John Holbrook Jr – Page 8 – A Biblical View

Is the Heroic Age of Greece myth or history?

by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #019 posted November 21, 2016, edited March 9, 2021.

Most versions of ancient chronology put the Mycenaean Age c.1600-1100 BC, the Greek Dark Ages c.1100-900 BC, and the Greek Archaic Period c.900-500 BC. My chronology, however, which takes the Bible as its point of departure, but which also owes much to Immanuel Velikovsky, amends this sequence. First, the Mycenaean Age existed c.1008-754 BC and constituted what the Ancients called the Greek Heroic Age. Second, the Greek Dark Ages never existed. Third, the Greek Archaic Period existed c.754-487 BC.

According to the testimony of the Greek and Roman historians, the Greek Heroic Age saw the following heroic exploits:

The Labors of Herakles probably occurred about five years before the slaying of the Minotaur because Herakles and Theseus were contemporaries and probably sailed together on the Argo.

The Slaying of the Minotaur by Theseus probably occurred just a few years before the Voyage of the Argo;

The Voyage of the Argo probably occurred just a few years prior to the 1^st Theban War.

The 1^st Theban War is memorialized in Greek and Roman literature as the “Seven Against Thebes.” It probably occurred sometime after the Voyage of the Argo.

The 2^nd Theban War is memorialized in Greek and Roman literature as the War of the Epigoni, who were the sons of the Greek heroes of the 1^st Theban War. It probably occurred about a decade after the 1^st Theban War.

The Trojan War commenced when the Greeks invaded Asia Minor and besieged Troy for ten years. According to one Greek historian,[1] it started exactly 20 years after the 1^st Theban War began.

The Voyage of Odysseus from Troy to his home in Ithaca started soon after the fall of Troy and lasted ten years.

The 1^st Olympic Games probably occurred in 777 BC. Historians identify 776 BC as year 1 of the 1^st Olympiad, which would have started in 777 BC. No one knows what prompted the event.

Unfortunately, most historians dismiss most of these exploits as myth – either gross exaggerations of actual events or outright fabrications. I don’t.

First these exploits provide a framework for organizing the participants into generations. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer, who, according to my chronology, lived about 100 years after the Trojan War, provided a great deal of information about the Greek and Trojan heroes of the war, as well as information about their progenitors and current relatives. This genealogical information was supplemented by later Greek historians such as Herodotus and Thucydides and Greek playwrights such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripedes. Taken together, this body of literature contains extensive genealogical information concerning the Greek and other (e.g. Trojan) royal families. Harold Newman and Jon O. Newman present this genealogical information in their exhaustive A Genealogical Chart of Greek Mythology. What is missing from their study, however, is the separation of this information into generations so that a comprehensive picture of the Mycenaean Age can emerge. See my attempt to provide this comprehensive picture in my table, A Synchronization of Greek Generations.

Second, the testimony of the archaeologists divides the Mycenaean or Late Helladic III era into three periods that are connected to Egyptian history as follows:

Its early period (Late Helladic IIIa) coincided with the reigns of Amenhotep I, Thutmose I, Thutmose II, and his sister Hatshepsut.

Its middle period (Late Helladic IIIb) coincided with the reigns of Thutmose III, Amenhotep II, Amerhotep III, Tiy, and Amenhotep IV (=Akhnaton).

Its late period (Late Helladic IIIc) coincided with the reigns of Smenkhare, Tutankhamen, Ay, Armais, and Ramesse.

According to my chronology, the Mycenaean or Late Helladic III era lasted roughly 254 years (c. 1008-754 BC). Concerning its three periods,

Late Helladic IIIa lasted roughly 51 years (c.1008-957 BC). It coincided, not only with the reigns of Amenhotep I, Thutmose I, Thutmose II, and his sister Hatshepsut of the 18^th Dynasty in Egypt, but also with the reigns of David and Solomon of the United Kingdom of Israel in Palestine.

Late Helladic IIIb lasted roughly 102 years (c.957-855 BC). It coincided, not only with the reigns of Thutmose III, Amenhotep II, Amerhotep III, Tiy, and Amenhotep IV (=Akhnaton) of the 18^th Dynasty in Egypt, but also with the reigns of Rehoboam, Abijam, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Athalia of the Kingdom of Judah in Palestine.

Late Helladic IIIc lasted roughly 101 years (c.855-754 BC). It coincided, not only with the reigns of Smenkhare, Tutankhamen, Ay, Armais, and Ramesse of the 18^th Dynasty, but also with the reigns of Sheshonk I, Osorkon I, Takelot I, Osorkon II, and Sheshonk II of the Libyan Dynasties (22-24) in Egypt and the reigns of Jehoash, Amaziah, and Azariah (=Uzziah) of the Kingdom of Judah in Palestine. As will become clear, most of the heroic exploits about which the Greek and Roman historians wrote fell in last period.

Given the above genealogies and time periods, I treat the heroic exploits as historical events and order them as follows:

C. 855 BC – The Labors of Herakles. Although the tales of these labors certainly contain many fanciful elements, I have no doubt that these tales are based on some actual occurrences in which Herakles demonstrated great valor. As a result, Herakles became a legend in his own time. He set a standard of physical stature and prowess to which the men of the Heroic Age could aspire. Moreover he whet their appetites for adventurous exploits that might earn them a place in Greece’s pantheon of heroes.

C. 850 BC – The Slaying of the Minotaur. C.865 BC, Androgeus, son of King Minos of Crete, competed in the quadrennial Pan-Athenian games. He did so well that some jealous Athenians killed him. Upon receiving the news, Minos sailed to Athens and demanded that King Aegeus of Athens relinquish the assassins to him. The identity of the assassins was not known, however, and so Androgeus turned over the entire city to Minos. Minos then demanded a septennial tribute of seven youths and seven maidens, who would be given to the Minotaur, a deformed and undoubtedly demented son of Minos, to devour. When the third tribute was due (c.850 BC), King Aegeus’s son Theseus volunteered to be one of the seven youths. He traveled to Crete, slew the Minotaur with the help of Ariadne, a princess of Crete, thereby putting an end to the tribute, and then returned to Athens with Ariadne and her sister Phaedra.

