Jacob's later reconciliation with Esau, his older brother that he had deceived with the help of their mother, much resembles Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 15. Maybe it was Jacob and Esau that Jesus was thinking of when he told that parable.
Joseph's brothers sold him to foreigners, and later in Egypt they did not recognize him, but his dreams of being the ruler of them had come true. Much later, Jesus' earthly father was also named Joseph. Joseph, in Egypt, related to Pharaoh much as Jesus relates to God.
The new nation of Israel, with their one God, among the idolatrous Canaanites was a repetition, but on a national scale, of Adam and Eve with the fruit in the Garden, and their ultimate exile from that paradise. In the New Testament, the temptation of Jesus was also a repetition of the story of Adam and Eve, but Jesus resisted Satan's temptations.
In the Book of Joshua Chapter 2, Rahab letting down the Israelite spies by a rope from a window that was part of Jericho's city wall was a prelude to St. Paul much later being let down in a similar way from the Damascus wall. The scarlet thread as an indicator not to harm her household was a reflection of the blood of the lambs at Passover. Jesus later shed his blood, to pay the price for sin, at Passover time.
In the Book of Judges Chapter 13, the wife of Manoah being told by the angel that she will give birth to a son who will become a Nazirite, in a way similar to the birth of Jesus being foretold to Mary in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 1. Samson, the son who was born to Manoah and his wife, bringing down Philistine temple at the end of his life, is a reflection on Jews' Temple which would be built in it's place when they had displaced the Canaanites in the land. The name of the returning savior being unknowable, near end of the Book of Revelation, at the end of the Bible, is just as name of angel of the lord with Samson's parents is described as unknowable. There is this "Angel of the Lord", who appears a number of times in the Old Testament, but is not in the New Testament. Many people believe that this is Jesus, before he came to earth as a person.
God halted Abraham's intended sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah. God halted King David's tribulation when the Angel of the Lord was over the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. The threshing floor was over the same spot where the halted sacrifice of Isaace had taken place. Jesus will return to halt the Tribulation, to the Temple Mount which was built over that threshing floor, when David told Araunah that he wanted to build a temple there. God had been willing to sacrifice Jesus, just as Abraham had been willing to sacrifice Isaac.
The story of Hannah and Penninah, where Penninah had children but Hannah did not, but when Hannah did have a son he became Samuel, the prophet of the lord, reflects the earlier story of Leah and Rachel, the wives of Jacob. Rachel was Jacob's favorite wife, but Leah had the most children who would each found one of the Twelve tribes of Israel.
Notice the similarity between the Philistine idol of Dagon falling forward to the floor, and breaking, when the Philistines put the captured Ark of the Covenant in front of it and then, not long after, the Philistine warrior Goliath falling forward to the ground after his losing battle with the future King David. This shows that it was the power of God that brought Goliath down.
Adam sinned, by eating the Forbidden Fruit of the Garden and one of his sons, Cain, killed another, Abel. In the same way, King David later sinned, by taking Bathsheba as his wife after having her soldier husband killed, and his son Absalom killed another son, Amnon, and then later rebelled against David. The kingdom that David founded would later deteriorate due to sin. Ahab, a king of Israel, and Jezebel would steal Naboth's vineyard in the same way as David stole his wife Bathsheba, by having the rightful owner killed. Jesus would later use a parable of a vineyard, to describe the actions of those who would have him killed. The prophet Nathan had used a similar parable of a lamb, to describe David's actions at having Bathsheba'a husband killed, while Jesus would be known as the Lamb, and his crucifixion was at the time of Passover, when a lamb was traditionally sacrificed. It all thus links together.
King Solomon's troubles, due to disobedience to God, mirror those of his father, David. But where David's troubles were personal, Solomon's were national, the kingdom deteriorated due to his idolatry and broke in two after his death. Samuel had earlier questioned the Israelites if they really wanted a king.
Gehazi, the servant of the prophet Elisha, could have followed Elisha as the prophet of the Lord, much like Elisha followed Elijah. But Gehazi was disobedient and instead got Naaman's cured leprosy imparted to him. Elijah's recruitment of Elisha while he was plowing, in same way as Jesus would later recruit the first apostles while they were fishing.
Zerubbabel, the governor and founder of the Second Temple which was the rebuilding of the original Solomon's Temple after the exile in Babylon, was supposedly the grandson of Jehoiachin, the second-to-last king of Judah before the Temple was destroyed and the Jews were taken to the exile in Babylon, and would have been king of Judah after the return from exile in Babylon, except that the nation was under the rule of the Persians who had conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to return to their homeland.
