Reading: The Fall of Humanity and The First Family Gen.

3-4
Dr. Ted Hildebrandt, OT History, Lit. and Theology,
© 2012, Dr. Ted Hildebrandt
Genesis 3, the Fall and Genesis chapter 4 on Cain and Abel narrative.

We want to jump back in, and I want to get out of the Garden of Eden. A guest comes
here and I thought it would have been so nice if we could have been with Abraham walking in
the land of Palestine. He asks where are you in the course, and you say, “Well were still in the
Garden of Eden,” and so we’ll try to work at that. Last time we talked about the serpent and
the serpent speaking the truth to the woman but yet lying at the same time. Also, we talked
about the deceptiveness and subtleness of the serpent. We noted basically that the serpent
said that they would become more like God. God himself in chapter 3:22 says that, “Now the
man [humans], have become like us knowing good and evil.” So apparently Satan was correct
in that analysis.
B. Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: God, us and evil [1:47-5:25]
What I want to do today is to ask: How did Adam and Eve become more like God by
eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? I want to work first of all with this:
do you know the difference between objective knowledge and subjective
knowledge? Objective knowledge is knowledge of good outside of you. Subjective knowledge
is knowledge of good inside yourself (subjective meaning inside yourself). There’s objective –
outside, and subjective – inside. Did God have knowledge of good outside of himself? He
looked at all of creation and he proclaimed it was good (tov) and after its completion tov me’od,
very good. So there was good, outside of himself. I want to acknowledge that God has
knowledge of good outside of himself. Does God have subjective knowledge inside
himself? Yes. Does God know evil? If God doesn’t know any evil, then he is naïve. God is
not naïve. God knows evil, but is it inside God or outside of himself? Now, does he
experience evil inside of himself? No, we say God is perfect, good, righteous, and holy--so,
no. So that’s the knowledge structure I wanted to look at with God.
Now let’s look at Adam and Eve before they’re tempted. Did Adam and Eve have
knowledge of good outside of themselves before the fall? Adam and Eve had objective
knowledge of good outside of themselves. Did Adam and Eve know goodness inside of
themselves prior to the fall? Yes, they knew God had made them good, and so they had
subjective knowledge of good. Before the temptation, did they know evil in any way? No. So
are they like God or unlike God at this point? They are unlike God because they have no
external objective experience of evil.
At the point of temptation, this is before they actually participated, at the point that
Satan says “Hey, eat the fruit.” They gain objective knowledge of evil outside of
themselves. They experience it in the serpent. At this point, did they become more like
God? Here is the lie, because not only did they gain this objective knowledge, but also when
they ate of the fruit, what did they gain? Subjective knowledge of evil. Is this the lie? Yes. The
serpent/Satan gets them to participate in the evil. So, in one sense, did they go beyond where
God was in terms of their participation and evil? Yes. They do become more like God knowing
good and evil at this point, but the problem is they go beyond God and participate in the
evil. So, that is one way to look at this.
C. Process of Temptation [5:26-8:19]
I want to walk through the process of the temptation and do this rather quickly. In
Genesis 3:6 it says this, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the
Lord God had made. The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of any fruit of the tree in the
garden, but God did say that we must not eat from the fruit of the tree in the middle of the
garden.’” Going down to verse 5 the Serpent says, “But God knows that when you eat of it,
that your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good from evil.” This is the
temptation process. Let’s break it down. “When the woman saw the fruit of the tree was good
for food.” I want to call that was “the lust of the flesh.” What I want to do is compare these two
verses. 1 John 2:16, “All that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the
pride of life” lists those three things. It lists three things and the same three things that are in 1
John 2:16 exactly fits here in Genesis 3. First, there is the lust of the flesh: it's good for
food. The “lust of the eyes” the Bible says “it was pleasing to the eye.” The fruit looked really
good. Then the pride of life comes in and, check this out, it is used “for gaining wisdom.” It
was fruit for gaining wisdom. How many of you would pay for that? You eat the fruit and you
get wise. It would save you from going to college. You could go to the dining hall and eat the
fruit and you would become wise. There’s a connection of wisdom with this fruit. There are a
lot of wisdom motifs in Genesis 3. So the same pattern then is found in the 1 John 2 process
of temptation: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life as in the temptation
with the serpent in Gen 3.
Now what happens? Man’s dilemma, is it different than the woman’s? Satan speaks
directly to her; she dialogues with the serpent. Adam’s dilemma, I want to suggest, is
different. What is the only thing that Adam has ever experienced that he knows is not
good? Adam has experienced “not good.” “It’s not good for man to be alone.” Did he know
that? Yes. He had that experience and that was why Eve was made. Now what’s he
facing? Adam’s temptation is different because Adam is now facing the fact that Eve has
eaten the fruit. If Adam says, “No, I don’t want the fruit,” what is he again? He is now by
himself again, alone. She had eaten the fruit and has participated in evil, so Adam’s
temptation is different. However, she gives him the fruit and Adam eats. So now they’re the
same, but they’re still tempted differently.
D. Results of the Fall [8:20-18:10]
Now here are the results of the fall. Are there consequences to human actions and
choices? What makes a difference between a sixteen-year-old kid and a twenty-two year old?
Let me use my son. What’s the difference between my son when he was sixteen year old and
at age twenty-two? As a 16 year old did he think that he could do things in life and that there
would be no consequences? A young person does things and thinks, “I can do it and can get
away with it” or “there will be no consequences” or “I can overcome the consequences.” So, at
sixteen, he thought there were no consequences. In his case, he joined the Marines, much to
his mother’s chagrin and mine, and went off to Afghanistan and he’s been to Iraq. One of his
friends was shot dead; another was shot through the neck. They were good friends. His friend
is on YouTube actually. He survived the shot through the neck and he’s got a patch and we
saw him running to the Medivac helicopter. He survived a shot through the neck. It missed the
artery by about a millimeter. My son when he was sixteen was immortal, he could do anything
without consequences. At twenty-two, does he now know what mortality is and that he could
die? Yes, he does. Does that change the way that he looks at life? Yes, because now he
understands this: act and consequence. Are actions connected to consequences? Is that the
difference between someone who’s sixteen and now, in his case, twenty-two? Although when I
talk to him it feels like I’m talking to an old man at twenty-two, it’s pretty pathetic, because he
has seen so much of life, too much.
So what I’m suggesting here is that this connection between act and consequence is
really big in Scripture. By the way, we won’t be doing much with the book of Proverbs but if I
were to summarize the whole book of Proverbs, Proverbs is largely telling the young person
that actions and character are connected with consequences. Actions and character lead to
consequences. So we see this concept now. There are consequences.
Adam and Eve sin, they are adults, and there are consequences. What happens here
is that there are consequences between God and man. Man goes into hiding. Where does he
hide? He hides in the bushes. So God comes walking, and asks, “Where are you?” They
answered, “I heard you walking in the garden and I was afraid.” Notice man’s response to God
now is one of fear. But remember the fear of God is what? Now you say, “But fear does not
really mean fear.” Oh, really? Is that true? So we have to have a big discussion about what it
means to fear God. That’s coming. But here man is hiding in fear and shame. So what
happens is he says, “I hid because I was naked.”
God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I
commanded you not to eat from?” The man courageously says, “I did it. It was I. Don’t blame
her. It was wrong. I deserve to die, don’t blame her.” No, okay, this is the first man, he goes,
check this out it is pretty pathetic, the man said to God – “the woman that you put here with me
she gave the fruit to me and I ate of the tree.” So what does God do? “The Lord says to the
woman ‘What is this you have done?’” And the woman says, “Not me, not me, it was the
serpent!” So then God goes, “Serpent, let’s start with you.” So God moves from the man to
the woman and finally to the serpent. The serpent then gets the first curse.
Let me go back to finish this out now. What you have now is the separation between
God and his people. God with his people is this concept here. Do you know what this word
means? “Immanuel.” You see the word “El” on the end, it means “God” in Hebrew. Immanuel
means “God with us.” What happens is God is with them in the garden walking with them and
talking with them. God is with his people, but now that they have sinned there is a separation
with human beings go into hiding. So what happens? What you’re going to find in Scripture is,
God now goes to absconditus. In other words, there is the hidden God now rather than the
God that is with you in the garden. Now, God is hidden. Man hid from him. Does anybody
remember, when you guys read Exodus, do the people see God on the mountain and the
mountain is shaking at Mount Sinai, the people are what? Do they say, “God show yourself,”
or do they say, “That’s enough, back off.” So God basically has gone into this absconditus or
hidden state around humankind. By the way, what does the rest of Scripture do? Does the
rest of the Bible from Genesis 1-3 tell us how God comes back to be with his people? Jesus
then, “He shall be called Jesus because he shall save his people form his sins.” And he is
called what? “Immanuel” – God with us. Then Jesus goes back, now the Spirit dwells in
us. Ultimately, Christ comes back and gathers us to be with him: “and so we shall be with the
Lord forever.”
So ultimately all of Scripture, all of it is pointing forward to the time when human beings
will come back to be with God. God is redemptively working out the details of what happened
in Genesis 3. What happened in Genesis 3? The rest of the Bible is this great redemptive
work of God by which God redeems his people. He comes in the Tabernacle. Where does he
dwell? You say, “Hildebrandt, you skipped those tabernacle chapters so we didn’t read it.” In
the tabernacle God is dwelling in the midst of his people. When Solomon builds the temple,
what happens? The shekinah glory, the “glory cloud,” comes down and God dwells with his
people. With Jesus we now have God in flesh with his people. So the rest of Scripture is
going to be this God absconditus, the hidden, becoming Immanuel--God with his people
again. This draws us ultimately to be with God forever and ever. Does the Garden of Eden
begin the Bible, but does the garden of Eden also end the Bible where we are back again in
God’s presence in the end? Is that the great hope? Are Christians hopeful people? “Oh,
everything is going wrong in the world and this place is going to blow up.” Question: are
Christian people hopeful? Yes, because we look forward to a day when we will live with God
forever and the Garden of Eden is revisited.
What else happens here? Are human beings affected by the sin? We know that
human beings die. What does the Bible say: “the wages of sin is death.” So coming out of the
sins of the garden humankind dies. Is it only human kind that has been affected by the fall into
sin? The Bible says, “No, all of nature, all of creation,” Romans 8:22, says “all of creation
groans waiting for the coming day of redemption.” The creation itself groans waiting for this
great redemptive act of God to happen. How does creation groan? You’ve got famines,
tsunamis, earthquakes, plagues, disease, cancer and all these bad things happening. Nature
itself is waiting for the coming day when things will be made right. Have some of you realized
how messed up things are in the world and have you realized a longing for things to be made
right? Someday this thing is going to be made right and it will make sense. All the things that
are wrong are going to be made right and we long for that and we, along with creation, groan
for that. That is what this verse is talking about in Romans “all of creation groans waiting for
that coming day of redemption.”
What happens to people as far as our bodies? They go from dust and then return to
death. “From dust you are to dust you shall return.” There is a toll paid in the body. By the
way, when Jesus rises from the dead, does only his spirit raise from the dead? Or, does he
rise body and all? He rises in the body as evidenced by “put your finger in my side” and so on
and so forth. Does our body get raised? Yes. We are raised from the dead, including our
body, all of us.
Man and woman have conflict and blame. Man starts blaming woman, woman blames
man, but in this context the man blames the woman. Is Adam a stand up guy? No, the guy
blames his wife. That’s a good move I’ve done it many times. I don’t fault the guy. So the
movement is one of conflict and blaming. I want to develop this theme by coming in the back
door.
E. Curses of Genesis 3: the curse of the Serpent [18:11-23:30]
So let’s go through the curses. We’ll start with the serpent and work down from there to
the woman. What does God do? Adam blames the woman and the woman blames the
serpent. God starts with the serpent and then moves back to the woman and ultimately moves
back to the man.
The serpent comes and God says to him in chapter 3:14, “So God said to the serpent,
‘Because you have done this, cursed are you above you above all livestock and all the wild
animals; you will crawl on your belly and eat dust.’” By the way, is there a play on this word
“dust”? What’s Adam’s name? He’s called Adam because he’s taken from
the adamah [dust]. So his name is “Dusty.” What does the serpent eat? Dust. Is there a play
on this dust? Is Adam/Dusty going to go back to the dust? That’s his death. So there’s a
cycle going on.
To be honest with you was Adam’s name really “Adam?” You realize Adam’s name
was not Adam as sure as I’m standing here. Eve’s name was not Eve. The Hebrew language
was not in existence before 2000 B.C. So Adam’s name would have been in some other
language. But would his name still mean “Dusty.” The meaning of the name was probably still
the same, but the Hebrew language did not exist back before 2000 B.C. So you have to be
careful. Is the guy’s name really Peter or is it something else when you go between
languages.
How was Jesus’s name pronounced? Jesus’s name is pronounced Yehsus in
Greek. Now Jesus’ name in Hebrew would be, see if you recognize this name: “Joshua.” His
name was Jehoshua, can you hear Joshua. It means “Jehovah saves.” He is named “Jesus
because he will save his people from their sins.” It takes the meaning of his name, even
though it’s Joshua, and comes over in the Greek as “Yehsus.” So there are name changes
between languages.
