Friday 30 April 2010

Gen 6-9 Enough wiggle room to squeeze through

So let me try putting some of this together before I move on. The key question for me is not whether the flood was local or global, but in light of current scientific evidence against a global flood, is a local flood at least a possible legitimate reading of the text? If it is then I can leave it to others to invest time and effort into establishing which it is and move on to the real meat of these few vivid and profound chapters. I will therefore comment on the arguments for a global flood to see if there is any wiggle room.

First the words used: Although the English translations clearly describe a global flood, my limited understanding of Hebrew words used does seem to allow for the possibility of a local flood. "All the earth" can refer to "all people or a local region", "high mountains" can be "foot hills", and "cover" and be "fall upon". 

As for the size of the ark, it would have needed to be big enough not just to carry the animals but to carry their food supply. Noah would have needed an 18-21 month food supply for the humans and animals before his first crops were ready to eat. Noah is instructed to take food for everyone Gen 6:21 and there is no hint of hibernation or of animals not needing food. Quite the opposite in fact, he is told to take food.  That would take a lot of space and would limit the amount of animals that could be kept alive. 

Why didn't Noah just move? Well, God could have told Noah to move to higher ground but the building of an ark was not just practical it was prophetic. While life goes on around him as normal, Noah warns people over many years of God's coming judgment. As he does so  he  builds his life around a promise of God for salvation. (Heb 11:7, 1 Peter 3:20). The story happened for us to learn from and understand our current situation. Life goes on around us as normal while we live very differently. In an atmosphere ranging from bemused interest to outright ridicule and persecution, we are proclaiming the gospel and building the church.

God did promise never to judge the earth again, but that could have been a flood that destroyed most people, or one that specifically was of his making (if we make every natural disaster an "act of God" in judgment I think we will seriously misrepresent him - Luke 13:4).

How could a local flood last for several months? I don't know. 

Finally, a local flood also helps minimise the number of miracles needed (is that a good hermeneutic?) ie no water canopy or creation and destruction of huge amounts of water, no sustaining of the earth under the massive forces unleashed in a global flood, no animal hibernation in the ark, no rapid evolution of animal kinds into all the species we have today, no need to preserve all the fresh water fish, water animals and land vegetation etc. 

One last tricky thing. In Gen 6:4 the Nephalim are mentioned. Everyone apart from Noah and his family is destroyed but the Nephalim turn up again in Numbers 13:33. Perhaps that's to obscure to pin too much on, but what about this? Gen 4:20-22 talking about the descendents of Cain says "Adah bore Jabal was the father of those who dwell (current tense ie at time of writing Genesis) in tents and have livestock". Similarly for the others: "Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron." (ESV). But Noah was a descendent of Seth, so how come Cain's descendents are around after the flood living in tents, playing music and forging bronze and iron. Maybe "the father of all who" just means "the first ones to". Anyway, time to beach this boat and get to more profitable matters.

Gen 6-9 On the other hand : Arguments for a Local flood

Today I will summarise some of the arguments that have been put forward for a local flood.

1) Psalm 104:9 seems to imply that having separated the waters to form dry land God set a permanent boundary for them "not to again cover the earth".

2) The English phrases "whole land" or "whole earth" translate the Hebrew "kol erets" which doesn't necessarily mean whole world (see Gen 2:11-13 "entire land of Cush"). "Whole earth" can mean "all people" (Gen 18:25 "the judge of the whole earth", also Josh 23:14, Chron 16:23, Psalm 66:4, 1 Kings 10:24) and in fact usually refers to a local geography (Gen 13:9 Abram to Lot "is not the whole land before you", also Gen 41:56-57, Lev 25:9, 2 Sam 24:8, 1 Kings 10:24, ). In Gen 8:9 "water was on the surface of all the earth" but "the tops of mountains" where visible so "all the earth" refers to the local region.

3) The Hebrew word literally meaning "whole earth" "tebel" (Strong's H8398) could have been used but isn't.

4) The Greek world "kosmos" that is used to translate the Hebrew in LXX can also mean the known world rather than the entire planet.

4) Peter talks about "the world at that time" (2 Peter 3:5-7)  or "the world that then existed" which could refer to the known world.

5) The biblical context is local. Gen 1-9 only mentions place names from Mesopotamia. From 10 onwards we get references to much of the eastern hemisphere.

