Numbers chapter 10

After reading chapter 10:

*The first part of this chapter is about the creation of two silver trumpets to be used by Aaron and his sons.
-Both trumpets blown at the same time signal a community assembly at the entrance to the tabernacle. Though how you get a million or so people to hear two trumpets, plus gather together and assemble in one spot, is a mystery.
-One trumpet means only the heads of the clans are to assemble.
-One trumpet blast, of a different signal, means the eastern camps start moving. A second blast after that and the southern camps start moving. The text doesn't mention the western and northern camps
-A trumpet blast before a battle will ensure they are remembered by God and are rescued from their enemies. God needs reminding.
-The trumpets will also be sounded at feasts, festivals, and over burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. So, I'm guessing the trumpets would have been sounded fairly often. This reminds me of a scene in the Sound of Music.

*On the twentieth day of the second month, of the second year, the cloud over the tabernacle lifted. The Israelites broke camp and followed the cloud from the desert of Sinai to the desert of Paran.
The divisions of clans set out in a particular order, Judah's camp divisions left first. Again, the tribe of Judah is being given priority, even though Reuben was the oldest of Israel's sons. I wonder if this is another case of the younger brother symbolism found so often throughout the bible narrative. It looks ahead to a time when the  of tribe of Judah  becomes the leading tribe in the kingdom of Judah. If so, that clearly means this narrative was not written till after that time, which was not till at least the 9th century B.C.E., a few hundred years after these events would have taken place.

*The Gershonites and Merarites were to leave with the first Israelite clans so they could set up the tabernacle in the new spot before the Kohathites arrived with the holy accoutrements.

*Moses invited his brother-in-law Hobab to come with them. He declined and said he was going back to his own people. Moses begged him to stay and help them out. He promised Hobab a share of the spoils. So they travelled for three days. (A standard journey for those times.) Every day they set out, and every time they camped, Moses repeated some magical words to get Yahweh to stay with them.

Exodus chapter 8

After reading chapter 8:

*Seven days passed from the Nile turning into blood. God told Moses to tell Pharoah to let the Israelites go or there would be a plague of frogs. Then God told Moses to tell Aaron to stretch his hand over the waters of Egypt and frogs came up and covered the land. Pharoah's magicians were able to do the same thing. Pharoah asked Moses to pray to Yahweh to get rid of the frogs, then he would let the people go. Moses gave Pharoah the honor of choosing the time that the frogs would leave. For some crazy reason, Pharoah said tomorrow instead of right now. So, Moses asked God to get rid of the frogs and they all died, except for the ones in the Nile. However, Pharoah would not let the people go.

*Next, God told Moses to tell Aaron to stretch out his hand over the dust and it would turn into gnats. Aaron did that. Pharoah's magicians were not able to match that trick. They told Pharoah it was the finger of God, but he still wouldn't let the Israelites go.

* I still don't get why God couldn't talk to Aaron directly. Maybe it has something to do with Moses being the favored younger brother.

Exodus chapter 7

After reading chapter 7:

*God tells Moses to tell Pharoah whatever God tells him. Moses balks. God says Moses will be like God and Aaron will be his messenger, telling Pharoah everything that God tells Moses. However, God will harden Pharoah's heart and no matter what miraculous signs occur, he will not listen. But God will teach the Egyptians a hard lesson, and will bring the Israelites out of Egypt. At this time, Moses was 80 and Aaron was 83, both well past retirement age. Notice that Moses was the younger brother.

*Moses and Aaron went to Pharoah and magically turned the staff into a snake. Pharoah's wise men were able to do the same thing with their staffs, but Aaron's snake swallowed up their snakes. Pharoah still wouldn't listen to them.

*Then God told Moses to take the staff to the River Nile when Pharoah went to the water. He was to tell Pharoah to let the Israelites go to worship Yahweh in the desert. Then, as proof of God, when Moses stretched his staff out over the water, all the water in Egypt would turn to blood and all the fish would die. No Egyptians would be able to drink the water. It happened just that way. However, Pharoah's magicians were able to perform the same trick. So, he wouldn't let the Israelites go.

Genesis chapter 48

After reading chapter 48:

* Later, Jacob became ill. So, Joseph took his two sons to visit Jacob. Jacob told Joseph how God had appeared to him in the past and told him the land of Canaan would be given to his descendants. He claims Joseph's sons as his own, so that they will inherit part of the territory promised. Then Jacob does something strange and asks who Joseph's sons are, which historians  think is because of the meshing of two traditional stories into one, which also accounts for the names Jacob and Israel not being consistently used.

