In this article we invite you to familiarize yourself with the most famous biblical stories. It is known that biblical stories have become the basis of many cultural works. Bible stories do more than just teach us wisdom, tolerance, and faith. Bible stories help us better understand culture and ourselves.
In this material we offer you biblical stories of the Old and New Testaments. The greatest prophets, kings of the Ancient World, apostles and Christ himself - these are the heroes of epic biblical tales.
Bible stories are any stories found in the Holy Scriptures
Biblical history is not an independent genre of work.
Moses in a Basket This is what we call any stories that the Holy Scripture gives us. The implication is that the stories in the Bible are there for a reason. The Holy Scripture consists only of those stories that can be useful for the human soul.
A fair question is, how historically reliable are the biblical accounts? Obviously not 100%. The text was written by people, and often much later than the events narrated. Something was forgotten, something was embellished. It's unavoidable.
The Bible is full of wise and instructive stories (Van Gogh, “Still Life with the Bible”). Photo: vangogen.ru
But the Bible is not a history book. The purpose of Bible stories is a moral and spiritual message. If you managed to reach a person’s heart, this is the most important thing.
The universality of Bible stories is remarkable. Each episode, parable or psalm can be applied to different situations. This makes the text of Holy Scripture universal and always relevant.
A brief biblical history can be described as follows: the path from the creation of the world to the Kingdom of Heaven
If we briefly summarize all the Bible stories, then the Holy Scriptures are a book about man’s path from God and back to Him.
The Bible begins with the creation of the world, but rather quickly jumps to talking only about man. However, this is not surprising. After all, it was written by people and for people.
The Fall occurs—man’s apostasy from God.
The Bible is focused on the fate of man, one might say that this is its main theme. During the Old Testament, people prepare the way to return to God. But only the New Testament gives the answer on how to do this.
And his last book, the Revelation of John the Theologian, tells what exactly awaits humanity at the end of its journey. Of course, this is only a brief biblical story. It is supplemented with an immeasurable scattering of wisdom.
Prophet Jonah.
The Lord once said to the prophet Jonah: “Get up, go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach in it, for its atrocities have reached me.”
Jonah, not wanting to obey God, decided to run away from the face of the Lord to the city of Tarshish. He reached Joppa and, finding there a ship sailing to Tarshish, paid the fare and boarded it. But the Lord sent a strong wind, a great storm arose on the sea, and the ship almost crashed. The shipbuilders became afraid, each began to cry out to his god and, in order to lighten the ship, began to throw luggage into the sea. Jonah, having gone down into the hold, was fast asleep. And those people knew that Jonah was fleeing from the face of the Lord. And then he said to them: “Take me and throw me into the sea, and the sea will calm down for you, for I know that for my sake this great storm has befallen you.” Jonah was thrown into the sea, and it immediately calmed down. Then everyone on the ship feared the Lord with great fear, made a sacrifice to Him and made vows. God commanded a huge fish to swallow the prophet Jonah. And he, remaining three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, without ceasing prayed to the Lord his God. And the Lord commanded the fish to vomit Jonah onto dry land. The Lord said to the prophet Jonah a second time: “Get up, go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach in it what I commanded you.” This time Jonah did not disobey the Lord and went to Nineveh. Arriving there, he began to preach in the streets, saying: “Another forty days, and Nineveh will be destroyed!” The king of Nineveh, having heard about this, left the palace, threw off his royal robes, put on sackcloth (mourning robe) and commanded that all people, and even cattle, cover themselves with sackcloth, fast and earnestly cry out to God, praying for the forgiveness of all sins and wrongdoings, evil thoughts and false ways. All the inhabitants of the city believed God and His prophet. The Lord saw that the Ninevites turned away from their evil deeds, had mercy on them and did not send upon them the disaster with which he wanted to punish them. The merciful Lord God does not want sinners to perish, but wants all people to find salvation by repenting of their sins and turning to Him. JONAH 1-4 - Page 43 -
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The New Testament tells about the sacrifice of Christ - the act that atoned for the sin of Adam
The most important biblical story for Christians can easily be called the story of the sacrifice of Christ. It is set out in the four canonical Gospels, which have some discrepancies. But the general essence is the same.