6) The Hebrew word "kasah" which is often translated "covered" can mean "residing upon", "running over", or "falling upon". So there could have been 20 feet of flood waters above the mountains, or 20 feet of flood waters could have poured over the mountains, or have rained on the mountains.
Gen 7:19-20   And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep (20 feet) . (ESV)

7) The phrase "all the high maintains" in Gen 7:19 translates the Hebrew "kol heharim hugebohim" where "Har" (Strong's 2022) can be a massive mountain or a humble hill and "gaboah" can be high and exalted or merely elevated and lifted up.

8) What's the point of a wind blowing the water if it has nowhere to go. In a local flood the wind could help encourage the water in a particular direction.

9) The ark came to rest on the "mountains of Ararat" not necessarily the mountain of Ararat which is 16,946 feet above sea level. The ark could therefore have come to rest anywhere in this region which includes foot hills.

10)  Gen 7:11-12 says "all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights" (ESV). So the water came from the earth and the heavens and when it "subsided" or "abated"  the meaning seems to be that it returned to its original place or condition (Gen 8:1-3). To cover Mount Everest which is 29,029 feet above sea level, you would need 4.5 times the amount of the water we have today. Of course God could speak that into being but that would require another massive creation proclamation of the form "let there be four times more water than before".  

Thursday 29 April 2010

Gen 6-9 On the one hand : Arguments for a global flood

With the national media running stories about a recent claim to have discovered Noah's ark I am considering the question of whether the flood was global or local. Instead of pretending that I have got this all sorted out in my own mind I have decided to begin by summarising the evidence for each position starting with the global view. They may well be contradictory but I'll sort that out later. 

1) The waters are said to cover the high mountains (Gen 7:18-24, 8:1-5).

2) The Hebrew word used does not just mean local flood, it refers to a unique "cataclysmic" event.

3) All "living creatures" and all people were killed except Noah's family and the animals on the ark Gen 7:21, Gen 9:1.

4) The ark was massive, big enough to take many more animals than representatives of the local population.

5) It lasted too long (150 days or almost a year, Gen 8:9, 14) to be a merely local flood.

6) God promised he would never flood the earth again (Gen 6:13, Isaiah 54:9) and there have been numerous local floods since so it must have been a unique global event.

7) Peter links it to the world wide judgment by fire to come (2 Peter 3:5-7, See also Matt 24:37-39).

8) If it was local then why not just tell Noah to move!

Well that's a start. Certainly when you read the account in most English translations it appears blatantly obvious that it is a worldwide flood, wiping out all animals and people so that God can start again with Noah, his sons and their wives. Tomorrow I'll gather arguments for a local flood.

Wednesday 28 April 2010

Gen 6:9 "We've found Noah's Ark"!

Gen 6:9   This is the account of Noah. (NIV)

One of the most colourful, powerful, evocative stories ever told. One that pops up in various guises all over the world in apparently unrelated cultures and civilisations. The story of a great flood and a massive boat that carried its passengers, both human and animal, to safety.

Well by some extraordinary coincidence I have arrived at this bit of the bible on the exact same day that a national newspaper has the following headline " 'We've found Noah's Ark!'... claim evangelical explorers on mission to snow-capped Ararat (but British scientists say 'show us your evidence')". It's a headline that sums up the challenge I face in understanding the biblical account of the flood and Noah's Ark in the light of current scientific consensus. As Hugh Ross puts it in his book "The Genesis Question"
"As much scepticism and ridicule as secularists may express about the scientific plausibility of the Genesis creation accounts, they tend to heap more derision on the Genesis Flood story. What they have heard of read strikes them as utterly preposterous. The story seems to contradict well-established science at every turn, and it seems to even go against the popular notion of the benevolent Christian God" The Genesis Question, Hugh Ross, Page 139

Was there really a worldwide flood 4000 years ago that covered the mountain tops and lasted for almost six months? Are all the animals today descended from those that Noah saved aboard his massive wooden boat? Can such an event really be totally invisible to the mainstream scientific community?

Well, a team of Christians exploring the Turkish mountains are convinced of the stories historical validity and are 99.9% sure they have discovered Noah's ark. They have found a massive wooden structure 13,000 feet above sea level on mount Ararat and say carbon dating places it around 2,800BC.  For decades people have been searching the region of Mt Ararat to find remains of Noah's ark. Confident claims for its discovery, such as the ones made in the 1980's by Ron Wyatt of a ship shaped formation 6500 feet above sea level, usually end up being discredited. Whether this goes the same way I will have to wait and see. Hugh Ross makes the point in his book "the genesis question" that we should not expect to find the ark at all because anyone with any sense would have used the wood long ago. If you get shipwrecked on a desert island you use all the bits of wreckage you can get your hands on either to build or burn.

