following up to that point So they were aware of the Torah But only thing when they got their hands on the Torah scroll they took the freedom to change it And you know add all kinds of extra things to it So they retain one version of the Pentateuch, you know what they call the first five spent I basically means five So the first five books. So they did retain the original to some extent, but there were many many changes made to the Original Torah, so that began to be called the Samaritan Pentateuch and we have copies One or two manuscripts of that even existing today. I mean even today in some museum somewhere. It's out there for display So that's the Samaritan Pentateuch The other important term would be set to a jint now again, this is a term which many Bible students are now familiar with But for those of us who I know have not been paying too much attention to our Greek and Latin and all that because we have you know more Important things to do So the word set to a jint basically is talking about 70 because Like I said Hebrew was becoming an old language which people were not really familiar with anymore Aramaic came along Aramaic also began to fade though. It remained as a kind of common everyday language, but not really used so much in scholarly circles and Greek began to take over so when Greek began to take over the Leaders the spiritual leaders were concerned They were worried that a lot of people no longer can even understand when the Hebrew scroll is read out to them That's that language sounds ancient and they don't even understand what is being read out And so the leaders decided that they would Translate the entire Old Testament Into the Greek language and there were 70 elders who came together to do the translation That is why you have the word scepter which basically means 70. So you have a step to a jint. So the step to a jint was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible and this was done probably they probably finished compiling that by Maybe around 300 years before the birth of Christ So even long before the birth of Christ There was already a Greek translation of the Old Testament in existence and in the New Testament You see Jesus referring to it a few times, you know rather than quoting from the Hebrew he quotes He quotes from the Septuagint translation because sometimes there is a slight variation in which the translation was done And you see Jesus quoting from the Septuagint rather than from the Hebrew text So it was something which was accepted widely accepted by most people Now the other significant thing in your Introduction in your textbook would be regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls again Now that has become a very familiar term and most of us know what the Dead Sea Scrolls are Now it was I think in 1947 that someone discovered the scrolls in a cave There was this person who a shepherd boy who was tending to his sheep and he accidentally Came across those caves in which he saw this tall clay jars stored with filled with all these ancient scrolls and So then it was discovered that entire passages of the Old Testament were written down and All the critics who had been you know very busy criticizing in the early 1900s saying for This Old Testament has existed since so many generations. I'm sure it's been completely modified by all the generations as it was coming down And so now who knows whether the original text is even there or not whether what Moses really wrote back then really exists or not Maybe somebody modified it along the way and they had all these people who are criticizing But then when these scrolls came to light and many of the scrolls you see were written Before the birth of Christ, they were copies which had been written down hand written before the birth of Christ and Almost word by word exactly. It's the same You know which the same wording which is there in our Bibles today, which means nobody tampered with the Old Testament even though so many generations had passed people were extremely careful in maintaining the integrity of the Old Testament and They made copies and kept them in those tall jars even before the birth of Christ and that same Text came down into the New Testament times and also came down through the ages And so what we have in our current Bible Matches with scrolls which were found which were written down even before the time of Jesus birth. So The Dead Sea Scrolls are important because of that it shows it proves that No tampering was ever done more no modifications were ever done in You know when they were making copies of the Old Testament coming down to another Thing that we can maybe look at we still have some time Something called the Masoretic text And again your textbook refers to this so maybe we can just briefly touch upon it Now when the when the Hebrew people began to write down the Old Testament They did not make use of any vowels in their writing, you know when we have our English letters And sentences and words we use Bubbles we use a e i o u which helps us to pronounce the words in a particular way now Back then when the Hebrew Bible was being written by Moses and Joshua and all the others when they were writing they just simply wrote the main alphabets without putting any vowel marks So Just for you to understand You know, I just put the words C and T or you know from the English alphabet over there Now how on earth would you pronounce C and T? I could say cat and it would you know gain a certain meaning on the other hand I could say caught and then it would have a totally different meaning on the other hand It could even be the verb cut So it is so important If you if there is no wobble over there that word could be just about anything and you could probably pronounce it any way so as In the in in the Old Testament times, you know a very very regularly They would read out the scrolls and the people who are listening to it again and again would know When a particular word is being read out They would know that those particular alphabets are referring to that particular word because someone is verbally saying out those particular Passages but as time began to pass by and many of you and many of the common people do not even know the Hebrew language anymore And they're all speaking Aramaic in their homes and it's Greek which is being spoken out in the you know scholarly Circus and all of that and Hebrews no longer known the masoretic people are a group of Spiritual leaders who became very concerned They said the people don't seem to even know what is contained in the scrolls anymore because they do not know The correct way to pronounce because there are no vowels mentioned and so they decided they need to introduce vowels into the Hebrew scrolls But if you start rewriting the scrolls, what is this a mistake? What if somebody writes it down wrongly? What do they make a wrong copy of it? That would be Literally meddling with the words of God himself. It's a very serious thing And so they decided when we are looking you are going through the scrolls and putting in