Preparation for Genesis Lectures taught by Pastor Arnold Murray

Preparation for Studying the Book of Genesis

This blog will prepare you for the following lectures in Genesis as taught by Pastor Arnold Murray of the Shepherd's Chapel. If you are not familiar with Pastor Murray, he teaches the bible chapter-by-chapter & verse-by-verse. Unlike many preachers, ministers, and teachers of the bible, he encourages students to check out the original languages of the bible as well as to check out if what he teaches is true or not. He does this because he knows that when King James ordered the translation of the manuscripts into what we now have as the "English Bible", they knew that some of the translation didn't cross over into the English very well. They even wrote a preface letter to the English reader warning them of the difficulties and to check out any portion that wasn't clear. The 1st version was the 1611 version of the Old English King James bible. You can view a copy of that Preface from the translators here:

ORIGINAL PREFACE TO THE AUTHORIZED VERSION OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE 1611

One of the tools we have in most every Christian bible store is called a Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. This tool allows the English reader to take every word in the bible back to its original languages so that various teachings in the bible would become more clear with its use. On online version of this book can be found here:

Greek & Hebrew Dictionary, Strong's Concordance

There's also a free program that I absolutely love called E-Sword that is a Strong's Concordance and it does much more:

E-Sword

A more recent linguist and biblical scholar was E.W. Bullinger, born 1837, died 1913. Bullinger was the only scholar that the Greek Orthodox Church would allow to edit the Septuagint which contains a great number of commentaries at the end of it by Bullenger called Appendixes.

Bullenger eventually took the King James Bible and made his own study bible. This was all based off of the truths he discovered during the translation of the Septuagint. His study bible is called THE COMPANION BIBLE. It is a great study and I recommend looking into his Appendixes in the back of the Companion Bible.

In addition to theses study tools, there is also a lecture that I recommend you watch that gives comprehensive direction on why and how to use the Strong's Exhaustive Concordance while studying God's Word. Here are the lectures:

How To use the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance & Companion Bible (part 1)

How To use the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance & Companion Bible (part 2)

In addition to all of the tools I've already mentioned, here are some other study tools:

Hebrew Interlinear Bible

Greek Interlinear Bible

As you use these new found tools for study, once you come across a controversial issue among biblical teachers and you put them to the test for yourself, you'll find that the controversy is usually over what men say the bible says rather than what it actually says. Then you'll start to see that the bible really isn't that hard to understand.

As I mentioned at the beginning, this blog was given in preparation for the following blogs of lectures in the Book of Genesis by Pastor Arnold Murray. One of my main reasons for sharing this is that many of the truths documented in Genesis are hidden from the English reader and might be considered controversial by certain Christian church "leaders", and so-called experts in the word of God. I know Pastor Murray has taken quite a bit of heat from certain truths hidden from the English reader within the book of Genesis. I've listened these church institutes and their arguments against Pastor Murray to me, that they have watched VERY FEW of his lecture or if they have, they back their arguments with church doctrine instead of documenting their points of view with scripture. It seems they may be so steeped in traditions and sayings of men, that they forget to check out the bible in its proper way. I know when I fist studied with Shepherd's Chapel, and I had been a Christian all my life, what I heard at first was shocking. But I researched and found that he was teaching truths I couldn't discredit when I checked out the original languages of the bible and their Hebrew and Greek definitions.

I seem to recall that when Christ came to this earth and taught the deeper truths from the scriptures of what is now the Old Testament, the teachers and preachers of that day rejected truth as well. It seems there is nothing new under the sun.

So you be the judge. But at the very least, back it up with scripture, and at the very least, when a truth is brought out in the original language and you disagree with it, think about exactly why you disagree with what is WRITTEN. I know when you've been taught something about the bible, it is sometimes hard to let go of it. But it shouldn't if you believe what is written. When I first made the realization, I found that what I was going to believe from that point on was what was written, not what I had been told by a fallible human, even if he held the title of paster, preacher or priest - as did many in Jerusalem when Christ was finally nailed to the cross.