Moving on from the quest for the Ark then there is still one major issue that needs to be peeled away before getting to the juicy flesh of this incredible story. Did the flood cover the whole world, submerging the Andes and Mount Everest, or was it more local confined to the Mesopotamian flood plain? I will look at the evidence for each hypothesis over the next two days, starting with the more traditional view that it was global in extent.  

Sunday 25 April 2010

Gen 6:6 God's Grief

Gen 6:6   And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. (ESV)

I thought I was going to get to Noah today but this verse caught my eye. What a deeply sad verse this is, but how incredibly revealing. I sometimes wonder why God created the world knowing it would fall into such depravity and evil with all the pain and suffering that that would entail. When I see or hear about evil and suffering even on a small scale I can be overwhelmed by it. Imagine what it would be like to see all of it all of the time, not just the actions of sin, but the evil inclinations of people's hearts. Not just the visible effects of sin on others but the devastating invisible wreckage on their soul. Think how we grieve over loved ones. The more we love someone the deeper our grief at their loss. Well, God's love is infinitely stronger and deeper than ours for this broken world so how intense his grief must have been as it despised and rejected him. Love would one day triumph but only after an even greater grief.

There is a scene in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ" where the camera hangs above the cross.  It looks down giving us a kind of God's eye view on the last minutes of Jesus' life. A single drop of water, a tear, falls in slow motion impacting the ground with a crown shaped splash. What pain and grief must have been in the Father's heart that day. God created a world destined to fall knowing it would crush him. He stepped into that world to embrace the full force of its suffering and evil so that you and I could be saved for his glory. 

Saturday 24 April 2010

Gen 6:4 The next Hollywood blockbuster?

Gen 6:4   The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. (ESV)

Ok, lots of unknowns here and theories abound. One is that fallen angels (sons of God - Ps 29:1, Job 1:6, Dan 3:25) mated with women (daughters of men) to produce a race of super-humans (men of renown) called the Nephilim. It sounds like a script for the latest Hollywood gothic CGI spectacular doesn't it? As I said, there are many other possibilities but this one sounds the coolest. There is even an opportunity for a sequel when the Nephilim turn up again in the promised land (Num 13:33).

Seriously though, the bible is full of the most amazing stories that cry out to be made into films or musicals or books. Noah's Arc, Joseph's rise to power, Moses' great escape, David's adultery, not to mention Daniel, Sampson, and others. But one story stands head and shoulders above the rest. How many films have been made about Jesus? I have just ordered "the miracle maker", a stop motion version of the life of Jesus, for my children to watch.  I was looking for creative ways to tell them about Jesus so I showed them a clip and they seemed engaged by it. Of course there is also Mel Gibson's decidedly non-child friendly "The Passion" and the BBC's 1977 "Jesus of Nazareth" directed by Franco Zeffirelli (Pope Paul VI is supposed to have asked him to make a film about Jesus) with the unblinking Robert Powell (he blinks once in the whole film) taking the lead role. (Monty Python's "the Life of Brian" apparently used some of the same stage sets).

There are countless other versions of the story but perhaps the most watched is "the Jesus Film". A video on their web site states in the deep rolling tones of a Hollywood voice over
Every 4 seconds 'it' happens. One more person decides to follow Christ after viewing 'the Jesus film'. Shown in more than 220 countries, translated in to more than 1000 languages, with more than 225 million decisions for Christ and hundreds of thousands of churches planted, and counting.   

It's an amazing story because Jesus is an amazing person:

There is something so pure and frank and noble about Him that to doubt His sincerity would be like doubting the brightness of the sun. Charles Edward Jefferson

Jesus Christ: The meeting place of eternity and time, the blending of deity and humanity, the junction of heaven and earth Anonymous

Even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardour of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old. Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him. Napoleon

I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history. H.G. Wells 

I'm hoping to go and see "Clash of the Titans" in 3D next week. It's a great story that I'm sure is worth the extra dimension. Well the story of Jesus was so big that God told it from four different perspectives in the bible (4G?). He wanted to highlight its importance and bring out as much of its power and brilliance and meaning as possible. One day I'll "blog" it but there is a lot more of the Old Testament to go yet. I'm in no hurry though as the whole bible tells the same story with Jesus' theme tune heard on every page.   

