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At this point I want to stress that Prayer is an important factor, when studying Gods word. I believe that just as the Bible was written with Divine inspiration, its truths are also revealed in like manner, by the Holy Spirit. I encourage you all to pray, prior to and after your study , ask the Lord to reveal, and impress His word upon your heart and mind, to enable you to impart it to others as He willed.

Write down the list of the five names and dates several days in a row until you have them solidly implanted in your mind, writing them down will help to reinforce your memory.

(ABRAHAM-2000BC)--(MOSES-1500BC)--(DAVID-1000BC)--(DANIEL-500BC)--(CHRIST-1AD)

The Bible isn't intended to be a comprehensive history of the existence of Mankind on the earth. It is rather an account of the relationship of one man's family with the Creator of the Universe. And it is the record of that Creator's intention to bless all of Mankind through the descendants of that man. People are introduced in the early chapters of Genesis to the details of their own history, as a prelude to the history of the family of that one man, and his ancestors, who would inter-react some day with his descendants. That one man is Abraham. The early chapters in Genesis establish his lineage from Adam. After Abraham himself is introduced, the later chapters in Genesis follow his children, his grandchildren, and their descendants for a period of about 500 years, leading up to the time of Moses. (Galatians 3:29) If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
The creation of Adam was about 4000 B.C. The Flood of Noah's in about 2500 B.C. Once you have committed to memory that Abraham's lifetime centers generally around the time period of 2000 B.C., you can pinpoint the general time-frame of a number of Biblical events and characters. Abraham's son by his wife Sarah was Isaac. Isaac's son by his wife Rebekah was Jacob. You can read about the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in chapters (11 to 50 of Genesis). Any Bible stories which include these characters can be positioned shortly after 2000 B.C., long before Moses--who is the next person we will be discussing on our time-line, and who lived around the time of 1500 B.C.

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Understanding the basics (Part5)
The Bible itself does not have an accurate "internal dating system", where events are described in relation to years before or after some key event. So, in order to construct a chronology of Biblical events, historians must rely on external records from things like ancient historical writings, kept by writers in other civilizations, astronomical facts such as the dates of known eclipses, and compare those factors to clues in the Bible, and so on. This is another reason why it is not necessary to remember exact dates of Biblical events, many of these dates are often disputed among Biblical historians themselves! What is not in dispute in most cases is the sequence of events.

The basic idea of the "time line" we will be constructing in future lessons is this: By memorizing the general dates related to the lives of only five significant Biblical characters, each of whom is approximately 500 years apart, you can establish a frame of reference within, which to order the general sequence of the lives of all other Biblical characters, and events. In order to clearly understand much of what you read in the scriptures, you do need to know that Abraham lived long before Daniel! And you really do need to know that Jesus' ministry was over 1,000 years after the events of the Exodus. If you misunderstand the sequence of events, and the general time frame of the lives of various Bible characters, you can make all sorts of erroneous assumptions about the things you read in the Bible. There are so many different characters each with their own story in the bible, that it becomes almost impossible for the average person to put them into some kind of order, be it by date or theme, so often the bigger picture is never realized.

We want to look at a way to generally divide much of the history of the Bible up into simple segments around the lives of five important Biblical figures: Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel and Jesus. Once you commit to memory the general time frame of the lives of each of these men, you can begin to view other time information you read in the Bible in relation to the lives of these men.

Here are the general, simplified Biblical dates connected with these five: Abraham - 2000BC; Moses - 1500BC; David - 1000BC; Daniel - 500BC; Jesus - 1AD. For this lesson commit these five names and dates to memory, write them down and repeat them, until they are a part of your general thought pattern.

