Values in the time of Genesis were much different than ours.
1. The most important goals were for survival:
a. Fruit of the belly - having lots of children - Tamar even goes so far as to pose as a prostitute to get a child. And she was considered righteous in what she did.
b. Fruit of the ground - having lots of crops
2. The second most important goal was that of getting attention, that is, rising to the top. Here are some examples:
a. People fought for God's attention and blessings - Cain killed his brother because he got more attention from God, Jacob wrestled with an angel for it
b. People wanted dad's attention and blessing - 10 of Joseph's brothers sought to kill Joseph because he got most of dad's attention, and Jacob stole his dad's blessing
c. Wives wanted their husband's attention, competing and fighting for it.
These themes are seen over and over and over in Genesis. All other values and morals were secondary to the needs of survival and getting attention.
3. Another important value in Genesis is the need to stay in the family. Because Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were nomads, they prefered to stay within the family for marriages and close relationships. They wandered from place to place, so outsiders were not trusted.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
Was Adam with Eve During the Temptation?
The Verdict is out. Was Adam with Eve during the temptation?
Clue One: The serpent spoke only to the woman. Why?
Clue Two: Adam was not mentioned until after Eve ate from the fruit.
Clue Three: When Eve ate, she gave to her husband who was with her. Was he with her during or only after the temptation?
Think this through.
If Adam was with her, why was he so quite?
Clue One: The serpent spoke only to the woman. Why?
Clue Two: Adam was not mentioned until after Eve ate from the fruit.
Clue Three: When Eve ate, she gave to her husband who was with her. Was he with her during or only after the temptation?
Think this through.
If Adam was with her, why was he so quite?
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Themes in Genesis: Competition - Cain and Abel
Genesis is loaded with people who compete for attention. Sons want the attention of their father and wives want the attention of their husbands. The first competition for attention in Genesis is not about husband or father attention, but a competition over God's attention. Even though the focus of attention is different, it is the same dynamic in every case.
As the competition between Cain and Abel were the first of all of Genesis' competitions, it served as the prototype for all the others.
In the case of Adam and Cain, they both bring offerings to God. Cain brought from his harvest and Abel brought from "the best" of his flock. What's the difference? Those two words "the best."
Cain got jealous because his brother's sacrifice was the one God liked the best. This made him angry and in this anger he killed his brother to get rid of the competition and to fulfill his need to act on his anger.
Even though jealousy and competition for attention was repeated throughout the book of Genesis, there was only one time that any solution for it was mentioned. When God spoke to Cain He said, "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
Sin was like a lion that waits to pounce on its victim.
Genesis offered the solution to jealousy and competition in Genesis, and He offered it to Cain while he was feeling his jealous anger and before he had killed his brother. He never again tells anybody in Genesis, but time and time again Cain's jealous rage will be repeated in with Sarah, Isaac, Reuben, and Joseph's brothers. None of them controlled their jealousy. Sin pounced on each of them.
As the competition between Cain and Abel were the first of all of Genesis' competitions, it served as the prototype for all the others.
In the case of Adam and Cain, they both bring offerings to God. Cain brought from his harvest and Abel brought from "the best" of his flock. What's the difference? Those two words "the best."
Cain got jealous because his brother's sacrifice was the one God liked the best. This made him angry and in this anger he killed his brother to get rid of the competition and to fulfill his need to act on his anger.
Even though jealousy and competition for attention was repeated throughout the book of Genesis, there was only one time that any solution for it was mentioned. When God spoke to Cain He said, "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
Sin was like a lion that waits to pounce on its victim.
Genesis offered the solution to jealousy and competition in Genesis, and He offered it to Cain while he was feeling his jealous anger and before he had killed his brother. He never again tells anybody in Genesis, but time and time again Cain's jealous rage will be repeated in with Sarah, Isaac, Reuben, and Joseph's brothers. None of them controlled their jealousy. Sin pounced on each of them.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Why Did God Send a Flood?
