Tales from the Old Testament
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Tales from the Old Testament’
A young Jewish girl is chosen as the Queen of Persia, but quickly finds she has enemies.
The story of Esther is the story behind the Jewish feast of Purim on the 14th of Adar, which falls in February-March. The tale is set in the 480s BC, following Persia’s conquest of Babylon, when the Kings of Persia became lords over Jewish people scattered right across the ancient Near East.
Adam and Eve are set in a Garden of carefree delight, but the Snake swears they are victims of a cruel deception.
Early in the 6th century BC, the leaders of Jerusalem were forced out of their land and scattered across the Near East, as a punishment for ignoring God’s laws. It was then that they wrote the story of Adam and Eve, drawing on ancient traditions to fashion a profound reflection on the ongoing story of mankind’s troubled yet hopeful relationship with his Maker.
God’s love proved to be bigger and stronger than all man’s wickedness.
In the 6th century BC, Jerusalem was captured by the Babylonians, and her nobility were deported to Babylon. In their exile, they studied their oppressor’s heathen mythology of a great flood, and turned it quite brilliantly into an allegory of Israel’s sins, the ‘flood’ of invasion, and their own Noah-like role in keeping Judaism alive until God restored Israel to her land.