GENESIS 15

Obviously this continues from Genesis 14...

Genesis 15 - God's covenant with Abram.

1  After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward."

2  But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?"

3  And Abram said, "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."

4  Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir."

Um, what?  A son coming from his own body?  That would deffinatley be a mirracle.  In modern science it is possable for a man to "give birth" to a baby using a cavity bellow the man's stomach but I'm wondering if god was just talking about his sperm...  though I can't help but thinking, gentle reader, that if a voice came to me and told me I would have a son coming from my own body I'd be a little apprehensive to say the least.  But lets, for now, hold judgement and see how Abram will give birth.

5  He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."

6  Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

7  He also said to him, "I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it."

8  But Abram said, "O Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?"

9  So the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon."

The lord created all those animals, if he wanted some why didn't he just make some?  Is it a test of faith and what is he going to do with these animals?  Make a pie?

10  Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.

OK, obviously the SPCA hadn't been created back then.

11  Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

12  As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.

13  Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years.

I challenge that if god knew this would happen why would he let it happen?  He is basically saying "your people will be slaves, just accept it mmmkay."

14  But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.

15  You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age.

16  In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."

Translation: "Your people will be slaves but it'll earn them some land.  Maybe not them, but generations to come."  I'm begining to see a trend here, someone does something good or bad and their descendants are the ones that get rewarded or punished.

17  When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.

18  On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, "To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates--

                                       

19  the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,

20  Hittites,Perizzites, Rephaites,

21  Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites."

GENESIS 14

Thus far this could be the most meaningless chapter of the bible and could be the reason it took me so long to post.

GENESIS 14

ABRAM RESCUES LOT

1  At the time when Amraphel was king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam and Tidal king of Goyim,
2  these kings went to war against Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboyim, and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar).
3  All these latter kings joined forces in the Valley of Siddim (that is, the Dead Sea Valley).

This is one of those boring, historically-could-be-accurate-but-who-knows moments in the bible by the looks of it.

4  For twelve years they had been subject to Kedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled.5  In the fourteenth year, Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him went out and defeated the Rephaites in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzites in Ham, the Emites in Shaveh Kiriathaim6  and the Horites in the hill country of Seir, as far as El Paran near the desert.7  Then they turned back and went to En Mishpat (that is, Kadesh), and they conquered the whole territory of the Amalekites, as well as the Amorites who were living in Hazezon Tamar.

When reading these texts it is easy for ones eyes to glaze over and skip what's actually going on so I thought I would do a little more digging and what I found was interesting. There are two schools of thought (of course there are) you can read about in Historical Discovery. Other than that there is not much to see outside of the obviously bias Christian websites.

8    Then the king of Sodom, the king of Gomorrah, the king of Admah, the king of Zeboyim and the king of Bela (that is, Zoar) marched out and drew up their battle lines in the Valley of Siddim9  against Kedorlaomer king of Elam, Tidal king of Goyim, Amraphel king of Shinar and Arioch king of Ellasar—four kings against five.10    Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar pits, and when the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, some of the men fell into them and the rest fled to the hills.

I wonder if we will ever discover the remains of these people from the tar pits... I didn't find anything although I would not call my research into this area exhaustive.

11  The four kings seized all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food; then they went away.12  They also carried off Abram’s nephew Lot and his possessions, since he was living in Sodom.13  A man who had escaped came and reported this to Abram the Hebrew. Now Abram was living near the great trees of Mamre the Amorite, a brother of Eshkol and Aner, all of whom were allied with Abram.

As boring as this all is I'm it will all tie in somewhere down the road... maybe in the next chapter!

14  When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan. 

Does Dan know more than 300 people are after him?

15  During the night Abram divided his men to attack them and he routed them, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus.16    He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people.17  After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).18  Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High,19  and he blessed Abram, saying,“Blessed be Abram by God Most High,Creator of heaven and earth.20  And praise be to God Most High,who delivered your enemies into your hand.”Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.21  The king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people and keep the goods for yourself.”22  But Abram said to the king of Sodom, “With raised hand I have sworn an oath to the Lord, God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth,23  that I will accept nothing belonging to you, not even a thread or the strap of a sandal, so that you will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.’24  I will accept nothing but what my men have eaten and the share that belongs to the men who went with me to Aner, Eshkol and Mamre. Let them have their share.”