C. 845 BC – The Voyage of the Argo. Jason[2] and his crew on the Argo undertook a voyage from Iolcus on the eastern shore of Thessaly to Colchus on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, in order to obtain the Golden Fleece, which had been hung in a sacred grove dedicated to Ares by Phrixos. This voyage resulted in one of the greatest exploratory expeditions in human history. In my opinion, the expedition took the band of mostly young adventurers (a) southeastward across the Aegean Sea to the Hellespont (=Dardenelles), (b) northeastward across the Propontis (=Sea of Marmara), and through the Bosporus to the Euxine (Black Sea), (c) eastward across the north coast of Asia Minor to Colchus, then (d) westward back across the Euxine to the mouth of the Danube, (e) northwestward up the Danube and one of its tributaries to their common headwaters (just north of modern Zagreb), (f) overland to the headwaters of the Arsia River, (g) southwestward downriver to the Adriatic Sea, (h) southward along the Dalmatian coast almost to Sicily, (i) northward along the eastern coast of Italy to the mouth of the Po River, (j) westward upriver to its headwaters south of Pavia, (k) overland to the headwaters of the Scrivia River, (l) southward downriver to Genoa on the Ligurnian Sea, (m) southeastward along the Italian coast and through the Strait of Messina, (n) southward across the Mediterranean Sea into the sandbanks of the Gulf of Syrtis (off the west coast of Libya), (o) eastward overland to Lake Triton (no longer extant), (p) northeastward across the lake, (q) northward down a river (no longer extant) to the south shore of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, (r) northeastward to Crete, (s) northward from Crete to the Peloponnesus and finally back to Iolcus. This adventure provided the young Greeks with both maritime expertise and a wealth of demographic, geographic, and navigational information – to say nothing of a fund of stories to tell.

832-831 BC – The 1^st Theban War. A Greek army invaded Egypt and besieged Thebes with the intent of restoring the Egyptian throne to Smenkhare, whom the Greeks knew as Polyneices. The army was under the command of King Adrastus of Sicyon and his six captains: (a) his brother-in-law Amphiaraus (an Argonaut) of Argos, (b) his nephew Capaneus of Corinth, (c) his brother Hippomedon of Mycenae, (d) his friend Parthenopaeus of Tegea, (e) his son-in-law Polyneices (=Smenkhare) of Egyptian Thebes, and (f) his son-in-law Tydeus of Calydon. Together they were known in Greek literature as the “Seven Against Thebes.” They were accompanied by Adrastus’s friend Eteoclus of Argos and his brother Mecisteus of Sicyon. The siege of Thebes was unsuccessful, and Amphiarus, Capaneus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, Polyneices, Tydeus, Eteoclus, and Mecisteus were killed. Only Adrastus returned to Greece with the remnant of the Greek army.

821-820 BC – The 2^nd Theban War. After the debacle of the 1^st Theban War, in which so many prominent Greek heroes were killed, the sons of the dead, who were known as “the Epigoni,” decided to seek revenge. They were (a) Aegialus, son of Adrastus, (b) Alcmaeon, son of Amphiarus, (c) Amphilocus, also son of Amphiarus, (d) Euryalus, son of Mecisteus, (e) Medon, son of Eteoclus, (f) Polydorus, son of Hippomedon, (g) Promachus, son of Parthenopaeus, (h) Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, and (i) Thersander, son of Polyneices. Under the leadership of possibly Adrastus (questionable: Adrastus may have died prior to the 2^nd Theban War since his son Aegialus is numbered among the “sons of the dead”) and certainly his nephew Alcmaeon, the Epigoni raised a second army from among the cities of the Argolid that were ruled by the relatives.of Adrastus and launched a second invasion of Egypt and a second siege of Thebes. This time the Greeks enjoyed a measure of success. Some historians claim that they invested the city, razed it to the ground, and installed Thersander on the Theban throne. I agree with them. According to my chronology, Ay was followed by Armaeus or Armais, who, I believe, was Thersander. He ruled for seven years (820-813 BC) and was succeeded by his son Ramesse, who ruled for one year (813-812 BC). Then Egypt was invaded and conquered by the Libyans.

812-802 BC – The Trojan War. Eight years after the 2^nd Theban War ended, the Greeks began flexing their muscles again. For years they had been irked by the control which the Trojans exercised over the Dardanelles and the maritime trade between (a) the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the west and south and (b) the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea to the north and east. On the pretext of being outraged over the supposed abduction of Helen, the beautiful wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, by the Trojan prince Paris, King Agamemnon of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, led an armada of over a thousand ships filled with Greek warriors to besiege Troy and liberate Helen. The siege lasted ten years and ended with a Greek victory. It was undoubtedly the most dramatic event of Greece’s Heroic Age.

800-790 BC – The Voyage of Odysseus. In the Odyssey, Homer relates that, after the fall of Troy, the Greek hero Odysseus commenced a voyage from Troy to his home in Ithaca that lasted ten years.

778-777 BC – The 25^th Anniversary of the Greek Victory at Troy, which occurred in the year 803-802 BC, would have fallen in this year. In the following year (777-776 BC), the 1st Olympiad and the Olympiad Dating System began. I speculate that the Olympic Games were held to celebrate and commemorate the most important event in Mycenaean Greek history. Its lateness by one year could have been due to one of many reasons (see my response to LG below).

As the above people and events are put in their proper times and places, they lose the vagueness of myth and take on the definition of history, which answers my original question, “Is the Heroic Age of Greece myth or history?” It looks like history to me.

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[1] I cannot remember where I saw this piece of information, which is unfortunate because it plays an important role in my chronology of this period. Velikovsky referred to it on page 26 of his book Oedipus and Akhnaton.

[2] The Argonauts regarded Herakles as the natural commander in chief among them, but he declined the position and suggested that Jason be their leader.

What went wrong in ancient Thebes?

by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #018 posted November 14, 2016, edited March 9, 2021.

Most versions of ancient chronology put the 18^th Dynasty of Egypt in the 2^nd millennium BC – specifically c.1550-1320 BC. My chronology, however, which takes the Bible as its point of departure, but which also owes much to Immanuel Velikovsky, puts it almost entirely in the 1^st millennium BC – specifically c.1041-812 BC [1] – a period roughly coincident with the Mycenaean or Heroic Age in Greece (c.1008-754 BC).

Despite its fame, the last portion of the 18^th Dynasty, which began with the death of Amenhotep III, is shrouded in mystery. When he was killed, his wife Queen Tiy assumed the throne and ruled for eight years. During this time her chief advisor was her brother Ay. Suddenly Akhnaton succeeded to the throne.

