December 2011

The Exile

587 “The Destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple”
587 – 538 “The Babylonian Captivity”
The destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple is a dreadful test of faith. This time, God did not intervene. Had He forgotten His promises or was He powerless?
This is a decisive turning point of Israel’s faith. The prophet Ezekiel affirms to […]

The Golden Age of the Prophets

931 – 721 “The Time of the Two Kingdoms”
After the schism, the two kingdoms often live in conflict, worsening the difficulties coming from external aggression. In Israel as well as in Judah, the prophets will unceasingly recall the marvels God, had done in favor of their “fathers.” They proclaim fidelity to the demands of the […]

The Time of the Kings

970 - 931 “Solomon”
Solomon, son of David, adopts the concept of the Oriental kings by taking foreign wives, with their gods and their cultic practices. He builds Temple on an elevated area dominating the city and builds his palace nearby: on high, God and king, and below the people, a politics of prestige mainly […]

The Exodus and the Conquest

Around 1250 “Exodus”
Under the kingdom of Ramses II, some nomads flee to Egypt under the leadership of Moses to escape the slave labor: this is the Exodus, the “flight to Egypt.”
While going through the dessert, the nomads live in the mountain of Horeb, a unique experience which will be decisive for the future of Israel. […]

Summary and Dates of Sacred History: The Old Testament

The Time of the Patriarchs.Around 1750 – Abraham; Around 1600 – Jacob
Between the year 2000 and 1750, the two great powers of the Middle East, Egypt and Mesopotamia underwent a period of intense political upheavals. It was then that the nomads whose means of living was the rearing of goats and lambs (“Hebrews” in Egyptian), […]

The Bible and World Religions

These few reminders are enough to show that history and biblical traditions only cover a small, though one the most important, area of human history at the crossroads of three continents. Perhaps no other area of the planet has seen so many geological and human upheavals. But most of humanity bypassed this history and experienced […]

The First Civilization

About 10,000 years ago a change began to occur in human kind. People gathered together in greater numbers in the fertile plains. Within a few centuries they discovered how to cultivated land, to raise cattle, to mold and bake clay. There appeared villages which united to defend themselves and to make better use of the […]

The First Steps of Human Beings

When and how did human beings appear? We can always argue about the terms: what kind of beings will be called humans? Those who were breaking pebbles, those who conquered fire or those who buried their dead? We are speaking of real human beings, those whose spirit is in the image of God, those whom […]

What Existed Before the Bible?

For many centuries the Bible was the book, first for the Jewish people and then the Church. Faith was not only an individual matter, and the entire Bible was centered on a covenant of God with humankind. There had been a starting point, stages and, at the end, would take place the recapitulation of our […]

Inclusive Language

It is relatively easy to translate the Bible into classic English. The marriage between the Anglo-Saxon and Latin languages resulted in a rich language full of nuances expressive of abstract ideas – the paradise of the Greeks – and of concrete facts of the Hebrew language as well.
As in many other languages, English used the […]