Fear God

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Background
In preparation to send the Twelve Disciples out on their first mission, Jesus provided an interesting set of instructions for their work. We have seen how Jesus wanted them to condemn stubborn towns, how they would be given words to say to Gentile kings on this Jew-only mission, and how the “Son of Man” would come before they finished traveling to all of the towns in Israel. What wise words are next?

Fear God

Let us begin this study with a really good Bible verse, 1 John 4:18:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. NIV

The context surrounding that verse, 1 John 4:7-21, is one of the most beautiful sections of the Bible. John tells us that God is love, and if we love one another then God lives in us and His love is perfected in us. Because of that love, Christians will have no fear on Judgement Day. As the verse above attests, love drives out the fear of punishment, and the fearful do not have the full love of God. But John's version of God is very different from the God in the remainder of the Bible, and even different from the God about which Jesus preached.

When preparing His Twelve Apostles for their first mission, Jesus gave them a warning that violence and persecution would come when spreading the Gospel message (Matthew 10:21-25). Then Jesus tells them not to be afraid men who persecute them, but rather to speak the Gospel boldly (Matthew 10:26-27). In Matthew 10:28, Jesus' message of motivation takes a sobering turn:

“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in Hell.” NIV

Luke 12:4-5 offers a slightly more robust version of the same saying from Jesus:

“I tell you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into Hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him.” NIV

Diametrically opposed to the words of James, Jesus tells His Disciples that they should fear God, precisely because of the punishment which God is able to administer.

The fear of God is a fairly consistent view throughout the Bible. There are at least 130 Old Testament (OT) and 19 New Testament (NT) references to the fear of God (searching fear+God and fear+lord-God). In fact, in Genesis 31:42 and Genesis 31:53, the word “Fear” is used in place of the word for God.

Compare this to the 29 OT and 39 NT commands to love God (searching love+God and love+lord-God). That is a fear-to-love ratio of 2.19 overall, 4.48 for the OT and 0.49 for the NT. It is clear that God promotes fear over love, and that the NT is a departure from the original message.

The concept of “God is love” is farcical, because the words of 1 John 4:18 are true; there really is no fear in perfect love. Yet God's message, and Jesus' message as we see here, is based on a platform of fear, not a foundation of love.

It is a shame, too. I really liked John's version of God.

I Am the Law

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Background
God gave His Law, recognized as 613 laws, decrees, commands, rules, precepts, instructions, regulations, statutes, and stipulations, to the Israelites after their Exodus from Egyptian slavery, before they entered the Promised Land.

That is worth repeating. Before the Israelites entered the Promised Land, God gave them His Law, and He expected it to be obeyed to the letter. It would seem that the Promise was tied to obedience, but let us not get ahead of ourselves. In this very detailed study, we will review God's opinion of His Law.

I Am the Law

The Old Testament authors also had a lot to say about God and His Law. While most Christians are at least somewhat familiar with the New Testament teachings on the Law, scarcely few have examined God's foundational perspective of the Law found in the Old Testament. A good place to start such a study is Psalm 119, but let us go deeper into God's word in the Old Testament, asking some very important questions:

What is the purpose of the Law?
Does the Law reflect God?
Will the Law ever change?
How long will the Law be in effect?
Does the entire Law need to be obeyed?
Is it possible to obey the Law?
What if you do not obey the Law perfectly?
If you obey God's Law, will you live?
What worldly influence does God expect the Law to have?
What is the connection between the Law and the covenant of an eternal Kingdom?
Can you summarize all of this information concisely?

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Exodus 18:20
Teach them His decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave. NIV

What is the purpose of the Law?
We do not have to guess the purpose of the Law. God has two reasons spelled out for us.

First, Deuteronomy 4:5-8 states that this Law will show other nations the wisdom of God, thereby demonstrating that the Israelites worship the one true God.

Second, Deuteronomy 6:20-25 explicitly states that the meaning of the Law is for the Israelites to obey it in order to prosper in the Promised Land. Such obedience will be righteousness.

As Psalm 105:42-45 renders it, the whole point of the Egyptian Exodus and inheritance of the Promised Land was “that they might keep His precepts and observe His laws.”

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Deuteronomy 32:4
He is the Rock, His works are perfect, and all His ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is He. NIV

Does the Law reflect God?
The Law is a work of God, which, by the verse above, is perfect, but is the Law a valid representation of God's character? Deuteronomy 12:28 makes it pretty clear:

Be careful to obey all these regulations I am giving you, so that it may always go well with you and your children after you, because you will be doing what is good and right in the eyes of the LORD your God. NIV

In case there is still some doubt, consider that the Law has been described as just, right, good, perfect, trustworthy, wise, radiant, firm, righteous, great, glorious, and eternal (Nehemiah 9:13-14, Psalm 19:7-9, Isaiah 42:21, Psalm 119:160). These attributes all reflect God's Biblically labeled character. Furthermore, as we see in Deuteronomy 28:9:

The LORD will establish you as His holy people, as He promised you on oath, if you keep the commands of the LORD your God and walk in obedience to him. NIV

obedience to the Law will permit the people to be holy.

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Psalm 119:96
To all perfection I see a limit, but your commands are boundless. NIV

Will the Law ever change?
If the Law is perfect, we would never expect it to change. Indeed, Deuteronomy 4:1-2 and Deuteronomy 12:32 both say that nothing should be added to the Law, and nothing should be taken away from it either.

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Psalm 119:160
All Your words are true; all Your righteous laws are eternal. NIV

How long will the Law be in effect?
God intends for His Law to be in effect forever (Psalm 119:152). It should be obeyed always (Deuteronomy 11:1). It is everlasting (Psalm 103:17-18), part of an everlasting covenant (Isaiah 24:5).

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Numbers 15:39-40
You will have these tassels to look at and so you will remember all the commands of the LORD, that you may obey them and not prostitute yourselves by chasing after the lusts of your own hearts and eyes. Then you will remember to obey all My commands and will be consecrated to your God. NIV

Does the entire Law need to be obeyed?
There are well over a hundred references to the call to obey God's Law. A subset of at least thirty-two of those commands specifically says to follow all of the Law; Exodus 15:26, Leviticus 19:37, Leviticus 20:22, Leviticus 26:14-15, Numbers 15:39-40, Deuteronomy 5:29, Deuteronomy 5:31, Deuteronomy 6:20-25, Deuteronomy 11:8, Deuteronomy 11:22, Deuteronomy 11:32, Deuteronomy 12:28, Deuteronomy 13:18, Deuteronomy 15:5, Deuteronomy 17:18-20, Deuteronomy 19:9, Deuteronomy 27:1, Deuteronomy 28:1, Deuteronomy 28:13-15, Deuteronomy 28:58, Deuteronomy 29:29, Deuteronomy 32:46, Joshua 1:7-8, Joshua 22:5-6, 1 Kings 6:12, 2 Kings 21:8, 2 Kings 23:24-25, 2 Chronicles 33:8, Nehemiah 10:28-29, Psalm 18:21-22, Ezekiel 18:19, and Ezekiel 18:21.