In the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which were about the Jews returning from exile in Babylon and rebuilding the Temple which the Babylonians had destroyed, the people who are trying to hinder the rebuilding of the Temple, led by Sanballat, are the descendants of those who were brought there by the Assyrians, who preceded the Babylonians as the great power of the time, and the ancestors of those who by the time of Jesus would be referred to as Samaritans.
Notice the congruence of the Flood, the slavery in Egypt, the exile in Babylon and, the Rapture. In each case, the good are saved by being taken away, and the sinners are left behind.
In the Bible, I find three descriptions of direct visions of God, in Ezekiel 1, Ezekiel 8 and, Revelation 4.
In the Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 4, Ezekiel is instructed to lie on one side to bear the sins of Israel and on the other side to bear the sins of Judah. Ezekiel is also called the "Son of Man", just as Jesus would later be called and would pay the penalty of sin by his crucifixion. Jesus is so-called because he was both the "Son of God" and the "Son of Man". Since Jesus had to shed blood to pay the price for sin, in the same way as the Passover Lamb, if he had been purely God there would have been no blood to shed.
The Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 34, describes the failure of shepherds to properly care for their flock. God himself will come and be the shepherd. Jesus describes himself as the shepherd in the Parable of the Shepherd in the Gospel of John. A shepherd, basically caring for sheep, was considered as a lowly occupation, but, as described in the Gospel of Luke, shepherds were the first to see Jesus.
In the Book of the prophet Hosea, Chapter 1, naming children negatively is an inverse reflection of the joyous naming of the children of Leah and Rachel. In the same way that Jesus giving Judas the bread, before Satan entered into him, was a negative reflection of the Communion.
In the Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 37 Verse 15, the joining of two sticks together, in contrast with later Book of Zechariah, where they are broken apart, is a prophecy of the united nation of Israel splitting into Israel and Judah, after the death of King Solomon.
Three men visited Abraham before the birth of his son, Isaac. Wise men bearing three gifts visited Mary and Joseph after the birth of Jesus, as told in the Gospel of Matthew.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus' birth is told from his father, Joseph's, perspective. In Luke, Jesus' birth is told from Mary's perspective. Mary's praise in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 1, is a close reflection of Leah's praise after giving birth to her sons, who would each found one of the twelve tribes of Israel.
The infant Jesus survived a massacre, as did Moses. King Herod felt that his power was threatened by hearing that another "king" had been born, and Pharaoh order newborn Hebrew boys to be thrown into the Nile, to reduce their population. Moses being saved from the water, ironically by Pharaoh's daughter, foreshadows New Testament baptism, which began with Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist, hence his name.
A younger son is favored over an older son several times in the Old Testament. Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and, David were all favored younger brothers. This foreshadows Christianity later superseding the older Judaism from which it sprang. This is also the meaning of Jesus' sayings that "a new patch cannot be put on an old piece of cloth" and "new wine cannot be put into old bottles". The new way of Jesus must form a separate religion, but will include the old.
John the Baptist, the herald of Jesus, was from a priestly family, but Jesus was not. The tribe of Judah, although ordained to be the leading tribe of Israel and the tribe which Jesus was from, was not the priestly tribe. The tribe of Levi was. This is because the way announced by Jesus must be new and separate from the old establishment.
Adam's line of descent went through Seth, who was born after Can killed Abel, and not through Cain. This foreshadows the later disqualification of Reuben, Simeon and, Levi from leadership of the Israelites. Reuben, the oldest son, was disqualified from leadership for getting together with his father's concubine. Simeon and Levi were disqualified for slaughtering the town of Shechem because their sister, Dinah, had been raped there. Judah, the fourth son, thus gained the leadership. Judah became the predominant of the twelve tribes so that all Israelites came to be known as Jews. David and Bathsheba's line goes through Solomon, not through the first son, who died as a result of their sin in David having her husband killed and then marrying her.
Moses could return to Egypt, because those who sought to kill him were dead, because he had killed an Egyptian who was oppressing a Hebrew. Jesus, as an infant with his parents, could return from Egypt, because those who sought to kill him, King Herod who had heard about the birth of a potential rival, were dead.
Jesus linked his body to the Temple, being destroyed and rebuilt in three days, but he was really referring to his Resurrection. The destruction of the Temple, the Third Temple was finished just in time for the coming of Jesus, until the End Times, parallels Jesus leaving and coming back at the End Times.
Jesus used the simple term "I Am" to describe himself, the same way that God announced himself to Moses.
Jesus clearing merchants from the Temple, and making enemies in doing so, reflects the same kind of earlier actions in the Temple by Nehemiah, after the rebuilding of the Temple after return from exile in Babylon.