*Israel can hardly see,like Isaac of old.  So, Joseph brings his children to his father and he kisses and hugs them. Joseph led Manasseh, the oldest,   to Israel's right hand. He put Ephraim at Israel's left. These were the proper birth order blessing places. (These things don't work right unless you do them properly.) However, Israel crossed his arms, putting his hands on the opposite heads, the younger brother receiving the blessing of the first born. Joseph was displeased and tried to correct his father, but Israel said the younger would be greater than the older. In this manner, he continued the younger brother theme that we will see again. Why can't we still give our children prophetic blessings with our hands that will come true?

*Israel says God will be with Joseph  and will take him back to Canaan. The ridge of land that Jacob took from the Amorites would belong to Joseph.

Genesis chapter 38

After reading chapter 38:

*In which we interrupt the story of Joseph to learn about Judah and Tamar. The story will be important later, so it had to be stuck into the narrative of the Israelites somewhere.

*Judah went off and married a Canaanite woman. They had three sons, Er, Onan, and Shela. Er grew up and married Tamar. Er was wicked so Yahweh killed him. Judah told Onan to get Er's wife pregnant so Er would have an heir. (Tamar's opinion on this matter didn't matter) Onan didn't want to produce a son that would not be his, so he practiced primitive natural birth control. Yahweh thought Onan's behavior in this regard was wicked,  so he killed Onan. These verses have been the cause of much consternation for people of the bible for centuries. Is using birth control worthy of death? Does God hate birth control? As usual, the opinions on this topic are many and varied. We will not go into them, other than to say that for thousands, from Catholics to fundamentalists, the answer is yes. Plus, they would prefer the whole world refrained from using birth control, so they attempt to affect public policy and the medical profession.

*Judah sent Tamar back to her father's house to wait for Shela to grow up, presumably so he could impregnate her. Meanwhile, Judah's wife died. Shela had grown up, but Tamar had not been married to him. Tamar got tired of waiting around with no husband and no child so she took matters into her own hands. She heard that her father-in-law would be passing by a certain spot and went to sit by the road dressed like a prostitue. When Judah passed by, he offered to give her a young goat in exchange for her services. She requested his seal and staff as proof of his pledge. He complied and so did she.

*Later, Judah sent the goat, expecting to get his staff and seal back, but Tamar was nowhere to be found. He didn't pursue the matter because he didn't want to look like a fool. Three months later, Tamar was discovered to be pregnant and was accused of prostitution, which was apparently considered wicked, even though we haven't seen God make  any rules about it yet. We saw earlier, in the case of Shechem and Dinah, that treating a woman like a prostitute was also considered wicked.(Maybe it was only Israelite women that mattered. )  In spite of this fact, when he heard the news, Judah condemned Tamar to death by burning,  exhibiting the double standard that men all over the world have operated under for as long as recorded history.

*When she was being brought to her execution, Tamar sent Judah his seal and staff, showing who was the person responsible for her condition. Judah recognized his responsibility in the matter and Tamar was not killed. Tamar had twin sons. One put out a hand first and was marked with a scarlett thread as the first born, then he withdrew and his other brother was born. This is to follow the younger brother theme. The boy with the scarlett thread was Zerah. The other was Perez.

Genesis chapter 25

After reading chapter 25:

*Abraham marries again when he is over 137 years old. In spite of his advanced age, he fathers 6 sons by his new wife. He had more sons by concubines. While he was alive, he gave his concubine's sons gifts and sent them to live in the East, away from Isaac.

* Abraham dies at 175 years of age. Isaac and Ishmael bury him with Sarah. Isaac inherits everything. The year is about 1880 B. C. E., according to Biblical chronology. Shem, the son of Noah would still be alive until 1846 B.C.E.

*We are given the names of the twelve sons/tribes of Ishmael. Ishmael died at the age of 137, which would have been about 1833 B.C.E. His descendents settle in land to the east, which some people believe was the Arabian peninsula. There is no concrete evidence supporting this.

*Isaac had married Rebekah at the age of 40. She didn't have children until Isaac prayed for them. (Barrenness, and praying for a child who is granted by God, who then becomes something special, is another theme we see throughout scripture. ) Rebekah found she was going to have twins, and they were wrestling inside her. Yahweh told her that her boys would be the fathers of two nations and the older would serve the Younger Brother. The first boy was red and hairy, they named him Esau. The second boy was born holding on to his brother's foot, they named him Jacob. Thier names are puns associated with their birth. In fact, so many bible names are so punny, it makes you wonder if they were made up to fit the story.