God sent a flood on the earth to destroy just about everything...why? Genesis 6 tells us it was because of several reasons.
First of all there was wickedness. Unfortunately this is a generic term that does not help us to understand what God hated. The same is true when Genesis says that the world was corrupt. Without context these words mean only what each person reads into the words corrupt and wicked.
The context does, however, shed some light on the sinfulness of humanity. For one, Genesis 6:12 tells us that people corrupted themselves. They did not simply passively fall into corruption, but actively participated in it.
Secondly, the contextual stage is set in the early verses of chapter 6 when the sons of God took wives from the daughters of men. The meaning of this passage was discussed elsewhere, but for the purpose of this section, it seems to say nothing to us today unless we somehow relate this verse to Christians marrying non-Christians (this is a stretch and does not find support from a literal reading of the text).
This brings us to the next sin - every imagination of the human heart was only evil. Once again we find a generic term that leaves us wondering what thoughts were thought. However, it is clear that the passage and the passages following the flood suggest that the thoughts of the human heart are no different today than they were then.
These verses and words that describe the condition of humanity that God hated leave us wondering what exactly did push God into such anger. However, in verses 11 and 13 gets more specific and tells us that God destroyed the earth because people were violent.
I must emphasize, the flood did not change anything about that violence. People would still be violent after the flood. In fact, after the flood God simply resigned himself to the fact that we would not change.
Then the LORD said in His heart, "I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done." (Genesis 8:21)
The rest of Genesis shows us what kind of thoughts and the type of violence that humanity is capable of. In other stories in the book of Genesis we find brothers plotting against and killing brothers, rape, incest, taking revenge by killing the men of a city, taking innocent people prisoners, kings fighting against kings, raping of strangers (IE: Sodom wanting to rape the angels), killing in self-defense, forced slavery, mistreatment of slaves, blaming others, and so on, and so on.
Humanity never did change. God just resigned himself to the fact that our thinking is evil and our actions are violent. We never changed. We are still violent. Our thoughts still justify violence. Whether it is on a national level, a group level, or an individual level... we are and will always be violent. Furthermore, we usually do not see the evil of our own violence and we will usually justify it.
First of all there was wickedness. Unfortunately this is a generic term that does not help us to understand what God hated. The same is true when Genesis says that the world was corrupt. Without context these words mean only what each person reads into the words corrupt and wicked.
The context does, however, shed some light on the sinfulness of humanity. For one, Genesis 6:12 tells us that people corrupted themselves. They did not simply passively fall into corruption, but actively participated in it.
Secondly, the contextual stage is set in the early verses of chapter 6 when the sons of God took wives from the daughters of men. The meaning of this passage was discussed elsewhere, but for the purpose of this section, it seems to say nothing to us today unless we somehow relate this verse to Christians marrying non-Christians (this is a stretch and does not find support from a literal reading of the text).
This brings us to the next sin - every imagination of the human heart was only evil. Once again we find a generic term that leaves us wondering what thoughts were thought. However, it is clear that the passage and the passages following the flood suggest that the thoughts of the human heart are no different today than they were then.
These verses and words that describe the condition of humanity that God hated leave us wondering what exactly did push God into such anger. However, in verses 11 and 13 gets more specific and tells us that God destroyed the earth because people were violent.
I must emphasize, the flood did not change anything about that violence. People would still be violent after the flood. In fact, after the flood God simply resigned himself to the fact that we would not change.
Then the LORD said in His heart, "I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done." (Genesis 8:21)
The rest of Genesis shows us what kind of thoughts and the type of violence that humanity is capable of. In other stories in the book of Genesis we find brothers plotting against and killing brothers, rape, incest, taking revenge by killing the men of a city, taking innocent people prisoners, kings fighting against kings, raping of strangers (IE: Sodom wanting to rape the angels), killing in self-defense, forced slavery, mistreatment of slaves, blaming others, and so on, and so on.