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Understanding the basics(Part4)
I have decided to spend more time than originally planed, on setting up our basic time line because for all further studies we will refer back to it and even build on it. Most people never have to deal with historical dates after finishing school, and most do not have interests, jobs, or hobbies that require such information. But once a person embarks on a serious study of the Bible, it soon becomes obvious that some knowledge about the history of Bible times is necessary, in order to fully understand the panorama of events, one reads about in the Bible. The question is, how much detail about dates is necessary. Many may never have read the whole Bible to get the complete story. As we continue our studies we will find that it not necessary to know exact dates, like when king David was born. But we do need to know the order of events as they happened, like David living a thousand years before Christ etc. If one of our jobs as disciples of Jesus is to reach out and make more disciples for Him, then we all need to learn to be "teachers of the basics"

One such basic historical concept that needs to be emphasized before moving on is the very simple distinction between dates "A.D." and "B.C."—and what these abbreviations stand for. Hundreds of years after the time Jesus lived on the earth, scholars decided to attempt to use the year of His birth as the "focal" point of history. All dates before His birth would be a certain number of years "B.C.-Before Christ. All dates after His birth would be "A.D."—which is an abbreviation of the Latin phrase Anno Domini. The word "Anno" refers to the concept of "year"Thus Anno Domini means "The Year of Our Lord", referring to the Lordship of Jesus.

In recent years, many groups have reacted unfavorably to the notion that they should use what is, after all, a "Christian" definition of time. "World religions" such as Judaism, Islam, and committed atheists. Realizing that they cannot possibly get the whole world to accept some totally new method of dating at this point in history, they have dealt with the issue by a symbolic change of the abbreviations used. Thus you may frequently see dates now that use the terms "B.C.E." and "C.E.." The C.E. stands for "Common Era", meaning the "commonly used system" of dating. And the B.C.E. stands for "Before the Common Era". We must take time to get to know all the basics, in order to get the fuller picture of the deeper truths.
I am currently setting up a web site to host these studies, but if you would like a printable version of these pages, send your name and E-Mail address to kenbrucegraham@gmail.com and I will send you copies. I will also be introducing a question and answer section.

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Understanding the basics (Part3)
Most of the many English translations are usually grouped into three main categories: Literal translations: They translate the original texts word for word into the best English equivalent words, and are sometimes also referred to as interlinear translations, the English rendering being placed along side the original Hebrew and Greek. They are undoubtedly the most accurate translations, but can be difficult to read because the flow of language follows the original Hebrew and Greek, quite different from modern English. The ESV as well as the NASB are good examples of literal translations. Dynamic equivalent translations: These translations attempt to be as literal as possible, but restructure sentences and grammar from the original language to English. They attempt to capture thought and intent of what writers wanted to say. As a result, these are more readable in English, but have a higher degree of subjective interpretation than the literal translations. These translations include the KJV, NKJV, and NIV. Contemporary language translations: These paraphrase the thought and intent of the original text into contemporary English. The result is easy to read, but the text is largely a subjective interpretation of the translator. These versions, such as the well known The New Living Translation and The Message, should be approached with great care. Use them perhaps for supplementary readings, but be aware that these texts can differ from the original Bible texts. The biblical apocrypha,(from the Greek word ἀπόκρυφος meaning hidden) these being the extra 14 books which made up the 80 original books, their authenticity, as being divinely inspired is highly contested and hence there omission. For this reason they are typically printed in a third section of the Bible apart from the Old and New Testaments. In some editions they are omitted entirely. In my next blog we will look at constructing a basic time line to the history of the bible to conclude this section, then move on getting to know the word, and Gods plan for us all. In 1517, seven people were burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church for the crime of teaching their children to say the Lords Prayer in English rather than Latin (Lucky we never lived back then) "Click on the Lords Prayer above and enjoy"

