AST Publishing House LLC, 2017
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Period one. From the Creation of the World to the Flood
I. Creation of the world
The world, considered in its external beauty and internal harmony, is a marvelous creation, amazing by the harmony of its parts and the wonderful variety of its forms. In all its immensity, it moves correctly like a majestic clock wound by a great and skillful master. And just as when looking at a watch, the thought of the master who made and started it involuntarily appears, so when considering the world in its correct and harmonious movement, the mind involuntarily comes to the thought of that Culprit to whom it owes its existence and wondrous dispensation. That the world is not eternal and has its own beginning is clearly proved, first of all, by the common belief of the peoples, among whom the most ancient tradition about the beginning of all things is preserved. Then the study of the course of the historical life of mankind, especially its most ancient peoples, shows that she herself historical life has a very limited extent and soon passes into the prehistoric era, which constitutes the childhood of the human race, which in turn necessarily presupposes a birth or beginning. The course of development of the sciences and arts also points to the same, which again leads us to the primitive state when they only began. Finally, the latest sciences(geology and paleontology), through the study of the layers of the earth's crust and the remains contained in them, irrefutably and clearly prove that Earth gradually formed in its surface, and there was a time when there was absolutely no life on it, and he himself was in a state of formless matter. Thus, the beginning of the world is undoubted, even if in the form of a formless, primitive substance, from which all its forms gradually formed. But where did this primitive substance itself come from? This question has long occupied human thought, but it was powerless to resolve it without higher help, and in the pagan world the greatest sages and founders of religions were unable to rise above the idea that this primitive substance existed from eternity, and from it God created something. or arranged the world, being thus only the creator or organizer of the world, but not in the proper sense its Creator. Then the Divine Revelation, contained in the books of Holy Scripture, came to the aid of the human mind, and it simply and clearly proclaimed great secret being, to comprehend which wise men of all times and peoples have vainly striven. This mystery is revealed on the first page of the book of Genesis, which begins the Biblical history of the world and mankind.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” says the writer of Genesis, St. prophet Moses. These few words express the immensely deep truth that everything that exists in heaven and on earth, and therefore also primitive matter, has its beginning, and everything was created by God, who alone is eternal and existed in pre-temporal existence, and, moreover, was created from nothing, as the very verb "bar" used to express the word "created" means. God is the only Creator of the universe, and without Him nothing could have happened.
Approving this idea, the chronicler thereby rejected all other ways of explaining the origin of the world, i.e., that the world could not have come about either by chance, or from spontaneous generation, or from the struggle of good and evil principles (as the pagan sages taught, and after them the newest wisdom), but only from free decision the will of the almighty God, who deigned from non-existence to call the world to temporary existence. This decision arose solely from the love and goodness of the Creator, with the aim of giving the creature the opportunity to enjoy these greatest properties of His being. And so “He,” in the words of the inspired psalmist, “said and it happened; he commanded and it appeared” everything (Ps 32:9). His instrument in creation was His Word (“said and it was done”), which is the original Word, the Son of God, through whom “everything was made, and without Him nothing was made that was” (Jn 1:3). Since the second verse separately speaks of the participation of the Spirit of God in the work of creation, it is clear that God acted in the creation of the world as an eternal Trinity.
Having discovered the secret of the origin of the world as a whole and its two constituent parts- heaven and earth, the chronicler proceeds to describe the order of formation of the world in its present form, in all the variety of its visible forms, and since the chronicle of being was intended to instruct the inhabitants of the earth, his main attention is drawn precisely to the history of the formation of the earth, so that in The second verse no longer mentions heaven. In its primitive state, “the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the abyss; and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” It was a newly created formless substance - a chaos in which the blind forces of matter roamed, waiting for the creative word of the Creator, and over this wandering abyss there was darkness, and only the creative Spirit of God hovered over the water, as if fertilizing the germs and seeds of life that had to arise on the ground. Revelation says nothing about the duration of such a chaotic state. Only from a certain moment did the creative and educational activity of the Creator begin, and it took place in six successive periods of time, called the days of creation.
When it's time to start creative activity, the word of God thundered over the dark formless substance: “Let there be light! and there was light. Over the abyss of chaos, the beautiful day of God instantly dawned and illuminated the gloomy womb of pre-temporal darkness. “And God saw the light that it was good”; and “God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness night. And there was evening and there was morning: one day.
With the appearance of light, the fermentation of forces in the bubbling substance of chaos intensified. Huge masses of vapor rose above the surface of the earthly body and enveloped it in impenetrable clouds and haze, so that any line separating it from others was lost. celestial bodies. “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the water from the water; (and so it was). And God created the firmament; and he separated the water that was under the firmament from the water that was above the firmament; and so it was." The lower layers of vapors turned into water and settled on the surface of the still bubbling abyss, while the upper layers evaporated into the vast region of heavenly space, and that beautiful blue sky which we see now. It was the second day.
Above the earthly body there was an atmosphere already cleansed of vapors, but the earth itself was still a continuous sea. Then “God said: let the waters that are under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear; and so it was." The condensed and gradually cooled substance rose in some places, descended in others; elevated places were exposed from the water, became dry land, and the depressions and depressions were filled with water merging into them and formed the seas. "And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters he called the sea: and God saw that it was good." But no matter how good this distribution of sea and land was, the earth did not yet possess what was the purpose of its creation: there was still no life on it, and only bare, dead rocks looked gloomily at the receptacles of the waters.
But now, when the distribution of water and land was completed, and the necessary conditions for life were formed, the first beginnings of it did not take long to appear - in the form of vegetation. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, grass yielding seed (after its kind and likeness), and a fruitful tree yielding fruit after its kind, in which is its seed on the earth, and it was so.” “And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning: the third day.
But vegetation, in order to vegetate, needs a proper change of light and darkness. “And God said: let there be lights in the firmament of heaven (to illuminate the earth), to separate the day from the night, and for signs and times, and days and years, and let them be lamps in the firmament of heaven to shine on the earth: and it became So". By the word of the Creator, the solar and stellar system was finally established as it exists now. The sun blazed with its mighty, life-giving light and illumined the planets surrounding it; the vault of heaven was adorned with myriads of stars, and their bewitching brilliance aroused the delight of the angels of heaven, who in unison praised the Creator (Job 38:7). “And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning: the fourth day.
The sky was already adorned with luminaries, gigantic vegetation was developing on the earth; but there were no living creatures on earth who could enjoy the gifts of nature. For their existence there were not yet the proper conditions, since the air was saturated with harmful vapors, which could only contribute to the vegetable kingdom. But here the gigantic vegetation cleared the atmosphere, and conditions were prepared for the development of animal life. “And God said, Let the water bring forth reptiles, I have a living life; and let the birds fly over the earth, in the firmament of heaven.
By virtue of this divine command, a new creative act took place, not just educational, as in previous days, but in the full sense of the word, creative, which was the first act of creating primitive matter - from nothing.
Here a living soul was created, something was introduced that was not in the existing primitive substance. And indeed, the writer of everyday life here uses the verb “bara” for the second time – to create from nothing. “And God created great fish, and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning: the fifth day.
Water and air were filled with life, but the third part of the earth remained deserted - dry land, that is, which is the most convenient for the life of living beings. But now the time has come for her settlement. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so. And God created the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing on the earth after its kind." All these animals were formed from the earth, from where they still extract their nutrients and into which they turn again when they decompose. "And God saw that it was good." Thus, the earth has already been inhabited in all its parts by living beings. The world of living beings was a slender tree, the root of which consisted of protozoa, and the upper branches of higher animals. But this tree was incomplete, there was not yet a flower that would complete and decorate its top. There was no man yet - the king of nature. But then he came too. “And God said: let us make man in our image (and) in our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. Here, for the third time, a creative act (bara) took place in the full sense, since man again has something in his being that was not in the nature created before him, namely the spirit that distinguishes him from all other living beings.
Thus ended the history of creation and the formation of the world. “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning: the sixth day. “And God finished His works on the seventh day, and rested on the seventh day from all His works, which He did and created. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” From this originates the establishment of the Sabbath as a day of rest, and on this establishment the correct change of work and rest in human life is still based.
II. Creation of the first people and their blissful life in paradise
Man, as the crown of creation, was created on the special advice of the Creator, and he alone was created in the image and likeness of God. His body, like the bodies of all animals, is formed from the earth; but its spiritual part is the direct inspiration of the Creator.
“And the Lord God formed man (Adam) from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” The image and likeness of God in man therefore consists in his spiritual sonship with God, in the striving for mental and moral perfection, which gives him the opportunity to dominate nature. As the king of creation, he is introduced into a special garden or paradise planted for him in Eden in the east, all creatures are brought under his control, and he becomes the ruler of the earth.
But man, as a rational and spiritual being, would not be a worthy representative of the Deity on earth if he lived in solitude or in communion only with beings either higher than him, like angels, or lower, like animals. It was necessary for him not only for pleasure and happiness, but even more so for the perfection of the divine work, to have an assistant in himself, capable of perception and mutual communication of thoughts and feelings.
Meanwhile, among the already created living beings, “for man, there was no helper like him.” “And the Lord God said, It is not good for a man to be alone; Let us make him a helper fit for him.”
And so a wife is created, and, moreover, from the rib of the man himself, taken from him during deep sleep.
As soon as a woman was created, man immediately understood in this deed of the Creator the desire for happiness for public life man and prophetically uttered the provision that became the law of marriage for all subsequent ages: “this is the bone of my bones, and the flesh of my flesh, she will be called a woman, for she was taken from her husband. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and cling to his wife; and the two will be one flesh.”
From these words, as well as from the circumstances of the very creation of the wife, it naturally follows that husband and wife are a unity consummated in marriage, that marriage should consist of the union of one man with one woman, and that the wife should be subject to the husband as his assistant, created for him.
"And God blessed them and said: be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over all creatures."
And so the first people, in the bliss of their innocence, lived in paradise, enjoying all its fruits and enjoying all its joys. They were provided with all the blessings of a perfect and innocent life.
In material terms, they were surrounded by an abundance of the richest gifts of paradise nature, along with the fruits of trees, which had a particularly wonderful value for their bodily strength and vitality, giving them immortality.
Their spiritual needs found complete satisfaction in a direct conversation with God, who appeared "in paradise during the cool of the day," as well as in the search for better ways dominion over and control of nature subject to them, for which Adam gave names to animals, and, of course, to all other objects, thus establishing language as a means of distinguishing objects and social intercourse. But their highest perfection consisted in moral innocence, which consisted in the absence of the very thought of anything unclean and sinful. "And they were both naked, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed."
