In the first creation story (look at the last blog for more about the two creation stories in Genesis), Adam and Eve were created at the same time and created equal in status. In the second creation story, Adam was created before Eve and after the animals. In other words, Adam was created, then the animals and finally Eve.
Eve was created to fill a void in Adam's heart, an emptiness that the animals could not fill.
1 Timothy 2:11-14
A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.
Paul clearly looked back at the second creation story to base his argement concerning male and female. Because Adam was created before Eve, according to Paul:
1. Women should not have authority over men. Taken literally, this means women should not be leaders of any male or any group of people that includes at least one male. This applies to politics, the church, to business and any where else.
2. In such groups, women literally should not even give opinions, but keep their mouths shut.
However, notice that Paul qualified "I do not permit...." He is not saying that it is a command from God. Not all scripture is meant to be taken universally and literally. The proverb that states gray hair equals wisdom is not universally true, but is a generalization (as many other proverbs in the book of Proverbs). Paul is simply telling Timothy that he does not allow women to teach or position themselves above men.
This leaves a lot of questions. How far should we take Paul's advice? Consider these:
1. Aquilla and Priscilla worked with Paul, and Priscilla was probably the dominant person in the husband/wife relationship.
2. Junius was a woman's name and was mentioned by Paul in Romans 16. She or he (with a woman's name) was a fellow apostle.
My point is this: Paul may have held to a certain theological position/belief about women; but in practice, he was more liberal. BACK TO GENESIS
In 1 Timothy, Paul established the pecking order of male over female on the basis of two things:
1. Adam was created before Eve.
2. Eve was deceived by the serpent.
I have already shown that the first creation story equalized the relationship between man and woman. It is in the second story of creation that we get differences.
1. Adam was created before Eve.
2. Eve was made for Adam.
3. Adam named the woman, just as he named the animals before her.
4. Eve does not even talk until she is tempted. In other words, creation in the second story is all about Adam.
HOW SHOULD WE RELATE THIS TO TODAY'S WORLD?
In every group and in every society, there are women who excel. Should we hold them back? Keep them confined to using their gifts and skills for women only?
The American Evangelical circles are usually conservative in these matters and encourage men to take leadership over women. Their churches are (once again) usually led by men; some have written rules against women in leadership positions and some have only unspoken rules.
Many of these same Evangelicals would vote for a woman to become President of the U.S. if she was sufficiently born-again, anti-abortion/pro-life, anti-homosexual/pro-family and Republican.
Many of these same Evangelicals pay money to go to conferences with women speakers.
Many of these same Evangelicals watch women speakers who teach about Christian stuff on T.V.
Many of these same Evangelicals work under women in the work place, and accept their authority.
Many of these same Evangelicals do whatever their wives tell them to do.
There is a minority (probably a good sized minority) of Evangelicals who would allow women to become pastor or deacons (more of the latter). They either ignore Paul's family rules or point to the exceptions of his rules such as Aquilla and Priscilla. Some claim that Paul's rules were designed for the particular city and culture to which he was writing.
I just find it all very interesting.
How do Europe, Russia, Australia and other places deal with the Bible and women? Any of you want to comment?
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Male and Female in Genesis 1:26-27
TWO CREATION STORIES
In another blog, I have already established that there are two creation stories. Some would say there were two different stories that were passed down through generations and written down at some point in time as Genesis 1 and 2; others have suggested that Chapter 1 is an overview of creation and Chapter 2 focuses in on the garden during the first days.
GENESIS 1:26-27
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
EQUALITY OR NOT EQUALITY?
On the surface, this verse from the first story of creation looks like male and female were equal in creation, but in Hebrew grammar, this could be either complete equality or it could mean that men were first among equals. In Hebrew, the most important names were always mentioned first, but if someone wanted to write about equals, the author would automatically choose the male name first because the language and the culture always placed the male first, unless the woman was more imoportant.
In fact, women's names were placed first only when they were very important. Aquilla's and Priscilla's names were sometimes switched to Priscilla and Aquilla. The fact that Aquilla's name is mentioned first in about half of the times they are menioned tells us that she was not only equal in their ministry, but probably the more dominant of the two.
In Genesis 1, the Hebrew gives us two equal possibilities:
1. Because the male is mentioned first, he was the more imortant of the two or his status was higher.
2. They were absolutely equal. Adam was mentioned first only because the Hebrew language would place the male before the female in an equal relationship.
CONCLUSION ABOUT CHAPTER ONE
1. Genesis 1 gives us no indication that there was any difference in status between Adam and Eve.
2. Genesis 1 does not give us an order of creation. Adam was not made first, but both Adam and Eve were created at the same time.
3. The fact that Adam's name was mentioned before Eve's is most likely grammatical and does not indicate status.
In another blog, I have already established that there are two creation stories. Some would say there were two different stories that were passed down through generations and written down at some point in time as Genesis 1 and 2; others have suggested that Chapter 1 is an overview of creation and Chapter 2 focuses in on the garden during the first days.
GENESIS 1:26-27
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
EQUALITY OR NOT EQUALITY?
On the surface, this verse from the first story of creation looks like male and female were equal in creation, but in Hebrew grammar, this could be either complete equality or it could mean that men were first among equals. In Hebrew, the most important names were always mentioned first, but if someone wanted to write about equals, the author would automatically choose the male name first because the language and the culture always placed the male first, unless the woman was more imoportant.
In fact, women's names were placed first only when they were very important. Aquilla's and Priscilla's names were sometimes switched to Priscilla and Aquilla. The fact that Aquilla's name is mentioned first in about half of the times they are menioned tells us that she was not only equal in their ministry, but probably the more dominant of the two.
In Genesis 1, the Hebrew gives us two equal possibilities:
1. Because the male is mentioned first, he was the more imortant of the two or his status was higher.
2. They were absolutely equal. Adam was mentioned first only because the Hebrew language would place the male before the female in an equal relationship.
CONCLUSION ABOUT CHAPTER ONE
1. Genesis 1 gives us no indication that there was any difference in status between Adam and Eve.
2. Genesis 1 does not give us an order of creation. Adam was not made first, but both Adam and Eve were created at the same time.
3. The fact that Adam's name was mentioned before Eve's is most likely grammatical and does not indicate status.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Why Does Genesis say "Let us make man?"
GENESIS 1:26-27
1 This last half of the passage is marked off as poetry by the NIV interpreters. There is a lot of poetry throughout the Bible, and when the modern interpreters discover it, they put poetry in stanzas to identify the verses as such.
2. The word "man" is Adam in Hebrew. In other words, Adam is a man's name and it is also the Hebrew word used to define all of humankind. So, Genesis is telling us that Adam represents all of humankind.
3. Others suggest that Genesis 1 is an old story (mythological in nature) that passed down by word of mouth in Israel, and "us" refers to several gods who were creating in this story. Who these gods were, I have no idea, but we do know from archeology and from the Bible that Israel worshiped many gods during its long history. According to this point of view then, the creation story in Genesis 1 developed during a time when Israel believed in multiple gods, however, held God as first among these gods.
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
SOME POINTS TO MAKE ABOUT THIS PASSAGE
1 This last half of the passage is marked off as poetry by the NIV interpreters. There is a lot of poetry throughout the Bible, and when the modern interpreters discover it, they put poetry in stanzas to identify the verses as such.
2. The word "man" is Adam in Hebrew. In other words, Adam is a man's name and it is also the Hebrew word used to define all of humankind. So, Genesis is telling us that Adam represents all of humankind.
3. Adam (humankind - not the individual) is made male and female.
4. The image of God is male and female.
WHO WAS GOD WITH WHEN HE SAID, "LET US MAKE... IN OUR IMAGE?"
WHO WAS GOD WITH WHEN HE SAID, "LET US MAKE... IN OUR IMAGE?"
1. Some (including Mormons) have suggested that this verse implies that God has a wife, but there is no other place in the Bible that even suggests that possiblilbity that God is married. A few people believe that the asherah were God's wives/concubines during certain eras in Israel. The Asherah were probably imported from other local tribes and nations that worshiped them. But the prophets of the Bible universally condemned the worship or the continuence of these gods. It is highly unlikely that generations of biblical prophets and priests in Israel would permit Genesis 1 to remain if they believed that it suggested that God had a wife that helped create the world.
2. Many suggest that "let us..." is evidence of the trinity, but the beginnings of understanding the trinity began shortly after Jesus' death and took hundreds of years to nail down. As good as it sounds theologically, the context of Genesis and the tme this was written does not suggest the trinity in any way. Besides, nowhere else in the Bible does God talk among his 3 distinct natures in this way.
3. Others suggest that Genesis 1 is an old story (mythological in nature) that passed down by word of mouth in Israel, and "us" refers to several gods who were creating in this story. Who these gods were, I have no idea, but we do know from archeology and from the Bible that Israel worshiped many gods during its long history. According to this point of view then, the creation story in Genesis 1 developed during a time when Israel believed in multiple gods, however, held God as first among these gods.
4. God may be talking about Himself and his angels. The context of Genesis best serves this view. Genesis is filled with angelic manifestations; and when the Lord visited Abraham, he went with two angels. Hebrew traditions state that an angel was active in setting up Israel's Law, so in the Ancient Hebrew worldview, it is entirely possible that angels were involved in creation as well.
The worldview of Genesis 1 is so much different than ours today. Consider these:
a. It is very likely that the "sons of God" mentioned in Genesis 6 were some type of angelic beings that we don't even have classifications for today.
b. When people built the tower of Babylon, they thought they could reach heaven. I believe they thought they could reach the dwelling place of the angels mentioned later on in Jacob's dream (Genesis 28:12).
c. In Genesis 28, when Jacob dreamed of heaven, the angels of God were ascending and descending on a ladder that reached heaven where angels lived.
The world according to Genesis was filled with angels and other heavenly beings that moved among us working God's will. I would argue then, that God was with the angels and other spiritual beings (perhaps the sons of God mentioned in Genesis 6) when He said, "Let us make Adam in our likeness...."
The worldview of Genesis 1 is so much different than ours today. Consider these:
a. It is very likely that the "sons of God" mentioned in Genesis 6 were some type of angelic beings that we don't even have classifications for today.
b. When people built the tower of Babylon, they thought they could reach heaven. I believe they thought they could reach the dwelling place of the angels mentioned later on in Jacob's dream (Genesis 28:12).
c. In Genesis 28, when Jacob dreamed of heaven, the angels of God were ascending and descending on a ladder that reached heaven where angels lived.
The world according to Genesis was filled with angels and other heavenly beings that moved among us working God's will. I would argue then, that God was with the angels and other spiritual beings (perhaps the sons of God mentioned in Genesis 6) when He said, "Let us make Adam in our likeness...."
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Sex Is a Blessing in Genesis
In my last blog, I wrote about God blessing Adam and Eve with the responsibility of being fruitful and multiplying. This is what I would like to emphasize: Procreation is a blessing from God which he gives to human beings.
When Jesus was asked by Sadducees about marriage in heaven, he clearly stated that there was no marriage in heaven because we will be like the angels (Matthew 22:28-33 - found in Mark and Luke as well). Even though this makes little sense to us today, Jesus was using the logic found in the Book of Enoch which was probably known to Jesus (his brother Jude quotes from it in Jude 1:14-15). The argument in 1 Enoch 15:5-7 simply goes as follows:
1. All angels live forever.
2. All humans die.
3. Humans must procreate in order to continue their species.
4. Angels do not need to procreate in order to continue their kind, because they never die.
5. God did not give angels the ability to procreate because they live forever.
6. When we die, we will live forever, so there is no longer the need to procreate.
7. Because there is no more sex, there is no marriage in heaven.
Even though there will be no procreation in heaven, there is here on earth for the reasons mentioned. For those reasons, God blessed us with the responsibility of procreation.
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth... (Genesis 1:28)."
Furthermore, God not only blessed the act of sexual intercourse, he blessed the desire that we have toward members of the opposite sex in that it leads us into procreation. Desire is celebrated in the book called Song of Songs or Song of Solomon. If it were not a blessing; if it were not holy, then Song of Songs would not have been part of the canon of scripture, and it would not be blessed on the sixth day of creation.
PERVERSIONS
Now for those who have to say, "Yes, but...," I will definitely admit there are perversions to desire and there are perversions to the act of sexual intercourse. Genesis mentions some as does the rest of the Bible.
In Genesis alone there is date rape (Dinah and Sechem), homosexual rape (Sodom), sexual intercourse between "sons of God" and "daughters of men," attempted adultery (Potipher's wife and Joseph), and shaming the father by having sex with the step-mother (Reuben and Bilhah). There are also other possible perversions such as prostitution (Judah's affair with Tamar - although Tamar did right, Judah thought he was having sex with a prostitute). I say this is possible only because it is not commented on at all in Genesis, and the context does not suggest that what Judah was doing was wrong.
Now this could be a very interesting moral issue. If prostitution was deemed a sin in Genesis, then Tamar, who posed as a prostitute in order to deceive Judah into doing what was right, caused Judah to sin, but in doing so got him to do what was right. Sounds like a good discussion for Ethics class.
CONCLUSION
Back to the point - God blessed sexual intercourse and He blessed the desire that leads to proper sexual union. Some focus too much on the perversions and not enough on the blessings of intercourse. In fact, some focus so much on the perversions, that it seems like sex is no longer good. It's no longer holy or a blessing that God intended it to be. Rather than celebrating the awesome union between a man and a woman, their own personal struggles or the perversions of others dictate their disgust and hatred of God's gift to humanity.
To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted (Titus 1:15).
When Jesus was asked by Sadducees about marriage in heaven, he clearly stated that there was no marriage in heaven because we will be like the angels (Matthew 22:28-33 - found in Mark and Luke as well). Even though this makes little sense to us today, Jesus was using the logic found in the Book of Enoch which was probably known to Jesus (his brother Jude quotes from it in Jude 1:14-15). The argument in 1 Enoch 15:5-7 simply goes as follows:
1. All angels live forever.
2. All humans die.
3. Humans must procreate in order to continue their species.
4. Angels do not need to procreate in order to continue their kind, because they never die.
5. God did not give angels the ability to procreate because they live forever.
6. When we die, we will live forever, so there is no longer the need to procreate.
7. Because there is no more sex, there is no marriage in heaven.
Even though there will be no procreation in heaven, there is here on earth for the reasons mentioned. For those reasons, God blessed us with the responsibility of procreation.
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth... (Genesis 1:28)."
