I ran across this quote while reading Ben Witherington's new book The New Testament Story :
First, it may be observed that Old Testament stories affect how Luke tells the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth and John in Luke 1. We are meant to hear echoes of the story of Samuel and Hannah of course. This sort of storytelling has as its underlying assumption that there is a pattern to God's dealings with people, as well as a pattern as how they can and should respond." (p. 134, emphasis mine)
Now that is fundamental to understanding what the Bible is all about, and how to establish a relationship with God. "For the promise is to you and your children and for all who are far off...". (Acts 2:39)
1 comment:
Non-blogger Mitch here,
An instructor once pointed out that the "she's not my wife, she's my sister" story appearing three different times in Genesis (ch. 12, 20, 26) points to a contradiction caused by use of multiple sources--thus completely missing what you've pointed out with this post,Alan--that the author purposely structured the stories of similar events in such a way that we couldn't miss the point that not only do even good people make stupid mistakes--we often make the same ones over and over again!
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