An ancient African proverb imparts wisdom about tackling huge projects: “How does one person eat a whole elephant? One bite at a time.” The Genesis & Job Series is the first bite of Eyewitness Bible Series in tackling the Old Testament.
The most casual reader soon recognizes the majority of the writings of the Old Testament have to do with the history of the Israelites (also known as Hebrews or Jews). Embedded in the Old Testament is a wealth of knowledge about God and his character, books of poetry and proverbs, and a host of prophecies.
In Bibles used by most Protestant Christians, the Old Testament consists of 39 writings, called books. The Eyewitness Bible Series groups these books into three different series:
Try to imagine Joseph’s situation. One day, he is the favored son of a very wealthy man, with expectations from God that he will rule over his family. Days later, he is in copper chains being beaten by merciless Ishmaelite slave traders. Slave traders that are distant relatives. Generations before, they had the same great-grandfather: Abraham.
Arriving in Egypt, the slave traders sell Joseph to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials. Since the Lord gave Joseph favor in everything he did, Potiphar had the good business sense to put Joseph in charge of all his affairs. Joseph fulfilled his responsibilities perfectly…until he unwittingly got crosswise with his boss’s wife. Joseph was on his way to jail as he learned the meaning of the saying, “hell has no fury like a woman scorned.”
In jail, God causes Joseph to correctly interpret the dreams of two of Pharaoh’s former officials. Eventually, one of those officials recalls that Joseph can interpret dreams and volunteers him to interpret dreams for Pharaoh.
Pharaoh tells Joseph of his two dreams. Giving God the credit, Joseph interprets the dreams to mean that Egypt will soon have seven years of extraordinary harvests, followed by seven years of severe famine. Pharaoh discerns that Joseph is correct and promotes him to have the authority to act appropriately. At only thirty years of age, Joseph became Number Two in the country.
During the seven years of plenty, Joseph stores up an immense amount of grain. It seems he stored all of the grain that Egypt could produce, and maybe purchased extra from other countries. He stored up so much grain that it could not be counted.
Paul – Brian Shoop Japheth – Bryan Chatlien Satan – Christian Heep Job’s Wife – Leticia Magaña Job – Bob Reed Lot – Patrick Arnez Isaac – Tod Upchurch Esau – David Burkhart Rachel – Magdalen Vaughn Reuben – John Ruegsegger Joseph – Blake McNamara Benjamin – Jackson Kelly
