TTF "Read Da Book": The Christian Bible

[ttf_doubleslyde]

The one thing that religion does is evoke passionate responses. Telling the people to settle down is like telling fire not to be hot. Good luck with that one!
 

[ttf_drizabone]

Genesis 26 text

Highlights

 - deja vue all over again : famine, Abimelech, promise of land and offspring, pretending wife is sister, wells and wealth


Summary

 - another famine!
 - The Lord tells Isaac not to go to Egypt, and makes him the same promises he made to Abraham.
 - Isaac settled in Gerar and told everyone that Rebekah was his sister.
 - Abimelech discovers the lie and rebukes him, like with Abraham.
 - Isaac prospers and has to leave cause his tribe becomes too big.
 - Isaac redigs the wells that Abraham had dug but the locals aren't happy he's there
 - God promises to protect Isaac
 - Isaac and Abimelech make a treaty.
 - Esau marries 2 Hittite women and they make life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah

Comments and questions

1. there are possibly a number of Abimelech's. This may have been a title.

2. the writer(s) sure like repetition.

3. Repeated themes include :
  - famine,
  - the shosen one pretending his wife is his sister
  - promise of land and offspring,
  - wells
  - conflict between the chosen one and his siblings,
  - God's chosen one prospering

[ttf_timothy42b]

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 15, 2015, 07:11PM - Esau marries 2 Hittite women and they make life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah


There doesn't seem to be any stigma about polygamy in the OT.  It's normal. 

[ttf_MoominDave]

Yes, I'd also put this chapter on my list of possible duplications. It is getting pretty confusing by this point trying to keep it all straight.

[ttf_MoominDave]

Genesis 27 text

Highlights

 - Isaac attempts to bless Esau, but Rebekah and Jacob connive to have him bless Jacob instead.
 - Esau is most angry, and plans to kill Isaac. Isaac flees to his mother's family in Haran.

Summary

 - Isaac, by now blind and approaching death, gives Esau instruction to hunt and prepare food for him, after which he will give him his blessing.
 - This blessing is a declaration of the blessee's lordship over his brothers.
 - Rebekah overhears Isaac instructing Esau, and quickly alerts Jacob, telling him to take Esau's place. Rebekah and Jacob conspire to disguise Jacob as Esau, in order to fool Isaac.
 - Esau returns, ready to receive his blessing from Isaac. Isaac and Esau realise that they have been respectively fooled and cheated by Jacob.
 - Isaac, having given his blessing, considers it not possible to reallocate it. Esau is filled with anger towards Jacob, who has for the second time laid claim to what was intended for Esau.
 - Esau vows to kill Jacob. Rebekah hears this, and counsels Jacob to flee to her family in Haran, and to wait for Esau's anger to subside.
 - Rebekah states her contempt for the Hittite women (presumably those that Esau married, and also in general), expressing her desire for Jacob not to marry one.

Comments and questions

1) Wouldn't be out of place in a soap opera, this bit of plot...
2) Jacob is made hairy to fool Isaac's sense of touch, but surely his voice would have given him away? Maybe Isaac's sense of hearing was also decayed.
3) Jacob rightly takes the blame for the deceit. But Rebekah also deserves censure, and seems to get away with it here. In fact she seems highly manipulative, playing games amongst her offspring. Quite simply bad motherhood, this seems.
4) The first time Jacob laid claim to Esau's heritage seemed quite trivial - the stew for birthright thing - but this time things are much more seriously felt.
5) 'Hittite' again a difficult term - context suggests a local tribe rather than the mighty empire, as per the hypothesis we previously discussed.

[ttf_ronkny]

Quote from: bhcordova on Oct 15, 2015, 11:09AMSettle down guys. 
Guys'S?  Seriously? It's one guy that's the problem. Hint; It's not DD. Sheesh.

[ttf_bhcordova]

Wasn't talking to Dusty.  Was a general warning.  These things can be discussed in a non-threatening manner. 

[ttf_drizabone]

Quote from: MoominDave on Oct 20, 2015, 05:59AMYes, I'd also put this chapter on my list of possible duplications. It is getting pretty confusing by this point trying to keep it all straight.

And while your confused you can think about why the writer included duplicates (its a pretty significant characteristic of the text isn't it):
- multiple versions of the same old story
- distinct but similar events

And why were they included? eg
- because the writer couldn't work out which one was the one true story
- because the writer wanted to bring out commonalities or differences, or to show change in a character

And why were the stories placed where they are if they are duplicates?
- just random
- partially determined by the characters and location
- or to support the plot that the writer was developing

[ttf_MoominDave]

I think that's a good summary of the range of opinion found on the topic. We'll never know to scientific satisfaction at this remove how and why these things came together, but we can do our best to think about the text responsibly by noting the ranges of possible options that occur to us.

I don't doubt that there will have been for each point of confusion an individual and complex route by which the original events have come down to us - one could easily imagine:

• [li]1) Something happens to someone or maybe they even make up a story to lend them gravitas[/li][li]2) That someone retells the story with a bit / a lot of embellishment.[/li][li]3) Their admirers repeat it around campfires ten times a year for a thousand years, while Chinese whispers have their way.[/li][li]4) But it isn't just one succession of campfires that the story is told around; tribes split and shift over land, and stories end up being told around several parallel communities, amongst which contact may be limited. At the risk of turning off those who don't like the word, an evolutionary process takes place, where separated populations of stories develop their own characteristics.[/li][li]5) At the end of those thousand years, someone writes a version down.[/li][li]6) Some years further on, someone else attempts to stitch together all the various stories of earlier times that are in circulation amongst the population. At this point, decisions have to be made about the apparent contradictions that have arisen from (4). Do they include all options? Do they discard some? Do they pick one as the 'best' and endorse that one?[/li][li]7) As time goes on, it is realised that not every story in circulation was successfully incorporated into the narrative; later copyists add in these extra details, spoiling the flow of the narrative.[/li]

I'm not saying with dogmatic certainty that this is what happened. Rather that it would have been difficult for at least some of the elements of this list not to have happened. Hence my general caution about accepting the narrative in a straightforward fashion. Moses (or whoever in that era) writing down the doings of Abraham is in terms of elapsed time like us writing about the doings of dark age nobles - extremely difficult to do with accuracy and certainty.