III. The Fall and its consequences. Paradise location
The stay of the first people in paradise was their stay in direct communion with God, which was the first and most perfect religion of the human race. The outward expression of this religion was the church, as the assembly of the first two believers. But since the church, as an external institution, presupposes certain institutions and conditions on which the assembly is founded, the primitive church was founded on a special covenant between God and man. This covenant consisted in the fact that man should love God and his neighbors and show perfect obedience to the Creator in all His commands, and God, for his part, promised man the continuation of his blissful state, safety from death as a painful destruction of the body, and, finally, eternal life. In order to provide a person with the opportunity to testify to his obedience and strengthen his faith, God gave him a commandment that could serve as a test for him, as a means of strengthening that free moral self-determination, in which lies the highest good of life. The commandment was to forbid eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “And the Lord God commanded the man, and said, From every tree in the garden you shall eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, do not eat from it; for on the day you eat of it, you will die the death.” Having given man complete freedom, the Creator, however, by this commandment wanted to show him that, as a limited being, he must live under the law and that a terrible punishment will follow for breaking the law.
Revelation does not say how long the blessed stay of the first people in paradise was. But this state already aroused the malicious hatred of the enemy, who, having lost it himself, looked with hatred at the innocent bliss of the first people. When the world of universal bliss still dominated the earth and it did not know evil, the world in its highest regions was already familiar with evil, and there was a struggle with it. Among the highest created beings or angels, endowed with the highest gifts of reason and freedom, some have already violated the commandment of obedience to the Creator, were proud of their perfection (1 Tim 3:6) and did not retain their dignity (Jude 6), for which they were cast out of the heavenly paradise to the underworld. Envy and thirst for evil became the soul of these creatures. Every good, every peace, order, innocence, obedience became hateful to them, and they tried to destroy them even among people who enjoyed the bliss of heavenly life on earth. And then the tempter appeared in paradise - in the form of a snake, which "was more cunning than all the animals of the field." At the same time, he used a crafty cunning, directing the temptation not to both people and not to the husband, but to one wife, as the weakest member, rather amenable to passion.
The serpent approached the wife and said to her: “Did God truly say, do not eat from any tree in paradise?” This question contained an insidious lie, which should immediately push the interlocutor away from the tempter. But she, in her innocence, was not able to immediately understand the deceit here, and, at the same time, she was too curious to immediately stop talking. However, she understood the lie of the question and answered that God allowed them to eat from all the trees, except for only one tree, which is in the middle of paradise, because from eating its fruits they could die. Then the tempter directly arouses distrust of God. “No,” he said, “you will not die; but God knows that on the day you eat them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” The insidious word sunk deep into the soul of a woman. It aroused a series of doubts and mental struggles. What is good and evil that she can recognize? And if people are blissful in their present state, then in what bliss will they be when they become like gods?.. In anxious excitement, she involuntarily turns her gaze to the forbidden tree, and it is so pleasing to the eyes, probably sweet to the taste, and especially tempting its mysterious properties. This outward impression resolved the inner struggle, and the woman “took the fruits of this tree and ate; and gave also to her husband, and he ate.” The greatest revolution in the history of mankind has taken place. Those who were supposed to be the pure source of the entire human race poisoned themselves with the fruits of death. The woman followed the snake, as if he were higher than God. At his suggestion, she did what the Creator forbade. And her husband in sin followed his wife, who from being tempted immediately became a temptress.
The consequences of eating the forbidden fruit were not slow to show themselves: their eyes were really opened, as the tempter promised, and the forbidden fruit gave them knowledge; but what did they know? - learned that they are naked. An indignant moral feeling opened before them the consciousness of their nakedness, which became a victorious sign of sensuality and the triumph of the flesh, and in order to cover it, they sewed fig leaves for themselves and made aprons out of them - this primary form of clothing. But if those who have sinned have become so ashamed even of their own inner voice of conscience, then it has become absolutely frightening for them to stand before God now. Evening came, and the coolness of its shadows spread bliss over the garden. At this time, they usually had an interview with God, which they still expected and met with innocent joy, like the children of their father. Now they wish that moment never came. Meanwhile, he approached, and they heard a familiar voice. Horror seized Adam and his wife, and they "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of paradise."
And the Lord God called to Adam: “Adam, where are you?” And the unfortunate fugitive answered with trepidation from the thicket of trees: “I heard your voice in paradise and was afraid, because I was naked, and hid.” “But who told you that you were naked? Have you not eaten from the tree from which I forbade you to eat?” The question was put directly, but the sinner was unable to answer it so directly; he gave an evasive and sly answer: "The wife that You gave me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate." He places the blame on his wife and even on God Himself. The Lord turned to his wife: “What did you do?” The wife also, in turn, deflects guilt from herself: "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." The wife told the truth, but the fact that they both tried to shield themselves from guilt was a lie. This immediately showed the pernicious influence of the father of lies, to whose seduction the first people succumbed, and this influence, like drunk poison, poisoned their entire moral and bodily nature.
Then the Lord pronounced a well-deserved punishment, and, above all, to the snake, as having served as an instrument of temptation: he was cursed before all animals and a miserable life of crawling on his womb and feeding on the dust of the earth was determined for him. The wife is condemned to be subject to her husband and to severe suffering and illness at the birth of children; and the husband is condemned to a hard life, since the earth, cursed for the deeds of man, had to become impoverished in its gifts, produce thorns and thistles, and only in exhausting sweat could he get bread for his subsistence until he returned to the land from which he was taken was. “For you are dust, and to dust you will return,” the Lord said, condemning him to bodily death. Terrible was the punishment for transgressing the commandment of God; but as a merciful Father, God did not leave His sinning children without consolation, and at the same time gave them a promise that, with a bright hope of restoring lost bliss, was to support their despondent spirit in the days of subsequent trials and tribulations of sinful life. This is precisely the promise of the seed of the woman, which was supposed to wipe out the head of the serpent, that is, to finally defeat the destroyer of the happiness of people, and restore to people the opportunity to achieve happiness and eternal life in heaven. This was the first promise of the Savior of the world, and as a sign of His coming, the sacrifice of animals (apparently now divided into two classes - clean and unclean) was established, the slaughter of which was to foreshadow the slaughter of the great Lamb for the sins of the world. Having made Adam and his wife Eve (the mother of the living, as Adam now called her) leather clothes (from animals killed for sacrifice) and taught them to dress, the Lord expelled them from paradise, “and placed in the east near the garden of Eden a cherub and a flaming sword turning, to guard the way to the tree of life," of which they have now become unworthy through their sin.
With the expulsion of people from paradise, among the labors and hardships of a sinful life, the very memory of its exact location was erased over time, different peoples we encounter the most vague traditions, vaguely pointing to the East, as the place of the primeval blissful state. A more precise indication is found in the Bible, but even it is so obscure to us in the present form of the earth that it is also impossible to determine with geographical accuracy the location of Eden, in which paradise was located. Here is the biblical instruction: “And the Lord God planted paradise in Eden, in the east. A river came out of Eden to water paradise; and then divided into four rivers. The name of one Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good; there bdolakh and onyx stone. The name of the second river is Tikhon (Geon): it flows around the whole land of Kush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel (Tiger); it flows before Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates” (Genesis 2:8-14). From this description, it is first of all clear that Eden is a vast country in the east, in which paradise was located, as a smaller room designated for the habitation of the first people. Then the name of the third and fourth rivers clearly indicates that this Edenic country was in some neighborhood with Mesopotamia. But this is the limit of geographical indications that are understandable to us. The first two rivers (Pison and Tikhon) now have nothing corresponding to themselves either in geographical position or in name, and therefore they gave rise to the most arbitrary conjectures and rapprochements. Some saw in them the Ganges and the Nile, others - Phasis (Rion) and Araks, originating in the heights of Armenia, others - the Syr Darya and Amu Darya, and so on ad infinitum. But all these conjectures are of no serious importance and are based on arbitrary approximations. Further definition geographical location these rivers serve the lands of Havila and Cush. But the first of them is as mysterious as the river that irrigates it, and one can only guess, judging by its metal and mineral wealth, that this is some part of Arabia or India, which in ancient times served as the main sources of gold and precious stones. A somewhat more specific name for another country is Kush. This term in the Bible is usually used to refer to the countries lying south of Palestine, and "Cushites", as the descendants of Ham, from his son Cush or Cush, are found throughout the entire space from the Persian Gulf to southern Egypt. From all this we can only conclude that Eden really was in some neighborhood with Mesopotamia, as indicated by the traditions of all ancient peoples, but it is impossible to determine its exact location. Since that time, the earth's surface has undergone so many upheavals (especially during the flood) that not only the direction of the rivers could change, but their very connection with each other could break, or even the very existence of some of them could cease. As a result, science is just as blocked from accessing the exact location of Paradise, as it was blocked for sinning Adam from eating from the tree of life in it.
An extraordinary movement is currently taking place in historical science, precisely thanks to those amazing discoveries that are being made in the forgotten ashes of the historical life of the ancient peoples of the East. Since that happy hour, when historians, not limited to a pen, took up spades and shovels and began to dig up the debris of the ruins in the valleys of the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, as well as in other countries historical East, a whole world of new historical knowledge opened before the eyes of researchers: the pale and lean pages of the history of ancient peoples were extremely animated and expanded, even the existence of new, hitherto completely unknown peoples and monarchies was discovered, knowledge of which shed New World for the whole fate of ancient mankind. But these extraordinary discoveries took on even more significance because they were in close relation to biblical history, and not only shed much new light into it, clarifying its often darkest pages, but also provided an almost miraculous confirmation of many biblical events and facts. which hitherto could be criticized with impunity by skepticism. This circumstance extremely revived interest in biblical history, which has ceased to be a dry specialty of theologians, and now attracts the attention of both secular learned historians and the entire educated society of all civilized peoples. This interest is also noticeable in our country; but, unfortunately, in our country he has not yet gone beyond the narrow confines of the circle of specialists, and for our society, in fact, there is literally no such book in the public domain that could serve as a guide or introduction to this deeply interesting and highly instructive field of knowledge. The satisfaction of this, in our opinion, urgent need, is partly what this book has in mind.
In its main parts, it was compiled several years ago and was intended only as a summary for our personal office studies in contact with our specialty (“History ancient world”) areas of biblical-historical knowledge. But the consciousness of the deep need indicated above prompted us to process this summary in such a way that it could satisfy this need in the slightest degree, precisely by giving a coherent and lively course of biblical history with the introduction of the main features from the inexhaustible wealth of the latest biblical historical research. It is clear that within the framework that was outlined for this manual, the aforementioned studies could not find an independent place in it, and we really limited ourselves to only introducing some features from them; but we hope that readers will notice their presence at every more or less important biblical historical event, and see for themselves how much light latest discoveries shed in the field of history and how much fresh interest they give to the most well-known facts and events.
