Tag: Bible

Patterns: Who Wrote Genesis?: Genesis 2.4b – 5.1a

In Section One, I discussed my hypothesis on who wrote Genesis as applied toBadgerholt inkpot the first section: The book of the proceedings of the heavens and the earth, or Genesis One.

In the second section I apply my hypothesis to the book of the proceedings of Adam.  In particular, I note the identical construction in the Hebrew of Genesis 1.1 and Genesis 2.4b. I think this repetitive element  supports the idea that Genesis 2.4 should be divided between the two parts of the sentence and translated as the signature statement of the first section and the title of the next story, “How YHWH @Élöhîm fashioned hä@ädhäm (the man) and his wife.”

Click here for  Section Two.

Grace and peace,

Dori

 

Patterns: Who Wrote Genesis: Section 01 – Genesis One

“Now, the phrase “@ëlleh thôlëdôth” occurring only five times and only in Genesis begs the question of why its usage was so limited, but I’ll address why I think this happened in another post given the wording. in the Masoretic.” (From “On the Generations Of: A Pattern of Usage”)

In Who Wrote Genesis: Introduction, I discussed the overall structural divisions I see in Genesis based on the hypothesis that the phrase “@ëlleh thôlëdôth” identifies the individual writings Moses used to compile the book of Genesis at the direction of the Holy Spirit. These writings set the context for Moses’ own story as well as record the earliest chapters of the Story of the Line of the Promise.

This first section looks at Genesis One (1:1 to 2:4a), “These [are] the proceedings of the heavens and the earth.”  This is the story of how YHWH @Élöhîm re-formed the earth and re-filled it with life after it had become a wasteland and empty of life.  My analysis finds this is an oral story written down verbatim. The signature statement does not give a human author because likely the story has no human author, only a human transcriber.

So, here’s the first part of the essay I wrote discussing my research and Badgerholt inkpotconclusions.

Grace and peace to you,

Dori

 

 

 

Jacob & Rachel: A Logic Puzzle

Badgerholt inkpotIn reading the story of Jacob and Rachel in Genesis, I saw a story of love at first sight, at least on Jacob’s part. And I wondered, “How old was Jacob when he fell in love with Rachel?”

Although Scripture records that Esau was 40 years old when he married, and the next incident Scripture records is Jacob’s stealing the blessing and fleeing to Padan Aram where he met Rachel, that doesn’t mean that Jacob was 40 years old when he ran away. Scripture records the events that the Holy Spirit considered important in telling the Story of the Line of the Promise but He usually did not direct the human authors to specify how long it was between events. However, the Spirit did have the human authors include life years for certain individuals.  Therefore, the place to start is with those life years.

And I did start with those life years, as I described in My Journey: The First Question, which led to developing an Internal Chronology of the Bible. However, in hindsight, I now understand that all I really needed to do to answer my question was to solve a logic puzzle with six clues found in Scripture.

THE CLUES
  1. Jacob served Laban for 20 years, 14 years for Leah and Rachel and 6 years for his flocks.

Gen 31:41  These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times.

  1. Having served the agreed upon 14 years, Jacob renegotiated his wages in the year Joseph was born.

Gen 30.25-28  As soon as Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country. | Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, that I may go, for you know the service that I have given you.” | But Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your sight, I have learned by divination that the LORD has blessed me because of you. | Name your wages, and I will give it.”

  1. Joseph was 30 years old when he stood before Pharoah.

Gen 41:46  Joseph was thirty years old when he entered the service of Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went through all the land of Egypt.

  1. Joseph interprets Pharoah’s dreams as foretelling seven good years followed by seven famine years.

Gen 41:25-31  Then Joseph said to Pharaoh, “The dreams of Pharaoh are one; God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do. | The seven good cows are seven years, and the seven good ears are seven years; the dreams are one. |The seven lean and ugly cows that came up after them are seven years, and the seven empty ears blighted by the east wind are also seven years of famine. | It is as I told Pharaoh; God has shown to Pharaoh what he is about to do. | There will come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt, | but after them there will arise seven years of famine, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt. The famine will consume the land, | and the plenty will be unknown in the land by reason of the famine that will follow, for it will be very severe.

  1. Joseph invites his brothers down to Egypt for the five remaining famine years.

Gen 45:4-6  So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. | And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. | For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest.

Gen 45:11  There I will provide for you, for there are yet five years of famine to come, so that you and your household, and all that you have, do not come to poverty.’

  1. Jacob was 130 years old when he stood before Pharoah.

Gen 47:9  And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130 years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning.”

Using this information, one can deduce how old Jacob was when he fell in love with Rachel.

Solution

Have fun,

Dori

 

Patterns: Who Wrote Genesis? Introduction

“Now, the phrase “@ëlleh thôlëdôth” occurring only five times and only in Genesis begs the question of why its usage was so limited, but I’ll address why I think this happened in another post given the wording. in the Masoretic.” (From “On the Generations Of: A Pattern of Usage”)

So, why do I think Scripture uses “@ëlleh thôlëdôth” only five times?  Because I think the phrase was used to identify five writings Moses used to compile the book of  Genesis, telling the Story of the Line of the Promise from the rehabilitation of the earth to the death of Jacob.  A sixth scroll written in Egypt continued the Story through the death of Joseph and ended the book instead of using the signature phrase. I think these five writings were preserved in the Line of the Promise down through the generations with Jacob bringing them with him to Egypt.

So, here’s the intro of the essay  that I wrote discussing my research and Badgerholt inkpotconclusions.

Grace and peace to you,

Dori

 

 

Patterns: On the Generations Of

In this study, I look at the pattern usage in Scripture of the phrases usually translated at “These are the generations of . . .” or “Now these are the generations of . . .”  The question is whether these phrases introduce a section of Scripture or conclude a section of Scripture, especially in Genesis.

Grace and peace to you,

Dori

On the Generations Of  Essay

 

 

Side Trip: A Question of Two Harans

This is a recent side trip for me. I’d been reading some of Dr. Arthur C. Custance’s work and ran across his hypothesis that the two Harans mentioned in Genesis 11.27 are two separate men, one the son of Terah and the other the brother of Terah.

I found Dr. Custance’s theory especially interesting because it answered several questions I had about the structure of Genesis 11.27 and the blood relationship between Abram and Sarai.

Click here to read the essay:  A Question of Two Harans  (Hebrew names) (essay)

Grace and peace to you,

Dori