*Esau became a hunter and daddy's boy. Jacob was quiet and stayed at home with mom, who loved him best. One day, Esau came home from a hunt famished and saw Jacob cooking stew. Esau begged for some stew and Jacob said he would give Esau stew in return for the right to inherit the firstborn's portion of their father's estate. Esau agreed, which was awfully stupid. Here, we see an etiological story that plays right into the theme of the book of Genesis. Later descendants of Esau will encounter descendants of Jacob and the reader will look back and say, look there is the reason life is the way it is today. The storyteller knows all this in advance, of course.

*Esau swore to give his birthright to Jacob. Jacob gave him stew. According to the text, Esau despised His birthright. Clearly, Jacob despised Esau. A person who thought he was a descendant of Jacob wrote this story.

Genesis chapter 17

After reading chapter 17:

*This chapter takes place 13 years after chapter 16, when Abram is 99 and Sarai is 90, or approximately 1953 B.C.E.

*Abram has another personal revelation from the lord (Yaweh) who says he is the almighty God (El ). God renews his covenant with Abram. He changes Abram's name to Abraham and Sarai's name to Sarah.

* The terms of the covenant:
~Abraham will be given the whole land of Canaan
~He will be the father of many nations
~Every male in his entourage, slave and free,  must be circumcised as an everlasting sign of the covenant, whether they wanted to be or not. That was at least a few hundreds of men( Gen. 14:14), not to mention the billions of descendants to follow. Any uncircumcised male will be cut off from the the rest of the family.
~Abraham and Sarah will have a son and will call him Isaac. He will be the heir of the covenant even though he is technically the Younger Brother.
~Ishmael will be blessed and will be the father of twelve rulers.

* What does Abraham have to do for all this? Just be God's man and blameless. One wonders what blameless means, since Abraham has lied, traded his wife for riches to save his own neck, treated a woman with contempt, and is the owner of many slaves.

*Abraham laughed at the thought if having a son at his age, but he went ahead and circumcised every male in his clan on that very day. Nobody would be doing any baby making quite yet.

*The earliest record of circumcision is from about 2,400 B.C.E. in Egypt. It had probably been practiced for hundreds of years before that. Ra the sun god was said to have circumcised himself. Check out he Wikipedia article on circumcision for more info.

Genesis chapter 10

After reading chapter 10:

* It is physically impossible for all the people on earth today to have come from only 3 couples 4,000 years ago. Modern genetics tells us there has never been a population of less than 10,000 people on earth. It also tells us that humans probably originated in Africa, not the Middle East.

*Many of the civilizations listed in this chapter existed long before the flood date of 2,350 B.C.E. , according to Ussher's chronology. The area covered does not include civilizations in India and across the vast land mass of Asia.

*Apparently Ham had other sons besides Canaan, but Canaan bore the brunt of the curse of slavery. Why?

*In verse 21 we find out that Shem, the traditional ancestor of all Semites was the Younger Brother of Japheth.

*It is worth noting that there are animals all over the world that are peculiar to their own part of the earth with no trace of them ever having lived in, or migrated from, the Middle East. Kangaroos and koalas are a couple of the most well known ones.

Genesis chapter 4, part 1

Now that we have established that there is no need for a savior, we could stop here, but that would be no fun. I am compelled to go on channeling what I learn and see about the Bible to anyone willing to listen. Everything on these pages will be information found easily elsewhere with  much more detail by experts in their fields. I'm distilling what I have gleaned for the benefit of others and as a kind of cleansing process for myself.

After a plain reading of chapter 4:

*We go straight from the garden to agriculture and animal husbandry in a matter of years. Where did the domesticated grain to plant come from?

*There are no rules or laws given, and no instructions about offerings. It is assumed the reader has a certain kind of knowledge and understanding of the events that follow.

*God's treatment of Cain and Abel seems completely arbitrary and smacking of favoritism. In fact, here we see the first example of a motif present throughout scripture: the younger brother is more favored by God. Is there anything Cain could have offered that would have pleased God?

*Here we find the first mention of sin but we are not told what sin is. However, since Cain murdered Abel right after that, it is safe to say the reader should recognize murder as a sin.

Now we come to all the unanswerable questions that have plagued Bible readers for centuries:

*Why does an omnipotent God need an offering, or anything else, from puny humans? Why are dead lambs more pleasing than dead grain?

*Why did an omnipresent and omnicient God have to ask Cain where his brother was?

*Who are the people that would kill Cain and where do they come from?What was the mark of Cain?
How did Cain survive? Why will God avenge Cain, if he is murdered?

*Where did Cain's wife come from? Where did the people in Cain's city come from? Where did Lamech's wives come from?

*What is calling on the name of the lord?