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Thread: Gaps in the genealogies

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    Gaps in the genealogies

    I've mentioned it before, the gaps in the genealogies of the Bible. This is self apparent when comparing various versions across the testaments, some skip several steps as compared to others. Exodus 6 contains a good example of this, it lists the genealogy of Aaron and Moses as :

    Aaron and Moses, sons of Amran, son of Kohath, son of Levi.

    Never mind the several hundred years that passed during only three steps in the genealogy, what is more interesting is that they were 70 people at the time when Levi settled in Egypt and roughly 2 million people at the time of Moses, Aaron and the exodus. If we take the genealogy literally, the population increased 35-fold during each step, meaning that each man had an average of 70 sons and daughters that each had 70 sons and daughters and so on.

    There is no way. That is why I take the old testament genealogies as representative rather than exhaustive and the number of years back to Adam as completely uncertain. The genealogies seem to get tighter after that and more in line with other recorded history. At the same time the lifespans recorded come down to the normal range, the one Moses talks about in Psalm 90, the 70-80 year range. I state that as an observation, I dont know exactly what it means.

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    Here is an other example :

    Exodus 12:40*Now the sojourn of the children of Israel who lived in Egypt was*four hundred and thirty years.*

    Joshua 7:1 But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things, for Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed things; so the anger of the*Lord*burned against the children of Israel.

    This happened at least forty years after the exodus. Zerah is listed as one of the sons of Judah in Genesis. Judah was an adult when the household of Jacob travelled to Egypt and Achan was a warrior when this happened, meaning he was a young man. If we assume that there is no gap in the genealogy there are consequently 4 generations in 470 years.

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    Senior Member Tehilah Ba'Aretz's Avatar
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    Hebrew thinking as opposed to Greek. You are misreading scriptures because of your non-Hebrew mindset. Try to remember that scripture is about the revelation of the Almighty with history being a minor sub-topic. It's not that the history is wrong. It's just not all that important to the real reason the revelation was given. You may have noticed that the word Grandfather is missing as well. Yet, there actually were such men.
    You might be interested in the Rabbinic principles for Biblical understanding. Maimonides wrote that the following principles of faith were required for anyone to have a true ability to learn the Bible:

    1. The existence of God;

    2. His unity;

    3. His spirituality;

    4. His eternity;

    5. God alone the object of worship;

    6. Revelation through his prophets;

    7. the preeminence of Moses among the Prophets;

    8. God's law given on Mount Sinai;

    9. the immutability of the Torah as God's Law;

    10. God's foreknowledge of men's actions;

    11. retribution;

    12. the coming of the Messiah;

    13. Resurrection.

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    I cannot make any sense out of your first paragraph. It appears to have no intelligible meaning other than the notion that I am wrong about something.

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    Senior Member Nikos's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tehilah Ba'Aretz View Post
    Hebrew thinking as opposed to Greek. You are misreading scriptures because of your non-Hebrew mindset. Try to remember that scripture is about the revelation of the Almighty with history being a minor sub-topic. It's not that the history is wrong. It's just not all that important to the real reason the revelation was given. You may have noticed that the word Grandfather is missing as well. Yet, there actually were such men.
    You might be interested in the Rabbinic principles for Biblical understanding. Maimonides wrote that the following principles of faith were required for anyone to have a true ability to learn the Bible:

    1. The existence of God;

    2. His unity;

    3. His spirituality;

    4. His eternity;

    5. God alone the object of worship;

    6. Revelation through his prophets;

    7. the preeminence of Moses among the Prophets;

    8. God's law given on Mount Sinai;

    9. the immutability of the Torah as God's Law;

    10. God's foreknowledge of men's actions;

    11. retribution;

    12. the coming of the Messiah;

    13. Resurrection.
    This is excellent. Thanks!

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    Senior Member Tehilah Ba'Aretz's Avatar
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    My point is that the geneologies of the Bible are intended to help us understand the revelation, not to make a historic time table. They are accurate but not necessarily complete. You don't need a complete history to understand the message.

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    Senior Member Colonel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tehilah Ba'Aretz View Post
    My point is that the geneologies of the Bible are intended to help us understand the revelation, not to make a historic time table. They are accurate but not necessarily complete. You don't need a complete history to understand the message.
    I don't disagree with that but it throws the time table, especially from Abraham and back. Adam could have lived hundreds of thousands of years ago and there could have been multitudes of people around already at the time of Enoch. If the flood was indeed worldwide rather than local and killed everyone except eight, the population increase from Noah to Abraham still makes sense because the time frame could again be tens of thousands of years. And all the speculations on early history that involve there only being a handful of people around since there had only been a few generations are consequently nonsense.

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