The idea is that man, from the moment of the Fall, remained doomed to suffer for his sins. The path to the Kingdom of God turned out to be closed for him. The only consequence of Adam's sin was death for him and his descendants.
Adam's sin, according to the Bible, brought death to the human world, and Christ returned eternal life.
The only way to bypass this mechanism is to make a substitutionary sacrifice. Man must die to sin, be freed from it, and turn toward God. But how to do that?
And here Jesus Christ comes to the rescue. He is not looking for those who could take the blame for Him, as Adam and Eve did. The Savior Himself takes on the guilt of other people. The Monk Abba Dorotheos writes about the significance of this event for Christians:
“The power of the sacrament of the death of Christ is this: since we lost the image (of God) in ourselves through sin and therefore through the fall and sins we became dead, as the Apostle says (see: Eph. 2:1), then God, who created us in His image, having mercy on His creation and His image, for our sake He became man and raised death for all, in order to lead us, the slain, to the life that we lost for our crime, for He ascended to the Holy Cross and crucified the sin for which we were expelled from paradise, and captivity brought captivity, as it is said in Scripture (cf. Eph. 4:8). What does captured by captivity mean? - That, because of Adam’s crime, the enemy captured us and held us in his power, so that the human souls, which then came out of the body, went to hell, for paradise was concluded. When Christ ascended to the heights of the Holy and Life-giving Cross, He delivered us with His Blood from the captivity with which the enemy had taken us captive for a crime, that is, He again snatched us from the hand of the enemy and, so to speak, captured us back, defeating and deposing the captor us, that is why it is said (in Scripture) that He took captivity captive. Such is the power of the sacrament: for this purpose Christ died for us, so that, as the saint said, he might raise us, the mortified, to life.”
Abba Dorotheos
Reverend
Christ goes to terrible torment for the sake of people. The story about this is truly scary. But it contains not only a promise of salvation, but also an example to all people. This sacrifice for any living being is the greatest and most important thing a person can do.
The biblical story of Jesus Christ reveals to people that the Savior made a sacrifice for their sins (“Christ on the Cross”, Titian). Photo: titian.ru
It turns out that humanity has two fathers:
- Adam is physical;
- Christ is spiritual.
Whose behavior will serve as an example for us? These are not just abstract plots, but behavioral models that are relevant for any time. Every action of Christ is an example of a courageous, just and soulful man. This is how each of us should be.
Well, to save the soul, you must accept Christ as the savior and live according to His commandments. This is what Orthodox teaching says.
Biblical stories from the Old Testament.
World creation.
The biblical story of the creation of the world is described in the Book of Genesis (Chapter 1). This biblical story is fundamental to the entire Bible. Not only does it tell how it all began, it also establishes the basic teachings about who God is and who we are in relationship with God.
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The creation of man.
Man was created on the sixth day of creation. From this biblical story we learn that man is the pinnacle of the universe, created in the image of God. This is the source of human dignity and this is why we pursue spiritual growth, so we will become more like it. Having created the first people, the Lord commanded them to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and have dominion over animals.
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Adam and Eve - a story of love and the Fall
The story of the creation of the first people Adam and Eve and how Satan, under the guise of a serpent, tempted Eve to sin and eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of good and evil. Chapter 3 of Genesis describes the story of the Fall and the expulsion of the first people from Eden. Adam and his wife Eve are in the Bible the first people on Earth, created by God and the ancestors of the human race.
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Cain and Abel - the story of the first murder.
Cain and Abel are brothers, sons of the first people - Adam and Eve. Cain killed Abel out of jealousy. The story of Cain and Abel is the story of the first murder on the young Earth. Abel was a cattle breeder, and Cain was a farmer. The conflict began with a sacrifice to God made by both brothers. Abel sacrificed the firstborn heads of his flock, and God accepted his sacrifice, while Cain’s sacrifice - the fruits of the earth - was rejected due to the fact that it was not offered with a pure heart.
