chapter/two

I will ask this question again in Section II, but it seems like the right time to ask it now. What are they teaching people in bible colleges and theological seminaries concerning creation and the history of man? I believe that a book could be written on just the first verse in Genesis. If the Bible is to be accepted as the truth, it would be a condemning gesture to start the Bible off with a lie.

Genesis 1:1 reads as follows; "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth". Rivaled only by John 3:16, the first verse in the Bible is probably the best known, and one of the least believed. Those that have tried to teach from the book of Genesis mostly run right through this verse without ever understanding it. This first verse is the key, to understanding the next thirty-three...,verses that is.

Regardless of the choice of words used by the translators, discovering the “mindset” of Moses is extremely important. Using Biblical Reality, there are four questions that must first be answered with "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.", before ever venturing to the second verse. We will start with the least important question. They are as follows:

Let’s engage in an eye-opening exercise. In 1992, the largest number available in the United States and France was 999 centillion, with 303 more ‘9's following. To illustrate, let’s start with a million, which relates to the number "1". A billion relates to the number "2". A trillion relates to the number "3". A quadrillion relates to the number "4". A quintillion relates to the number "5". (Did you know that this book would be conducting math classes?) A decillion relates to the number "10". Finally, a centillion relates to the number "100". The ‘Big Bang’ theory is only in the billions, supposedly occurring a mere 15 or 16 billion Earth years ago. What was happening before 20 billion years ago?

After leaving the ‘quadrillions’ and ‘quintillions’ of Earth years past, even the theory of a repeating (expanding and contracting) universe is too far fetched. However, from let’s say 999 decillion centillion years in the past up till the time God decided to create our Earth, what has God been doing?? Had He been playing extra-celestial solitaire???

Let us try to ‘elevate’ our minds and appreciate the full(er) magnitude of God. Theology has been selling Him too cheaply, and representing God as having a single occupation or responsibility.

Science has said that the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. How have they arrived at that conclusion? The answer is, the steady rate of radioactive decay (3.5 billion, with an added 1.1 billion for “formation”). God gave mankind a measure of wisdom, so why argue with the scientists concerning their discoveries? Even the rocks from the Moon yielded an age of about the same as that of the Earth.

What age(s) has theology assigned the Earth? Since the Bible does not say how old the Earth is, what has Creation Science been using as a reference to calculate the age of the Earth? The answer is, "Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden" (modern mankind). I know that’s a lie. Science knows that’s a lie. Can you now understand how foolish theologians and creationists have been, by continuing to support a proven falsehood? You can’t tell how old a chair is by guessing the age of the first person you see sitting in it. It has been embarrassing to witness certain creationists trying to argue that the Earth and universe are less than 10,000 years old. Why haven’t creationists and theologians admitted that they don’t understand the Bible, or at least the book of Genesis?? Let’s blame it on a “whole lot of zeal”, but not enough knowledge (and even less understanding).

From the previous chapter, we are still in the uncharted, unknown interval that lies between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. Have you heard of the ‘Gap Theory’? Until now it has only been a mild discussion. If we would have thought of it, we could have monitored our telechronometer to see when this (so called) ‘gap’ began. We’ll keep an eye on it to see when we will emerge from this time period, into the era of Genesis 1:2. We are slowing down, and our readings indicate that we have stopped at 8000 BC, skipping over a lot of Earth’s history...just ask your local geologist!

The Ice Age has come and gone, however it came upon the Earth very quickly, like an eclipse. It stayed upon the Earth for perhaps hundreds of years. Why? It was not a random event. What could have caused it? Who could have caused it??

As we now arrive at 8000 BC, all air breathing life is dead, and nothing can be seen...except a planet covered with water. God gave Moses a convenient starting point, which was after the Ice Age. The resultant flood had eliminated all life that had lived out of the water. This is the opening scene in the vision(s) given to Moses, starting at Genesis 1:2.

Ten generations after Noah, a boy named Abram was born in about 2318 BC. Some may contend that date could be off by six years because Shem was not the oldest son of Noah (according to Genesis 10:21), and Abram may not have been the oldest son of Terah, yet I believe that 2318 BC is correct. However, 75 years later in about 2243 BC, God called Abram and told him to leave his family which was then in a town called Haran, which was located near the present border of Syria and Turkey. Abram and his wife Sari were childless, but Abram took his late brother’s son, which was his nephew, named Lot.

God lead him to Canaan (modern Israeli-Jordanian region), which was promised by God to Abraham (God changed Abram’s name according to Genesis 17:5) to be the land of his offspring through which the savior of mankind would later be born. The firstborn of Abraham was a boy named Ishmael by an Egyptian handmaiden named Hagar in 2232 BC, with the support of Sarai, Abram’s wife (it was her idea).

The second son born to Abraham was named Isaac, in 2218 BC, by his wife Sarah (her name was also changed) when she was 90 years old! This was about a year after Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. In 2158 BC, twin sons were born unto Isaac. Their names were Esau, the older, and Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons (and at lease 2 daughters) from his two wives and their two hand-maidens (each wife had one maid). Thus we have the twelve tribes of Israel, because Jacob’s name was later changed to ‘Israel’. (From this point on, we will use both the names of Israel and Jacob alternately, until the death of Jacob.)