Let’s get back to the serpent. The serpent eats dust. Genesis 3:15 is one of the really
significant verses in the Bible. This is a really important verse. Some of the controversy on the
date and age of the earth, as you realize, these questions are not that important because the
Bible does not really say. But Genesis 3:15 does say some very interesting things. God says,
to the serpent “Ok, serpent you’re going to move on your belly and eat dust. It also says, “I will
put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. He [who is this
“he”?] will crush your head.” Who will crush the head of the serpent? Don’t go to Jesus quite
yet. Who in the context here is this “he,” in this context? It’s the offspring of the woman. “I will
put enmity between you and the woman between your offspring,” the sons of Satan, and the
offspring of the woman. The offspring of the woman will crush your head, and the serpent will
strike his heel. So, what you have in this passage in this “proto-evangelium.” Proto means
“first.” So proto-evangelium means “the first gospel.” So what God says in this first curse on
Satan and the serpent, he says it’s going to be through the seed of the woman and the seed of
the serpent that there will be enmity, there is going to be conflict there. The seed of the
woman, one of the woman’s descendants will crush the head of the serpent. Who is the one
who is coming to crush the serpent’s head. It will be Jesus who does this. Some people take
this, as I do, as the first message of the gospel to say that through this woman, the hope is that
the serpent will be defeated, that the descendants of Satan will be defeated. It would be
through the woman’s seed that this is going to happen. This means then there is hope. Right
from the first curse, there’s hope that Satan is not going to triumph, that death and the dust will
not triumph, but that the woman’s seed will crush his head. So there is hope right here in this
curse on the serpent and Satan.
F. Curse on the Woman [23:31-45:56]
Moving on to the woman. “He said to the woman, I will greatly increase your pains in
childbearing and with pain you will give birth to children.” I do not know this by personal
experience, but I have witnessed it. It was one of the most neat things in my life. I have four
children and a grandson and I’ve witnessed the birth of all four of my children. Is there pain in
childbearing? Yes.
On the last child, the one I’ve told you about, Elliott, who went in the Marines. When
Elliott was born he didn’t come really on time. So we’re in there. I’m up at the head of my wife
and you do this breathing. This is really old stuff now. So I start the breathing routine. The
nurse is down there. I’m thinking, where is the doctor? The doctor is not here. The nurse looks
at me and says “hey, you’re a doctor aren’t you? I need help down here.” I said “Lady, I’m a
doctor but not that type of doctor. I do the breathing. I can do this really well.” I start making all
these excuses, I’m really getting nervous. If she asks me to go down there I’m going to faint. I
do this end here I don’t do that end there. She says, “get down here right now. The baby’s
coming I need help right now.” There’s no doctor. Holy cow, I didn’t pass out. I helped deliver
Elliott and maybe that’s what’s wrong with him. This is on tape too. Sorry Elliott. But actually I
helped deliver Elliott our fourth child. He was fine. A half hour later the doctor comes strutting
in there and it’s like, “where were you?” Do you know what was worse? The dude charged me
1200-1500 bucks and I’m saying wait a minute I delivered the baby I’m going to send you a bill
buddy. Actually he is a personal friend and a good doctor but he showed up half-an-hour late
was a problem. Where are you going with this? So my wife is there I’m a Christian and the
Bible says “She shall have pain in childbearing.” So here’s my point. If I say, “my wife has to
suffer pain in childbearing because she’s a Christian and the Bible says she shall have pain in
childbearing,” is that okay? That’s ridiculous. Do we fight against the curse? Yes. We give
her anesthesia to fight against the curse. Guys, we go to death, what do we say? “God cursed
us to die, so we should just give up.” No, we fight against the curse. So, we fight against the
curse. Woman shall have pain in childbearing, do you give her anesthesia, do you fight
against the curse? Yes, you do. You fight against the curse. You fight against the curse that’s
why God loves the Red Sox. Guys, if you get married make sure you’re at the birth of your
children because it will be the most wonderful thing in your life. It’s really important to your wife
too.
So there’s her pain and something else happens here and this is really tricky. We fight
against the curse, and listen to this. What does Genesis 3:16 mean? It says this: “your desire
will be for your husband, [this is part of the woman’s curse] and he will rule over you.” This is
part of the woman’s curse. What is the “woman’s desire”? “The woman will desire her
husband, but he will rule over her.” So the big question in this very tricky verse, is what is the
“woman’s desire”? What does Genesis 3:16 mean?
Now first of all, she will desire her husband sexually and he will say “back, back” and
put the brakes on. I just want to say that’s not realistic. That’s not what usually happens in
marriage and I’ve got 36 years in marriage. Does it mean she will desire her husband
sexually? This is not usually what happens in marriage, at least from my experience.
Other people suggest that her desire will be for her husband, that is, she will desire to
be subservient to her husband and that he will rule over her. I’m married to one of the nicest
women in the world. She’s wonderfully kind, caring and gentle person; is her desire to be
subservient to her husband. Yeah, right. So I question the reality of that. In order to graduate
from Gordon College you’ve got to see Fiddler on the Roof. If you don’t Dr. Wilson pops you
with that air-gun on the way out. You’ve got to see Fiddler on the Roof. This is just a
Hildebrandt thing and I don’t count for much here. There is movie that I think is really
significant. I teach Greek on the side too. It is called “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” It is
legitimate. I’ve got a friend who is totally Greek and he said that movie describes it to a
“T.” The husband comes in, “The Husband is the head of the family.” And two women are over
on the side. Unfortunately my wife and I were watching it together. The Husband comes in,
“The husband is the head of the home.” The wife turns over and she’s got a younger woman
that she is trying to mentor. And she says “Yes, dear, the husband is the head of the home.”
Then she turns aside to the girl and says, “Yes, the husband is the head of the home but the
wife is the neck and turns the head wherever she wants.” I look at my wife and it’s over what
can I say. There’s truth to that. So this idea that it would be a curse that the woman would
desire to be subservient doesn’t fit well either. So, this second option for the meaning of the
woman desiring her husband also is probably not that likely.
There was a woman from Westminster Seminary who wrote an article concerning the
meaning of the “desire of the woman,” and she brilliantly noticed that the exact same literary
phrase was used in Genesis 4:7. Now what I want to do is comment on: how to interpret
passages that are difficult? What is the woman’s desire? This is a difficult
passage. Hermeneutics is how you interpret Scripture. If you have one passage that you
know what it means, you should work from the known to the unknown. If you don’t know what
something is, you should look at other places where it may be more clear, and you bring the
clear to bear on the less clear. This is a methodology. So she looked over in chapter 4:7,
that’s the Cain and Able story. It’s the same exact structure. God comes to Cain and says
this, “and if you do what is right Cain, will you not be accepted? But, if you do not do what is
right, [now this is it] sin is crouching at the door; it [sin] desires to have you [Cain], but you must
rule over it.” Is that pretty clear? Sin is crouching at the door like a lion ready to devour Cain,
but he must hold it in place? Does sin master Cain? Yes, he killed his brother.
What is this saying about the relationship between men and women? “Her desire will
be for her husband,” as sin desires to overpower Cain, so the woman will desire to overpower
her husband. The husband then must rule over her. So what you’ve got is there’s a power
struggle and conflict in marriage and this is part of the curse. Do you fight against the curse or
do you give in to it? Do you simply accept this or do you fight against the curse. I want to
discuss how we fight against this.
Is there going to be a power struggle in marriage? I’ve been around for a while, and
I’ve seen many other marriages. My daughter just got married Labor Day weekend I zipped
over to Ohio and then drove back on Monday which is why I was so tired in class. My daughter
married a guy who is a lawyer, a University of Chicago lawyer. Does he argue in his marriage
with my daughter? Does he use logical arguments just like he would argue a case in front of a
court? The problem is my daughter is very bright, brighter than her father. Does she argue
back to him? They get in this escalating argument. He jacks it up because he doesn’t want to
lose the case. If you’re a lawyer you’ve got to know when to chill out. So he applies these
arguments. But what is the problem my daughter never loses. So she jacks up the
argument. He jacks up the argument. Pretty soon I’m praying they won’t kill each other. She
doesn’t know when to back off. So they would really go at it. It was murder. It wasn’t really
murder. That’s what I was worried about. Honestly, I’ve preached many sermons and at my
own daughter’s weddings. One of the most important things: you say “I just love him, I just
adore him.” After about one week of marriage that is all gone. Is learning how to fight in a
marriage one of the most important things you can do? There are certain things that are ugly
and dirty that you shouldn’t do. So you need to learn how resolve conflict. You need to know
when to back off and you need to know when to charge forward. In other words, there is this
dance you do and you need to learn how to dance. A lot of that is dealing with conflict. You
say, “No, no, we won’t have conflict I love him so.” I’ll tell you right now. Actually this is
terrible, but I told my kids. Have a fight with him. Find out how he fights. You say that is really
terrible it is probably bad advice but… So what I’m saying is there will be conflict in marriage.
Let’s look at male and female relationships in the Bible. This is not the big discussion,
we’ll wait until Judges to do the big discussion but I just want to introduce it here. Some people
say that the woman was to be the “helper” of man. Therefore she was viewed as subservient or
lower than the man, much like the electrician and the electrician’s helper. The electrician is the
main deal. The help is the go-fer that runs to get the screwdriver or whatever. Therefore, Eve
was considered the helper and she was secondary to the man because of this word
“helper.” In Hebrew, it is etzer. You know this word but you don’t know that you know
it. Guess who is called the etzer, besides Eve? Think of the old hymn, “God our help in ages
past, our hope for the years to come.” Nobody knows these songs anymore. It is God who is
called “the helper.” The word comes from Ebenezer. Eben means “stone”; ezer means
“help.” It means “stone of help.” God himself calls himself the etzer, but you wouldn’t say that
he was a helper like the way in which Eve was a helper. He is a helper in the sense of a
deliverer or the one who saves us. Therefore, you cannot use the fact that Eve is down here
because then God would also have to be subservient, which we know he was not. So that
argument doesn’t work.
Here’s another argument. Adam named Eve and Adam named the animals, and so
that shows that he is the “King.” The naming shows his dominion over the animals, and so he
then has dominion over her because he names her. But in chapters one and two, Eve’s name
is not mentioned. It only says God made them male and female. His name is given as Adam
but her name is not mentioned. Her name first pops up when Adam is told “Dusty, dust you
are and to dust you shall return.” Right after he is told that he will die, he turns to his wife at
that point and names her. “You death woman, you curse woman.” Oh, excuse me. Is that what
Adam does? The timing here is very significant, he names her right after he receives the
curse. In chapter 3:20, “Adam named his wife Havah.” You guys all know Havah we did this
before lehayim, to life. He names her “the living one,” the mother of all living. He doesn’t see
her as a curse, but rather that through her, she is the mother of all living. It is through this
woman that the offspring who will crush the serpent’s head will be born. He looks at his wife
and sees the mother of all living. Is he showing his dominance in naming her or is he rather
recognizing her character and destiny? He is recognizing her character and I like better than
character here, her destiny. That is, through her the seed will come that will bruise the
serpent’s head. That is beautiful because he is honoring her through this, especially since he
was just told “Adam, you’re dead, you’re going to return to dust.” In Eve, the hope is
expressed that someday this is going to turn around and he sees that in his wife. It is a
beautiful passage there.
So what about some other places in the Bible? In the New Testament, let’s just do two
verses in the New Testament then we’ll go back to the Old Testament. In Galatians “so the law
was put in charge to lead us to Christ.” Then in Galatians 3:28, in the church of Christ, “there
is neither Jew nor Greek (it was better to be a Jew in the Old Testament because they had the
promises of God, Gentiles were outsiders), neither slave nor free (in Christ we are brothers and
sisters in Christ, whether rich or poor), male nor female… you are all one in Christ
Jesus.” There is no hint of this power structure stuff.
In Ephesians 5:22 is a verse I grew up with. My father fit the Greek model there. It
often was preached at the church I grew up in, “Wives submit to your husbands as to the
Lord.” I was taught that all my life. “Wives submit to your husband.” I’m the husband now. It
didn’t go over too well. No, the truth is it went real well, my wife was a very submissive
person. She taught me many things. I’m trying to teach you what she taught me. That’s
another discussion. There are some other stories on that. She didn’t cause conflict. She was
the neck that turned the head. The head thought he was the head but then the neck turned the
head. But what is interesting to me is that, as I tried to teach you in this class, when you
interpret the Bible how do you interpret the meaning of words? Context. Context determines
meaning. When you’re in Ephesians 5:22, would you suggest that 5:21 is fairly close to the
context? Absolutely. How come when I was younger I rarely heard a sermon on Ephesians
5:21. It’s the preceding verse. It says, “Submit to one another out of reverence to
Christ.” Should the wife submit to the husband? Yes. It says here that they should submit to
one another. Should the husband submit to his wife? Yes. So the question is does my wife
serve me? Do you see how egotistical and narcissistic that is? The question is rather how do I
serve my wife? Her question is how do I serve my husband?
The question should be how should I serve my spouse? What happens to the power
struggle then in light of this? You fight against the curse by giving up power not by grabbing for
power. Who is my model? Is anyone in here Grace Brethren? Jesus comes down, “I am the
king of the universe bow down and worship me. I am the King of the Universe. The father and
I are one. You guys are servants, I am the king of the Universe.” No. Jesus pulls up on the
disciples and they are going to eat dinner and he says, “take off your shoes.” If you are Grace
Brethren they still do this to this day. Then what does Jesus do? He washes their feet. Is the
power struggle over? Here is the king of the universe getting down and washing his disciples
feet. Power struggle? No, he gives up his power, and really becomes the king when he
washes the disciples feet. Is that leadership? It was because of acts like this that the disciples
were willing to go out and die for Christ. What I’m saying is be careful about this verse
here. Beware of power grabbing in marriage conflict. When I was first married, I was a very
insecure person who initially grabbed for power, but what I’m suggesting is to be like Christ and
learn how to give it up. Therefore the power does not result from conflict, what happens is:
how can I serve her? Is that how you fight against the curse? The curse is that there will be
this power struggle there will be this conflict in marriage. The solution is to fight against it not
by grabbing power but by serving the other.