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Longevity of the first people.
We have been asked many times in commentaries on chapters of the book of Genesis why people lived so long in those days. Let's try to imagine all possible interpretations of this fact.
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Great Flood.
Chapters 6-9 of Genesis tell the story of the Great Flood. God was angry at the sins of mankind and sent rains to the earth, which became the cause of the Flood. The only people who managed to escape were Noah and his family. God commanded Noah to build an ark, which became a shelter for him and his relatives, as well as for animals and birds, which Noah took with him into the ark.
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Babel
After the Great Flood, humanity was a single people and spoke one language. The tribes that came from the east decided to build the city of Babylon and a tower to heaven. The construction of the tower was interrupted by God, who created new languages, which is why people stopped understanding each other and were unable to continue construction.
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Abraham's Covenant with the Lord
In the Book of Genesis, several chapters are devoted to the post-flood patriarch Abraham. Abraham was the first person with whom the Lord God entered into a Covenant, according to which Abraham would become the father of many nations.
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Sacrifice of Isaac.
The Book of Genesis describes the story of the failed sacrifice of Isaac by his father, Abraham. According to Genesis, God called Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as a “burnt offering.” Abraham obeyed without hesitation, but the Lord spared Isaac, convinced of Abraham’s devotion.
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Isaac and Rebekah
The story of Abraham's son Isaac and his wife Rebekah. Rebekah was the daughter of Bethuel and the granddaughter of Abraham's brother Nahor (Abraham, who lived in Canaan, decided to find a wife for Isaac in his homeland, in Harran).
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Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah are two famous biblical cities that, according to the Book of Genesis, were destroyed by God because of the sinfulness and depravity of their inhabitants. The only one who managed to survive was Abraham's son Lot and his daughters.
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Lot and his daughters.
In the tragedy of Sodom and Gomorrah, God spared only Lot and his daughters, since Lot turned out to be the only righteous person in Sodom. After fleeing Sodom, Lot settled in the city of Zoar, but soon left there and settled with his daughters in a cave in the mountains.
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The story of Joseph and his brothers
The biblical story of Joseph and his brothers is told in the Book of Genesis. This is the story of God's faithfulness to the promises made to Abraham, His omnipotence, omnipotence and omniscience. Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery, but the Lord directed their destinies in such a way that they themselves accomplished what they were so eager to prevent - the rise of Joseph.
Egyptian plagues
According to the book of Exodus, Moses, in the name of the Lord, demanded that Pharaoh free the enslaved children of Israel. Pharaoh did not agree and 10 Egyptian plagues were brought down on Egypt - ten disasters.
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The Wanderings of Moses
The story of the forty-year exodus of the Jews from Egypt under the leadership of Moses. After forty years of wandering, the Israelites circled Moab and reached the bank of the Jordan at Mount Nebo. Here Moses died, appointing Joshua as his successor.
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Manna from heaven
According to the Bible, manna from heaven is the food that God fed the people of Israel during their 40-year wanderings in the desert after the exodus from Egypt. The manna looked like white grains. The collection of manna took place in the morning.
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Ten Commandments
According to the book of Exodus, the Lord gave Moses ten commandments about how to live and relate to God and each other.
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Battle of Jericho
The biblical story tells how Moses' successor, Joshua, asked the Lord to help him take the city of Jericho, whose inhabitants were afraid of the Israelites and did not want to open the gates of the city.
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Samson and Delilah
The story of Samson and Delilah is described in the Book of Judges. Delilah is the woman who betrayed Samson, repaying her love and devotion by revealing the secret of Samson’s strength to his worst enemies - the Philistines.
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Ruth's Story
Ruth is the great-grandmother of King David. Ruth was known for her righteousness and beauty. The story of Ruth represents righteous entry into the Jewish people.
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David and Goliath
The biblical story of a young man who, led by faith, defeated a great warrior. Young David is the future God-chosen king of Judah and Israel.