Regarding the specific question of why duplicates and strong similarities exist, my personal suspicion is that this is very often because the compiler(s) were presented with existing multiple versions of tales preserved in the oral tradition that they were trying to construct a canonical narrative from. Faced with two versions of a millennia-old tale (or two millennia-old tales that look like they descend from the same event, but garbling due to separation has rendered into distinct narratives), they did the intellectually responsible thing and noted both options. This has the ring of plausibility to me, though again I certainly wouldn't try to insist without some serious corroborating evidence for it.

[ttf_MoominDave]

Quote from: ddickerson on Oct 15, 2015, 08:01AMYou guys are still discounting God's ability to preserve what He inspired though men to share His Word with mankind.

Hi Dusty, glad to see you pop in.

Genuine question: How do you reconcile the general messiness and unclearness of the narrative with it being a supposedly 100% preserved piece of text? There are even a few direct contradictions - such as the changed order of days of creation between Genesis 1 and 2 (to pick the clearest example I can bring to mind right now). Do you take the line that God intended these characteristics?

[ttf_ddickerson]

Quote from: MoominDave on Oct 21, 2015, 03:56AMHi Dusty, glad to see you pop in.

Genuine question: How do you reconcile the general messiness and unclearness of the narrative with it being a supposedly 100% preserved piece of text? There are even a few direct contradictions - such as the changed order of days of creation between Genesis 1 and 2 (to pick the clearest example I can bring to mind right now). Do you take the line that God intended these characteristics?

Maybe for reasons we cannot understand? Has it ever occurred to anyone that our capacity to understand and explain everything is limited?

Going over all the details is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but don't think you have to be able to explain everything.

I've been reading and following along. Good questions, all.

[ttf_Baron von Bone]

Quote from: ddickerson on Oct 21, 2015, 05:50AMMaybe for reasons we cannot understand? Has it ever occurred to anyone that our capacity to understand and explain everything is limited?
Would you accept that argument from the other side?
 
That kind of (technically) second level questioning (maybe 1.5 level) would serve you well when you're settling on an argument. It's one of the rudimentary measures of whether an argument is actually good or not.

[ttf_ronkny]

Quote from: Baron von Bone on Oct 21, 2015, 10:12AM
Would you accept that argument from the other side?
 
That kind of (technically) second level questioning (maybe 1.5 level) would serve you well when you're settling on an argument. It's one of the rudimentary measures of whether an argument is actually good or not.
Good grief dude.  "rudimentary measures of whether an argument is actually good or not"
Nobody is on your religion thread so you seek to derail this one?
I've enjoyed reading this thread because it's been non judgmental and interesting. Your last two comments are about the posters rather than the subject. What is your problem?

[ttf_MoominDave]

Glad you're enjoying it ronkny! Can we tempt you in to summarise a chapter or two? Byron, I'd like to tempt you too, if you're temptable... Maybe when we get to some less well known portions? And Billy and Dusty and anyone else reading too, of course. The standing invitation is open to all...

Genesis 28 text

Highlights

 - Isaac sends Jacob to Rebekah's family to seek a first cousin as a wife.
 - Esau seeks to please his parents by taking a third wife, who is not one of the local women, rather a cousin via his half-uncle Ishmael.

Summary

 - Isaac instructs Jacob to go to his mother's people in Paddan-Aram, with instructions to marry one of Laban's (i.e. his uncle's) daughters.
 - Esau sees how out of favour he has become, with Jacob having taken his place as the heir, and his two wives hated by his mother. He responds by taking a third wife, Mahalath, a daughter of Isaac's half-brother Ishmael.
 - Jacob undertakes the commissioned journey. One night he has a dream which shows a ladder from Earth to heaven on which angels are climbing up and down. God talks to him in this dream and repeats the promise that he made to Abraham about his descendants spreading wide.
 - In the morning he realises the importance of his vision and marks the place, calling it "Bethel".
 - He vows to give a tenth of his possessions to his God.

Comments and questions

1) Standard disclaimer about notions of incest being different in that time and place... I keep thinking about drawing a family tree for all this and then deciding that it all seems a bit much effort, and plenty of people have produced such drawings online already...
2) I presume that the first portion of this chapter follows directly from the final portion of 27, where Rebekah beseeched Isaac not to let Jacob marry one of the local women. Following Rebekah's instruction by sending Isaac away presumably being his response to that. If that seems a bit weak, then perhaps Isaac's quoted near-death infirmity explains it.
3) Esau's wives have classic 'mother-in-law trouble'...
4) It is not specified here how successful his marriaging ploy was.
5) Paddan-Aram is not a location that has been specified here before (I think?). Here's a map of the area from maybe a thousand years later that helped me visualise things; it is seemingly not far off in meaning from "Mesopotamia".
6) What is the significance of the ladder in Jacob's dream? It seems an important enough element to have been emphasised, but the precise reason for it escapes me.
7) Bethel is thought to be in the West Bank.
8) The passage shows that it was either in or near an existing Canaanite city called Luz.
9) Is Jacob's vow here the first known incidence of tithing?

[ttf_anonymous]

Quote from: MoominDave on Oct 21, 2015, 12:36PM9) Is Jacob's vow here the first known incidence of tithing?

Great post. One thought I had in response to your question on tithing was that Abram gave a tithe to Melchizedek in Genesis 14, so I think that would be the first known incidence of tithing.

Cheers

[ttf_drizabone]

Glad to have you back Dave.  Hope you had a great time.

The highlights for me are related to the continuation of God's promise to the next generation

- Isaac asks God to pass on Abraham's blessing to Jacob
- God gives Jacob Abraham's blessing.

I was always curious about the ladder or stairs and what the angels were there for.  Its described
in the same way as the tower of Babel "reaching to heaven".  And then Jacob describes the area as the gate to heaven.  So I think that the angels were probably just going about their business as messengers of God, going to and from heaven.  (Angels means messengers)

Jacob says that this must be the house of God, so he calls it Bethel, which means ... The House of God.