Furthermore, God not only blessed the act of sexual intercourse, he blessed the desire that we have toward members of the opposite sex in that it leads us into procreation. Desire is celebrated in the book called Song of Songs or Song of Solomon. If it were not a blessing; if it were not holy, then Song of Songs would not have been part of the canon of scripture, and it would not be blessed on the sixth day of creation.
PERVERSIONS
Now for those who have to say, "Yes, but...," I will definitely admit there are perversions to desire and there are perversions to the act of sexual intercourse. Genesis mentions some as does the rest of the Bible.
In Genesis alone there is date rape (Dinah and Sechem), homosexual rape (Sodom), sexual intercourse between "sons of God" and "daughters of men," attempted adultery (Potipher's wife and Joseph), and shaming the father by having sex with the step-mother (Reuben and Bilhah). There are also other possible perversions such as prostitution (Judah's affair with Tamar - although Tamar did right, Judah thought he was having sex with a prostitute). I say this is possible only because it is not commented on at all in Genesis, and the context does not suggest that what Judah was doing was wrong.
Now this could be a very interesting moral issue. If prostitution was deemed a sin in Genesis, then Tamar, who posed as a prostitute in order to deceive Judah into doing what was right, caused Judah to sin, but in doing so got him to do what was right. Sounds like a good discussion for Ethics class.
CONCLUSION
Back to the point - God blessed sexual intercourse and He blessed the desire that leads to proper sexual union. Some focus too much on the perversions and not enough on the blessings of intercourse. In fact, some focus so much on the perversions, that it seems like sex is no longer good. It's no longer holy or a blessing that God intended it to be. Rather than celebrating the awesome union between a man and a woman, their own personal struggles or the perversions of others dictate their disgust and hatred of God's gift to humanity.
To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted (Titus 1:15).
Monday, November 28, 2011
Human Responsibilities
In the book of Genesis, God divvies out responsibilities and He divvies out blessings that look like responsibilities.
BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY
On the surface, "be fruitful and multiply" looks like a command, but upon closer look one can see that it is a blessing in the form of a command. God said these words not only to Adam and Eve, but he said the same thing to Noah as he exited the ark.
God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth...(Genesis 1:28)."
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth (Genesis 9:1).
There are two reason why I believe these are blessing:
1. Both passages clearly begin with the words "God blessed...."
2. Shortly before God blessed Adam and Eve with these words, on the fourth day, he said the same thing to the creatures that filled the sky and that filled the oceans. God would not give a command to a fish or a bird that they could possibly choose to act upon. Rather, as when God commanded that there be light, creation obeyed without free choice. So it is with the birds and creatures of the seas.
God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth (Genesis 1:22)."
Now here's where it gets a bit sticky. God blessed Adam and Eve, but the blessing was more than a blessing of increasing in number. God told Adam and Eve to take control of creation. He did not tell the birds and fish to take control of creation, because they could not fulfill that command; so this part of the verse seems more like a command than a blessing, but it is still a part of the blessing.
DOMINATE CREATION
...fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground (Genesis 1:28)."
The choice of word "subdue" (in Hebrew "kabash") is very interesting. It is a strong word implying the taking control of something, bringing into bondage, dominating and even violating something.
Many of the early settlers of the U.S. used this verse along with several other scripture to justify taking land from the American Indians, but this was not what was intended in Genesis. When Genesis was written, the earth was so much bigger and forgiving than it is today. There just weren't so many people, so the earth could give back so much more than people could take. That is not so true today.
It may be very possible that this verse helped to define the Western worldview on the use of earth's resources, in that, in the West we see the planet as something to control and dominate. In many other world views, the earth is something of which we are an intimate part - something that needs to be cared for.
TAKE CARE OF THE EARTH
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (Genesis 2:15).
In a past blog, I already mentioned that there are two stories of creation and that chapter 2 is the second story. In the first story, Adam and Eve were told to subdue the world. In the second chapter, Adam is told to take care of the garden. In the first story, God blessed Adam and Eve with responsibility; in the second, Adam is given the job of protecting creation.
There are two words of interest here:
1. To work ('abad) means to serve or to work. It is the word Genesis used to define the purpose and the responsibility of Adam and Eve both in and out of the garden (when Adam and Eve left the garden, God gave them the responsibility to work ('abad) the earth. 'Abad is also used in the Bible to describe what happens when one nation rules over another. The one that is ruled is the one who "serves" the other. It is also used in our relationship with God when we "serve" Him. Through Adam and Eve, we are given the responsibility to serve the earth.
2. To take care of (shamar) means to watch, keep, or observe. It is commonly used in the Bible to define what we should do with God's covenant, the Bible, the Sabbath, or God's commandments. It is also used to describe that God watches over us, and when a shepherd watches over his sheep. This word implies protection and keeping out of danger, such as a watchman (or security guard) protecting the troops or a city.
Out of 468 times shamar is used in the Bible, it refers to land only one other time: They surround her like men guarding a field, because she has rebelled against me,' " declares the LORD (Jeremiah 4:17).
CONCLUSION
In the first story of creation, God blessed humanity (through Adam and Eve) with leadership over the world. We were told to take the land and own it, control it, and give it order. In the second story of creation, however, we were told to serve it and to protect it. This is the one commission that God gives to all of humanity.
The first few chapters of Genesis talk a lot about the earth (dirt and ground), and what comes from the ground (plants, animals and human beings). According to Genesis, it is our purpose in life to bear children and to dominate as well as take care of the earth; watching over it and protecting it.
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth (Genesis 9:1).
There are two reason why I believe these are blessing:
1. Both passages clearly begin with the words "God blessed...."
2. Shortly before God blessed Adam and Eve with these words, on the fourth day, he said the same thing to the creatures that filled the sky and that filled the oceans. God would not give a command to a fish or a bird that they could possibly choose to act upon. Rather, as when God commanded that there be light, creation obeyed without free choice. So it is with the birds and creatures of the seas.
God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth (Genesis 1:22)."
Now here's where it gets a bit sticky. God blessed Adam and Eve, but the blessing was more than a blessing of increasing in number. God told Adam and Eve to take control of creation. He did not tell the birds and fish to take control of creation, because they could not fulfill that command; so this part of the verse seems more like a command than a blessing, but it is still a part of the blessing.
DOMINATE CREATION
...fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground (Genesis 1:28)."
The choice of word "subdue" (in Hebrew "kabash") is very interesting. It is a strong word implying the taking control of something, bringing into bondage, dominating and even violating something.
Many of the early settlers of the U.S. used this verse along with several other scripture to justify taking land from the American Indians, but this was not what was intended in Genesis. When Genesis was written, the earth was so much bigger and forgiving than it is today. There just weren't so many people, so the earth could give back so much more than people could take. That is not so true today.
It may be very possible that this verse helped to define the Western worldview on the use of earth's resources, in that, in the West we see the planet as something to control and dominate. In many other world views, the earth is something of which we are an intimate part - something that needs to be cared for.
TAKE CARE OF THE EARTH
The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it (Genesis 2:15).
In a past blog, I already mentioned that there are two stories of creation and that chapter 2 is the second story. In the first story, Adam and Eve were told to subdue the world. In the second chapter, Adam is told to take care of the garden. In the first story, God blessed Adam and Eve with responsibility; in the second, Adam is given the job of protecting creation.
There are two words of interest here:
1. To work ('abad) means to serve or to work. It is the word Genesis used to define the purpose and the responsibility of Adam and Eve both in and out of the garden (when Adam and Eve left the garden, God gave them the responsibility to work ('abad) the earth. 'Abad is also used in the Bible to describe what happens when one nation rules over another. The one that is ruled is the one who "serves" the other. It is also used in our relationship with God when we "serve" Him. Through Adam and Eve, we are given the responsibility to serve the earth.
2. To take care of (shamar) means to watch, keep, or observe. It is commonly used in the Bible to define what we should do with God's covenant, the Bible, the Sabbath, or God's commandments. It is also used to describe that God watches over us, and when a shepherd watches over his sheep. This word implies protection and keeping out of danger, such as a watchman (or security guard) protecting the troops or a city.
Out of 468 times shamar is used in the Bible, it refers to land only one other time: They surround her like men guarding a field, because she has rebelled against me,' " declares the LORD (Jeremiah 4:17).
CONCLUSION
In the first story of creation, God blessed humanity (through Adam and Eve) with leadership over the world. We were told to take the land and own it, control it, and give it order. In the second story of creation, however, we were told to serve it and to protect it. This is the one commission that God gives to all of humanity.
The first few chapters of Genesis talk a lot about the earth (dirt and ground), and what comes from the ground (plants, animals and human beings). According to Genesis, it is our purpose in life to bear children and to dominate as well as take care of the earth; watching over it and protecting it.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Two Creation Stories in Genesis
I remember one day as I read the second chapter of Genesis, I realized creation was starting all over again. In chapter one, God created all of the world in 6 days and rested on the seventh. And then without warning beginning in Genesis 2:4, a whole new version of the creation was unfolded before me.
I began noticing that the name of God had changed from the first chapter to the second. I noticed a lot was different...and then I remembered what I learned about there being different writers in the book of Genesis, but in my training I had never heard how those different writers fit into the Book of Genesis.
I wasn't convinced that different people wrote Genesis, and I am still not convinced. The reason I am not convinced is because I believe that the creation stories were handed down to the author of Genesis via oral tradition. It was passed down in story form by word of mouth for years and years, from generations to generation.
In the ancient times, writing and reading were not that popular, in fact, very few people could read and write. But ancient societies were filled with spoken stories, proverbs and laws. Israel may have had more people reading than other societies, but not by much. They still depended mostly upon speech for their stories of the beginnings of things.
Even in Jesus' day, there were laws and commentaries on the laws that were never written down, but passed down verbally from generation to generation. Many people believed that these laws originated from Moses himself, and were every bit as authoritative as the written Law of Moses.
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
I did discover that there was pretty much agreement among scholars (Conservative and Liberal) that there were two accounts of creation. However, the interpretations among different people differ.
1. The Conservative side states that God created everything in chapter one, but goes over the same event in chapter two in finer detail, focusing more on Adam and Eve, and the animals.
2. A second view says that whoever wrote the book of Genesis (not necessarily Moses), wrote two completely different stories that were popular in his day. Neither one had connection with the other.
I am sure that there are other views out there, but these two explanations are good enough for now.
I began noticing that the name of God had changed from the first chapter to the second. I noticed a lot was different...and then I remembered what I learned about there being different writers in the book of Genesis, but in my training I had never heard how those different writers fit into the Book of Genesis.
I wasn't convinced that different people wrote Genesis, and I am still not convinced. The reason I am not convinced is because I believe that the creation stories were handed down to the author of Genesis via oral tradition. It was passed down in story form by word of mouth for years and years, from generations to generation.
In the ancient times, writing and reading were not that popular, in fact, very few people could read and write. But ancient societies were filled with spoken stories, proverbs and laws. Israel may have had more people reading than other societies, but not by much. They still depended mostly upon speech for their stories of the beginnings of things.
Even in Jesus' day, there were laws and commentaries on the laws that were never written down, but passed down verbally from generation to generation. Many people believed that these laws originated from Moses himself, and were every bit as authoritative as the written Law of Moses.
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
I did discover that there was pretty much agreement among scholars (Conservative and Liberal) that there were two accounts of creation. However, the interpretations among different people differ.
1. The Conservative side states that God created everything in chapter one, but goes over the same event in chapter two in finer detail, focusing more on Adam and Eve, and the animals.
2. A second view says that whoever wrote the book of Genesis (not necessarily Moses), wrote two completely different stories that were popular in his day. Neither one had connection with the other.
I am sure that there are other views out there, but these two explanations are good enough for now.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Why Did God Kill Onan?
Judah had 3 sons. The first two were Er and Onan. For easier reading I will say Er1 and Onan2, because that is the order in which they were born.
Er1 married Tamar and then died before they had children. After his death, Er1's brother, Onan2, was left with several responsibilities that were a part of the custom of their day; customs that helped serve the interests of the dead brother and his widow.
1. Onan2 was to take care of the widow Tamar - widows were extremely vulnerable in the old world.
2. Onan2 was to have sex with Tamar so that she could bear a son.
a. Who would help take care of her (especially in her old age).
b. Who would carry on the name and lineage of the dead husband, which was very important in their culture.
3. Onan2 was suppose to take care of the land and possessions that belonged to Er1 and eventually give it to Tamar's son (which was biolologically his, but belonged to his dead brother).
4. Tamar's son that came as a result of Onan2 having sex with her would be considered Er1's son and carry on Er1's name, even though Onan2 would be the biological father.
5. There may be other responsibilities that are not mentioned or implied in Genesis or elsewhere in the Bible.
When it came time to perform his sexual duty, Onan2 refused to impregnate his sister-in-law, so he practiced primitive birth control...he pulled out his penis before it was time to ejaculate. The Bible does not tell us much about why Onan did not want a child:
But Onan was not willing to have a child who would not be his own heir. So whenever he had intercourse with his brother's wife, he spilled the semen on the ground. This prevented her from having a child who would belong to his brother (Genesis 38:9).
As a result of this action, God killed Onan2, because He considered his action evil.
WHY DID HE SPILL HIS SEED?
As a young Christian I heard a preacher say that God killed Onan because he was masturbating. No kidding. But this is not the case. In reality, this story was designed to be a lesson for people to fulfill cultural obligations for the benifit of the deceased and of the widows.
Honor and carrying on one's name was huge in ancient Israel. Keeping one's name alive after one's death was extremely important. But if a man died before his wife became pregnant with a son, his name and his lineage was in danger of perishing. And so, it became custom for the closest relative to impregnate the widow so that the name of the deceased would continue through the son's name.
However, if a brother2 had a son in the name of the deceased1, it carried certain risks for the living brother2, the biologogical father. In another story (the book of Ruth), Ruth's nearest relative did not want to marry the widow (Ruth) because her nearest relative was afraid that the son born to them would jeapordize his own son's inheritance.
In the Book of Ruth, the nearest relative knew that the son born to Ruth would not he his, but his relative's, so he refused to do his duty and impregnate Ruth. He disassociated himself entirely from any son that could have been born to the widow, even though it would be his own biological son.
So there could be several reasons an older brother (or nearest relative) would not want to give the deceased a son:
1. Anger issues - there are family issues that run deep in many families, and it could be that a brother would not want to give his dead brother a child and a name the continues. "Let him die, and let his name die with him!" Genesis has several examples of brothers who dislike, hate, or murder their brothers.
