Overview
Welcome to the Gospel of Moses. This site contains the first five books of the Bible in an abridged form. The translation is the author's own version. Each book is listed sequentially and divided into chapters that can be accessed by clicking on the appropriate heading in the sidebar on the left. There are twenty-nine combined chapters for the five books, allowing one to read through them devotionally in a month at the rate of a chapter per day. Each chapter has a summary and commentary section that follows the scripture verses. Enjoy!
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INTRODUCTION
The first five books of the Bible are traditionally attributed to Moses, who is prominent throughout. How much he authored really makes no difference to the impact of these five books, which comprise the foundation upon which the rest of the Bible rests. Without them, the remainder of scripture would be without context and direction, adrift in a sea of history, prophesy, poetry, and wisdom literature that lack coherence and bearing. Of course none of this is news to anyone who has studied the scriptures for long, whether from a Jewish, Christian, or even secular perspective.
What makes the books of Moses so engaging, however, is that they are best understood when read backwards. That is, their significance lies in what comes after them, namely in the person of Jesus Christ whose life and teachings illuminate everything Moses said and did. Jewish tradition will, of course, maintain that the Pentateuch is completed in the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures alone; that the Books of Moses stand perfectly well without any additional Christian add-ons. Certainly the Hebrew Scriptures do allow for a self-contained religious and ethical system, one that has bequeathed to the world an enormous treasure. But the fullness of the Pentateuch and the rest of the Hebrew Bible—their true enlightening dimensions—are only visible through the lens of the New Testament and the life and person of Jesus the Messiah. He is widely prefigured and heralded in the whole of the Old Testament, but especially so in the life and teachings of Moses. To miss the connection is to miss the entire essence of God’s purposeful dealings with Moses and the nation of Israel as a whole.
When the Bible is approached as a unified revelation, each book and section illuminates the meaning and content of the others. The Pentateuch anticipates and finds fulfillment in the coming of Christ Jesus, and the life and teachings of Jesus provide powerful illumination of Moses and the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures. No portion of scripture can be separated from the others without jeopardizing the whole and misinterpreting God’s directed dealings with humankind and the full revelation of his ultimate purposes for the world and all its inhabitants—past, present, and future. This is especially so in regards to the Pentateuch and the New Testament; for the Pentateuch is the bedrock upon which the life and teachings of Jesus rest—a point he made on more than one occasion. When we grasp the interconnectedness of the first and last portions of scripture—the lives and teachings of Moses and Jesus—we are privileged with insights into the very mind and purposes of God. These bookends of scripture go far toward revealing just who God is and what he intends for the world he has so lovingly created.
It behooves us not only to understand God’s plan but, more importantly, to realize that in one way or another every living creature is inevitably a part of it. Understanding the big picture revealed in scripture means grasping the essential meaning of life and one’s rightful place in the scheme of things. To ignore or misunderstand the divine plan is to unavoidably live, think, and act contrary to the very grain of life itself, futilely pursuing lesser goals that ultimately must fail, subsumed as they inevitably are within the grand design orchestrated by a personal, loving, yet unambiguously omnipotent God.
The divine plan for human history, the natural world, and every individual who has ever lived comes in the form of the entire Biblical account—the greatest story ever told. Yet the outline and essence of that plan is evident right from the very beginning in the five books attributed to Moses. Within those books is a compelling storyline that hinges on the simplest but most powerful and profound of notions: God is love; and this loving God is intimately involved with humanity. Love, by its very nature, seeks to give and share of itself. Love is active, alive, and expressive. God’s love led him to create the worlds and one special creature, man, to dwell upon a unique and beautiful planet in an infinitely expansive universe. God created humankind to share in a wondrous existence marked by his limitless and inexhaustible love. Yet love given cannot require that love be returned. It depends on the free will of both lover and loved. And free will, by definition, necessitates the possibility of love rejected, which can take on a thousand forms of self-centeredness, arrogance, and outright rebellion against a loving Creator. All too often that is the unfortunate path humanity has chosen to take.