Humanity never did change. God just resigned himself to the fact that our thinking is evil and our actions are violent. We never changed. We are still violent. Our thoughts still justify violence. Whether it is on a national level, a group level, or an individual level... we are and will always be violent. Furthermore, we usually do not see the evil of our own violence and we will usually justify it.
Themes in Genesis: The Importance for a Woman to Give Birth
As I touched upon in an earlier article, having children was the highest of values in Genesis. It was the most important of all values and as such, in order to get children much of what we hold to be near and dear was pushed aside.
After Lot left Sodom and lost his wife because she loved Sodom, he was left alone with his two daughters. They had nobody else to marry so they chose to get their dad drunk and sleep with him in order to have children by him. The end result was two nations were born - Moab and the Ammonites. I have often wondered if this wasn't a story told in Israel to belittle their two neighboring nations - sons and daughters of incest.
Sarah was barren so she let Abraham sleep with her servant Hagar. Through Hagar, Sarah had hoped to raise a child, but it seems that once a child was born that child bonded more to the true mother as it was in this case.
When Rachel saw that her sister had 4 sons (they shared the same husband) and she had none, so she gave her servant to her husband because she hoped to be able to even the score with her sister even though they were her servant's children and not hers. It worked so well, that her sister Leah realizing the kids weren't being popped out anymore, gave her servant to their common husband. By the end, the husband Jacob was sleeping with four women, giving a grand total of 12 sons and unknown amounts of daughters.
Jacob's 4th born son Judah had 3 sons. The oldest died (God killed him because he was evil) leaving his wife to the next brother to carry out an important Israelite tradition - to have a child with the widow so that the child can be raised as the son of the dead husband, thus carrying on the name of the dead husband. But the 2nd son was not a good brother and spilled his seed on the ground so that she could not become pregnant. For some reason, he didn't care to continue his brother's name. God got upset with his behavior and killed him.
By the way this passage has been used by misinformed preachers to preach against masturbation, but this is having to do with the duty of carrying on the dead brother's name, not... you know....
Judah began to believe that his sons' deaths were all due to one common denominator - the "black widow" Tamar. So he made her a deal, "Wait until my youngest son is older and you can have a child by him." But Judah had no intention on doing this. Tamar saw through his scheme when the boy was older and she had no offer to have sex with him, so she took matters into her own hands (literally).
Without Judah knowing, Tamar put a veil on and posed as a prostitute, snagging Judah into her bed. It worked and she got pregnant by Judah, who had no idea the prostitute he hired was his daughter-in-law. Eventually when he was told she was pregnant through prostition he wanted to have her killed, but when he found out that he was the father, he commended her for her righteousness.
Why? Because she did it to have a child in the name of her dead husband by a close kin. Having children was more important than avoiding incest.
After Lot left Sodom and lost his wife because she loved Sodom, he was left alone with his two daughters. They had nobody else to marry so they chose to get their dad drunk and sleep with him in order to have children by him. The end result was two nations were born - Moab and the Ammonites. I have often wondered if this wasn't a story told in Israel to belittle their two neighboring nations - sons and daughters of incest.
Sarah was barren so she let Abraham sleep with her servant Hagar. Through Hagar, Sarah had hoped to raise a child, but it seems that once a child was born that child bonded more to the true mother as it was in this case.
When Rachel saw that her sister had 4 sons (they shared the same husband) and she had none, so she gave her servant to her husband because she hoped to be able to even the score with her sister even though they were her servant's children and not hers. It worked so well, that her sister Leah realizing the kids weren't being popped out anymore, gave her servant to their common husband. By the end, the husband Jacob was sleeping with four women, giving a grand total of 12 sons and unknown amounts of daughters.
Jacob's 4th born son Judah had 3 sons. The oldest died (God killed him because he was evil) leaving his wife to the next brother to carry out an important Israelite tradition - to have a child with the widow so that the child can be raised as the son of the dead husband, thus carrying on the name of the dead husband. But the 2nd son was not a good brother and spilled his seed on the ground so that she could not become pregnant. For some reason, he didn't care to continue his brother's name. God got upset with his behavior and killed him.
