PREFACE To Scripture History

Scriptures; the pattern of YAHWEH's work in HIS world

The Scriptures are a single book in which the pattern of YAHWEH's work in HIS world can be traced through two thousand years of human history. There is a single pattern running through it all, -and fundamentally it is a simple pattern. The complexity comes from the complexity of human history.

  But the Scriptures is also a collection of books. Some of them grew out of folk tales, and stories from the nation's past, which were handed down from father to son, or told round the pilgrims' camp fires at the places where the people went to worship. Some of the books were written by men who can be named and placed in their historical situation, and some are anonymous and can only be given a firm date with difficulty. The whole collection grew slowly over many centuries, and was repeatedly edited and rearranged, until it reached the form in which we now have it.

  This means that the Scriptures has never been a book which could be read without help. Even in New Covenant times, people found parts of it obscure. Customs which are taken for granted, and ways of life which are accepted without question by people who have never known anything different may be strange to the later reader and difficult to understand. This is more than ever true in our own times, when the society in which we live has changed so much, even during the last hundred years.

This present series of books is for use as a Companion to the Scriptures. They are not a substitute for the Scriptures, for nothing can take the place of the Scriptures itself. It impresses itself on those who read it seriously in a way that no other book can. Some of the difficulties about reading the Scriptures have been due to the way in which it has usually been printed. Many of these are overcome in the Yerusalem Scriptures, a translation in contemporary English which is used in this series. In the Yerusalem Scriptures the text is presented by dividing the books into sections, and providing headings and footnotes.

Our Aim is to help people to understand YAHWEH's revelation

The aim of this presentation of this series of books is to help people to understand YAHWEH's revelation. It presents the Scriptures in the historical circumstances in which it developed. The men and women who were so acutely aware of YAHWEH's active presence in their lives were all people of their times. Their experiences were the same as the experiences of their neighbours and fellow countrymen. They earned their living by the same skills and trades, and their thoughts were expressed in the language used by everyone around them. To understand how YAHWEH was revealing himself to these people, we must share their experiences as far as we can, and know what was happening in the world in which they lived.

Using the findings of archaeology and of historical research, the books in this series show the circumstances and the environment in which YAHWEH made himself known. During recent years great advances have been made in our knowledge of the Near East during the period when the Scriptures was written, but these advances have only been possible because of the foundations laid patiently by scholars for more than a hundred years.

This series of books does not attempt to record all of the most recent finds, for new discoveries often have to be examined with caution before there can be certainty about their significance. Only those views which are accepted by a wide range of scholars are used here. It is impressive and reassuring to see how far the discoveries of the archaeologists and historians have confirmed the authenticity of details given in the Scriptures. Again and again, objects have been discovered, and sites have been excavated, which have confirmed the picture given by the Scripture itself. There are many hindrances to archaeological work in the Near East. Political frontiers are often real barriers, and many important sites are still centers of worship where a thorough investigation is not possible. But we can be confident that new discoveries, as they are confirmed and analyzed, will deepen our understanding of the times when the foundations of our religion were laid.

You cannot make sense of events if you leave YAHWEH out

It is sometimes thought that books such as these should attempt to give the historical background to the Scriptures without any mention of YAHWEH. This is impossible. The Scriptures is history, but it is also spiritual history. It is history viewed and written with the knowledge that YAHWEH is the active source of all history, and that all events are part of the movement towards the final consummation which YAHWEH has willed. There is a pattern in the events of history, and YAHWEH shows HIMSELF through this pattern. The events will not make sense, nor will they be worth studying, unless we see them from the point of view of the people who found YAHWEH in them. We cannot make sense of the events if we leave YAHWEH out.

The modern reader is sometimes surprised by the strange ways in which ancient historians presented their material, but much of this strangeness comes from the way in which ancient authors set about their task. Many of the writers of the Scriptures felt that their main responsibility was to preserve the traditions and the accounts of the events with as little alteration as possible. They were 'scribes' rather than authors. They copied out whatever information they could find, or selected the best descriptions and the parts that they thought mattered most. Then they stitched the pieces together without changing the words or the style.

They collected their information wherever they could find it, so their work contains poetry, epics, fiction, official chronicles, anecdotes, family and tribal memoirs, royal decrees, codes of law, letters, rules for priests. These, and many others, are the kind of sources which historians use in any age; they are the raw material of history, and without them the historian would be helpless. But in the ancient historian's writings this raw material has a marked effect on the way in which the history is written. There is much repetition and, sometimes, contradiction, when the 'author' uses two versions of the same event. But there is also a vivid immediacy about it all which helps us to come close to the people who took part in the event and to appreciate the effect it had upon them. 

The account is presented to us in the people's own words, so we find that we can share more easily in their experiences, and appreciate more easily their point of view. It is the point of view of a people who recognized YAHWEH's active presence, and who responded to HIS presence with worship.

Occasionally we can detect a further motive which has shaped some of the books of the Scriptures. The Scriptural writers were never mere historians. They only wrote about the past if it could throw light on their present situation. They wanted to show how YAHWEH had acted in the past, so that the people of their own times could see YAHWEH's presence and power at work in their own lives. So the Scriptural historians selected from the material available, and then arranged it so that the lessons were as obvious as it was possible to make them.

When we read these passages we are seeing the events of history through the eyes of men who frequently were writing about those events many generations after they had occurred. The books they wrote were expressions of the faith of the men who wrote them, and they were written to strengthen the faith of the people who read them. They have more to say about that faith than they have about the historical details of the events on which that faith was built.

Sometimes the books of the Scriptures contain deliberate anachronisms (representation of something as existing or happening outside of its historical order). This can be seen, for example, in some of the words and actions attributed to Mosheh. Mosheh had a greater influence on the Hebrew people than any other man. Later, in times of urgent need or of national reform, it was only natural for men to ask themselves what Mosheh would have done if he had been faced with their problems. The action taken, or the programme of reform, was then recorded as if Mosheh himself had foreseen the situation and had legislated for it. This is why so much of the law is written as if it had been given by Mosheh.

Nation unfaithful to YAHWEH because it had forgotten the Torah

The men who wrote in this way were expressing an important truth. Whenever the nation was unfaithful to YAHWEH, it was because it had forgotten the principles which Mosheh had taught to his generation of Hebrews. Those principles lay at the heart of the Hebrew faith, but the people of each new generation had to apply them to the changing circumstances of their times. The convention of making Mosheh the author of all their laws was the clearest way of showing that those laws were expressions of the central traditions of the nation.

The people of the Scriptures recognized the thread of YAHWEH's revelation in the ordinary events of their lives. This series of books shows what those events were, and how that thread fits into its historical background. Each book may be read on its own, but the books are also linked together to form a continuous exposition and elucidation of the way in which YAHWEH has made himself known through the Scriptures.

Some pf the men of YAHWEH in these series are: ABRAHAM, ISAAC, JACOB, MOSES, JOSHUA, DAVID, SOLOMON and the history of THE DESTRUCTION OF THE KINGDOM.

Each series contains the necessary maps, diagrams and illustrations for the period with which it is concerned. The reader is also recommended to use the chronological table, the maps and the general information printed after the New Covenant in the Yerusalem Scriptures Standard Edition. Joseph Rhymer,  Editor of the English Language Edition.

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