But the story of the Bible is the story of God’s unrelenting pursuit of humankind – his beloved. It is the stirring account of God’s deep and enduring love, humanity’s willful and repeated rejection of and rebellion against God and his purposes, and God’s undeterred acts of redemption that provide the necessary means of reconciliation for mankind’s return to an original blessed state of harmony with his loving Creator and the rest of the creation. The Bible is the story of a doting God sheparding errant humankind on an epic journey from bliss to bliss—the Garden of Eden to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Books of Moses represent both the preamble to and synopsis of that incredible story.
A number of major themes are interwoven into scripture’s storyline of God’s redemptive love. These themes function as keys to unlock the essential message of the Bible—the inexhaustible lengths to which a loving God goes to redeem a wayward human race, the object of his passionate and enduring affection. As you read through the Books of Moses, be mindful of these themes—although they find their full expression in the scriptures as a whole, in one form or another they repeat again and again in the Pentateuch.
1. God is in love. He is passionately in love and intimately involved with the whole of humanity and the created order.
2. God wants to bless us. God’s provision for and blessing extends to everyone and all of creation, yet special blessings attend those who willfully follow him in the pursuit of righteousness.
3. We reflect God. God’s nature – loving, compassionate, purposeful, and engaging – is imprinted on human nature, with humans possessing a conscience and the ability to make moral choices.
4. Man screws up. Mankind repeatedly fails to make right choices, to live righteously, as God intends and requires. Man has a proclivity toward selfishness, arrogance, and evil toward his fellow man.
5. Actions have consequences. The universe is constructed such that moral choices, whether good or bad, have consequences. God’s design holds us all accountable for the moral choices we make, evidenced in our thoughts, words, and actions toward God himself, other human beings, and the creation.
6. Sin merits punishment. God persistently yet justifiably punishes sin and unrighteousness as justice and righteousness demand.
7. Faith rescues us. Faith in God through belief in and obedience to him and his Word is the heart of righteousness, not religiosity or ritual.
8. God is a redeemer. God is infinitely patient and repeatedly provides a redemptive means for humans to escape judgment for sin, that we may renew the pursuit of the righteous life God intends, including a right relationship with him and one another.
9. God loves through Jesus. God’s ultimate act of redemptive love takes place in the life and person of Jesus Christ.
10. God doesn’t need us. God ultimately relies upon himself to accomplish his purposes for humanity and the whole created order.
11. God directs history. God omnipotently employs nature, people, and events to repeatedly steer the course of human history back to his original plan, as exemplified in the Garden of Eden and the Kingdom of Heaven articulated by Jesus.
12. God partners with us. God chooses to give humankind the ennobling gift of participating with him to help establish the reign of righteousness upon the earth that he is bringing about through Christ. He often employs those who are decidedly fallible and commonplace.
13. God demands commitment. God insists on the complete, whole-hearted devotion of his followers – tolerating no other gods or commitments of the heart before him.
14. The Holy Spirit empowers. The Holy Spirit enables us to please God, live for him, and accomplish what otherwise is not humanly possible.
15. God helps the needy. God’s is lovingly and compassionately oriented toward the poor, powerless, and humble and has a propensity to work through them to accomplish his will and thwart the evil designs of the rich, powerful, arrogant, and oppressive.
The Gospel of Moses is abridged. It uses only those scriptures that are relevant to the overall message of God’s love for humanity and his redemptive acts on our behalf. Thus, large portions of scripture are purposely omitted. It is not that the omitted verses are unimportant; they are. But they are not essential to the main and enduring message that the Bible puts forward.
The translation here is my own, adapted from some of the best and most popular English language translations in use today. It is a paraphrase of other texts—some of which are paraphrases themselves—and attempts to capture the essence of scripture’s message in a readable, meaningful style using contemporary speech. The goal is not so much to offer a brand new translation as to formulate an English translation that is clearer, more concise, and accessible to all manner of readers. Among the translations referenced for this translation, listed in no particular order, are The New International Version, The Message, The New Living Bible Translation, The American Standard Version, The World English Bible, and The King James Bible, The New Jerusalem Bible, and the New Revised Standard Version.