By the way this passage has been used by misinformed preachers to preach against masturbation, but this is having to do with the duty of carrying on the dead brother's name, not... you know....
Judah began to believe that his sons' deaths were all due to one common denominator - the "black widow" Tamar. So he made her a deal, "Wait until my youngest son is older and you can have a child by him." But Judah had no intention on doing this. Tamar saw through his scheme when the boy was older and she had no offer to have sex with him, so she took matters into her own hands (literally).
Without Judah knowing, Tamar put a veil on and posed as a prostitute, snagging Judah into her bed. It worked and she got pregnant by Judah, who had no idea the prostitute he hired was his daughter-in-law. Eventually when he was told she was pregnant through prostition he wanted to have her killed, but when he found out that he was the father, he commended her for her righteousness.
Why? Because she did it to have a child in the name of her dead husband by a close kin. Having children was more important than avoiding incest.
Who Were the Sons of God in Genesis?
Genesis 6 talks about the sons of God marrying the daughters of man, the result = giants on the earth. Here are the best options:
1 - Sons of God = the line of Seth (Adam and Eve's 3rd born)
Daughters of man = the line of Cain
This troubles me because it is forced. It does not make good sense. Adam and Eve were human and the results of all their offspring would be normal human beings. To say that the line of Cain mixing with the line of Seth creates giants is impossible to us in the world as we know it, unless the word giant is redefined to mean tall people.
Indeed there are groups of people who are taller than other groups. As one of my students left Viet Nam in a boat, the rumors on the Vietnamese boats spread that the U.S. was a land of giants. Some people returned for fear of the giants. Point is - generally we are a taller people and rumors and I mean rumors make us into giants.
Problem is: The giants of Genesis seem much bigger and making them the sons of Seth and daughters of Cain sounds forced by people who just don't know what else to do with the passage.
2 - The second explanation goes like this: the Sons of God are angels and the daughters of men are humans. This comes from a few scrolls found in Jesus' time that never made the bible. Jesus' brother Jude quotes a lenghty piece from the book of Enoch creating a stir among sholars who question weather or not Jude believed he was quoting from God's word or weather he was quoting a regular book that he did not consider God's word.
The sons of God in Enoch and in another book (Jubilees) are special angels called watchers who were responsible to take care of certain divisions of the world. These watchers lusted after the human women and longed to have sex with them, so they came down to the earth and mated with women. The end result were giants who created havoc for the world of normal humans.
The watchers also did other evils on the earth. They taught men the arts of war and the taught women the arts of make up - how horrid. The results as I mentioned were giants that just about destroyed the world.
Problem with this: Angels only have sexual contact with humans in the world of mythology.
1 - Sons of God = the line of Seth (Adam and Eve's 3rd born)
Daughters of man = the line of Cain
This troubles me because it is forced. It does not make good sense. Adam and Eve were human and the results of all their offspring would be normal human beings. To say that the line of Cain mixing with the line of Seth creates giants is impossible to us in the world as we know it, unless the word giant is redefined to mean tall people.
Indeed there are groups of people who are taller than other groups. As one of my students left Viet Nam in a boat, the rumors on the Vietnamese boats spread that the U.S. was a land of giants. Some people returned for fear of the giants. Point is - generally we are a taller people and rumors and I mean rumors make us into giants.
Problem is: The giants of Genesis seem much bigger and making them the sons of Seth and daughters of Cain sounds forced by people who just don't know what else to do with the passage.
2 - The second explanation goes like this: the Sons of God are angels and the daughters of men are humans. This comes from a few scrolls found in Jesus' time that never made the bible. Jesus' brother Jude quotes a lenghty piece from the book of Enoch creating a stir among sholars who question weather or not Jude believed he was quoting from God's word or weather he was quoting a regular book that he did not consider God's word.
