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The First Apology
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Chapter 31: About the Hebrew Prophets.
AMONG THE JEWS: there were certain men who were prophets of God, through whom the prophetic Spirit revealed things that were going to happen before they actually did. These prophecies, as they were spoken and when they were announced, were carefully kept by the kings who were ruling among the Jews at various times. The prophets themselves arranged them into books in their own Hebrew language. When Ptolemy, the king of Egypt, established a library and attempted to gather the writings of all men, he also learned about these prophets and sent a request to Herod, who was king of the Jews at that time, asking that the books of the prophets be sent to him.
King Herod did send them, written in the mentioned Hebrew language. When their contents proved to be unintelligible to the Egyptians, Ptolemy again sent a request for men to be assigned to translate them into Greek. Once this was done, the books remained with the Egyptians, where they still are to this day. They are also in the possession of all Jews throughout the world; but they, although they read, do not understand what is written and consider us foes and enemies.
Like you, they kill and punish us whenever they have the power, as you can well believe. For in the recent Jewish war, Barchochebas, the leader of the Jewish revolt, ordered that only Christians should be subjected to cruel punishments unless they denied Jesus Christ and shouted blasphemies. In these prophetic books, we found that Jesus our Christ was foretold as coming, being born of a virgin, growing up to adulthood, healing every disease and sickness, raising the dead, being hated and unrecognized, crucified, dying, rising again, ascending into heaven, and being called the Son of God.
It is also predicted that certain people would be sent by Him to every nation to announce these things, and that people would believe in Him more among the Gentiles than among the Jews. He was predicted before He appeared, first 5000 years before, then 3000, then 2000, then 1000, and again 800 years before; for through the generations, prophets arose one after another.
Hear the Scriptures cited in The First Apology
The First Apology quotes or alludes to these Bible chapters more than any others. Each link opens the free audio Bible, where the chapter is read aloud alongside the text, cross-references, and what other early Christian writers said about it.
- Hear Isaiah 52 (audio Bible) — cited 3 times in this work
- Hear Matthew 5 (audio Bible) — cited 3 times in this work
- Hear Genesis 6 (audio Bible) — cited 2 times in this work
- Hear Genesis 49 (audio Bible) — cited 2 times in this work
- Hear Numbers 21 (audio Bible) — cited 2 times in this work
- Hear Psalms 22 (audio Bible) — cited 2 times in this work
- Hear Isaiah 65 (audio Bible) — cited 2 times in this work
- Hear Matthew 19 (audio Bible) — cited 2 times in this work
- Hear Genesis 14 (audio Bible)
- Hear Genesis 18 (audio Bible)
- Hear Genesis 32 (audio Bible)
- Hear Exodus 3 (audio Bible)