Bible stories come to life

Jun 18

Suggested chronological order of the book of Jeremiah

The book of Jeremiah includes dates which show us that the text is not in chronological order, as is discussed in the article “Why is Jeremiah out of order?”. While writing the series “Terror on Every Side!” I found it necessary to decide what the chronological order was, as far as possible. Although we can’t have much confidence in the conclusions for some parts, others we can be very sure of. The table below shows a possible chronological order for the book. In a while I hope to make the Book of Jeremiah available in this order – using the text of the World English Bible (or see the article on Wikipedia) which is available in the public domain. Continue reading

Jun 04

Oaths and Promises

By Admin | Jeremiah

Oaths and Promises: Zedekiah’s oath

In 2 Kings 24:20 we are told that Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon. On the face of it, that seems reasonable – why not rebel against an overlord if you think you can get away with it? But God did not view it that way: he saw it as a breach of promise. Oaths and promises are important to God…Continue reading

May 27

Harmony of Bible records of the Roman trial and subsequent crucifixion of Jesus

By Admin | Harmonies , Jesus

Harmony of Jesus' trial and crucifixion:

The need for a harmony

In many of the events recorded in the Bible, details are written in more than one place. For example, details of the reign of many kings are recorded in both Kings and Chronicles and sometimes in one or more prophets also.

When we are writing Bible-based fiction, we always want to make sure that our stories match the details given in the Bible and sometimes that requires the harmonisation of more than one record. Continue reading

May 11

The Rechabites

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

The Rechabites

In the book of Jeremiah, God uses a family called the Rechabites as a parable to teach a lesson about faithfulness.

This story is told in the micro-tale “Have a Drink” which is included in Fiction Favours the Facts – Book 2, and was included in the Bible Tales newsletter back on 22 September 2017. Otherwise, you can read the true story in Jeremiah 35.

God told Jeremiah to ask the family of the Rechabites to go to the temple, but not to tell them what was to happen there. When the family arrived, Jeremiah offered them jugs full of wine and cups to drink from. Continue reading

Jan 23

Jeremiah: Family trees

By Mark Morgan | Family trees , Jeremiah

Family trees

The Bible reports the lives of many families, and God portrays himself as a father who invites people to be his children.

The people of Israel are called by that name because Jacob was given the name “Israel” by God – their name comes from the behaviour of their ancestor almost 4,000 years ago.[1] Continue reading

Jan 02

Jeremiah: Maps and Locations

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah , Maps

Maps make me feel more at home. I like Bibles with maps; I like text books with maps; I like novels with maps. Maps help me to know where a character, or a story, is headed – whether it is Paul on his missionary journeys or the hero of a novel. However, I have not produced any maps related to the series Terror on Every Side! until now because it was too hard to include all the places of interest when some are only a hundred metres apart while others are scattered over thousands of kilometres. Now, finally, here are some Jeremiah maps.

This article is a list of places of interest in the story of the life of Jeremiah, and they are grouped in categories from the smallest area (Jerusalem) to the largest area (the Middle East). Three maps are included below.Continue reading

Dec 12

Jeremiah: Timeline

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah , Timelines

Timeline of Jeremiah’s life

One of the most popular posts on the Bible Tales website is “Joseph: Timeline and family tree”, which presents a timeline of Joseph’s life, prepared as part of my research for the novel “Joseph, Rachel’s son”. Since it has been so popular, I decided to create a similar timeline of Jeremiah’s life.

This sounds like an easy thing to do, but there are so many things that are not known about Jeremiah – at least, not exactly. Continue reading

Dec 01

Sandals in the Bible

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

Sandals in the Bible

For most of us, shoes are surprisingly important. I say surprisingly because most of us would think them less important than various other items of clothing, yet badly-fitting shoes or shoes that do not protect us from stones or thorns will quickly leave us unable to continue walking. An ill-fitting shirt causes much less trouble!

I came across some unusual references to shoes or sandals in the Bible while researching the footwear Jeremiah may have worn. Writing biblical fiction has frequently led me into interesting research and the footwear of the Old Testament is no exception. Continue reading

Nov 15

A parable and a poem

By Mark Morgan | Miscellaneous

A parable

The return of Jesus will be like when a husband has worked all through the night and is very tired. After telling his wife that he will get up sometime for lunch, he is finally free to sleep.

And when he rises from sleep, his wife smiles happily and welcomes him gladly. He sees that his lunch is already cooked and sits bubbling on the stove. The table is laid ready, with utensils and a plate in each place. Beside his plate, a glass with a cool drink awaits him. The husband and wife sit down together and share a meal.

I tell you the truth, that man will treasure his wife forever.

In the same way, make sure that you have everything ready for Jesus before he returns.

Nov 11

Armour-bearers

By Mark Morgan | Jehoshaphat

Armour-bearers

The Bible mentions armour-bearers several times. Their job title would give us the impression that all they did was carry armour, but that is a long way from the truth.

We are never given a full job description for an armour-bearer, but as far as we can tell, they were special bodyguards for important people such as kings, princes or commanders. Continue reading

Oct 25

Jeremiah’s family and genealogy

By Mark Morgan | Family trees , Jeremiah

Jeremiah’s family

Jeremiah was a prophet, but he was also a priest.[1] Was he the son of the High Priest? What was Jeremiah’s genealogy? At the start of his book, Jeremiah is described as the son of Hilkiah,[2] and we know that there was a High Priest called Hilkiah in the time of Jeremiah. In references to him, he is called Hilkiah the priest[3] or Hilkiah the High Priest[4] rather than mentioning what his father’s name was, as was a common way of distinguishing between people with the same name. Only in the genealogy of the high priests do we find that his father’s name was Shallum. This consistent use of the name Hilkiah without saying who he was the son of suggests that saying he was a priest was enough to uniquely identify him. Continue reading

Oct 06

Why is Jeremiah out of order?

By Mark Morgan | Jeremiah

The book of Jeremiah is not in chronological order.

Many books of the Bible tell us of events that happened during certain years, and sometimes this is refined to the month and day or even the time of day. Other events, however, are reported with very little to locate them in time. The book of Jeremiah includes some passages that are anchored to particular days, while others are not located in time at all. By itself, this would make it hard enough to work out exactly when things happened in Jeremiah’s life, but the situation is worse than that: even the passages with dates are not in order! Continue reading

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