the vowels We will not meddle with the original wording at all All we will do is we will add some dots and dashes and markings above below in the side But we will not touch the original wordings which are there in the scrolls they were that careful about how they added the bubble point things and So basically you have the know you have two different words mentioned over here on your screen and It's basically the same alphabets. If you look at the two words the very same alphabets You have a you have a and you have the but the markings which are there under the Alphabets and the markings which are there above they will tell you how to pronounce that Over and the and depending on how you're pronouncing it. They're two very different words So they did that they so these things came to be called as the Hebrew bubble pointings where they added things Above below in the side to show what exactly this word is and how it is to be pronounced But they did not meddle at all with the original wording which had been written down in the manuscripts so this Made it easy for the future generations know how these things should be read and That actually is just a photograph of one of the original manuscripts so it's called the Leningrad codex and This contains All the entire Old Testament this particular manuscript is a handwritten manuscript with someone as you know actually very patiently written down copied and that particular copy is complete and It was found it was discovered around 1008 AD yeah, and it contains the entire Old Testament So that's that Leningrad this particular scroll. So when you see many may think of scroll We just think of on a one sheet of paper, but obviously when we're talking about Pages which were handwritten pages which was stitched together. Okay, so they would these would be pages which were stitched together And they were called as paparite paparous books or stuff, you know something like that. So this was the Leningrad codex and This also, you know is When we look at when we compare it with our modern Bibles We see that there are no variations. A lot of care was taken so that what we have in our hands today is the original manuscript Moving on to the next thing Now you might have heard how there are discussions on how exactly the word your hoa should be pronounced and So when the Maso reads the math of the people when they were Putting in the vowel pointings. They did it for all the words except for this one word, you know where For this which is basically your alphabets here her Were and her now, how do you pronounce that they felt that the word The name of God is too sacred to be said out loud Okay, so they refuse to put pointings for that. So now today nobody really knows what the original No, it's like cat cut and pot. So how would you say your her word? How would you say he who ha or would you say yo hey He I mean you can put we don't know what bubbles were there how exactly that but original name of God was Sounded out how it was pronounced. So what they did? Finally was that the Matsuri's they did not want to put in the original And that many of them were not when no longer familiar with it because for generations No one was speaking out this particular word So think took the word Adonai, you know, which is there and down below and in the second line That would be a the and no So they took the vowel pointings of Adonai and they attach the same vowel pointings to the year That's how we ended end up with our pronunciation of a whole walk But then you know, that's actually the vowel pointings of Adonai That's not the vowel pointings of the original name of God, which we will only know when we go to heaven. So, yeah That's just regarding the name of God and the respect that they want to show to the name of God All right, so maybe we can Yeah, are there any questions at all here in the physical class and then I'll ask the same question to those of you who are online Yeah, I Think there are some questions posted here So, yeah, I'll deal with the questions which are you know being given here in the class and Those of you who put it put down your questions in the chat I will look at every single one of them and they will be addressed either, you know If not today at least in the next class. It's so yeah, those of us who are here present physically Are there any questions that you would like to ask? Yes But you need to be a bit loud because I have the noise of my voice and the fan and all of that Just be a bit loud. I'm a little hard of hearing. I'm sorry. I Yeah, if someone could Just repeat what he said Or maybe it's just a fan which kind of scatters your voice and I Doesn't come through it was something to do with the subdivision something to do with the elders But beyond that I could not figure out Actually, they say it's 72 of them who sat Tradition says that they went to say a 72 separate rooms and sat down and each of them did a translation And then they came and compared with each other how they had done the translation and then they would have you know Mixed in match just to make sure that the correct words are used as they are doing the translation. So So it was not just a few people who just sat and just did it at one stretch This was done very carefully. It was done separately by each person Then they got together and they discussed which would be the best way to translate every single phrase and sentence So that accuracy would be maintained. So it's technically 72 people who they say who did Translation work Any anything else any other questions? Maybe yeah, if there are no other questions, there's maybe just a little bit Extra that I can fit in in the time that we have I Was you know looking through a lot of material even as I was just preparing for this introduction and There was this one Write-up which I saw which I liked I liked the way they kind of Talked about the Old Testament. They divided the Old Testament, you know into four portions And talked about how these four portions of the Old Testament reflect Christ So this is what they said The law according to them lays down the foundation for Jesus Christ the historical books Provide the preparation for Jesus Christ the poetic books They express a deep aspiration and desire for this Christ who is going to come one day And you have the prophetic books which talk about the expectation of this coming Christ And it made a lot of sense to me because when we look at the Old Testament in this way I know and we divided it into these four categories We and we really look at these four sections through the you know through the lens of this particular kind of classification It makes sense Because when you look at the first five books, they literally lay the foundation for Christ right in our Genesis, you know where There's a there's a word spoken and it talks about how One day, you know, someone will come and they will crush the The serpents head so Right from that time onwards. It's like as if a foundation is being laid and then as we go into You know Exodus and Leviticus it talks about the different