Friday 23 April 2010

Gen 5:24 Walking with God

Gen 5:24   Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. (ESV)


While we can marvel at the longevity of some of the first men, each one of them eventually does die. The expression "and then he died" tolls like a death bell though the whole chapter. There is one exception though. Right in the middle (well, it's not right in the middle, Enoch is seventh but that's an even more significant position in Hebraic thought) of all the "then he died...BONG" verses is verse 24 we read "he was not. God took him."

It must be significant that instead of the "he lived" that sums up the other lives, we read he "walked with God". The same is said of Noah, a (Gen 6:9), who is described as a righteous and blameless man, and of Abraham (Gen 48:15, Gen 17:1, Gen 24:40) who knew God as his Shepherd, and of Levi  (Mal 2:6)  who spoke truth and walked with God "in peace and uprightness" turning from "iniquity". We find this phrase again in an instruction (Micah 6:8) to do what is good, obey God, "do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God".

Walking with God is an incredibly rich expression describing a close relationship worked out in the thoughts and actions of one's life. It's hinted at in the Garden of Eden, physically paced out by Jesus' disciples and available to us now by the Spirit. As we go through the day we can walk with God. Keeping in step with him, worshiping him, talking with him, listening to him, obeying him, watching him, being with him. 

I love walking and talking with friends. Going somewhere together is often better than being somewhere together. You are sharing a goal and a journey. At each step you decide to be together. At each junction you discuses your route. You navigate obstacles together. Conversation can ebb and flow without awkwardness as the scenery changes and events happen around you. I want to walk with God. That's why I took up a friend's invite this week to go into a residential home, talk to the people there about Jesus and pray for them. I figured that's where Jesus is going so I'll walk along with him.  
     
And so in taking Enoch in this way, God chooses to show his hand even in the shadows of death. The same expression "was not" occurs in other places signifying death (Job 7:21, Ps 39:13) but here it seems Enoch, like Elijah (2 Kings 2:11) is taken up in to God's presence without tasting death. The main idea here is of the absence of death as a final full stop to life. God will one day take me to be with him through the same faith that Enoch had (Heb 11:5) and that pleases God so much. 

Thursday 22 April 2010

Gen 5:5 How old?

Gen 5:5   Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. (ESV)

What am I to make of this? Seth fathered Enosh when he was 807 years old and died at 912. Enosh lived for 905 years. At 90 Enosh fathered Kenan who lived for 812 years. Everyone in this chapter genealogy lives for hundreds of years with Methuselah living the longest and dying at the ripe old age of 969 (verse 27). Today "less than one person in a billion lives past 116 years" (The Genesis Question, Hugh Ross, page 118). The other issue this chapter raises is that it seems to allow you to work out how long ago the first man lived, a computation that Bishop Ussher did and arrived at 4004BC. Before looking at these things I'm going to have some fun with spreadsheets (double click on graphs to enlarge them):



(note: in Gen 6:3 God seems to limit peoples ages to 120 but it could also mean that there are 120 years until the flood. This is more likely as people after Noah live for more than 120 years. That said, ages seem to drop exponentially after the flood until Moses says in Psalm 90:10 that people live around 70 or 80 years. For it to be true the pronouncement of Gen 6:3 must have been 20 years before God told Noah to build the arc and Noah was 500, and 120 years before Gen 5:32 when the flood comes and Noah is 600.)

Now to open some books. Unfortunately, my apologetics encyclopaedia is in a stack of books under my monitor. I will swap it for the Argos catalogue....Right, What does Mr Norman Geisler have to say about this? (flicks through pages) Nothing. Ok, lucky I have two other books. The "Encyclopaedia of Bible Difficulties" suggests that either conditions before the flood where more favourable to long life or that the earth revolved quicker (which would have to be 10 time quicker, giving days of only 2 hours and making Nahor father Terah at around 3 years old! Gen 11:24). Mmm.  I open "Hard sayings of the bible" at its article on Genesis 5 to find a piece of loo roll marking the page. Seems like I have been here before. Looks like they tackle the issue in more depth too. At least they realise the extent of the problem:

The question of the possible reconciliation of the results of scientific enquiry and the claims of Scripture could not be more challenging. The claims for the long lives in the ages at which these men were able to side children is enough to lead to a distrust of the Scriptures almost from the very first chapters of the Bible. In fact, so notorious that difficult are the problems presented by the genealogies of Genesis 5 and 11 that they have been paraded for centuries as prime examples of chronological impossibilities in the Bible. Page 102.