I think that the scene shows us God coming out of his house (heaven) to bless Jacob. He does this totally gratuitously as Jacob hasn't shown any reason that he should be favoured by God.

And I agree with OldsAmbassador about tithing.  As far as I know it basically means tenthing.

[ttf_MoominDave]

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 21, 2015, 10:59PMGlad to have you back Dave.  Hope you had a great time.
An excellent time, thank you. It helped that the weather was surprisingly co-operative - wasn't expecting to be paddling in the Baltic Sea at greater than 59 degrees North in latitude in early October on a sunny beach of beautiful fine white sand... Admittedly the water was cold enough to numb my feet, but still...

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 21, 2015, 10:59PMThe highlights for me are related to the continuation of God's promise to the next generation

- Isaac asks God to pass on Abraham's blessing to Jacob
- God gives Jacob Abraham's blessing.
I swithered over how much to make of this - to a Christian it must look very important. To a devout Jew, even more so. To me? The consistent continuity of it is worth noting.

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 21, 2015, 10:59PMAnd I agree with OldsAmbassador about tithing.  As far as I know it basically means tenthing.

The curiosity I have about it here relates to its use as a religious tool. I (probably confusingly) used the modern word 'tithing' to tie it up with latter-day notions of the same thing, practised by the spiritual descendants of these people, but I wonder how usual it was for this style of obligation to be made there and then. As OldsAmbassador points out, this isn't the first instance of this particular fraction of worldly goods being promised in debt in this narrative. But I think it may be the first instance of it being promised to God - by which is presumably meant that the sum of money will be spent on raising awareness of God amongst humans.

[ttf_drizabone]

"swithered "    I like

[ttf_MoominDave]

Scots English has a wealth of excellent little words that deserve a wider airing... They leak out (sometimes inadvertently!) through me from Mrs Dave...

[ttf_MoominDave]

Genesis 29 text

Highlights

 - Jacob travels to his mother's family to find a wife.
 - He marries both daughters of his uncle, Leah and Rachel, spending 14 years there.

Summary

 - Jacob travels to his family in Mesopotamia to seek a cousin to marry in accordance with Isaac's instructions.
 - He meets shepherds at a well near his destination, and shortly thereafter is introduced to his Uncle Laban's younger daughter Rachel in the same manner.
 - Rachel takes Jacob home to meet Laban.
 - Jacob stays a week, and Laban offers him wages for the work he is doing.
 - Jacob asks for Rachel's hand in marriage, offering 7 years service for this, which Laban readily accepts.
 - Laban tricks Jacob, presenting him with Rachel's older sister Leah instead. The text makes it clear that she is less physically attractive than Rachel. Jacob doesn't notice this until the morning after, whereupon he complains.
 - Laban says that it isn't traditional for the younger daughter to be married before the elder. He offers Jacob Rachel as a second wife in a week's time, in return for another 7 years service. Jacob agrees to this.
 - Jacob prefers Rachel over Leah.
 - Leah bears him four sons, the text telling us that this is due to divine intervention in order to ease her husband's disfavour of her - Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah.

Comments and questions

1) The meeting of Jacob with Rachel at the well seems clearly intended to echo the meeting of Abraham's servant with Rebekah at the same (?) well after the same journey in Genesis 24. Does this mean that the meetings proceeded as identically as depicted? Or does it mean that the two narratives were smoothed into the same shape in order to make for a more pleasing story?
2) The tables are turned on Jacob here - previously he'd conspired unpleasantly to defraud Esau, but here Laban deals with him deceitfully. It would have been difficult not to have grown in self-recognition as a result of this, I think.
3) That said... It's implausibly odd that Jacob didn't realise that he was with Leah and not Rachel until the morning after the wedding. He'd spent the previous 7 years living in a house with both of them, and presumably paying close attention to Rachel. Did she not speak all night? Did she cover herself head to toe from him? It has to have been a more involved episode than this to have turned out this way. Perhaps Jacob was in on it with Laban and his daughters?
4) We will hear more of Jacob's sons later...

[ttf_drizabone]

1. I think that technique would tend to highlight the differences.  But I can't see that they are significant.  Apart from Jacob not having any money for the bride price, which meant that he had to find some other way of paying for his bride.  I wonder why Isaac didn't think of that, or did he?   Any way I don't think he say his mum again.

2. Poetic justice.  I agree that he's have to be pretty thick not to learn from the experience.  Although he does turn the tables on Laban later.

3. Alcohol, excitement and no lights.  And after waiting 7 years ... Maybe she was pretty good in bed too.

4. Definitely.  I think its worth noting in advance that Judah, one of Leah's son's, fathers the largest and perhaps most prestigious tribe, which included David the king and Jesus.

[ttf_drizabone]

Genesis 30 text

Highlights

 - Another Genealogy and barren wives scheming to have kids.
 - Jacob develops amazing new method of animal husbandry

Summary

 - Rachel was upset that she didn't have any babies and blamed Jacob
 - Rachel tries surrogacy to have babies; it works and she is happy
 - Leah starts to worry and tries the surrogacy trick; it works and she is happy
 - Rachel wants some of Leah's mandrakes, but Leah declines.
 - Leah has more babies and hopes that Jacob will honour her.
 - Rachel has another baby
 - Jacob asks Laban to let him go so he can go home.
 - Laban wants to give Jacob some wages but Jacob doesn't want anything except the spotted and black sheep and goats.
 - He stayed longer to breed his spotted and black animals, and grew more prosperous.

Comments and questions

1) Having babies was obviously important to women.  And they weren't fussed about using thier servants as surrogates.  Different times.
2) I'm not sure how Jacobs breeding method worked but this chapter and the advice he gave at the well in the last chapter seem to indicate that he knew how to look after sheep and that the locals didn't.

[ttf_MoominDave]

Just keeping Jacob's sons straight here -

[ttf_ddickerson]

They represent the 12 Hebrew tribes.