2. Protecting his own son - In Ruth's case, the nearest relative did not want to jeapordize his own son's inheritance. This is a bit mysterious, but it could be that if his first son died, then the inheritance and the land would go to the son that belonged to his brother's wife. If this is the case, then his land would pass on to his brother's name. Anybody else have suggestions?
WHY DID GOD KILL ONAN?
There were several episodes in the Bible where God killed somebody because they did something extremely evil. Onan refused to take care of his brother, children laughed at a bald prophet and were malled by a bear, and Ananias and Saphira lied to the apostles in order to gain clout among the Christian community. All of these people were killed by God, and their stories continued through generations in order to warn people in their times as well as in future generations.
In the case of Onan, the lesson is simply this: "Fulfil your family obligations, because God takes them very seriously."
Er1 married Tamar and then died before they had children. After his death, Er1's brother, Onan2, was left with several responsibilities that were a part of the custom of their day; customs that helped serve the interests of the dead brother and his widow.
1. Onan2 was to take care of the widow Tamar - widows were extremely vulnerable in the old world.
2. Onan2 was to have sex with Tamar so that she could bear a son.
a. Who would help take care of her (especially in her old age).
b. Who would carry on the name and lineage of the dead husband, which was very important in their culture.
3. Onan2 was suppose to take care of the land and possessions that belonged to Er1 and eventually give it to Tamar's son (which was biolologically his, but belonged to his dead brother).
4. Tamar's son that came as a result of Onan2 having sex with her would be considered Er1's son and carry on Er1's name, even though Onan2 would be the biological father.
5. There may be other responsibilities that are not mentioned or implied in Genesis or elsewhere in the Bible.
When it came time to perform his sexual duty, Onan2 refused to impregnate his sister-in-law, so he practiced primitive birth control...he pulled out his penis before it was time to ejaculate. The Bible does not tell us much about why Onan did not want a child:
But Onan was not willing to have a child who would not be his own heir. So whenever he had intercourse with his brother's wife, he spilled the semen on the ground. This prevented her from having a child who would belong to his brother (Genesis 38:9).
As a result of this action, God killed Onan2, because He considered his action evil.
WHY DID HE SPILL HIS SEED?
As a young Christian I heard a preacher say that God killed Onan because he was masturbating. No kidding. But this is not the case. In reality, this story was designed to be a lesson for people to fulfill cultural obligations for the benifit of the deceased and of the widows.
Honor and carrying on one's name was huge in ancient Israel. Keeping one's name alive after one's death was extremely important. But if a man died before his wife became pregnant with a son, his name and his lineage was in danger of perishing. And so, it became custom for the closest relative to impregnate the widow so that the name of the deceased would continue through the son's name.
However, if a brother2 had a son in the name of the deceased1, it carried certain risks for the living brother2, the biologogical father. In another story (the book of Ruth), Ruth's nearest relative did not want to marry the widow (Ruth) because her nearest relative was afraid that the son born to them would jeapordize his own son's inheritance.
In the Book of Ruth, the nearest relative knew that the son born to Ruth would not he his, but his relative's, so he refused to do his duty and impregnate Ruth. He disassociated himself entirely from any son that could have been born to the widow, even though it would be his own biological son.
So there could be several reasons an older brother (or nearest relative) would not want to give the deceased a son:
1. Anger issues - there are family issues that run deep in many families, and it could be that a brother would not want to give his dead brother a child and a name the continues. "Let him die, and let his name die with him!" Genesis has several examples of brothers who dislike, hate, or murder their brothers.
2. Protecting his own son - In Ruth's case, the nearest relative did not want to jeapordize his own son's inheritance. This is a bit mysterious, but it could be that if his first son died, then the inheritance and the land would go to the son that belonged to his brother's wife. If this is the case, then his land would pass on to his brother's name. Anybody else have suggestions?
WHY DID GOD KILL ONAN?
There were several episodes in the Bible where God killed somebody because they did something extremely evil. Onan refused to take care of his brother, children laughed at a bald prophet and were malled by a bear, and Ananias and Saphira lied to the apostles in order to gain clout among the Christian community. All of these people were killed by God, and their stories continued through generations in order to warn people in their times as well as in future generations.
In the case of Onan, the lesson is simply this: "Fulfil your family obligations, because God takes them very seriously."
Sunday, November 13, 2011
From Vegetarians to Killing and Eating Animals
Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything (Genesis 9:3).
Here is another first. Since the time of Adam and Eve, people only ate vegetables and fruit.
Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so (Genesis 1:29-30).
And the LORD God commanded Adam, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden (Genesis 2:16).
After the flood, God gave humans permission to kill and eat animals, but in the same passage that God gave animals to be eaten, God told Noah that he was not allowed to kill other human beings.
TWO CONCLUSIONS
1. God gave permission to kill and eat animals after the flood, in which God destroyed all of humanity because there was so much violence in the world. The implications are this - God did not allow the killing of animals before the flood.
2. There are 2 facts that suggest that God did not like killing animals for food.
a. God had not permitted the eating of animals before the flood.
b. When God told Himself that it was not worth destroying humanity, because they wouldn't change - they would always be evil; he gave humans permission to kill animals. It's like God this: God realized that He couldn't win this battle with humanity - they will sin, and they will continue to be violent - so God put a boundry on human violence. "You can be violent, but only so far, you can kill animals and eat them, but you cannot kill other humans."
Here is another first. Since the time of Adam and Eve, people only ate vegetables and fruit.
Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so (Genesis 1:29-30).
And the LORD God commanded Adam, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden (Genesis 2:16).
After the flood, God gave humans permission to kill and eat animals, but in the same passage that God gave animals to be eaten, God told Noah that he was not allowed to kill other human beings.
TWO CONCLUSIONS
1. God gave permission to kill and eat animals after the flood, in which God destroyed all of humanity because there was so much violence in the world. The implications are this - God did not allow the killing of animals before the flood.
2. There are 2 facts that suggest that God did not like killing animals for food.
a. God had not permitted the eating of animals before the flood.
b. When God told Himself that it was not worth destroying humanity, because they wouldn't change - they would always be evil; he gave humans permission to kill animals. It's like God this: God realized that He couldn't win this battle with humanity - they will sin, and they will continue to be violent - so God put a boundry on human violence. "You can be violent, but only so far, you can kill animals and eat them, but you cannot kill other humans."
Were Animals Afraid of People Before the Flood?
The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands (Genesis 9:2).
This is the first time ever that the Bible mentions that animals feared humans.
This is the first time ever that the Bible mentions that animals feared humans.
How Many Animals Were on the Ark
Tradition states that the animals went into the ark 2 by 2. Tradition says that there were only 2 animals of every species that went on to the ark. Tradition is not all that accurate.
In reality, although the animals went on to the ark 2 by 2, some species only had 2 of each, while others had 7 of each kind. If an animal was unclean (religiously speaking), the species was limited to 2, but if the animal was clean, there were 7 of each kind, meaning that the clean animals went 2 by 2 by 2 by 1.
In reality, although the animals went on to the ark 2 by 2, some species only had 2 of each, while others had 7 of each kind. If an animal was unclean (religiously speaking), the species was limited to 2, but if the animal was clean, there were 7 of each kind, meaning that the clean animals went 2 by 2 by 2 by 1.
Why Did God Destroy the World in Genesis?
WHY GOD DESTROYED CITIES AND NATIONS: MODERN EXPLANATIONS
Throughout history, cities and nations come and go. They rise and they fall. A city might be destroyed by volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, war, or by internal strife. In ancient times, when people witnessed disasters, they automatically concluded that the gods were angry with them. In other words, they had done something or neglected something spiritual that resulted in ultimate destruction.
Socially and Psychologically speaking, this explanation was easier to handle than the modern explanation that things happen by chance, or by natural acts of war from aggressive nations or nations "protecting" themselves.
Because disasters were the result of human behavior toward the gods (or God) in the ancient world, they believed they had control over those disasters - they could do the necessary actions needed to keep the gods (or God) happy. In our world, because we believe things happen by chance, we have no control over many of the horrors that can happen from time to time - getting cancer, car accidents, natural disasters, and so on, because these things have nothing to do with a spiritual existence in our way of thinking.
However, that being said, there are many believers today that hold on to the ancient ways. They believe that natural disasters are God's ways to punish people. When Haiti was rocked by earthquakes, there were preachers and lay people who said it was God's punishment on Haiti for rejecting the Gospel, and for practicing voodoo, homosexuality, or any other list of sins. Some even go so far as to say that school killings are more than one man's sickness, but rather are brought on by the openness of the U.S. in accepting homosexuality.
Others believe that the earthquakes and tsunamis of this past few years are God's signs that the end is near. To put it simply, they believe that God uses, creates, or allows disasters in nature, diseases, and human horror such as war and murder.
I would venture to say that most Christians today are in the middle somewhere, believing that some problems are from God and others from nature.
OLD TESTAMENT SINS THAT LED TO DESTRUCTION
Throughout the Old Testament, God destroyed nations - including his own people, Israel - because of different sins - the worst of which were violence, idolatry and economic injustice. Contrary to popular opinion, when prophets warned cities and nations about future destruction because of sin, homosexuality was not listed in the many sins that led to destruction, and neither was abortion. Instead, violence was emphasized, as was pride, neglecting the Sabbath, bad treatment of the poor, worshiping other gods, witchcraft, adultery, breaking covenants, and a list of other sins.
This could mean any of the following:
1. Homosexuality was driven underground to the point that it was not popular or known about during the prophetic eras of the OT, so there was no need for the prophets to mention it. Nevertheless, it was considered to be a huge transgression against God.
2. Homosexuality was considered a sin, but not a big sin during the time of the prophets. Economic injustice and idolatry were considered far more nasty.
3. The prophets didn't think homosexuality was a sin.
I believe that all of the following are true:
1. Israel's prophets did consider homosexuality a sin, but not the mother of all sins, the queen of every transgression.
2. Homosexuals may have stayed in the closet during the times of the prophets, and so homosexuality (as we know it) was not a big issue with the prophets - that is to say, it was not the issue of their day. No doubt the early prophets came across temple prostitution which took on homosexual forms as well heterosexual. But in these cases the prophets were more offended by the idolatry than they were by homosexuality.
3. Whether or not homosexuality was openly practiced during the time of the prophets, the prophets focused, most of all, on other sins that openly prevailed in their own day, emphasizing the worse ones, such as economic injustice, pride and idolatry. Thus, homosexuality was pretty much ignored.
On the side, I am convinced that homosexuality existed in Israel during every age; furthermore, it never disappears from any culture or any time. It simply goes underground when it must.
CONTEXT: THE SINS OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH
Because context is so important, I bring up the other story of destruction from the book of Genesis - that of Sodom and Gomorrah.
I have dealt with this in another blog, so will only summarize as follows:
1. Two angels went into Sodom because the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah had reached critical level.
2. The sins that called down the angels of God, were committed before the angels came, and were not defined in any way until the prophet Ezekiel.
3. When the angels visited Sodom, men from the city wanted to rape them. Rape is a violent act. Although this event sealed the cities' doom, the angels came because the cities were steeped in other sins that may or may not have been related.
4. It may be that the people knew the 2 men were messengers of God and wanted to try out "strange flesh."
5. Whenever the sins Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned in the Bible, the sins are left undefined, except in Ezekiel and Jude.
6. Ezekiel clearly states that their sins were related to neglecting the needs of the poor.
7. Jude says that the cities in that area were given over to fornication (a term that loosely describes a wide range of sexual promiscuity).
8. In other verses in the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah were used as examples more for the wrath of God than for any specific sin related to the cities.
9. Other Bible writers viewed worse sins than those of Sodom and Gomorrah. The prophets claimed that breaking God's covenant and worshiping idols were worse. And Jesus claimed that rejecting him or his messengers was far worse.
10. Looking closely to Sodom and Gomorrah, these are the possible sins that led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah:
a. Violent Gang Rape that was homosexual in nature
b. Intermingling of the species (men with angels)
c. Poor treatment of visiting travelers
Now lets see if any of those line up with Noah's day.
The earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways (Genesis 6:12)."
The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil (Genesis 6:5 ).
Both of these verses leave a lot to the imagination; neither one clearly defines any sin. Corruption and wickedness can be a lot of different things, and so we read into the verse whatever types of sins are preached against the most in our day.
Throughout history, cities and nations come and go. They rise and they fall. A city might be destroyed by volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, war, or by internal strife. In ancient times, when people witnessed disasters, they automatically concluded that the gods were angry with them. In other words, they had done something or neglected something spiritual that resulted in ultimate destruction.
Socially and Psychologically speaking, this explanation was easier to handle than the modern explanation that things happen by chance, or by natural acts of war from aggressive nations or nations "protecting" themselves.
Because disasters were the result of human behavior toward the gods (or God) in the ancient world, they believed they had control over those disasters - they could do the necessary actions needed to keep the gods (or God) happy. In our world, because we believe things happen by chance, we have no control over many of the horrors that can happen from time to time - getting cancer, car accidents, natural disasters, and so on, because these things have nothing to do with a spiritual existence in our way of thinking.
However, that being said, there are many believers today that hold on to the ancient ways. They believe that natural disasters are God's ways to punish people. When Haiti was rocked by earthquakes, there were preachers and lay people who said it was God's punishment on Haiti for rejecting the Gospel, and for practicing voodoo, homosexuality, or any other list of sins. Some even go so far as to say that school killings are more than one man's sickness, but rather are brought on by the openness of the U.S. in accepting homosexuality.
Others believe that the earthquakes and tsunamis of this past few years are God's signs that the end is near. To put it simply, they believe that God uses, creates, or allows disasters in nature, diseases, and human horror such as war and murder.
I would venture to say that most Christians today are in the middle somewhere, believing that some problems are from God and others from nature.
OLD TESTAMENT SINS THAT LED TO DESTRUCTION
Throughout the Old Testament, God destroyed nations - including his own people, Israel - because of different sins - the worst of which were violence, idolatry and economic injustice. Contrary to popular opinion, when prophets warned cities and nations about future destruction because of sin, homosexuality was not listed in the many sins that led to destruction, and neither was abortion. Instead, violence was emphasized, as was pride, neglecting the Sabbath, bad treatment of the poor, worshiping other gods, witchcraft, adultery, breaking covenants, and a list of other sins.