In Oedipus and Akhnaton, [2] a brilliant piece of detective work, Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky established to my – and many others’ – satisfaction that the events at the end of Egypt’s 18^th Dynasty had provided the basis and inspiration for the Greek tales concerning Oedipus and his family. Velikovsky made the following identifications: Akhnaton was known to the Greeks as Oedipus;[3] his mother Queen Tiy, as Jocasta; her brother Ay, as Creon; Akhnaton’s son Smenkhare, as Polyneices; his son Tutankhamen, as Eteocles; and his daughters Meritaten and Beketaten, Antigone (the two sisters were conflated in the Greek tales). Thus, Velikovsky argued, the Greek tales can provide details in the drama that occurred in the court of ancient Egypt.

The trouble started with Akhnaton. He was a strange figure, and he played the central role in this drama.

Akhnaton was born with some unusual deformities – a thin torso and markedly swollen legs. Velikovsky surmised that these deformities were probably due to progressive lipodystrophy, a rare affliction that causes the elimination of subcutaneous fat in the upper body and the accumulation of adipose tissue in the lower body.

Egyptian history is silent concerning Akhnaton’s origins. Fortunately, the Greek tales are not. They indicate that, probably due to his deformity, he was abandoned in the wilderness as a baby, but was saved by a shepherd, who conveyed him to Mitanni, where he was raised in the royal household.

After the death of his father in 861 BC, Akhnaton appeared out of nowhere and married Queen Tiy, apparently unaware that she was his mother. The Greek tales supply a mechanism for this stunning elevation to the throne of Thebes: he solved the riddle of the Sphinx.

During his reign, Akhnaton demonstrated intense hostility toward both the priests in Thebes and the memory of his father. He destroyed the Theban Oracle, defaced statues of his father, and assumed his father’s name, Amenophis, which was the cultural equivalent of patricide.

Akhnaton maintained an aberrant household. His first wife appears to have been Nefertete, who was the daughter of Ay and Ty, whom he probably married before becoming pharaoh, and with whom he sired Tutankhamen, Ankhesenpaaten (eventually the wife of Tutankhamen), Meketaten, Meritaten (eventually the wife of Smenkhare), and three other daughters. His second wife was Queen Tiy, whom he married as he became pharaoh and with whom he sired Smenkhare and Beketaten (his favorite). A few years later, Tiy supplanted Nefertete as his chief wife, but then disappeared from the royal annals in his regnal year 13 (848 BC). She does not appear to have been buried in the tomb which was built for her. The Greek tales indicate that she committed suicide and was denied a proper burial. His third wife was Tadukhipa, who was the daughter of the King of Mitanni. She was sent by her father to be a wife to Amenhotep III, but arrived after he died, during the reign of Queen Tiy. She lived in the royal harem and became available to Akhnaton when he ascended to the throne.

In his year 4 (857 BC), much to the horror of the priests in Thebes, with whom Ay sided, Akhnaton formally rejected the gods of Egypt, and established the monotheistic cult of Aten.[4]

Akhnaton then built a new city at El Amarna, which he named Akhet-Aton. It was dedicated to the worship of Aten. In his year 5 (856 BC), he moved the royal court from Thebes to Akhet-Aton

In his year 6 (855 BC) Egypt was inflicted by a plague or some other affliction, which caused the oracles to maintain that an unacknowledged and un-atoned for patricide existed in the land. The oracles regular insistence on this interpretation of the disturbance caused Akhnaton to commence searching for the criminal in question, and his investigation eventually led to himself.

Meanwhile, Akhnaton flaunted his deformities by appearing nearly nude in public, maintaining that they indicated he was divine and had been divinely elected to rule Egypt. At an unknown point, however, consumed with guilt and opposed by many for his bizarre behavior, he became blind – possibly by his own hand. At that point, his physical condition matched his spiritual condition.

In his year 16 (845 BC), Akhnaton retired from public life and lived as a semi-prisoner in the palace while his son and co-regent ruled the land.

In year 20 of his reign (841 BC), Akhnaton was officially deposed and driven into exile for unknown reasons, accompanied by his devoted daughter Beketaten. Thus, he disappeared from Egyptian history.

Upon Akhnaton’s deposition, a rivalry between his two sons Smenkhare and Tutankhamen immediately surfaced, undoubtedly nurtured by their uncle Ay, who brokered an agreement between them that the two brothers would occupy the throne of Egypt on alternate years.

The elder Smenkhare went first and reigned for one year (841-840 BC). During his reign, Akhet-Aton was abandoned and the government returned to Thebes (archaeologists estimate that Akhet-Aton was inhabited for 15 years, which would place its abandonment in 841 BC, immediately after Akhnaton’s deposal and in Smenkhare’s year 0. At the end of that year, Smenkhare turned the throne over to his brother Tutankhamen in accordance with the agreement between them.

Tutankhamen ruled Egypt for 8 years (840-832 BC). At the end of his first year, he was supposed to return the throne to his brother in accordance with the agreement between them, but he failed to do so. Instead he sought his brother’s death – undoubtedly due to the influence of his great uncle Ay. Smenkhare fled to Greece, where he stayed with King Adrastus of Sicyon and married Adrastus’s daughter Argeia.

In order to reinstate his son-in-law on the Egyptian throne, King Adrastus undertook the 1^st Theban War (832-831 BC) (also known as the Seven Against Thebes). He raised an army from the cities of the Peloponnesus, invaded Egypt, and besieged Thebes. The war was a debacle for the Greeks. Most of the Greek heroes were killed. Both Smenkhare/Polyneices and Tutankhamen/Eteocles were killed; they fell in mortal combat with one another.

On the death of the two legitimate heirs to the throne, Ay, who had harbored designs on the throne for years, seized it and ruled Egypt for 12 years (832-820 BC). He immediately issued two commands: (a) that Tutankhamen/Eteocles be buried in the traditional manner for royal figures (the photograph below shows a sample of the splendid artifacts that were crowded into his tomb) and (b) that Smenkare/Polynices be left to rot on the battlefield.

Disregarding Ay’s decree concerning Smenkhare, his wife Meritaten (Antigone) buried him ritually by sprinkling dust on his body as it lay where it had fallen on the battlefield, for which she was condemned by Ay to spend the rest of her life in a small pit immediately outside Queen Tiy’s tomb, where Smenkhare was laid to rest.

In Ay’s year 11 (821 BC), King Adrastus invaded Egypt and besieged Thebes again in what became known as the 2^nd Theban War (821-820 BC) or the War of the Epigoni, who were the sons of the dead heroes of the 1^st Theban War. The Greeks undertook the war to avenge the dead heroes and install Thersander, the son of Polyneices and Argeia, on the Egyptian throne. This time the Greeks enjoyed a measure of success. Some historians claim that they invested the city, deposed Ay, and installed Thersander on the Theban throne. I agree with them. According to my chronology, Ay was followed by Armaeus or Armais, who, I believe, was Thersander. He ruled for seven years (820-813 BC) and was succeeded by his son Ramesse, who ruled for one year (813-812 BC). Then Egypt was invaded and conquered by the Libyans.