The sons of God in Enoch and in another book (Jubilees) are special angels called watchers who were responsible to take care of certain divisions of the world. These watchers lusted after the human women and longed to have sex with them, so they came down to the earth and mated with women. The end result were giants who created havoc for the world of normal humans.
The watchers also did other evils on the earth. They taught men the arts of war and the taught women the arts of make up - how horrid. The results as I mentioned were giants that just about destroyed the world.
Problem with this: Angels only have sexual contact with humans in the world of mythology.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Did Enoch Walk with God or Angels?
And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters (Genesis 5:22).
The word "God" in this verse is Elohim which is a word that is plural, so his name is plural.. Elohim can be translated either "God" or "angels." In Psalm 8:5 the word it is translated "the angels," that is, God made humans a little lower than the elohim.
All English translations interpret Genesis 5:22 "Enoch walked with God." But one ancient translator - one of the writers of a book called "The Book of Enoch," translated the passage as follows: "Enoch walked with the angels." The writer of Enoch uses this translation to suggest that Enoch walked with angels and was shown great things in heaven and on earth, which he wrote about.
None of the authors of the Book of Enoch were really Enoch himself (there were 5 authors in one book), but all claimed to be Enoch. This actually was a common practice in Bible days. People wrote books in the name of famous Bible celebraties like Abraham, the Twelve Patriarchs, Adam and Eve, and Enoch. None of these were really written by the name of the book.
The interesting thing is: The Book of Jude quotes from the Book of Enoch.
Check it out - google "the Ethiopian Book of Enoch."
The word "God" in this verse is Elohim which is a word that is plural, so his name is plural.. Elohim can be translated either "God" or "angels." In Psalm 8:5 the word it is translated "the angels," that is, God made humans a little lower than the elohim.
All English translations interpret Genesis 5:22 "Enoch walked with God." But one ancient translator - one of the writers of a book called "The Book of Enoch," translated the passage as follows: "Enoch walked with the angels." The writer of Enoch uses this translation to suggest that Enoch walked with angels and was shown great things in heaven and on earth, which he wrote about.
None of the authors of the Book of Enoch were really Enoch himself (there were 5 authors in one book), but all claimed to be Enoch. This actually was a common practice in Bible days. People wrote books in the name of famous Bible celebraties like Abraham, the Twelve Patriarchs, Adam and Eve, and Enoch. None of these were really written by the name of the book.
The interesting thing is: The Book of Jude quotes from the Book of Enoch.
Check it out - google "the Ethiopian Book of Enoch."
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
The Tower of Babel and Abraham
The Tower of Babel is the story that precedes the call of Abraham with some genealogy in between. The stories are connected.
The people of Babel want to build a tower for three purposes:
1. To reach heaven
2. To avoid scattering (God had given the commandment for all of humanity to spread out and populate the earth)
3. To make a name for themselves
Although their attempt is foiled, with Abraham:
1. Heaven reaches down
2. God tells Abraham to go out into the world
3. God promises Abraham that He will make Abraham's name great
These two stories placed close together in Genesis for this reason - to show us the difference between human goals and achievements and God's.
The people of Babel want to build a tower for three purposes:
1. To reach heaven
2. To avoid scattering (God had given the commandment for all of humanity to spread out and populate the earth)
3. To make a name for themselves
Although their attempt is foiled, with Abraham:
1. Heaven reaches down
2. God tells Abraham to go out into the world
3. God promises Abraham that He will make Abraham's name great
These two stories placed close together in Genesis for this reason - to show us the difference between human goals and achievements and God's.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Themes in Genesis: Deception
There was lot of deception in Genesis.
1. The serpent deceived Eve.
2. Abraham deceived Pharoah and the King of Gerar by claiming Sarah was his sister. Although this was true he puposely concealed the fact that Sarah was also his wife. How many times do we do conceal in what we reveal?
3. Abraham and Sarah sent a servant to get Isaac's wife - unusual, unless there was something about Isaac that would have hindered him from getting his own. The servant goes with a lot of gifts, money and great stories (true ones) about the power, wealth and prestige Isaac's wife would marry into. I cannot be sure, but I believe that this was trickery to get Rebecca to marry a man sight unseen she would never have accepted had she met the guy.
