Genesis 9:18 “Now the sons of Noah who went out from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth: Ham was father of Canaan.”
Noah had three sons come out of the ark. Why mention at this point that Ham fathered Canaan? Chapter 10 gives a list of Noah’s descendants. That list shows that Ham had four sons. Why is it necessary to mention one of Ham’s sons in verse 18 when talking about Noah’s sons?
Let’s investigate and let Scripture interpret this Scripture for us.
Continue readingGenesis 9:3 “And every moving thing that is living will be yours for food; like grassy vegetables, I give you all things.”
That sounds self-explanatory. Where’s the controversy?
There are no contradictions or errors in the Torah. If there were, then God made a mistake, and He is not perfect. If our understanding of some Scripture causes contradictions with other Scripture, Scripture is not the problem; our comprehension is.
The Torah provides a list of animals for food and animals we are not to eat, otherwise known as clean and unclean animals. Genesis 9:3 makes it sound like all animals are for food. And therein lies the controversy. Is it a contradiction, or can it be reconciled?
Continue readingComments Off on Genesis – TP #2.4 – The Genesis 9:3 Controversy
Posted in Addendum, Torah Portion
Tagged cattle, clean, creeping things, eat, food, livestock, unclean, wild beasts
Genesis 8:15-17 “The Lord God spoke to Noah, saying, 16 ”Go out from the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons’ wives with you, 17 and bring out with you all the wild animals, all that are with you, and all flesh from birds to livestock, and every reptile moving on the earth, and increase and multiply on the earth.” ”
The flood was over. The destruction of the earth was complete; it was time to begin anew. God commanded humans and animals to increase and multiply. All future generations would be from Noah’s line, though Noah had no other children after the flood.
Continue readingComments Off on Genesis – TP #2.2 – The Flood, part 3
Posted in Torah Portion
Tagged blood, death penalty, multiply, murder
The deluge began on the twenty-seventh day of the second month, and the ark ran aground on the twenty-seventh day of the seventh month. The total is five months. The text also says the time was 150 days. That would make each month 30 days long. With the moon cycle repeating every 29.5 days, the months usually alternate between 29 and 30 days. What is going on here? There are a few possibilities, and we will go through each one.
Continue readingComments Off on Genesis – TP #2.3 – Days and Months
Posted in Addendum
Tagged conjunction, Enoch calendar, moon cycle, seasons, tilt
Genesis 7:11 “In the six hundredth year in the life of Noah, during the second month, on the twenty-seventh of the month, on this day all the springs of the deeps burst forth, and the waterfalls of the heavens were opened.”
The flood account provides a specific day for the start of the deluge. Most likely, the second month refers to the year of the flood and not to the second month of Noah’s six hundredth year. But that still doesn’t tell us when the flood occurred. If you read the previous post with the Excel sheet, you know why it is impossible to pinpoint the year of the flood. But why tell us the day?
Continue readingAs promised, here is a chart of the Genesis 5 and 11 genealogies. As you’ll see, there are blue columns and white columns. The blue columns contain the numbers provided in the Septuagint; the white columns contain the numbers from the Hebrew Masoretic. Those pairs of columns have six categories. They display the age of the fathers at the time of the births of their respective sons, then years for the rest of their lives, and the total number of years that they lived. From those numbers, we can determine the numbers that fill the following two columns, which show each person’s birth year and death year, counted from the creation. They are not BC (BCE) years. The last column is from Adam to Lamech only because it shows the number of years before the flood in which they died.
Continue readingGod told Noah to build an ark. He gave Noah the dimensions, the floor plans, and the openings. He also told Noah how to make it seaworthy to withstand the deluge that was coming. What exactly was God bringing on the earth?
Continue readingComments Off on Genesis – TP #2.2 – The Flood, part 1
Posted in Torah Portion
Tagged burst, deluge, faith, grace, rain, safety, seven pairs, species, springs, torrent, two by two
Genesis 5:32 “And Noah lived five hundred years, and Noah fathered three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”
Genesis 6:10 “Noah fathered three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”
The firstborn son gets a lot of attention in the Bible. You would think that a list of someone’s children would be in chronological order. That’s not always the case. People of distinction or importance sometimes move to the top of the list. Such is the case with Noah’s son. Shem gets top billing because it is through his lineage that Abraham is born and ultimately the Messiah.
Continue readingComments Off on Genesis – TP #2.1 – Noah’s Family
Posted in Torah Portion
Tagged ark, calling, Japheth, Lamech, Methuselah, oldest, Shem, youngest
This week’s portion is about six chapters, but it only has about three sections. Those sections are Noah’s calling, the Flood or Great Deluge, and Noah’s genealogy with the Table of Nations. That doesn’t mean we don’t have a lot to address. Many things are happening behind the scene from what we read in these six chapters. We may not even be able to chase all the rabbits down their holes in what we’ll find this week. Let’s look at a few things.
Continue readingGenesis 1:1 – 6:8
Haftarah:
Isaiah 42:5 – 43:10
1 Samuel 20:18-42
New Testament:
John 1:1-18
Genesis 6:9 – 11:32
Haftarah:
Isaiah 54:1 – 55:5
Isaiah 66:1-24
New Testament:
Luke 17:20-27