G. The curse on the man [45:57-52:59]
Now let’s look at man’s curse. Man has to face his own curse. Is work a curse? Back
in Genesis chapter 3, “To Adam he said, because you listened to your wife and ate from the
tree that I commanded you to not eat of, cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful
toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you
will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat food until you return to the
ground.” Is work a curse? You say, “yes, work is a curse.” No, go back before the fall, when
Adam and Eve were in the garden before there was any temptation, was Adam given a task to
do? Was Adam to take care of the garden and work the garden? Were Adam and Eve to work
the garden before the fall? Yes. Work is not the curse. The curse is the futility of work. Have
you ever worked for something, and then watched it all fall apart? There’s a wonderful country
song that says, “Do it anyway.” She says, “I’ll go out and sing a song that no one will
remember the next day, but I “do it anyway.” I think there’s a lot of life like that where you have
to do it anyway. You can work really hard for something and then watch it fall apart. The
futility of work; have some of you known that futility? It’s devastating when it happens, when
you put your heart and soul into something and you then have to watch it fall apart. It’s the
futility of work that is the problem.
Some of you folks are asking, “What am I going to do with my life?” What I want to
suggest is that you find some type of employment – have you seen people that work from 9 to
5 every day and they hate their work? They can’t wait to get out of work at 5 o’clock. It is
freedom to them. On the weekends, I don’t have to work anymore I just hate that job. They
party because they know on Monday they’ll have to go back to work. Do some people live that
existence? My brother is a vice president at Buffalo of a big subway system, and we had a big
discussion as we are both old men now. We looked back on life. Now I love what I do here at
Gordon College. It’s the best thing I can do in my life and God has called me to do this. I get
up every day at 5:00 or 5:30, to work on stuff, and then after this class I’ll be working on editing
this video until about mid-night so it can be up tomorrow morning for you. I love what I do. My
brother says, “I hate what I do. I can’t wait to retire.” What I’m saying is: is it possible for you
guys to find something that you love to do? Yes, there is a convergence of your vocation and
your passion when this happens there is synergy. So, I recommend finding the convergence of
your passion and your vocation and go for that.
So, futile work is the problem and that haunts all of us. Man struggles with the
dust. Basically, we’re all going to dust--to die. Some of you know what death is like because
some of you have had fathers and mothers go. It’s hard to watch. A few years ago my father
died from cancer, and I had to help him with that whole process. It was horrendous. Others of
you have had friends who have been killed in car accidents…fathers, mothers, grandfathers
and grandmothers and friends who have passed away. Is death a problem? Death is a big
problem. I hate death. I hate what cancer did to my father. I hate it. But what I want to say is
that when Jesus comes down, what does he do? It’s like Jesus comes to earth and says, “You
guys, what’s your worst problem?” What’s the big problem? It’s not futility in work, but
death. Jesus said, “Bring on your biggest problem on, and watch this? I’ll conquer death by
doing what? I’m going to conquer death by dying. I’m going to die and then I’m going to rise
from the dead.” Do we as Christians have hope beyond the grave? Is death the final
answer? Death is not the end of this thing. So we as Christians look to Jesus. Jesus rose
from the dead. Jesus says that when he comes back when we see him and we shall be like
him for we will see him as he is. Someday even my dad is going to rise up. I always wonder
what he thinks about when I’m teaching this class. He is probably up there
chuckling. Someday my Dad will rise again and we’re going to be with the Lord forever. What
concept is that? This is the Immanuel concept where we are back in the garden with God
forever and ever. So the Scripture starts that way and the Scripture ends that way with us
coming back to God in our bodies, alive from the dead like Jesus to live with him for ever and
ever. That’s a beautiful story. That’s the best. Death is not the victor, Jesus blew that
away. This is the good news. Yes, man’s going to struggle, we’re all going to die. I’ve got less
time than most of you guys but it’s okay.
We’re going to move a little more quickly now. Genesis 1-3 sets up the whole rest of
the Bible. That’s why I have taken so much time on it. The creation accounts and the garden
set up the rest of the Bible which is God’s work of redemption in bringing us back to
himself. You have seen this in the book of Exodus. Did you see redemption there? Israel was
enslaved in Egypt and what did God do? He came down and freed his slaves, took them and
gave them his law. He set them free on his land. So God is redeeming his people out of
Egypt, and he is going to free his people out of the bondage in Babylon and bring them
back. In Jesus, he is going to bring us back to himself. Ultimately, someday it is going to be a
face to face forever. So this is where the whole thing is moving. So Genesis 1-3 sets it up and
after that you have the redemptive movement of God redeeming his people over and over. Do
his people always say, “Oh, now God is redeeming us and we will serve you forever
now?” What do his people do? He gives them manna, what do they do? It’s like Lane food,
“I’m sick of this. The same food all the time.” Most of us who don’t live on campus say that
would be really nice because tonight I have to go home and cook chicken and broccoli. It gets
long after a while when you have to cook and you can’t cook.

H. Cain and Abel [53:00-61:29]

 Now let’s move on to the Cain and Able story. This is the first account of murder in the
Bible. Cain is going to kill Abel. Who offers the meat offering, Abel or Cain? Abel does the
meat offering. Is the meat offering going to be with the shedding of blood? Meat offering is
with the shedding of blood. When I say cereal offering, what is the problem with cereal
offerings? I’m not talking about Cheerios. When you talk about cereal in the ancient Near
East, it is basically wheat and barley. By the way, does Cain offer up the crops of the ground,
the wheat and barley? Yes. Which one was acceptable to God? Abel’s offering was
acceptable. When I grew up, people said the reason Abel’s was acceptable was because it
was a blood sacrifice. “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission for sin.” Abel’s
offering was accepted because it was the shedding of blood and therefore it was an acceptable
offering. Whereas Cain’s was not a blood shed offering so his was not acceptable. Cain’s did
not shed blood but was grains and cereals. But Cain’s was not rejected because it was not a
blood offering. Is that the real reason why God accepted Able’s offering and rejected Cain’s
offering? The answer is: “No.” Did God command Israel to offer cereal offerings? Yes, he did
in Leviticus chapter 2. When you go to Leviticus chapter 2, God commands Israel to offer up
their grains, the first fruits of their harvest. Grains were legitimate sacrifices to God. Cain’s
problem was not in the material that he offered. Did Cain have a bad heart and hatred toward
to his brother? The issue was his heart, not the stuff that he offered. So don’t get misguided
because God had told them to offer up cereal offerings.
She says that Abel offered up the choicest. I want to object to that because it moves
the crime to the offering when it was not in the offering itself, but it was the heart of the one
who brings the offering. Throughout Scripture that’s more of the point than the particulars of
the offering. So, I think that we are misguided when we try to get it down to the type of
offering. I think that misses the point. God says in a lot of places, “I desire mercy and not
sacrifice.” So the problem is sometimes we focus on the sacrifice and don’t realize what he is
really asking for is mercy, justice and righteousness--that’s what he focused on.
So God comes to Cain and says “Cain, if you do this you’re in bad shape.” Cain said to
his brother Abel, “Let’s go out into the field.” While they were in the field Cain attacked his
brother Abel and killed him. The Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t
know,” he said. Then he makes this classic line. This is a classic line you should all know: “am
I my brother’s keeper?” This is a classic line in Scripture. Cain said to God, “am I my brother’s
keeper?” What was the answer he was suggesting to God? Cain thought the answer was: No,
I’m not my brother’s keeper. That is what Cain was insinuating in this rhetorical question. Cain
thought the answer to this question was that he was not his brother’s keeper.
However, are we our brother’s keeper in actuality? Yes. So Cain kills his brother. This
brings up a lot of things in terms of the construction of Genesis. Have you ever seen the good
brother/bad brother situation in a family? Do you get other things like this going on from the
competitive nature of siblings? Do you ever have competition between brothers and sisters in
the family? I was in a family with five kids and I was the oldest. My last sister was born five or
six years after the rest of us. So my father when I grew up, I don’t even know how to say this in
your culture. My father was a strict person. I would call him a man of the belt. Now as soon
as I say that you guys and cry, “Abuse, abuse. He actually hit you with a belt.” We called that
discipline in those days, not abuse. Did my father love me? The answer is “yes,” and that is
why he did that. He was strict with us. He was very strict with my brother and I, but by the time
my sister who was five years in the gap there, my sister, my brother, and I stood back and
wondered how she got away with everything. She had my father wrapped around her little
finger. Did we get jealous? We could see the difference. What happened here? What
happened here is that my father loosened up as he got older. So the competitive nature that
you see here is also seen in Genesis.
Tell me about sibling rivalry in Genesis. Give me an example of sibling rivalry in
Genesis. Leah and Rachel had a big time sibling rivalry. You said, Jacob and Esau. Has
anybody got another one. Joseph and his brothers are a good example. The theme of sibling
rivalry is a big recurring theme in Genesis. When I was a kid, my brother and I used to fight all
the time. One time he got really angry at me, picked up a butter knife and threw it at me as
hard as he could. “Holy cow, what are you doing with a knife?” So I threw my arms up in
protection and the knife landed in my arm and stuck in my arm hanging there. I’ll never forget
the feeling of having this knife hanging out of my arm. My brother is the greatest guy in the
world. He’s crazy, but he’s great. So after that we both immediately thought, “When dad
comes home. This is bad. He’s going to kill us when he gets home.” So, he tries pulling on it
and we can’t get it out. So, we went to my mother. Why did we bring our mother into it? We
have to face our father and that is absolute terror. So we went to my mother to try to get her
on side. She can’t pull it out either. So, then what happens? I had to pull it out myself. So
then what happens? My dad comes home, we hear the car and we run for the hills, hiding
under the bunk beds. We’re ready. Dad gets home, and my mother goes out to smooth this
out the best she can. All of a sudden, we here my dad started to yell. He starts yelling and we
hear it down in the basement. “Cain! Cain! He tried to kill his brother!” Now my brother and I
are both old men now. So you have these two old men just sitting around laughing because
we remember this thing with my dad. This has always been a very special passage for me. I
should say that my brother is my best friend in my life. But I don’t recommend throwing butter-
knives.
I. Curse on Cain [61:18-64:41]
Now let’s discuss Cain’s curse. Cain gets cursed, and what happens with the curse of
Cain? The curse of Cain is that he is to wander. He is condemned to be a wanderer, going
from place to place as part of his curse. Cain is going to be that for the rest of his life--a
wanderer, which means he is going to be alone pretty much for the rest of his life. So we are
back to this aloneness thing. Is aloneness one of the worst things in the world? I say this
because a lot of my life has been spent alone and it is one of the worst feelings, feeling like you
are alone in the entire universe. It is one of the most depressing things I have ever
experienced in my life. Do people have problems in our culture when they are wanderers? Do
people move a lot in our culture? When you are young, you are pretty settled, but when you
get older you start to move a lot. My wife and I moved eight times in the first eight years of our
marriage. One of the moves was to Israel, and the other one was back to Bristol,
Tennessee. Anyway, what I am saying is we moved eight times and after a while, we moved
and moved and moved. It’s great to travel, but have you ever traveled so much that you
become tired of always traveling and you just want to go home? What is home? My wife and I
have struggled with understanding where home is for us now. It’s almost like our roots have
been cut off. Where’s home? It’s kind of like where you are is home. It’s like that because we
have no roots. I just want you to think about that. I don’t know what to do about this
myself. You have a sense of home, the feeling of place and belonging and you put your own
roots down there. I know our culture is all about wandering, but what I’m saying is to be careful
about wandering because you can end up wandering all your life. Cain was cursed with this
wandering. Wandering is fine when it comes to exploring, but you must be careful not to lose
that sense of home, rootedness and feeling of belonging or a sense of place.
So Cain becomes the wanderer. In chapter 4 it says, “Cain went out from the
presence of the Lord.” So what you get is Cain moving to what? Is he moving toward or away
from God? He is moving away from God and hiding from God. So, that’s Cain’s problem
there.
So the story of Cain is rather tragic as the first murder in the Bible. By the way, did
Cain say, “Wait a minute, I murdered my brother, but you did not give the Ten Commandments
yet. They don’t come along till Exodus 20. I did not do anything wrong. You did not tell me
not to kill him. I did not know what that meant and that it was wrong.” Did Cain know the Law
of God written on his heart? Do human beings have consciences? Yes, the Law of God is
written on their heart (Rom. 2). He knew it was wrong. You have to work with that in terms of
the revelation of God in history.
 J. Flood: Sons of God and Daughters of Men [64:42-68:25]
Here’s another one: the Flood. I want to introduce this. You have the flood, where the sons of
God married the daughters of men in Genesis 6. Who were the sons of God? It says, “Now
when men began to increase in number on the earth, daughters were born to them. The sons
of God saw the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they
chose. And God said, ‘My spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal. His days
will be 120 years.’” So he’s limiting it down. Later it says God was grieved over the sons of
God marrying the daughters of men. Who are these sons of God and these daughters of
men? I want to suggest three solutions to this. I want to tell you that I’ve taught and believed
each one of these at various points in my life. So, I’m not sure what the answer is one hundred
percent guaranteed. I’m saying these “answers” are possible solutions.
Why did God get so angry at these sons of God marrying these daughters of men?
