Blogs

I will soon post a document in Occasional Writings on this website that examines the period of Egyptian residence including the time of slavery.  That analysis is fairly technical and not suitable for the focused nature of a blog.  The name of that document is “Four Hundred Years or So.”  Any analysis of ancient written materials requires the analyst to make clearly articulated assumptions when the written record is incomplete or compromised.  The pertinent passages of scripture for this analysis are found in: Genesis 15, Exodus 12 and Galatians 3, with supplementation from several other places. In performing the analysis, it was necessary to deal with two problems in the textus receptus (the received biblical text).  The two problems confound any superficial attempts at interpreting the two Old Testament passages.  Even more to the point, they make it impossible to stand the passages side-by-side.  Hence, “interpreters” have to work through those problems to find a solution that, in this case, harmonizes the three key passages.  That work is the subject of the aforementioned paper. After all that work was done, it became possible to provide a feasible explanation of all the events into a single timeline.  The timeline begins with Abram’s arrival in Canaan and ends with the Israelites standing at the foot of Mount Sinai figuring out how to avoid [...]

Let’s look at the woman, Hagar, a little bit.  We don’t know a whole lot about her, but she had quite a role to play in establishing the heritage begun by Abraham.  Unfortunately for her and her offspring, the role they played was an antagonist role.  It appears The Lord allowed their emergence as major persons in the narrative in order to teach us something about Himself and His will regarding the “great nation” He was placing in the earth.  There are some lessons we would not be able to see without their participation in the narrative. In Genesis 12 we are shown a sort of “back-story” that is probably the entry of Hagar into the patriarchal history.  On the occasion of Abram’s journey to Egypt and the return to Canaan, he acquired much wealth.  Much of that wealth was given to him by the Egyptians when he first arrived in Egypt.  In their great hurry for him to leave them, they permitted him to retain all those gifts.  Included in the wealth was some number of slaves.  Hagar might well have been included among those gifts (Genesis 12:14-20), however, some ten years then passed before she actually appeared in the narrative. We may assume that she was a woman of considerable skill as a personal servant.  She became [...]

When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, he said, “Cursed be Canaan!  The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers”  He also said. “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem!  May Canaan be the slave of Shem.” (Genesis 9:24-26) Let’s clarify something before we get into the meat of this matter.  The “youngest son” who had offended Noah was not named Canaan.  He was named Ham.  When Noah was offended by Ham, he placed the curse of slavery on Ham’s youngest son whose name was Canaan. Noah had three sons.  They are listed here in order of their birth: Japheth Shem Ham Shem is listed first in scripture because he was the son who carried forward the history of Noah in the form of the legacy of God.  In this brief study, we want to pay attention to the youngest of these three because of his offense against his father.  There is no evidence in scripture, by the way, that God reversed the curse that Noah pronounced. At the time of the building of the Tower of Babel, these various kinships were dispersed throughout the earth through the changing of their languages.  It appears the language change affected people in family groups that were based on [...]