sacrifices and all these sacrifices are Towards the Christ. So the law the first five books really are laying down a foundation for Jesus Christ and When we come to the historical books in what way would we say that these historical books are a preparation for Jesus Christ It may be we could Look at a few passages When we look at a book of Joshua it talks about how this Kind of slave nation who didn't even have a land of their own and then they become a wandering nation Who are wandering through the desert? They finally come into a place which they can call their own and so now historically they have a place which they can call their own place and that would be the first step in the preparation of Messiah would come one day because when the Messiah comes in there is a place already established There's a nation which can proclaim his name. There are people who have already they're set Customs and structures and and economy and everything in place. So When we look at the historical books, you have the kings, you know come one by one and and all along step by step There's an entire nation being prepared and set so that one day the messiah when he's born this already a structure already ready in place so the historical books reflect that and Coming to the poetic books they express an aspiration a desire for a messiah And in what sense do I mean that you if you look at the Poetic books we have job, you know in job we have one passage It's some 110 versus one to two some 110 versus one to two where No job is expressing Oh, so sorry. I'm looking at the some passage and I'm talking about Joe very sorry Yeah, in joke. We have chapter 16 versus 20 to 21 Where you have job crying out and he says oh that one might plead for a man with God That's a man pleads for his neighbor. So he says I wish we could have a I mean and in an intermediary wish we could have a mediator, you know There we can stand in front of this almighty God who is just too powerful to even stand in front of and this mediator Would mediate for us with this almighty God who is unapproachable So job expresses this aspiration This longing for a Christ who can come and stand in the gap for mere human beings because we cannot stand in front of God on our own and Yeah, now coming to some 110 One to two in in this You know in this particular passage it talks about The Lord says to my Lord sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstone and So over here it talks about how the Lord will extend your mighty skeptic from Zion How you will rule over your enemies all those things are mentioned So in the psalms there is an aspiration of one day of a messiah who will come will gain Dominance and sovereignty over not just this little nation of Israel, but over all of the nations and he will rule So there's an aspiration. There's a desire being expressed for this future messiah If you look at Ecclesiastis Ecclesiastis is a very interesting and lovely book, you know where it are He says nothing seems to be making sense this world It seems to just be going at random and however hard we work whatever we do in the end Nothing seems to come out of it. It all just seems to go away Why what is the meaning of it? And then down the line you would have a messiah who would come and would be able to explain the meaning of life You see that becomes a that picture becomes clearer Once you bring Christ into the center of our human life. Otherwise, it's true We live we work hard and then we go. What is the point of it all? But yes, there is a saviour. There is a Christ who brings meaning to even the slightest smallest things which go on in our lives So the aspiration for this Christ is expressed again and again in the Poetic books and of course coming to the prophetic books You have lots of prophecies about this coming Christ about Where he will come which place he would come to what he would achieve in what way he would die All of those things are mentioned in our Procted books Wanted just to keep track of the time. We're having it almost out of time Just a moment. There are no questions posted over there Anything else that you would like to ask Or otherwise we can maybe just put in a few in the few minutes that we have Or okay fine, maybe we can follow this later Just a word regarding the assignments There would be no exam as in you're not going to buy hard something and come and write down so there would be no exam But there would be poor Assignments or assessments depending on how you would like to you know phrase that The first two would be rather simple in the sense All you've got to do is look at the options given in a multiple choice and just put a tick mark against that The other two would require a little effort because you know, you're in the first year you have newly joined so The idea is not to overtax you right in the beginning. So the first two assessments Would be very simple or you would have a multiple choice questions and you would give your answer the next two Assessments would be a Assignment where you would have to submit some written work So it would be the same for the online students and for the people in the fiscal class You would all have the same Assignment it would involve a little bit of maybe online research as in you would have to hunt around and gather some information and So all of these four of them for assessments would be 25 marks each So nobody needs to do badly No, there are some who are just naturally inclined for academic work and they tend to excel and all of that But then there are some who are not really inclined towards that But you cannot question their passion for the Lord or for the word of God So even they can do well because the first two will just be yourself 50 marks You know, you can just go very very easily coming to the other 50 25 25 even there you can do quite well Simply because it's not going to be all that technical and difficult You would just have to gather information put it down in a neat format So that there's a nice flow of thought and you would get your marks. All right, so Because it's it's divided into four separate assessments All of us can score all of us can do when nobody would have to you know suffer due to this All right. So, um, I think yes. Yeah, go ahead Now the the two written ones would be two weeks You would have a time of two weeks From the time of posting there would be two weeks for submission that way at the end of two weeks the Deadline would you know come through as for the Multiple choice it would just be one week. You would need to answer it by one week And I think they're actually out of time. So, uh, thank you so much online students for Attending and being part of the class in the future classes if you have any doubts questions clarifications You know, you can please post them in our in the chat And those of you who have been here in the physical class Thank you. It's helpful to be able to see people in front of your eyes Just makes it easier because you get to you know, uh, see the responses So, thank you so much and we'll have our next class next week