This book will help you understand the redemptive story of the Old Testament through six major periods: Creation, Abraham, Sinai, Kings, Exile and Temple, with the first letter of each heading making up the word CASKET. This acronym will enable you to memorize the storyline of the Old Testament and place key events, people and biblical books in their correct time period. The author takes you through each period step by step, explaining the major covenants and highlighting the most important people, events, and biblical themes. As you become familiar with storyline of the Old Testament you will learn that God's redemptive plan is climactically fulfilled in the New Testament with the coming Messiah. The acronym for the entire Bible is CASKET EMPTY, therefore, which points to the empty tomb of Jesus as the beginning of God's new creation, the assurance that death has been defeated, and the guarantee of our resurrection yet to come. Through the acronym CASKET EMPTY you will have a framework for remembering the entire sweep of the Bible with the person and work of Christ at the center.

Learning the Old Testament as one redemptive story through CASKET EMPTY® enables you to trace its storyline in chronological sequence through six key periods: Creation, Abraham, Sinai, Kings, Exile, and Temple, represented by the acronym CASKET. In this eighteen week study, you will learn about key people, events, and promises in the Old Testament and discover how God's plan of redemption is being fulfilled in Jesus. When used with the companion New Testament Bible Study, represented by the acronym EMPTY, the entire story of the Bible is traced from Genesis to Revelation-with Jesus at the center.

Learning the New Testament as one redemptive story through CASKET EMPTY® enables you to trace its storyline in chronological sequence through five key periods: Expectations, Messiah, Pentecost, Teaching, and Yet-to-come, represented by the acronym EMPTY. In the weekly readings and questions, you will learn that Jesus is at the center of God's plan of redemption and that God's saving work in Christ advances through the expanding missionary witness of the church. When used with the companion Old Testament Bible Study, represented by the acronym CASKET, the entire story of the Bible can be studied from Genesis to Malachi-with Jesus at the center.

Comprehensive, up-to-date collection of primary source documents (creation accounts, epic literature, etc.) gives insight into the Ancient Near East and the Old Testament.

In this book, Calvin Roetzel explores the social, political, religious, and intellectual environment of the New Testament writers. Roetzel maps the major features of the first-century landscape so that the student may be able to view the whole, and through the whole gain new perspective on and insight into each part. Now updated with the most current scholarship and with revisions taking into account archeological findings, this is the best available introduction to the subject. Expanded materials include discussion of the social structure of Roman society, political dimensions of Pharisaism, Hellenistic religious expression, the Jewish Diaspora, the influence of the Septuagint on the Gospel writers and Paul, and women in antiquity. Pictures are integrated into the text at relevant points, the end of each chapter contains suggestions for further reading, and there is also a current and comprehensive bibliography of topics and authors.

The primaeval blessing, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth,' first announced to humankind in Genesis 1.28 is renewed to Noah and his sons after the flood in Genesis 9.1. There is widespread scholarly consensus that the ensuing dispersion in Genesis 10.1-32 and 11.1-9 is the means by which the creation blessing is fulfilled. Kaminski argues that the primeval blessing is not fulfilled in the Table of Nations and that Yahweh's scattering Noah's descendants in the Babel story does not contribute positively to the creation theme. Rather, the creation blessing is being taken up in the primary line of Shem (Genesis 11.10-26), which leads directly to Abraham. She further suggests that divine grace is not absent after the Babel judgment, as is commonly assumed, but is at work in the Shemite genealogy. She argues that the primeval blessing, which is unfulfilled in the primaeval history, is taken up by Abraham and his descendants by means of a divine promise. While the blessing is in the process of being realised in the patriarchal narratives, it is not fulfilled. The multiplication theme is resumed, however, in Exodus 1.7, which describes Israel's proliferation in Egypt. This is the first indication that the creation blessing is fulfilled. Realisation of the primaeval blessing progresses after the flood, therefore, from Noah to Israel. Yet God's blessing on Israel is not for their sake alone - it is the means through which the divine intention for creation will be restored to the world. JSOTS413

A Year in the Old Testament will guide you through most of the Old Testament in the course of a year, and do it in a way that is encouraging and manageable. Nothing serves the Christian faith more than diligently and daily reading and searching the Holy Scriptures.