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The Biblical Heritage Center is not a religious institution. It has no "Statement of Faith" or doctrinal system. BHC's mission is first to gather and distribute information; and then to network those who share a common biblical heritage together. The BHC journey begins with the most popular book in history, the Bible.

What role does the Bible play in the lives of almost 2,000,000,000 Christians? Would we know anything about Jesus, Abraham, Moses, David, or even God without it? The Bible is not only used as a source for historical information, religious organizations of all sizes quote its words as proof of their divine authority.

The Bible has been the source of comfort for countless numbers of people for many centuries. It has been used heal broken relationships and bring complete strangers together. But even for all the good things that are associated with it, it has also been at the center of powerful movements of intolerance that destroyed the lives of millions.

There have been countless disagreements over the meanings of the messages found in the Bible. It holds the distinction of being one of the most controversial books ever written. I am sure that you are aware of how easy it is for arguments to be ignited over the meanings of the verses of the Bible.

This course is not designed to focus on the issues that generate heated debate, so you can relax. Instead, we are beginning with a topic upon which everyone will agree, regardless of our religious background - every Bible is a book full of words. If we can agree on that, we are ready to take the next step on our journey.

Words are governed by basic linguistic principles. Even though we all use words, many are unaware of those principles. Therefore, if we are going to learn how to most accurately approach the words in our Bible, we must begin by learning how words work. By doing this we are preparing ourselves to get the most out of our biblical heritage journey.

Cave Paintings From France

Language existed a long time before any words were ever written down. Long before our ancestors learned how to write, maybe as long as 25,000 or 30,000 years ago, they painted pictures on cave walls. Exactly what they were trying to say is not certain. Perhaps they were telling a story, or represented some type of spirit house, or were engaged in a ritual exercise.

The ancient cave paintings are the earliest attempts to communicate by using something other than voices or jesters. By turning the images before their eyes or in their minds into pictures, they were able to transmit them to others. I seriously doubt that they could ever have imagined that our eyes would see their images. No longer would all of their thoughts die with them, now they could be passed on to future generations many centuries after they were gone. This was a tremendous breakthrough in the knowledge of mankind.

Pictures evolved into related symbols, and then into abstract symbols unrelated to the original pictures. With the creation of abstract symbols writing came into being and the ability to communicate became more refined. Even though we are not able to know a great deal about the thoughts of the ancient cave painters, through their paintings they did something that many generations could not do -- they gave us a glimpse into their ancient world. Now, with the advanced development of our writing systems, we are able to communicate not only information about things, but also our emotions and other intangible realities of our world.

Cave Paintings From India

The advent of writing systems seems to coincide with the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to more permanent agrarian encampments. One of the first motivations for creating a writing system appears to be the need to count property, whether it was parcels of land, numbers of animals, measures of grain, or jars of beer. The advancement of writing systems made it possible for people to transfer the ownership of property from one person to another or to people from other settlements. Without the linguistic principles that govern language, none of this would have been possible.