First: When was the Bible written?

From my Jewish friend Miriam:
"Moses went up to the mountain and G-d said all of the commandments and then dictated the rest to moses to be written down. The people had to be revived from G-d's voice because the soul was not ready for such a thing which is why moses had to write the rest instead of the nation of Israel hearing it directly from G-d himself. I thought you might find that interesting."

In handling this question, I was fortunate enough to have my Study Bible available. It contains a handy timeline in the front that helped to put some things in perspective.

I initially asked my new friends if in their Asian culture whether or not it was the year 2007 (don't laugh...you never know..). Fortunately it was. I needed to get us on the same page. Especially if we were going to be talking in a context of a several thousand year window.

So, from the year 2007, I was able to work my way back to zero. Now, here I asked the guys if they knew the significance of the year zero, and how we came to arrive at this way of measuring. They replied that they did not understand why. So, I began to explain to them that the calendar that we use to measure time centers on the birth of Christ. They nodded their head in agreement, and we continued to move backwards in time.

Accurately, I was able to measure back to about 2091 BC, which is the time that Abraham dwelt in the Middle East. I explained to my friends that dates before that are a bit shakey. From their, I told them that the story of Abraham was part of the beginning of a story that is being told by the great leader Moses.

Moses was born about 1526BC, was given the Ten Commandments about 1446BC, and began to write the books of the law until his death in c1406BC.

This is a good stopping point that will lead us to our next item for discussion: Who wrote the Bible?

Who published the Bible?

This question was one of many that came from one of the Vietnamaze students durig his first weeks here. It really came in several parts.

After sitting down with him, here is an outline of questions that came out of his curiosity.

First: When was the Bible written?
Second: Who wrote the Bible?
Third: What is the Bible about?
Fourth: What is the difference between the Old and the New Testament?

There were more questions than this, but these were the ones that summarized his inquiry on the Scriptures themselves.

In the following blogs, I will layout as clear as I can the answers that I gave him.

What I'm Doining With This

Our church is very involved in the foreign exchange program here in Fremont. The coordinator attends here, and the people from our congregation end up hosting several of the students per year.

This year, several of the Asian students are doing a really nice job asking some questions about the faith, the Bible, religion, etc...

Here, I will attempt to document my conversations with these students to see what we can learn about evangelizing a North American culture that is becoming less Christian.