We intend our "guide" for reading in general, but we would especially like it to find access to the milieu of student youth. It is our deep conviction that biblical history can become an inexhaustible source of moral and higher historical education for any person more or less capable of a serious mental life. Every history is an educator of the mind and heart and a teacher of wisdom; but the biblical story in this respect stands above all other stories, because its subject is central points spiritual life of mankind, and in it the deepest laws of world-historical development are revealed. It can most clearly show that in the history of peoples there is nothing accidental and arbitrary, that any attempt to "make history" is senseless and harmful, because everything awaits and demands the "fulfillment of times", which can neither be brought nearer nor put off. At the same time, it presents a series of deep life experiences of the greatest characters, who, by their virtues and no less by their vices, widely open the door to the very depths of a person’s spiritual life and thereby teach the deepest lessons for anyone with a sufficiently lively moral sense to perceive such amazing experiences. Our “guide”, of course, has no pretensions to presenting biblical history from this particular side: understanding this side in it presupposes a preliminary acquaintance with the rudiments of biblical historical knowledge, and it is precisely these rudiments that we offer in our book, in the hope that it can serve as a guide to penetration into a deeper field of knowledge.
In a short time, a similar “Guide to the Biblical History of the New Testament” will follow.
Biblical history of the old testament
Period one
From Creation to the Flood
world creation
The world, considered in its external beauty and internal harmony, is a marvelous creation, amazing by the harmony of its parts and the wonderful variety of its forms. In all its immensity, it moves correctly like a majestic clock wound by a great and skillful master. And just as when looking at a watch, the thought of the master who made and started it involuntarily appears, so when considering the world in its correct and harmonious movement, the mind involuntarily comes to the thought of that Culprit to whom it owes its existence and wondrous dispensation. That the world is not eternal and has its own beginning is clearly proved, first of all, by the common belief of the peoples, among whom the most ancient tradition about the beginning of all things is preserved. Then, a study of the course of the historical life of mankind, especially of its most ancient peoples, shows that historical life itself has a very limited extent and soon passes into the prehistoric era, which constitutes the childhood of the human race, which in turn necessarily presupposes birth or beginning. The course of development of the sciences and arts also points to the same, which again leads us to the primitive state when they only began. Finally, the latest sciences (geology and paleontology), through the study of the layers of the earth's crust and the remains contained in them, irrefutably and clearly prove that the globe gradually formed in its surface, and there was a time when there was absolutely no life on it, and he himself was in a formless state. Thus, the beginning of the world is undoubted, even if in the form of a formless, primitive substance, from which all its forms gradually formed. But where did this primitive substance itself come from? This question has long occupied human thought, but it was powerless to resolve it without higher help, and in the pagan world the greatest sages and founders of religions were unable to rise above the idea that this primitive substance existed from eternity, and from it God created something. or arranged the world, being thus only the creator or organizer of the world, but not in the proper sense its Creator. Then the Divine Revelation, contained in the books of Holy Scripture, appeared to the aid of the human mind, and it simply and clearly proclaimed the great mystery of being, to comprehend which the sages of all times and peoples vainly tried to comprehend. This mystery is revealed on the first page of the book of Genesis, which begins the Biblical history of the world and mankind.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” says the writer of Genesis, St. prophet Moses. These few words express the immensely deep truth that everything that exists in heaven and on earth, and therefore also primitive matter, has its beginning, and everything was created by God, who alone is eternal and existed in pre-temporal existence, and, moreover, was created from nothing, as the very verb means bara used to express the word "created". God is the only Creator of the universe, and without Him nothing could have happened.
Alexander Pavlovich Lopukhin
Biblical history of the Old Testament
Biblical history of the Old TestamentAlexander Pavlovich Lopukhin
The book of the famous Russian theologian, biblical scholar and translator A.P. Lopukhin first saw the light in 1887 and has since gone through more than 20 editions. Thanks to the depth of understanding of the biblical story, its content does not lose its significance today. Having collected and analyzed the rich theological and exegetical, chronological, archaeological, historical and ethnographic material, the author opens historical meaning events in the Bible. He proves that the biblical stories have a real historical basis.
Conceived as a work that promotes the popularization of theological science and spiritual enlightenment, the book is written in an accessible language.
Alexander Pavlovich Lopukhin
Biblical history of the Old Testament
AST Publishing House LLC, 2017
Period one. From the Creation of the World to the Flood
I. Creation of the world
The world, considered in its external beauty and internal harmony, is a marvelous creation, amazing by the harmony of its parts and the wonderful variety of its forms. In all its immensity, it moves correctly like a majestic clock wound by a great and skillful master. And just as when looking at a watch, the thought of the master who made and started it involuntarily appears, so when considering the world in its correct and harmonious movement, the mind involuntarily comes to the thought of that Culprit to whom it owes its existence and wondrous dispensation. That the world is not eternal and has its own beginning is clearly proved, first of all, by the common belief of the peoples, among whom the most ancient tradition about the beginning of all things is preserved. Then, a study of the course of the historical life of mankind, especially of its most ancient peoples, shows that historical life itself has a very limited extent and soon passes into the prehistoric era, which constitutes the childhood of the human race, which in turn necessarily presupposes birth or beginning. The course of development of the sciences and arts also points to the same, which again leads us to the primitive state when they only began. Finally, the latest sciences (geology and paleontology), through the study of the layers of the earth's crust and the remains contained in them, irrefutably and clearly prove that the globe gradually formed in its surface, and there was a time when there was absolutely no life on it, and he himself was in a formless state. Thus, the beginning of the world is undoubted, even if in the form of a formless, primitive substance, from which all its forms gradually formed. But where did this primitive substance itself come from? This question has long occupied human thought, but it was powerless to resolve it without higher help, and in the pagan world the greatest sages and founders of religions were unable to rise above the idea that this primitive substance existed from eternity, and from it God created something. or arranged the world, being thus only the creator or organizer of the world, but not in the proper sense its Creator. Then the Divine Revelation, contained in the books of Holy Scripture, appeared to the aid of the human mind, and it simply and clearly proclaimed the great mystery of being, to comprehend which the sages of all times and peoples vainly tried to comprehend. This mystery is revealed on the first page of the book of Genesis, which begins the Biblical history of the world and mankind.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” says the writer of Genesis, St. prophet Moses. These few words express the immensely deep truth that everything that exists in heaven and on earth, and therefore also primitive matter, has its beginning, and everything was created by God, who alone is eternal and existed in pre-temporal existence, and, moreover, was created from nothing, as the very verb "bar" used to express the word "created" means. God is the only Creator of the universe, and without Him nothing could have happened.
Approving this idea, the chronicler thereby rejected all other ways of explaining the origin of the world, i.e., that the world could not have come about either by chance, or from spontaneous generation, or from the struggle of good and evil principles (as the pagan sages taught, and after them the newest wisdom), but only from the free decision of the will of the almighty God, who deigned from non-existence to call the world to temporary existence. This decision arose solely from the love and goodness of the Creator, with the aim of giving the creature the opportunity to enjoy these greatest properties of His being. And so “He,” in the words of the inspired psalmist, “said and it happened; he commanded and it appeared” everything (Ps 32:9). His instrument in creation was His Word (“said and it was done”), which is the original Word, the Son of God, through whom “everything was made, and without Him nothing was made that was” (Jn 1:3). Since the second verse separately speaks of the participation of the Spirit of God in the work of creation, it is clear that God acted in the creation of the world as an eternal Trinity.
Having discovered the secret of the origin of the world as a whole and its two constituent parts - heaven and earth, the chronicler proceeds to describe the formation of the world in its present form, in all the variety of its visible forms, and since the chronicle of being was intended to instruct the inhabitants of the earth, then the main attention it refers specifically to the history of the formation of the earth, so that in the second verse there is no longer any mention of the sky. In its primitive state, “the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the abyss; and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” It was a newly created formless substance - a chaos in which the blind forces of matter roamed, waiting for the creative word of the Creator, and over this wandering abyss there was darkness, and only the creative Spirit of God hovered over the water, as if fertilizing the germs and seeds of life that had to arise on the ground. Revelation says nothing about the duration of such a chaotic state. Only from a certain moment did the creative and educational activity of the Creator begin, and it took place in six successive periods of time, called the days of creation.
When it was time to begin creative activity, the word of God thundered over the dark formless substance: “Let there be light! and there was light. Over the abyss of chaos, the beautiful day of God instantly dawned and illuminated the gloomy womb of pre-temporal darkness. “And God saw the light that it was good”; and “God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness night. And there was evening and there was morning: one day.
With the appearance of light, the fermentation of forces in the bubbling substance of chaos intensified. Huge masses of vapors rose above the surface of the earthly body and enveloped it in impenetrable clouds and darkness, so that any line separating it from other celestial bodies was lost. “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the water from the water; (and so it was). And God created the firmament; and he separated the water that was under the firmament from the water that was above the firmament; and so it was." The lower layers of vapors turned into water and settled on the surface of the still bubbling abyss, while the upper layers evaporated into an immense region of heavenly space, and that beautiful blue sky that we see now opened up above the earth. It was the second day.
Above the earthly body there was an atmosphere already cleansed of vapors, but the earth itself was still a continuous sea. Then “God said: let the waters that are under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear; and so it was." The condensed and gradually cooled substance rose in some places, descended in others; elevated places were exposed from the water, became dry land, and the depressions and depressions were filled with water merging into them and formed the seas. "And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters he called the sea: and God saw that it was good." But no matter how good this distribution of sea and land was, the earth did not yet possess what was the purpose of its creation: there was still no life on it, and only bare, dead rocks looked gloomily at the receptacles of the waters.
But now, when the distribution of water and land was completed, and the necessary conditions for life were formed, the first beginnings of it did not take long to appear - in the form of vegetation. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, grass yielding seed (after its kind and likeness), and a fruitful tree yielding fruit after its kind, in which is its seed on the earth, and it was so.” “And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning: the third day.
But vegetation, in order to vegetate, needs a proper change of light and darkness. “And God said: let there be lights in the firmament of heaven (to illuminate the earth), to separate the day from the night, and for signs and times, and days and years, and let them be lamps in the firmament of heaven to shine on the earth: and it became So". By the word of the Creator, the solar and stellar system was finally established as it exists now. The sun blazed with its mighty, life-giving light and illumined the planets surrounding it; the vault of heaven was adorned with myriads of stars, and their bewitching brilliance aroused the delight of the angels of heaven, who in unison praised the Creator (Job 38:7). “And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning: the fourth day.