Why did they have kids that were Giants or Nephilim? Why were their children so special? By
the way, most people always skipped this. Nobody can figure who these people were for
sure. But everybody skips this, “The earth was filled with violence because of them.” God
says, “I will surely destroy the earth.” He destroys the earth not only because of the Sons of
God, but also because the earth was filled with violence. What is the Hebrew word for
violence? Now when you say Hamas, it is a hard “h.” Nate says he loves humus. You
love humus, but it is terrible in America. But in Israel, you eat the real stuff. It’s amazing. It’s
like eating a Philadelphia cheesesteak outside of Philadelphia. It’s just not the same. There’s
a certain place in Israel that has the best humus in the world. The other thing you have to eat it
Baklava some time. Anyway, Hamas, let’s get off the food stuff. Why do you guys know what
that Hebrew word means? It is because you have heard of the group Hamas. The group in
Israel today is called Hamas. What does that word mean in Arabic and Hebrew? It means
“violence.” Do you get a clue what is going on with them? Violence is their thing because it is
embedded in their name. We have the Sons of God and the daughters of men, and this is
going to take longer than I want. So I don’t want to break off the discussion. What I do
want you to do is to do the whole book of Genesis in sixty seconds. We’ll do Bible-robics in
sixty seconds and then we’re done.

Reading: From the Flood Through Early Abraham

Dr. Ted Hildebrandt, OT History, Lit. and Theology,
© 2012, Dr. Ted Hildebrandt

This is Dr. Ted Hildebrandt in the eighth lecture of his Old Testament History, Literature and
Theology class. This lecture will begin with the sons of God and the daughters of men in
Genesis chapter 6 and proceed to Abraham, God’s friend, the geography of Mesopotamia as
well as three cuts in Abraham’s life and his three alleged “children.”

B. Genesis 6: Sons of God and daughters of men [2:01-3:27]

Let’s pick up the story. We’re working on Genesis; we have finally gotten out of Genesis 1 to 3.
So today we’re going to move into chapter 6 and we’re going to try to move through things
rather quickly to get up into Abraham’s life. So we were going to talk about the flood and what’s
going on there with the sons of God and the daughters of men.
In Genesis chapter 6, let me just read this story there. It says “When men began to
increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw the
daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord
said, ‘My spirit will not contend with mortals forever, for he is mortal, his days will be 120
years.’” So what you get is a shrinking down of human longevity. Remember they were all
living to be 900 and something? Now God says their days are going to be shrunk down to 120
years. “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of
God went into the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old,
men of renown.” So the question is: the flood comes as a result of the sons of God marrying
the daughters of men, why does God get so upset with that? Who were these sons of God? So
we want to work through some of the questions. Who were the sons of God and why did God
get so angry? Actually the flood is the result of this.
C. Sethite View [3:28-5:06]
The first his suggestion is that the sons of God were the worshippers of God and the
daughters of men were ones that didn’t know God. So basically it would be an interfaith
marriage. Actually what you have here is what’s called “the Sethite view.”
The Sethite view is that the sons of Seth were the godly line. The sons of Cain were the
ungodly line (daughters of men). There was this inter-marriage between the sons of Seth and
the sons of Cain. By the way, in other parts of Scripture does God get upset over
intermarriage between believers and nonbelievers? Do you remember in the New Testament it
says, “do not be unequally yoked with non-believers”? Jewish people marrying--do you
remember Solomon marrying other wives from other cultures and that led his heart astray to
worship other gods? So the Sethite view plays off of that and says that basically the line of
Seth was Abel’s replacement and so Seth becomes the godly line after Abel was killed. Cain’s
descendants intermarry and that intermarriage is the problem. So this is called the Sethite
view. There’s some support for that as seems to fit naturally in the context. My problem is the
term “sons of God” is never used to exclusively identify Abel’s descendants.
D. Kingship View [5:07-8:07]
There’s a second suggestion that’s pretty interesting and it’s this: that the sons of God
were the kings and nobles. That the kings were called… and by the way in ancient
Mesopotamia did the kings call themselves the “sons of the gods”? That title was used
because the King was considered a son of the god. So what it would be then is that these
kings, these people of acquired power, these “sons of God,” the kings, took women which
would be basically developing their harem. In other words, they took women into their harem
and they multiplied wives. Do harems present a big problem both in the ancient world and in
the Bible? So this would be the kings establishing a harem taking women into this harem--
multiple wives and that becomes a problem.
Now I skipped something. It’s very interesting to me and it’s something that I don’t think
most people pick up that it was not just these sons of God marrying daughters of men but
there’s another word that is involved here. This is over in verse 11 of chapter 6. It says “Now
the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and full of violence (hamas).” So apparently there was
violence mixed in here too, that was also part of the problem. Now what is the Hebrew word for
violence? The Hebrew word for violence is hamas. Now some of you may be used to humus.
Does anybody like humus? I don’t like the American humus. I like the real Arab humus. It’s
what you get in Jerusalem right across from the fourth station of Christ on the Via Dolorosa.
The guy has the best humus in the world. It’s like eating a Philadelphia cheese steak outside
of Philly. It just doesn’t work. Do you know what I’m saying? In Philadelphia you get the
best. Humus and hamas are not the same thing. Hamas means “violence.” By the way, have
you ever heard of the Palestinian group called Hamas? Do you understand? There’s a whole
group in Israel today named Hamas. By the way do you understand what the root of this word
means? It means “violence.” What are these people bent on doing to Israel? Violence. So
this Hamas group, even their name means “violence.” So everybody says, “Well, Hamas is
really a peaceful organization.” They’re really just trying to play the Palestinian rights card.
What’s their name? Hamasdoes that tell you anything? I mean it should tell you a lot but most
people don’t know that.
So anyway, these kings were involved in this and some people think then that these
kings were involved in violence, oppressing the people that were below them and so
this hamas was happening. That’s the second view. Is the kingship idea going to be developed
in the Bible? Did the kings have multiple wives in a bad way later on with Solomon’s 700 wives,
and 300 concubines. So there’s some grounds for that.
E. Angel View [8:08-19:05]
This last view is called the angel view. I should say actually at various points of my life
I’ve held each one of these views so I don’t feel real dogmatic about this. The view that I hold
currently is the “angel view” possibility. Largely it’s because in Job chapter 1 verse 6 it talks
about the “sons of God” coming before God. God says to Satan “You’ve been out considering
the world, have you considered my servant Job? Satan says Oh, yeah, Job is just good to you
because you’re good to him. If you take away what he’s got he’ll curse you to your face.” So
that was God in the heavenly council addressing them as “the sons of God.” The sons of God
were angels that came before God. Something interesting over in Hebrews chapter 13:2 it also
says regarding angels and human beings. Hebrews chapter 13 verse 2, sorry for jumping over
to the New Testament, but it says, “Keep on loving each other as brothers. Do not forget to
entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing
it.” So can angels take on human form? Apparently sometimes people don’t know it and it’s
possible they were angels.
Now I’m going to tell a story here so how I’m going to walk over here and this is going to
be a story. So once upon a time I was in Warsaw Indiana and I was driving down Route 15
and there was a guy hitchhiking. Now question: do people hitchhike a much today anymore?
Not much anymore. Did people in my generation? I hitchhiked home from college and all over.
So this guy was hitchhiking and I thought “Man, I haven’t seen a person hitchhiking in a long
time.” It looked like he was obviously Hispanic and he needed a ride. He was probably in his
mid-30 s so I thought I drove my car past him once and I thought you know I should pick him
up. Now question do I have a problem here because my wife always freaks out when I do this
kind of thing. But I said “Hey, it’s just me and I’ve got at home my wife and kids but in the car
it’s just me. So I was coming back the other way and so I thought I’m going to pick him up. So I
picked the guy up and as we rode he told me he got drunk or something, he was in his bed, in
his house, and the police came in and yanked him out of his bed and hauled him down to jail
and he actually got tried for drunkenness. He claimed he wasn’t drinking and driving because
he didn’t have a car, obviously. “They came in my house and got me and pulled me down
here.” So he tells me his tale of woe. So we drive and I thought you know it would only take
me 5 minutes to drive him to the other route, Route 13, and then he’d have a clear shot to
Syracuse which was where he was going. So I drove the guy over there and this is no joke and
pretty weird. The guy gets out of the car and so we talked and I really enjoyed the
conversation. It was great. I got to help the guy out and he gets out of the car. As the guy gets
out of the car, this is the honest truth, I still don’t know what to make of this. He looks at me
and he says “You know some people have entertained angels unaware.” He shut the door and
walked down the road. I swear I didn’t make this up. This actually happened. Now I don’t know
whether he was just a Spanish guy who had a little too much to drink and it was still in him or
something else. As I was sitting there I was like where in the world did that come from—a
Spanish guy quoting the Bible to me. It was freaky. But anyways, I’m not saying he was an
angel because I couldn’t see his halo but all I’m saying is--you never know.
Now let me go back and take this in a different direction. Is it possible then you’re down
in Boston and there’s a homeless person sitting on the side of the street. Is it
possible? Hebrews 13 is about showing hospitality. You never know. So what I’m saying is
Christian people should we feel compassion, give hospitality and those types of things toward
homeless people. You never know that might be an angel sitting there and you just never know
(Mat. 25:35ff.). So all I’m saying is be hospitable and generous.
Hebrews seems to indicate that there are angels who take on human form. By the way,
you guys already know this. Remember when Abraham and those three guys came up and
Sarah made dinner for them? Were those angels who came up and apparently you have got to
figure that out. But wait a minute but Matthew 23 it says that angels neither marry nor are given
in marriage. Well, what I’m suggesting is that these are fallen angels. These are not angels in
heaven, but these are fallen angels and that this is a possibility.
 Now that’s a different question. He’s talking about the Yahweh Malach the Angel of the
Lord in the burning bush (Exod. 3). It calls him the “Angel of the Lord.” Now let me just work
with the angel concept a little bit. The word “angel” simply means “messenger.” So sometimes
in the book of Revelation it talks about “the angel” of the church at Colossae or Laodicea and
that simply means “the messenger” that went to that church. So it doesn’t necessarily mean an
angel flying with wings kind of thing. It may simply mean “messenger.” The term “angel” can
mean “messenger.” Now it’s also the Angel of the Lord. So it could be the Lord’s representative
was in the bush. But the problem is that title “the Angel of the Lord” is used and when you’re in
the bush, when the bush goes to speak, what does he say? The bush is asked “What is your
name?” Ok. Let me just do the bush thing. So Moses goes up to the burning bush and he asks
“what is your name?” and do you remember just before that the bush said, “takeoff your shoes
because you’re standing on holy ground.” Now does a normal angel come up and say “Hey,
take off your shoes. You’re on holy ground.” Do you worship an angel? By the way in Daniel
and the book of Revelation a guy drops down and starts worshiping this awesome angel. The
guy’s bowing down and the first thing the angel says is: “Get up. “Don’t do it. I’m not God.” The
burning bush--take off your shoes. Is this a regular run-of-the-mill angel? And then when he
asks him his name he says, “I am that I am.” An angel doesn’t respond like that. That’s God’s
name. So in the burning bush we have Jehovah/Yahweh, God in the bush. It’s the angel of the
Lord. A lot of people would suggest that it was Jesus Christ, the supreme incarnate Christ in
the bush. He is God and he speaks and he is Yahweh. So he says my name is Jehovah and
my name is “I am that I am.” The Angel of the Lord title seems to be a title that designates also
God himself and when the Angel of the Lord speaks, a lot of times, it’s God. So you have got to
work with that. Sorry for going off on that tangent.
Where are we here? Angels don’t marry. So what we’re saying is these angels are
fallen angels. There’s also a passage in Corinthians that talks about angels looking down on
women. It gets pretty weird. So I’m just saying it may have been angels. There may have been
angels intermarrying with women. By the way, would that explain then the fact that they were
having children that were giants and strong. So that’s a possibility.
Now, which one of these answers is right. Like I said, I’ve held, at various points in my
life, each of these positions. So I don’t know which one’s exactly right. I’m with this angel view
now. But there are certain things you just can’t know.
Now people say what about the Nephilim? Nobody knows who these Nephilim are.
That’s back before the flood. So we don’t know who these Nephilim are. When you don’t know
something, by the way, this is an important hermeneutical principle: when you don’t know
something in Scripture how do you tell the meaning of a word? Context. I’m going to say this a
hundred times in this course. What determines meaning? Context determines meaning. But
you look at the “Nephilim” term and you say. We know that the Nephilim are a group of people
so we know that from context. Do we know what group of people it is? The answer is, “No.” So
when you don’t know from context where do you go next? A lot of times you go to the
etymology or the history or root of the word. So what’s the etymology? What is the root, the
historical meaning of that? To naphal means “to fall.” So these are “the fallen ones.” The
Nephilim are the fallen ones. Can you see how that ties in to the fallen angel view?
What’s the problem with depending on etymology for meaning? This is a classic
example. So I go home to my wife and I say, I never call her honey but anyway, “Honey, you
are ‘cute’ in the original sense of that word.” Well, what’s the problem with the word “cute”? The
word “cute” in the original sense of the word meant “bow-legged.” And so that’s probably not a
good thing to say to your wife because she’ll probably think… anyway, you don’t want to go
there. When you say the word “cute,” did you ever use it in the original sense? Do meanings
change over time? Can you go back to the history of the word and claim that its original
meaning is what it means now? No, it doesn’t, so you have got to be careful. By the way, if
you’re in English and you want to find the history of a word where do you go? For you guys the
first place you go is the Internet. But after the Internet if you go to a real book, they have real
books with real pages in them. There are two volumes about this thick it’s called the OED,
the Oxford English Dictionary. In the Oxford English Dictionary [OED] will it go on the word
“cute” for two pages of cute until it gets back to the root meaning of the word in Anglo Saxon or
Latin or something like that. Then it will give you the original root. Does the history of a word,
its etymology, determine its meaning? No, it doesn’t. So you have got to be real careful about
this. Be careful of those kinds of etymological arguments. Meaning in context is what
determines meaning not the history of the word. So I don’t put much stock in the Nephilim are
“fallen ones” approach. I put a big question mark by that. I think it’s just the only straw we’ve
got so we just grab it.