So ended a royal dynasty riddled with betrayal, blasphemy, deceit, incest, idolatry, intrigue, and self-aggrandizement.

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[1] According to my chronology, the pharaohs of Egypt’s 18^th Dynsasty reigned as follows: Ahmose, who assisted Saul in destroying the Hyksos/Amalekite fortress Avaris at El Arish, reigned for 25 years (1041-1016 BC); Amenhotep I reigned for 13 years (1016-1003 BC); Thutmose I reigned for 21 years (1003-982 BC); Queen Hatshepsut, who was known in the Bible as the Queen of Sheba and visited Solomon in Jerusalem, reigned for 35 years (982-947 BC); Thutmose III, who was known in the Bible as Shishak and sacked Jerusalem and its Temple, reigned for 32 years (947-915 BC); Amenhotep II reigned for 15 years (915-890 BC); Amenhotep III reigned for 21 years (890-869 BC): Queen Tiy, who was Amenhotep III’s wife, reigned for 8 years (869-861, Akhnaton, who was the son of Amenhotep III and Tiy, reigned for 20 years (861-841 BC); Smenkhare, who was Akhnaton’s eldest son, reigned for 1 year (841-840 BC); Tutankhamen, who was one of Akhnaton’s younger sons, reigned for 8 years (840-832 BC); Ay who was Queen Tiy’s brother and Akhnaton’s uncle, reigned for 12 years (832-820 BC); Armaeus or Armais, who was Smenkhare’s son, ruled for 7 years (820-813 BC); and Ramesse, who was Armaeus’s son, reigned for 1 year (813-812 BC).

[2] Velikovsky, Immanuel, Oedipus and Akhnaton, Doubleday & Company, Garden City NY, 1961. I highly recommend it. It is a tour de force.

[3] Akhnaton was also known to the Greek historian Herodotus as Anysis.

[4] Some people assert that the cult of Aten was the first monotheistic religion. A little thought will undercut that assertion. The cult of Aten (est. c. 857 BC) was preceded by the Adamic religion (est. 3977 BC), the Noachic religion (est. 2321 BC), the Abrahamic religion (est. 1894 BC), and the Mosaic religion (est. 1464 BC), all of which were monotheistic and focused on the God of the Bible who created the heavens and the earth.

What did Abraham & Cheops discuss?

by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #017 posted November 7, 2016, edited March 9, 2021.

Most versions of ancient chronology put the Egyptian Pharaoh Cheops in the 26^th century BC and the Hebrew patriarch Abraham in the 20^th or 19^th century BC – a difference of six or seven centuries. In my chronology of the ancient world, which takes the Bible as its point of departure, Cheops and Abraham were contemporaries.

According to my chronology, Abraham lived 175 years (1965-1794 BC). In 1894 BC, at the age of 75, Abraham received a communication from God. [1] God gave him (1) a Command to leave his home in Ur-of-the-Chaldees and travel to a land to which God would lead him and (2) a Promise that his descendents would constitute a great nation. When Abraham informed his father Terah of the vision which he had received from God, Terah believed his son and decided to move the entire family from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran, which his older son had apparently founded, and presumably from there into Canaan. When he reached Haran, however, Terah died, leaving the family in the hands of Abraham.

After burying and mourning for his father, Abraham departed from Haran with his household, crossed the Euphrates River, and entered into Canaan. He traveled through Sichem to the Plain of Moreh, where he camped for an unspecified time. There God visited Abraham and issued his first promise of the land of Canaan to Abram and his descendants. Abraham built an altar on the Plain of Morel to commemorate God’s visit. He then traveled to a mountain between Hai on the east and Bethel on the west, where he camped and built another altar.

Circa 1893 BC, the land of Canaan suffered from an extensive famine, and so Abraham led his family south out of Canaan and into Egypt.[2] Because his sister and wife Sarah was a beautiful woman and Abraham was afraid that some Egyptian would kill him in order to take her, he instructed Sarah to identify herself as his sister. As soon as they arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians, as Abraham had anticipated, took an interest in Sarah and brought her to the attention of Pharaoh. When Pharaoh saw Sarah, he desired her and asked Abraham to relinquish her, which Abraham did. After taking Sarah into his harem, the pharaoh treated Abraham well, giving him servants, cattle, and probably other gifts.

Because Pharaoh had taken Sarah into his harem, the Lord visited great plagues upon him and his house. Interestingly, Pharaoh must have learned of the Lord’s displeasure directly from the Lord, because he approached Abraham with the question, “What is this that thou hast done unto me? Why didst thou not tell me that that she was thy wife? Why saidst thou, she is my sister? So that I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.” The implication of “I might have taken her to me to wife” is that he discovered the truth about Sarah before he took her into his bed. Thus Abraham’s sojourn in Egypt probably did not last very long. Nonetheless, Abraham and Pharaoh were undoubtedly intelligent, educated and formidable men and undoubtedly spent much time talking while Abraham was Pharaoh’s guest.

Now according to my chronology of the ancient world before 1464 BC, , which relies heavily on the work of Donovan Courville, the ruler of Egypt in 1893 BC was Osirophus, the first pharaoh of the 4^th Dynasty. He ruled Egypt for 23 years (1901-1878 BC). He was also known as Cheops, Khufu, and Sufi I. Abraham’s visit would have fallen in his year 9.

Pyramid of Cheops & camel

Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza – weepingredorger.wordpress.com

Osirophus is credited with building the largest of the pyramids at Giza, which has earned it the title “the Great Pyramid.” It is one of the wonders of the ancient world, and it has engendered much speculation concerning its purpose, the manner of its construction, and whether or not the form and dimensions of its structure carry information concerning the past and future of mankind. Would not the pyramid have been a prime topic of conversation between Osirophus and Abraham? Would not Osirophus have taken Abraham on a tour of the construction site? My answer to both questions is, “Yes, without a doubt!”

Does the Great Pyramid provide any evidence of being influenced by Abraham. In response to the question, I would point to some curious aspects of the structure. First, its capstone is missing, and second, the sarcophagus in the king’s chamber is empty. Archaeologists assume (a) that the capstone has been the victim of either erosion or theft, along with much of the pyramid’s exterior sheathing, and (b) that the sarcophagus was emptied by thieves. Both are possible and reasonable explanations. On the other hand, the capstone may have been omitted and the sarcophagus may have been empty since its installation for reasons that did not occur to the archaeologists. The phrase ‘the stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner’ appears five times in the Scriptures (Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10, Luke 20:17, Acts 4:11, and 1 Peter 2:7) and there are many references in Scriptures to the sepulcher in which Jesus was laid as being empty on the Sunday morning following the Friday on which he was laid to rest. Is it possible that, while he was a guest of Osirophus, Abraham shared with the pharaoh some details of the vision of the future which God had entrusted to him?

