Modern Study Old Testament

Modern Study

Old Testament

The second lesson of Dr. Temba Mafico deals with the modern study of the Hebrew Bible, which is also called The Old Testament.

The goals of the lesson for students is to define the similarities between the biblical stories of creation (Gen 1 and 2) and the Ancient Near Eastern Myths of creation.

The Ancient Near Eastern Myths of creation comprises lands like Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and the Jordan area (South Arabia).

The stories The Bible consists of have parallels between these biblical creation and the African myths of creation.

Almost every nation on the earth have a story about the creation of the world and the matter of their existence. In order to learn something valuable about the creation of the world one should view the historical critical method and other methods.

Dr. Temba Mafico is trained to the historical critical method and he applies it to his studies. This kind of a critical method presupposes the answers for the questions Why? What? Where? When? and Who?. Also political, ecological, sociological, economic circumstances of these times should be taken into account. The message of the text always relates to the people to whom it was written.

On the previous lecture, the lecturer has risen a question of hypothesis. It shows us that there are more books written by different people and for different purposes.

According to historical hypothesis, many stories of Genesis are of composite origin. This means that one story has allusions throughout the text. Stories in The Bible are presented in duplicates, however contradict one another. This poses unique questions that requires thorough explanation. However, the main fact here lies in the notion, who wrote the story and where.

Speaking about Documentary hypothesis, God is viewed as if he was a human being. There are four interpretations of God's creation of the world: Yahwistic (c. 950 B.C.E.), Elohistic (c. 850 B.C.E.), Deuteronomistic (c. 750 B.C.E.), and Priestly (550 B.C.E.). They are all different in their story, perspectives, methods and vocabulary. In the book