F. God’s Grief and Tears in Heaven [19:06-24:49]
Now this is interesting, in Genesis chapter 6 verse 6 it says this concerning God: “And
the LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become and that every
inclination of the thoughts in his heart was evil all the time. And the LORD was grieved that he
had made man on the earth and his heart was filled with pain.” My question comes up: Is there
grief or are there tears in heaven? I just like Eric Clapton so it’s one of my favorites. Are there
tears in heaven? The answer is: I think Clapton was right. Would you say God is pretty much
in heaven? Yes. We’re not there, he’s there. Does he feel grief in heaven? The Bible states
explicitly that God feels grief. What I want to suggest to you is there is grief in heaven. God
himself, as it says in Scripture, feels grief and that he feels pain in heaven. So what I want to
suggest to you is there is grief; there is pain in heaven.
Can God be broken hearted? What I would like to suggest to you, and I’m staying over
here for this one, is who is the being in the universe that suffers the most? What I’m suggesting
to you is that God is the most grieving being in the universe because he made things right and
it got all messed up. He loves us and when pain and weird stuff happens he grieves over
that. So God’s the most grieving being but you say, “but wait a minute but doesn’t the book of
Revelation at the end of the book of Revelation 22 state that God’s going to wipe away all
tears. At the end of the Bible when God wipes away all tears, what does that assume? That
there were tears to be wiped away. So what I’m saying is God wipes away all tears assumes
that there are tears in heaven. So Clapton is right. There are tears in heaven.
Now question: is there coming a day when those tears will be wiped away? Is that
now? It’s not now. As long as there’s sin and corruption does God feel pain? Someday the
world’s going to be made new and those tears will be wiped away. What an interesting way to
look at God here. Is God sorry over something he did? Does God have regrets? Do parents
ever have regrets over their kids? I love my kids but there have been moments where I had
regret. Can my kids make choices and I feel the pain as a parent of their choices? Can they
make choices that hurt really badly? You better believe it. As a matter of fact, the more I love
them the worse it gets. If I didn’t give a rip about my kids, would I care? But the fact that I love
my kids does that make me vulnerable? You see what I’m saying? It is the fact that I love my
kids that makes me vulnerable. Well, we better get out of there. One of my children made
choices that really has been devastating. What I’m saying is if I didn’t care, it wouldn’t hurt.
God made man. So he’s gone back and saying he’s thinking back on the whole thing
and he’s feeling grieved with the whole situation. Let me back it out a little bit. He was grieved
that he had made man. If they were still in the garden would he be grieving? No. So he is
grieved why? There is this intermarriage, there’s this violence, there’s this stuff he describes in
the chapter. So that’s why he’s grieving. It’s over their wickedness, their evil. So then he takes
a step back from that. He’s thinking about why did I ever make man since all they’re doing is
corrupt. They’re all totally corrupt and that’s when he focuses on Noah.
What I’m saying is take it with what it says and you have to put that in context
right. The context in Genesis 6 is this intermarriage and the violence that’s happening. So I’m
saying you can’t take this verse out of context and just say it says, “God regrets that he ever
made mankind and so he’s just bailing out on them totally.” No, there was a reason why he felt
that way and you need to explore the reason why? It’s a really important point. You’ve got a
verse and you can’t yank it out of context. You have got to look at it in context. Why did God
feel that way? It tells you in the context why he feels that way. So you have got to relate it to
other verses. You just can’t pull it out of context like that. So we’re back to the main thesis:
context determines meaning. You can’t take things out of Scripture sometimes and then
universalize them, you have got to understand the context in which they’re given.
G. Can God change his mind? [24:50-25:43]
Can God change his mind? Going back to what she was just raising. Can God change
his mind? He makes man, can he change his mind? Are we going to see God change his
mind? Actually you guys have read Exodus, did God change his mind in Exodus? Yes.
Remember when they make the golden calf and he comes down to wipe them out. Moses
prays and God changes his mind. He almost killed Moses and backs off on that in Numbers.
So we ask what does it mean for God to change his mind? I don’t want to develop the whole
thing here but God made man and he has apparently regrets over that. What does that mean
for God to have regrets? Again we’re going to see this in later texts so I just want to drop it in at
this point and say we’re going to get to other texts that are much more explicit where we’ll have
more context and we can actually sort out what that means. But all I want you to do is just have
you think about can God change his mind. What does that mean?
H. The Curse of Noah on Ham [25:44-36:50]
In chapter 9 Noah comes out of the ark with all the animals two by two and seven of the
clean ones. Why seven clean ones? Because he needs to sacrifice the clean ones afterwards.
By the way did Genesis ever tell us about clean and unclean animals? No, when did we learn
about clean and unclean animals? It’s way over in Leviticus. Leviticus, which you guys are
going over this week, tells us about clean and unclean. But did Noah know which were clean
and unclean? So it is possible God created a whole bunch of guidelines that had not been
recorded for us but Noah knew which was clean and unclean.
So Noah comes out of the ark and what’s the first thing he does? “Noah was a man of
the soil and he proceeded to plant a vineyard and he drank some of its…” What? Wine. What’s
the problem when you’ve got a vineyard when you have no refrigeration? You better drink it
quickly or is it going to turn. You take it, and you turn your grape juice into what? It’s going to
turn that way anyway. It’s going to turn sour or you turn it into wine. So he plants a vineyard,
and now he’s been on a boat for about a year or something like that? He comes out, plants his
vineyard, he drank some of its wine and he became drunk and lays uncovered inside of his
tent. “And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers
outside, but Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it across their shoulders. Then they
walked backwards and covered their fathers nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way
so that they would not see their father’s nakedness. Noah awoke from his wine and found out
what his youngest son had done to him and said “cursed be …” and then “the lowest of slaves
will he be to his brothers” and Noah goes off and curses.
What did Ham fail to do? Cover his dad. Now, by the way, is it a problem that a child
sees his father. My son and I used to do Tae Kwon Do together. So now we’d go over there,
did I hide from my son and say “Son, you have to leave here because I don’t want you to see
your father’s nakedness”? So your father will never shower in front of you. Is that what this is
talking about? No. So there seems to be something more than just that. So rather than
covering his father like he should have, does he expose his father? Yes. He goes off to get his
brothers. Now do his brothers do the right thing and walk backwards to cover their father’s
nakedness? This is a really hard thing in our culture, is pride and shame really big in certain
cultures? And in certain cultures you’ve got this taboo that it is really wrong to shame your
parents. Do some cultures feel that very very strongly, the notion of shame and honor?
By the way, do some cultures feel that very strongly? Now I’m talking about Detroit. Do
you remember that? These two girls in the car in Detroit and their father was shamed by these
two girls dating non-Muslims? The girls are in the car and the girl in the backseat is on her
cellphone and her father pulls out a gun and shoots his own daughter in the car. That was in
Detroit, in America, and the girl in the backseat, she’s screaming on the phone “Dad, dad” and
she’s screaming on a 911 call that her father just shot her sister. The father then turns the gun
in the back, and you hear the gun go off then the cellphone drops silent. Did that happen in
America, in Detroit? Now by the way, you guys are giving me a lot of blank stares. Do you guys
not know about that? Now let me just say this. Did the media put that out there or did the
media cover that up? It was covered up. Why? Because it was politically incorrect to say
anything about the background; the obvious background of the Muslim father. This guy was so
offended as a father that his girls had shamed him that he killed them. By the way, are there
honor killings quite frequent in America? Will you ever hear about them in the media and the
answer is: no. Now you guys must ask yourselves “I wonder why we never hear about this.”
Now there’s some political agenda stuff there. This is political correctness gone amuck. Now
question: in that culture that that father was in, is shame and honor a really important idea?
Do you guys remember that tsunami that had hit Japan? And do you remember some
of the leaders they were worried that the leaders there were going to commit suicide because
they were shamed because they didn’t know that the tsunami was going to come in there and
destroy that nuclear reactor? They were worried that some of the leaders in Japan were going
to commit suicide. In that culture if you are shamed by not doing something like that the people
can react strangely.
So what I’m saying is, in America, do we care about shame and honor? In our
culture. Are we a no shame culture? In other cultures shame and honor are really really
important. So what you have here is the shaming of the father, the exposing of the father.
Several years ago, I read Ugaritic literature. In Ugaritic literature, this is just north of
Israel, in some of the Ugaritic tablets, it says that one of the duties, and it’s listed out explicitly,
that one of the duties of sons is to cover their father’s nakedness. That was the duty of a
son. The duty of the son is to cover their father’s nakedness. So it would be like… your father
gets drunk. Should the son drive the father home and take care of the father, instead of
exposing him? So I think that’s what you’ve got here-- the shaming and dishonoring of the
father.
So Noah then wakes up, finds out what his sons did, finds out what his other son had
done, and so he then he curses his son and he says, “the lowest of slaves will he be to his
brothers.” Now Ham’s descendants go where? If you follow the family tree do we have the
genealogies of these kids? Ham’s descendants become Cush. Cush’s goes down into Ethiopia
and so basically Ham’s descendants go down into Africa. When Noah curses them he says,
“The lowest of saves will he be to his brothers.” Some people have argued that this is the curse
on Africa and that this curse “the lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers” that Ham is cursed
and that his descendants will be slaves. This is a curse on Africa and the African slaves. The
Bible tells us that this is the curse of Noah. Therefore it legitimizes that in some sense. Have
people used that argument? Yes, that argument has been used.
I misread the text but she caught me. Well, let me read what it actually says. “Noah
gets up and says cursed be Ham?” He doesn’t say that. He says “Cursed be Canaan.”
Canaan’s descendants--this is real hard. Canaan’s descendants settle where? In the land of
Canaan. Where’s the land of Canaan? That’s the Promised Land, that’s the land of
Israel. Now Canaan’s descendants become who? That’s really tough again. When you don’t
know who they are just put a “ite” or “tite” on the end. Jebusite, Hittite, Gergashite, ok so it’s
what? So here it’s Canaanite. The Canaanites settle in the promised land which would
eventually be the land promised to Israel.
Do you see the point here? So Canaan is being cursed here, it’s not the descendants
of Ham in Africa. This has nothing to do with the Cushites and the Africans and the slavery
there. It has everything to do with the Canaanites. Now, by the way, will the Canaanites and
the Israelites butt heads? There’s going to be battles later on between the Canaanites and the
Israelites. So this foreshadows that battle with the Canaanites, not the enslavement of
Africans.
Have you still got this thing? Ham is the son of Noah and exposes Noah’s nakedness
and defiled or shames his father. I think what you have here is lex talionis, the law of
retaliation. You’ll see this later and we’ll develop it more. This is the eye for eye, tooth for tooth;
as you have done to me so it will be done to you. So I think what Noah does here is he says,
“As you, Ham, have shamed me and you are my son, so your son will shame you.” So I think
that’s what he’s doing by saying “Canaan” here. Now by the way is this conjecture? Yes. This
is conjecture on my part. I’m trying to put it together why the Canaanites are cursed. But it
seems to be this reciprocal thing as you have done to me, your son will do to you. Canaan is
picked out I think because that’s a foreshadowing of what Israel will do and so you get that
foreshadowing already set up in the scriptures.
Anyway this gets pretty complicated so where did Ham’s descendants settle? We said
some of them went down to Africa but some of them were the Canaanites. Was the curse to
enslave the Africans? No. This has nothing to do with that. Canaan is the one who’s cursed
here not Cush and Ham’s other descendants. So who was actually cursed? Canaan.
I. Individual and corporate personality [36:51-41:10]
Now this is the broader question and this one gets difficult as well. We’re dealing with
lots of cultural issues here and some these cultural issues get really hard. Especially when we
live in America. Do we deal with lots of shame and honor in our culture? No. But in other
cultures it’s life and death as we’ve experienced in America even lately with some of the stuff
that’s gone on then hushed up. Is it right that the children suffer from the sins of the parents? I
also want to think about it in terms of how does punishment happen? We are Americans, do
we see ourselves as individuals? We see ourselves as individuals. Do you realize that in other
cultures, they don’t see themselves as individuals but they see themselves as part of a group?
Their identity is wrapped up in their family group. By the way, will the Bible have certain family
groups be judged as whole families? So you get this idea that this judgment falls on a whole
group of people.
Now, even as Americans does this group thing happen even in America? For example,
my son and I were discussing something like this and he came up with this. He said, suppose
you guys were born in Afghanistan. Now question you’re not Taliban, you’re just farming your
little plot. You’ve got 2 acres of ground and you got a few sheep and goats, mostly goats.
You’re poverty stricken, you’ve got a wife and couple of kids and all of a sudden you didn’t do
anything and all of a sudden there’s this 6 foot 2, 200 pound marine guy busting in the door of
your house and he goes through everything in your house. Did you do anything to deserve
that? You didn’t do anything to deserve that. What did you do? The only thing you did to
deserve that was that you were an Afghani. You were an Afghan person. Does the Taliban do
bad stuff and does that affect other people? Yes.
Let me put it in an American context. Don’t do this ok. You’re out driving in a car and it’s
one o’ clock in the morning and one of your friends has had too much to drink and is driving.