The sky was already adorned with luminaries, gigantic vegetation was developing on the earth; but there were no living creatures on earth who could enjoy the gifts of nature. For their existence there were not yet the proper conditions, since the air was saturated with harmful vapors, which could only contribute to the vegetable kingdom. But here the gigantic vegetation cleared the atmosphere, and conditions were prepared for the development of animal life. “And God said, Let the water bring forth reptiles, I have a living life; and let the birds fly over the earth, in the firmament of heaven.
By virtue of this divine command, a new creative act took place, not just educational, as in previous days, but in the full sense of the word, creative, which was the first act of creating primitive matter - from nothing.
Here a living soul was created, something was introduced that was not in the existing primitive substance. And indeed, the writer of everyday life here uses the verb “bara” for the second time – to create from nothing. “And God created great fish, and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning: the fifth day.
Water and air were filled with life, but the third part of the earth remained deserted - dry land, that is, which is the most convenient for the life of living beings. But now the time has come for her settlement. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so. And God created the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing on the earth after its kind." All these animals were formed from the earth, from where they still extract their nutrients and into which they turn again when they decompose. "And God saw that it was good." Thus, the earth has already been inhabited in all its parts by living beings. The world of living beings was a slender tree, the root of which consisted of protozoa, and the upper branches of higher animals. But this tree was incomplete, there was not yet a flower that would complete and decorate its top. There was no man yet - the king of nature. But then he came too. “And God said: let us make man in our image (and) in our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. Here, for the third time, a creative act (bara) took place in the full sense, since man again has something in his being that was not in the nature created before him, namely the spirit that distinguishes him from all other living beings.
Thus ended the history of creation and the formation of the world. “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning: the sixth day. “And God finished His works on the seventh day, and rested on the seventh day from all His works, which He did and created. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” From this originates the establishment of the Sabbath as a day of rest, and on this establishment the correct change of work and rest in human life is still based.
II. Creation of the first people and their blissful life in paradise
Man, as the crown of creation, was created on the special advice of the Creator, and he alone was created in the image and likeness of God. His body, like the bodies of all animals, is formed from the earth; but its spiritual part is the direct inspiration of the Creator.
“And the Lord God formed man (Adam) from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” The image and likeness of God in man therefore consists in his spiritual sonship with God, in the striving for mental and moral perfection, which gives him the opportunity to dominate nature. As the king of creation, he is introduced into a special garden or paradise planted for him in Eden in the east, all creatures are brought under his control, and he becomes the ruler of the earth.
But man, as a rational and spiritual being, would not be a worthy representative of the Deity on earth if he lived in solitude or in communion only with beings either higher than him, like angels, or lower, like animals. It was necessary for him not only for pleasure and happiness, but even more so for the perfection of the divine work, to have an assistant in himself, capable of perception and mutual communication of thoughts and feelings.
Meanwhile, among the already created living beings, “for man, there was no helper like him.” “And the Lord God said, It is not good for a man to be alone; Let us make him a helper fit for him.”
And so a wife is created, and, moreover, from the rib of the man himself, taken from him during deep sleep.
As soon as a woman was created, a man immediately understood in this deed of the Creator the desire of happiness for the social life of a person and prophetically pronounced a provision that became the law of marriage for all subsequent centuries: “this is the bone of my bones, and the flesh of my flesh, it will be called wife, for she was taken from her husband. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and cling to his wife; and the two will be one flesh.”
From these words, as well as from the circumstances of the very creation of the wife, it naturally follows that husband and wife are a unity consummated in marriage, that marriage should consist of the union of one man with one woman, and that the wife should be subject to the husband as his assistant, created for him.
"And God blessed them and said: be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over all creatures."
And so the first people, in the bliss of their innocence, lived in paradise, enjoying all its fruits and enjoying all its joys. They were provided with all the blessings of a perfect and innocent life.
In material terms, they were surrounded by an abundance of the richest gifts of paradise nature, along with the fruits of trees, which had a particularly wonderful value for their bodily strength and vitality, giving them immortality.
Their spiritual needs found their fullest satisfaction in a direct conversation with God, who appeared “in paradise during the cool of the day”, as well as in finding the best ways to dominate and control nature subject to them, for which Adam named the animals, and also, of course, to all other objects, thus establishing language as a means of distinguishing objects and of social intercourse. But their highest perfection consisted in moral innocence, which consisted in the absence of the very thought of anything unclean and sinful. "And they were both naked, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed."
III. The Fall and its consequences. Paradise location
The stay of the first people in paradise was their stay in direct communion with God, which was the first and most perfect religion of the human race. The outward expression of this religion was the church, as the assembly of the first two believers. But since the church, as an external institution, presupposes certain institutions and conditions on which the assembly is founded, the primitive church was founded on a special covenant between God and man. This covenant consisted in the fact that man should love God and his neighbors and show perfect obedience to the Creator in all His commands, and God, for his part, promised man the continuation of his blissful state, safety from death as a painful destruction of the body, and, finally, eternal life. In order to provide a person with the opportunity to testify to his obedience and strengthen his faith, God gave him a commandment that could serve as a test for him, as a means of strengthening that free moral self-determination, in which lies the highest good of life. The commandment was to forbid eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “And the Lord God commanded the man, and said, From every tree in the garden you shall eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, do not eat from it; for on the day you eat of it, you will die the death.” Having given man complete freedom, the Creator, however, by this commandment wanted to show him that, as a limited being, he must live under the law and that a terrible punishment will follow for breaking the law.
Revelation does not say how long the blessed stay of the first people in paradise was. But this state already aroused the malicious hatred of the enemy, who, having lost it himself, looked with hatred at the innocent bliss of the first people. When the world of universal bliss still dominated the earth and it did not know evil, the world in its highest regions was already familiar with evil, and there was a struggle with it. Among the highest created beings or angels, endowed with the highest gifts of reason and freedom, some have already violated the commandment of obedience to the Creator, were proud of their perfection (1 Tim 3:6) and did not retain their dignity (Jude 6), for which they were cast out of the heavenly paradise to the underworld. Envy and thirst for evil became the soul of these creatures. Every good, every peace, order, innocence, obedience became hateful to them, and they tried to destroy them even among people who enjoyed the bliss of heavenly life on earth. And then the tempter appeared in paradise - in the form of a snake, which "was more cunning than all the animals of the field." At the same time, he used a crafty cunning, directing the temptation not to both people and not to the husband, but to one wife, as the weakest member, rather amenable to passion.
The serpent approached the wife and said to her: “Did God truly say, do not eat from any tree in paradise?” This question contained an insidious lie, which should immediately push the interlocutor away from the tempter. But she, in her innocence, was not able to immediately understand the deceit here, and, at the same time, she was too curious to immediately stop talking. However, she understood the lie of the question and answered that God allowed them to eat from all the trees, except for only one tree, which is in the middle of paradise, because from eating its fruits they could die. Then the tempter directly arouses distrust of God. “No,” he said, “you will not die; but God knows that on the day you eat them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” The insidious word sunk deep into the soul of a woman. It aroused a series of doubts and mental struggles. What is good and evil that she can recognize? And if people are blissful in their present state, then in what bliss will they be when they become like gods?.. In anxious excitement, she involuntarily turns her gaze to the forbidden tree, and it is so pleasing to the eyes, probably sweet to the taste, and especially tempting its mysterious properties. This outward impression resolved the inner struggle, and the woman “took the fruits of this tree and ate; and gave also to her husband, and he ate.” The greatest revolution in the history of mankind has taken place. Those who were supposed to be the pure source of the entire human race poisoned themselves with the fruits of death. The woman followed the snake, as if he were higher than God. At his suggestion, she did what the Creator forbade. And her husband in sin followed his wife, who from being tempted immediately became a temptress.
The consequences of eating the forbidden fruit were not slow to show themselves: their eyes were really opened, as the tempter promised, and the forbidden fruit gave them knowledge; but what did they know? - learned that they are naked. An indignant moral feeling opened before them the consciousness of their nakedness, which became a victorious sign of sensuality and the triumph of the flesh, and in order to cover it, they sewed fig leaves for themselves and made aprons out of them - this primary form of clothing. But if those who have sinned have become so ashamed even of their own inner voice of conscience, then it has become absolutely frightening for them to stand before God now. Evening came, and the coolness of its shadows spread bliss over the garden. At this time, they usually had an interview with God, which they still expected and met with innocent joy, like the children of their father. Now they wish that moment never came. Meanwhile, he approached, and they heard a familiar voice. Horror seized Adam and his wife, and they "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of paradise."
And the Lord God called to Adam: “Adam, where are you?” And the unfortunate fugitive answered with trepidation from the thicket of trees: “I heard your voice in paradise and was afraid, because I was naked, and hid.” “But who told you that you were naked? Have you not eaten from the tree from which I forbade you to eat?” The question was put directly, but the sinner was unable to answer it so directly; he gave an evasive and sly answer: "The wife that You gave me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate." He places the blame on his wife and even on God Himself. The Lord turned to his wife: “What did you do?” The wife also, in turn, deflects guilt from herself: "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." The wife told the truth, but the fact that they both tried to shield themselves from guilt was a lie. This immediately showed the pernicious influence of the father of lies, to whose seduction the first people succumbed, and this influence, like drunk poison, poisoned their entire moral and bodily nature.
Then the Lord pronounced a well-deserved punishment, and, above all, to the snake, as having served as an instrument of temptation: he was cursed before all animals and a miserable life of crawling on his womb and feeding on the dust of the earth was determined for him. The wife is condemned to be subject to her husband and to severe suffering and illness at the birth of children; and the husband is condemned to a hard life, since the earth, cursed for the deeds of man, had to become impoverished in its gifts, produce thorns and thistles, and only in exhausting sweat could he get bread for his subsistence until he returned to the land from which he was taken was. “For you are dust, and to dust you will return,” the Lord said, condemning him to bodily death. Terrible was the punishment for transgressing the commandment of God; but as a merciful Father, God did not leave His sinning children without consolation, and at the same time gave them a promise that, with a bright hope of restoring lost bliss, was to support their despondent spirit in the days of subsequent trials and tribulations of sinful life. This is precisely the promise of the seed of the woman, which was supposed to wipe out the head of the serpent, that is, to finally defeat the destroyer of the happiness of people, and restore to people the opportunity to achieve happiness and eternal life in heaven. This was the first promise of the Savior of the world, and as a sign of His coming, the sacrifice of animals (apparently now divided into two classes - clean and unclean) was established, the slaughter of which was to foreshadow the slaughter of the great Lamb for the sins of the world. Having made Adam and his wife Eve (the mother of the living, as Adam now called her) leather clothes (from animals killed for sacrifice) and taught them to dress, the Lord expelled them from paradise, “and placed in the east near the garden of Eden a cherub and a flaming sword turning, to guard the way to the tree of life," of which they have now become unworthy through their sin.
