History of God's Revelation
Welcome!
For the time being, I will start a series of religious studies about God's Revelation and its history. Now, you may ask:
What does he mean by God's Revelation? Which one?
True, which one? There are a lot of them. What I mean by God's Revelation is all of that which is revealed by God to human beings for the universal comprehension of God's Spiritual Essence, Libertarian Truth, and Divine Love. It is a mouthful, but it will make sense along the way.
There is a lot to cover on this topic and, with all honesty, I will first focus on Judaism and Christianity. I hope to talk about other religions as well as their divine universality in the quest to understand their source: God.
Objective
The objective of this series is to present a discussion and comprehension of the Holy Bible through an Ecumenical Method, that has the Apocalypse as its foundation to approach its contents and its practicality in this World.
What is the Ecumenical Method?
It's a Method of study that focuses on an Ecumenical approach through the study in “Spirit and Truth, under the light of the New Commandment of Jesus”*. Its purpose is to promote enlightenment for the Spiritual Being and the integration in God to find their Inner Christ.
The aspects of the Method seek to: (1) encounter the essence of the subject in question through the evidence provided (Spiritual); (2) find the meaning behind the essence of the individuation of the subject (Truth); (3) and manifest the knowledge obtained for the enlightenment and integration of the subject in God to find its Inner Christ (Love).
The method uses a historical-prophetic perspective, which basically deals with the Apocalypse's Prophecies and the Bible's Historical aspect.
Holy Bible
It's gonna be the first book studied. The Holy Bible portrays the history of humankind in its quest for being in God. The TaNaKh or Old Testament represents the collective in the example of Israel; in the New Testament, with the example of Jesus, we find the story of the individual in his conquest of being in God.
Purpose and intention
Just to make a simple and enjoyable study of the Bible as well as to promote the comprehension of the Greatness of Jesus Christ in teaching us the ways to find our Christic Inner State, that is, to be One with God.
That's it! So let’s enjoy this ride of study along the Holy Bible.
First Part: TaNaKh
In this first part of the series, we will be focusing on the Old Testament. For a clear understanding, we will separate our reading of the TaNaKh, into two points:
God’s Revelation;
The collective's quest to maintain itself in God;
Now, I will bring an overall overview of how the Bible is compiled in Judaism and Christianity. The Old Testament is that part of the Bible that shows the Creation of the World, the history of Israel, the rules and laws for the religious practices of Judaism, the gifted Law of God first comprised in the Ten Commandments, the history of the first kings of Israel, poetry, wisdom, and prophecies. That’s the basics, but we will see the richness of those texts and how they are universally applied in our daily lives because it portray the history of humankind in its quest for God. Of course, the same applies to other Sacred Books [and hopefully we will study them as well], but as said the focus is on the Holy Bible.
For us, Christians, this part is called the “Old Testament”.
It’s a common idea that in Judaism it is called Torah, but that represents only a part. According to Robert Alter (2018), Torah “means ‘teaching,’ or in biblical contexts involving specific laws, something like ‘regulation’ or ‘protocol,’ i.e., that which is to be taught as the proper procedure for a given topic”. Alter (2018) also explains that the fuller Hebrew designation for it is Hamishah humshey torah (the five-fifths of the Torah).
The Hebrew Bible as a whole is called TaNaKh, and besides Torah (the first unit) there are other two bigger parts (units) called Nevi’im (that is the Prophets, Former and Latter), and Ketuvim (the Writings, which is to say, everything else).
The Septuagint
There is an interesting tale for us Christians: It is the long tradition that the TaNaKh was translated to Greek by 72 Jewish sages in the Third Century B.C. at the request of the second King of the Ptolemaic dynasty Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Thus, being known as the Septuagint (LXX, or “seventy”). This translation is the entire foundation for our comprehension of the background period that Jesus Christ used as a reference to His teachings.
Now, do the TaNaKh and the Septuagint have the same books? Let's figure it out next time.
References
Alter, R. (2018). The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary. W. W. Norton & Company.
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*Explains Paiva Netto, President-Preacher of the Religion of God, of the Christ, and of the Holy Spirit: “The Religion of God, of the Christ, and of the Holy Spirit is a school of spiritual initiation into divine matters with its doors open, to clarify and comfort all humanity in this transitional apocalyptic era, with the Gospel-Apocalypse of Jesus, in Spirit and Truth, under the light of Jesus' New Commandment — ‘Love one another as I have loved you. Only by this shall all of you be recognized as my disciples’ — (Good News, according to John, 13:34 and 35)”.