You’re in the car and there are four kids in the car, and he’s been drinking too much. When he
gets in a wreck, who walks away? He does. Is it possible other people in the car get killed and
he walks away? Does that bother me? You better believe it bothers me because in one case I
knew the kid’s name. He was a friend of mine. What I’m trying to say to you. Is it possible to be
in a car and why is this person killed? Is it just the fact that he’s in the car with somebody else
who crashes the car. It wasn’t any of their faults at all. They’re the ones killed and he walks
away. Do you see what I’m saying? So is it possible for somebody to make a decision and it
affects other people in the group? Yes. That’s just the way it is.
So what I’m saying is the group thing affects others and actually the apple falls close to
the tree too. Are there things that go down in families from parents to children? There’s a family
I know about there’s been a marriage in the family and the guy who married into the family is
always saying of the daughter “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” as he looks at the
mother of the family. Now question: Is there a connection between mother and daughter? Is
this guy who married into this crazy family, is he seeing there’s a connection between the
mother and the daughter? Yes. He says that it’s a family I’m sure you’re vaguely aware of. But
you know what I’m saying there are family traits. We better get out of there. Let’s get over to
Abraham.
J. Abraham: God’s friend [41:11-42:58]
We’re going to jump into the Abraham narratives now. We’re out of the garden of Eden,
were out of Noah and the flood, and let’s jump over and look at Abraham. We’re finally making
it to Genesis 12. We’re going to start moving faster too. I can’t answer all the questions in
Scripture that you guys have but I will try to hit on the ones that I think are big questions and
handle those. Abraham’s going to be one of the most incredible individuals in the Old
Testament. Dr. Wilson, some people say he’s met him, he says that Abraham’s a good guy.
So anyway, I shouldn’t say things but Dr. Wilson’s book Our Father Abraham is excellent. Dr.
Wilson is up there with Father Abraham in my opinion. I can’t tell you how much I respect Dr.
Wilson. He’s done a study on Abraham and I think for good reason.
I’m going to give each of these patriarchs a title from Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob. The
title for Abraham is “Abraham is God’s friend.” Now did I just make that up? No. Here’s James
chapter 2 verse 23 “And the Scripture was fulfilled that says ‘Abraham believed God and it was
credited to him as righteousness.’” Does that sound familiar? “And Abraham was called God’s
friend.” Is that a pretty big title, for somebody to be called “Gods’ friend”? What does it mean to
be God’s friend? I’m going to try to show you through our study of Abraham what it means to
be God’s friend.
By the way am I saying Abraham’s perfect? No. Abraham’s going to have his problems
like all human beings have their problems but Abraham’s called God’s friend. I’ll come back to
this. This is the last slide. We’ll come back to this on Abraham being God’s friend.
K. Geography of the ancient Near East [42:59-46:26]
Now before we do that we have got to do a little bit of geography. Have you guys
downloaded the PowerPoints? These maps are in the PowerPoints. You don’t have to try to
draw these maps. I could never draw these maps very well. But anyways. I just want to run
through this map. This becomes important for all the rest of the Bible. This is the playing field.
This is the chess board. We’re going to start over here on the Persian Gulf. This is the Persian
Gulf. We’ve got the Persian Gulf here. Now we want to come up here--the Euphrates River
and the Tigris River. How do you tell which one’s which? Does anybody know E.T? E.T is
Euphrates/Tigris. You can always tell which order they come in. E.T. is the Euphrates and
Tigris. Ur of the Chaldees, we’ve got the Persian Gulf down here. What country is this? Iran.
What country is this? Iraq. So we’re familiar with these two countries. These are mountain folk,
these are the plains folk. Do the mountain folk and the plains folk always fight? Yes. So these
people (Iran) are always going to be trying to push down, these people (Iraq) are always going
to be trying to do what? Push back. By the way is that true today? Has that been true for 2000,
3000, yeah, 4000 years? Here’s the Persian Gulf, we come in here and here’s Kuwait. Over
here we have the Tigris and Euphrates running.
Does everybody see Ur here? That’s Ur. Now Abraham was from Ur of the Chaldees. If
I say to you Warsaw, what comes to your mind immediately? Warsaw, Poland. You guys say
Warsaw, Poland. If I just say Warsaw, you guys think of Poland, but I’m thinking about
Warsaw, Indiana where I used to live. So because Warsaw Indiana is on a lower level than
Poland do I have to qualify that by saying Warsaw, Indiana? I think what you have is when it
says Abraham is from Ur of the Chaldees, it’s exactly that. This is the big Ur in Sumer and in
most of your Bibles they will put that Abraham is from here and he goes all the way up north.
He’s going to go up to Haran here. What I would suggest to you and I’m feeling more strongly
about this but I still don’t know for sure because we don’t know. What’s been suggested now is
that there is a northern Ur from up here and that Abraham came down to Haran as he makes
his way down into Israel. By the way, does that make a lot more sense than going from here
and instead of going over to Palestine this way, going way up to Haran? So the suggestion is
that there’s a northern Ur up here. That’s an Ur of the Chaldees. So he’s specifying it’s where
the Chaldeans came from, and that he then comes from this northern Ur. We don’t know where
that place is. There’s literally hundreds and hundreds of tels up there that we don’t know
where the place is. So what I’m just trying to say is there’s a northern Ur and there’s a
southern Ur. I’m going with the north now myself but I taught the southern Ur for decades, but
I think I’ve seen some good argumentation now that there’s a northern Ur.
L. Mari [46:27-47:38]
 Now what other places are really important? There’s another place called Mari
here. This place called Mari is right where the Euphrates comes up and from here if you’ve got
to good double humped camel with a four on the floor, you can make it all the way across. So
this is the first place when you come here you can grab water, but what’s the problem? Why
didn’t Abraham just go across like this, go across the desert? Have you ever been in a place
where you’re caught in a desert and you’re on foot. There’s no cars, you can’t just jump in the
car with every direction as far as your eye can see it is absolute desert. Does that scare the
daylights out of you? The answer is, I was 25 when that happened and it was as far as your
eye can see and there was no way out and you’ve got your feet, no cars, no nothing. Question.
Is that spooky? I just want to tell you. You come out into the desert here. Now does anybody
go out there? Yeah, well today, you see people drive cars out there. But when you’ve got just a
camel, even the camels don’t make it across here very well. But they can make it from here, so
Mari is going to be an important place. They found a bunch of tablets at Mari. So we’re going to
have tablets from Mari from the time of Zimri Lin and Hammurabi (ca. 1750 BC).
M. Nuzu [47:39-48:31]
The other place we’re going to get tablets from is Nuzu. They found several thousand
tablets at Nuzu. Nuzu is where a lot of the customs come from. We’re going to see a lot of
ancient customs. I’m going to tell you this or that is a custom of that day. How do we know
that? They are found in these tablets at Nuzu. So Nuzu will tell us a lot of the customs coming
from the background of 17, 18 hundred BC within a couple, 300 years of Abraham. So these
two places Mari and Nuzu are going to give us a lot of information about the time just after
Abraham. It’s going to be really helpful to us when we interpret the Bible.
No. no. She’s referencing down here at a place Sinai possibly here, it was called Mara
that meant bitter; the water was bitter. It’s down here in Sinai. This is the Sinai Peninsula. Mari
is totally different, it’s on the Euphrates River.
O. Haran and Ebla [48:32-50:45]
So as you come up here, Mari and Nuzu, here’s Haran. Who’s famous from Haran that
you know? Rachel and Leah were from there, and who got them hooked up--Laban? Does
anyone remember Laban? Do you remember Rebekah? She was also from Haran, remember
she did the watering with the camels thing up here in Haran. So Abraham’s home, after he
leaves Ur he sets up camp in Haran. That’s where Terah, his father, dies. That’s where Laban
is, that’s where Rachel and Leah are from, that’s where Rebekah is from. So Haran’s their
home. Abraham then leaves and comes down this way. Now two sites over toward the
Mediterranean, one is called Ebla. The Ebla site, comes from about 2400 BC. It was
discovered, I believe, in the 1980s or 70s. Now by the way, why is 2400 BC important for us?
Abraham was what? 2000 BC. Is Ebla 400 years before Abraham? So that’s going to put
Abraham in a framework. You know what I’m saying? It’s going to give us what it was like 400
years before Abraham.
This place called Ugarit was another significant place. By the way, this place, Ebla.
There are real problems there. Ebla is in what country? Syria. Does Syria like having people
find Bible fulfilled stories in Ebla. So what’s happened is they first came out and said Sodom
and Gomorrah were found in the Ebla tablets and then the Syrians got a hold of the stuff with
some of the Italians and now basically to be honest, we don’t know that much about Ebla. It
seems like the site has been shut down. There’s a ton of stuff there and it’s a shame the world
hasn’t been able to get at it because it’s so political. By the way, is there really some tough
conflict going on in Syria right now? Do you realize the Syrian President Assad is killing his
own people? His father killed 10,000 in one village. So Syria’s going through some really bad
times right now. Now what’s the capital of Syria? Damascus. Damascus is one of the oldest
cities in the world and so it’s really quite a city. This is Damascus and Syria.
P. Ugarit & Egypt [50:46-53:23]
Now up here, Ebla, 2400 BC, a bunch of tablets we don’t know what’s in them because
the Italians got a hold of it and the Syrians. Ugarit dates from about 1400 to 1200 BC. In Ugarit
they’ve found thousands of tablets and there’s actually a language called Ugaritic which I’ve
had the unfortunate privilege to be able to learn to read in transcription. Guess what they’ve
found there? In the Bible have you ever heard of Baal? In the Bible we’re told that there’s this
god Baal and we don’t know much about him. We realize that there are whole Baal myths now.
We’ve got tablet after tablet telling us myths about Baal and Asherah, his consort. So we have
tons of stories, we know who Baal is now, largely out of Ugarit. So Ugarit’s going to give us
things around the time of the judges.
Finally, then we come down into Israel we’ve got the Sea of Galilee, Jordan River,
Dead Sea. We come over here and this is Sinai, you can see the Sinai peninsula here where
they crossed over into Sinai. Here this is what country? Egypt. That city is Alexandria and it’s
named after…? Alexander the Great. What was Alexandria famous for? A library. It was like an
early Library of Congress. This library tried to get every book in the world that was scroll. It was
an incredible collection. It was burned, torched so we don’t have any of their records but we
have records that this place was the center of learning. Alexandria was the Boston of the
ancient world. In other words, it was the center of education and learning--huge libraries and
education. As soon as you come down to Cairo and Memphis. When I say Memphis, what’s
the first thing that comes to you mind? Memphis, Tennessee? Does anybody do Memphis
Tennessee? And the reason why I always bring that up is because of the king. The king is
buried in Memphis. I said the king in the last class period and they didn’t know what I was
talking about but for my generation there was only one king and that was Elvis. Memphis
Tennessee. If you ever go there wear your blue suede shoes and hit the streets of Memphis.
There’s another place down here called Tel Amarna and this is where they have
the Amarna letters. This is not important for us right now but it will be later on. So Egypt is
here. Egypt is the gift of the Nile. If you take the Nile out, what is left of Egypt? Desert,
thousands of miles in each direction. Egypt is the gift of the Nile. Actually get on your Google
Earth satellite imagery. Can you actually go down and see the Nile River? It’s really kind of
cool from a Google satellite image.
Q. Map Schematic [53:24-58:45]
Now let me show you another map that kind of schematizes this whole thing and I
forgot one city as I did. Here’s southern Ur, here’s Babylon, Mari, Nuzu, and Nineveh.
As soon as I say Nineveh, who comes to mind? Jonah. When I was younger I thought
Jonah rides this whale, the whale spits him up, and then he goes to Nineveh. What’s the
problem with this picture? The whale’s out here. Did the whale swim all the way around Africa,
then swim up the Tigris River? What’s the problem? Tigris River is 3 or 4 feet deep in places so
it was a real skinny whale. So the whale spits him out up here on the shore of the
Mediterranean. Did the whale spit Jonah out here? No chance. He would have had to swim all
the way around Africa. The Suez canal had been built yet. So what happened is, the whale
spits him out here. Does Jonah have to walk a long way over there? So Jonah, it just puts
Jonah in a different context getting out of the whale and going and preaching the next day. He
had a long way to think about it before he got over to Nineveh. So Nineveh was the capital of
Assyria with really nasty people there. I’m just making generalizations now, but they were the
Hitlers of the ancient world. They were an incredibly cruel people. Jonah preaches repent, what
did the people do? They repent and it was incredible. Their repentance shocked and saddened
the uncompassionate Jonah.
Now Mari, Mari has over 25,000 tablets. There were 5000 found at Nuzu. Nuzu’s the
place where we get a lot of our customs from. Ebla there was about 18,000 tablets, many of
those we’re still waiting to be translated, Ugarit, I think, in my mind, I remember was about
12,000 tablets found there. It was a whole new alphabetic language called Ugaritic. This was a
whole new language for us too. So these are the places I want you to know. Is that ok? So
work on learning these places. E.T. right? Euphrates, Tigris. And then by the way, just for the
nuts of it, what’s this? Sea of Galilee, Jordan River, Dead Sea? That’s an artist conception or a
misconception probably.
 R. Reading and writing [55:37-58:46]
Now, I actually found some of these cuneiform tablets online. I just wanted you to see
them. Remember I told you they stick in the mud when they write with a stylus? This is actually
a Mari tablet from about 1750 B.C. There’s this guy called Zimri Lin, he was king of Mari, and
guess who Zimri Lin butted heads with? You know this guy. Hammurabi. Hammurabi and
Zimri Lin duke it out. We’ve actually got tablets now from Zimri Lin saying, “Hammurabi is
beating up on me.” So do you see the way these tablets are stuck with the stylus? You can
actually see the end of the stylus and the front of the stylus? It’s like a bull rush kind of thing
and you stick it in the mud and can you see that they stick it this way then they stick it this way.