Seems to me god had nothing really to do with this, just two men thinking that god said this or that and making it all up as they went.

NOAH AND HIS ARK - PART 2

In PART 1 of Noah And His Ark it was size that mattered, now we explore what we can do with it, if anything.

  Among other questions people have about the ark is; would the ark have been sea worthy? I'm not a ship builder but my Grandfather was and if he was alive today he would probably give me a great run down but as he has long since left us I'll have to investigate this one myself. To start with we have a football sized ship built of wood and was filled with animals and their food. For now lets just take the animals off and try to float this thing...

I'm only going to address the affirmative side of this debate, as the claim that it is seaworthy is the topic. The first stop in this journey is to take a look at AiG (Answers in Genesis). This was something of a hit and miss as after a short search I could only find rebuttals to skeptical blogs, and one in particular called "Feedback: Could Noah's Ark Float Without A Problem?" featuring an attempted debunking by "Froggie" who writes a blog called "A Bushy Tree" and one entry in particular called "More Lies From Ken Ham". I waded through the ad hominem attacks from both sides and, in the beginning at least, AiG seemed to have the information on their side with references for all the claims they made.

That changed quickly after breaking it down. One of the comments made was:

If the ancients couldn't handle big things, what will you do about Stonehenge, Easter Island, Egyptian pyramids, and huge obelisks? Surely, you are not suggesting aliens?

This is coming from a group of people claiming a supernatural god exists and they are poo pooing aliens. For me aliens seem to be a more believable explanation in the portrayal of a "god" than a supernatural answer. Either way this argument is a strawman as AiG has made an assumption on Froggies point. AiG also makes a strawman argument with this statement...

We are not discussing the myths of Noah’s Ark - though there are hundreds of them represented in Flood legends across the globe. Instead we are talking about the real Ark, as discussed in the Scriptures. By the way, you forgot to mention the distortions and obfuscation behind the myth of human evolution.

Even if human evolution is a myth (although evolution is seen throughout the bible) this has nothing to do with the question of the Ark. The argument from authority is also being used here suggesting that all other stories of floods and arks are wrong except for the Biblical Ark because it's part of the scriptures. A case of using the bible to prove the bible.

AiG cites the description of an unidentified ship with Kauri planks of up to forty-five feet in length...

Some of the kauri planks measured forty five feet in length by two feet in width, and the vessel appeared to be double planked suggesting that the vessel may have been built for navigation through the ice.

This is a great example of cherry picked information - the original text reads:

Unidentified. Pre-1800. The bow and portion of the starboard side of a ship more than 100 feet long was discovered by bushwalkers at South-East Cape, west from the Wilsons Promontory lighthouse in 1960. Analysis of her kauri timbers suggested they came from Queensland, Indonesia or New Zealand, whilst the iron recovered could have been manufactured in Birmingham, England before 1800. Some of the kauri planks measured forty five feet in length by two feet in width, and the vessel appeared to be double planked suggesting that the vessel may have been built for navigation through the ice.

That says to me this ship was built with both wood and iron... a big point conveniently missed by Tim Lovett, the author of this rebuttle, who cleverly omits this information to support his argument which is very misleading. The Iron Age started around 1200 B.C.E. Also, there is an assumption here to believe the Ark was double planked. One more point while I'm on this... the unidentified ship sank. Nobody can say whether it was it's maiden voyage or if it had been sailing for many, many years and the suggestion the vessel may have been built for navagation through ice also suggests it was not built for rough weather or major swells which could be the reason for it's demise.

The original blog from Tim Chaffey on AiG is "Feedback: Why are you building the Ark on Land?" which scoots around the question quite convincingly by refocusing on Jesus' sacrifice which has no baring on the Ark. I take exception to:

However, several scientific studies have shown that Noah’s Ark was built to optimal proportions to provide a perfect blend of comfort, strength, and stability.