They (Walter C Kaiser Jr, Peter H Davids, F.F Bruce (no less) and Manfred T Braunch) argue that phrases like "Adam had a son" and "Adam became the father of" do not in themselves exclude the possibility of intermediate generations. If you find that hard to swallow they point to Gen 46:18 and Gen 46:25 which talk about Jacob's wives "bearing him" sons that are actually his grandchildren (see *gaps* for more stuff on gaps).

Also although the Genesis genealogies are identical to 1 Chron 1:1-28 they differ from Luke 3:34-38 who has Cainan inserted between Arphaxad and Shelah. Cainan seems to have been missed out in Genesis to give two sets of 10 names:

Luke 3:35-36     the son of Eber,
                           the son of Shelah,
                           the son of Cainan,
                           the son of Arphaxad,
                           the son of Shem,
                           the son of Noah

Gen 11:10-16     When Shem was 100 years old, he fathered Arpachshad....
                           When Arpachshad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shelah.  
                           When Shelah had lived 30 years, he fathered Eber.  
                           When Eber had lived 34 years, he fathered Peleg.

So Arphaxad must have fathered Shelah through Cainan. Therefore  "When Arpachshad had lived 35 years, he fathered Shelah" could mean when Arpachshad was 35 he fathered a son who eventually fathered Shelah. That would legitimately mean we could insert others in the genealogy. Hey presto!  (note : we can't add in generations if it makes dialogue like in Gen 4:25 meaningless which in the case of Adam and Seth rules out any intermediate descendents.) 

They argue that the ages however must be taken literally. They really did live a long time:
Adam did live a real 930 years. The sons attributed to him may have been his direct sons or they may have been from 2 to 6 generations away, but in the same line.




So while we may not be forced to compute a date for Adam as in my spreadsheets we still have people living for hundreds of years which is so odd it's worth double checking a few other theories:

1) It's mythological
Long lives are recorded in myths from other cultures: "stories from ancient Akkadian and Sumerian cultures also tell of extraordinarily long life spans. Only rough dates or ages appear in these accounts, but they claim that their most ancient kings lived thousands of years. Fourth century Babylonian historian Berosus drew from archives in Marduk's Temple to name ten kings who lived before a great deluge, ten kings who reigned thousands of years each. The Weld-Blundell prism, which dates back to the third millennium BC, and the Nippur tablets also list 10 pre-flood kings who lived thousands of years. The Genesis question, Hugh Ross. page 117. Enmenluanna king of Badtibira was recorded as reigning for 43,000 years! (The book of Genesis, victor p. Hamilton page 252).

The ages in Genesis are at least in the hundreds rather than the thousands but are they really intended to be mythological? While aspects of the early chapters of Genesis are tricky to interpret because of the difficulty of understanding the literary style, we do have genealogies throughout the bible and they sometimes overlap and are taken literally (1 Ch 1:1 and Luke 3:38). If we let the bible interpret the bible then these are real genealogical lines with real people in them, even if they do have gaps. 

2) The ages are symbolic or a "literary motif"
The long life spans do imply God's blessing and declining ages up until Abraham do tell us something about the deterioration of mankind, but if the data itself is not literally true then it would call any meaning into question. The truth would be people didn't really live any longer than now and life spans didn't really reduce. Some have suggested that the numbers themselves are symbolic being multiples and additions of significant numbers (ie multiples of 5 with additions of 7 or 14. Also Lamek's 777 years is suspiciously symbolic. There may be something in that but it's hard to see what purpose the figures serve if not to give real historical data.

3) Short years
Perhaps a year was shorter because the earth revolved quicker or years were counted differently.  The main problem is that in Gen 11:24 shorter years would mean a baby becoming a father. It also makes no sense of Gen 6:3 where human life spans are reduced to about 120 years or less. It has been suggested that the years may have been measured differently at different times (ie reigns of kings) but then counting in years loses much of its meaning. Imagine if 1 minute could mean anything from 1 to 100 seconds. What does 5 minutes ago mean?