[ttf_timothy42b]

Quote from: ddickerson on Oct 26, 2015, 06:10AMThey represent the 12 Hebrew tribes.

Which comes back in an interesting way with the Syrian conquest in the roughly 700s BC.

Did anyone catch the Human Family Tree show on National Geographic last night? It's apparently a rerun of a 2009 documentary, tracing the movement of mankind through DNA analysis.

The thing about reading the OT over a period of time is that you end up buying into the story, and it assumes a reality of its own, like a Harry Potter book or Lord of the Rings.  Much is clearly myth - humans did not originate in the Middle East near the Tigris and Euphrates, nor were the Israelites the first people. 

[ttf_ddickerson]

Quote from: timothy42b on Oct 26, 2015, 07:47AMWhich comes back in an interesting way with the Syrian conquest in the roughly 700s BC.

Did anyone catch the Human Family Tree show on National Geographic last night? It's apparently a rerun of a 2009 documentary, tracing the movement of mankind through DNA analysis.

The thing about reading the OT over a period of time is that you end up buying into the story, and it assumes a reality of its own, like a Harry Potter book or Lord of the Rings.  Much is clearly myth - humans did not originate in the Middle East near the Tigris and Euphrates, nor were the Israelites the first people. 

It doesn't say that the Israelites are the first people, they are the Chosen people.

[ttf_MoominDave]

Genesis 1 etc. is clear about how it reckons the Israelites come directly from the first people. It also doesn't leave anywhere even vaguely near enough time to allow the descendants of Noah to populate the whole Earth.

[ttf_ddickerson]

Quote from: MoominDave on Oct 26, 2015, 09:11AMGenesis 1 etc. is clear about how it reckons the Israelites come directly from the first people. It also doesn't leave anywhere even vaguely near enough time to allow the descendants of Noah to populate the whole Earth.

Can you give the verse that says the Israelites were the first?

[ttf_MoominDave]

Read me more carefully; I said "how it reckons the Israelites come directly from the first people".

[ttf_drizabone]

Quote from: timothy42b on Oct 26, 2015, 07:47AM
The thing about reading the OT over a period of time is that you end up buying into the story, and it assumes a reality of its own, like a Harry Potter book or Lord of the Rings.  Much is clearly myth - humans did not originate in the Middle East near the Tigris and Euphrates, nor were the Israelites the first people.

Shock, horror.  You mean that people actually read the bible and think that its true!   

Do people read Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and think that its true?  Or do they know that they are just stories.

I think its really interesting to see how it can be true and fit into our current understanding of genetics and geology what we understand of how the world works.

Was Adam actually the first human? Or the first human that had God's image?  If he wasn't the first human then in what way can we all, at least potentially, become image bearers of God, and become subject to the results of his sin?  What are the elements of the story that must have really happened to allow the gospel to still be true?  Was Adam a physical ancestor of, or a representative of all of mankind.

Reading the bible can be challenging (in a good way) for a conservative curious christian.  Both intellectually and morally.

[ttf_drizabone]

Genesis 31 text

Highlights

 - Jacob finally leaves Laban
 - Rachel steals Labans household gods
 - Jacob and Laban agree to separate

Summary

 - Jacob's welcome with Laban and his son's is wearing out
 - The Lord tells Jacob to return to Canaan
 - Jacob talks Rachel and Leah leaving with him - telling them how God has blessed him - but forgets to mention Esau
 - Rachel and Leah consider themselves as unwanted foreigners in the fathers house
 - Jacob packs up quick and flees, while Laban is out shearing his sheep
 - Rachel finds time to steal her father's household gods
 - Laban finds out and sets out in hot pursuit.
 - God appears to Laban and warns him not to say anything to Jacob
 - Laban catches up with Jacob and claims that he really wanted to say good-bye to Jacob before he went. 
 - And that he could harm him if God hadn't told him not to.
 - And why did you steal my gods
 - Jacob says he doesn't know anything about Labans god's and that he can search for them, and if he finds them he can kill the person who took them.
 - Rachel hides them under her seat and says she can't get up because she's menstruating.
 - Jacob takes the opportunity to vent 20 years of frustration with Laban
 - Laban suggests a truce and sets up a marker to act as a border between the 2
 - Laban insists that Jacob take no other wives apart from his daughters
 - Laban goes back home

Comments and questions

1) Finally Jacob gets to go back home.  I doubt that he expected his little trip to get a wife to take 20 years.

2) The "household gods" arc is intriguing.  Why did Rachel steal them and why did the narrator want to tell us about it?
 - there are a lot of explanations around - most make Rachel out to have good motives - but are not being very true to the text, imho.
 - the most convincing explanation to me is here

3) What will Esau do? 

[ttf_MoominDave]

Yes, the use of "household gods" and the evident value placed on them is striking. Can we assume that these are some kind of idols of religious positions that don't agree with the proto-Judaism that the book narrates? Or could they have been part of that religion? I know that (not much) later on the Bible is quite down on "graven idols", but we haven't seen anything of that kind thus far.
One can construct passably convincing scenarios for either, really. The Bible essentially tells the story of how one god concept came to defeat its competitors (dare I write "through evolutionary fitness"...?), so it's not implausible that characters around the main arc would have had differing religious beliefs to the characters that form the primary focus.

Everywhere Jacob goes there seems to be conflict and bad feeling, doesn't there? I had forgotten in the years since I'd last been through all this text how dislikeable some of the favoured characters in it are.

[ttf_MoominDave]

Genesis 32 text

Highlights

 - Jacob approaches his old home, and frets about how angry Esau will still be with him
 - He seemingly wrestles with God, who puts Jacob's hip out

Summary

 - Jacob comes back towards his old home
 - He sends messengers out to notify Esau
 - The messengers return with the news that Esau, who he left on notably bad terms that were (as told) entirely Jacob's fault, is coming to meet him, and bringing 400 men with him
 - This worries Jacob
 - Jacob sends his servants out with substantial gifts for Esau, instructing them to use servile language on his behalf
 - Waiting overnight for the meeting, he encounters a strange man with whom he wrestles. The text tells us that this man was God, that he put out Jacob's hip, and that he christened Jacob 'Israel' for the episode.