With the expulsion of people from paradise, among them, among the labors and hardships of a sinful life, the very memory of its exact location was erased over time, among different peoples we meet the most vague traditions, vaguely pointing to the East, as a place of a primitive blissful state. A more precise indication is found in the Bible, but even it is so obscure to us in the present form of the earth that it is also impossible to determine with geographical accuracy the location of Eden, in which paradise was located. Here is the biblical instruction: “And the Lord God planted paradise in Eden, in the east. A river came out of Eden to water paradise; and then divided into four rivers. The name of one Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good; there bdolakh and onyx stone. The name of the second river is Tikhon (Geon): it flows around the whole land of Kush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel (Tiger); it flows before Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates” (Genesis 2:8-14). From this description, it is first of all clear that Eden is a vast country in the east, in which paradise was located, as a smaller room designated for the habitation of the first people. Then the name of the third and fourth rivers clearly indicates that this Edenic country was in some neighborhood with Mesopotamia. But this is the limit of geographical indications that are understandable to us. The first two rivers (Pison and Tikhon) now have nothing corresponding to themselves either in geographical position or in name, and therefore they gave rise to the most arbitrary conjectures and rapprochements. Some saw in them the Ganges and the Nile, others - Phasis (Rion) and Araks, originating in the heights of Armenia, others - the Syr Darya and Amu Darya, and so on ad infinitum. But all these conjectures are of no serious importance and are based on arbitrary approximations. Further definition of the geographical position of these rivers are the lands of Havila and Cush. But the first of them is as mysterious as the river that irrigates it, and one can only guess, judging by its metal and mineral wealth, that this is some part of Arabia or India, which in ancient times served as the main sources of gold and precious stones. A somewhat more specific name for another country is Kush. This term in the Bible is usually used to refer to the countries lying south of Palestine, and "Cushites", as the descendants of Ham, from his son Cush or Cush, are found throughout the entire space from the Persian Gulf to southern Egypt. From all this we can only conclude that Eden was indeed in some neighborhood with Mesopotamia, as indicated by the traditions of all the most ancient peoples, but it is impossible to determine its exact location. Since that time, the earth's surface has undergone so many upheavals (especially during the flood) that not only the direction of the rivers could change, but their very connection with each other could break, or even the very existence of some of them could cease. As a result, science is just as blocked from accessing the exact location of Paradise, as it was blocked for sinning Adam from eating from the tree of life in it.
IV. Sons and immediate descendants of Adam. Cain and Abel. Two directions in the life of antediluvian mankind. The longevity of the patriarchs. Chronology
Deprived of their former blissful home, the first people settled east of Eden. This eastern out-of-paradise country has become the cradle of humanity. Here began the first labors of everyday harsh life, and here the first generation of "born" people appeared. “Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to a son, whom she gave the name Cain, which means: I acquired a man from the Lord.” At her first birth, Eva experienced completely new, unknown to her conditions - pregnancy and the pain of childbirth. The consequence of them was a new creature, dear to her, which delighted her, expressed in its very name, in which, obviously, the memory of the promise of God regarding the seed of the woman is expressed. But she was cruelly mistaken, assuming in her first son the beginning of deliverance from the punishment that had befallen her: in him there was only the beginning of new, still unknown to her suffering and grief. However, Eve soon realized herself that she had begun to cherish herself too early in the hope of the fulfillment of the promise, and therefore, when her second son was born, she named him Abel, which means a ghost, par.
Now the first people are not alone: a family has formed, and with it new relationships have begun to develop. With the growth of the family, needs increased, the satisfaction of which required increased labor. Already from the first days of the new situation, in which people were placed by the fall, the needs turned out to be diverse: it was necessary to get food and clothing. Accordingly, the first people also had a division of labor: the first son, Cain, began to cultivate the land to satisfy the first need - food, and the second - Abel - began to breed cattle to obtain milk, as well as wool and skins. The choice of the kind of work and occupation of the first brothers, of course, depended on the difference in their characters and inclinations. Occupations divided them even more, and between the first brothers it was not long before a rivalry appeared, ending in a terrible atrocity, such as the earth had not yet seen. “Once Cain brought a gift from the fruits of the earth to the Lord. And Abel also brought from the firstborn of his flock and from their fat. And the Lord looked upon Abel and upon his gift; but he did not regard Cain and his gift.” The reason for this, of course, must be seen not only in the quality of the gifts themselves, but especially in the internal disposition for offering them. This forever taught the lesson that the sacrifice to God must be united with the inner sacrifice of a good heart and a virtuous life. Meanwhile, if Abel brought his sacrifice with faith, confirmed by a good life, then, on the contrary, Cain brought it obviously without inner participation, since in life “his deeds were evil” (1 Jn 3:12). Seeing the preference shown to his brother, and seeing in him a clear denunciation of his "evil deeds", Cain was greatly upset, and his darkened face drooped. It has sinister features. But conscience (that voice of God within man) spoke in Cain: “Why were you upset, and why did your face droop? If you do good, do you not raise your face? And if you do not do good, then sin lies at the door; he draws you to him, but you rule over him. Cain, however, disobeyed the warning and opened the door of his heart to sin. Calling his gullible brother into the field, he killed him, committing a crime never seen before by the earth. The terrible atrocity, which for the first time brought destruction and death into the order of nature, could not go unpunished. "Where is Abel, your brother?" the Lord asked Cain. “I don’t know: am I my brother’s keeper?” - answered the murderer, showing with such an answer what a terrible step forward evil had taken since the fall of the ancestors. This audacity, this shameless denial did not allow for the possibility of further testing, and the Lord directly addressed the murderer with the definition of punishment. "What did you do? the voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the land, it will no longer give its strength to you; you will be an exile and a wanderer on the earth.” The blood-stained land, by virtue of this definition, was to lose its former fertility, so that Cain could no longer remain in the same place. The curse caused by original sin also fell on the earth and only indirectly on man; now, when sin has reached murder, the curse falls on the murderer himself, but not an unconditional curse, but a curse of exile, by virtue of which the earth, as a performer of the will of God, without giving its fruits to Cain, had to force him to withdraw from the primitive cradle humanity. In view of the severity of the punishment imposed, Cain's stubbornness broke down and turned into cowardice and despair. “My punishment,” he exclaimed, “is greater than can be endured. Let whoever meets me kill me." But this desire of Cain, caused by his despair, was criminal and therefore could not be fulfilled. As a punished murderer, he was to serve as a cautionary example to others. Therefore, anyone who would decide to kill Cain should have taken revenge in seven ways. His drooping face, distorted by villainy, was supposed to serve as a sign so that no one, meeting with him, would kill him - whether it would be wild animal or one of his brothers.
And Cain went to wander the earth, and finally settled in the land of Nod, further east of Eden. It is difficult to determine the exact position of this country. Some researchers point to Northern India, China, etc. In any case, this is a land remote from the primary settlement of people, a country of "exile", as its very name shows. But Cain did not go there alone. No matter how great was his crime and insult to purity and holiness brotherly love, from among the brothers, sisters and subsequent generations that multiplied during this time, there were people who decided to follow Cain to the country of exile, so he settled there with his wife. Here he had a son, whom he named Enoch. Removed from the rest of human society, left to his own fate, Cain, by nature stern and stubborn, now had to fight with nature and the external conditions of life with even greater persistence. And he really devoted himself entirely to hard work to ensure his existence and was the first person who built the city as the beginning of a settled life. The city was named after his son Enoch. Some researchers object that it is unthinkable to allow the construction of a city in such early time. But before this event, several centuries could have passed from the origin of man, during which people could come to the idea of best means to protect its existence from external enemies. Moreover, under the name "city", of course, one cannot understand the city in its proper present sense, but simply a fence erected to protect the dwelling that was among it.
The generation of Cain began to multiply rapidly, and at the same time, the struggle against nature (culture) begun by his ancestor continued. From among him came people who, having inherited from Cain a stubborn will in the struggle against nature, continued tirelessly to seek new means for the most successful conduct of it. Particularly remarkable in this respect is the family of Lamech, the sixth in Cain's generation in a straight line from him.
Lamech himself is remarkable in the history of mankind in that he was the first to violate the natural, established at the beginning, order of marriage relations and introduced polygamy, which later became the source of a terrible violation of the human dignity of women, especially in the East. Obeying his passionate nature, he took two wives for himself - Ada and Zilla. From them sons were born, who were the inventors of the first crafts and arts. From Ada, Jabal was born. He was the first to invent tents and with them began to lead a completely nomadic life, moving tents and driving herds from one place to another.
AST Publishing House LLC, 2017
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Period one. From the Creation of the World to the Flood
I. Creation of the world
The world, considered in its external beauty and internal harmony, is a marvelous creation, amazing by the harmony of its parts and the wonderful variety of its forms. In all its immensity, it moves correctly like a majestic clock wound by a great and skillful master. And just as when looking at a watch, the thought of the master who made and started it involuntarily appears, so when considering the world in its correct and harmonious movement, the mind involuntarily comes to the thought of that Culprit to whom it owes its existence and wondrous dispensation. That the world is not eternal and has its own beginning is clearly proved, first of all, by the common belief of the peoples, among whom the most ancient tradition about the beginning of all things is preserved. Then, a study of the course of the historical life of mankind, especially of its most ancient peoples, shows that historical life itself has a very limited extent and soon passes into the prehistoric era, which constitutes the childhood of the human race, which in turn necessarily presupposes birth or beginning. The course of development of the sciences and arts also points to the same, which again leads us to the primitive state when they only began. Finally, the latest sciences (geology and paleontology), through the study of the layers of the earth's crust and the remains contained in them, irrefutably and clearly prove that the globe gradually formed in its surface, and there was a time when there was absolutely no life on it, and he himself was in a formless state. Thus, the beginning of the world is undoubted, even if in the form of a formless, primitive substance, from which all its forms gradually formed. But where did this primitive substance itself come from? This question has long occupied human thought, but it was powerless to resolve it without higher help, and in the pagan world the greatest sages and founders of religions were unable to rise above the idea that this primitive substance existed from eternity, and from it God created something. or arranged the world, being thus only the creator or organizer of the world, but not in the proper sense its Creator. Then the Divine Revelation, contained in the books of Holy Scripture, appeared to the aid of the human mind, and it simply and clearly proclaimed the great mystery of being, to comprehend which the sages of all times and peoples vainly tried to comprehend. This mystery is revealed on the first page of the book of Genesis, which begins the Biblical history of the world and mankind.
