Okay, here's the story of the world according to the Bible...
In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth... The start is pretty basic. This is pretty much general revelation. We're here, the universe is here, the whole place is fairly organized, looks like somebody made this place. Let's call Him God. Now, what is God like and what does He want? The rest of the Bible unfolds the answer to this question.
One of the first things that happens in this new planet is people mess it up. (with the help of the devil) God gave people the earth to "rule over and subdue". God told people "not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil." God gave people the "authority" to chose wether or not they are going to listen to God.
(By the way, whenever I use quotes, I an quoting the Bible. So far, everything has come from Genesis 1-3)
Remember, if this stuff is true, it is really true. It's not just subjective truth, or an allegory to fill a theological need. If it's true, thew we'd better throw away our modern empiricism and our post-modern subjective truth and believe this stuff in a real, concrete, true sort of way. As you read on, you will see contracts being made, and literal prophecy being fulfilled and it all has no teeth unless it is true in the same sense that 2+2=4.
Anyway, back to the story...Man screwed up and God told man the consequences of what they did. God told man that he was going to work for his food and women would desire somone to take care of them, but they won't want men because men are screw-ups now but women are going to be stuck with men because there really is no other option if they want to be taken care of. God told the Devil that "the seed of the woman would crush your head, but you will strike his heel." This is the first reference in the Bible of Jesus being crucified, and rising from the dead. His heel was struck when He was crucified, and Satan's head was crushed when Jesus rose.
By the way, this is not 'plan B' for God, He always planned on dying to take care of us. I don't know why God does what He does, but I think this was His plan because He wanted to show all His creation exactly how loving He is. Phillipians talks about us being on display for the "principalities and powers of the air" Wierd, huh? We are an example of the loving nature of God for angels! Also, 1 Peter says that Jesus was "foreordained before the foundation of the world" So God knew that He was going to send Jesus to save us even before day 1 of creation.
Back to the story... So man screwed up, and Genesis 3-12 just kind of shows man wallowing in their serewed-uppyness and then Abraham comes along. Abraham didn't know much about God (at least the Bible wasn't written yet, I'm sure he knew at least various oral traditions of creation, I don't know how much he knew through special revelation) At any rate, whaterer he knew about God, the Bible says "Abraham trusted God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." There are lots of cool things to look at in the life of Abraham, but the one we are going to focus in on is the covenant God made with him. God promised Abraham land, decendants, a nation, and that "his Seed would bless the whole world" Pay special attention to that last one. The Seed being spoken of is Jesus. Galatians which was written thousands of years after the covenant says this directly. They had a wierd way of sealing a covenant in that day. They cut up animals which was supposed to represent the fate of the person who broke the covenant. This is actually a doccumented practice outside of the Bible as well. So Abraham splits a bunch of animals in half and God anthropomorphically walks between the animal halves in the form of a smoking firepot. So, understand, this is a binding contract which cannot be altered upon penalty of death. The deal is this: If Abraham's seed does not bless the whole world, may God die.
Flash forward a couple hundred years, the Isralites have been freed from slavery, they occupy the promised land and they are a mini force to be reconned with in the off chance that they happen to be obeying God that generation. Notice, the first 3 parts of God's promise to Abraham have been fulfilled. He god decendants, they got land, and now they are a nation. But what about the last part of the covenant? When will Abrahams Seed bless the whole world?
Now God makes another covenant. This time with King David. David wants to build God a temple (visible legacy). God says "No, you have shed too much blood. Instead, I, God will build you a visible legacy. I , God promise that you, David will always have one of your decendants on the throne. And there was always a decendant of David on the throne in Israel. That is of course untill Jesus. Jesus is a literal decendant of David, and he now is eternally on the throne since He rose from the dead.
After this the Jews pretty much had it figured out that some Isralite (which means decendant of Abraham) from the line of David was going to come along and fulfill all these covenants that God had been setting up.
Prophets would write crazy things about this future Messiah and not even know what they were writing, only that God prompted them to write. They would say stuff like "He will be borne of a virgin" or "Form Bethlehem" or "They will hang him on a tree" (even though crucifixion hadn't been invented when they wrote that down.) There is literally hundreds of little blurbs about what Jesus will be like, or what is going to happen to Jesus in the Old Testament. 1 Peter says that the prophets didn't exactly know what they were writing, only that it had to do with salvation. (1 Pet. 1:10-12 if you are interested)
The stage is set, God promised that Abraham's Seed would bless the whole world, God promised that David would always have an heir on the throne, and God's honor is at stake if He doesn't follow through.
Then comes Jesus. Jesus fulfilled every little stitch of prophecy about Him that was written in the OT. Jesus fulfilled the allusions and wierd imagery from the OT. For example, there is a time in the OT where all the Isralites were dying from snakebites. Moses makes a big gold snake, and puts it on a pole and anyone who looks at the snake gets healed. Oddly, some people refuse to do a simple thing like look in a particular direction and consequentially, die. This is a reference to the simplicity of looking toward Jesus for help coupled with the absurdity of it being that simple. There is another time where where the Isralites are dying of thirst and Moses is commanded by God to strike a rock and a stream of water gushes out. This is a picture of Jesus being struck (crucified) only to produce living water for anyone who would have it.
The Bible says we are all sinners. I didn't need the Bible to figure that out, just looking around prooves that pretty quick. We aren't getting any better, either. The Bible also is so intracetly interwoven that is would be impossible for the Old Testament to have that much imagery line up with the reality of Christ having been written mellinea prior. Oddly, all these cute little analogies didn't convince me that the Bible was true. They made me have a hunch that the Bible could be true, but the thing that convinced me that the Bible was true was God. I cried out in desparation that I couldn't get to Him. I told God that I couldn't 'sense' His presence. God basically said "finally, I've been waiting for you to realise that you couldn't do it, now let me take over."
The Bible does a great job of leading a person to God, but before all the studying in the world can do any good, a person has to repent, and turn from whatever they are pursuing that leads them away from God, and start pursuing God wholeheartedly.
The deal is this, we are all a bunch of screwups, we can't fix our lives on our own. Even if we have a million dollars in the bank and a hot wife, we're still going to die some day. God said "There must be blood for the remission of sins." God righteously, not indignantly will demand blood for each and every sin that you and I commit. God made a contract with Abraham. God shed His own son's - an the Seed of Abraham - Blood for the remission of sins. If you wanna get in on that contract, and get somebody else to shed their blood for you, all you gotta do is ask God. Just understand, this stuff is real just like 2+2=4. We're talking about real justice, real truth, and real events. It doesn't work to trust that the Bible might have the path laid out for humanity, you gotta trust the Bible just like you would trust the laws of aerodynamics before you get on an airplane.
peace