Comments and questions

1) It is intriguing that Jacob is willing to go so far as to call himself Esau's "servant" here. Is he willing to give up the whole birthright shtick in his fear of the consequences of his earlier highly selfish actions?
2) Jacob was left alone and had a rather inexplicable wrestling episode with a man who didn't want to give his name, but was supposedly God, who has made more of a habit of appearing in dreams than in person of late. God couldn't outwrestle him (which seems very peculiar), so he pulled some kind of low trick on Jacob's hip socket, making him lame. Overall, one of the most peculiar episodes so far in a narrative replete with odd doings.
3) Secular head on - the wrestling episode feels like a constructed story made to offer a solid start point for the later political Israel.

[ttf_John the Theologian]

The point of the whole wrestling with God narrative is that this is Jacob's conversion story.  His scheming ways are left behind and he gets a new name-- Israel.

[ttf_drizabone]

Quote from: MoominDave on Oct 28, 2015, 03:34PMYes, the use of "household gods" and the evident value placed on them is striking. Can we assume that these are some kind of idols of religious positions that don't agree with the proto-Judaism that the book narrates? Or could they have been part of that religion? I know that (not much) later on the Bible is quite down on "graven idols", but we haven't seen anything of that kind thus far.
One can construct passably convincing scenarios for either, really. The Bible essentially tells the story of how one god concept came to defeat its competitors (dare I write "through evolutionary fitness"...?), so it's not implausible that characters around the main arc would have had differing religious beliefs to the characters that form the primary focus.

I agree that the idols were religious.  I don't know whether they were of false Gods or to worship the Real God, but in a way that is proscribed in future.  Its strange that the narrator makes the gods out to be so significant on the one hand, but treats them as commonplace objects that need no explanation on the other hand.

QuoteEverywhere Jacob goes there seems to be conflict and bad feeling, doesn't there? I had forgotten in the years since I'd last been through all this text how dislikeable some of the favoured characters in it are.

Yeah, there's actually not much hagiography here, or in the bible generally.  What does that suggest to you about the writers of this story?

[ttf_drizabone]

Quote from: MoominDave on Oct 28, 2015, 04:00PMGenesis 32 text

Comments and questions

1) It is intriguing that Jacob is willing to go so far as to call himself Esau's "servant" here. Is he willing to give up the whole birthright shtick in his fear of the consequences of his earlier highly selfish actions?

Shtick?  You're picking up sayings from Byron now.  I prefer you Scottism's

But I think you're right.  Jacob is really worried.  His prayer in 9-12 and actions show how worried he is.

Quote2) Jacob was left alone and had a rather inexplicable wrestling episode with a man who didn't want to give his name, but was supposedly God, who has made more of a habit of appearing in dreams than in person of late. God couldn't outwrestle him (which seems very peculiar), so he pulled some kind of low trick on Jacob's hip socket, making him lame. Overall, one of the most peculiar episodes so far in a narrative replete with odd doings.

"Low trick" - I would have called it a lame trick. 

And I reckon that God could have beaten him if he wanted too.  So this was sort of a test to see if he persevered or kept striving.

This appearance does stand out.  So it's special in some way.  I think it was special because God blesses Jacob.  This time Jacob is not trying to deceive anyone, and he's not in anyway deserving of the blessing.  Just like Esau did at the beginning of the episode he's prepared to give away the blessing.  But God see's it as his gift to give and can give it to whoever he likes, without them deserving it.  But I've got to work out why this blessing is different to the one in the vision with the ladder.

Quote3) Secular head on - the wrestling episode feels like a constructed story made to offer a solid start point for the later political Israel.

Its certainly significant, but I think its significant for a lot of other reasons as mentioned.  What do you think this signifies.


And now we have to wait until the next episode to find out how Esau will respond?

[ttf_drizabone]

Genesis 33 text

Highlights

 - Happy Family
 - Jacob is back in Canaan


Summary

 - Jacob sees Esau coming and arranges his family to protect his wives and their children
 - Esau us overjoyed to see Jacob again
 - Jacob tries to give presents to Esau and Esau first declines then and when pressed accepts them
 - The brothers part and promise to meet in Seir.
 - Jacob goes to Succoth where he builds a house and then goes to Shechem where he buys some land and builds an alter to God.

Comments and questions

1) I expected to read that Jacob and Esau met up again, as agreed, but that isn't mentioned at all.  I guess they did, but who knows.  Or maybe it was a polite way of declining the offer.  Seir was in Edom outsite Canaan and Jacob was heading to Canaan

[ttf_MoominDave]

Quote from: John the Theologian on Oct 28, 2015, 05:09PMThe point of the whole wrestling with God narrative is that this is Jacob's conversion story.  His scheming ways are left behind and he gets a new name-- Israel.

So I'm intrigued. Are you saying -
i) Jacob wasn't a believer in Abraham's and Isaac's God prior to this?
ii) It's a metaphor, not to be considered in your Christianity as something that actually happened?

[ttf_MoominDave]

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 28, 2015, 07:02PMYeah, there's actually not much hagiography here, or in the bible generally.  What does that suggest to you about the writers of this story?

That they admired grasping behaviour? That they recognised that humans come in all flavours?

I think the inference you're wanting me to draw is that this makes it feel unlikely to be a touched-up all's-rosy recasting of the original story? But I can't draw that inference - think of other old non-realist stories in which favoured characters acted basely - e.g. King Arthur. Things morph over the years according to what the story-tellers feel makes for the best story, even when they have the best of intentions.

[ttf_drizabone]

Quote from: MoominDave on Oct 29, 2015, 02:38AMThat they admired grasping behaviour? That they recognised that humans come in all flavours?

I think the inference you're wanting me to draw is that this makes it feel unlikely to be a touched-up all's-rosy recasting of the original story? But I can't draw that inference - think of other old non-realist stories in which favoured characters acted basely - e.g. King Arthur. Things morph over the years according to what the story-tellers feel makes for the best story, even when they have the best of intentions.