The Gospel of Moses is in part written for those who have neither the time nor inclination to read the seemingly insignificant Books of Moses, let alone the entire Bible. Many people start the Book of Genesis only to get lost within their own literary wilderness by the time they hit Exodus. It seems a foreign wasteland to many, especially those without contemporary paraphrased translations. The Gospel of Moses seeks to provide a simpler path through that wilderness, guiding readers to a Promised Land they never knew existed, and hopefully cultivating in the process the tools and motivation to delve into all of scripture. Some minor stories, lessons and insights have necessarily been left out along with the excluded scriptures. But the basic, enduring message remains intact and uncompromised.
The Gospel of Moses is also written to elucidate the fact that the Bible’s message is undeniably universal, compatible with any and all cultures and every worldview among them. It is a gift intended for all, the exclusive possession of none. This understanding is clearly embedded in the New Testament, but not everyone realizes that its roots are in the Hebrew Scriptures and the five Books of Moses in particular. What some assume are just ancient texts of a small and obscure tribe of wandering Jews is in fact the initial revelation of a divine message of truly universal proportions.
The choice of verses, summary, commentary and biblical themes will reflect the goal of presenting this truly universal biblical message. I cannot, however, claim that the presentation and language used will be value free. I am, after all, a product of my own cultural background. I have not, for example, attempted to be gender neutral. Although the scriptures are clear that God is neither male nor female, the language of the Bible—including, most notably, the recorded words of Moses and Jesus—employs the male gender in reference to God. I have followed suite for two reasons. First, English does not allow use of the third person without impersonalizing and thus misrepresenting the very nature of God, which the authors of the Bible go to great lengths to portray as intensely intimate. Second, use of gender-neutral language is a distraction to many, including myself, for its propensity to constantly call one’s attention away from the topic at hand. I recognize that the opposite is true for some. The modern practice of seeking to attain gender-neutrality by employing the term ‘God’ in place of any occurrence of the personal pronoun ‘he’ is also distinctly impersonalizing in my opinion. In time gender-neutral language may feel perfectly natural to all. But that time is not now, not yet. Thus, I would feel coerced by the false attempt to be politically correct if I were to employ it. My hope is that those readers who are sensitive to the issue might seek to find their way past the language of gender to focus on what is undeniably most important—the inexpressibly wonderful message of the Pentateuch and the Bible as a whole; the message of God’s wondrous love for every member of the human race, whatever their stripe.
I have employed a format that is message specific. That is, chapters are titled by reference to the story or lessons included within them. The book and chapter numbers of the conventional Bible are listed under each chapter heading in this book so the reader can look up the entire story or teaching when desired. Also for that reason, all verses used are referenced next to their appearance. Each chapter is, in turn, divided into four parts: the pertinent scriptural verses, a summary of the basic message contained within those verses, commentary to further elucidate the message as it pertains to the major themes in the Bible, and numbered references to the themes touched on in the passages listed. I in no way claim infallibility. Far from it, my summaries and comments will undoubtedly reflect my own biases and limited knowledge. That is a necessary evil and an inescapable reality but one which I have worked diligently to minimize. My intent in each summary and comment is to underscore the persistent and oft-repeated message of God’s redemptive love that so compellingly resonates throughout the five books of Moses. And I am confident that those scriptures which are included will clearly stand on their own as the immutable Word of God, full of power, healing, and hope.
As you read through the scriptures, pay careful attention to the storyline of God’s redemptive love embedded in the text from the first verses of Genesis. Take note also of the interwoven themes that form the framework of that storyline. But, most importantly, listen for the voice of God speaking to you personally through his sacred Word. For God will indeed speak through his marvelous Word of Truth to all who care to listen. And through that Word he will make himself known, just as he has so faithfully done to listening hearts down through the ages.
