In 580bc……. the Bible was ridiculous

Imagine living in Israel in 580 bc. You are a small poor country. You are only a few years removed from wandering around the desert in tents. Your main city, Jerusalem, has been destroyed. Most of your countrymen have been hauled off into slavery. You are barely getting by.

To the south is Egypt, a 2000 year old empire that was fabulously wealthy and powerful. To the north is Assyria, a rich powerful 1000 year old empire. To the east is Babylon, a rich powerful 1000 year old empire. To the west are Phoenicia and Philistia, rich and powerful 1000 year old empires.These giants can crush you, rob you and enslave you any time they want…….. and they do from time to time.

You pick up a book at the bookstore one day and it contains predictions of the future:

Egypt will be destroyed
Assyria will be destroyed
Babylon will be destroyed
Philistia will be destroyed
Phoenecia will be destroyed

They will wind up as 3rd world backwaters and you, Israel, will prosper and dominate the region.

You would have laughed. You would say that the author(s) were crazy. Imagine a 21st century pundit predicting that the U.S., China, Russia, Japan, and Great Britain would become 3rd world backwaters and that Croatia would prosper and become a major world power. Impossible you might say.

And yet it happened…….all of it.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

If you had known in advance that all of those utterly ridiculous predictions were going to come true, I bet you’d have read that book very closely. You’d probably assume that the writers were geniuses or that they had a source of “inside information”. You would listen very carefully to what they had to say. You might even change your plans based on what they said.

The book, of course, is the old testament.

From where we stand today it’s easy to lose perspective. It’s easy to think that the old testament is a qaint collection of fictional stories. But, if you look at it from the perspective of the people to whom it was addressed, it is amazingly accurate in its foresight…….inspired you might say.

So, when the old testament predicted a messiah, the Israelites took it very seriously.

We should too.