I thought that it was unlikely to have been made up because they would have made their patriarch to be honourable and virtuous etc.  But I wondered what you thought.  I would have been pleasantly surprised if you agreed with me.

[ttf_John the Theologian]

Quote from: MoominDave on Oct 29, 2015, 02:30AMSo I'm intrigued. Are you saying -
i) Jacob wasn't a believer in Abraham's and Isaac's God prior to this?
ii) It's a metaphor, not to be considered in your Christianity as something that actually happened?

It's a very different thing to "believe" in God in an intellectual sense and to have the moral transformation known theologically as regeneration-- aka being "born again'.  BTW, I'm using the latter in the biblical sense of having the core of one's character transformed by the grace of God and not the pop sense of having some sort of emotional "buzz" for the lack of a better term.  In this experience Jacob was changed in his character, hence the new name.

The reason Jesus chastised Nicodemus in John 3 was because as a student of the OT he should have understood about regeneration, but seemed dumbfounded by Jesus's question.  Jacob- now become Isral-- was a different person morally and spiritually after this experience.  As Jesus said, it is something that comes from above, not from natural sources.

Augustine spoke of regeneration as having our love reoriented from love of self to love of God and neighbor.  He strongly argued that this was a work of sovereign grace, just as Jesus and Paul did.

[ttf_drizabone]

Warning : this is a technical question on how God works - let me know if this is better offline.

John

this raises lots of interesting questions for me.  Mainly around me thinking the OT experience was different to the NT, maybe without really thinking about it fully.

Some of the issues I have around OT people being converted that I'd like your comments on. 

In the NT 'conversion' is associated with "indwelling" by the Spirit, which happens for everyone when they are regenerated.  But in the OT the Spirit only "indwelt" specific people for specific purposes and was not associated with regeneration.  So that's one difference between OT and NT.  I hadn't really thought about whether and when OT saints were regenerated.  Heb 11 talks about the faithful as saints so I guess they were.

Didn't God say he was Jacob's God at his first vision?  How can he be someone's God when they are unregenerate?

That's all I can think of now.

[ttf_John the Theologian]

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 29, 2015, 08:42PMWarning : this is a technical question on how God works - let me know if this is better offline.

John

this raises lots of interesting questions for me.  Mainly around me thinking the OT experience was different to the NT, maybe without really thinking about it fully.

Some of the issues I have around OT people being converted that I'd like your comments on. 

In the NT 'conversion' is associated with "indwelling" by the Spirit, which happens for everyone when they are regenerated.  But in the OT the Spirit only "indwelt" specific people for specific purposes and was not associated with regeneration.  So that's one difference between OT and NT.  I hadn't really thought about whether and when OT saints were regenerated.  Heb 11 talks about the faithful as saints so I guess they were.

Didn't God say he was Jacob's God at his first vision?  How can he be someone's God when they are unregenerate?

That's all I can think of now.


Martin, I can do much more offline if you want, but briefly, although some would dispute this, I do believe that the OT saints were regenerate, otherwise Jesus's discussion with Nicodemus doesn't make real sense.  Also, David begs not to have the Holy Spirit taken from him in his Psalm of repentance-- Psalm 51--there are other OT texts as well.

The NT experience of the Spirit is indeed richer and clearer, but a difference of degree and not kind.

As far as God saying he was Jacob's God, this is no different than the prophet Jeremiah being called while still in the womb-- see Jeremiah 1-- and is simply the theological distinction between election before time and the actual calling to faith within time.  PM if you want to discuss this further.

[ttf_ddickerson]

Quote from: John the Theologian on Oct 30, 2015, 04:10AMMartin, I can do much more offline if you want, but briefly, although some would dispute this, I do believe that the OT saints were regenerate, otherwise Jesus's discussion with Nicodemus doesn't make real sense.  Also, David begs not to have the Holy Spirit taken from him in his Psalm of repentance-- Psalm 51--there are other OT texts as well.

The NT experience of the Spirit is indeed richer and clearer, but a difference of degree and not kind.

As far as God saying he was Jacob's God, this is no different than the prophet Jeremiah being called while still in the womb-- see Jeremiah 1-- and is simply the theological distinction between election before time and the actual calling to faith within time.  PM if you want to discuss this further.
Please don't take this discussion offline, because now, there is some substance worth reading.

The whole concept of transformation, born again, regenerated, is foretold and foreshadowed in the OT, and the NT with Jesus just brings it to the light of understanding.

[ttf_MoominDave]

Genesis 34 text

Highlights

 - Jacob's daughter Dinah is roughly wooed by Shechem
 - Jacobs sons Simeon and Levi betray and murder Shechem and his people

Summary

 - Shechem, scion of the local family who sold Jacob his new land in Genesis 33, violates Dinah's honour in an unspecified but apparently severe way.
 - He asks his father Hamor to intercede for her hand. Hamor and Shechem promise however high a bride price might be wanted.
 - Jacob's sons answer, asking for Hamor and all his people to become circumcised. Hamor and Shechem like this price, and willingly agree.
 - The males of the city of Shechem all are circumcised.
 - While they are sore, Simeon and Levi slaughter them all with swords, in revenge for Dinah's humiliation. They steal the property of the city, and take away the women and children.
 - Jacob is unhappy with this, worrying that he will be punished for it.

Comments and questions

1) There's a degree of ambiguity about how welcome Shechem's attention to Dinah was. He "humiliated her" - that's unambiguous though unspecific phrasing, and I assume it is intended to signify rape. But then he and his father go out of their way to be highly respectful to Jacob and his sons in asking for her hand in marriage to Shechem.
2) We shouldn't forget that the narrative is written after the victors of this conflict. It seems far from impossible that Simeon and Levi simply wanted Shechem to stay away from Dinah, and inflated some imagined misdemeanour into the implied heinous but actually unspecified offence listed at the start of the chapter.
3) Odd that both city and individual are named Shechem - the kind of detail that makes one suspect that some kind of after-the-fact narrative conveniences may be found in the particular story.
4) Why did Jacob's sons answer for Dinah? Did they as well as Jacob have the ability to barter their sister in this society? A woman's place in it is clearly seen here...
5) Must have been a pretty tiny city for two swordsmen to have overcome all the men in it...
6) The deceit of Simeon and Levi echoes the earlier deceits of Jacob. These guys really do seem to be bad eggs... Thinking that God would have done better to place his trust in Esau, who seems a much nobler character, from what little we've seen of him.
7) Jacob's rebuke to his sons does not deal with the moral disaster that they've just perpetrated. Instead he is angry with them because he feels that their rash actions have left him politically exposed. Ugh. I'm still not warming to Jacob.