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[1] See Genesis 12:1-3.

[2] See Genesis 12:10- 20 for the record of Abraham’s visit to Egypt.

To judge, or not to judge – that is the question

by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #016 posted October 31, 2016. edited March 9, 2021.

Some Christians are fond of quoting I John 4:8, “God is love,” and then castigating their brothers and sisters who view abortion as murder or homosexuality as sexual impurity as “judgmental.” Indeed, one of the most devastating accusations one can make in either sacred or secular society today is, “You are being judgmental.”

These Christians deplore judgment because they read such passages in the Bible as Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again” (KJV).

Before addressing what the above passage actually says, however, another passage is worth noting. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul wrote: “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?” (KJV, verses 2-3). Here Paul is saying that Christians will be judging angels in the next life and therefore should get some practice in this life.

Now back to Matthew 7:1. Jesus is warning His audience that the judge and the judged, all of whom are sinners,[1] are all subject to the same laws, and all will be judged on the Day of Judgment by the divine Judge according to those laws.[2] Thus the person who judges today must be wary (a) of basing his judgments on his own concept of good and evil, rather than on God’s pronouncements on the subject, (b) of being unmerciful, and (c) of thinking too highly of himself in relationship to the person he is judging (see 1 Corinthians 6:4, which recommends using the least esteemed in the church to judge among the brethren).

Moreover, if anyone, but particularly a Christian, gives even a moment’s thought to the matter of judging, he or she will realize immediately that most judging is not “judgmental.” Simply to think and to act require judgment – continual judgment. For example, when one steps in an elevator, one is making the judgment that someone has inspected the elevator during the past year to ascertain whether or not it is in good working order and therefore safe to use.

Even more important, everyone must realize that judgment lies at the very focus of Christianity: the cross on which God-the-Son was crucified. The crucified Christ, God-the-Son, embodies both perfect love and perfect judgment. His perfect judgment required the cross; His perfect love placed Himself upon it.

In my view, love without judgment leads to sentimentality, and judgment without love leads to brutality. Christianity without either love or judgment is a travesty and leads away from God.

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[1] See Isaiah 53:5, Psalm 14:1-3, Psalm 53:1-3, Romans 3:10-12, 20.

[2] Although all will be found guilty of sin, they will be separated into two categories: the redeemed, who accepted God-the-Son as their Lord and for whom He died on the cross at Calvary to pay the price of (atone for) their sin, and the unredeemed, who rejected God-the-Son as Lord and must themselves pay the price of their sin.

Is passion a virtue or a vice?

by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #015 posted October 24, 2016, edited March 9, 2021.

Today’s message is directed at Christians – particularly Christians with a burning desire to share the Gospel of their Lord with unbelievers.

Many people proclaim that they are passionate about something: their job, baseball, the opera, mountain climbing, etc. They seldom stop to think about what they are saying.

Too few people understand the difference between passion and compassion. One is a vice; the other, a virtue.

Passion in the classic sense of the word has two meanings: one refers to suffering – particularly Jesus’ ordeal on Good Friday – the other refers to zeal, ardor, or a vehement desire that is somewhat out of control. It is this latter sense of the word that concerns me here. This passion is selfish. It is motivated by the needs of the self. It draws attention to the self. Indeed, it often advertises the self. It engenders pride, because it ascribes importance to the self in proportion to its strength. Perhaps worst of all, it makes excuses for the self and imposes its costs on others. Passion can be seen in tyrants, revolutionaries, ruthless corporate executives, overbearing maestros, preening divas, pedants, crusaders of all types – anyone who puts their own agenda above their duties to and the needs of others. Beware when someone says, “I am passionate about…” or “I have a passion for….”

Compassion refers to a loving and merciful concern for another’s suffering, loss, or lack and is usually accompanied by a determination to do something to assuage that condition. Compassion is selfless. It is motivated by the needs of others. It never advertises the self. Indeed, it directs attention away from the self and toward others. It engenders humility, because it ascribes importance to others in proportion to the magnitude of their needs. Perhaps most remarkable, it imposes its costs on the self. Compassion can be seen in servant leaders, homemakers, tireless caregivers, patient teachers – anyone who puts their duties to and the needs of others above their own agenda – but most obviously in Jesus of Nazareth, who humbled Himself by putting aside His divine prerogatives as Lord of Creation, taking on human flesh, and dying on the cross to atone for the sins of others – all those whom God-the-Father called to acknowledge God-the-Son as their Savior. Run quickly to someone who says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (KJV Matthew 11:28).

Clearly, passion is a vice; compassion, a virtue.

Understanding this difference between passion and compassion is particularly important for Christians with a burning desire to share the Gospel of their Lord with unbelievers. A compassionate evangelist is driven by a genuine concern for the person to whom he is speaking, and he focuses on at least the following: (a) treating the person respectfully and lovingly; (b) listening to what the person has to say; (c) trying to discern where the person is in his journey toward God; (d) speaking in a way that the person will understand; and (e) all the while humbly recognizing that his success in reaching the person depends solely on the Holy Spirit. Thus, he manifests God’s love to the person, thereby affirming that the person is one of Jesus’ cherished creatures, made in His image. A passionate evangelist, on the other hand, is driven by his own need to proclaim the Gospel, and thus he focuses solely on what he is saying, not on the person to whom he is speaking. He fails to manifest God’s love to the person, thereby treating the person solely as a listener and all too often turning the person into a victim. As you can see, there is a world of difference between a compassionate evangelist, who speaks the truth in love,[1] and a passionate evangelist, who speaks the truth inconsiderately.

Alas, when I first submitted to the Lord, I was a passionate evangelist. Now I can only pray that the Lord will undo the damage that I did. Don’t follow in my footsteps.

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[1] Ephesians 4:15.

Do intelligence & knowledge confer wisdom?

by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #014 posted October 17, 2016, edited March 9, 2021.

The Bible assigns a high value to wisdom.

“…the price of wisdom is above rubies” (KJV Job 28:18).

“O LORD, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches” (KJV Psalms 104:24).

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever” (KJV Psalms 111:10).

“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding” (KJV Proverbs 4:7).