Take note that this is not simply obeying all of the Law in spirit. With the phase “all the words of this Law” found in Deuteronomy 17:18-20, Deuteronomy 28:58, Deuteronomy 29:29, and Deuteronomy 32:46, it is crystal clear that God is referring to obeying each and every meticulous detail in the Law. As we see in Deuteronomy 32:46:

[Moses] said to them, “Take to heart all the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command your children to obey carefully all the words of this Law.” NIV

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Psalm 103:17-18
But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear Him, and His righteousness with their children’s children— with those who keep His covenant and remember to obey His precepts. NIV

Is it possible to obey the Law?
When you see how often God pleads for His people to obey the Law, there should be no doubt. Why would God tell His people to do something which they could not do? In fact, this opinion is explicitly given. Deuteronomy 30:11-14 says this in respect to obeying the Law:

Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. NIV

God had given the Law to them, instructed that it be spoken about continuously (Deuteronomy 6:7-9), and placed the Law in their hearts so that it would not be too difficult to obey.

There is an entire book of the Bible devoted to a man who perfectly upheld the Law. His name is Joshua. Of course, there are several other references to such complete obedience too, such as Job 23:12 (Note: Some scholars suggest that Job lived prior to when the Law was given), Psalm 18:21-22, Psalm 99:7, and Psalm 119:44. As we see from 1 Kings 8:61 (and 1 Chronicles 28:7), it is not just individuals which could have complete obedience, but also the entire nation:

“And may your hearts be fully committed to the LORD our God, to live by His decrees and obey His commands, as at this time.” NIV

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Psalm 81:13-15
“If my people would only listen to Me, if Israel would only follow My ways, how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their foes! Those who hate the LORD would cringe before Him, and their punishment would last forever.” NIV

What if you do not obey the Law perfectly?
Per the Bible, you did not have to obey the Law perfectly to be considered righteous. This is obvious both from the facts that not every transgression of the Law held the death penalty, and that there were several different atonement ceremonies which could be performed based on different transgressions. In a sense, in adhering to the punishment schedule and atonement rituals, the people were keeping the Law despite transgressions of the Law itself.

There are also shining examples of people who broke the Law, and yet were still considered righteous by God. In Numbers 20, Moses transgressed Leviticus 22:32, but God still thought Moses was righteous enough to speak with him face-to-face (Deuteronomy 34:10). In 2 Samuel 11-12, King David had committed adultery Bathsheba and then had her husband, Uriah, killed, yet 1 Kings 15:5 says this of him:

For David had done what was right in the eyes of the LORD and had not failed to keep any of the LORD’s commands all the days of his life—except in the case of Uriah the Hittite. NIV

and David's lineage was given the Kingdom as an inheritance (1 Kings 11:38).

It seems that God is willing to forgive past transgressions for those who are truly repentant. As Ezekiel 18:21 renders it:

“But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die.” NIV

This repentant turn to God is allowed for individuals and nations, as we see from the example set by King Josiah in 2 Kings 23:24-25:

Furthermore, Josiah got rid of the mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols and all the other detestable things seen in Judah and Jerusalem. This he did to fulfill the requirements of the Law written in the book that Hilkiah the priest had discovered in the temple of the LORD. Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses. NIV

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Leviticus 18:5
Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the LORD. NIV

If you obey God's Law, will you live?
Leviticus 18:5, Deuteronomy 4:1-2, Deuteronomy 6:20-25, Nehemiah 9:29, Ezekiel 18:9, Ezekiel 18:17, Ezekiel 18:19, Ezekiel 18:21, Ezekiel 20:11, Ezekiel 20:13, Ezekiel 20:21, and Ezekiel 33:15 all say that if you obey the Law you will live. Ezekiel 18:21 and Ezekiel 33:15 even go so far as to add that a person who obeys the Law will “not die.”

Live, and not die? Is eternal life granted by obeying God's Law? Not at all. You have to look at other verses within the Bible to get the entire perspective. Consider Deuteronomy 4:40

Keep His decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the LORD your God gives you for all time. NIV

Speaking of “your children after you” means that you will die even while obeying the Law. So you will not live forever, but take a look at 1 Kings 3:14:

“and if you walk in obedience to Me and keep My decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life.” NIV

Obedience will grant you a long (not eternal) life. If you obey God's Law, you will live long, and you will not die prematurely. This is what it means to live by the Law, and not die, but that is not all.

Living a long time would not necessarily be a good thing, which is why God also promises blessings for you, your posterity, and your nation; habitation of the Promised Land, a peaceful life, and great prosperity were all gifts for obedience (Leviticus 20:22, Leviticus 25:18, Deuteronomy 4:1-2, Deuteronomy 5:29, Deuteronomy 6:20-25, Deuteronomy 11:13-15, Deuteronomy 30:16, Joshua 1:7-8, 2 Chronicles 31:21, Isaiah 48:18-19).

According to Deuteronomy 17:18-20, kings who obeyed God's Law would be granted a ruling dynasty.

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Deuteronomy 28:1
If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all His commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.

What worldly influence does God expect the Law to have?
Deuteronomy 4:5-6 gives us a hint at the influence God expected His Law to have:

See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the LORD my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” NIV

God's Law would show the surrounding nations how wise the Israelites were. From Deuteronomy 28:1-13, we can also see that obedience would not just grant the Israelites prosperity, but that God's blessing in return for obedience would make their nation the most prosperous nation in the entire world. It is from this perspective which we find Psalm 67:1-2 written:

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face shine on us— so that Your ways may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations. NIV

The blessings the Israelites had received would make all other nations envious and curious. These other nations would try to figure out what makes the Israelites so prosperous. They would discover that the Israelites worship God and follow His wise ways (obey His Law). Naturally, they would try to emulate this success, obeying God's Law, and being led to the one true God in the process. That is precisely why we see the prophesy in Isaiah 2:3 and Micah 4:2 that:

Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths.” The Law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. NIV

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Psalm 132:12
If your sons keep My covenant and the statutes I teach them, then their sons will sit on your throne for ever and ever.” NIV

What is the connection between the Law and the covenant of an eternal Kingdom?
In Deuteronomy 4:40, we find some rather interesting text:

Keep His decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the LORD your God gives you for all time. NIV

God has given the Promised Land to the Israelites for all time, forever. This eternal gift is seen in Genesis 13:15 and Exodus 32:13 as well. However, whether or not the Israelites get to live in the Promised Land is determined by their obedience to God's Law. If they rebel, they will be expelled, but they will always be welcomed back to the Promised Land when they will obey God. This theme of prophesy can be seen in verses such as Ezekiel 11:17-21.