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” says the writer of Genesis, St. prophet Moses. These few words express the immensely deep truth that everything that exists in heaven and on earth, and therefore also primitive matter, has its beginning, and everything was created by God, who alone is eternal and existed in pre-temporal existence, and, moreover, was created from nothing, as the very verb "bar" used to express the word "created" means.
God is the only Creator of the universe, and without Him nothing could have happened.
Approving this idea, the chronicler thereby rejected all other ways of explaining the origin of the world, i.e., that the world could not have come about either by chance, or from spontaneous generation, or from the struggle of good and evil principles (as the pagan sages taught, and after them the newest wisdom), but only from the free decision of the will of the almighty God, who deigned from non-existence to call the world to temporary existence. This decision arose solely from the love and goodness of the Creator, with the aim of giving the creature the opportunity to enjoy these greatest properties of His being. And so “He,” in the words of the inspired psalmist, “said and it happened; he commanded and it appeared” everything (Ps 32:9). His instrument in creation was His Word (“said and it was done”), which is the original Word, the Son of God, through whom “everything was made, and without Him nothing was made that was” (Jn 1:3). Since the second verse separately speaks of the participation of the Spirit of God in the work of creation, it is clear that God acted in the creation of the world as an eternal Trinity.
Having discovered the secret of the origin of the world as a whole and its two constituent parts - heaven and earth, the chronicler proceeds to describe the formation of the world in its present form, in all the variety of its visible forms, and since the chronicle of being was intended to instruct the inhabitants of the earth, then the main attention it refers specifically to the history of the formation of the earth, so that in the second verse there is no longer any mention of the sky. In its primitive state, “the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the abyss; and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” It was a newly created formless substance - a chaos in which the blind forces of matter roamed, waiting for the creative word of the Creator, and over this wandering abyss there was darkness, and only the creative Spirit of God hovered over the water, as if fertilizing the germs and seeds of life that had to arise on the ground. Revelation says nothing about the duration of such a chaotic state. Only from a certain moment did the creative and educational activity of the Creator begin, and it took place in six successive periods of time, called the days of creation.
When it was time to begin creative activity, the word of God thundered over the dark formless substance: “Let there be light! and there was light. Over the abyss of chaos, the beautiful day of God instantly dawned and illuminated the gloomy womb of pre-temporal darkness. “And God saw the light that it was good”; and “God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness night. And there was evening and there was morning: one day.
With the appearance of light, the fermentation of forces in the bubbling substance of chaos intensified. Huge masses of vapors rose above the surface of the earthly body and enveloped it in impenetrable clouds and darkness, so that any line separating it from other celestial bodies was lost. “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the water from the water; (and so it was). And God created the firmament; and he separated the water that was under the firmament from the water that was above the firmament; and so it was." The lower layers of vapors turned into water and settled on the surface of the still bubbling abyss, while the upper layers evaporated into an immense region of heavenly space, and that beautiful blue sky that we see now opened up above the earth. It was the second day.
Above the earthly body there was an atmosphere already cleansed of vapors, but the earth itself was still a continuous sea. Then “God said: let the waters that are under the sky be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear; and so it was." The condensed and gradually cooled substance rose in some places, descended in others; elevated places were exposed from the water, became dry land, and the depressions and depressions were filled with water merging into them and formed the seas. "And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters he called the sea: and God saw that it was good." But no matter how good this distribution of sea and land was, the earth did not yet possess what was the purpose of its creation: there was still no life on it, and only bare, dead rocks looked gloomily at the receptacles of the waters.
But now, when the distribution of water and land was completed, and the necessary conditions for life were formed, the first beginnings of it did not take long to appear - in the form of vegetation. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, grass yielding seed (after its kind and likeness), and a fruitful tree yielding fruit after its kind, in which is its seed on the earth, and it was so.” “And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning: the third day.
But vegetation, in order to vegetate, needs a proper change of light and darkness. “And God said: let there be lights in the firmament of heaven (to illuminate the earth), to separate the day from the night, and for signs and times, and days and years, and let them be lamps in the firmament of heaven to shine on the earth: and it became So". By the word of the Creator, the solar and stellar system was finally established as it exists now. The sun blazed with its mighty, life-giving light and illumined the planets surrounding it; the vault of heaven was adorned with myriads of stars, and their bewitching brilliance aroused the delight of the angels of heaven, who in unison praised the Creator (Job 38:7). “And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning: the fourth day.
The sky was already adorned with luminaries, gigantic vegetation was developing on the earth; but there were no living creatures on earth who could enjoy the gifts of nature. For their existence there were not yet the proper conditions, since the air was saturated with harmful vapors, which could only contribute to the vegetable kingdom. But here the gigantic vegetation cleared the atmosphere, and conditions were prepared for the development of animal life. “And God said, Let the water bring forth reptiles, I have a living life; and let the birds fly over the earth, in the firmament of heaven.
By virtue of this divine command, a new creative act took place, not just educational, as in previous days, but in the full sense of the word, creative, which was the first act of creating primitive matter - from nothing.
Here a living soul was created, something was introduced that was not in the existing primitive substance. And indeed, the writer of everyday life here uses the verb “bara” for the second time – to create from nothing. “And God created great fish, and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth, after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God blessed them, saying: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth. And there was evening and there was morning: the fifth day.
Water and air were filled with life, but the third part of the earth remained deserted - dry land, that is, which is the most convenient for the life of living beings. But now the time has come for her settlement. “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so. And God created the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing on the earth after its kind." All these animals were formed from the earth, from where they still extract their nutrients and into which they turn again when they decompose. "And God saw that it was good." Thus, the earth has already been inhabited in all its parts by living beings. The world of living beings was a slender tree, the root of which consisted of protozoa, and the upper branches of higher animals. But this tree was incomplete, there was not yet a flower that would complete and decorate its top. There was no man yet - the king of nature. But then he came too. “And God said: let us make man in our image (and) in our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them. Here, for the third time, a creative act (bara) took place in the full sense, since man again has something in his being that was not in the nature created before him, namely the spirit that distinguishes him from all other living beings.
Thus ended the history of creation and the formation of the world. “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning: the sixth day. “And God finished His works on the seventh day, and rested on the seventh day from all His works, which He did and created. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.” From this originates the establishment of the Sabbath as a day of rest, and on this establishment the correct change of work and rest in human life is still based.
II. Creation of the first people and their blissful life in paradise
Man, as the crown of creation, was created on the special advice of the Creator, and he alone was created in the image and likeness of God. His body, like the bodies of all animals, is formed from the earth; but its spiritual part is the direct inspiration of the Creator.
“And the Lord God formed man (Adam) from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” The image and likeness of God in man therefore consists in his spiritual sonship with God, in the striving for mental and moral perfection, which gives him the opportunity to dominate nature. As the king of creation, he is introduced into a special garden or paradise planted for him in Eden in the east, all creatures are brought under his control, and he becomes the ruler of the earth.
But man, as a rational and spiritual being, would not be a worthy representative of the Deity on earth if he lived in solitude or in communion only with beings either higher than him, like angels, or lower, like animals. It was necessary for him not only for pleasure and happiness, but even more so for the perfection of the divine work, to have an assistant in himself, capable of perception and mutual communication of thoughts and feelings.
Meanwhile, among the already created living beings, “for man, there was no helper like him.” “And the Lord God said, It is not good for a man to be alone; Let us make him a helper fit for him.”
And so a wife is created, and, moreover, from the rib of the man himself, taken from him during deep sleep.
As soon as a woman was created, a man immediately understood in this deed of the Creator the desire of happiness for the social life of a person and prophetically pronounced a provision that became the law of marriage for all subsequent centuries: “this is the bone of my bones, and the flesh of my flesh, it will be called wife, for she was taken from her husband. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and cling to his wife; and the two will be one flesh.”
From these words, as well as from the circumstances of the very creation of the wife, it naturally follows that husband and wife are a unity consummated in marriage, that marriage should consist of the union of one man with one woman, and that the wife should be subject to the husband as his assistant, created for him.
"And God blessed them and said: be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over all creatures."
And so the first people, in the bliss of their innocence, lived in paradise, enjoying all its fruits and enjoying all its joys. They were provided with all the blessings of a perfect and innocent life.
In material terms, they were surrounded by an abundance of the richest gifts of paradise nature, along with the fruits of trees, which had a particularly wonderful value for their bodily strength and vitality, giving them immortality.
Their spiritual needs found their fullest satisfaction in a direct conversation with God, who appeared “in paradise during the cool of the day”, as well as in finding the best ways to dominate and control nature subject to them, for which Adam named the animals, and also, of course, to all other objects, thus establishing language as a means of distinguishing objects and of social intercourse. But their highest perfection consisted in moral innocence, which consisted in the absence of the very thought of anything unclean and sinful. "And they were both naked, Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed."
III. The Fall and its consequences. Paradise location
The stay of the first people in paradise was their stay in direct communion with God, which was the first and most perfect religion of the human race. The outward expression of this religion was the church, as the assembly of the first two believers. But since the church, as an external institution, presupposes certain institutions and conditions on which the assembly is founded, the primitive church was founded on a special covenant between God and man. This covenant consisted in the fact that man should love God and his neighbors and show perfect obedience to the Creator in all His commands, and God, for his part, promised man the continuation of his blissful state, safety from death as a painful destruction of the body, and, finally, eternal life. In order to provide a person with the opportunity to testify to his obedience and strengthen his faith, God gave him a commandment that could serve as a test for him, as a means of strengthening that free moral self-determination, in which lies the highest good of life. The commandment was to forbid eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. “And the Lord God commanded the man, and said, From every tree in the garden you shall eat; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, do not eat from it; for on the day you eat of it, you will die the death.” Having given man complete freedom, the Creator, however, by this commandment wanted to show him that, as a limited being, he must live under the law and that a terrible punishment will follow for breaking the law.
Revelation does not say how long the blessed stay of the first people in paradise was. But this state already aroused the malicious hatred of the enemy, who, having lost it himself, looked with hatred at the innocent bliss of the first people. When the world of universal bliss still dominated the earth and it did not know evil, the world in its highest regions was already familiar with evil, and there was a struggle with it. Among the highest created beings or angels, endowed with the highest gifts of reason and freedom, some have already violated the commandment of obedience to the Creator, were proud of their perfection (1 Tim 3:6) and did not retain their dignity (Jude 6), for which they were cast out of the heavenly paradise to the underworld. Envy and thirst for evil became the soul of these creatures. Every good, every peace, order, innocence, obedience became hateful to them, and they tried to destroy them even among people who enjoyed the bliss of heavenly life on earth. And then the tempter appeared in paradise - in the form of a snake, which "was more cunning than all the animals of the field." At the same time, he used a crafty cunning, directing the temptation not to both people and not to the husband, but to one wife, as the weakest member, rather amenable to passion.