This could mean any of the following:
1. Homosexuality was driven underground to the point that it was not popular or known about during the prophetic eras of the OT, so there was no need for the prophets to mention it. Nevertheless, it was considered to be a huge transgression against God.
2. Homosexuality was considered a sin, but not a big sin during the time of the prophets. Economic injustice and idolatry were considered far more nasty.
3. The prophets didn't think homosexuality was a sin.
I believe that all of the following are true:
1. Israel's prophets did consider homosexuality a sin, but not the mother of all sins, the queen of every transgression.
2. Homosexuals may have stayed in the closet during the times of the prophets, and so homosexuality (as we know it) was not a big issue with the prophets - that is to say, it was not the issue of their day. No doubt the early prophets came across temple prostitution which took on homosexual forms as well heterosexual. But in these cases the prophets were more offended by the idolatry than they were by homosexuality.
3. Whether or not homosexuality was openly practiced during the time of the prophets, the prophets focused, most of all, on other sins that openly prevailed in their own day, emphasizing the worse ones, such as economic injustice, pride and idolatry. Thus, homosexuality was pretty much ignored.
On the side, I am convinced that homosexuality existed in Israel during every age; furthermore, it never disappears from any culture or any time. It simply goes underground when it must.
CONTEXT: THE SINS OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH
Because context is so important, I bring up the other story of destruction from the book of Genesis - that of Sodom and Gomorrah.
I have dealt with this in another blog, so will only summarize as follows:
1. Two angels went into Sodom because the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah had reached critical level.
2. The sins that called down the angels of God, were committed before the angels came, and were not defined in any way until the prophet Ezekiel.
3. When the angels visited Sodom, men from the city wanted to rape them. Rape is a violent act. Although this event sealed the cities' doom, the angels came because the cities were steeped in other sins that may or may not have been related.
4. It may be that the people knew the 2 men were messengers of God and wanted to try out "strange flesh."
5. Whenever the sins Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned in the Bible, the sins are left undefined, except in Ezekiel and Jude.
6. Ezekiel clearly states that their sins were related to neglecting the needs of the poor.
7. Jude says that the cities in that area were given over to fornication (a term that loosely describes a wide range of sexual promiscuity).
8. In other verses in the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah were used as examples more for the wrath of God than for any specific sin related to the cities.
9. Other Bible writers viewed worse sins than those of Sodom and Gomorrah. The prophets claimed that breaking God's covenant and worshiping idols were worse. And Jesus claimed that rejecting him or his messengers was far worse.
10. Looking closely to Sodom and Gomorrah, these are the possible sins that led to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah:
a. Violent Gang Rape that was homosexual in nature
b. Intermingling of the species (men with angels)
c. Poor treatment of visiting travelers
Now lets see if any of those line up with Noah's day.
The earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways (Genesis 6:12)."
The LORD observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil (Genesis 6:5 ).
Both of these verses leave a lot to the imagination; neither one clearly defines any sin. Corruption and wickedness can be a lot of different things, and so we read into the verse whatever types of sins are preached against the most in our day.
Looking deeper, however, we find the real reasons why God destroyed the world, and there are two clear reasons that Genesis gives for the destruction of the world.
1. In the first section of the the Ethiopian book of Enoch (written before the first Century B.C. and quoted in the Bible's book of Jude) the sons of God, who were angelic beings, had sex with human women; and from those unions, giants were born and eventually dominated the world, filling it with violence.
Others have suggested that the sons of God were descended from Seth (Adam and Eve's third child) and the sons of men were descendents of Cain.
Whoever these giants were, or however they came about (whether of angels or people), it seems that the writer of Genesis considered their existence a part of the reason that God decided to destroy the world.
Today we cannot relate to this passage of scripture, because we have no giants in the world, although many people fleeing Asian wars in boats (during this past few decades) were told that that there were giants in the U.S. Would the Bible consider tall people, like Europeans and Americans and certain African tribes, giants?
Others have suggested that the sons of God were descended from Seth (Adam and Eve's third child) and the sons of men were descendents of Cain.
Whoever these giants were, or however they came about (whether of angels or people), it seems that the writer of Genesis considered their existence a part of the reason that God decided to destroy the world.
Today we cannot relate to this passage of scripture, because we have no giants in the world, although many people fleeing Asian wars in boats (during this past few decades) were told that that there were giants in the U.S. Would the Bible consider tall people, like Europeans and Americans and certain African tribes, giants?
2. Genesis also tells us that God destroyed the world because there was so much violence in the world.
Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence (Genesis 6:11).
Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence (Genesis 6:11).
So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth (Genesis 6:13)."
Violence is the only evil that is clearly defined, leaving us with a lot of questions and the need for more clarification. What type of violence are we looking at? And who was committing the violence?
WHAT TYPE OF VIOLENCE ARE WE LOOKING AT?
The Book of Enoch tells us that the violence on the earth that prevailed during Noah's day was the violence that the giants created by slaughtering humans; however, by the time the Book of Enoch was written, Noah was ancient history.
So we are left with the overall context of the book of Genesis to give us clues. And in Genesis we find several stories of violence.
1. Cain killed Abel.
2. Lamech killed a man in self defense.
3. Abraham slaughtered an army of pillagers who kidnapped his nephew Lot.
3. Sarah was probably abusive toward Hagar - Sarah abused (va-ta’anneha) Hagar. The Hebrew word suggests physical as well as mental abuse (Gen. Rabbah 45:6). http://www.moshereiss.org/articles/33_hagar.htm
3. Abraham slaughtered an army of pillagers who kidnapped his nephew Lot.
3. Sarah was probably abusive toward Hagar - Sarah abused (va-ta’anneha) Hagar. The Hebrew word suggests physical as well as mental abuse (Gen. Rabbah 45:6). http://www.moshereiss.org/articles/33_hagar.htm
4. The men of Sodom made every effort to rape 2 angels.
5. Out of anger, Reuben had sex with his step mother (this may have been rape) to shame his dad.
6. Simeon and Levi slaughtered the men of an entire village because their leader's son date raped their sister.
Of course the event in Genesis that is most like the destruction of the world is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. And looking to Sodom and Gomorrah, we see that violence is the one strand that connects the two.
The writer of Genesis may have considered homosexuality to be a sin, but the fact is this: Violence is emphasized in both of God's wrath and destruction, other sins are not. I would say that the writer of Genesis believed violence was the worse of the sins. Consider also that as early as the time of the first family, Cain killed his brother Abel, which was an act of violence which likewise called down God's wrath on Cain.
After God destroyed the world with a flood, He regretted destroying the world, because people will always be violent - whether in self protection or in aggression. Even if God destroyed the world countless times, people would still resort to violence to solve their issues.
CONCLUSION
I believe that the reason God destroyed the world in Genesis 6 and 7 was due to the violence that dominated the world at that time, a violence that did not go away after the time of Noah, but continued in Sodom and Gomorrah and continues even today in every society.
Of course the event in Genesis that is most like the destruction of the world is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. And looking to Sodom and Gomorrah, we see that violence is the one strand that connects the two.
The writer of Genesis may have considered homosexuality to be a sin, but the fact is this: Violence is emphasized in both of God's wrath and destruction, other sins are not. I would say that the writer of Genesis believed violence was the worse of the sins. Consider also that as early as the time of the first family, Cain killed his brother Abel, which was an act of violence which likewise called down God's wrath on Cain.
After God destroyed the world with a flood, He regretted destroying the world, because people will always be violent - whether in self protection or in aggression. Even if God destroyed the world countless times, people would still resort to violence to solve their issues.
CONCLUSION
I believe that the reason God destroyed the world in Genesis 6 and 7 was due to the violence that dominated the world at that time, a violence that did not go away after the time of Noah, but continued in Sodom and Gomorrah and continues even today in every society.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
So my parents just bought me R. Crumb's "The Book of Genesis Illustrated" and had it shipped to my house. I was very much looking forward to reading it. I lived in the 60s as a teenager and appreciated Crumb's illustration, and when the book arrived I was exited about it.
Here's the scoop: I was expecting the whole book to be Crumb's strange comic book interpretation of Genesis. I expected to be a little surprised by Crumb's strange world of animation and expected a wild approach to the reading of Genesis. What I did not expect to find was that Crumb wrote every literal word and illustrated accordingly from the beginning to the end of Genesis (the translation was by a Comparative Literature scholar and writer - Robert Alter).
Although he was conservative (from a literature point of view), his animation was awesome.
THE TRANSLATION
Overall, what I read so far of Alter's translation is nothing unusual. To be honest there are conservative translations such as the Living Bible that take far more liberties with the Hebrew than Alter does. There was one very small detail which I did notice in Genesis 6, when God saw the "violence" on the earth (as most translations read), Alter interpreted the word to "outrage" instead...so the world was filled with outrage. This may be a legitimate translation, but I prefer violence because it fits more with the rest of Genesis. But this is nothing to sweat about.
THE ILLUSTRATIONS
-There is an amazing amount of detail and an incredible amount of work put into this project. I am blown away.
-Some scenes are very graphic, but then so is the Bible.
-Women are tough looking and muscular.
Not much more to say about it.
Here's the scoop: I was expecting the whole book to be Crumb's strange comic book interpretation of Genesis. I expected to be a little surprised by Crumb's strange world of animation and expected a wild approach to the reading of Genesis. What I did not expect to find was that Crumb wrote every literal word and illustrated accordingly from the beginning to the end of Genesis (the translation was by a Comparative Literature scholar and writer - Robert Alter).
Although he was conservative (from a literature point of view), his animation was awesome.
THE TRANSLATION
Overall, what I read so far of Alter's translation is nothing unusual. To be honest there are conservative translations such as the Living Bible that take far more liberties with the Hebrew than Alter does. There was one very small detail which I did notice in Genesis 6, when God saw the "violence" on the earth (as most translations read), Alter interpreted the word to "outrage" instead...so the world was filled with outrage. This may be a legitimate translation, but I prefer violence because it fits more with the rest of Genesis. But this is nothing to sweat about.
THE ILLUSTRATIONS
-There is an amazing amount of detail and an incredible amount of work put into this project. I am blown away.
-Some scenes are very graphic, but then so is the Bible.
-Women are tough looking and muscular.
Not much more to say about it.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Genesis and the Law of Moses
Genesis is situated before four books of the Law, all of which were believed to be written by Moses by most people until the past couple of centuries. I believe that Genesis provides us a background for the books of the Law, showing us in part why the Law was needed.
Genesis is filled with Laws of Moses that were broken or obeyed. For example, in the very early chapters of Genesis we are given a story about how Moses' Law, which said, "Thou shalt not murder," was broken. Later in Genesis, Joseph's brothers almost killed their own brother, but decided last minute to sell him into slavery instead, which broke another of Moses' Law which condemned kidnappers to death.
There are other stories as well that spell out other broken Laws. Here are just a few examples:
REDEMPTION
If two brothers are living together on the same property and one of them dies without a son, his widow may not be married to anyone from outside the family. Instead, her husband’s brother should marry her and have intercourse with her to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law. The first son she bears to him will be considered the son of the dead brother, so that his name will not be forgotten in Israel. (Deuteronomy 25:5-6)
When Reuben's son (Er) died, Er's brother was suppose to have sex with the widow in order to insure that Er's name would continue, and to give the widow a child to take care of her in her old age. Reuben's son did not fulfil his end of the bargain, and so the Lord slew him. It was only through the widow's (Tamar) deceit and cleverness that she was able to get the child she wanted, thus fulfilling a Law that was not yet in existence.
TREATMENT OF THE FIRSTBORN
If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and the firstborn son be hers that was hated: then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn. (Deuteronomy 21:15-16)
The whole reason Reuben had sex with his mother-in-law was a reaction to finding out that he was not getting the first born honor... and in the end he did not receive the inheritance or the honor of the first born.
TREATMENT OF STRANGERS
And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:33-34)
There are several places in Genesis where strangers are either treated well (Abraham and Lot) or treated poorly (Sodom).
INCEST
Many different incestial relationships are forbidden in Leviticus 18, 20 and in Deuteronomy. These relationships of incest were abominations and some of the reasons God destroyed nations that lived in the promised land (Leviticus 18:24-30).
Here are some of the forbidden relationships found in Genesis:
1. Abraham married his half sister Sarah.
2. Lot's daughters had sex with their father.
3. Tamar slept with her father-in-law.
4. Reuben slept with his step mom.
I think it may be that by the time Moses' Law was written, people were changing their values. In Genesis times it was common and acceptable to do anything in order to have children. Having children was more important than avoiding incest.
Secondly, because Abraham had come from a nomadic family and continued to wander, marriage in his tribe tended to be in the family. They didn't build long term relationships with the locals, so they did not trust them; and because they didn't trust them, it was only natural to marry inside the family.
By the time the Law was written, Israel was no longer nomadic, Israel's culture had changed so there were literally thousands of partners to choose from in one's own tribe. Incest was no longer needed and its popularity was waning.
These are the stories from Genesis that come to mind. I suppose there are others, anybody know of any?
Genesis is filled with Laws of Moses that were broken or obeyed. For example, in the very early chapters of Genesis we are given a story about how Moses' Law, which said, "Thou shalt not murder," was broken. Later in Genesis, Joseph's brothers almost killed their own brother, but decided last minute to sell him into slavery instead, which broke another of Moses' Law which condemned kidnappers to death.
There are other stories as well that spell out other broken Laws. Here are just a few examples:
REDEMPTION
If two brothers are living together on the same property and one of them dies without a son, his widow may not be married to anyone from outside the family. Instead, her husband’s brother should marry her and have intercourse with her to fulfill the duties of a brother-in-law. The first son she bears to him will be considered the son of the dead brother, so that his name will not be forgotten in Israel. (Deuteronomy 25:5-6)
When Reuben's son (Er) died, Er's brother was suppose to have sex with the widow in order to insure that Er's name would continue, and to give the widow a child to take care of her in her old age. Reuben's son did not fulfil his end of the bargain, and so the Lord slew him. It was only through the widow's (Tamar) deceit and cleverness that she was able to get the child she wanted, thus fulfilling a Law that was not yet in existence.
TREATMENT OF THE FIRSTBORN
If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and the firstborn son be hers that was hated: then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn. (Deuteronomy 21:15-16)
The whole reason Reuben had sex with his mother-in-law was a reaction to finding out that he was not getting the first born honor... and in the end he did not receive the inheritance or the honor of the first born.