They stick it different ways. This is a syllabic language. A syllabic language means that each
syllable gets a symbol. How many different syllables are there? If I gave you the two
consonants r and d how many syllables can you make out of “r” and “d”? You can make “rad”,
you can make “rude”, you can make “rid”, do you see what I’m saying? So just out of r and d
you can make 15 or 20 different syllables. Now if each one of these syllables had a different
symbol and you had 800 syllables, and you had to learn the 800 symbols before you could
read or write, who could read or write in this culture? Only the very wealthy. You would have to
be a scribe, to learn to read. So that meant only the elite could read. Could the common person
read this stuff? Probably not. So basically, these are written by scribes, professional scribes,
high class people, and very few people could read it. This is from one of the Mari tablets, you
can see how it is. By the way, these mud tablets, what happens when they burn the temple
down? It fires it; it gets harder and so that’s why they were preserved.
Now here’s one and this is really cool. This is from Ebla. By the way, can you see the
columns and how they write in columns? Do you see that? By the way, this doesn’t show it, but
on the side- sometimes they’ll stick in the side. The tablets are about as wide as your
iPad. They’ll stick them in the side and they’ll write down the side of these things as well. It’s
pretty weird isn’t it? But this is what a tablet looks like. This is an amazing tablet. Are a lot of
these tablets busted? This is a full tablet. This is kind of an amazing one. By the way, this is an
Ebla tablet. Is it possible that a doctoral student at University of Pennsylvania would spend 5 to
7 years working on a doctorate reading this one tablet and then when he gets it done he will
get a PhD? Yes. This is what happens in the basement of the University of Pennsylvania.
They’ve got all these tablets that nobody’s ever read before. They’re kind of like dungeon
dwellers. They’ll put them down there, the guy stays down there for 5 years, he comes out, he
reads the tablet, he gains a tablet and they give him a Ph. D. That was a joke. But there’s
some truth to that. But anyway, so this is a tablet, showing what they look like.
S. Importance of the Alphabet [58:47-60:12]
Now, here’s one and this one is really neat because, what is this? This is an Ugaritic
tablet you’ll see how it’s small and it’s different but what’s different about this one is this one’s
from about 1400-1200 B.C. This is the time of the Judges. This one’s alphabetic. What is the
advantage of the alphabet? Syllabic languages, you have learn 800 symbols before you can
read and write. With the alphabet it goes by phonemes not syllables. It goes by how they’re
said and there’s only about 22 to 30 different sounds. Therefore the alphabet is only 22 or 30
symbols. How smart do you have to be to learn 22 symbols? Can a kindergartener learn 22
symbols? So with the alphabet is this an amazing new technology? Can a common person
read after about 1800 BC is the alphabet an incredible invention? I guess this is what I’m trying
to say. Is the alphabet an incredible invention that allowed the common person to be able to
read? In the book of Judges they catch a kid running out of this town. The guy catches this kid,
grabs him and says, “Hey, write down all the names from the elders of the town.” And the kid
writes them down. He was just a kid, a common kid. Caught randomly. He writes it down.
T. Printing Press and the Digital [60:13-62:48]
Now, let me just push one or two more things. Does the alphabet democratize
learning? Does the structure of the alphabet, 1800 BC, does it democratize learning? Yes, it
does. Push it one more. About 1450’s AD you have got a guy that developed a thing called the
printing press. Now, instead of one person copying one manuscript with a printing press you
have got one person able to produce a thousand manuscripts. Question does that again
democratize learning? The printing press. You see what an incredible invention the printing
press was in the 1450s. Gutenberg changed the whole map.
Now, what’s happened? Now, how big is your alphabet? Two, the digital “Alphabet” 0/1.
We’ve gone from 22 down to two. Your alphabet is 0 and 1. With your alphabet, with 0 and 1,
can I write your alphabet in ASCI code? Yes. With a 0 and 1 can I put this in a jpeg image and
turn that 0 and 1 into a picture with 16 million colors? Yes. Can I take that same 0 and 1
alphabet and can I turn it into sound and put it in a mp3 audio that you can play and you can
hear? Can I take that same 1 and 0 and put it into a video and play those images at 30 frames
a second? The 1 and 0, in your generation, do you see what’s happening? This is your
generation. This is tremendous what has happened in the last 30 years? And question can I
take that 1 and 0 and can I put it on my computer and communicate to a guy who’s studying
Greek and watching my avatar in India? Then just before school starts a guy in South Africa
using that 1 and 0--can it go all over the world? Is learning getting democratized? Then my
question to you is as Christians, do we use that 1 and 0 now, the power of the 1 and 0 for the
glory of God and the good of others or do we abandon it so evil uses it? Will evil use it? Yes.
And so what I’m suggesting is you guys live in a digital age that to be honest, I’m jealous in a
certain sense. I’m an old man. I’m kicking off here in just a little while probably. That’s the
honest truth. I’m getting to be an old man, but there’s so much just right in your face. What I’m
saying is grab it, go for it. It’s tremendously powerful and it’s happening in your generation. It’s
really cool. So anyway, the alphabet’s really important.
U. Abraham’s Three Cuts: Cut family ties [leave Ur] [62:49-64:27]
We’re going to talk about Abraham, and Abraham’s got his three cuts. Abraham is
Genesis chapters 12 to 25. The first cut that Abraham has to make is with his own family. The
Lord told Abraham “Leave…” This is the call of Abraham. “Leave your country, your people,
and your father’s household and go to a land that I will show you. I will make you into a great
nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. And I will
bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.” First cut, he has to leave his
family. By the way, is it hard to leave one’s family? Now you guys are from America we move
all over the place. You say, “no it wasn’t hard at all I came to Gordon College and it’s all
good.” When you’re raised in those cultures; you were reared in an extended family. All your
brothers and sisters, your cousins, your nephews, your father and mother not only live there
but your grandfather, your grandmother and all their siblings live in the same town. When you
left that kind of a village was it a big deal to leave? That is a big deal to leave. The first thing
God says to Abraham, “Leave.” Who’s going to be your family now? Basically, God’s going to
lead him to a land and show him a new land so the cutting of family ties is a big deal. Why is it
that when God calls people so often there is this leaving behind of something? Moses has to
leave the Sinai desert and go back to Egypt. So a common thread that happens quite
frequently in Scripture is the cutting of family ties.
V. Melchizedek and the rescue of Lot [64:28-67:48]
Now, in chapter 14, Abraham is out chasing down… do you remember, Lot? Lot was
Abraham’s nephew. Lot and Abraham split and then there was this king, Kedorlaomer who
comes down and kidnaps Lot. He hauls Lot and his family off as plunder. Abraham gets his
318 guys and they go out to capture this king. They recapture Lot, and he’s coming back.
Abraham is victorious. He comes back and as he’s coming back, Abraham runs into this guy
just out of the clear blue. He runs into Melchizedek. Melchi means king, zedek means
righteousness--king of righteousness. So he runs into Melchizedek, the king of righteousness.
By the way, Melchizedek is the king of what city? Is this important too? Yes. He’s the king of
Salem. But when in Hebrew you say “city of,” you say Jeru-salem. And if you say Jeru “city of
Salem,” and you say “Jeru Salem” very fast, you get what? Jerusalem. This king is king of
Jerusalem a thousand years before Jerusalem was the city of David. Melchizedek was king of
the city of Jerusalem [city of peace].
Melchizedek shows up, what does Abraham do to this guy? Abraham gives him a tenth
of everything he has. This guy is not only a king but he’s also a priest. So he’s a priest and he’s
a king. Furthermore, he’s a priest of the Most High. Abraham pays him a tenth of everything
he has. Does Abraham honor this guy? Yes.
Now somebody in the last class asked me this. In the book of Hebrews is Melchizedek,
Jesus? Is Melchizedek pre-incarnate Christ? Some people think that Melchizedek was the pre-
incarnate Christ. I kind of back off from that myself. I think that this guy is a king and a priest
and so he typifies Christ; he’s like Christ in the Old Testament, but he’s not really Jesus. He
appears out of nowhere and then actually after chapter 14 we never hear about him again.
He’s gone. So he just kind of appears, Abraham pays him a tenth, and then he’s gone again.
So some people think it’s Christ, I think he probably just typifies Christ as a person who is a
priest and a king like Jesus would be. So that’s why he does similar things to Jesus. There are
different approaches and Hebrews picks that up. So that’s Genesis’ Melchizedek, who is an
enigmatic person. The honest truth is we don’t really know. He just appears, then vanishes
from the text.
The point of why I raise this is in the Old Testament is it only the Jews that know
God? Did Melchizedek? Was he Jewish? No. Abraham didn’t have any kids yet so he can’t be
Jewish. The guy’s not Jewish and does he know God? Does Abraham honor him with a tithe
for knowing the most high God? Yes. So what I’m suggesting is that in the Old Testament don’t
think that it’s just the Jews. There are other people that are going to pop up in the text that
you’re going to read about that came out of nowhere and they know Jehovah God. So that’s
interesting to me. Here’s’ a guy who’s non-Jewish. He knows God; he’s a priest of the most
high and he’s a king of Jerusalem.
W. Second Abrahamic Cut: Cutting a Covenant [67:49-72:47]
Now another cut here is in chapter 15, and this is a tough one. In chapter 15 down
about verse 10 or so, as the sun was setting, verse 12: “Abraham fell into a deep sleep and a
thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said ‘Know for certain that your
descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and they will be enslaved and
mistreated for 400 years.’” What would that be? “They will be enslaved and mistreated for 400
years.” Did God tell Abraham beforehand that his descendants are going to go into Egypt for
400 years and that they would be mistreated and enslaved? God tells him that ahead of time.
Then God comes and tells him some other things and then God says basically, “I can’t give
you the land yet because the sin of the Amorites is not yet full. So Abraham, I’m going to give
you this land, but I can’t give it to you yet because of the sin of the Amorites is not yet
full.” What is the implication? Is God saying that the sin of the Amorites is getting fuller and
fuller and when it reaches a certain level then he’s going to bring in the Jews to destroy them?
But it’s not yet full so they can’t have the land.
Then verse 17 of chapter 15: “When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a
smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.” Abraham had
to cut this animal in two. Then this blazing firepot goes between the two parts of the animal.
Now is it obviously something symbolic is going on here? It turns out that we’ve got a good
guess at what this scene means. There’s two things that it could be. First, this animal used to
be one, and is now cut in two as this animal used to be one, now God and Abraham are made
one in the covenant. By the way do we have covenants even to this day where two are made
one in a covenant? Just think about that. Yes, marriage. And so what you have here is this
covenant where God and Abraham being bonded together with the union symbolized as this
animal was one, now we’re becoming one and that’s possible.
Has anybody ever done this? You guys probably don’t do this in your generation but in
my generation we had this thing called blood brothers. So Dave Remes and I, basically when
we were younger, we cut ourselves, don’t do this. Well, actually you do this slashing stuff.
Sorry, that was a sick joke. Alright. But Remes and I basically wanted to be blood
brothers. We were really good friends, he was my best friend, we wanted to be blood brothers,
and so he cut himself, I cut myself, and we swapped blood. Don’t do that today. But anyway
we didn’t know any better back then so we swapped blood. So this idea of blood bonding
things together is what I guess I’m trying to say.
So now there’s another approach to this and I think the second one is probably more
accurate. What this is jumps out of Jeremiah chapter 34 verse 18 and the symbol that’s used in
Jeremiah is that this animal’s cut in two that is if you violate the covenant, you will be cut in two
like this animal. So this is called the ratifying of the covenant. How do we ratify covenants
today? Have you guys ever been to the bank and you get a notary and the notary emboss that
on paper? That’s like ratifying the covenant. It’s approving it; you know when they stamp an
emboss it, and it’s good. So this is the ratification or solemnizing of the covenant. As this
animal was one, and was cut in two, if you violate the covenant, you will be cut in two. Now
what happens with that? Who passes between the two parts? God does. So what God is doing
here is binding himself to Abraham, the smoking fire pot represents God, possibly, and what
it’s saying here is that God is binding himself to Abraham in this covenant. God is solemnizing
that he will keep his covenant.
Now, by the way, what is the covenant of God? God promised Abraham three things.
They are: the land [the promised land, the land of Canaan]; the seed, that his seed will be
multiplied as the what? Stars of the heaven. His seed will be multiplied as the sand of the
seashore and that he would be what? He would be a blessing to all nations. So Abraham was
promised the land, the seed and that he will be a blessing to all nations. God promised that to
Abraham and in this process of the cutting of the animal and the firepot going in between, God
is saying “I will keep my covenant. I will make this covenant with you. I am bound by this
covenant. You will get the land, the seed and the blessing.” So this is the ratifying of the
covenant where God participates in this Abrahamic Covenant.
X. Abraham’s Third Cut: Circumcision [72:48-78:36]
Now there’s one more cut and this is the cut of the flesh in Genesis chapter 17. I need
to tell you a little story when I’m bringing this up. Once upon a time I taught at another school
for 22 years. It was a place called Grace College. It’s a very conservative school, a very God-
centered Bible-centered school. I had down front this girl who sat there. Have you ever seen
students and they take every word down that you say and they are, “Oh, I just believe
everything professor Hildebrandt…” It was when I was younger. So she was really into it and
she would write everything down, so we were going over this text about Genesis chapter 17.