The serpent approached the wife and said to her: “Did God truly say, do not eat from any tree in paradise?” This question contained an insidious lie, which should immediately push the interlocutor away from the tempter. But she, in her innocence, was not able to immediately understand the deceit here, and, at the same time, she was too curious to immediately stop talking. However, she understood the lie of the question and answered that God allowed them to eat from all the trees, except for only one tree, which is in the middle of paradise, because from eating its fruits they could die. Then the tempter directly arouses distrust of God. “No,” he said, “you will not die; but God knows that on the day you eat them, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” The insidious word sunk deep into the soul of a woman. It aroused a series of doubts and mental struggles. What is good and evil that she can recognize? And if people are blissful in their present state, then in what bliss will they be when they become like gods?.. In anxious excitement, she involuntarily turns her gaze to the forbidden tree, and it is so pleasing to the eyes, probably sweet to the taste, and especially tempting its mysterious properties. This outward impression resolved the inner struggle, and the woman “took the fruits of this tree and ate; and gave also to her husband, and he ate.” The greatest revolution in the history of mankind has taken place. Those who were supposed to be the pure source of the entire human race poisoned themselves with the fruits of death. The woman followed the snake, as if he were higher than God. At his suggestion, she did what the Creator forbade. And her husband in sin followed his wife, who from being tempted immediately became a temptress.
The consequences of eating the forbidden fruit were not slow to show themselves: their eyes were really opened, as the tempter promised, and the forbidden fruit gave them knowledge; but what did they know? - learned that they are naked. An indignant moral feeling opened before them the consciousness of their nakedness, which became a victorious sign of sensuality and the triumph of the flesh, and in order to cover it, they sewed fig leaves for themselves and made aprons out of them - this primary form of clothing. But if those who have sinned have become so ashamed even of their own inner voice of conscience, then it has become absolutely frightening for them to stand before God now. Evening came, and the coolness of its shadows spread bliss over the garden. At this time, they usually had an interview with God, which they still expected and met with innocent joy, like the children of their father. Now they wish that moment never came. Meanwhile, he approached, and they heard a familiar voice. Horror seized Adam and his wife, and they "hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of paradise."
And the Lord God called to Adam: “Adam, where are you?” And the unfortunate fugitive answered with trepidation from the thicket of trees: “I heard your voice in paradise and was afraid, because I was naked, and hid.” “But who told you that you were naked? Have you not eaten from the tree from which I forbade you to eat?” The question was put directly, but the sinner was unable to answer it so directly; he gave an evasive and sly answer: "The wife that You gave me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate." He places the blame on his wife and even on God Himself. The Lord turned to his wife: “What did you do?” The wife also, in turn, deflects guilt from herself: "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." The wife told the truth, but the fact that they both tried to shield themselves from guilt was a lie. This immediately showed the pernicious influence of the father of lies, to whose seduction the first people succumbed, and this influence, like drunk poison, poisoned their entire moral and bodily nature.
Then the Lord pronounced a well-deserved punishment, and, above all, to the snake, as having served as an instrument of temptation: he was cursed before all animals and a miserable life of crawling on his womb and feeding on the dust of the earth was determined for him. The wife is condemned to be subject to her husband and to severe suffering and illness at the birth of children; and the husband is condemned to a hard life, since the earth, cursed for the deeds of man, had to become impoverished in its gifts, produce thorns and thistles, and only in exhausting sweat could he get bread for his subsistence until he returned to the land from which he was taken was. “For you are dust, and to dust you will return,” the Lord said, condemning him to bodily death. Terrible was the punishment for transgressing the commandment of God; but as a merciful Father, God did not leave His sinning children without consolation, and at the same time gave them a promise that, with a bright hope of restoring lost bliss, was to support their despondent spirit in the days of subsequent trials and tribulations of sinful life. This is precisely the promise of the seed of the woman, which was supposed to wipe out the head of the serpent, that is, to finally defeat the destroyer of the happiness of people, and restore to people the opportunity to achieve happiness and eternal life in heaven. This was the first promise of the Savior of the world, and as a sign of His coming, the sacrifice of animals (apparently now divided into two classes - clean and unclean) was established, the slaughter of which was to foreshadow the slaughter of the great Lamb for the sins of the world. Having made Adam and his wife Eve (the mother of the living, as Adam now called her) leather clothes (from animals killed for sacrifice) and taught them to dress, the Lord expelled them from paradise, “and placed in the east near the garden of Eden a cherub and a flaming sword turning, to guard the way to the tree of life," of which they have now become unworthy through their sin.
Sacred Bible history should take first place among historical sciences, since it is a story about the thousand-year relationship between the infinite God and man created by Him. This is a chronicle of how humanity accumulated the invaluable experience of Divine Revelation and God-knowledge.
The joyful and tragic events that took place about two thousand years ago in Jerusalem and its environs forever changed the course of world history. On the very outskirts of the Roman Empire, the Son of God appeared to ordinary fishermen and tax collectors and revealed to them the truth, the light of which transformed the world.
In the first and second volumes of the "Bible History" included studies on Old Testament events. The books are prepared on the basis of the classic work of the outstanding Russian biblical scholar, writer and theologian Alexander Pavlovich Lopukhin.
“The events captured on the pages of the Bible not only have the value of important historical evidence, but also carry a huge religious meaning, comprehending which we gain the ability to properly build our relationship with God and our neighbors.”
“To read the Bible correctly means to be able to distinguish between the divine and the human in it. All attacks on the Bible, be they atheistic or so-called historical-critical, were based on the fact that people did not know how to read the Bible, confusing the human, changeable and fallible factor with the Divine presence, which is beyond any human criticism.
Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' KIRILL
BOOK 1. OLD TESTAMENT.
Preface to the first edition of the book by A. P. Lopukhin
"A GUIDE TO THE BIBLICAL HISTORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT"
PERIOD ONE
From Creation to the Flood
I. Creation of the world
II. Creation of the first people and their blissful life in paradise
III. The Fall and Its Consequences, Location of Paradise
IV. Sons and immediate descendants of Adam. Cain and Abel. Two directions in the life of antediluvian mankind. The longevity of the patriarchs. Chronology
PERIOD TWO
From the Flood to Abraham
V. The Flood
VI. Descendants of Noah. Genealogy of peoples. The Babylonian Pandemonium and the Scattering of the Nations. Beginning of idolatry
PERIOD THREE
From the election of Abraham to the death of Joseph, the conclusion of the patriarchal era
VII. Abraham's choice. His migration to the land of Canaan and his life in this country. God's covenant with Abraham and the promise of a son
VIII. Epiphany at the Oak of Mamri. The destruction of cities in the valley of Siddim. The ultimate test of Abraham's faith and last days his life
IX. Isaac and his sons
X. Jacob
XI. Joseph
XII. Domestic and external state chosen lineage during the patriarchal era. Worship and rituals. Morals and lifestyle. Board, industry and education
XIII. True religion is outside the chosen race. Job. The religious state of the pagan peoples. Chronology
PERIOD FOUR
From the death of Joseph to the death of Moses
XIV. Israelis in Egypt
XV. Moses, his upbringing in Egypt and his stay in the land of Midian. His call at Mount Horeb
XVI. Intercession before the Pharaoh and Egyptian executions. Preparing for the Exodus. Easter
XVII. Exodus from Egypt. Crossing the Red Sea
XVIII. The Israelites Wandering in the Desert to Sinai
XIX. History of the gift of the Sinai legislation. Golden Taurus. Tabernacle. Priesthood. numbering of the people
XX. The events of 38 years of wandering in the desert. Conquest of the East Jordanian country. The last orders and exhortations of Moses; his prophetic blessing of the people and demise
XXI. Law of Moses. Theocracy. Tabernacle and related institutions
XXII. Decrees of Mosaic legislation regarding civil life. Education. God inspired books. Chronology
PERIOD FIVE
From the Conquest of the Promised Land to the Establishment of Kingship
XXIII. Promised land. Its external position and nature. Population, its language, religion and civil status
XXIV. Joshua, the conquest of the Promised Land and its division. Religious Animation of the Israeli People
Judges times
XXV. The deviations of the Israelites into idolatry and their conversion to God during the disasters that befell them. Deborah and Barak
XXVI. Gideon and Jephthah
XXVII. Samson
XXVIII. The Religious and Moral State of the Israelites in the Time of the Judges. . History of Ruth
XXIX. Eli - High Priest and Judge
XXX. Samuel is a prophet and judge. School of the Prophets. Education. Chronology
PERIOD SIX
From the anointing of the king to the division of the Jewish kingdom
XXXI. Saul's anointing for kingship. first years of his reign. Rejection of Saul and anointing of David
XXXII. Saul and David. The defeat of Goliath and the rise of David at court. Persecution on him. Saul's demise
XXXIII. Reign of David. Conquest of Jerusalem. Transfer of the Ark of the Covenant, victorious wars and the idea of building a temple
XXXIV. Continuation of the reign of David. His power and fall. Absalom and his rebellion
XXXV. Last years reign of David. Numbering the people and punishment. David's final orders and death
XXXVI. The reign of Solomon. The wisdom of the young king, his greatness and power. Construction and consecration of the temple
XXXVII. Solomon at the height of his glory. Queen of Sheba. Solomon's fall and death
XXXVIII. The internal state of the Israelite people in the time of the kings. Religion and worship. Enlightenment and inspired books. Chronology
PERIOD SEVENTH
From the division of the kingdom to the destruction of Solomon's temple by the Babylonians
XXXIX. The division of the kingdom. Its causes and significance. Jeroboam and the religious schism he caused
XL. Weakness and wickedness of Rehoboamai Abijah, the kings of Judah, and the pious reign of Asa and Jehoshaphat
XLI. The kings of Israel Ahab and Ahaziah, the complete establishment of idolatry under them in the kingdom of Israel. Prophet Elijah. The Harmful Consequences of Jehoshaphat's Alliance with the Kings of Israel