“For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it” (KJV Proverbs 8:11).

“The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good” (KJV Psalms 14:1).

When God asked Solomon what he would like to have from God, Solomon asked for wisdom (I Kings 3:5-14). Not only did Solomon see that the value of wisdom exceeded the value of anything else he might ask for, he also saw that it had to come from God as a gift. It could not be acquired through study or work. Later Solomon wrote, “…the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding” (KJV Proverbs 2:6).

Truth and wisdom are related, but wisdom and intelligence are not. Indeed, as I grow older, I am increasingly struck by the lack of correspondence between wisdom and intelligence. They have almost nothing to do with one another. I know some very simple people who are incredibly wise, and I know some very intelligent people who are incredibly foolish. Nor does education change the situation much. Indeed, some sages are both simple and uneducated, and some fools are both intelligent and erudite.

When I make this observation, most people scratch their head. Wisdom? What am I talking about? Isn’t wisdom another term for intelligence and knowledge? No, it is not. The wise man sees the truth about someone or something. His perception may be comprehensive and complex if it is buttressed by intelligence and learning or partial and simple if it is not, but in either case it conveys the truth. The fool, on the other hand, sees what he himself wants to see. Again, the perception may be comprehensive and complex if it is buttressed by intelligence and learning or simple if it is not, but in either case it is a mirage – a false image of his own wishful thinking.

Paul wrote in Hebrews, “…without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” (Hebrews 11:6) – that is, those who seek God must believe that God exists, and that he will reward them with, among other things, the truth. In other words, God wants us to believe him when he communicates with us. He wants us to accept his word by faith – whether his word is spoken, written, or incarnate.

A good test of one’s wisdom lies in the first verse of the Bible. It states: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). In the beginning (time), God (Elohim -plural with a singular meaning) created (only God can create something out of nothing; man can make or re-form things using something, but he cannot create something out of nothing) the heavens (space) and the earth (matter).

Henry Morris paraphrases this verse as follows: “The transcendent, omnipotent Godhead called into existence the space-mass-time universe.” He also points out that this verse contradicts all of man’s false philosophies concerning the origin and meaning of the world; (a) atheism, because the universe was created by God; (b) pantheism, because God is transcendent (above, outside) the universe; (c) polytheism, because the Godhead is a unity; (d) materialism, for matter had a beginning; (e) dualism, because God was alone when he created the universe; (f) humanism, because God, not man, is the ultimate reality; and (g) evolutionism, because God created all things.[1]

The Bible makes no attempt to refute any of these philosophies, it merely presents the account of God’s creation as the truth; it must be accepted by faith. God has set things up in such a way that accepting his word by faith is a precondition to learning the truth about anything. “…faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). Moreover, “…without faith, it is impossible to please him…” (Hebrews 11:6). If a person accepts Genesis 1:1 by faith, he will not find it difficult to believe anything else recorded in the Bible. If he does not accept Genesis 1:1, he will be led into fables[2] – often of his own devising – which represent the desires of his God-rejecting heart.

Now you can see why Solomon asked for wisdom, not for intelligence and not for knowledge. Without wisdom, no amount of intelligence or knowledge will lead you to the truth of a matter, let alone to the personification of Truth, who is the Lord God Almighty.

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[1] Morris, Henry, The Genesis Record, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids MI, pp 37-39.

[2] Good examples of modern fables are heliocentrism, biological evolution, and geological uniformitarianism.

What do a wife and a platoon sergeant have in common?

by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #013 posted October 10, 2016, edited March 9, 2021.

Although the Bible indicates that a man is responsible to God for providing for, protecting, and leading his family, he cannot do so without the cooperation and help of his wife. Here the dynamics in a military unit can help elucidate the problem.

In the US Army and the US Marines, there often arises the situation in which a second lieutenant fresh out of officer training school is assigned to be the commander of an infantry platoon of roughly 45 men. One of them is the platoon sergeant – usually a staff sergeant or possibly a gunnery sergeant – his second in command, who possesses years of experience. For at least a while, the subordinate is the more capable leader, but his job is not to lead the platoon, but to help the lieutenant learn his job and lead the platoon capably. If the sergeant does try to lead the platoon, three things will happen: the platoon will function poorly, he will lose the respect of his subordinates (he is providing them with a lesson in insubordination), and the lieutenant will never learn to lead the platoon. If the platoon sergeant does his job properly, however, he will receive the respect of both his men and his boss – any lieutenant who does not recognize and value the critical contribution of a sergeant who does his job properly will not last very long.

The role which God has assigned to the wife in a marriage is similar to the role which the Army or Marines assigns to the platoon sergeant. Her job is not to lead the family, but to help her husband learn his job and lead the family capably. If she does try to lead the family, three things will happen: the family will function poorly, her husband will lose the respect of his children (she is providing them with a lesson in insubordination), and the husband will never learn to lead the family. If the wife does her job properly, however, she will receive the love and respect of both her children and her husband – any husband who does not recognize and value the critical role of a wife who does her job properly will not stay married very long.

Unlike the military situation, in which officers receive more status, pay, perks, and recognition, the wife in a godly household will be treated as her husband’s equal and will be highly honored by him, their children, and others who recognize her contributions.

See the appendix below for a very interesting and insightful discussion of this issue by Sheldon Vanauken.

APPENDIX

EXCERPTS FROM UNDER THE MERCY^[1]by Sheldon Vanauken

Pages 178-179.

I do not, I must hasten to say, reject all of feminism. Women should certainly receive equal pay for equal work – and equal commitment. Moreover, I distinguish between women who merely want fair play and the feminist organizations and leaders who are far more extreme. The essential feminist argument that I reject is that equality means identicalness, like two ten-penny nails. The essential position I maintain is that equality means equal in value, equal in importance. Not like two identical nails but like a nut and a bolt that are of absolutely equal importance in holding something together but are different and complementary.

Those who deny the deep and innate difference of men and women (apart from the trifling differences important only in the bedroom) are the “Neuterists’ of the title – the Unisexists. They go against the deep wisdom of all races and all history. They also go against the Bible.

One of their arguments is that the people of past ages, including Jesus and St. Paul, were conditioned by the culture of their times. Leaving apart the fact that Jesus, Son of God, did perfectly the will of the Father in eternity (not culture-conditioned), the feminists neglect one point: that they themselves are totally surrendered to late twentieth-century ‘culture’, as culture-conditioned as the young Nazis in the ’30s or the Victorians of the 1880s. Every age has its characteristic illusions (Nordic supremacy or witchcraft). The feminist vision of woman – of equality as sameness – may be the great illusion of our age….

