Thursday, January 2, 2020

Christian Trivia Question #8 - Who came first?


We all know basically who each of these Biblical figures are. But do you know roughly when they lived?

All you have to do for this one is put these Biblical figures in chronological order - in the order in which they appear in history.  Here they are in alphabetical order:

Able
Abraham
Cain
Daniel
David
Elijah
Isaac
Jeremiah
Jesus
John the Baptist
Joshua
Moses
Nebuchadnezzar
Noah

You can reply to all on this one and I'll give the answer when all have submitted their answers.

Peace,
Dad / Mr. Hoff

8 comments:

  1. Jennifer’s Answer:

    Cain
    Able
    Noah
    Abraham
    Issac
    Moses
    Joshua
    David
    Daniel
    Nebby
    Elijah
    Jeremiah
    John
    Jesus

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bill’s answer:
    Cain
    Able
    Noah
    Abraham
    Issac
    Moses
    Joshua
    David
    Nebby (pretty sure he was older than daniel when they met)
    Daniel
    Elijah
    Jeremiah
    John the baptist
    Jesus

    ReplyDelete
  3. Steph's answer:

    Cain
    Able
    Noah
    Abraham
    Isaac
    Moses
    Joshua
    David
    Elijah
    Nebuchadnezzar
    Jeremiah
    Daniel
    John the Baptist
    Jesus

    ....I got a little bit of help

    ReplyDelete
  4. (Part 1 of 2)
    Here’s the chronological order:

    1. Cain
    2. Able (unknown)

    Cain was the older brother of Able. Cain killed Able when he learned that God deemed Able’s sacrifice more pleasing than Cain’s. Cain’s sacrifice was certainly a sacrifice, but not in accord with God’s direction. The principle from this story is to comply with God’s direction, even if we think our way is sufficient.

    3. Noah (unknown)

    No description necessary.

    4. Abraham (approx. 1700 BC)
    5. Isaac

    God chose a wealthy landowner named Abram to become the father of the people through whom God would more fully reveal Himself. Abram’s story illustrates his faith - his willingness to do what God told him even though it was beyond belief:
    • He told Abram to leave his country of Ur (Mesopotamia) with his wife Sarai, his servants, his nephew Lot, and all his possessions and travel to a land God would show him.
    • God told Abram that he would be blessed with more descendants than the stars in the sky. At the time, he had no children.
    • When God finally blessed Abram and Sarai with a son (Isaac), God told Abram to take him up a mountain and sacrifice him. Abram obeyed up to the point of being ready to sacrifice Isaac when God intervened and provided a ram instead.

    The 12 tribes of Israel came from the 12 sons of Jacob (Isaac’s son). God later changed Abram’s name to Abraham and Sarai’s name to Sarah.

    6. Moses (approx. 1400 BC)
    7. Joshua

    I think we all know the story of Moses. God used Moses to continue revealing Himself by giving more specifics of the moral code necessary for living in harmony with Him. He did this by giving Moses the 10 commandments and the additional ceremonial and dietary laws detailed in Leviticus for His people (the Hebrews) to follow.

    What is often overlooked is that after Moses killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew slave, he fled into the desert (Midian), married a woman named Zipporah, and stayed there, essentially in seclusion for 40 years! Only after those long years, God appeared to him in the burning bush directing him to travel back to Egypt to lead His people out of their Egyptian bondage and toward the promised land of Canaan.

    Joshua was Moses’ protégé and when Moses was prevented from entering the Promised Land, Joshua led them across the Jordan into the land of Canaan. Joshua was a fearless military leader fighting many battles against the native peoples as the Jews made their way into what is now Palestine.

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  5. (Part 2 of 3):
    8. David (approx. 1000 BC)
    9. Elijah (9th century BC)

    The expression “the Law and the Prophets” refers to the Law given by Moses to the Hebrews and the Word of God (“Thus sayeth the LORD….”) given through the prophets like Elijah. At the Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus indicating that Jesus was the fulfillment of the “Law and the Prophets”.

