The Book of Lamentation (Essay Sample)
BIBLE DICTIONARY PROJECT INSTRUCTIONS
For these 2 distinct projects, imagine you are writing a series of short articles for a Bible Dictionary. As we have seen in our study, Bible dictionaries are useful tools to learn more about the books, people, and places we encounter in Scripture.
Your task will be to write:
1. Three concise 250-word articles about a book, person, and place from the Old Testament (Due at the end of Module/Week 5).
2. Three concise 250-word articles about a book, person, and place from the New Testament (Due at the end of Module/Week 8).
Content Guidelines: Choose one book, person, and place from the list of the provided topics for each of the 2 projects.
Your article must include the following per item:
Book:
Your biblical book article must include: The basic literary genre, authorship, date written, key themes, purposes, major events, and main personalities. Identify each of the elements in your content. For example, “The key themes of the book of Galatians are….” Please note that “themes” is plural. If you don’t use the terms associated with the element it won’t count as part of your article.
Person:
This article must include: The dates of the character’s life, place of birth, summary of their role or positions held, defining events in their life and work, contemporaries (other biblical characters they are associated with, and so on.), and their legacy. Again, you must identify the elements in your statements. For example, “The legacy of Joshua is ….” If they are a biblical author, list the related works.
Place (i.e., municipality, kingdom, empire):
This article must include: The keys dates (i.e., founding and demise), clarification of the location (regional description, the relevance of the place from a biblical/Ancient Near East (ANE) perspective, associated biblical books where it is a backdrop or central location), key attributes (religion, commerce, key figures, and other pertinent information.), and associated biblical books. Choose a topic for which you can easily find information. These are geographical items and should have a focus on those data points and not about the events that occurred there.
Formatting Guidelines:
• Use one Word document for each stage of submission (That is, all of your Old Testament Bible Dictionary articles will be on one document, and all of your New Testament Bible Dictionary articles will be on a single document).
• Use 12-point, Times New Roman font.
• Save your document according to the following filename formats:
o Module/Week 5 – LastnameFirstInitialOTBDP.doc (Example: DoeJOTBDP)
o Module/Week 8 – Lastname_FirstInitialNTBDP.doc (Example: DoeJNTBDP)
• Use the Bible Dictionary Project Template to format your summaries.
Submit the assignments to SafeAssign by the end of the assigned module/week. The first project is due by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Monday of Module/Week 5. The second project is due by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Friday of Module/Week 8.
To repeat: you will write an Old Testament dictionary paper with three articles. One article on an Old Testament book of the Bible, one article on an Old Testament person and one article on an Old Testament place. This is due in Week 5.
You will write another paper of three articles for the New Testament. One article on a book of the New Testament. One article on a personality of the New Testament and one article on a New Testament place. Note, there is a list of topics to select from in the “Content” area. Caution: if you choose for instance “Patmos” for your place article you will be challenged to find 200 words of content. You are still held accountable for the minimum word count. So I recommend choosing some other topic. This project is due in Week 8.
The bible dictionary
Name
Institution
The bible dictionary
1 The Old Testament
The Book of Lamentation
The book of Lamentation is referred in the Hebrew canon as the Ekhah, implying "How," the formula for beginning the song of wailing (Easton, 1997). Lamentation is used to denote the character of the book where the Prophet mourns over the desolations brought on the city by the Chaldeans. The author of the book was Jeremiah. The literary genre used in the book is prayers (Just, n.d). According to the tradition, he wrote the Lamentation book in a cavern outside the Damascus gate; the event that had occurred was the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. In this case, Jeremiah is believed to have mourned the fall the fall of his country.
The key themes covered in Lamentation include sin, hope, lamentation, and prayers; they occur in chapters that complement each other (Easton, 1997). Chapters 1 and 2 focus on the current state of the city where, sin has contributed to its destruction. The first chapter envisions the city as a solitary widow that weeps. Chapter two examines the sins of the city as the contributing factors (Easton, 1997). Chapter three examines the hope for the people of God that a better day is coming for them. Chapter four laments on the destruction of the city and the temple; however, sin is referenced as the main cause. The last chapter is a prayer to the Lord that Zion’s reproached be taken away through repentance and recovery of the city dwellers. The "wailing-place" was designated in Jerusalem where the Jews assembled to cry for the downfall of the city (Easton, 1997).
King Ahab
Ahab was the son of Omri, whom he succeeded as the King of Israel (Easton, 1997). The reign of King Ahab lasted for twenty-two years before his death on the battlefield. Ahab married Jezebel, the daughter of King Ethbaal of Tyre, who exercised evil influence over him. The accomplishments of King Ahab included building the Temple to Baal in Samaria; he defended the Israelites and their wealth when King Ben-hadad of Damascus attacked Israel. Ahab also restored the cities of Israel that Ben-hadad’s father had taken from Omri (1 Kings 20: 34).
