The Bible Among The Myths Summary

The author of our textbook-John N. Oswalt has spent a significant amount of time researching and studying the Ancient Near East. Oswalt’s work began in the 1960’s while taking a course called “The Literature of the Ancient Near East”. After his time at Asbury Theological Seminary, Oswalt continued his studies in the Mediterranean Studies Department of Brandeis University. While there, he expanded his knowledge and understanding of the Ancient Near East and later, further developed said knowledge by means of a professor. John Oswalt teaches at Asbury Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and Wesley Biblical Seminary. In our course textbook, The Bible Among the Myths, the author presents his main theme-the Bible is unique
Oswald goes into great detail in analyzing how the Hebrew culture initially believed in a monotheistic view of God, as well as the military and political influences of the Assyrians and Babylonians in its relation of how it caused most of the Israelites to struggle with their consistency of their faith. However, there were in fact prophets who proclaimed the word of God through the Hebrew faith. From here the author talks about the “Combining Greek and Hebrew Thought” (Oswalt p.25) -where the author goes into the discussion of Christianity origin and the impact of the Greek and Hebrew views on Greco-Roman Empire which existed during the dispersion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “It was when the gospel of Jesus, presupposing the Israelite worldview, penetrated into the Greco-Roman world that the stage was set for the combination of the Greek and the Hebrew worldviews in the distinctively Christian way.” (Oswalt p. 25). Oswalt continues by discussing how after the entrance of Jesus, His gospel forced its way into the Greco-Roman world and combined itself with the philosophical foundations laid by the Greek philosophers. He says the Hebrew faith showed the Greco-Roman world there was only one God who created everything there is. On the other hand, “But the Greeks were able to show the Hebrews that in this real world there is a significant link of Cause and effect that the Hebrews tended to overlook in their emphasis on the First Cause”( Oswalt p.26). This theme/idea that Oswalt uses in this chapter is also later seen in his book, which revolves around the coherent existence of logic and science. Hence, the chapter summarizes with the notion that science and logic is pretty much deemed useless without the understanding of Biblical Principles. Oswalt states, that during the Enlightenment period, man decided to fully remove God from logic and science because we had thought