[ttf_MoominDave]

Genesis 35 text

Highlights

 - Jacob, prompted by God, goes back to Bethel to apparently repeat what he did earlier.
 - Rachel dies in childbirth, producing Benjamin
 - Isaac dies

Summary

 - God tells Jacob to move to Bethel
 - Jacob's party journey there.
 - Deborah (Rebekah's nurse) dies.
 - The Godly interaction of Genesis 28 is repeated, where God again repeats Abraham's covenant to Jacob, and Jacob again makes a pillar and pours oil on it, again naming the place anew with the same name. Jacob is again renamed anew "Israel".
 - Rachel goes into labour on the road, and dies in childbirth. She is buried there, and a pillar is made.
 - The son that she produces is named Benjamin by Jacob. He is Jacob's 12th and final listed son.
 - Reuben has sex with Bilhah, Jacob's concubine.
 - The party arrives at Mamre, meeting Isaac, Jacob's father.
 - Isaac dies, and the reconciled Esau and Jacob bury him together.

Comments and questions

1) Add another to the list of duplications - Jacob has now been renamed "Israel" twice. So we have three interactions between Jacob and God thus far:

• [li]Genesis 28: Jacob's Ladder; At Bethel (pillar created, oil poured and place given name); God promises Jacob Abraham's covenant[/li][li]Genesis 32: Wrestling with God; Given name "Israel"[/li][li]Genesis 35: This incident. At Bethel (pillar created, oil poured and place given name); Given name "Israel"; God promises Jacob Abraham's covenant[/li]

This is what happens when stories freely transmit orally for hundreds of years - one thing becomes many; many things become one. The compilers have my sympathy in dealing with this kind of thing - how on Earth do you decide which of these obviously related but by their time clearly differentiated versions of Jacob's interaction with God is closest to the original? If indeed there was an original event at all, and it wasn't just a product of the fertile imagination of an earlier guardian-of-the-knowledge.
2) Again the party has "foreign gods".
3) God put "a terror" on the cities they passed to protect them? Is that because of the outrage that Jacob's sons perpetrated at Shechem? God's priorities seem odd if so. Maybe the cities just didn't want to deal with such sociopathic maniacs as would have done such a thing.
4) I think this is the first time that Deborah has been mentioned?
5) There are modern sites that claim to be Rachel's tomb. It seems that there is plenty of confusion over it though.
6) It's been a long time narratively speaking since the rest of Jacob's children were born. Dinah was listed 11th of the 13 children given, and in the previous chapter she was mature enough to be sought as Shechem's wife. Now, chances are that in that time and place a woman was considered fair game for wifehood much earlier than we would. But still, the feeling I have is that Benjamin was the youngest child by at least a decade, omitting Joseph. Those online that have tried to figure it out (e.g. https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/01-genesis/text/articles-books/zimmerman-jacobchronology-gtj.pdf) seem to reckon that the children of Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah to Jacob were born over a period of about a decade and half, with Rachel's children Joseph and Benjamin following respectively later and much later. Chronologies, as ever in the OT, are supremely uncertain. But we clearly get the intended flavour - that Rachel's children were the babies of the family.
7) The writer likes risking the sacred bloodline by leaving things late. First Sarah and now Rachel.
8) The salacious little titbit about Reuben and Bilhah seems apropos of nothing. Was this frowned on? Endorsed? Hard to know really... Whichever, I daresay it seemed small moral fry next to Simeon and Levi's murderous ways.
9) The narrative still hasn't 'got over' its tendency to inflate ages - Isaac is listed as dying at 180. I am intrigued as to when these numbers will assume believable proportions - we are definitely getting there.

[ttf_MoominDave]

And as the next chapter is a simple genealogical one, I'll do that one too while I'm here...

Genesis 36 text

Highlights

 - Various descendants of Esau are enumerated
 - Also descendants of Seir the Horite
 - Also kings of Edom

Summary

 - Esau had three wives, the two Canaanites that Rachel so hated (Adah and Oholibamah), and Ishmael's daughter Basemath.
 - Esau and Jacob have to move apart from each other as the land cannot support all their flocks in close proximity.
 - Seir the Horite is listed as being important in the land that Esau moved into. His family and their chiefhoods are listed.
 - A list of kings of Edom is given.
 - A list of chiefs of the land is given.

Comments and questions

1) It still isn't recorded how well Rachel warmed to Esau's cousin-wife Basemath despite the marriage being made to please her.
2) The time setting of this chapter covers a long span, with the earliest portions dating back to the days when Esau and Jacob were young men.
3) Esau's move away from Jacob I think deals with events long prior to their argument?
4) Edom is what became a kingdom away to the South. Looks on the map quite similar to the Negeb that Abraham travelled in.
5) The kings of Edom don't seem to have succeeded each other in a familial way. One of the list, Jobab, is descended from Esau, his great-grandson via Reuel and Zerah.
6) There seems some small overlap between the Esau section and the Seir section - Timna was the daughter of Seir and the concubine of Esau's son Eliphaz by Adah...
7) ...but hold on... Oholibamah was the wife of Esau and the daughter of Anah, who was the daughter of Zibeon, who was the son of Seir. So Esau's second wife (who we [or at least I!] have previously had the impression married Esau at a similar time to his first wife) was the great-granddaughter of the father of her stepson's sexual partner. Or, in other words, Eliphaz's step-great-grandfather was also his father-in(ish)-law. Something doesn't seem to add up! I suspect that the phrase "sons of Seir" can be more sensibly read as "people born in the country of Seir" here?
8) The final list of chiefs in the land is confusing; while many of the names are unique to this paragraph in this chapter, four reference characters already mentioned - Timna, Oholibah, Kenaz, and Teman. Kenaz and Teman are sons of Eliphaz, son of Esau - seems consistent. But Timna and Oholibah are both females - Timna being Eliphaz's concubine and Oholibah being Esau's wife. Does this mean that women were able to become chiefs in the land of Edom at this time?

