A Gentle Ramble Through the Bible - Evers Bible Class

          Overwhelming Odds And A Miracle    The First Hanukkah Mattathias dies, leaving his son Simon as head of the Hasmonean family and his son Judas Maccabeus as leader of the army--a euphemism for a force of about 6K.  Judas and his men rely on God and shrewd tactics. They fight a classic guerrilla war, consistently outflanking, outmaneuvering, and outs...

         The Persecution Begins    The Abomination That Causes Desolation Things are about to get bad. The High Priest Menelaus goes to Antioch and instigates murder and bribery. He gets caught, but he uses his ill-gotten riches to make the charges roll off his back.  Antiochus IV Epiphanes attacks Egypt and is humiliated by the Romans. Enraged, he vents his...

        Beginning Maccabees    How It Starts The Hebrew Bible ends around 400 BCE. There are no more tribes of Israel--only scattered families which are gradually coalescing into geographic communities. Around 330 BCE, Alexander the Great conquers the world but dies suddenly, leaving the world in chaos.  After 40 years of infighting, the world settles (more or le...

       Baruch, Wisdom, Sirach    Who Is Wisdom? The Apocryphal books of Baruch, the Book of Wisdom, and the Wisdom of Ben Sirach, all emphasize the importance of Wisdom. Her value is far beyond that of riches or any power. In all three books she is emphatically female. And yet, we get conflicting views of her. In some passages, she is omniscient and all-powerful, the...

      Judith    Truth and Lies The story of Judith is set at the time of the fall of Israel and Judah (both--it’s a mashup). General Holofernes threatens to overwhelm the forces of Israel. The tiny town of Bethulia guards the mountain pass.  Judith, a righteous and beautiful widow living in Bethulia, devises a plan to deceive General Holofernes. Asking God to bless he...

     Tobit    A Fishy Tale Tobit is a righteous man living in Galilee until he is exiled by the Assyrians to their capital city of Nineveh. He rises to an important position in Assyria, only to lose everything when he is caught burying the bodies of fellow exiles who have been thrown outside the city walls. There follows an incredible tale involving an angel in disguise, h...

    Malachi, Nehemiah 13    The End of the Hebrew Bible While Nehemiah is away at the court of King Artaxerxes, things fall apart. Levites and other temple workers don’t get paid, the people work on the Sabbath, and they marry foreign wives--again.  The prophet Malachi calls them all to task, reminding them that their actions matter and that YHWH is very, very real. The Lo...

   Ezra 7-10, 4:7ff, Nehemiah 1-12    Rebuilding the Walls of Jerusalem The Israelites have run amok in the 60 years since the Temple was rebuilt. King Artaxerxes sends Ezra, a renowned scholar, a priest, and a gifted teacher, to Judah and Jerusalem to teach all the people the Law of Moses.  Ezra is horrified when he finds the Israelites have intermarried with the local pe...

  Esther    Heroes, Sheroes, and Villains The story of Esther has been a smash hit for millenia. And for good reason--what’s not to love about an orphan girl raised to be queen who is hiding a deadly secret and when threatened by the most dastardly villain is able to vanquish him with her cunning and shrewdness? There’s more to the story than this, of course. There are reasons this...

                                                                    Zerubbabel's Temple is Finished    Zechariah 5-14, Ezra 5-6 Zechariah has three more visions (including one of a huge flying scroll) and then the Lord t...

                                                                   Laying the Foundation of the New Temple    Ezra 2-4:5, Haggai, Zechariah 1-4 The newly returned exiles start off by building an altar for their future Te...

                                                                  Daniel's Grand Finale    Daniel 11b-12 After the set-up of the timeline in the “70 Sevens,” the angel goes on to explain to Daniel a series of wars and intrigu...

                                                                 Prophecy or History?    Ezra 1, Neh 7, Daniel 10-11a In a surprise move, Cyrus the Great decrees that any exiles who wish to may return to Jerusalem to rebuild...

                                                                The 70 Sevens    The 70 Sevens and the End of the Exile Jeremiah prophesied that the exile would last 70 years, and in the first year of King Cyrus of Persia Daniel r...

                                                               The Writing on the Wall    Mene, Mene, Tekel, Uparsin So-called King Belshazzar is full of himself. He has no respect whatsoever for God. But when he dares to drink fr...

                                                              The Clash of Empires    A Glimpse of the Future Daniel has some pretty intense dreams and visions: a winged lion, a bear with ribs in its teeth, a leopard with four heads, a...

                                                             Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego    The Fiery Furnace and the Mentally ill King The book of Daniel is full of striking, extravagant stories, and we look at two of them this we...

                                                            The Book of Job    How Could God Do This? The book of Job raises the question "Why do bad things happen to good people?"  From the bizarre opening scene through the various an...

                                                           God's Prophets Speak Comfort    God Has Not Forgotten You Isaiah 40-66 is often called the “Book of Comfort.” It contains some of the most well-known and memorable passages in all o...

                                                          The Fall of Jerusalem    God's Precious City Falls The Babylonian siege lasts about 2 ½ years. The food supply in Jerusalem completely runs out. When the attention of the Babylonians is m...

                                                         Eze 10-23, 25-36, Jer 21-23, 32-34, 37-38    The Glory of the Lord Leaves the Temple The end is near. All who grieve Jerusalem’s evil have been marked with God’s mark on their foreheads. T...

                                                        Ezekiel 1-9    Ezekiel Sees Visions One of the young priests in exile in Babylon is called by God to warn the people of Jerusalem of impending disaster. Which is kind of weird--Ezekiel does all...

                                                       Jeremiah 30-31, 24, 47-51, 27-29 & Daniel 2    King Nebuchadnezzar has a Dream The sages and mages of Babylon cannot tell the king his dream nor can they interpret it, so the enraged king ord...

                                                      2 Ki 24, 2 Chr 36, Lamentations, Nahum & Habakkuk, & Jer 18-20, 25-26, 36, 45, 35, 13    Jeremiah is Accused of Treason After King Josiah dies, Judah never has another good king. Jeremiah write...

                                                     2 Kings 22-23 and 2 Chron 34-35 and Isaiah 7-12 & 14-17    Gung-ho for God When the Book of the Law is found in the Temple and is read to King Josiah, he knows the nation is in deep trouble. He goes...