The same kind of situation exists for the Kingdom itself. The Promised Land must be ruled, and that ruling will be by that of a king. The dynasty of kingship for this eternal Kingdom belongs to those who will obey God completely. That is why we see in 1 Samuel 13:13 that Samuel told King Saul:

“You have done a foolish thing,” Samuel said. “You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, He would have established your Kingdom over Israel for all time.” NIV

That is why we see God's message to Solomon in 1 Chronicles 28:7 as:

I will establish his kingdom forever if he is unswerving in carrying out My commands and laws, as is being done at this time. NIV

and why we see Solomon plead in 2 Chronicles 6:16 to God:

“Now, LORD, the God of Israel, keep for Your servant David my father the promises You made to him when You said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your descendants are careful in all they do to walk before Me according to My Law, as you have done.’” NIV

By these verses, we can quite clearly see that ruling the Kingdom eternally meant having an unbroken dynasty of successors, and that such a dynasty was dependent on each descendant obeying God's Law.

When Solomon ultimately ended up drifting from obedience to God, God tore the Kingdom from his successor, giving it instead to Jeroboam and offering him the same kind of enduring dynasty which was given to David (1 Kings 11:29-39).

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Isaiah 63:17
Why, LORD, do you make us wander from Your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere You? Return for the sake of Your servants, the tribes that are Your inheritance. NIV

Can you summarize all of this information concisely?
God gave the Promised Land to the Israelites for eternity, but they can only stay there, and kings can only rule there, while they obey the entirety of God's Law. God established the Law forever, perfect, and unchanging, just like Him. It is possible to obey the Law, and obedience does not need to be perfect in order to please God as long as you are truly repentant for your sins. Such obedience will be rewarded with long life and abundant prosperity, which will in turn lead others around you to seek God.

Laying Down the Law

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Laying Down the Law
Looking back on my past OT studies, I found more typos than I care to admit! :-) But I also found a number of gems; studies which would be excellent to challenge your own faith and beliefs about God, or get the conversation started with a believer as to why they might want to reconsider that faith. Here are my favorites from the years gone by:

---Genesis

• The Sacrifice of Isaac is a classic point of Biblical contention. Would you do anything God told you to do, even if it was morally wrong?
• For humans to “play God” is often considered evil. What about the case with God Playing God? Is it really any better?

---Exodus

• Predators sometimes exploit their power to play mercilessly with their prey. In God: The Beast, that same theme rings through.
• How much suffering is enough? In One More Game, God will stop at absolutely nothing to let people know that He is God, even if that means their complete destruction.
• Promises, Promises. God promises that if they obey His Law, the Israelites will not have illness, miscarriages, or infertility, and they will have long lives. Long, but not everlasting...
• I'll Be There With Bells On, or I'll Be Dead. Because God would kill you for not wearing bells, or special underwear, when going to worship Him.
• We all have regrets. God does too, as you see in Repentant God, Part 2, where God wants to kill all of the Israelites which He just brought out of Egyptian slavery.

---Leviticus

• The Wrong Way = The Dead Way. Worship God wrongly, and He will kill you, and forbid people from mourning your death.
• If You Are Sick, You Are Guilty. At least, according to God. You are also guilty of sin if you have mildew in your house.
• The Second Greatest Commandment? God has a funny way of showing its prominence in the Law.
• In God's Altered Promise, take a look at how God changes His promises, adding on terms and conditions so that He is only obligated when He wants to be.

---Numbers

• God's forgiveness does not mean that God will not punish you, as you see in Repentant God, Part 3.
• God's Wrath Loves Company. Why else would God annihilate three entire families due to the guilt of three men?
• Scary as it is to consider, God Rewards Extremists.

---Deuteronomy

• The Law Makes an Impression. God thought that His perfect Law would prove His wisdom to everyone around the world. Well, it does make an impression, but not a good one for God.
• You are Chosen, but Not Special to God. Your salvation in His hands is arbitrary.
• God's Law demands absolute Intolerance for All other religions within the boundaries of His theocracy.
• You will find Virginity, Rape, and Bitter Justice in God's Law, as well as a poor understanding of human anatomy which has spawned a legacy of murders.

With my studies of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible complete, I am laying down the Law, so to speak. If I do any more detailed studies of the Old Testament, it will likely be sporadic, probably just to have a break from covering the Gospels. I will open it up to requests, though. So if you have ever had a question about the Bible and you would like my type of perspective, fire away! Leave your questions as comments below, and you just may win your own personal study, Foolishly hand-crafted. ;-)

God According to Genesis

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Background
How can you get to know God? Almost without exception, priests, preachers, and other spiritual leaders within Christianity will answer this question unanimously: pray, and spend time in God's Word, the Bible. The true nature of God is said to be revealed within its sacred pages. So now that we've gone through a series of studies on the book of Genesis, I thought this would be a good opportunity to highlight and review just what we've learned about God from His Word thus far.

God According to Genesis
Per Genesis, man was created in God's image. God formed man, Adam, from the dirt of the Earth and breathed into his nostrils to give Adam life. This not only trumps an evolutionary link, it also brings up questions about whether or not God is shaped like a man, and if so, does He have a belly button? ;-)

When Adam and Eve did not resist the temptation that God have given them (to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), God cursed them and banished them out of the Garden of Eden. God did not offer any opportunity for forgiveness.

From the story of Cain and Abel, we see that God may capriciously reject the honest, hard work that you do for Him according to His whim. At the same time, God may honor work done for Him which has no apparent value. If God rejects your work, He doesn't think you should be angry or upset about the rejection. Instead, you should just try something different to please Him.

Sometime later, God is upset to find that mankind has become thoroughly evil, which, contrary to His omniscience, seems to indicate that He didn't realize that mankind would end up that way. God is regretful that He made man, another blow to omniscience. As opposed to sending prophets or Jesus to earth to steer mankind back to righteousness, God decides that the best solution is to exterminate all of mankind through an epic, global Flood. But God finds Noah, who is the only non-evil man, so He decides to preserve Noah and his family through the Flood.

When the Flood waters recede, Noah kills some animals and burns their flesh, an odor that pleases God. Even though God knows that man will continue to be evil, God promises that He will never again kill all living creatures with a flood, and He makes rainbows as reminders of that promise. Of course, God has made an utterly meaningless promise, because not only do floods continue to kill people even in our time, but God could kill all living things in any number of ways, such as by famine.

At one point in time, all of mankind was working in harmony on one project; the Tower of Babel. The intent of the Tower was to reach Heaven with its top. Instead of God laughing off the impossibility of such a project, God voices His fear that a mankind united in one language could do anything they plan to do. So God scatters mankind around the globe and gives them all sorts of different (and primitive) languages. Given that communication, while not a guarantee, is an essential catalyst and foundation for peace, God seeded misunderstanding, turmoil, and war between different nations forever after with this act.

Through the stories of Abraham lying to Pharaoh and then to Abimelech about Sarah being his sister, we see how God seems to capriciously inflict punishments. For when Pharaoh took the miraculously beautiful senior citizen Sarah into his house, God inflicted him with horrible diseases. However, when Abimelech took the lovely, yet very, very elderly, Sarah into his house, God simply made Abimelech's women infertile.

In yet another blow to omniscience, when God had heard how wicked the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah, God decides that He will go down to earth and see it for Himself to verify their grievous sins. He debates with Himself whether or not He should tell Abraham about how He was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. He does arrange for the only righteous man in the two cities, Lot, and his family to be removed from Sodom before its destruction. God turns Lot's wife into a pillar of salt when she looks back at the ensuing destruction.

As we will learn later in Deuteronomy, God rightfully finds the practice of making a burnt sacrifice of your son to be detestable. However, that doesn't stop God from telling Abraham to make a burnt sacrifice of his son Isaac. God instructs this morally corrupt act as a test of Abraham's obedience. Of course, if God were omniscient, He wouldn't need to test anyone. Fortunately He does stop Abraham from killing Isaac at the last moment, having Abraham make a burnt sacrifice of a ram instead.

When Jacob steals his brother Esau's blessing, we get our first insight as to how unscrupulous acts may play a part in fulfilling God's prophesies. Furthermore, we see that God is not opposed to blessing those that commit the unscrupulous acts.

In a story in which Jacob can't be considered completely innocent, Jacob gets tricked into marrying Leah instead of her sister Rachel. Eventually, Jacob marries Rachel too. Jacob shows love to Rachel, but not to Leah. In a classic case of displaced aggression, God punishes Rachel by making her infertile because He is angry that Jacob doesn't love Leah.

While working for his father-in-law, Laban, Jacob and Laban agree that Jacob's wages will be the motley colored flock. Jacob cheats Laban by successfully biasing the flock's offspring to be motley colored. When Laban sees that his own livestock wealth is declining, he changes Jacob's wages to more specific color pattern requirements. At this point, God steps in to ensure that the offspring produced match Jacob's prescribed wages, thereby making Laban poorer and Jacob richer. Implicitly, God approved of Jacob's plan to cheat Laban, perhaps as payback for making Jacob marry Leah.

After leaving Laban's house, Jacob spends a night alone while on the way to meet with his brother, Esau. At that time, God took on a human form and wrestled with Jacob. When God saw that He could not win the match, He fought dirty by permanently crippling Jacob, stabbing him in the hip socket. Upon pleading with Jacob to release Him, God renames Jacob to be Israel.

God chooses to execute Er because he is wicked. God then executes Onan for having sex with Er's widow but pulling out before ejaculation to avoid producing an heir for Er and thereby attempting to keep Er's inheritance. Er and Onan don't seem to rank as humanity's worst specimens, yet God kills them according to His whims.

For the grand finale, God manipulates Joseph's brothers to sell him into slavery to an Egyptian, which led to him being imprisoned in Pharaoh's jail, where God helps him interpret dreams. Later, when Pharaoh has a couple of bad dreams, God helps Joseph correctly interpret them. The interpretation is a warning that a seven year famine is coming. Pharaoh puts Joseph in charge of making preparations for the famine. God brings on the severe, worldwide famine in which most people outside of the famine-prepared Egypt undoubtedly perish. Joseph's family moves to Egypt to survive. All the people in Egypt, except for the (polytheistic!) priests, end up selling their land and themselves into slavery of Pharaoh just for food to survive. The purpose of this amazingly horrible story was to fulfill a prophesy that God had made to Abraham; namely that Abraham's descendants would be enslaved and mistreated in a foreign country for four hundred years.

What We've Learned
God is probably man shaped (or perhaps more appropriately, man is God-shaped!). God will tempt you and punish you if you succumb to that temptation, and will not seek your forgiveness. God is capricious in His acceptance of deeds done for Him. God's omniscience is flawed. God is sorry that He made man. God likes the smell of burning flesh. God will make meaningless promises. God is afraid of mankind working altogether in harmony, and will take action to prevent such a peaceful collaboration. God is capricious in His punishments. God will test you in morally corrupt ways. God will fight dirty. And, finally, God will do absolutely anything to keep His promises and prophesies, including using evil methods and laying waste to the overwhelming majority of mankind, and the animal kingdom for that matter.

In short: Be afraid. Be very afraid. The fear of God is exactly what God wants you to have.

God Playing God, Part 3

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Background
When a person is accused of acting like God, the implication is that they act according to their own set of morals, and typically treat people as disposable tools as opposed to people. They wield their power solely in their own interests without regard to the consequences to others. It's funny how such a negative connotation is derived from a Being that is supposedly the epitome Holiness; God.

In Part 1 of the story, Joseph goes from prisoner to second in command, with a mission to gather and distribute provisions for a seven-year-long famine that God had in His plans. At the conclusion of Part 1, the severe, worldwide famine had begun.

In Part 2 of the story, we find out that God can and does use evil to conduct His plans. We also get confirmation that the worldwide famine that God brought was so severe that it was only through God through Joseph was a remnant of humanity to be saved.

The trouble is that we still have not discovered a reason for this famine brought on by God. Did God have a plan for the famine besides the famine itself? We answer that question in this final part of the study.

God Playing God, Part 3
We are jumping to Genesis 47:13-31 as we conclude this study. To catch you up to speed, what followed Part 2 at the end of Genesis 45 continuing through to Genesis 47:12 was that Joseph's brothers returned home to tell their father of Joseph's status and to bring all of their family back to Egypt to live there per Joseph's request. The family arrives in Egypt, and Joseph tells them to tell Pharaoh that they are shepherds so that they can settle in Goshen, because shepherds are an abomination to Egyptians. They do tell Pharaoh that they are shepherds, and they happily settle in Goshen.

The severe, worldwide famine continued. There was no food in the entire region of Egypt and Canaan except what was in Pharaoh's reserve. In Genesis 47:13-17, we read how “all Egypt” claimed they were out of money, so Joseph has them exchange their livestock, “their horses, their sheep and goats, their cattle and donkeys”, for food that year.

This section reveals the story for what it is: fiction. For what is the likelihood that all Egypt ran out of money for grain at the same time? Are we to believe that Joseph individually scaled the cost of grain according to each family's wealth? Then there is the livestock. How probable is it that all the people of Egypt owned livestock, especially if (reportedly) shepherds were an abomination to the Egyptians?

After the livestock-for-food year had passed, the famine still continued. In Genesis 47:18-19, the people, poor and desperate, return to Joseph in unison and offer their land and their enslavement to Pharaoh in order to have food. In Genesis 47:20-22, we see:

So Joseph bought all the land in Egypt for Pharaoh. The Egyptians, one and all, sold their fields, because the famine was too severe for them. The land became Pharaoh's, and Joseph reduced the people to servitude, from one end of Egypt to the other. However, he did not buy the land of the priests, because they received a regular allotment from Pharaoh and had food enough from the allotment Pharaoh gave them. That is why they did not sell their land. NIV

There it is!!! The reason God brought about this horrible, worldwide famine that killed untold numbers which could not make it to Egypt to sell everything they had for food! Unfortunately, God doesn't spell it out for you in His Word all in one place. You've got to go back to a prophesy revealed to Abraham by God in Genesis 15:13-16 for the divine reason:

Then the LORD said to him, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure." NIV

All of the suffering was for a purpose. God's purpose. God's purpose of fulfilling His prophesy through any means necessary. God brought about this deadly famine to the whole world so that Abraham's descendants would be sold into slavery to Pharaoh so that prophesy would be true. God didn't care about the consequences to the rest of the world, as long as His prophesy got fulfilled.

The original source of this story is quite possibly based on the legendary Imhotep, who served under the Pharaoh Djoser in the Egyptian Third Dynasty. He supposedly was instrumental in helping Egypt to recover from a seven year famine, and that's just one of the many similarities.

Some claim that Joseph was actually the source of the Egyptian story for Imhotep. There are issues with that theory, such as the fact that Imhotep was remembered for several significant achievements which are not associated with Joseph, like being the founder of Egyptian medicine. Plus, it would seem that if God, through Joseph, had brought Egypt through the seven year famine, the impact of God's involvement probably would have made the Egyptians completely rethink their established deities and polytheism. There probably would have been converts from the top down, forever changing the face of Egyptian religion. Instead, we find that Imhotep got deified posthumously.

God Playing God, Part 2

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Background
The assessment of having a God Complex is not applied to a surgeon or doctor that tries to save all patients, rather it is applied to one that is selective, and choses which patients will die from his or her neglect. Interesting association with God's behavior, no?

In Part 1 of the story, Joseph goes from prisoner to second-in-command under Pharaoh, with a mission to gather and distribute provisions for a seven-year-long famine that God had in His plans. At the conclusion of Part 1, the severe, worldwide famine had begun.

Did God have a plan for the famine besides the famine itself? Was this famine for a reason? There have been no reasons revealed so far. We continue our study to find out.

God Playing God, Part 2
We are jumping to Genesis 45 as we continue this story. To catch you up to speed, what followed Part 1 in Genesis 42 to 44 was a strange tale of Joseph's brothers going back and forth to Egypt to buy grain to survive the famine. Joseph's brothers don't recognize him on their visits. By the end of Genesis 44, Joseph has thoroughly intimidated his brothers and has threatened to keep his youngest brother as a slave.

Now, up to Genesis 45, we find that Joseph can't continue deceiving his brothers any more. Joseph, in confirming his identity to his brothers, provides some of the most intriguing and condemning words about God. Genesis 45:4-11

Then Joseph said to his brothers, "Come close to me." When they had done so, he said, "I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.

"So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt. Now hurry back to my father and say to him, 'This is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me; don't delay. You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me—you, your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds, and all you have. I will provide for you there, because five years of famine are still to come. Otherwise you and your household and all who belong to you will become destitute.' NIV

Concise God-related summary: God manipulated Joseph's brothers to conspire against him and to sell him into slavery, which provided opportunity to have him end up in Pharaoh's jail, and, with God's support, to have him become an instrument to preserve a number of people through the severe famine that God brought into fruition.

God used wicked motivation in Joseph's brothers to enact His plan. Given that we are expected to believe everything God does is good, that means that God used evil methods to achieve a good result. God is apparently of Machiavellian persuasion, believing that the ends justify the means. It seems irreconcilable for the primary example of Holiness, God, would employ such evil tactics. Yet this dissonant theme is demonstrated elsewhere as well, such as with God's relationship to Satan, but that's another study for another time.

The final point of interest in this part of the study is an affirmation of the scope of the famine. In Part 1, we saw the famine severely affected the entire earth. Lest you believe that this was just poetic hyperbole, we see that the purpose of Joseph's role was to “preserve for you a remnant on earth”. This famine was set to wipe out most of the population on earth, excepting Egypt and the closely surrounding areas due to the advanced storing of grain under Joseph's command. The famine was so severe that anyone without access to a grain supply would become destitute.

It's worth saying again that this bears a degree of similarity in scope as the Flood, where Joseph is like Noah and Egypt is like the Ark, while the rest of the world is decimated. God's promise after the Flood was that He wouldn't flood the earth again, not that He wouldn't commit worldwide devastation of mankind again. So, God is keeping His promise here. :-) However, in contrast to the Flood story, no justification has been given for this event, for making an untold number of people starve to death.

This far into our study we still have not identified a reason for God to bring this horrible famine on the whole world. The question still remains of what was God's plan for the famine? In the third and final part of this study, we will discover the answer to that question.

God Playing God, Part 1

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Background
Is there a reason for everything that happens? Is it all part of God's plan? These are interesting questions to ponder as a believer. There are four primary schools of Christian thought on this matter: 1) everything is controlled by God, 2) God orchestrates natural events (i.e. earthquakes, tornadoes, etc.) and human interactions as necessary, 3) God orchestrates human interactions as necessary, but lets nature take its course for the most part, 4) God used to interact, now He just watches the show. In this study, we see a natural event which, reportedly, God did orchestrate.

The setting is Egypt. The major characters are the Pharaoh, Joseph, and, of course, God. Joseph is one of Jacob's/Israel's sons. Joseph's brothers had sold Joseph into slavery. He did so well in his slave duties to Potiphar that he was quickly promoted. But Potiphar's wife took an unrequited lustful interest in Joseph. Angry that her affection is not returned, Potiphar's wife accuses Joseph of trying to rape her, so he is put in prison. Thanks to God, Joseph accurately interprets dreams for his fellow prisoners, one of which was the Pharoah's cup bearer. The cup bearer gets restored to his former position as per his dream. That's where we enter this heart-chilling tale.

God Playing God, Part 1
There was a popular video game in 1989 called SimCity. In it, you tried to construct an efficiently running city that kept its residents safe and happy. One really neat feature of the game was the ability to use god powers. You could unleash a tornado or erupt a volcano, at will, to destroy part of the city and revel in the destruction. It was a bit of harmless, capricious wickedness that made the game that much more fun. It gave you the chance to exercise your kid-instincts; the digital equivalent to taking a magnifying glass to an ant hill. The great thing was that no living creature actually got hurt for no reason by SimCity. You can't say the same thing about God.

Today we study Genesis 41, where God displays more of His awesome, destructive power. Is it for a reason? Is it a pointed and precise punishment? Is it all part of God's plan? Let's find out.

This is somewhat of a popular Old Testament tale, though some details are too often downplayed or glossed over. Pharaoh has a dream where seven gaunt cows eat seven fat cows, followed by another dream where seven plump wheat grains are eaten by shriveled wheat grains. None of the Pharaoh's people can interpret his dream.

Pharaoh's cup bearer remembers how Joseph had interpreted his dream, so he tells Pharaoh. Pharaoh summons Joseph and tells the dreams to him. Joseph said God had revealed to Pharaoh what was about to happen; that there would be seven years of great abundance followed by seven years of famine. Joseph advised Pharaoh to stock one fifth of the produce for each of the next seven years in order to have provisions for the famine years.

Pharaoh liked the suggestion and put Joseph in charge of the preparations. For the seven years of abundance, Joseph stores local grain according to plan. Then the famine came on all lands, but Egypt still had food. Joseph began selling the stored grain to the Egyptians. All of the other nations came to buy grain from Joseph too, because they also were experiencing famine. That's the end of Part 1.

There are a few very important details to highlight in Part 1. The first answers the question of the origin of the famine. Consulting Genesis 41:32, we find:

The reason the dream was given to Pharaoh in two forms is that the matter has been firmly decided by God, and God will do it soon. NIV

God had firmly decided to make this famine occur. It was not a matter of forecasting the weather. God chose to bring the famine to the land. Note that there is no enlightenment about the cause for this action. No reason. No motive. No way to avoid it. No call to repent. God's just going to make it happen. God played God the way a teenager would play SimCity. Throw a famine out there and watch the denizens react.

Moving on, we close out the chapter with the next two highlights. In Genesis 41:56-57, we see:

When the famine had spread over the whole country, Joseph opened the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe throughout Egypt. And all the countries came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the world. NIV

Note how Joseph sold the grain, to Egyptians and the other countries alike. This will play a significant role in a later part of this study.

The final highlight of for this part of the story is that “all the countries” “in all the world” were both affected by the famine and sent people to Egypt to buy grain. That would have been quite a feat for the Inca's and the Native Americans, don't you think? This is a blatant contradiction with historical reality.

Per the story, God chose to apply the famine to everyone in the world, showing no favoritism or specific focus, just like the Flood. Unlike the Flood, there was no reason, no purpose given for this famine. And with such a widespread famine, what are the chances that everyone was able to get enough food to survive from Egypt? How is it possible that a loving, Heavenly Father would starve His beloved children to death? It makes God a hypocrite when you read what Jesus said in Luke 12:24:

Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! NIV

So, was it all part of God's plan? If so, what was that plan? Turn to the next part of this thrilling study!

Capricious Killings

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Background
In the Old Testament times, particularly early on in the time described from Genesis to Deuteronomy, there is no evidence of God promoting the concept of an afterlife. God would often kill people that transgressed His moral code, even if the code had not previously or officially been made known.

In our justice system, we consider it necessary to have a law written in the books before someone can be convicted. It does create some unfortunate loopholes, but it also prevents abusive and capricious executions of the law.

Should you have to worry about abusive and capricious executions of God's Law? Is God's justice perfect? Those are a couple questions we examine in this post.

Capricious Killings
Imagine that you could just use the might of your willpower to kill someone, like a psycho-kinetic super sniper. Would you do it? If so, to whom? Osama bin Laden? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? The jerk down the road that regularly treats his wife like a punching bag?

In Genesis 38:1-10, we find two cases where God plays the role of Super Sniper. These guys had to be pretty bad, right? Let's take a look. The first precision death is Er. According to Genesis 38:7:

But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the LORD's sight; so the LORD put him to death. NIV

Hmmm. He was wicked. That's it. Not much to go on. It's unfortunate that there are no details. You can't learn from Er, other than to try to avoid being wicked.

Moving on. Er had been married to Tamar before his untimely (or was it timely?) death. At the time of his death, Er hadn't had any children to grant his inheritance. So the responsibility of making an heir for Er would then fall to Onan, Er's brother. According to Genesis 38:8-10:

Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother." But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so He put him to death also. NIV

(As an aside to the main discussion, these verses are often used by some Christians to support the believe that birth control is a sin. However, when put in context, it seems to me the sin here is Onan's deceptive intent; to just have sex with Tamar without producing a child for his fun and ultimate financial gain, as Er's inheritance would likely pass to his lineage by default without an heir for Er.)

I can't deny that Onan was guilty of wrong doing. While there was no God-given law at that time stating that what Onan did was prohibited, or worthy of death for that matter, I think that it is safe to say that Onan was dishonest, and that his intent was to promote his selfish interests unscrupulously.

God killed Onan. God killed Onan for being selfish. Why?

When you read through history's list of the most infamous people; sadistic serial killers, notorious criminals, villainous dictators, etc., you have to wonder why God wouldn't have stepped in and snuffed these people out personally before they went on to negatively impact the lives of tens, or thousands, or even millions of people. Instead, God choses to kill someone that spilled semen on the ground.

It has been said that it is a matter of free will. God wants us to be able to chose good, but that also permits the choice of evil. Because of this free will, evil may be very evil indeed.

Well then, what about Onan's free will? And did the removing of Onan from humanity make the world a much better place in the end? Not really. Instead, it created the misguided doctrines of birth control being a sin and sex being only for procreation. Does God consistently kill people that have sex for selfish reasons? No.

Selective executions could be used for good without tampering with free will. If God had snuffed out Hitler with a heart attack shortly after he came to power, His chosen people, the Jews, would not have suffered an attempted genocide. And I guarantee that the free will of the general public would not have been altered in one bit. There would still be people choosing evil or choosing good, or more probably a little of both. The net result, however, would be that tens of millions of people would have been saved from untimely deaths, not to mention all of those that were wounded or lost their loved ones.