TREATMENT OF STRANGERS
And if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:33-34)
There are several places in Genesis where strangers are either treated well (Abraham and Lot) or treated poorly (Sodom).
INCEST
Many different incestial relationships are forbidden in Leviticus 18, 20 and in Deuteronomy. These relationships of incest were abominations and some of the reasons God destroyed nations that lived in the promised land (Leviticus 18:24-30).
Here are some of the forbidden relationships found in Genesis:
1. Abraham married his half sister Sarah.
2. Lot's daughters had sex with their father.
3. Tamar slept with her father-in-law.
4. Reuben slept with his step mom.
I think it may be that by the time Moses' Law was written, people were changing their values. In Genesis times it was common and acceptable to do anything in order to have children. Having children was more important than avoiding incest.
Secondly, because Abraham had come from a nomadic family and continued to wander, marriage in his tribe tended to be in the family. They didn't build long term relationships with the locals, so they did not trust them; and because they didn't trust them, it was only natural to marry inside the family.
By the time the Law was written, Israel was no longer nomadic, Israel's culture had changed so there were literally thousands of partners to choose from in one's own tribe. Incest was no longer needed and its popularity was waning.
These are the stories from Genesis that come to mind. I suppose there are others, anybody know of any?
Lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah - What the New Testament Writers Saw
As I studied what the Old Testament I learned that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah was a story that never lost its popularity or its power to illustrate that God could and would destroy a city or nation for sin.
I found out that in using Sodom and Gomorrah for illustration, Old Testament writers used the story of their total destruction to focus on the sins of their own day. Only Ezekiel directed his attention to the sins of those two ancient cities; and those sins were not gleaned from the Sodom and Gomorrah story but from Ezekiel's own time. Another way to look at it is that through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Ezekiel knew something about Sodom and Gomorrah that wasn't in the original story.
Finally, I learned that according to Ezekiel there are worse sins than those of Sodom and Gomorrah. And this brings us to the New Testament.
JESUS - SINS WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S
In the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke, like the Old Testament, Jesus assumed his audience knew the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. He did not explain the story or tell it again, but rather, he drops their names like everybody knows everything about them - the sins and the total and permanent annihilation of the city.
Jesus used the story of the two cities in two ways: to illustrate greater judgment for those who reject the Gospel and to illustrate that Jerusalem would be destroyed for rejecting him.
Rejecting the Gospel
When Jesus sent out his disciples on a short missions trip to preach, teach and heal; he told them that if a city or town did not receive them, it would be better for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment (Matthew 10:15, Mark 6:11, Luke 10:12).
Rejection of the Good News about Jesus is a sin worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah's.
Rejecting Jesus
When Jesus had finished his ministry in the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, he pronounced woes that judgment would be worse for them than it was for Sodom and Gomorrah (Matthew 11:23-24). They were doomed because they had seen so many works of Jesus, but still rejected him.
So for Jesus the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were never spelled out, in fact, the story served to illustrate the judgment more than the sin. Secondly, for Jesus, there was a sin far worse than anything that Sodom and Gomorrah did. And that was for a city to see the miracles that Jesus did and reject him. And in the same way, if a city rejected one of his messengers, its fate was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.
JUDE AND 2 PETER - TWO VERSIONS OF THE SAME SERMON
If you read through 2 Peter 2 and Jude you will notice that they both follow the same outline.
1. There are people coming into your group that are bad.
2. They will be punished by God.
3. They talk big about things they don't really understand.
4. They will be judged.
My take on this is that there were two versions of the same sermon. Most of the ancient world relied more on memory, passing down stories, proverbs and sayings, more than on reading, because most people did not read. So a good sermon may have been passed on like a good story. People just repeated it to others.
I think 2 Peter 2 and Jude are like that. Even though there are some differences between them, they both have the same outline and both use some of the same illustrations to emphasize their points. One of those illustrations is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
2 PETER
The issues Peter writes about are the same as Jude's, but Jude goes further into the issues than Peter. Nevertheless, let's start with this verse from 2 Peter.
Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people (2 Peter 2:6).
This is exactly what the Old Testament writers and Jesus did. They used the story to emphasize God's certain judgment on those who boldly sin. Both Peter and Jude did the same.
Sodom and Gomorrah became the ultimate example of God's wrath on any city whose sins have maxed out. And Peter used it in his sermon alongside of other wrath of God judgments which included angels who were dispelled from heaven and the world in Noah's day which was destroyed by a flood.
The sin that Peter and Jude were warning against was the sin of deception; deceivers were leading Christians astray. I believe the people who Peter and Jude were warning against were actually political rebels who hoped to overthrow the Roman legions. These rebels were recruiting Christians into their ranks, pulling them out of the Christian church.
Both Peter and Jude looked at their own time and pointed out the sins that were in the group were threatening the church by recruitment. And as I mentioned, that threat was the recruitment and leading astray of believers in the Christian community.
JUDE
Jude is the first Bible writer to talk about the sexually immoral sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. I believe the reason he focused on sexual immorality is because he saw sexual immorality in his own day among those who were recruiting from the churches. Those who were recruiting were sexually immoral but not necessarily homosexual. Other Bible writers who used the Sodom and Gomorrah illustration were faced with other sins that needed to be addressed (such as breaking the covenant, economic injustice, and so on), and so they addressed those sins.
as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 1:7).
This is one of the most debated scriptures. For the first time in the Bible, and for the only time, the Sodom and Gomorrah's sins of sexual immorality are clearly mentioned. So this is important to look as closely as possible.
Jude wrote in Koine Greek - a common language in NT times. The word he used that we translate sexual immorality is "ekporneuō" which is not used anywhere else in the New Testament; but in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (LXX), "ekporneuō" is best defined "to prostitute oneself out." As far as I can tell, Jude is saying that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were completely giving themselves over to whatever sexual passions they had.
This still leaves us with the question: Was the evil passion of Sodom and Gomorrah (mentioned in Jude) homosexuality? Or was it homosexual rape? After all, the one sin that was mentioned in the first destruction in Genesis (the flood) was violence.
"Going after strange flesh" is the next issue that is debated. Literally the Bible says "going after other flesh." The debate for this expression can be summed up as follows:
1. "Going after strange flesh" refers to homosexuality. In Romans 1, the Apostle Paul argues that homosexuality dishonors the body and is against nature, so it seems likely that the term "strange flesh" means homosexuality.
In Jude 1:8, Jude tells us that the recruiters "defiled their flesh," which sounds very much like the language Paul uses when he talks about homosexuality when he says it dishonors the body. But if this is the case, why didn't Peter mention this in 2 Peter 2? If this was a defining sin of the recruiters, why does Peter ignore it? Peter mentions that the group has eyes filled with adultery; could "defiling the flesh" refer to adultery?
2. The second side says that "going after strange flesh" is trying to have sex with angels. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah knew that there were two angels visiting their city and wanted to have sex with them so much that they were willing to take them by force. They may have wanted to obtain some kind of mystic transference of powers or knowledge through intercourse (as in some ancient thought), or they may have simply wanted to experience a whole new type of sex - sex with angels.
This side of the debate needs quite a lot of explanation, because most people of the 21st Century are unfamiliar with it. Jude quoted from two books that were not in the Bible; the Assumption of Moses (of which we have only some of the book) and Enoch (which we have from Ethiopian translations).
The Book of Enoch is written by at least five different people all claiming to be Enoch, the man who lived seven generations down from Adam, who according to the Book of Enoch walked with the angels [Elohim can also be translated "angels"], received revelations from the angels, and wrote those revelations down). In reality, the books were written by at least five authors (as mentioned) from around 300 B.C. to A.D. 100. Jude quoted from the first of those five books, which means that he had access to at least one of the five sections that now make up the Book of Enoch.
In that same section of the book of Enoch, there is mention of powerful angels, called Watchers, who were given the task (by God) of overseeing the world; but they misused their authority by teaching men how to war (and other stuff) and teaching women about makeup (and other things). These Watchers lusted after women and had sex with them, thus producing giants as offspring who terrorized the earth. According to Enoch, these Watchers were the "sons of god" who had sex with "daughters of men" mentioned in Genesis 6:2.
The point is this: In Enoch's view, Genesis assumed the possibility of intermingling of the species (angels with humans), and when the men of Sodom and Gomorrah saw angels in their city, and knew they were heavenly beings, they wanted to have sex with "other flesh."
Parts of the ancient world believed knowledge and something special transferred from one person to another during acts of sex. That is one of the reasons homosexuality was so popular in some cultures. It is very possible the men of the city knew there were heavenly beings in their midst and wanted to rape them for their powers.
Last words on Enoch: There is discussion and disagreement about whether or not Jude believed that the Book of Enoch was inspired by God (like the rest of the Old Testament), but whatever he believed, it is obvious Jude believed it was written by the Enoch of the Bible (7th generation from Adam). It is also obvious that Jude believed the account accurately recorded what happened before and during the flood, including the Watchers, their sexual adventures, and the giants that resulted.
SOME OF THE LISTED SINS OF THE RECRUITERS
According to Peter the group that was recruiting had sins that included:
Following the currupt desires and passions
Despising authority
Slandering the glorious ones (may refer to principalities and powers of some sort)
Being bold and arrogant
Speaking evil of that which they did not understand
Openly rioting
Reveling in their own pleasures
Eyes focused on adultery
Greedy
Leaving the right way
Compare this list to Judes':
Defiling the flesh
Rejecting authority
Slandering the glorious ones
Speaking evil of that which they did not understand
Walking after their own desires and passions
Murmuring and complaining
Speaking boastfully
Showing favoritism
Seperating from the group
What is common to both groups and what seems to stand out are these:
Uncontrolled Passions
Lusting, coveting, wanting, desiring, defiling the flesh, reveling
Rejection of authority
Speaking evil, slandering, murmuring, complaining, speaking arrogantly, speaking evil of things they didn't understand
REVELATION
The last place in the New Testament that refers to Sodom (and not Gomorrah) is Revelation 11:8 where Jerusalem is called Sodom and Egypt where our Lord was crucified.
CONCLUSIONS
The New Testament like the Old Testament uses the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as illustrations and warnings to emphasize that God can and will destroy a city or nation for its sins.
Each writer focuses on the sins of his particular time. Most of the writers throughout the Bible are unconcerned with the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, because for them, the story is not about what Sodom and Gomorrah did, but what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. Any type of sin gone out of control could do the same thing. So in a nutshell, God utterly destroyed them for their sins, as He can destroy us for ours.
One last word about those cities, I believe that the writer of Genesis viewed the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were the epitome of evil and each Bible writer after was more concerned about the sins prevalent in their own day, oftentimes making the statement that there are worse sins than what Sodom and Gomorrah did.
I found out that in using Sodom and Gomorrah for illustration, Old Testament writers used the story of their total destruction to focus on the sins of their own day. Only Ezekiel directed his attention to the sins of those two ancient cities; and those sins were not gleaned from the Sodom and Gomorrah story but from Ezekiel's own time. Another way to look at it is that through inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Ezekiel knew something about Sodom and Gomorrah that wasn't in the original story.
Finally, I learned that according to Ezekiel there are worse sins than those of Sodom and Gomorrah. And this brings us to the New Testament.
JESUS - SINS WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S
In the books of Matthew, Mark and Luke, like the Old Testament, Jesus assumed his audience knew the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. He did not explain the story or tell it again, but rather, he drops their names like everybody knows everything about them - the sins and the total and permanent annihilation of the city.
Jesus used the story of the two cities in two ways: to illustrate greater judgment for those who reject the Gospel and to illustrate that Jerusalem would be destroyed for rejecting him.
Rejecting the Gospel
When Jesus sent out his disciples on a short missions trip to preach, teach and heal; he told them that if a city or town did not receive them, it would be better for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment (Matthew 10:15, Mark 6:11, Luke 10:12).
Rejection of the Good News about Jesus is a sin worse than that of Sodom and Gomorrah's.
Rejecting Jesus
When Jesus had finished his ministry in the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, he pronounced woes that judgment would be worse for them than it was for Sodom and Gomorrah (Matthew 11:23-24). They were doomed because they had seen so many works of Jesus, but still rejected him.
So for Jesus the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were never spelled out, in fact, the story served to illustrate the judgment more than the sin. Secondly, for Jesus, there was a sin far worse than anything that Sodom and Gomorrah did. And that was for a city to see the miracles that Jesus did and reject him. And in the same way, if a city rejected one of his messengers, its fate was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.
JUDE AND 2 PETER - TWO VERSIONS OF THE SAME SERMON
If you read through 2 Peter 2 and Jude you will notice that they both follow the same outline.
1. There are people coming into your group that are bad.
2. They will be punished by God.
3. They talk big about things they don't really understand.
4. They will be judged.
My take on this is that there were two versions of the same sermon. Most of the ancient world relied more on memory, passing down stories, proverbs and sayings, more than on reading, because most people did not read. So a good sermon may have been passed on like a good story. People just repeated it to others.
I think 2 Peter 2 and Jude are like that. Even though there are some differences between them, they both have the same outline and both use some of the same illustrations to emphasize their points. One of those illustrations is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
2 PETER
The issues Peter writes about are the same as Jude's, but Jude goes further into the issues than Peter. Nevertheless, let's start with this verse from 2 Peter.
Later, God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and turned them into heaps of ashes. He made them an example of what will happen to ungodly people (2 Peter 2:6).
This is exactly what the Old Testament writers and Jesus did. They used the story to emphasize God's certain judgment on those who boldly sin. Both Peter and Jude did the same.
Sodom and Gomorrah became the ultimate example of God's wrath on any city whose sins have maxed out. And Peter used it in his sermon alongside of other wrath of God judgments which included angels who were dispelled from heaven and the world in Noah's day which was destroyed by a flood.
The sin that Peter and Jude were warning against was the sin of deception; deceivers were leading Christians astray. I believe the people who Peter and Jude were warning against were actually political rebels who hoped to overthrow the Roman legions. These rebels were recruiting Christians into their ranks, pulling them out of the Christian church.
Both Peter and Jude looked at their own time and pointed out the sins that were in the group were threatening the church by recruitment. And as I mentioned, that threat was the recruitment and leading astray of believers in the Christian community.
JUDE
Jude is the first Bible writer to talk about the sexually immoral sin of Sodom and Gomorrah. I believe the reason he focused on sexual immorality is because he saw sexual immorality in his own day among those who were recruiting from the churches. Those who were recruiting were sexually immoral but not necessarily homosexual. Other Bible writers who used the Sodom and Gomorrah illustration were faced with other sins that needed to be addressed (such as breaking the covenant, economic injustice, and so on), and so they addressed those sins.
as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire (Jude 1:7).