4. They have two sons of which the second one is a trickster. He deceives dad pretending to be his brother and thus steals a blessing from his father who cannot see and who does not have the smarts to put 2 and 2 together when he knew that he heard Jacob's voice but when he smelled and felt him he concluded it was Esau.
5. Jacob's mother Rebeccah put Jacob up to this last trick. When Jacob moved to live with his mother's brother, he cheated Jacob regularly.
a. Jacob worked 7 years for Leban in order to marry his daughter Rachel. On wedding night however, Leban put his older daughter Leah in the place of Rachel. Like his mother, Jacob was surprised with a spouse he did not expect - for the rest of his life.
b. Leban changed Jacob's wages over and over.
c. Jacob did everything he could to get the upper hand.
6. Rachel stole her father's idol and hid it under her seat. When asked to get up she said she was having her period and couldn't.
7. Tamar tricked her father-in-law Judah into believing she was an unknown prostitute when in fact she was only trying to get a child in the name of her dead husband.
8. Two brothers led a village into believing that the family would settle down with the village for economic and marrigage reasons if they were circumcised. Instead the brothers slaughtered all the men who were unable to defend themselves in their weakened state.
9. All the brothers tricked their dad into believing that Joseph was dead, when in fact they sold him into slavery.
10. Joseph tricked his brothers into believing he was a mean old ruler telling them that they were spies and imprisoning one of them until his other brother came to Egypt.
11. Joseph set them up again with a stolen cup placed in Benjamin's sack of food. He set them up for purposes to be explored later.
There was a lot of trickery, dishonesty and bad stuff going on in Genesis.
1. The serpent deceived Eve.
2. Abraham deceived Pharoah and the King of Gerar by claiming Sarah was his sister. Although this was true he puposely concealed the fact that Sarah was also his wife. How many times do we do conceal in what we reveal?
3. Abraham and Sarah sent a servant to get Isaac's wife - unusual, unless there was something about Isaac that would have hindered him from getting his own. The servant goes with a lot of gifts, money and great stories (true ones) about the power, wealth and prestige Isaac's wife would marry into. I cannot be sure, but I believe that this was trickery to get Rebecca to marry a man sight unseen she would never have accepted had she met the guy.
4. They have two sons of which the second one is a trickster. He deceives dad pretending to be his brother and thus steals a blessing from his father who cannot see and who does not have the smarts to put 2 and 2 together when he knew that he heard Jacob's voice but when he smelled and felt him he concluded it was Esau.
5. Jacob's mother Rebeccah put Jacob up to this last trick. When Jacob moved to live with his mother's brother, he cheated Jacob regularly.
a. Jacob worked 7 years for Leban in order to marry his daughter Rachel. On wedding night however, Leban put his older daughter Leah in the place of Rachel. Like his mother, Jacob was surprised with a spouse he did not expect - for the rest of his life.
b. Leban changed Jacob's wages over and over.
c. Jacob did everything he could to get the upper hand.
6. Rachel stole her father's idol and hid it under her seat. When asked to get up she said she was having her period and couldn't.
7. Tamar tricked her father-in-law Judah into believing she was an unknown prostitute when in fact she was only trying to get a child in the name of her dead husband.
8. Two brothers led a village into believing that the family would settle down with the village for economic and marrigage reasons if they were circumcised. Instead the brothers slaughtered all the men who were unable to defend themselves in their weakened state.
9. All the brothers tricked their dad into believing that Joseph was dead, when in fact they sold him into slavery.
10. Joseph tricked his brothers into believing he was a mean old ruler telling them that they were spies and imprisoning one of them until his other brother came to Egypt.
11. Joseph set them up again with a stolen cup placed in Benjamin's sack of food. He set them up for purposes to be explored later.
There was a lot of trickery, dishonesty and bad stuff going on in Genesis.
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