No trace of evidence can be found in either biblical or extra biblical text to indicate that the ancients or pre-flood peoples counted their years significantly differently from the way we count them today. The Genesis question, Hugh Ross. page 118


Nor can any evidence be found for a significantly different rates of revolution of the Earth.

4) It's factually wrong and they really did live that long
We lose biblical inerrancy. That's not up for grabs here.  

Not sure there are many more options. I guess they did live a long time. Either by God's miraculous enabling or less directly by better genes and environment. Some young earth creationists suggest the water canopy above the earth (see Gen 1:6-7, Gen 7:11 and compare lifespan in Gen 5 and Gen 11:10-32) but there is no evidence for that and it raises more questions for me than it answers. People (not just vegetarians!) have cited the beneficial effects of a non meat diet before the flood which is supposed to increase your life expectancy but surely not by hundreds of years. Hugh Ross in "The Genesis Question" page 122, suggests that an increase in radiation from the Vela supernova could have played a significant role in reduced life expectancy around 20,000-30,000 years ago. He further notes that if radiation was less than the mechanism for storing the number of cell replications (which in effect  limits life spans to around 120 years and guarding against things like cancer) could be relaxed.   

After all that you might be left asking why bother even thinking about this sort of stuff. Well, I don't really mind accepting things that the bible says that are unusual or go against the grain of current secular thought, it's just that I would rather think about them first and avoid accepting something controversial that the bible doesn't actually say. In this case, hard as it is to understand, it does seem like people before the flood had genuinely long life spans.

Anyway, after the flood life spans drop exponentially until they are comparable to what we might expect today  (Joseph 110, Samuel 111, David 71, Solomon 58). Moses, who died at the ripe old age of 120 sings: 

Ps 90:10  The years of our life are seventy,
    or even by reason of strength eighty;
  yet their span is but toil and trouble;
    they are soon gone, and we fly away.

I love that expression "fly away". It reminds me of another song (from "Brother where art thou") 

Some glad morning when this life is o'er, 
I'll fly away; 
To a home on God's celestial shore, 
I'll fly away (I'll fly away). 

(Chorus) 
I'll fly away, Oh Glory 
I'll fly away; (in the morning) 
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by, 
I'll fly away (I'll fly away). 

When the shadows of this life have gone, 
I'll fly away; 
Like a bird from prison bars has flown, 
I'll fly away (I'll fly away) 

Chorus 

Just a few more weary days and then, 
I'll fly away; 
To a land where joy shall never end, 
I'll fly away (I'll fly away) 

One day I will fly away to celestial home where joy shall never end. Oh Glory!

*gaps*
There are also gaps in the genealogies of Matthew 1 where Jehoram was the father of Uzziah (vs 8) but in 1 Chr 3:11-12 there are three generations between them ie Ahaziah, Joash, Amaziah.

Mat 1:7-9   ...          Jehoshaphat             the father of             Joram, and
                                Joram                     the father of           Uzziah, and
                                Uzziah                    the father of             Jotham, and
                                Jotham                     the father of             Ahaz, and
                                Ahaz                        the father of             Hezekiah, (ESV)

1 Chr 3:10-13   ...    Jehoshaphat his son
                                                Joram his son,
                                                Ahaziah his son,
                                                Joash his son,
                                                Amaziah his son,
                                                Azariah his son, (less common name for Uzziah)
                                                Jotham his son,
                                                Ahaz his son,
                                                Hezekiah his son...(ESV)

It's likely that Matthew missed out some people to arrange his genealogies into groups of 14. 14 from Abraham to David, 14 from David to Babylonian exile, and 14 from there to Jesus.

Also Ezra 7:2 Omits six generations compared with 1 Chron 6:3-14.

If there are no gaps Adam would have been around at the same time as Noah's father Lemech for 56 years and Abraham would have been born born 2 years after Noah died.

