6. Laws For Israel, Part A + PDF teacher's notes

There are a number of different contracts/covenants/testaments in the Bible between God and man (more than just the old one and the new one). These covenants form sort of a skeleton for the Bible. Today we are going to study the covenant that is "the" old testament, that is, the covenant between God and the nation of Israel.

God made a covenant with Abraham around 2,000 B.C. Abraham lived as long before Jesus and we do after Jesus. God's covenant with Israel came 430 years later (Ga 3:15), in roughly 1500 B.C.

The mediator of this covenant was Moses (you might remember Moses from his part in the famous Cecil B. DeMille movie, The Ten Commandments).

The first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures were written by Moses. The Greek name for it is the Pentateuch (the five scrolls or books). The Jews call these five books the Torah (which means teachings or instructions). They are also called the five books of the "Law" because they mainly deal with the laws that go along with God's covenant with Israel.