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:
In the times of Adam and Enoch, men walked and talked with God. By the time of Noah, men had become so wicked that God regretted having created them. Knowing that Noah was the only righteous man left, God determined to wipe out mankind and start over with only Noah and his family.
By the time of Noah, the inclination of all mankind was to do only evil all the time. The Bible does not describe what kinds of evil actions mankind did during this time, but their actions seemed to have been heinous enough that God determined to wipe out all human and animal life except for a remnant he would use to start over.
God chose to destroy mankind through a flood. There is no Biblical record God had yet created rain, so Noah may have just expected the rivers and streams to overflow.
Noah was no doubt surprised when God described the size of the boat he was to make. Where would he ever get so much wood? How would he cut it and put it into place? The Bible does not give details as to how Noah made it happen, just that he did.
2 Peter 2:5 describes Noah as a preacher of righteousness. It is easy to visualize Noah preaching to the curious onlookers as he built the giant boat. Year after year, the onlookers laughed at him; year after year he pleaded with them to change their ways. Jesus said the people of Noah’s time carried on their normal lives up until the time the flood came.
The Bible gives Noah’s age at 600 years old when the flood started. God opened the springs of the great deep and the floodgates of heaven for 40 days and nights. The only things living on the earth’s surface that survived were in the ark. The flood covered the earth for 150 days before the water started to recede.
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