[ttf_drizabone]

Quote from: ddickerson on Oct 30, 2015, 08:30AMPlease don't take this discussion offline, because now, there is some substance worth reading.

The whole concept of transformation, born again, regenerated, is foretold and foreshadowed in the OT, and the NT with Jesus just brings it to the light of understanding.

"Now there is some substance worth reading"!

We should at least take do it in another thread.  Even if its offline we can have multiple participants.  What do you think John?

[ttf_drizabone]

Genesis 34 text

Quote
Highlights

 - Jacob's daughter Dinah is roughly wooed by Shechem
 - Jacobs sons Simeon and Levi betray and murder Shechem and his people

Summary

 - Shechem, scion of the local family who sold Jacob his new land in Genesis 33, violates Dinah's honour in an unspecified but apparently severe way.
 - He asks his father Hamor to intercede for her hand. Hamor and Shechem promise however high a bride price might be wanted.
 - Jacob's sons answer, asking for Hamor and all his people to become circumcised. Hamor and Shechem like this price, and willingly agree.
 - The males of the city of Shechem all are circumcised.
 - While they are sore, Simeon and Levi slaughter them all with swords, in revenge for Dinah's humiliation. They steal the property of the city, and take away the women and children.
 - Jacob is unhappy with this, worrying that he will be punished for it.

Comments and questions

1) There's a degree of ambiguity about how welcome Shechem's attention to Dinah was. He "humiliated her" - that's unambiguous though unspecific phrasing, and I assume it is intended to signify rape. But then he and his father go out of their way to be highly respectful to Jacob and his sons in asking for her hand in marriage to Shechem.
"Wooing"!?  Was that before after or during the seizing.  I doesn't sound like he was concerned about getting unforced consent.  And just because he liked her doesn't mean that it wasn't rape either.
Quote2) We shouldn't forget that the narrative is written after the victors of this conflict. It seems far from impossible that Simeon and Levi simply wanted Shechem to stay away from Dinah, and inflated some imagined misdemeanour into the implied heinous but actually unspecified offence listed at the start of the chapter.
So while the author is presenting Jacob and the 'royal' family with their warts showing and all their distasteful bits hanging out, but here you think that he is "inflating an imagined misdemeanour into the implied heinous but actually unspecified offence"  Why would he bother to make up an excuse for them this time?
Quote3) Odd that both city and individual are named Shechem - the kind of detail that makes one suspect that some kind of after-the-fact narrative conveniences may be found in the particular story.

I thought it was reasonbly common to name a city after the main man.

Quote4) Why did Jacob's sons answer for Dinah? Did they as well as Jacob have the ability to barter their sister in this society? A woman's place in it is clearly seen here...

I think that Jacob was supposed to be responsible for approving the marriage of his children.  The fact that he wasn't really concerned about Dinah, probably because he didn't care so much about Leah's kids, is what I'd criticise him for.

And I don't think that her brothers intention were ever to barter her away.  They were always out for revenge.

Quote5) Must have been a pretty tiny city for two swordsmen to have overcome all the men in it...

Yeah,  but I doubt whether you're going to put of too much of a defense of you're recently been circumcised.

Quote6) The deceit of Simeon and Levi echoes the earlier deceits of Jacob. These guys really do seem to be bad eggs... Thinking that God would have done better to place his trust in Esau, who seems a much nobler character, from what little we've seen of him.

Point 1. Deceitful, Pretty sneaky I thought, using a cunning plan like that.  Black Adder would have been proud.  Would it have been better if they had fought them honourably man to man?  I don't think it mattered whether you kill someone using deceit or brute force.  I reckon that they wanted revenge for their sister being defiled and humiliated and they thought their sneaky method was poetic justice and made the operation safer to them.  So I guess I'm saying that in this case I'm thinking that the goal is the significant issue, rather than the means to the goal. 

Point 2. God's relationship with men (and women) is never about him placing his trust in us.  He knows what we are like, really and has no reason to trust us.  The story so far has not been about God putting his trust in Abraham and his descendants, but of God giving them stuff, freely, and telling them to trust him.  And of the chosen people showing how slack they are.

And anyway, I would have picked Abimelech as the nicest guy so far.
 
Quote7) Jacob's rebuke to his sons does not deal with the moral disaster that they've just perpetrated. Instead he is angry with them because he feels that their rash actions have left him politically exposed. Ugh. I'm still not warming to Jacob.

I agree. 

[ttf_MoominDave]

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 31, 2015, 11:20PMGenesis 34 text
"Wooing"!?  Was that before after or during the seizing.  I doesn't sound like he was concerned about getting unforced consent.  And just because he liked her doesn't mean that it wasn't rape either.
Yes, yes, please don't go to the thought that I'm one of those awful rape-excusing, victim-blaming men out there who can't bear to see a man accused of a sexual crime. I'm not. What I was rather doing was imagining how the unpleasant people that were Jacob and his family might have sold the idea of revenge - maybe even to themselves in the stories they told each other that may have developed into this portion of the narrative.

"Rough wooing" was a historical reference... Perhaps for a majority US and Aus audience I should have been less obscure!

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 31, 2015, 11:20PMI thought it was reasonbly common to name a city after the main man.
I guess it depends how it comes out of the original Hebrew. It's certainly possible. But experience with European-style names of long antiquity (as these would have been to the later writers) suggests that the name tends to come to be quite obscure, and not easily recognised by those that haven't studied the linguistic history.

If I just run down a list of UK urban areas by decreasing size (which should give a decently randomly selected cross-section of old names), we see the following etymologies: