Bridegroom of blood
2020-08-02
MOSES RETURNS to Egypt with Aaron as his mouthpiece, a concession by God to Moses’ reluctance to speak to his fellow Hebrews about the Lord’s promise of deliverance.
Moses meets God
2020-07-26
ISRAEL SPENT 430 years in Egypt. This is recorded in Exodus 12:40-41 and Galatians 3:17. How do we reconcile that with God’s promise to Abraham that his descendants would return “in the fourth generation” (Gen. 15:16), or the four generations between Levi and Moses (Ex. 6:16-20)?
Mourning ‘beyond the Jordan’
2020-07-19
JACOB WAS buried at the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron. So, why did Joseph and his brothers take his body all the way around the other side of the Dead Sea and mourn for seven days at a threshing floor in the ruined city of Sodom?
Blessing the younger
2020-07-12
JACOB’S STORY comes to a close this week. He lived for seventeen years in Egypt, long enough to see Joseph use the foreknowledge given by God to concentrate power in the hands of the pharaoh (and the same number of years Joseph lived before he was sold into slavery by his brothers).
Jacob, Joseph, and Pharaoh
2020-07-05
JOSEPH FINALLY reveals himself to his brothers, unable to continue his deception any longer. His brothers had returned to Egypt to buy more grain, bringing Joseph’s only full brother, Benjamin, with them as he’d ordered.
Cult prostitution in the Bible
2020-06-14
IF THE Bible had truly been edited to make the apostles, prophets, and patriarchs look better, chapter 38 of Genesis would have disappeared long ago.
Joseph and his brothers
2020-06-07
JOSEPH APPEARS to have been something of a spoiled brat. Either he had no self-awareness at all or his self-image was so inflated that he didn’t care what his brothers thought of him.
Wrestling With God
2020-05-24
FEEDING THE dead was an integral part of the world in which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived.
Son of the Cup
2020-03-29
ABRAHAM’S DISTRESS at being childless was caused by his concept of the afterlife. In the Amorite culture that dominated his world, it was believed that one’s quality of life after death depended on your descendants performing a monthly ritual to provide your food and drink.