Table of Contents

Introduction

THE OLD TESTAMENT

Chapter 1 Genesis: Fall, Fratricide and Flood
Adam and Eve – temptation, the Tree of Knowledge and banished from the Garden of Eden
Cain & Abel – Cain kills his brother Abel, lies about the murder to God and as a result is cursed and marked for life.
Noah and the Flood

Chapter 2 Incest, Intrigue and Inheritance: The Patriarchs
Abraham
– Abraham and Sarai – travelling into Egypt to escape famine in Canaan, Abraham tells Sarai to claim to be his sister, not his wife, so that the Egyptians would not kill him. But the Pharaoh valued Sarai’s beauty and took her into his palace, paying Abraham off with livestock. However, God reacted by bringing a plague on Egypt. On discovering that Sarai was a married woman, Pharaoh asked her to leave.
– Sodom & Gomorrah – Two cities riven with impenitent sin. Divine judgment by God was passed on the cities and they were completely consumed by fire and brimstone.
– Sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of his faith
– Jacob deceiving his father Isaac that he was his brother Esau and stealing his birthright
– Loving his son Joseph the most, making his other sons jealous. They sell Joseph into slavery, claiming that he was eaten by a wild animal.

Chapter 3 Laws and Wars
Moses
– The baby hidden in the bulrushes to escape a massacre – The Ten Plagues, Egypt and Exodus
– The enslavement of the Children of Israel by Egypt
– The crossing of the Red Sea
– The worship of the Golden Calf
– Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments – The Years in the Wilderness
– Noah and the Flood
Joshua’s conquest of Canaan – Walls of Jericho

Chapter 4 ‘Thou Shalt Smite Them, and Utterly Destroy Them’
Saul
– First king of a united kingdom of Israel. He fell on his sword to avoid capture in the battle against the Philistines at Mount Gilboa, during which three of his sons were also killed.
– Threatened by the success of David and plotting against him
King David
– And Bathsheba
– David and Goliath
– Adultery and murder
– The importance of David in Islam

Chapter 5 ‘No Such Thing Ought to be Done in Israel’
Solomon
– And the Queen of Sheba
– Descent into idolatry
Samson and Delilah

Chapter 6 Empires of Oppression
Jonah and the whale
Leviathan – the sea monster
Job – whose life is beset with horrendous disasters

THE NEW TESTAMENT

Chapter 7 ‘Not Peace, but a Sword’
John the Baptist
– Salome and the beheading of John the Baptist
Jesus of Nazareth
– Flight into Egypt – in which Joseph fled to Egypt with his wife Mary and infant son Jesus to escape King Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents
– Driving the money-lenders out of the Temple
– Persecution and betrayal by Judas Iscariot
– Pontius Pilate and The Crucifixion

Chapter 8 Revelation
– Scorpion-tailed Locusts
– The Dragon – Satan
– The Whore of Babylon
– The Judgement of the Beast
– Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – The False Prophet
– Death

Chapter 9 Gospel Truth
Different translations, interpretations, Maccabees and the apocrypha texts

Bibliography
Index