I want to know it all!
Thank you for all the work you do in helping us folks understand God’s word. I would like some help in understanding the whole of the Old Testament and would be most interested in a book or course from you, Rabbi Lapin, that does that.
However, I’m confused by the books and courses that you do offer because they don’t seem to cover the whole of the Old Testament. Scrolling through Scripture only seems to cover a part of Genesis.
Where can I get material from you that will help me understand the whole of the Old Testament as it was understood from the Hebrew? Is there a Scrolling through Scripture type course that covers the whole of the Old Testament?
Many thanks,
Julia R.
Dear Julia,
Where do we start? I guess, by thanking you for asking the question. We know that for every question that is asked, many more people remain silent though they are equally confused.
When we were homeschooling our children, we took care to differentiate between different types of goals as well as between goals and the vehicles used to reach those goals. For example, when learning our state’s history, our mini-goal was that our children should know something about the state in which we lived. The larger goal was honing their research skills, and the maxi goal was sparking interest and curiosity in the world around them with an understanding that what happened in the past is important to know. State history was the vehicle for teaching larger skills, but had we chosen to spend time learning about another country or a different state, we would have still reached our major goal. Since state history was mostly a vehicle for encouraging learning and providing skills, we saw no reason to do state history with each child as they reached third grade, even though the state guidelines did it that way. Instead, we learned our state’s history with many different ages, often through read-aloud books and field trips, all at the same time. Knowing what our goals were let us know that at what age state history was taught was irrelevant.
Our goal in Scrolling through Scripture is to enhance the relationship between our students and God through His Bible and thereby increase their wisdom of God’s ways. We want to share our knowledge of ancient Jewish wisdom and the original Lord’s language in order to offer information that is hidden from too many. Once our students have certain skills, such as recognizing when the same word is spelled differently in different places in the Bible or being aware of certain “code” words, they can apply that knowledge to different parts of Scripture. Our vehicle is Genesis, but as those who are taking the course know, certain words or phrases have us looking ahead to Exodus or the book of Psalms. Had we started with Exodus or Psalms, we would have needed to look back to Genesis.
We felt that many foundational lessons spring from Genesis and so we chose to start there. We covered only a fraction of the many messages in the time we had available. The verses we cover and hope to cover in Genesis are the vehicle for reaching our goal of making God’s Word more meaningful. We could no more teach all there is to know in the Bible than we could overcome the limitations of space and time. As God is infinite, so is the wisdom in His book.
We would love to hear from you as you further your Bible studies,
Rabbi Daniel and Susan Lapin
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