Another tricky problem if there are no gaps:

Gen 46:6-11   They also took their livestock and their goods, which they had gained in the land of Canaan, and came into Egypt, Jacob and all his offspring with him, his sons, and his sons' sons with him, his daughters, and his sons' daughters. All his offspring he brought with him into Egypt.
   Now these are the names of the descendants of Israel, who came into Egypt, Jacob and his sons. Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, and the sons of Reuben: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman. The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. (ESV)

1 Chron 6:2-3   The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. The children of Amram: Aaron, Moses, and Miriam...(ESV)

Ex 7:7   Now Moses was eighty years old, and Aaron eighty-three years old, when they spoke to Pharaoh. (ESV)

Ex 12:40   The time that the people of Israel lived in Egypt was 430 years. (ESV)

Moses' grandfather was Kohath who went into Egypt. About 430 years later at the age of 80 Moses led the Israelites out.  If Kohath did live several hundred years he also had a lot of children:

Numbers 3:19, 27-28, 34   And the sons of Kohath by their clans: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel....To Kohath belonged the clan of the Amramites and the clan of the Izharites and the clan of the Hebronites and the clan of the Uzzielites; these are the clans of the Kohathites. According to the number of all the males, from a month old and upward, there were 8,600, keeping guard over the sanctuary....Their listing according to the number of all the males from a month old and upward was 6,200. (ESV)

Another problem arises with Methuselah living past the flood. 

Wednesday 21 April 2010

Gen 4:26 The servant king

Gen 4:26   To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD. (ESV)

One more thing to say here before we leave this verse. It's the word LORD. It's even in capitals. I know that it's a translation issue and it's translating the Hebrew word Yahweh but as we trace its usage through the Bible we see it's a very appropriate translation.  

We do not call on someone who is at our beck and call. We do not call on a servant, like we might call a waiter in some affected French accent "garcon". We do not call on someone who has to do what we say. We call on one whom we are disposed to serve.

This is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the maker of heaven and earth, the one who lives in unapproachable light, who is Holy, Holy, Holy. It's mind blowing that he has made himself available to us in this way to be called upon. We are the ones who should serve him and have failed so badly to do that yet Jesus came "not to be served but to be serve".  

When we call on the name of the Lord we are saying "your will be done". I will follow you. Your way is right. I need your help and I will forever follow you.  Explicit in this cry is "Jesus I need your help because I have not followed you and now I want to. I need you as my saviour and Lord". Jesus cannot be our saviour without being our LORD.

This song comes to mind:
From heaven you came helpless babe
Entered our world, your glory veiled
Not to be served, but to serve
And give your life, that we might live
He calls us now to follow him
To bring our lives as daily offering
Of  worship to the Servant King


Tuesday 20 April 2010

Gen 4:26 Pass the salt

Gen 4:26   To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD. (ESV)

Imagine you're at a dinner party. The talk has died down and the guests are tucking into a tasty meal prepared by their host. One diner looks up and motioning with his hand he says "I say, I don't suppose you could pass the salt my way". The meal is good but for his palate needs a little more seasoning. "Many thanks, mmmm delicious". Sometimes we pray like that. Life seems good but just needs a bit of seasoning. "God, would you mind possibly just sorting this for me, or adjusting that...Ah, that's great, thanks".

Why do we pray like that? Maybe because we don't realise our desperate need of God or others desperate need. I'm finding more and more that I need God to help me change, to be effective in his kingdom, to help me walk, to fight, through each day. I need God to draw near to me and speak to me, encourage me, strengthen me, love me. I need to know his acceptance more as the enemy's fiery darts reign down. I need to know his empowering more as my body and words seem so weak. I need God to heal the sick, release the oppressed, forgive the unforgivable, and build his church. As my heart is broken for these things my prayers break the sound barrier. Please God! Heal! Save! We don't cry out to be heard but to be understood. We don't want God just to hear our words but our heart.

I love reading about revivals when God, in his mercy, reveals mans deep need of him. At the beginning of the Welsh revival in 18th century is was reported (about Howell Harris):
"hundreds were converted -- among them some of the most notorious characters. under the power of the holy spirit, hearts were broken and it was not uncommon for people to come under such conviction that they would cry out loud to God for mercy (while he preached)."

It would seem as I read this verse in Genesis that we have stumbled across the first revival. God revive us in our day! Let us know our deep need of you in such a way that we cry out with deep "diaphragm" prayers.  

There is a real sense of calling out to God in prayer at the moment in our church. The volume is going up, especially in our early morning prayer meetings. I know God is doing something in me because I never used to get up before 6 to pray. It's our prayer meeting tomorrow  night. Always significant times in the life of the church. As Jim Cymbala says they are the barometer of the church. You can have great Sundays mornings with the place packed and worshiping but it's at the prayer meeting that you take the pulse of the church. Sarah can go for the first time as I am not involved in leading it but I'm hoping to join in via Skype.