This is one of the most debated scriptures. For the first time in the Bible, and for the only time, the Sodom and Gomorrah's sins of sexual immorality are clearly mentioned. So this is important to look as closely as possible.
Jude wrote in Koine Greek - a common language in NT times. The word he used that we translate sexual immorality is "ekporneuō" which is not used anywhere else in the New Testament; but in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (LXX), "ekporneuō" is best defined "to prostitute oneself out." As far as I can tell, Jude is saying that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah were completely giving themselves over to whatever sexual passions they had.
This still leaves us with the question: Was the evil passion of Sodom and Gomorrah (mentioned in Jude) homosexuality? Or was it homosexual rape? After all, the one sin that was mentioned in the first destruction in Genesis (the flood) was violence.
"Going after strange flesh" is the next issue that is debated. Literally the Bible says "going after other flesh." The debate for this expression can be summed up as follows:
1. "Going after strange flesh" refers to homosexuality. In Romans 1, the Apostle Paul argues that homosexuality dishonors the body and is against nature, so it seems likely that the term "strange flesh" means homosexuality.
In Jude 1:8, Jude tells us that the recruiters "defiled their flesh," which sounds very much like the language Paul uses when he talks about homosexuality when he says it dishonors the body. But if this is the case, why didn't Peter mention this in 2 Peter 2? If this was a defining sin of the recruiters, why does Peter ignore it? Peter mentions that the group has eyes filled with adultery; could "defiling the flesh" refer to adultery?
2. The second side says that "going after strange flesh" is trying to have sex with angels. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah knew that there were two angels visiting their city and wanted to have sex with them so much that they were willing to take them by force. They may have wanted to obtain some kind of mystic transference of powers or knowledge through intercourse (as in some ancient thought), or they may have simply wanted to experience a whole new type of sex - sex with angels.
This side of the debate needs quite a lot of explanation, because most people of the 21st Century are unfamiliar with it. Jude quoted from two books that were not in the Bible; the Assumption of Moses (of which we have only some of the book) and Enoch (which we have from Ethiopian translations).
The Book of Enoch is written by at least five different people all claiming to be Enoch, the man who lived seven generations down from Adam, who according to the Book of Enoch walked with the angels [Elohim can also be translated "angels"], received revelations from the angels, and wrote those revelations down). In reality, the books were written by at least five authors (as mentioned) from around 300 B.C. to A.D. 100. Jude quoted from the first of those five books, which means that he had access to at least one of the five sections that now make up the Book of Enoch.
In that same section of the book of Enoch, there is mention of powerful angels, called Watchers, who were given the task (by God) of overseeing the world; but they misused their authority by teaching men how to war (and other stuff) and teaching women about makeup (and other things). These Watchers lusted after women and had sex with them, thus producing giants as offspring who terrorized the earth. According to Enoch, these Watchers were the "sons of god" who had sex with "daughters of men" mentioned in Genesis 6:2.
The point is this: In Enoch's view, Genesis assumed the possibility of intermingling of the species (angels with humans), and when the men of Sodom and Gomorrah saw angels in their city, and knew they were heavenly beings, they wanted to have sex with "other flesh."
Parts of the ancient world believed knowledge and something special transferred from one person to another during acts of sex. That is one of the reasons homosexuality was so popular in some cultures. It is very possible the men of the city knew there were heavenly beings in their midst and wanted to rape them for their powers.
Last words on Enoch: There is discussion and disagreement about whether or not Jude believed that the Book of Enoch was inspired by God (like the rest of the Old Testament), but whatever he believed, it is obvious Jude believed it was written by the Enoch of the Bible (7th generation from Adam). It is also obvious that Jude believed the account accurately recorded what happened before and during the flood, including the Watchers, their sexual adventures, and the giants that resulted.
SOME OF THE LISTED SINS OF THE RECRUITERS
According to Peter the group that was recruiting had sins that included:
Following the currupt desires and passions
Despising authority
Slandering the glorious ones (may refer to principalities and powers of some sort)
Being bold and arrogant
Speaking evil of that which they did not understand
Openly rioting
Reveling in their own pleasures
Eyes focused on adultery
Greedy
Leaving the right way
Compare this list to Judes':
Defiling the flesh
Rejecting authority
Slandering the glorious ones
Speaking evil of that which they did not understand
Walking after their own desires and passions
Murmuring and complaining
Speaking boastfully
Showing favoritism
Seperating from the group
What is common to both groups and what seems to stand out are these:
Uncontrolled Passions
Lusting, coveting, wanting, desiring, defiling the flesh, reveling
Rejection of authority
Speaking evil, slandering, murmuring, complaining, speaking arrogantly, speaking evil of things they didn't understand
REVELATION
The last place in the New Testament that refers to Sodom (and not Gomorrah) is Revelation 11:8 where Jerusalem is called Sodom and Egypt where our Lord was crucified.
CONCLUSIONS
The New Testament like the Old Testament uses the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as illustrations and warnings to emphasize that God can and will destroy a city or nation for its sins.
Each writer focuses on the sins of his particular time. Most of the writers throughout the Bible are unconcerned with the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, because for them, the story is not about what Sodom and Gomorrah did, but what God did to Sodom and Gomorrah. Any type of sin gone out of control could do the same thing. So in a nutshell, God utterly destroyed them for their sins, as He can destroy us for ours.
One last word about those cities, I believe that the writer of Genesis viewed the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were the epitome of evil and each Bible writer after was more concerned about the sins prevalent in their own day, oftentimes making the statement that there are worse sins than what Sodom and Gomorrah did.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah - What the Old Testament Writers Saw
Ask most people why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and they will tell you that it was homosexuality. In fact, homosexuality has become so popular of an answer that its own popularity has established it as absolute. It's one of those issues that if you say something enough it becomes unquestioned fact. In the following study, I am not looking to justify or attack homosexuality; I am only looking at how the Bible writers used the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to speak to the issues of their own day.
But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good...(1 Thessalonians 5:21).
What I am looking for in this study is what the Old Testament tells us about Sodom and Gomorrah. Does it tell us that homosexuality was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? Does it mention its brutality and gang rape? What did those two cities do that deserved total destruction? What sins destroy any country?
GENESIS
Genesis never comments on or explains anything about what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah; it never gives us a commentary. We get no further lessons or explanations...just the story.
Although Genesis offers us nothing more than the story, Genesis does give us a look into why God would destroy the entire world and all of its civilizations.
In the story of Noah, there was one sin mentioned that caused the destruction of the entire world. I'm sure there were plenty of other sins not mentioned, but only one was clearly pointed out - violence (Genesis 6:11-13). Other sins relating to the flood were generic in nature and give us no clear definition of what sin or sins were prevailent. They simply state that human thoughts were evil and they committed evils. What were those thoughts? And what were those evils? Any further definitions are human interpretations - our own reading into the passage.
In following the Genesis context, the context of why God destroyed the first time, violence was repeated both in Noah's day and with Sodom and Gomorrah as well. So in the very least we can start there. Violence is found both in Noah's day and in Lot's day. And in both stories, God destroyed and killed people.
A closer look at Sodom and Gomorrah tells us that the violence of those cities were sexual in nature, and homosexual in particular. It is imoportant here to point out that the sexual violence of the mob in Lot's daywas what sealed the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah. However, the angels came to Sodom and Gomorrah, not because of that sin, but rather because of the sins of those cities that had already been committed before the angels visited. What those sins were, were never mentioned in Genesis.
Here is how the rest of the Hebrew scriptures comment on the sin and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. For clarity, seperate the destruction from the sin, because as you will see, the Old Testament writers do seperate the two. In fact, most writers comment more on the destruction of those cities more than the sins of those cities.
DEUTERONOMY
In Deuteronomy God warned His people to stay away from idolatry, breaking the Covenant of Moses, and following other gods. To emphasize this point, Moses told he people that if they followed other gods and broke God's covenant, their land would become like Sodom and Gomorrah (IE: it would be uninhabitable and unable to produce).
Using Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of how powerful God's wrath can be is typical for most of the Old Testament. Deuteronomy is also a good template for the Old Testament, because it says nothing about why God destroyed the two cities. Instead, the OT writers used the Sodom and Gomorrah story as a lesson against the sins of their own day. In the day Deuteronomy was written, the issue of homosexuality was not as important as the issue of idolatry or breaking the covenant that Israel had with God. So Moses saw Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of the destruction that God can accomplish. Moses did not see it as a lesson against homosexuality or violence.
We will see from other OT passages that when the OT writers thought about Sodom and Gomorrah, they looked at their own day and saw how their own issues (issues usually unrelated to homosexuality) led to a "Sodom and Gomorrah like, fire and brimstone/wrath of God" kind of destruction.
ISAIAH
The very look on their faces gives them away. They display their sin like the people of Sodom and don't even try to hide it. They are doomed! They have brought destruction upon themselves (Isaiah 3:9).
Like Deuteronomy, Isaiah uses the Sodom and Gomorrah story as a lesson for his own people in his own time. Isaiah said that God's people paraded their sins just like Sodom and Gomorrah, thus giving an indirect warning of destruction with the rebuke. Besides being bold about their sins, what was the sin or what were the sins in Isaiah's day? The verse immediately before Isiah 3:9 stated that what the people were saying and doing were evil... but what were they saying and doing? Isaih didn't give us any more detail. But the verses following summarized what was on Isaiah's heart from the very beginning of the book:
The LORD comes forward to pronounce judgment on the elders and rulers of his people: "You have ruined Israel, my vineyard. Your houses are filled with things stolen from the poor. How dare you crush my people, grinding the faces of the poor into the dust?" demands the Lord, the LORD of Heaven's Armies (Isaiah 3:14-15).
Isaiah 1 also uses the example of the two cities for the same purpose and because of the same sin. In a nutshell, according to Isaiah, Israel's sin was their bad treatment of the poor.
In other Isaiah passages:
1. In chapter one (verse 10), Isaiah called the leadership of Israel "Rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah," who practiced God's Law in sacrificing and festivals but ignored the needs of the poor and the powerless.
2. In the same chapter (1:9), Isaiah used Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of what Israel would become if the Lord did not intervene and leave behind a remnant of survivors.
3. Babylon would be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah because of its pride and because it conquered Jerusalem and its temple (Isaiah 13-14).
JEREMIAH
Chapter 23
Like Isaiah, Jeremiah used the story of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of his own time. The sins in Jeremiah 23 were:
1. Prophets committed adultery.
2. Prophets lied.
3. Prophets led people astray.
4. Prophets didn't warn people about the consequences of their sins, instead they encouraged them.
5. Prophets didn't warn people of God's coming wrath.
6. Prophets said they spoke for God when they did not know what God really wanted to say. In other words they spoke from what was on their own hearts.
In other Jeremiah passages:
1. Because Edom terrified people and was proud, God would make it like Sodom and Gomorrah - nobody would live there again (Jer. 49:15-19).
2. Because Babylon gloated over the taking of Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and grew fat from the spoils, God would make them like Sodom and Gomorrah - nobody would live there again (Jer. 50).
EZEKIEL
Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen
(Ezekiel 16:49-50).
Although every other biblical writer mentioned above and below focused on the sins of their own day, and compared those sins to the undefined evil of Sodom and Gomorrah; Ezekiel took this to a whole new level. Indeed, we will see that in other verses Ezekiel used the Sodom and Gomorrah story in the same way as the other writers - pointing out that like Sodom and Gomorrah they would be destroyed by the wrath of God, and like those two cities, evil permeated his present era - but in this passage, Ezekiel saw the sins of his own day, and said those same sins are the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. In doing this, Ezekiel was the first and only Old Testament writer to tell us the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were.
What were the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah?
1. The sins were the same sins we see everywhere in our own day - people in Sodom and Gomorrah were living a good life while they were unconcerned about the needs of the poor and the needy.
2. They were arrogant.
3. They practiced detestable things.
Even though detestable things were not defined, I would assume that they are related to Sodom's men wanting to rape the two visitors of Sodom. Notice I said, "assume," because there is no clear definition of what Ezekiel meant when he said they practiced detestable things. For all I know, he may have been referring to idolatry, which was considered detestable.
At this point one might say that the context of Genesis nowhere stated idolatry; but the context of Genesis likewise nowhere stated anything about the rich and the poor which Ezekiel did say was the sin of Sodom and her sisters. It is possible that Ezekiel felt that homosexuality was considered detestable (Leviticus conisidered it an abomination), but homosexuality was not openly stated by Ezekiel. And to make homosexuality the "detestable thing" in Ezekiel's mind is to put it there artificially from our own judgments.
It is possible that Ezekiel didn't mention homosexaulity in particular because it had gone underground in his day and was therefore not considered a big deal in his day. Remember, the prophets (like us) were mostly concerned with the sins of their own day - not with the sins of the past or the future.
In the end, Ezekiel was the only one who named the sins that compelled two angels to come into Sodom in order to judge whether or not to destroy the cities. The sins that Ezekiel named that were committed before the angels came were the sins that compelled angels to come down from heaven. They were the sins that reached to the heavens because they were so evil. And they were the sins that had built up to an incredibly burdensome amount. Homosexual rape was only the outward manifestation of deeper evil that had been brooding within the culture of Sodom and Gomorrah... the sins of injustice and pride and the sin that was considered detestable - whatever sin that was.
THERE ARE SINS WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S
You not only walked in their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they (Ezekiel 16:47).
In the same context of the previous section, Ezekiel told his audience that Israel's sinfulness, corruption and depravities are worse those of Sodom and Gomorrah's. This means there were sins that were worse than neglecting the poor and worse than homosexual rape. In fact, Israel's sins during the time of Ezekiel were so bad than it made Sodom and Gomorrah righteous in comparison (Ezekiel 16:51-52).
WHAT IS THE SIN WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S?
Ezekiel 16:59 briefly mentioned breaking the Covenant, which is possibly the sin that Ezekiel believed was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah's sin. I say "possibly" because although it is the only sin mention in this section, it is very possible that Ezekiel was generalizing about all types of sin. And yet, it is intriguing that he does mention breaking the covenant....
If breaking the covenant is worse than any sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, we have a whole new can of worms, a whole new study. How was Israel breaking the covenant? For that you will need to look elsewhere.
