What is the Bible about?

Step 1

The Earth has existed for a very long time—much, much longer than the history of the people of Israel. The Jewish calendar is now approaching the year 6000. While that is indeed a very long time compared to calendars in other cultures, it is nothing compared to the Earth’s existence. Nevertheless, through the Tanakh, Israel seeks to tell the nations of a remarkable event that marked the beginning of a remarkable history on Earth.

I still sometimes think back to the moment when one of my children, while playing and jumping on a table, suddenly lost his balance and was about to fall backward. He could have broken his neck. I didn’t hesitate for a moment and grabbed him wherever I could. It wasn’t a comfortable spot for him, and he certainly let me know it. All the tension was concentrated in that spot because of my hand holding him and because of his own momentum and weight. He screamed to be let go. It didn’t occur to him that I had saved him.
This is also how Israel’s story seems to begin.
It is as if God watched with sorrow as the earth, His creation, fell away from Him and forgot all the goodness He had instilled in it. And it is as if He suddenly reaches out His hand and grasps the world to prevent it from falling further. And the world suddenly hangs from that hand, its momentum and weight halted. And the world cries out, wanting to be let go. It does not realize that the tension it feels in the very place where it is being held has to do with a God who wants to save it. A hand that wants her life—not her certain death.

Anyone who looks back over the past millennia can also see the—conscious and unconscious—resistance or even aversion in the world toward that hand. It is as if God, through the people of Israel, has cast a lifeline into the world.
That lifeline marks the beginning of what you might call a bridgehead in enemy territory. Surrendering that bridgehead is out of the question, for the salvation of the entire world is at stake. From this bridgehead, God intends to conquer the world. But the world constantly resists this initiative that disturbs it.
The Jewish people know this all too well. Being Jewish means being under threat; and that has been the case for centuries.

Let’s zoom in on that point now. What’s happening there? How does it feel there? What does it mean to be God’s bridgehead on earth? How does that affect the lives of these people? The unheard-of idea of being in God’s hands for the salvation of the world—what is that?

Step 2

How does Israel tell the story that God’s foothold on earth begins with them?
In Genesis 12, the man we mentioned earlier—Abraham—is still referred to simply as Abram. Together with his wife Sarai, he is called by God to sever all ties to his family and homeland and then, by living in accordance with God’s promises, to become a source of salvation for the world. In Hebrew, it is specifically stated by which God he was called—after all, there are countless gods and powers served by people under countless names. In Genesis 12, however, it specifically says “YHWH,” the holy Name of God that remains unpronounceable and unspeakable in Israel to this day. In these films, we will refer to that Name as “the Only-One.” Later, we will delve much deeper into the unique meaning of this Name.

As we read in Genesis 12:
Then the One said to Abram: “Go, you, from your country, from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation; I will bless you; I will make your name great—be a blessing! I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you; and through you all the peoples of the earth will be blessed!”

Why does this God choose to intervene in our world through this very Abram? That question is just as complicated as if you were to ask me: Why didn’t you grab your son somewhere else back then? Or if you were to ask me: Why did you marry this particular woman and not one of the millions of others?
Was Abram special? Not particularly, I think. He was a righteous man, to be sure, but there were others like him. In a conversation in Genesis 18, Abram himself expects that even in violent Sodom, there will still be at least fifty righteous people living there. So we must never think that God works only through Abram and his descendants. But through Abram and his descendants, He wants to make it crystal clear how He intended life on earth to be.
Was Sarai special? No, not really. In fact, she even seems like a poor choice, because in Genesis 11 we learn that she was unable to have children. So how was Abram supposed to become a great nation with her?

Step 3

Where does Abram come from? Israel tells this story in a very special way. His name, along with those of his two younger brothers, Nahor and Haran, appears at the end of a list of ten generations in which only the name of the firstborn is mentioned in each generation. And that list goes all the way back to Shem, the firstborn son of the famous Noah, the man who survived one of the greatest crises on earth.
The name Noah, in turn—along with his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth—also appears in a list of ten generations of firstborns. And that list goes all the way back to the name Adam. The word “adam” is Hebrew for “human” and “humanity.”
And so, in Genesis 5:1—literally translated from the Hebrew—we read the statement: “This is the book of the origin of Adam/humanity.” That matter-of-fact statement could very well be the epigraph, the title, that sums up the entire Bible. In any case, this title precedes the lists of two sets of ten firstborns, as if to affirm that these firstborns—including Abram!—have their roots in “Adam.” In other words: Abram is deeply connected to all of humanity, to all the peoples of the earth.

Step 4

According to this story, God indeed embraces all of humanity through Abram and his descendants, establishing in them a foothold on earth that is to be a blessing to all nations. All nations will have to relate to Abram and his descendants; to understand themselves as “biblical nations” within God’s plan of salvation. But what does that mean for Abram? He has no choice!
He has been chosen . For a mission that, as it appears, is impossible. Resistance to this choice is out of the question. And the opposition that will come from the world toward Abram and his descendants will prove unbearable.