    Elijah was a powerful prophet whose life on earth ended in a very unique way. 2 Kings 2 records the event that occurred right in front of Elijah’s protégé Elisha like this: “…..suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire, and separated the two of them; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.”.


    10. Nebuchadnezzar (6th century)
    11. Daniel

    King Nebuchadnezzar was King of the first great Kingdom – the Babylonian Kingdom. He was also the “head” of the great statue – made of 4 materials - he dreamed about that represented the 4 great Kingdoms to come before Christ ushered in His own Kingdom. (See Daniel 2).

    The king demanded an interpretation of his troubling dream from his pagan spiritual advisors, but insisted that they do it without him telling them the dream. Of course they couldn’t do it, so the king ordered all of the advisors and wise men of Babylon to be killed. When Daniel, one of those young advisors (captured by the Babylonian conquest of Israel), heard of the king’s decree, he prayed that God would grant him the dream and interpretation – and He did.

    Daniel’s interpretation is one of the most amazing prophesies in the OT predicting the ushering in of Christ’s Kingdom after the 4 great Kingdoms reigning in the 600 yrs before Christ. Daniel explained that the 4 parts of the statue were:
    1. Head/Gold/Babylonian Empire
    2. Chest and Arms/Silver/Medes&Persian Empire
    3. Belly and Thighs/Bronze/Greek Empire
    4. Legs and Feet/Iron and Clay/Roman Empire

    Then Daniel told the King that a stone “cut without hands” (Christ) struck the statue on its feet (the Roman Empire) and crushed all the other parts (kingdoms) together. Then the Stone grew into a great mountain (Christ’s kingdom) that filled the whole earth.

    And that’s exactly what happened over the next 600 years…..and counting.

    Nebuchadnezzar honored God for a time, but then God humiliated him (Dan 4) as being humbled by God for bragging about his kingdom. He was “given the heart of a beast” and made to crawl on all fours as a madman eating grass for years.

    As if the prophesy of the statue dream wasn’t enough, years later Daniel had a dream of 4 beasts (Daniel 7) that perfectly paralleled the 4 statue parts or kingdoms/Empires. The 4th beast “was more terrible than the others”. That 4th beast – like the last of the statue parts - was the Roman Empire which was just that – a ruthless, powerful Empire that covered practically the entire known world and lasted about 500 years. The Roman Empire carried out heavy persecutions martyring countless Christians including all of the Apostles (except John) and almost all of the known leaders for the first 300 years of the church.

    Daniel died an old man who spent most of his life in Babylon as a top advisor to King Nebuchadnezzar and a high official in that country long after the King died.

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  6. (Part 3 of 3):


    12. Jerimiah (prophet from approx. 625 – 585BC)

    If you placed Jerimiah before King Nebuchadnezzar, that would be okay since they both lived at the same time (I couldn’t really determine who was born first).

    For ancient people, birthdates were not as well documented as the dates they died for several reasons. First, birth records were not kept accurately unless the person was very famous. Second, the day notable people died was usually a more significant date. Political and religious leadership often changed hands when the person died and so that date was marked in history as a significant event and therefore documented.

    Christians honored those who they looked up to as Christ-like examples on the day they died. This was/is true, particularly if they were well known Christian martyrs. Their martyrdoms were commonly a public spectacle designed to discourage other Christians. Little did the persecutors know that the willingness to die for Christ had exactly the opposite effect on those watching – even pagans. They died so willingly and with dignity – often singing hymns to Jesus or praying peacefully, unlike common criminals who were often kicking and screaming on their way to be executed. (“Hmmm. Maybe there is something to this Christian faith….”).

    In the 3rd century, as another wave of fierce persecution swept into northern Africa (Carthage) a leader named Tertullian said: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

    The bones of the martyrs were often recovered and buried. Their tombs were/are sites of pilgrimages for the faithful to return to year after year in memory of them.

    13. John the Baptist (born 6 months before Jesus)
    14. Jesus

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