OTHER BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Amos 4:11 uses Sodom and Gomorrah as comparisons to the overthrow of Jerusalem.
"I destroyed some of your cities, as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Those of you who survived were like charred sticks pulled from a fire. But still you would not return to me," says the LORD.
In Zephaniah 2:9, Moab was compared to Sodom, and Edom was compared to Gomorrah because they would be destroyed.
Neither of these two verses reveal anything new about Sodom and Gomorrah.
CONCLUSIONS
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah must have been a popular story in Israel. After Genesis the writers of the Bible never needed to retell the story because their audience knew it already.
We cannot go back and ask the common person what lessons and warnings they gleened from the story of the two cities; but we do have a few writers who gave their own commentaries on the story. For these writers the lessons were not about homosexuality, violence, treatment of the stranger or rape. For them the lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah were precisely this: God can and will destroy a city or a nation when it becomes too sinful.
The sins that destroy any nation depended upon the time the writer was writing. Throughout the Old Testament, idolatry, breaking God's covenant, corrupt leadership and neglecting the needs of the poor were on top of the list of the sins that best mirrored the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The only place in the Old Testament that clearly mentioned the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah was found in Ezekiel. Surprisingly, Ezekiel did not point to the rape, homosexuality, or violence of Sodom; rather he focused on the economic immorality going on in Sodom and Gomorrah more than anything else. As a sidenote he mentioned that they also committed detestable things. Unfortuneately, "detestable things' is left undefined, leaving us to our assumptions.
But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good...(1 Thessalonians 5:21).
What I am looking for in this study is what the Old Testament tells us about Sodom and Gomorrah. Does it tell us that homosexuality was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah? Does it mention its brutality and gang rape? What did those two cities do that deserved total destruction? What sins destroy any country?
GENESIS
Genesis never comments on or explains anything about what happened at Sodom and Gomorrah; it never gives us a commentary. We get no further lessons or explanations...just the story.
Although Genesis offers us nothing more than the story, Genesis does give us a look into why God would destroy the entire world and all of its civilizations.
In the story of Noah, there was one sin mentioned that caused the destruction of the entire world. I'm sure there were plenty of other sins not mentioned, but only one was clearly pointed out - violence (Genesis 6:11-13). Other sins relating to the flood were generic in nature and give us no clear definition of what sin or sins were prevailent. They simply state that human thoughts were evil and they committed evils. What were those thoughts? And what were those evils? Any further definitions are human interpretations - our own reading into the passage.
In following the Genesis context, the context of why God destroyed the first time, violence was repeated both in Noah's day and with Sodom and Gomorrah as well. So in the very least we can start there. Violence is found both in Noah's day and in Lot's day. And in both stories, God destroyed and killed people.
A closer look at Sodom and Gomorrah tells us that the violence of those cities were sexual in nature, and homosexual in particular. It is imoportant here to point out that the sexual violence of the mob in Lot's daywas what sealed the doom of Sodom and Gomorrah. However, the angels came to Sodom and Gomorrah, not because of that sin, but rather because of the sins of those cities that had already been committed before the angels visited. What those sins were, were never mentioned in Genesis.
Here is how the rest of the Hebrew scriptures comment on the sin and destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. For clarity, seperate the destruction from the sin, because as you will see, the Old Testament writers do seperate the two. In fact, most writers comment more on the destruction of those cities more than the sins of those cities.
DEUTERONOMY
In Deuteronomy God warned His people to stay away from idolatry, breaking the Covenant of Moses, and following other gods. To emphasize this point, Moses told he people that if they followed other gods and broke God's covenant, their land would become like Sodom and Gomorrah (IE: it would be uninhabitable and unable to produce).
Using Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of how powerful God's wrath can be is typical for most of the Old Testament. Deuteronomy is also a good template for the Old Testament, because it says nothing about why God destroyed the two cities. Instead, the OT writers used the Sodom and Gomorrah story as a lesson against the sins of their own day. In the day Deuteronomy was written, the issue of homosexuality was not as important as the issue of idolatry or breaking the covenant that Israel had with God. So Moses saw Sodom and Gomorrah as an example of the destruction that God can accomplish. Moses did not see it as a lesson against homosexuality or violence.
We will see from other OT passages that when the OT writers thought about Sodom and Gomorrah, they looked at their own day and saw how their own issues (issues usually unrelated to homosexuality) led to a "Sodom and Gomorrah like, fire and brimstone/wrath of God" kind of destruction.
ISAIAH
The very look on their faces gives them away. They display their sin like the people of Sodom and don't even try to hide it. They are doomed! They have brought destruction upon themselves (Isaiah 3:9).
Like Deuteronomy, Isaiah uses the Sodom and Gomorrah story as a lesson for his own people in his own time. Isaiah said that God's people paraded their sins just like Sodom and Gomorrah, thus giving an indirect warning of destruction with the rebuke. Besides being bold about their sins, what was the sin or what were the sins in Isaiah's day? The verse immediately before Isiah 3:9 stated that what the people were saying and doing were evil... but what were they saying and doing? Isaih didn't give us any more detail. But the verses following summarized what was on Isaiah's heart from the very beginning of the book:
The LORD comes forward to pronounce judgment on the elders and rulers of his people: "You have ruined Israel, my vineyard. Your houses are filled with things stolen from the poor. How dare you crush my people, grinding the faces of the poor into the dust?" demands the Lord, the LORD of Heaven's Armies (Isaiah 3:14-15).
Isaiah 1 also uses the example of the two cities for the same purpose and because of the same sin. In a nutshell, according to Isaiah, Israel's sin was their bad treatment of the poor.
In other Isaiah passages:
1. In chapter one (verse 10), Isaiah called the leadership of Israel "Rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah," who practiced God's Law in sacrificing and festivals but ignored the needs of the poor and the powerless.
2. In the same chapter (1:9), Isaiah used Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of what Israel would become if the Lord did not intervene and leave behind a remnant of survivors.
3. Babylon would be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah because of its pride and because it conquered Jerusalem and its temple (Isaiah 13-14).
JEREMIAH
Chapter 23
Like Isaiah, Jeremiah used the story of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of his own time. The sins in Jeremiah 23 were:
1. Prophets committed adultery.
2. Prophets lied.
3. Prophets led people astray.
4. Prophets didn't warn people about the consequences of their sins, instead they encouraged them.
5. Prophets didn't warn people of God's coming wrath.
6. Prophets said they spoke for God when they did not know what God really wanted to say. In other words they spoke from what was on their own hearts.
In other Jeremiah passages:
1. Because Edom terrified people and was proud, God would make it like Sodom and Gomorrah - nobody would live there again (Jer. 49:15-19).
2. Because Babylon gloated over the taking of Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and grew fat from the spoils, God would make them like Sodom and Gomorrah - nobody would live there again (Jer. 50).
EZEKIEL
Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen
(Ezekiel 16:49-50).
Although every other biblical writer mentioned above and below focused on the sins of their own day, and compared those sins to the undefined evil of Sodom and Gomorrah; Ezekiel took this to a whole new level. Indeed, we will see that in other verses Ezekiel used the Sodom and Gomorrah story in the same way as the other writers - pointing out that like Sodom and Gomorrah they would be destroyed by the wrath of God, and like those two cities, evil permeated his present era - but in this passage, Ezekiel saw the sins of his own day, and said those same sins are the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah. In doing this, Ezekiel was the first and only Old Testament writer to tell us the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah were.
What were the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah?
1. The sins were the same sins we see everywhere in our own day - people in Sodom and Gomorrah were living a good life while they were unconcerned about the needs of the poor and the needy.
2. They were arrogant.
3. They practiced detestable things.
Even though detestable things were not defined, I would assume that they are related to Sodom's men wanting to rape the two visitors of Sodom. Notice I said, "assume," because there is no clear definition of what Ezekiel meant when he said they practiced detestable things. For all I know, he may have been referring to idolatry, which was considered detestable.
At this point one might say that the context of Genesis nowhere stated idolatry; but the context of Genesis likewise nowhere stated anything about the rich and the poor which Ezekiel did say was the sin of Sodom and her sisters. It is possible that Ezekiel felt that homosexuality was considered detestable (Leviticus conisidered it an abomination), but homosexuality was not openly stated by Ezekiel. And to make homosexuality the "detestable thing" in Ezekiel's mind is to put it there artificially from our own judgments.
It is possible that Ezekiel didn't mention homosexaulity in particular because it had gone underground in his day and was therefore not considered a big deal in his day. Remember, the prophets (like us) were mostly concerned with the sins of their own day - not with the sins of the past or the future.
In the end, Ezekiel was the only one who named the sins that compelled two angels to come into Sodom in order to judge whether or not to destroy the cities. The sins that Ezekiel named that were committed before the angels came were the sins that compelled angels to come down from heaven. They were the sins that reached to the heavens because they were so evil. And they were the sins that had built up to an incredibly burdensome amount. Homosexual rape was only the outward manifestation of deeper evil that had been brooding within the culture of Sodom and Gomorrah... the sins of injustice and pride and the sin that was considered detestable - whatever sin that was.
THERE ARE SINS WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S
You not only walked in their ways and copied their detestable practices, but in all your ways you soon became more depraved than they (Ezekiel 16:47).
In the same context of the previous section, Ezekiel told his audience that Israel's sinfulness, corruption and depravities are worse those of Sodom and Gomorrah's. This means there were sins that were worse than neglecting the poor and worse than homosexual rape. In fact, Israel's sins during the time of Ezekiel were so bad than it made Sodom and Gomorrah righteous in comparison (Ezekiel 16:51-52).
WHAT IS THE SIN WORSE THAN SODOM AND GOMORRAH'S?
Ezekiel 16:59 briefly mentioned breaking the Covenant, which is possibly the sin that Ezekiel believed was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah's sin. I say "possibly" because although it is the only sin mention in this section, it is very possible that Ezekiel was generalizing about all types of sin. And yet, it is intriguing that he does mention breaking the covenant....
If breaking the covenant is worse than any sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, we have a whole new can of worms, a whole new study. How was Israel breaking the covenant? For that you will need to look elsewhere.
OTHER BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
Amos 4:11 uses Sodom and Gomorrah as comparisons to the overthrow of Jerusalem.
"I destroyed some of your cities, as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Those of you who survived were like charred sticks pulled from a fire. But still you would not return to me," says the LORD.
In Zephaniah 2:9, Moab was compared to Sodom, and Edom was compared to Gomorrah because they would be destroyed.
Neither of these two verses reveal anything new about Sodom and Gomorrah.
CONCLUSIONS
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah must have been a popular story in Israel. After Genesis the writers of the Bible never needed to retell the story because their audience knew it already.
We cannot go back and ask the common person what lessons and warnings they gleened from the story of the two cities; but we do have a few writers who gave their own commentaries on the story. For these writers the lessons were not about homosexuality, violence, treatment of the stranger or rape. For them the lessons from Sodom and Gomorrah were precisely this: God can and will destroy a city or a nation when it becomes too sinful.
The sins that destroy any nation depended upon the time the writer was writing. Throughout the Old Testament, idolatry, breaking God's covenant, corrupt leadership and neglecting the needs of the poor were on top of the list of the sins that best mirrored the evil of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The only place in the Old Testament that clearly mentioned the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah was found in Ezekiel. Surprisingly, Ezekiel did not point to the rape, homosexuality, or violence of Sodom; rather he focused on the economic immorality going on in Sodom and Gomorrah more than anything else. As a sidenote he mentioned that they also committed detestable things. Unfortuneately, "detestable things' is left undefined, leaving us to our assumptions.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Themes in Genesis: Why God Destroys Cities, Nations and the World in Genesis
FACT: GOD DESTROYS GROUPS OF PEOPLE
In Genesis 6 - 9, God was disappointed with the earth and regretted that he made people, so he sent a flood on the earth to destroy everyone, including animals, except Noah, his family and 2 of each animal (7 each of the clean animals). Several chapters later (chapter 19), he destroyed a city with fire and brimstone (probably a volcano). Finally, in chapter 15 God promised Abraham that he would give him land that was then inhabited. But God let Abraham know that he could not take the land until God was ready to destroy another group of people. But to destroy them there was a certain prerequisite that had to be met - a prerequisite that was tied into the other two destructions.
So in Genesis, we see that God destroyed the entire world, regreted destroying it, so narrowed down his destructive energies to a couple of cities and then to several tribes of people.
QUESTION: WHY DOES GOD DESTROY GROUPS OF PEOPLE?
When God Destroyed the Entire World:
1. Genesis 6:5: "Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." From this we can say that God destroyed the world for two reasons:
a. Humanity was very wicked, not just wicked, but very wicked.
b. Humanity in heart and in intent was filled with evil.
2. Genesis 6:12: "So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth." Corrupt in the Hebrew language is "sachath," which means "rotten, spoiled, ruined, corrupted."
The author of Genesis played with this word "corruption/ destroy (sachath)." In 3 verses he says, The earth was corrupted (sachath), people corrupted (sachath) their ways on the earth, so God said, "I will destroy (sachath) the earth."
Throughout the Old Testament, the word sachath defines the destruction of cities and land by the hand of God or the corruption of people's hearts and ways done by themselves. To be specific, what corrupts humaninty in the OT is most often idolatry, but sachath is also the result of adultery, laziness, pride, and giving God inferior sacrifices. But in the days of Noah it was something else that corrupted humankind.
3. Genesis 6:11 and 13: "Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. So God said to Noah, 'I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!'"
God destroyed the world because people corrupted themselves with violence.
When God Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
Contrary to popular opinion, homosexuality is not the major sin of Sodom. Ezekiel tells us that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was pride, economic injustice, and an undefined abomination which many attribute to homosexuality. I would rather define the abomination as homosexual rape, because:
1. That is what Sodom intended to do to the angels.
2. It fits the context of the book of Genesis where God destroyed the entire world, not because of sexual sins, but because of its violence.
I conclude that according to Genesis, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of its violence which was sexual in nature. But remember, that one act of sexual violence was not why the angels went into the city to see if it should be destoyed. The city was doomed for destruction before the men wanted to rape the visiting angels.
Perhaps this is where we fit Ezekiel's judgment into the situation, "Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. She was proud and committed detestable sins, so I wiped her out, as you have seen." Economic injustice and pride preceded the homosexual rape. Economic injustice and pride sent the angels down to investigate. The violence of homosexual rape simply simply sealed their doom.
When God Destroyed the Ammorites
As God promised to give land to Abraham and his descendents, he told Abraham that he could not yet take the land ... (Genesis 16:15). "After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction."