The defining events in Ahab’s life were when the prophets of Baal met Prophet Elijah at Mount Carmel, and the killing of Naboth because of his vineyard (1 Kings 18,21). Prophet Elijah is known for killing the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel when their god failed to bring down the fire. Naboth refused to sell the land he had inherited to Ahab; Jezebel succeeded in killing him, and God pronounced judgment to the household of King Ahab through Prophet Elijah (1 Kings 21:17-24).
King Ahab had the legacy of sinning, and disobeying to the Lord more than any of his predecessors; he worshipped Baal that was introduced in Israel by Jezebel, the calf idols inherited from King Jeroboam. He refused to obey God’s prophets such as Elijah, and Micaiah. The Lord punished Israel with drought for three years, because of Ahab. His death was a product of disobedience not to engage in war with Syria (1 Kings 22:23).
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is the country between the two rivers, Tigris and Euphrates. In Hebrews the place is called Aram-Naha raim; that is, "Syria of the two rivers" (Easton, 1997). However, the area that has been referred to as Mesopotamia in the scriptures and the classical writings is the northwestern portion of the greater bent of Euphrates. The bearing of the area is lat. 35 degrees and 37 degrees 30 minutes to the between the upper Tigris and the bent of Euphrates (Bible-history, n.d). The area was occupied by the Amorites who had destroyed the Sumerian civilization and occupied the land in 200BC (Bible-history, n.d). The area served as Empire for different regimes; for instance, Rim-sin established a small empire in the place between 1822 BC and 1763 BC. The Hammurapi of Babylon conquered the place and ushered in the new era in 1763 BC (Bible-history, n.d).
Mesopotamia is referenced in the Bible in Genesis 24:10, Judges 3:8, 10, and Deuteronomy 23:4. The Old Testament also refers the place as "Padan-aram" that imply the plain of Aram, or simply Syria (Genesis 25:20). The northern part of Mesopotamia is known to be the original central land of the Hebrews (Genesis 11). Isaac obtained his wife Rebecca from Mesopotamia (Genesis 24:10, 15). Jacob also sojourned and got his wife from the place; most of his children were also born from the place (Genesis 28:2-7, 35:26, 46:15). The area was independent during the reign of King David; however, it was later conquered and absorbed into the Assyrian Empire (2 Kings 19:13-18).
References
Bible-history. (n.d). Map of ancient Mesopotamia. Retrieved from -history.com/maps/maps/map_ancient_mesopotamia.html
Easton, M.G. (1997). Eastons Bible Dictionary. Albany: Thomas Nelson publishers.
Just. F. (n.d). An introduction to biblical genres and form criticism. Retrieved from http://catholic-resources.org/Bible/Genres.htm
The Good News Bible.
2 The New Testament
The Gospel of Luke
The gospel of Luke was authored by Luke (Easton, 1997). The gospel is believed to have been written between 60 A.D, and 63 A.D, since it was written before Acts; during the time, Luke was at Caesarea, attending to Paul who was a prisoner (Easton, 1997). Luke therefore, wrote under the guidance of Paul due to the similarity of language between the two writers. For instance, Luke 4:22 and Colossians 4:6, written by Paul have similar language. The literary genre employed by Luke is the gospel; the proclamation of the good news about the Christ (Just, n.d).
The key themes covered by Luke include the love of a suffering savior; the Gospel of the saintly life; the Gospel of the Greeks; the Gospel of the future; the Gospel of progressive Christianity, universality, and gratuitousness; the historic Gospel; the gospel of Jesus as the good physician and savior of humankind; the Gospel of the outcast’ of the Samaritan; the Gospel of womanhood; and the Gospel of tolerance (Easton, 1997). Luke wrote the Gospel for the Hellenic world (Easton, 1997).
The main events covered in the gospel are the birth, life and death of Jesus (Easton, 1997). Although the first three gospels cover the same occurrences, Luke provides additional information that was not captured by the three gospels (Easton, 1997). For instance, there are 544 verses that are unique to him; he captures parables, and miracles that were omitted in Mathews and Mark. The main personality addressed in the book is Jesus who preached on "doing good" and healing all that were oppressed on the devil (Luke 4:18).
The Virgin Mary
Mary also referred to as the mother of Jesus, was from the tribe of Judah and lineage of David (Easton, 1997). She was born in 20 BC in Galilee, Nazareth and died in 45 AD (NNDB, n.d). Mary served the purpose of giving birth to the promised Messiah. An Angel appeared to her before she got married to Joseph and gave her the news about the birth of Jesus (Luke ...
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