God executes Er and Onan, but God does not consistently execute all wicked people. In fact, God has chosen not to execute some of the most infamously wicked people throughout history; people that make Onan's sin look like an act of charitable goodwill. This is capricious justice at best, and capricious justice is not justice at all.

Personally, my take on this is that it's a record of superstition, not some act of God. Back in those times, people had little-to-no idea what caused death if there was no blatant reason, like old age or being gored by an ox. If Er and Onan were real people, they probably just died from heart attacks, or aneurysms, or some other physical reasons which would have been undetectable at that time. But because these deaths could not be explained, they were instead deemed as being deaths from God.

He Struggles With God

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Background
How can you tell if God really likes you? He renames you. Sometimes, the names that God would give to people would foretell something about that person's life. For example, Abram was renamed by God to Abraham, literally “father of many”, because he would be the father of many nations. Sometimes, the names just marked a significant event or accomplishment in that person's life.

On a different note, there is some debate over whether or not God has a physical form that can be seen. In several accounts in the OT, God, or in some cases the angel of God, dwells on earth with man and physically interacts with him. The majority of modern believers do not consider God, the Father, to have a physical form. To reconcile this belief, these OT accounts of physical interaction are often dismissed as being only angels with physical forms that represent God. Some even theorize that these physical apparitions of God in the OT were actually God, the Son, Jesus.

In this study, we examine the curious case of when God physically appears to Jacob and renames him Israel. Before this moment, Jacob and family are traveling and are about to cross a river on their way to meet his brother, Edom/Esau. Jacob had prayed to God that He would keep His promise and not let his brother kill him, and he had sent a bunch of gifts to his brother to pacify any lingering hard feelings due to Jacob's past dishonesty.

He Struggles With God
In Genesis 32:22-31, we find the interesting tale of when the patriarch Jacob gets renamed to a name that is today practically synonymous with the Holy Land. Jacob is renamed Israel. It starts out when Jacob is all alone one night, having sent all of his possessions, including his family and servants, across a river which was en route to Edom/Esau, his brother.

The text in the short story is rich with important details that lose their effect when dissected piece by piece without a complete read. So here is the critical text; Genesis 32:24-30:

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that He could not overpower him, He touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."

But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

The man asked him, "What is your name?"

"Jacob," he answered.

Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

Jacob said, "Please tell me your name."

But He replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then He blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." NIV

In this text, it is plain to see that God has a face. God has a physical form, and that form is of a man. Whether this is supposed to be the Father or the Son, we can not say. It is “a man” that wrestles with Jacob, and Jacob claims to have seen God face to face.

Note that this is not to limit God, to say that He could not take on any form He wanted to take. However, this does draw a close parallel with the various gods of ancient days that typically had a humanoid form. Man created gods in his own image.

One thing I find particularly interesting: God, omnipotent God, in man-form could not overpower Jacob. It would seem as though God gave up super powers in man-form. Almost...

The next curious event is that God, when He saw He could not win, fought dirty! He used His super powers to “touch” Jacob's hip socket joint to wound him. Is that the kind of God you can respect out of love and dignity, or the kind you respect out of fear?

Though not stated explicitly, one may ascertain that the reason for this dirty move was to somehow try to gain a physical advantage. Clearly as the story plays out, this seems not to have worked. And so, this would seem to be a failure of God's omniscience.

Jacob is renamed Israel, which literally means “he struggles with God”. God sites the reason for this renaming as being “because [Jacob had] struggled with God and with men and have overcome.” Past tense. Although one could say that Israel, the nation, has struggled with and continues to struggle with God. From that perspective, that name seems like a prophesy. But in truth, nearly all nations and nearly all peoples struggle with the concept of god. We are all Israel.

I'll leave you with some study questions to ponder: What did God hope to gain by wrestling with Jacob? Was it His intension to lose the match all along? If this was just an opportunity for God to meet with Jacob personally and bless him, why did God choose to wrestle with him?

Biological Semblance

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Background
Without question, science has made some blundering errors due to inappropriate assumptions, erroneous interpretation of results, and inadequate tools. However scientific knowledge has evolved, and continues to evolve, ever revealing better functioning models and more accurate depictions of the truth.

Just like scientific knowledge, Biblical knowledge has evolved too. Like the constant laws of the universe, the Bible's text is constant (at least at this time). It is only man's interpretation that is changing and evolving.

However, unlike science, new interpretation of the Bible never seems to reveal any new, practical universal concept. Instead, we find that science leads the way, like in disproving a geocentric solar system, while Bible scholars lag behind until a new interpretation can be found which reconciles itself with the scientific truth.

Points in the Bible that can't be reconciled by semantics are quite often dismissed as being poetic metaphors or hyperbole, or in other cases they are said to be miracles. In this post, we examine one of these irreconcilable differences.

In a previous post, we studied Jacob's polygamist marriage to two of his cousins at his uncle Laban's estate. After that, a tale of bawdry involving Jacob, his two wives, their maidservants, and some mandrakes, yields Jacob a large family to support. Jacob is then anxious to leave his uncle Laban's estate and begin to establish his own household, but Laban doesn't want Jacob to leave just yet...

Biological Semblance
In Genesis 30:25-43, Laban pleads with Jacob to stay at his estate, because Laban has discovered by divination that he is being blessed by Jacob's presence. Jacob decides to stay for awhile, building his wealth in a manner that would make Gregor Mendel, father of modern genetics, turn over in his grave.

As pay for tending the flocks, Laban agrees that Jacob will now own “every speckled or spotted sheep, every dark-colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat”, both those in his flock now and those that will be born in the future. In that way, Jacob's “honesty will testify” for him, because his own flock will be easily identified.

Well, Jacob's honesty isn't worth much, as he sets out to actively change the odds of producing a motley flock. How? I'll let the Bible explain in Genesis 30:37-39:

Jacob, however, took fresh-cut branches from poplar, almond and plane trees and made white stripes on them by peeling the bark and exposing the white inner wood of the branches. Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink, they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted. NIV

In other words, what parents see at the time of conception directly influences the genetics of the offspring. Clearly this is what Jacob believed. This is a prime example of where the Bible portrays the cultural beliefs at the time as a truth, as opposed to the actual truth.