I have sometimes dared to wonder whether the neuterists might possibly be suffering from arrested development: an inability to accept fully their own womanhood.

The feminism of the 1920s was too early for Davy and me to be aware of. It had perished in the rigours of the Great Depression, just as it will perish again if there’s another rock-bottom depression or a devastating defeat in war, and we again go back to basics. At all events, when Davy and I were married, feminism was simply not on. Women, despite some doctors and editors, were mostly housewives, but they seemed happy as well as a good deal freer than men. Nevertheless, as I have told in A Severe Mercy, I was determined to renounce husbandly authority: we should discuss everything, and we should not act until we both agreed; and we should share housework and cooking. Davy did not demand this in the name of women’s rights: it was my initiative, though she was pleased as well as astonished. In that day it was astonishing. But it was done in the name of love. Not ‘rights’.

But there is a certain irony here, not apparent to us then. The male headship that St. Paul lays down means, not bossing, but leading or initiating. That is why God the Father, while He created and certainly comprehends both genders, is masculine: He initiates. And it is why Jesus, one with the Father, had to be born a man: He is head of the Church: it is the Church that is she: the Bride of Christ. And the irony in what Davy and I did was that I initiated our feminist arrangements, though I didn’t appreciate that irony until after her death. And I concluded then that male leadership was inbuilt in the Creation and could only be denied at heavy cost to love. But we didn’t suspect it during her life – unless she did.

For in the last year of our years together, reading deeply in St. Paul, she began to desire to be, not a ‘comrade-lover’ but a wife.

Pages 181-185

Since God Doesn’t Make Mistakes:

WOMEN’S ‘ORDINATION’ DENIES THE INCARNATION

The case for the ‘ordination’ of women to the sacramental priesthood is very appealing. It appeals to our sense of fair play, of simple justice. Women have, in fact, suffered grave injustice: why is their being denied the priesthood not an aspect of that injustice? But the case rests not only upon justice but upon the equally appealing proposition that Our Lord the Holy Spirit is leading the Church of Christ into a new understanding of the roles of women – and who are we to argue with the Holy Spirit? It is perfectly clear that women have the brains to be priestesses or even learned theologians; and no less clear that they have the qualities of sympathy and understanding that would enhance their ministry. And, after all, neither Christ nor even the alleged misogynist, St. Paul, ever laid it down that women cannot be priestesses, and St. Paul, indeed, can be held to have implied that they could be in his great statement that there is neither male nor female in Christ Jesus. The fact that Jesus, so sympathetic to women, still did not, in that patriarchal Jewish world, make some women, say Mary Magdalen, an apostle was perfectly appropriate to His time and place. He also did not make a Gentile an apostle. Therefore, just as the Church made Titus and other Gentiles bishops (or apostles) when the time was right, so now we should not be restrained by Jesus’s not appointing a woman nor by the resulting tradition from following the leading of Our Lord the Spirit into new truth.

It is all most appealing and compelling. It was all so appealing and compelling to me in the late sixties – I being a strong advocate of women’s liberation from the first – that, brooding upon injustice to my sisters and engaging in what I was pleased to call thinking upon theology, I was moved to write a spirited article urging the instant ‘ordination’ of women. One uncomfortable question that I did not ask was: How do we know that men and women are, apart from the plumbing, the same, spiritually the same? We do not, in fact, know that. Another question, even more uncomfortable, is assumed by the proponents of women’s ‘ordination’ to be raised only by die-hard, male supremacist opponents; but it is a real question all the same: How do we know that it is Our Lord the Spirit that is compelling us and not the Spirit of the Age? Those who find that question meaningless have perhaps answered it, at least for themselves.

Being myself unable to answer either question with assurance, I finally raised the question: What, if anything, is the bearing of the Incarnation upon the priesting of women?

The Incarnation is surely the central doctrine of our faith. If we are of those who speak contemptuously of “creedal literalism” (which appears to be shorthand for the assertion that we can say the creeds without believing them and still, somehow, not be liars) we perhaps brush aside “He came down from heaven and was made man” and “very God of very God.” But there are many in the Church – who may be called Christians – who do not brush these statements aside, who do believe the Creeds, and who hold the Incarnation to be the essence of the Christian faith. I for one. And I speak to others of like belief.

Still, what bearing does the believed-in Incarnation have upon the priesting of women?

I am a writer, not a trained theologian. Let me, therefore, begin with an analogy that may make a certain amount of sense to those who write or read stories. Suppose, then, I write a novel and put myself in it (perhaps under a different name), as writers often do. I am the author, not the Author of All Things but the inventor (creator) of this particular story. For my novel I invent (create) an imagined city in an imagined time and place full of imagined characters. But I, too – not imagined or created – am in the (invented) city, talking to and interacting with the invented characters. I-the-character, wearing my familiar tweeds, smoking my pipe, speak to the invented characters, but I-the-character speak the words that I-the-writer give me to speak – the words that I-the-writer would speak in those circumstances. I-the-character do the will of “my father in the study,” that is, the writer. I am, in short, incarnate in my book. All man and all God, that is the doctrine. And in the analogy, all character and all author. The analogy is not perfect. For one thing the characters don’t have free will. And yet, as many novelists have said, sometimes the characters do “run away” with the story. The logic of the situation in my novel might compel me-the-writer to allow me-the-character to be shot or, if it were set in Roman times, crucified.

One more point about the analogy: I-the-writer know how the novel will end. The characters move in their invented time, and if they were truly sentient, the future to them would be veiled. I-the-writer am not in the book’s invented time but in what to the characters would be eternity, even as God the Father is in eternity, though Jesus, God the Son become man, was in created time.

Argument by analogy is always dangerous, and any argument based on an analogy with the Trinitarian God would be incredibly dangerous. But I have not based an argument upon my analogy and do not propose to. I suggested the analogy only as a possible illumination in our thinking about the relation of the Incarnation to the priesting of women.

Still, the analogy does roughly express what the Church has maintained for some two thousand years of (created) time to be the relationship between God the Father and God the Son when the latter was made man in this (created) world. Jesus, the Church says, was all God and all man – the body of a man, the mind of a man, the limitations perhaps of a man, yet God in the world. He and the Father were one, He said. And He did the will of the Father, He said. Therefore He knew what the will of the Father was. But, then, to return to the analogy for the moment, I-the- character do the will of the writer as it is given to me to do. I-the-character can do no other. Jesus, one with the Father, with perfect obedience, chose to do no other than the will of His Father.