XLII. Ahab's successors. Prophet Elisha. Naaman the Syrian. The destruction of the house of Ahab
XLIII. King of Israel Jehu and his successors. Prophet Jonah. The fall of the kingdom of Israel and the dispersion of the ten tribes. Righteous Tobit
XLIV. The kings of the Jews, Jehoash, Ahaz, Hezekiah and Manasseh. Prophet Isaiah. The reforming work of King Josiah
XLV. Fall of the Kingdom of Judah. Prophet Jeremiah. The death of Jerusalem. Captivity of Babylon
XLVI. The internal state of the chosen people in the VII period. condition of the surrounding nations. Chronology
PERIOD EIGHT
The time of the Babylonian captivity
XLVII. External and religious state of the Jews. Prophetic activity of Ezekiel. Prophet Daniel
XLVIII. Fall of Babylon. The position of the Jews under Cyrus. Manifesto for the release of prisoners. Chronology
PERIOD NINE
State of the Old Testament Church from Ezra to the Nativity of Christ
XLIX. The return of the Jews from captivity. Creation of the second temple. Activities of Ezra and Nehemiah. The Last Prophets. The fate of the Jews who remained within the kingdom of Persia: the story of Esther and Mordecai
L. The state of the Jews under Greek rule. The time of the Maccabees and their deeds for the church and the state. Jews under Roman rule. Reign of Herod
L.I. Religious and moral state of the Jews upon their return from captivity. Sects. Worship. Governing body. Chronology
LII. Jews of the dispersion. The state of the pagan world. Common expectation of the Savior
APPS
I. Days of Creation
II. Bible chronology
III. Flood legends
IV. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
V. Hungry years in Egypt
VI. Camps in the desert
VII. Manna
VIII. Balaam
IX. Solstice under Joshua
X. Biblical time reckoning
XI. Bible scales and money
XII. Measures of length
XIII. Measures of loose and liquid bodies
XIV. Synchronistic table major events from the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt
BOOK 2 THE NEW TESTAMENT
DEPARTMENT ONE
Incarnation of God the Word. Nativity, infancy and adolescence of Jesus Christ
I. The eternal word. Righteous Zechariah and Elizabeth. Annunciation of St. Virgin Mary. Birth of John the Baptist
II. Nativity. Circumcision of the Lord. Meeting of the Lord Jesus in the temple. Adoration of the Magi. Escape of St. Families in Egypt and return to Nazareth
III. Life of St. Families in Nazareth. Twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem. The rise of Jesus
SECTION TWO
The Entry of the Lord Jesus Christ into the Work of Open Service for the Salvation of the Human Race
IV. Sermon of John the Baptist in the desert. Baptism of Jesus Christ. Removing him into the wilderness and temptation from the devil
V. Testimony of John the Baptist about himself and about Jesus Christ. The first followers of Jesus Christ. The first miracle of Christ at a marriage in the city of Cana
DEPARTMENT THREE
The Works and Teachings of Jesus Christ from the First to the Second Passover
VI. In Judea. The expulsion of merchants from the temple. Conversation between Jesus Christ and Nicodemus. The last testimony of John the Baptist about Jesus Christ
VII. Sojourn of Jesus Christ in Samaria. His conversation with the Samaritan woman
VIII. In Galilee. Healing of the son of a courtier by Christ. Sermon at the Nazareth Synagogue
IX. Wonderful fishing on the Galilee lake. Healing of the possessed and paralyzed and many others in Capernaum. The call to the apostleship of the publican Matthew
DEPARTMENT FOUR
The Works and Teachings of Jesus Christ from the Second to the Third Easter
X. In Jerusalem. Healing the paralytic at the sheep's pool. Clashes with the Pharisees over the plucking of grain by the disciples on the Sabbath. Dry Hand Healing
XI. Service in Galilee and around the Lake of Galilee. Choice of the twelve apostles. The Sermon on the Mount and the Essence of New Testament Legislation
XII. Healing of a leper and centurion's servant. Resurrection of the son of the Nain widow. Embassy of John the Baptist. Forgiveness of a sinner in the house of Simon the Pharisee
XIII. A new way of teaching - parables. Parables about the sower, about the mustard seed, about the wheat and the tares. Taming the storm on the lake. Healing of the possessed Gadara
XIV. Healing of a woman suffering from bleeding, and resurrection of the daughter of Jairus. Departure of the twelve apostles to preach. Martyrdom of John the Baptist
XV. The return of the disciples from the sermon. The miraculous feeding of five thousand people with five loaves. Walking of Christ on the waters and his conversation in the Capernaum synagogue about the sacrament of communion
DEPARTMENT FIVE
The deeds and teachings of Jesus Christ from the third Easter until his solemn entry into Jerusalem
XVI. Conversation of Jesus Christ about the meaning of fatherly traditions. Healing of the possessed daughter of the Canaanite. Miracles in the Transjordan Region
XVII. Confession of App. Peter and the prediction of the Lord Jesus about the suffering and death awaiting him in Jerusalem. Transfiguration
XVIII. Healing of a demon-possessed, deaf-mute youth. Miraculous receipt of a coin to pay tribute to the temple. The teaching of Jesus Christ about the judgment of the Church and the forgiveness of offenses. The Parable of the Merciful King and the Merciless Creditor
XIX. On the way from Galilee to Jerusalem. Inhospitality of the Samaritans. Embassy of the Seventy. Parable of the Good Samaritan. Visit of Martha and Mary. Lord's Prayer
XX. In Jerusalem. Sermon of Jesus Christ at mid-afternoon and the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. Healing the Blind
XXI. In Galilee and on the way to Jerusalem by the country beyond the Jordan. Parables and miracles
XXII. In Jerusalem. Testimony of Jesus Christ on the feast of the renovation of the temple about his consubstantiality with God the Father
XXIII. In the Jordanian country. Blessing of children. Rich young man. The Parable of Equal Wage to Workers in the Vineyard. The news of the illness of Lazarus and the departure of Christ to Judea
XXIV. In Judea. Resurrection of Lazarus. Determination of the Sanhedrin against Jesus Christ. The foreshadowing of death on the cross. Salome's request. The Healing of the Blind in Jericho and the Conversion of Zacchaeus. Anointing the Feet of Jesus Christ with Myrrh at the Supper in Bethany
DEPARTMENT SIX
The Last Days of the Earthly Life of the Lord Jesus Christ
XXV. The Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem and the deeds, parables and conversations that followed it. Answers to the crafty interrogation of the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes
XXVI. The last denunciation by Jesus Christ of the scribes and Pharisees. Praise to the diligence of the widow. Conversation with the disciples about the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, about the end of the world and the second coming. Parables of ten virgins and talents. Doomsday Image
XXVII. Determination of the Sanhedrin on the capture of Christ by cunning; betrayal of Judas. foot washing, last supper and farewell conversation with students. Prayer of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane and its capture by soldiers
XXVIII. The trial of Christ at the high priests Anna and Caiaphas. Peter's denial and repentance. Jesus Christ at the trial of Pilate and Herod; scourging him and condemning him to death by Pilate. The death of Judas, as well as other perpetrators of the crime
XXIX. Crucifixion, suffering on the cross, death and burial of Jesus Christ
XXX. Resurrection of Christ. Apparitions of the Risen Christ. Ascension to heaven
SECTION SEVEN
Church in Palestine before the scattering of Christians from Jerusalem
XXXI. Election of Matthias as an apostle. Pentecost and the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles. The First Converts and the State of the Primate Church
XXXII. Healing of the lame in the temple. A warning from the Sanhedrin. Communication of estates. Ananias and Sapphira. Persecution. The Seven Deacons and Their Zeal for the Propagation of the Gospel
XXXIII. Archdeacon Stephen, his sermon and martyrdom. The persecution of the disciples and their scattering from Jerusalem. Spreading the Gospel. Philip preaching in Samaria. Simon the sorcerer. Conversion of an Ethiopian eunuch. The state of the church towards the end of the reign of Tiberius
DIVISION EIGHTH
The Church among the Gentiles from the Conversion of Saul to His Martyrdom in Rome
XXXIV. Conversion of Saul. Initiation of him to the face of the apostles and a special purpose
XXXV. Appeal of Cornelius ap. Peter. Preaching to the Gentiles at Antioch and the First Gentile Church. Persecution in Jerusalem and martyrdom of St. Jacob
XXXVI. Arrival of Saul in Antioch. Help for Jerusalem Christians. Departure of Barnabas and Saul to preach to the Gentiles. The first missionary journey Paul. Cathedral of Jerusalem
XXXVII. The second missionary journey of St. Paul. The Beginning of the Gospel in Europe
XXXVIII. Ap. Paul in Athens. His speech is in the Areopagus. Life and preaching in Corinth. First messages
XXXIX. Third missionary journey Paul. Stay in Ephesus. Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians. Revolt in Ephesus
XL. On the way to Macedonia. Second Epistle to the Corinthians. In Corinth. Epistle to the Romans. State of the Roman Church
XLI. On the way to Jerusalem. Sunday Liturgy in Troas. Conversation in Miletus with Ephesian presbyters. In Tire and Caesarea
XLII. Ap. Paul in Jerusalem. Riot in the temple. The arrest of the apostle and his departure to Caesarea. Felix and his trial
XLIII. Proceedings of the case Paul before Festus. Ap. Paul and Agrippa II. Appeal to Caesar. Journey to Rome and shipwreck
XLIV. Ap. Paul in Rome. Biennial bonds. Epistles written from Rome to the Philippino, Colossian, Ephesian, and Philemon. Deliverance of the Apostle and the Epistle to the Hebrews
XLV. App activity. Paul upon his release from his first bonds. Visit to the East. Pastoral Epistles to Timothy and Titus. Travel to Spain. New Arrest in Ephesus, Second Bonds in Rome, and Martyrdom
DEPARTMENT NINE
End of the Apostolic Age
XLVI. Apostolic activity and martyrdom of St. Peter. Cathedral epistles. Peter. Activities of the Other Apostles
XLVII. Revolt of the Jews and destruction of Jerusalem. The significance of this event in the history of the church
XLVIII. Removal of Christians from Jerusalem before the siege of it. Ap. John, his life and work
XLIX. Holy books New Testament. Historical, educational and apocalypse books
L. The Primate Church and Its Institutions. Worship of the First Christians
L.I. Life of the First Christians. Purity and holiness family life. The position of women and children. Slaves and gentlemen. Love for neighbor
LII. The struggle of paganism with Christianity and the triumph of the church
APPS
Additional Notes on Selected Issues in the Biblical History of the New Testament
I. civil history Jews from the birth of Christ to the destruction of Jerusalem
II. Year of the birth of Christ
III. Prefect Quirinius and the census of the Jewish people
IV. Publicans
V. The death of Judas the traitor
VI. New Testament measures of length
VII. New Testament money
VIII. Table of sequential New Testament history according to the Four Gospels
IX. Chronology of the most important events of the New Testament history
Book parameters: Bible story. Professor Alexander Pavlovich Lopukhin.
Books size: 14.5 cm x 22 cm x 7.0 cm
Number of pages: 1086
Cover: hard
Paper: offset
Font: Russian
Book weight: 1200 gr.
Year of publication: 2015
Circulation: 5000
Publisher: BMM Moscow
ISBN: 978-88353-682-2
We suggest you buy the book: Biblical history of Professor Alexander Pavlovich Lopukhin in the Orthodox online store Psalom.ru