Rachel, Jacob’s second wife, was the last of the four women to bare children, their names being Joseph and Benjamin. However, she died about 17 and a half years after Joseph was born, during the birth of Benjamin. Up until that time, Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other children. Through jealousy, nine of the older sons (except Reuben, the eldest) sold Joseph into slavery and then told Jacob that an animal had probably killed him. You may have heard bits and pieces of this story before. I am certain that it has been told many times in Sunday School. Yet to understand why Israel cared so much for Joseph and how much this hurt him, we must go back to the younger days of Esau and Jacob.

Israel’s twin brother, Esau, was forty years old when Esau first married two women..., one named Judith (who was also known as ‘Aholibamah’), and the second woman was Bashemath, the daughter of Esau’s uncle. Just for your information, Esau later married two other women. One was Adah. But the other woman, named Anah, who appears to be the mother of Judith. In any case, since Esau married local women of Canaan (at least three of them), this displeased Isaac, who again was the twins’ father.

God’s "special" people began with Abraham. But the ‘specialization’ began with Isaac, who had his wife (named Rebekah) sent to him by Abraham. Abraham had one of his trusted servants go on a journey back to Abraham’s former homeland where Abraham’s relatives still lived to pick a wife for Isaac. In turn, Isaac sent Israel to those same relatives to find a wife, when Jacob was 75 years old..., that’s right, 75 years old. That’s quite a long time to wait for the ‘joys’ of marriage. Upon his arrival, Israel saw a lovely girl (maiden) named Rachel. When Jacob and Rachel met, it was ‘love at first sight’!! Upon meeting her father (named Laban), Israel was well received. Laban had another older daughter, named Leah.

After a few weeks, Jacob began to work for Laban, with the agreement that after seven (7) years, Israel would be given the younger daughter (Rachel) in marriage. Jacob was 76 years old when the seven years of labor began. To Israel, the years went by very quickly..., because this truly was a "labor of love". Of all of biblical history, I can not think of any other man that loved a woman as much as Jacob loved Rachel, including David or Solomon. From your own experience, you will find that you will love something or someone even more if you have to work or "suffer" for it (ask any woman that has given birth), and indeed, Israel "suffered" for Rachel.

He didn’t just work seven years for her to be his bride, but in reality he worked fourteen years. At the end of the seven years agreed upon by Laban and Jacob, Laban was supposed to give Rachel to Israel, right? What actually happened was at that time and in that country, there were no "official" ceremonies or weddings as we have now. Just a feast was given, and the ‘bride’ would rendezvous with the ‘groom’ at his tent.

Well, Laban made sure that Jacob was drunk enough before leaving the feast so that Israel would not notice that the woman which he made love to that night wasn’t Rachel. Jacob didn’t know that a switch (substitution) had been made (Rachel had no part in this) until the next morning. Just as when Adam ate of the forbidden fruit 2,192 years earlier, Israel’s "eyes were opened". He saw that he had consummated the wedding with Leah, Rachel’s older sister. After working diligently for seven years, looking forward to that first night of happiness (after his 83rd birthday) with Rachel, Jacob saw that he had been deceived into marrying the wrong woman!!

Of course, Israel went back to Laban to complain. Yet Laban defended his actions by saying that by law, the older daughter must be given in marriage before the younger daughter. (Didn’t Laban know that seven years ago?) However, Laban promised to give Rachel to him in seven more days..., but Jacob would have to continue to "render service" to Leah for the rest of that week (six more days), and work seven additional years for Laban in payment for Rachel.

The year of Jacob’s marriages were in 2075 BC, and Israel is now 83 years old with two wives (Leah and Rachel), and each wife had a maid which were later given to Jacob as a concubine by each wife in order to give him more children. But sadly, "dear" Rachel was barren. Israel didn’t care so much for Leah, but she proved to be quite fertile.

In order to not be ‘out done’, Rachel gave her maid (named Bilhah) to Jacob after a couple of years in order to give Israel what we might now call ‘surrogate’ children. Leah didn’t want Rachel to ‘surpass’ her, so Leah gave her maid, named Zilpah, to Jacob in order to ‘produce’ more children. After six years, Israel was now 89 years old with ten children; six sons from Leah, two sons from Leah’s maid (Zilpah), and two sons from Rachel’s maid (Bilhah). Leah later had a daughter named Dinah, who was born about a year after Rachel finally gave birth to the first of her two sons.

The year is now 2068 BC. Jacob is now 90 years old, and only now is the woman that he dearly loved is about to give Israel her first child..., the long awaited product of their love. This child was named Joseph, and Jacob had expected him to be the last child that he would ever have, and certainly the first and only child that he would have with Rachel. This is why Israel loved Joseph more than the rest of his children. In 2062 BC, when Jacob was 96 years old, the name of ‘Israel’ was given to Jacob (Genesis 32:28). Twelve years later, in 2050 BC, the twelfth son of Israel would be born, but Joseph was not going to be around at the birth of his full brother, and assumed dead. It appears that Benjamin was born about five months after Joseph’s disappearance, in order to be of some comfort to Jacob..., but Rachel died in the process.