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Ark of the Covenant of God
The Ark of the Covenant is the greatest shrine of the Jewish people, in which the stone Tablets of the Covenant were kept, as well as a vessel with manna and Aaron’s staff.
Wisdom of King Solomon.
King Solomon is the son of David and the third Jewish king. His reign is described as a wise and just reign. Solomon was considered the personification of wisdom.
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Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
A biblical story about how the legendary Arabian ruler Queen of Sheba paid a visit to King Solomon, famous for his wisdom.
Golden image of Nebuchadnezzar
Nebuchadnezzar, who saw a golden image in a dream, could not get rid of the desire to make a similar statue of enormous size and from the purest gold himself.
Queen Esther
Esther was a beautiful, quiet, modest, but energetic woman who was passionately devoted to her people and her religion. She is the intercessor of the Jewish people.
Job the long-suffering
The biblical story is that bad things happen to good people. The question is, will you continue to trust God in difficult times? The story of Job tells of unconditional faith in the Lord.
Jonah and the whale
The Old Testament contains an interesting story about the prophet Jonah and how he was swallowed by a large whale.
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It is helpful to regularly read and ponder different Bible stories
Bible stories should be read thoughtfully. These are lessons from which different layers of meaning can be drawn. The richest in them, of course, are the clergy of Jesus Christ. These are sketches that can be interpreted on different planes.
Thus, we receive an inexhaustible source of information for comprehension. If it is difficult for us to learn something from a particular story, then there are always comments from the holy fathers and interpretations of researchers. They will help.
Why did God create man
Biblical personalities are not always role models, but more often the opposite
We should not idealize biblical characters. The status of a patriarch or a prophet does not make a person ideal. Actually, from the biblical point of view, only God is impeccable. All others are sinners.
The Bible is not a roll of honor for spiritual persons. In it we most often see not an example of how to do it, but just the opposite - of how not to do it. Most biblical characters are examples of sins and mistakes.
Patriarch Jacob deceived his parents and deprived his brother of the privileges due to him. He behaved dishonestly and aggressively towards others. Rachel even reproached his wife for being barren.
King David is a seemingly pious ruler, hero, poet. But at the same time, he is a vile man who, for the sake of lust, doomed his subordinate to death.
Even though the king later repented, he couldn’t take back what he had done.
King Solomon is a seemingly wise man, but even his wisdom leads to conflict with God
The king betrays his own beliefs.
Almost every biblical character has skeletons in their closet: the cowardly Abraham, who gives his wife to the pharaoh, the cruel Moses with his bloody exterminations of neighboring peoples.
All this cannot be an example for a pious Orthodox Christian. We need to be able, as Christ said, to separate the wheat from the chaff. And in every story we must learn to see the essence, and not blindly idealize its characters.
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Prophet Joel.
It is unknown when the prophet Joel lived, but it is believed that he was one of the early prophets of Judah. He prophesied, in particular, about the distant future, about the coming day of the Lord: “Oh, what a day! for the day of the Lord is at hand: it will come as a desolation from the Almighty... Blow the trumpet in Zion and sound the alarm on My holy mountain; Let all the inhabitants of the earth tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand...And it shall come to pass after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. And also on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out My Spirit. And I will show signs in heaven and on earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun will turn into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass: whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be salvation, as the Lord has said, and for the rest whom the Lord will call.” Many centuries later, the Apostle Peter, testifying to the people about the Lord Jesus Christ, quoted some of these words. Joel also prophesies about the restoration of Israel: “For behold, in those days and at that very time, when I bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and there I will execute judgment on them for My people and for the inheritance. Mine, Israel, which they scattered among the nations, and they divided my land. And for My people they cast lots... And the Lord will roar from Zion, and give His voice from Jerusalem; heaven and earth will tremble; but the Lord will be a defense for his people and a defense for the children of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, on My holy mountain; and Jerusalem will be holy..." BOOK OF THE PROPHET JOEL