To be fair, Jacob does sort of get some concepts of genetics correct a little bit later down, with regard to creating strong progeny in Genesis 30:41-42:

Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches, but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob. NIV

At best, this represents only a primitive understanding of genetics. It suggests that certain traits are inherent from the parents physique, while other traits are relative to the environment at the time of conception. This is about the limit of what man could discern at that time due to a lack of scientific methodology. It would have been obvious that strong animals tend to have strong offspring, but what exactly controls the finer traits, such as fur color, would have remained elusive largely due to the presence of recessive genes that appear only when homogeneously paired, or produce some blended result or become completely obscured when they are heterogeneously paired. Thus, factors of superstition, such as influence based on what parents saw during copulation, would have been suspected as having influence over those fine traits.

The only possible recourse for the modern believer is to say that Jacob's motley flocks were produced from the divine hand of God, not by Jacob's actions. There is no explicit reference to God's involvement to support this belief. God neither explicitly provided instructions for Jacob to increase his pay disproportionately nor explicitly involved Himself in the production of the offspring at this point in the story.

However, when you continue the story into Genesis 31:1-21, God does stick His hand into the motley flock equation. Then does this explain everything? Not exactly. In Genesis 31:6-7, Jacob says:

"You know that I've worked for your father with all my strength, yet your father has cheated me by changing my wages ten times. However, God has not allowed him to harm me. If he said, 'The speckled ones will be your wages,' then all the flocks gave birth to speckled young; and if he said, 'The streaked ones will be your wages,' then all the flocks bore streaked young." NIV

On the surface, we see God's hand in all of this. But remember that according to Genesis 30:43, Jacob seems to have gotten rich by his own efforts. We can deduce that Laban was angered and/or frustrated by Jacob's ever-growing wealth compared to his own ever-dwindling wealth, and that provided the impetus to change Jacob's wages. Prior to the change in wages, it seems God was not involved. God stepped in when the wages changed. This becomes evident when we study a divine dream that Jacob had, relayed in Genesis 31:10-13. God reveals the timing of His actions in Genesis 31:12:

"And [God] said, 'Look up and see that all the male goats mating with the flock are streaked, speckled or spotted, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you.'" NIV

God got involved because of all that Laban was doing to Jacob. This reads with a negative connotation referring to how Laban has been changing Jacob's wages. After all, this is the only mentioned specific gripe that Jacob had against Laban. Indeed, it would seem that Jacob would need divine help to match the prescribed changing wages. The account in Genesis 30:37-39 suggests that Jacob could only make streaked or speckled or spotted offspring, but could not particularly make only streaked, or only speckled, or only spotted offspring. That would require God's help, and that's where we see God step in.

In summary, I believe that this story, with particular emphasis on Chapter 30, has fossilized an ancient misconception of how genetics worked. And with that nugget of bad scientific knowledge encapsulated in a body of text that claims to be the Truth, one must wonder if the Bible really does contain the Truth.

In fairness, it is possible that all of the motley offspring may have come about due to God's divine hand, despite a lack of explicit text, due to an implicit execution of God's promised blessing of Jacob back at Bethel in Genesis 28:10-22. However, note that God Himself does not provide that reason when He appears in Jacob's dream.

Jacob's Two-Timing Marriage

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Background
Having just stolen Esau's blessing, Jacob flees so that his brother, Esau, will not kill him. His mom tells him to go live with her brother, Laban. His father, Isaac, tells Jacob that he should marry one of Laban's daughters. In other words, Jacob is told to marry one of his cousins.

So, Jacob heads to Laban's place. He meets his cousin, Rachel, at a well, and it was love at first sight. What unfolds is another chapter of Biblical marriage values.

Jacob's Two-Timing Marriage
In Genesis 29:15-30, we find the heartwarming story of Jacob's marriage to his cousin, Rachel. Jacob agrees to work for seven years for his uncle, Laban, in exchange for the hand of Rachel in marriage.

Laban had two daughters, Rachel and Leah. From the description given in Genesis 29:16-18, it seems that Rachel was quite sexy and beautiful, while her older sister Leah was, well, not.

Seven years fly by in the labor of love. The time has come in Genesis 29:21:

Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her." NIV

It's no mystery what goes on in a marriage. Still, most people have more tact than to tell their soon-to-be father-in-law that the time has come to have sex with their daughter. Or perhaps this is evidence of the culture of the time; that women were just possessions to be used.

Moving on, Laban throws a big wedding party. After the party, in the dark of night, Laban brings Leah, instead of Rachel, to Jacob. Jacob has sex with Leah. In the morning, he wakes up shocked and angry that it is Leah in his bed, not Rachel.

What?!? This is a bit hard to swallow. Having recently deceived his father, Jacob should have been sensitive to deceptions. He should have figured out this deception sooner than morning. He knew both Rachel and Leah for seven years. Seven years!!! Surely he could tell their differences.

Jacob wasn't blind, so he could have recognized Leah by lamp light, but we'll give the Bible the benefit of the doubt and say that he had no lamp and that it was pitch black. Jacob could have recognized Leah was not Rachel by scent, but we'll assume Leah had bathed that night so she didn't have much scent.

Jacob should have recognized Leah's voice. His own voice was almost the end of his deception to his father, so he should have been rather sensitive to that. However, it's not uncommon to have siblings sound alike, and it is certainly possible that Leah learned to mimic the sound of Rachel's voice. So even different voices could be dismissed.

There is still one infallible piece of evidence that should have given Leah's deception away. While all women look the same in the dark, all women do not feel the same in the dark. As documented in the text, Leah and Rachel were physically different. Jacob had probably been fantasizing about having sex with Rachel for the whole seven years, studying every detail of her body in anticipation. He definitely should have felt the physical differences of Leah.

This leaves me wondering; did Jacob realize it was Leah, and, in the heat of the moment, just decided to have sex with her and discuss the matter with Laban in the morning?

In the story's conclusion, Jacob confronts Laban. Laban says that the older daughter needed to be married first. After the bridal week with Leah, Laban gives Rachel to Jacob in marriage in exchange for yet another seven years of labor.

But wait, there's more! In Genesis 29:31-35, it seems that Jacob didn't love Leah, but that didn't stop him from having sex with her. God punishes Jacob for not loving Leah, the one he didn't even want to marry to begin with, by granting her children while making Rachel barren.

In psychology, they call this behavior displaced aggression. That's when someone (God) is angry with something or someone (Jacob), but that angry someone takes out the anger on something or someone else that is completely innocent (Rachel). In those times, it was a very shameful thing for a woman to be barren. That disgrace fell only on the wife, not the husband.

Displaced aggression is an all too common flaw in man. One should expect more from a perfect God.

I find it interesting to note also that two of the four children born from this loveless sex with Leah wind up being the fathers of the two most significant tribes of the Jews. Her son Levi spawns the Levites, which are the priestly class of the Jewish nation. Her son Judah breeds the lineage of King David and Jesus. Well, sort of the lineage of Jesus.