In part, the prediction is that the Ammorites would reach a level of sin that would warrent their destruction. The "sins of the Ammorites" are to the best of my knowledge undefined. There is some discussion about who the Ammorites were; if they were the Canaanites who inhabited the land when the Israelites entered after 400 years, or if they were driven out of the land shortly before the Israelites came, or whatever. So it is difficult to say what the sin was that warrented total genocide. Some have suggested idolatry, child sacrifice and other sins that were practiced by the Canaanites, but this is yet to be proven.
The main point is this: God waited to destroy a people until they had reached their full potential for sin.
In Genesis 6 - 9, God was disappointed with the earth and regretted that he made people, so he sent a flood on the earth to destroy everyone, including animals, except Noah, his family and 2 of each animal (7 each of the clean animals). Several chapters later (chapter 19), he destroyed a city with fire and brimstone (probably a volcano). Finally, in chapter 15 God promised Abraham that he would give him land that was then inhabited. But God let Abraham know that he could not take the land until God was ready to destroy another group of people. But to destroy them there was a certain prerequisite that had to be met - a prerequisite that was tied into the other two destructions.
So in Genesis, we see that God destroyed the entire world, regreted destroying it, so narrowed down his destructive energies to a couple of cities and then to several tribes of people.
QUESTION: WHY DOES GOD DESTROY GROUPS OF PEOPLE?
When God Destroyed the Entire World:
1. Genesis 6:5: "Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." From this we can say that God destroyed the world for two reasons:
a. Humanity was very wicked, not just wicked, but very wicked.
b. Humanity in heart and in intent was filled with evil.
2. Genesis 6:12: "So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth." Corrupt in the Hebrew language is "sachath," which means "rotten, spoiled, ruined, corrupted."
The author of Genesis played with this word "corruption/ destroy (sachath)." In 3 verses he says, The earth was corrupted (sachath), people corrupted (sachath) their ways on the earth, so God said, "I will destroy (sachath) the earth."
Throughout the Old Testament, the word sachath defines the destruction of cities and land by the hand of God or the corruption of people's hearts and ways done by themselves. To be specific, what corrupts humaninty in the OT is most often idolatry, but sachath is also the result of adultery, laziness, pride, and giving God inferior sacrifices. But in the days of Noah it was something else that corrupted humankind.
3. Genesis 6:11 and 13: "Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. So God said to Noah, 'I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!'"
God destroyed the world because people corrupted themselves with violence.
When God Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah
Contrary to popular opinion, homosexuality is not the major sin of Sodom. Ezekiel tells us that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was pride, economic injustice, and an undefined abomination which many attribute to homosexuality. I would rather define the abomination as homosexual rape, because:
1. That is what Sodom intended to do to the angels.
2. It fits the context of the book of Genesis where God destroyed the entire world, not because of sexual sins, but because of its violence.
I conclude that according to Genesis, God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of its violence which was sexual in nature. But remember, that one act of sexual violence was not why the angels went into the city to see if it should be destoyed. The city was doomed for destruction before the men wanted to rape the visiting angels.
Perhaps this is where we fit Ezekiel's judgment into the situation, "Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. She was proud and committed detestable sins, so I wiped her out, as you have seen." Economic injustice and pride preceded the homosexual rape. Economic injustice and pride sent the angels down to investigate. The violence of homosexual rape simply simply sealed their doom.
When God Destroyed the Ammorites
As God promised to give land to Abraham and his descendents, he told Abraham that he could not yet take the land ... (Genesis 16:15). "After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction."
In part, the prediction is that the Ammorites would reach a level of sin that would warrent their destruction. The "sins of the Ammorites" are to the best of my knowledge undefined. There is some discussion about who the Ammorites were; if they were the Canaanites who inhabited the land when the Israelites entered after 400 years, or if they were driven out of the land shortly before the Israelites came, or whatever. So it is difficult to say what the sin was that warrented total genocide. Some have suggested idolatry, child sacrifice and other sins that were practiced by the Canaanites, but this is yet to be proven.
The main point is this: God waited to destroy a people until they had reached their full potential for sin.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Themes in Genesis: Being Kind to Strangers
Don't forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it (Hebrews 13:2)!
Genesis emphasizes certain values that are important to the people and the readers of the book. In a past blog I already mentioned some of them. In this blog I would like to discuss the importance of being kind to strangers.
Most (but not all) of the examples of good and bad treatment of strangers are found in Abraham's time.
Abraham welcomed three strangers and fed them. It turned out that the three men were the Lord and two angels.
When Lot saw the two angels staying in the city square, he took them to his house fed them and gave them a place to stay for the night.
Sodom was the extreme bad example, showing the worst behavior in many levels, including the intent to rape strangers.
Abraham and Isaac show some interesting behavior on several occasions, when they told the local leaders that their wives were only sisters. They did this in order to protect themselves, but in telling the rulers that their wives were sisters, they did wrong to the city rulers. It seems that when foreign visitors come into the households of the patriarchs, they are given the royal treatment. But when the patriarchs go into foreign lands, survival instincts take over.
Genesis emphasizes certain values that are important to the people and the readers of the book. In a past blog I already mentioned some of them. In this blog I would like to discuss the importance of being kind to strangers.
Most (but not all) of the examples of good and bad treatment of strangers are found in Abraham's time.
Abraham welcomed three strangers and fed them. It turned out that the three men were the Lord and two angels.
When Lot saw the two angels staying in the city square, he took them to his house fed them and gave them a place to stay for the night.
Sodom was the extreme bad example, showing the worst behavior in many levels, including the intent to rape strangers.
Abraham and Isaac show some interesting behavior on several occasions, when they told the local leaders that their wives were only sisters. They did this in order to protect themselves, but in telling the rulers that their wives were sisters, they did wrong to the city rulers. It seems that when foreign visitors come into the households of the patriarchs, they are given the royal treatment. But when the patriarchs go into foreign lands, survival instincts take over.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Did Tamar Kill Her Husbands?
Genesis 38
Judah had 3 sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. When the eldest son got old enough for marriage, Judah set up a wife for Er with a woman named Tamar. But Er died because he was wicked (God killed him), so Judah had Onan take Tamar to be his wife and to raise a child in the name of Onan's dead brother; after all, keeping one's name alive for generations was highly prized in Israel.
But Onan didn't want to have a son that wouldn't belong to him, so when he was having sex with Tamar he pulled out last minute and she did not get pregnant. And because he didn't fulfill his duty to the widow God killed him too.
From Judah's point of view, his two oldest sons had one wife, and both sons died while in the embrace of that same wife. It seemed obvious that she was probably the reason for both of his sons' deaths - she was a black widow. Later Jewish literature comments on this. From myjewishlearning.com, Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs writes:
I believe his desire to kill Tamar was steeped with revenge for the deaths of his sons. He had transfered all the anger from the loss of his two sons to Tamar.
Nevertheless, when the truth came out that Tamar had seduced him, Judah realized that she had acted rightously. Perhaps then, he was willing to admit that she was not the one who killed his sons. But then again, maybe not.
Judah had 3 sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. When the eldest son got old enough for marriage, Judah set up a wife for Er with a woman named Tamar. But Er died because he was wicked (God killed him), so Judah had Onan take Tamar to be his wife and to raise a child in the name of Onan's dead brother; after all, keeping one's name alive for generations was highly prized in Israel.
But Onan didn't want to have a son that wouldn't belong to him, so when he was having sex with Tamar he pulled out last minute and she did not get pregnant. And because he didn't fulfill his duty to the widow God killed him too.
From Judah's point of view, his two oldest sons had one wife, and both sons died while in the embrace of that same wife. It seemed obvious that she was probably the reason for both of his sons' deaths - she was a black widow. Later Jewish literature comments on this. From myjewishlearning.com, Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs writes:
The Talmud (Yevamot 64b) observes that it is dangerous to marry a woman who has been widowed from two former husbands, either because she may have some malignant disease in her womb which caused their deaths or because it may be her fate not to have a husband to support her. The second view is applicable to cases where the woman was widowed from her first two husbands without having lived with them or where the death was due to an accident.
Years later, Jacob refused to let his youngest son go near her, which was important for the day, so in order for her to get a child she dressed up as a prostitute hiding her face under a veil, knowing that her father-in-law would give in to his lusts. She was right, and he had sex with her thinking she was a prostitute, and Tamar got pregnant. But when Judah heard that she dressed up as a prostitute in order to get pregnant, he wanted her killed.I believe his desire to kill Tamar was steeped with revenge for the deaths of his sons. He had transfered all the anger from the loss of his two sons to Tamar.
Nevertheless, when the truth came out that Tamar had seduced him, Judah realized that she had acted rightously. Perhaps then, he was willing to admit that she was not the one who killed his sons. But then again, maybe not.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Themes in Genesis: Incest
There is a lot of incest in the book of Genesis.
-Nahor married his niece.
-Abraham was married to his half sister, or possibly his niece.
-Lot's daughters had sex with their dad.
-Isaac married his cousin.
-Esau married his cousin.
-Jacob married 2 of his cousins.
-Judah had sex with his daughter-in-law.
REASONS FOR INCEST:
-Having a child through incest was preferred to having no children at all.
-When Lot's daughters had children from an incestrial affair, I am left to wonder if the story was used to dishonor the 2 nations that resulted from the two children - the Moabites and the Ammonites.
-People trusted relatives and preferred keeping to them in marriage. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were nomads, traveling from place to place; so they didn't build enduring relationships with people in the towns nearby.
The book of Genesis clearly reveals that Abraham and Isaac distrusted and feared outsiders. When Abraham went from place to place, he occasionally went into the towns nearby. When he was with his wife during these visits, he told her to tell people that she was his sister. He feared that the town's people would kill him if they knew she was his wife, because they would want her and want to take her away from him by force. In reality, the town's people held to much better morals than Abraham gave them credit for. Abraham's fear of the outsider was unfounded and unreasonable. On two occasions he was rebuked for his scam and accused of unethical behavior by those very town's people he believed would be immoral.
This fear of the outsider continued in Abraham's son Isaac, and probably in Jacob. When Esau married 2 girls from local towns, his mother did not bond with them, but rather complained about them to her husband. When Esau realized this, he went and married one of his cousins from his father's side.
INCEST AND THE LAW OF MOSES:
Genesis appears to act as a demonstration or background of the type of incest that was not allowed in the Law. With the exception of marrying cousins, every one of these practices mentioned above were made illegal in the Law of Moses.
Genesis offers us a window into the past; it gives us examples of and the reasons why people having sex with near relatives. And why were these condemned by Moses' Law? There was no reason given. But I suspect that it is because that by Moses' time Israel was no longer a nomadic tribe becoming numerous; and there were a large amount of marriageable people that held similar values and culture.
-Nahor married his niece.
-Abraham was married to his half sister, or possibly his niece.
-Lot's daughters had sex with their dad.
-Isaac married his cousin.
-Esau married his cousin.
-Jacob married 2 of his cousins.
-Judah had sex with his daughter-in-law.
REASONS FOR INCEST:
-Having a child through incest was preferred to having no children at all.
-When Lot's daughters had children from an incestrial affair, I am left to wonder if the story was used to dishonor the 2 nations that resulted from the two children - the Moabites and the Ammonites.
-People trusted relatives and preferred keeping to them in marriage. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were nomads, traveling from place to place; so they didn't build enduring relationships with people in the towns nearby.
The book of Genesis clearly reveals that Abraham and Isaac distrusted and feared outsiders. When Abraham went from place to place, he occasionally went into the towns nearby. When he was with his wife during these visits, he told her to tell people that she was his sister. He feared that the town's people would kill him if they knew she was his wife, because they would want her and want to take her away from him by force. In reality, the town's people held to much better morals than Abraham gave them credit for. Abraham's fear of the outsider was unfounded and unreasonable. On two occasions he was rebuked for his scam and accused of unethical behavior by those very town's people he believed would be immoral.
This fear of the outsider continued in Abraham's son Isaac, and probably in Jacob. When Esau married 2 girls from local towns, his mother did not bond with them, but rather complained about them to her husband. When Esau realized this, he went and married one of his cousins from his father's side.
INCEST AND THE LAW OF MOSES:
Genesis appears to act as a demonstration or background of the type of incest that was not allowed in the Law. With the exception of marrying cousins, every one of these practices mentioned above were made illegal in the Law of Moses.
Genesis offers us a window into the past; it gives us examples of and the reasons why people having sex with near relatives. And why were these condemned by Moses' Law? There was no reason given. But I suspect that it is because that by Moses' time Israel was no longer a nomadic tribe becoming numerous; and there were a large amount of marriageable people that held similar values and culture.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
The Boundaries of the Species
The first implied mention of sex in the Bible comes in the first chapter of Genesis. Plants trees, birds, fish animals, and pretty much anything with any amount of life, are created "after their kind" (a phrase describing boundry within each species). In the book of Genesis there are limits to how far a species can change from the reproductive process.
The ancients knew that intercourse between different species did not produce something unusual or different. In fact, such an act produced nothing at all because everything was bound to its own kind. So if an ox mounted a sheep, there was nothing we would call "Shox."
When it comes to humanity, however, Genesis does not mention God creating us after our own kind. This does not mean that we are boundaryless - a man and a goat does not create the mythological creatures called "Centaurs."
From the point of view of the author of Genesis this limit to procreation did not exist between the angels and humanity. In Genesis 6 "the sons of God" lusted after and had sex with the "daughters of men." The result of those unions were giants that roamed the earth. Although I may deal more of this in later blogs, at this point I will mention that ancient literature outside of the Old and New Testaments that comment on Genesis 6 say that these "sons of God" were angelic beings called "Watchers."
The ancients knew that intercourse between different species did not produce something unusual or different. In fact, such an act produced nothing at all because everything was bound to its own kind. So if an ox mounted a sheep, there was nothing we would call "Shox."
When it comes to humanity, however, Genesis does not mention God creating us after our own kind. This does not mean that we are boundaryless - a man and a goat does not create the mythological creatures called "Centaurs."
From the point of view of the author of Genesis this limit to procreation did not exist between the angels and humanity. In Genesis 6 "the sons of God" lusted after and had sex with the "daughters of men." The result of those unions were giants that roamed the earth. Although I may deal more of this in later blogs, at this point I will mention that ancient literature outside of the Old and New Testaments that comment on Genesis 6 say that these "sons of God" were angelic beings called "Watchers."
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