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Understanding the basics (Part2).
The bible is not one book as many think it is, it's a collection of ancient writings, comprised of 66 separate books, written over a period of approximately 1600 years, by about 40 different authors. The Old Testament contains 39 books written from around 1500 to 400 BC, and the New Testament 27 books written from around 40 to 90 AD. The original Old Testament was written predominantly in Hebrew, with some Aramaic, while the original New Testament was written in Greek. The Jewish Bible (Tanakh) is the same as the Christian Old Testament, except for its book arrangements.
The history of the bible begins with the Jewish Scriptures. The historical record of the Jews was written down on leather scrolls and tablets over centuries, and the authors included , shepherds, prophets,kings and other leaders. The first five books are called the Law, which were written and/or edited primarily by Moses in the early 1400's BC. Thereafter, other texts were written and collected by the Jewish people during the next 1,000 years. About 450 BC, the Law and the other Jewish Scriptures were arranged by councils of rabbis (Jewish teachers), who then recognized the complete set as the inspired and sacred authority of God (Elohim). At some time during this period, the books of the Hebrew Bible were arranged by topic, including The Law (Torah), the Prophets (Nebiim), and the Writings (Ketubim).
Around about 250 BC, the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek by Jewish scholars in Alexandria, Egypt. This translation became known as the "Septuagint" meaning 70, traditionally the amount of men that would be assigned to the job of translation, in this case it could have been 72 men. It was during this process that the order of the books was changed to the order we have in today's Bible. Historical (Genesis - Esther), poetic (Job - Song of Songs), and prophetic (Isaiah - Malachi). By 500 AD, some estimate, scripture could already be found in more than 500 languages. In the 1380s the first English translations were made by John Wycliffe. It is estimated that there have been about 450 English translations over the years. The first English tranlation was handwritten and contained 80 books??

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Understanding the basics (Part1)
Over the years I have done many bible studies, ranging from very basic to extremely complex. What I have found is that most, if not all of them, lack the basic outline of the bible, and its purpose. We must understand that when following any bible study, you will undoubtedly be led favoring one or other theological bias. In other words there are many interpretations and view points as to how the story goes and without understanding the basics it is easy to get caught up in confusion, Even although the bible is made up of many different stories and some even appearing to be repetitions, there is an underlying theme to it as a whole. The better we understand the theme (Gods plan) the history, the less conflict we begin to find I want to go through the basics right from the beginning, and start by looking at who wrote the bible and for what purpose. If you think you know all of this, humor me and do it all again, because, every time I go through this process I learn something new. The most important thing to remember is that without the basics we may never grasp the full picture as God wants us to, and some of the stories may still remain shrouded in mystery. We often tend to overlook the basics, and move on to the more juicy parts and in doing so; we miss the plot and end up in confusion. Please give the link (here) to all your friends and those you feel could benefit from this study. PS we are never too old to learn. Let me leave you with this thought. There was no sin in Genesis 1-2. There was no sin in Revelation 21-22. We begin with no sin; we end with no sin. So what is all the rest of it about then?

What the eyes can't see 50

I want to share some of what Ive learned over the years, as to how to study, and get a better understanding of the scriptures, and build a closer relationship to our Savior. The first thing we all need to do is to set aside time, now this is normally the problem. How much time is needed? and in these chaotic times, where on earth must I find extra time? when I don't even have enough to do my normal stuff. When it comes to our religion, we often tend to say, "well I go to church on Sundays, have fellowship on Wednesdays, spend some time reading my bible and pray most days when I need stuff, so surely this is enough. Ask yourself these few questions; How much time do I spend planning for my future? financial needs; leisure time: parties; household goods; sport; etc, and then ask yourself, how planned is my prayer life? Is prayer just that thing we do while laying in bed just before we doze off? and then mostly just to ask for something for ourselves or others.
I went through this ordeal for many years, who am I kidding, let me rephrase, for most of my life, never seeming to have enough time. What I discovered as a result, was that I was constantly searching for Gods presence, and looking for signs of confirmation of my salvation. I made a decision to commit at least a half an hour per day, to the study of Gods word, What I mean here is, a half hour, dedicated to a structured study of the bible, not just a random reading, or general reading through the scriptures, but getting to know Gods plan and purpose for my life. I signed up for a self paced bible study on the Internet, and that's where it all started, the half hour was great, but soon I found myself spending an hour and then two hours, and all of a sudden time wasn't a problem. You see as I became more involved in His word, worship and praise, God was making time available to me. I currently spend two hours in the morning, my lunch time, plus an hour at night, and then at least four hours on Saturday and two and a half on Sunday, this adds up to a staggering 24 hours a week, where did all this time come from? (2 Peter 1:5-7)For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love, read the rest of the chapter on the link. Make a commitment start even with ten minutes a day and you will be amazed at how God will add to your time. Study with me, I'll do the preparation and God will make the time.