This girl raises her hand and she asks, “Professor Hildebrandt it says in this chapter that
Abraham was circumcised and he circumcises his son, what is that anyway?” Now the first
thing I thought was, do students set professors up? So I look her straight in the face and I’m
expecting this little smirk on her face like “I got you now, what are you going to do.” So I look
at her and she gives me this blank look as if she’s so innocent. She’s just ready to write down
the answer. I’m saying “Holy cow, she’s really asking me,” I mean in truth she’s asking me. I’m
thinking “I can just see it now: Hildebrandt gets fired for drawing pictures on the board.” So I go
home that night and I tell my wife, I said, “you can’t believe it, this girl bemet [in truth] in front of
the whole class, this girl asked me what circumcision is. Can you believe that?” My wife turns
to me and she says, you know, when I was in about 7th or 8th grade I didn’t know what it was
either. I went and asked the pastor what it was. I thought “Holy cow this is pretty weird” and
then I realized, most males now are circumcised at birth. What I’m saying is a lot of guys don’t
even know. So let me just say: basically what it is, is, at the end of the male’s penis there’s skin
that hangs out about a half inch or so what happens is the doctor cuts it off. It’s called the
foreskin. He cuts that foreskin off. Now by the way that happens when you’re a baby. I know
this because I had two boys. When they do it to a baby, they barely whimper. I’m not kidding I
had more of a problem with it than my sons did. It was over and the babies barely whimpered.
Try that on an 18 year old. Is that a problem? By the way, in the Bible, is that going to be a
problem later on? Abraham was circumcised at 75, is that a problem? That’s a problem. So
anyway, just some things to think about.
By the way, is this circumcision, is this a big deal? Is circumcision how the Jews identify
themselves? Are the Jews “of the circumcision” and if you’re a Gentile you’re what?
Uncircumcised. Have you ever heard that terminology, “uncircumcised Gentiles”? So that’s
how the Jews used it as an ethnic marker demonstrating you’re in Judaism. Now did other
cultures circumcise besides the Jews? Yes, other cultures did. But is God saying here, “while
other cultures also circumcised circumcision for you means a sign of the covenant.” This is
how it is sealed. The covenant is sealed in your flesh. Now let me just go over here for a
second and are any of you from a Presbyterian background? Presbyterians baptize children
and let me get some of these points up here on circumcision. This becomes an unconditional
covenant the land, seed, and the blessing. Are some of you Presbyterian background? In the
Presbyterian background do they baptize babies? Yes, they do. Do you realize it’s on the basis
of circumcision. The Jews were supposed to be circumcised in the eighth day. Now that
circumcision shows that they were part of the covenant community. The Presbyterians, when
they baptize babies, they are saying that our babies, like circumcision, and in baptism, our
babies are part of the covenant community of believers in Christ. Is that why they baptize
babies/infants? It’s to basically welcome those infants into the covenant community.
Now, by the way, are some of you Baptist? You don’t baptize babies. But can you see
why the Presbyterians would do that? Like circumcision in the Old Testament and baptism in
the new, you’re including those infants into the covenant community. So that’s kind of where
that comes from. Abraham’s covenant is the land, the seed, and the blessing.
Once Abraham has circumcised himself and his child, the covenant is unconditional.
That is, Abraham has fulfilled the conditions of the covenant which means then that God is now
obligated for the land, the seed, and the blessing. It is an unconditional covenant now. The
Abrahamic covenant is unconditional. Now when you get into the Mosaic Covenant, did they
have to obey it in order to get blessings and cursing? Did they have to obey it and then if they
disobeyed they got the cursing? With Abraham the covenant is unconditional. So God will work
with Abraham’s descendants guaranteed. They will get the land, the seed, and be a blessing to
the nations. What happens now there’s going to be other covenants that are conditional. They
will be conditioned based on their obedience. The Mosaic covenant is conditional so I just want
to say once he’s circumcised, that’s it. The covenant’s ratified in that sense.
Y. Critics problems: Camels [78:37-80:18]
Now there are some problems. These are general problems that critics actually find
with text. In Genesis chapter 12 it says that Abraham has camels. Now what’s the problem
with that? Years ago, they said that the Bible had an error here because they said camels were
not domesticated until about 1200 BC. What’ Abraham’s date? 2000 BC. So they say
Abraham is 800 years before camels were domesticated, therefore the Bible’s got an error
here. Abraham could not have had camels that were domesticated. Therefore the Bible’s got
an error. Lo and behold, guess what happens? They find in Ebla, 2400 BC that’s 400 years
before Abraham, and guess what the guys in Ebla have? Domesticated camels. So critics
criticize the Bible on the basis of camels and frankly they have found out now that even 400
years before Abraham, camels were domesticated.
Have you ever been around camels? The other question I have is: are camels ever
domesticated? These animals have personality and some of the camels are really really
ornery. I’ll tell you some day when we have some stuff although this is on tape now, I’ll tell you
some camel stories. We stayed in the Bedouin tent for several nights. The Bedouin raise
camels… and the guy went off one night and told us three hours of camel jokes. This is the
honest truth. Their whole culture is built around the camel. Camels are amazing
creatures. Camels are phenomenal animals.
Z. Critics and the Hittites [80:19-81:28]
The Bible says that Abraham ran into some Hittites in Genesis 15:20 but critics said
“Hey, there’s no record of any Hittites and we know a lot about the ancient world and there’s no
mention of the Hittites.” And so because the Bible mentions Hittites and Philistines back with
Abraham, this can’t be right. So the Bible must have errors in it. Well, once again, guess what
happens. Some guy’s up digging around in upper Turkey and all of a sudden he comes on
Boghazkoy. It’s the capital of the Hittite empire. Not only is there a Hittite capital but we now
know it was a whole empire. There’s a whole Hittite language. You can go and again get a PhD
learning to read these Hittite texts which some of them I assume have not been translated yet.
There’s a whole culture of Hittites. Now we know about them. They were from up in northern
central Turkey. We know there were Hittites. By the way does anybody remember Uriah the
Hittite was Bathsheba’s husband with David. So he was another Hittite, but Abraham ran into
Hittites too and we know now that there was a whole Hittite empire up in Turkey. So again
critics again were wrong.
AA. Dan in Genesis 14:14: Anachronism [81:29-85:24]
Now this third one is a real problem. If you have got your Bibles, let me just read it to
you. In Genesis chapter 14 verse 14, this is a serious problem. I need to try to explain this
one. It says, “When Abraham heard his relative Lot had been taken captive, he called out the
318 trained men born of his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan.” Now where is Dan?
The city of Dan, if I’m Jerusalem here, then Kyle, way in the back of the room there is Dan.
Dan is the northern-most part of Israel. Now you say “Hold on Hildebrandt, what’s the problem
with that? He chased him up from the south where he was in Jerusalem, all the way up to the
back room there. There’s no problem with that.” The problem was that Dan was not named
Dan until the time of Joshua and Judges.
Basically, the tribe of Dan, if this is Israel here, the tribe of Dan settled out by the
Coastal plain with the Philistines. Dan didn’t like being around the Philistines because what
happened when they were around the Philistines? The Philistines did what to people? They
killed them. Dan says, “We don’t like these Philistines. They beat up on us so we’re going to
take our tribe from where the Philistines are on the coastal plain here, and we don’t want to
fight with the Philistines all the time, so we’re going to move our whole tribe back up to where
Kyle is. We’re going to take the whole tribe and shrink it down to one city.” That city was called
“Dan.” It’s a famous city in Israel, but it was named “Dan” only later. It originally was Laish.
So what you have here is what’s called an anachronism. Now what does “chronism”
mean? Do you see the word “chronism” there? Chronology, chronos means “time.”
Anachronism means “out of time.” In other words, the city of Dan, Abraham couldn’t have
known the city of Dan. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. Dan would not be named that for
another 800 years. You say, “Well then how come it’s in the Bible in Genesis?” I think it’s the
same thing if I said to you “We’re going to go to Liberty Tree Mall.” Where is Liberty Tree Mall?
In what town is it? Does anybody know Danvers? I said we’re going to go to Liberty Tree mall
in Danvers, everybody would know where that is. But if I said to you “We’re going to go to
Liberty Tree mall in Salem Village,” would you know where that is? Danvers many many years
ago used to be called Salem Village. Nobody remembers that now. So the problem is if I’m
writing a modern book and I put “Salem Village” will anybody know where that is? No. But if I
said “Danvers” would everybody know? Yes. So what I’m saying is the text seems to have
been updated here. The text seems to have been updated and so the original name which was
“Laish” is updated to Dan. Now is it possible that Joshua did it. Who finished the Pentateuch?
Did Moses finish writing the book of Deuteronomy? No. Moses is what at the end of
Deuteronomy? He’s dead. It’s pretty hard, at least from what I’m told, it’s pretty hard to write
when you’re dead. So the book of Deuteronomy was probably finished by Joshua. Is it possible
that Joshua could have inserted this name later or somebody even later than Joshua inserted it
because he thought, “Hey, you guys don’t know where this town is. If I say, Dan, everybody
knows where Dan is.” So the text was updated. This is a serious issue for some people but I
think to be realistic we got to say Abraham didn’t know the name Dan because it was only
much later that Dan was up there.
[Student comment] She said does that make it wrong? What I’m saying is no it’s not
wrong, it’s just that the name was updated. The language was updated because nobody knows
where Salem village is and everybody knows where Danvers is. Alright, so this is this is a big
one here.
AB. Abraham’s “Three” Kids
Son number one: Eleazar of Damascus [85:25-86:29]
Abraham’s got “three kids.” We’ll just do these quickly. First of the three was Eleazar of
Damascus. What’s Abraham’s problem? Sarah is barren and can’t have kids so let me just kind
of narrate this story. So Abraham comes to God and says, “God, you said you’re going to bless
me with this land, seed, and blessing but I haven’t gotten any kids. This is doing me no
good.” And he says “Moreover, I don’t have any kids and Eleazar of Damascus, my servant, is
going to get it all. All the inheritance is going to go to Eleazar of Damascus.” So this is the first
one of Abraham’s “kids.” Eleazar of Damascus, his servant, was going to receive the
inheritance. And, by the way, is that legitimate? And the answer is, yes. We know that from
Hammurabi’s code and some of these ancient law codes that if a person died and had no
children who got their goods? The servant got the goods. So this is following the ancient laws
that Eleazar of Damascus would get Abraham’s inheritance. God comes to him and says “No,
it won’t be Eleazar, it will be somebody from your own flesh.” So it’s not Eleazar but this is the
first one Abraham thought that he would have, his servant.
AC. Ishmael and Hagar: son number two [86:30-89:51]
So then what happens with Hagar? This is actually a really important text in Genesis
chapter 16. Let me just narrate this story. Hagar is Abraham’s handmaiden, his servant. Who
sets Abraham up with Hagar? Sarah. Sarah says to Abraham “I can’t have kids. Go into
Hagar and conceive with her and the child then will be my child and therefore he will get the
inheritance and he’ll be our child.” Now, that is exactly like the laws of Hammurabi. They’re
following the laws and the customs of their day. Now this is a big issue. We have to get out of
our culture. Did the code of Hammurabi say that it was alright for a master to go into his maid
and that whatever child was had would be his adopted child? Yes. It was allowed in the laws of
Hammurabi.
Now you say “Wow, this is Abraham’s cheating on Sarah.” Is Abraham cheating on
Sarah? Did Sarah see it that way? Did Abraham see it that way? No. I think what you have got
to do is take this out of… as one fellow in the last class says “Abraham is having sex with this
other woman.” Is that the American way of thinking about it. Did Abraham think about it like
that? “Abraham’s having sex and cheating on his wife.” No. They’re thinking about it like
this. My wife and I can’t have kids. But if we couldn’t have kids, is it possible they can take
part of me, part of my wife, and find a woman who we pay 10 to 20 thousand dollars and they
put it in this other woman and she, this surrogate mother, has the child? That’s what’s going on
here. Can Abraham go to his doctor and put the parts in a test tube and put it in the other
woman? Abraham can’t do it so he has to do it the natural way. So basically what you have got
is you have to put it in the context of the surrogate wife. This is not cheating on his wife; his
wife set this up. Hagar’s the surrogate wife.
Now, by the way, even in modern times when a test tube baby is put in another woman
and she bears that child, do you remember that case in New Jersey? The woman bears the
child, does the woman who bears the child want to keep the child? Do you remember that?
The woman who bore the child was attached to the child and she didn’t want to give it back to
the husband and wife.
Does this cause problems even in the modern America with test tubes and babies?
This still causes a problem. Was there a problem then after Sarah gave Hagar in to her
husband’s lap? Is there jealousy between Hagar and Sarah? Yes. Did it work back then or
were there problems associated with this?
Does this mean that God approves of this? Or was this what they did in their culture?
Are there things recorded in the Bible that are not necessarily saying this is true for all time? If
it was part of their culture it was not meant to be universalized. So you have got to separate
cultural norms from moral universals. You have got to separate those two. By the way, does
God cover for Ishmael and Hagar? Does God protect them? Yes. God takes care of them even
after Sarah kicks them out and they go out into the desert. So this is a pretty big deal here.
AD. Third son: Isaac, son of the covenant [89:52-91:03]
Finally, you get this Isaac, he’s the son of promise born of Sarah and Abraham when
they are very old. What does Isaac’s name mean? Isaac means “laughter.” Sarah laughed,
did Abraham also laugh? He also laughed. So his name is Isaac, laughter. This is the son of
the promise then, the greatly desired and anticipated son of the promise. We’ll call it quits there
and we’ll see you on Thursday.

This is Dr. Ted Hildebrandt in the eighth lecture of his Old Testament History, Literature and
Theology class. This lecture began with the sons of God and the daughters of men in Genesis
chapter 6 and proceeded to Abraham, God’s friend, the geography of Mesopotamia as well as
three cuts in Abraham’s life and his three alleged children.