Lorena Hamstra

“11). The Bible is like a large picture puzzle. Each puzzle piece (individual book) has its own unique shape and bears its own unique image. But these individual shapes were designed to fit together into something whole, and the image of the whole provides the context and makes sense of the smaller, individual images. For this reason, it is helpful to understand that the Bible is not a love letter, a self-help guide, a history textbook, a story, a legal code, a collection of ancient letters, or a religious handbook, though these types of things certainly appear throughout the pages of the biblical text (diversity). Rather, altogether, the Bible is the record, the deposit, the testimony of God’s good news in Jesus Christ (unity). It is a legal, objective, public document that describes and explains the covenantal relationship by which God has condescended and united himself first to this world and then to his people through Jesus Christ (function).”
― Miles V. Van Pelt, A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament: The Gospel Promised