At Jesus' trial, Pilate got some water and washed his hands in front of the people, who wanted Jesus crucified. This was his way of demonstrating that he found no guilt in Jesus and, if Jesus was crucified, he was not responsible for it. The people who wanted him crucified were responsible. This was a reflection of Jesus having earlier been baptized in water, by John the Baptist. Jesus would soon be crucified, having his hands pierced by nails, as referenced by Pilate's hands in water, even though he was guilty of nothing. But this was to wash everyone of sin, as reflected in Pilate's washing of his hands. Ironically, it was much later found that having everyone regularly wash their hands drastically cut down on deaths due to disease. Until the Nineteenth Century, that was not known.
There was a sign "This is the King of the Jews", attached to Jesus' cross before his crucifixion, and it is written on his clothing "King of Kings and Lord of Lords" in the Book of Revelation, before the Second Coming of Jesus.
Sin began with the "forbidden fruit", on a tree. which was picked and eaten by Adam and Eve. Jesus death, which paid the final price for sin, was on a cross which was made of wood and resembled the trunk and branches of a tree.
In Gospel of John, the beginning of the gospel is much like the story of the beginning in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, (In the beginning...). Jesus' farewell discourse, in John Chapters 14-17, reflects back to the dying Jacob describing the future positions of each of his twelve sons. It also resembles David's farewell discourse to Solomon, in the First Book of the Kings, Chapter 2.
St. Paul, like Abraham long before him, underwent a sudden religious conversion and then a matching name change. Abram was changed to Abraham, and Saul to Paul. But where Abraham went to the Promised Land, Paul journeyed to spread the Gospel from the Promised Land. Paul is thus the fulfillment of Abraham.
The New Testament of the Bible is shaped by the fact that St. Paul did not directly know Jesus while he was on earth. Paul's writings do not focus on the details that are already described in the Gospels. His focus is the meaning of Jesus' death and resurrection to pay the price of sin. There is very little writing on Jesus' miracles or the events of his life that are described elsewhere, in the Gospels.
St. Paul's guilt at Stephen's martyrdom, by stoning, is reflected in how he virtually repeated Stephen's final speech himself, in The Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 13.
The two harvesting angels in the Book of Revelation, Chapter 14, represent first, the Rapture, and then the Second Coming of Jesus, in the Last Days of the world. Jesus is Greek form of Joshua, will return as conqueror. The Rapture, although the word itself is not in the Bible, is the removal of Christians from the earth before the Tribulation begins, and the Second Coming is the return of those saints, with Jesus, as a conqueror to end the Tribulation and establish His Kingdom on earth.
Both the Old and New Testaments contain opposing points of view. There is the Book of Ruth and the Book of Ezra in the Old Testament. Ruth is a non-Israelite, from Moab, which became a descendant of David and Jesus. In contrast, the Book of Ezra condemns intermarriage with foreign women, who practice different religions. There is the Epistle of James, with the emphasis on works, instead of just faith, against the emphasis on faith in the rest of the New Testament.
There is a parallel between the Books of Chronicles, in the Old Testament, and the Gospel of John, in the New Testament. Both were written after other writings about the same events. The two Books of Chronicles were revisions of the two Books of Kings. The Books of Kings were written before the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the exile in Babylon. After the return from exile, the books were rewritten, as the Books of Chronicles, to focus just on the Kingdom of Judah. The parallel Kingdom of Israel, which had split from Judah, had been taken into permanent exile by Assyria, and are still referred to as the "Ten Lost Tribes". The Books of Kings had been about the history of both kingdoms. The Gospel of John was written long after the first three gospels, the "Synoptic" Gospels of Matthew, Mark and, Luke. The Gospel of John is more about who Jesus was than about what he did. The Gospel of John leaves out many things that have already been explained in the earlier gospels, but puts in things and events that the other three have missed or omitted.
The common practice of building a cathedral on the site of a previous cathedral began with Solomon's temple, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians, being rebuilt as the Second Temple after the return of the Jews from exile.
The general agreement on why the Book of Deuteronomy, the fifth and final book of the Torah, repeats what was in the first four books, but was written in a different style is explained as what is known as the "Deuteronomistic History". In the Books of Kings and Chronicles it is explained how a great event occurred during the reign of Josiah, king of Judah. While the Temple was being remodeled, the "Book of the Law" was found. This was cause for great celebration. What happened is that the first four books of the Torah had been lost. The Book of Deuteronomy was written from memory as a restoration of these lost books. The following books resemble the Book of Deuteronomy in style, but are different from the four earlier books of the Torah. During the remodeling, it was those four lost books that were found, and were added back to the beginning of the Hebrew Bible. That is why the Book of Deuteronomy, now added as the fifth book of the Torah, repeats what was in the first four.
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