I could only find one "scientific" study supporting the seaworthiness of the Ark which was tacked on the blog entry "Thinking Outside The Box", the link to which is another page by Tim Lovett. On this page there are links to the original study which don't work so I used my powers of Google to track down the organisations named including KACR, CRISO, MOERI and the scientist Dr Seon Won Hong. To his credit he did link to both KACR and CRISO and mentioned one was a new name of the other and now it's MOERI but neither of the links worked. The only thing I could find was the MOERI website which had no information on this study and the only information I could find on the good Dr was on creationist web sites. The experiment, from the photo, seems to be done with a scale model in a wave tank not a life sized one. The model would easily hold together but when you scale it up the pressures put on it would turn the whole thing to kindling. Perhaps somebody could prove me hypothesis.

I also did a search for any other scientific studies which prove the seaworthiness of the Ark and found... nothing.

I personally do not believe that the Ark, filled with animals, would be very seaworthy at all but I'm not sure about the evidence either way.  I'd be happy to look at any evidence that it existed let alone being seaworthy and for the sake of the next argument lets just assume that it was a real boat and could handle whatever god threw at the world.

Part 3 to come.

I write this blog because it is a passion of mine to explore the myth of god and along the way even I learn some cool stuff but it takes a lot of time and energy to write this blog.  If you enjoy reading this blog please make a donation by clicking the DONATE button on the right so I can put more time into creating a better blog.

Thank you all

Justin

GENESIS 13

Genesis 13 is a scene setting story letting the reader paint the picture in his or her own mind.

GENESIS 13

ABRAM AND LOT SEPARATE

1  So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him.

2  Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.

3  From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier

4  and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.

"Hi Lord, this is Abram, just checking in. I have arrived with Lot and just waiting further instructions. Lot's being a pain in the ass but I think I can deal with him.

5  Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents.

6  But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together.

7  And quarreling arose between Abram’s herders and Lot’s. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time.

Which is why there was not enough room. Basically Abram and Lot were passive-aggressive invaders of the land.

8  So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives.

9  Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”

10   Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)

11  So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company:

12  Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.

Worse choice ever! Well, how was Lot to know that Sodom was to be forever known as the buggering city? 

13  Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.

14  The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west.

15  All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. 

16  I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. 

17  Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”

18  So Abram went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he pitched his tents. There he built an altar to the Lord.

And the adventure begins...

GENESIS 12

 If you ever wonder into Egypt with your wife I'll give you two pieces of advice.  1 - watch out for the Syrians and 2 - read Genesis 12

GENESIS 12

THE CALL OF ABRAM

1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Sounds like a good deal to me. It's like a promotion at work but with land.

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.

5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

Good plan, well executed. 

6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.

7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.

9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.

So if you build an alter to god he will appear. Why has this never been in the news or on YouTube? I'm sure many have tried the alter building thing, even with cameras, yet no god appears so I'm wondering if was just a one off thing. Building an alter to your god for thanks is like giving your girlfriend a rose if your girlfriend was a blow up doll. Sooner or later one of the thorns is going to pop the plastic and she will disapear is a pop of idiocy. 

ABRAM IN EGYPT

10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.

Well, if he's not there to help he's adding to the problem...just another mouth to feed.

11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. 

12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live.

Kind of jumping to conclusions there, aren't we? 

13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

Lying - why didn't I think of that? 

14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman.

15 And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace.

16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

Wait a minute. Because they thought she was his sister and they wanted a little action, they are offering all sorts of farm animals as payment.

17 But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai.

Sounds a bit harsh as they didn't know she was a chosen one.

18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?

19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!”

20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.

So, the moral to this story is that you are to lie to your enemy then when they find out you lied tell them they've been punked and you get away scot free. Now that's the kind of education I want my kids to have.

POSTING COMMENTS

After checking the settings on Blogger I realized that not everyone could comment on my blogs so I have changed said settings.  Anybody can comment now, feel free to rant :)

TO MARK THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Says it all