The proponents of the priesting of women point out that Christ, even if He were the incarnation of God, was necessarily of finite mind. He had, they say, the limitations and even the prejudices of the particular (created) time and place of His manhood. Therefore, in choosing apostles, He, a Jew, would of course have chosen only men, even as those apostles, in their turn choosing first a new Twelfth and later others, would choose only men. Thus the tradition, unquestioned at the time, became fixed and has endured down the centuries. But we are not first-century Jews, and we should cast aside the tradition that was based upon no more than first-century Jewish prejudice. But this argument neglects one point.

Jesus, indeed, was a Jewish man of His time. But Jesus did the will of the Father which He knew, even as (in my analogy) I-the-character do the will of the writer which I know. Jesus did perfectly the will of the Father.

Jesus, with the limitations of a first-century Jewish man, did not ever, we may suppose, think of appointing a woman to the apostolate. He did not, we may presume, have the least notion that His not appointing a woman would prevent any woman from being priestess or apostle for nearly two millennia.

But God the Father knew. And Jesus did perfectly the will of the Father.

Just this is central. Before all worlds, God the Father in eternity knew that on this (created) world sixty generations of women would be denied any aspiration to the priesthood because Jesus did not appoint a woman as apostle. Even if we now fling open the barred gates to the priesthood and the episcopate, the wronged generations of women stream back through the centuries.

It may be objected that Jesus did not appoint any Gentiles as apostles either. Perhaps it never occurred to Jesus that either women or Gentiles would be seeking the priesthood. But there were Gentile bishops and priests – Titus, for instance, or Timothy – as soon as the need arose with the expansion of the Church into the Gentile world. Why were there not female priests and bishops? Because of male prejudice in the Gentile world also? That will hardly do. Women were freer in the Greco-Roman world than they have ever been since until this century. They owned property; they were admitted to philosophical schools in Athens; they were often in positions of great influence; and, above all, there were innumerable priestesses of other religions. Christianity itself may have raised some eyebrows but a Christian priestess would not have caused them to be raised a bit higher. Why then, the difference? Why were Gentiles brought into the apostolate even in New Testament times but not women?

The Gospels are very brief; and we know nothing of many things Jesus must have said to the Twelve, except as a surmise from what happened. Thus we may surmise that He must have said that the apostolate was to continue since, after the defection of Judas, the remaining Eleven so quickly chose a new Twelfth. Of course we cannot base an argument upon what Jesus may have said about women. More important perhaps for our purposes is what He did not say. Quite certainly He did not tell them that no Gentile could ever be an apostle. The apostles were imbued with His teaching, and the election of the early Gentile bishops must have been in harmony with that teaching. We simply do not know whether He said anything about women as apostles or bishops. We know only that in the Greco-Roman church there were none. Therefore, there is no reap parallel between His choosing no Gentiles and His choosing no women.

We come back then to what an incarnational Christian, if I may use what ought to be a redundant modifier, who favors the priesting of women must find his way round. Jesus, who did perfectly the will of the Father, did not appoint a woman. Therefore, it was not the will of the Father that He should. But, as a matter of historical fact, His not appointing a woman doomed sixty generations of women to be denied the priesthood. This denial, known to the Father in eternity, must, then, have been with will of the Father.

And yet, it is said, the Holy Spirit is now leading the Church into the new truth that women can, after all, be priestesses and bishops. But if a woman now who is properly ordained by a bishop becomes a real priestess, then a woman properly ordained a thousand years ago would have become a real priestess. And, indeed, if women had been priestesses and bishops all along, it can scarcely be supposed that women would have sunk so low in the scheme of things as they did sink after the fall of Rome.Thus women have been gravely deprived and greatly wronged by being excluded from the orders. How do we get around the sixty wronged generations streaming back through the centuries? Did Jesus make an error? But Jesus did perfectly the will of the Father. Well, then, did God the Father make an error? Shall we imagine God the Father saying: “By Jove! that was careless. I certainly blew that one! How could I have forgotten those sixty wronged generations? Well, I’ll make it all right for the next generation, anyhow.”

One of two things must be true if women can actually become priestesses: Either God the Father made a mistake and has now changed His mind. Or Jesus who was God incarnate did not do the will of the Father. The first is nonsense. The second amounts to a denial that Jesus was the incarnate God.

Any argument for the priesting of women that is based on the Holy Spirit leading the Church into new truth must also account for old error – the sixty wronged generations of women.

I submit that it cannot be done without denying the Incarnation.

Pages 192-196

…A unisexist is one who denies the deep and innate differences between men and women. Thus no male headship or initiating, no female receptivity or nurturing or intuitive power. Thus the unisexists would neuter the race: hence, ‘neuterists’.

…modern feminism was born in the Angry Years of the ’60s, born out of a false analogy with the blacks. There really isn’t any notable difference between a black man and a white, except the skin-deep difference of colour. But the difference between a man and a woman has always been held to be soul-deep. It’s up to the feminists to prove that it isn’t; but they do not do it; they assume it – assume the truth of what is to be proved, which is begging the question. Until it is proved, which I think cannot be done, the analogy is false.

Christianity has always held that the difference is, in fact, soul-deep, that the souls and resurrected bodies of men and women are masculine and feminine through all eternity. Can one imagine meeting the Blessed Virgin Mary (or one’s own mother) in Heaven and finding her other than womanly? Or St. Peter other than manly? And my own Davy – she wouldn’t be Davy if she weren’t feminine.

Many feminists would reply, “Yes, indeed. But what has that got to do with women being soldiers, radio announcers, or policemen, or with men being nurses or baby-tenders?” The answer is that those jobs were allotted to one sex or the other on the realistic basis of perceived physical and psychological differences of men and women. “But,” the feminist would rejoin, “there are some women, perhaps only one in a thousand, who would be valuable policemen; should they be denied?” Yes, I think so; for if women are accepted at all, there inevitably follows quotas and sexual-discrimination suits or the fear of them; and far more than the rare ‘perfect’ coppess would have to be admitted. And protected by the real policemen.

It is unisexism – the idea not the name – that is being proclaimed by the Spirit of the Age….

It is not Christianity only that affirms the deep difference of the sexes. The affirmation is the common judgement of the human race in all time and all places. Even the middle-class feminists of the big cities are, despite the loudness of their demands, a tiny minority of the living women upon this earth. And throughout the ages the philosophers and ordinary people have affirmed the deep difference of the masculine and the feminine – the Yang and the Yin of China, the Perushka and Prakity of India, the sky god and earth goddesses of the Greeks and Romans, the animus and anima of Jung. To Aristotle it was the difference of form and matter, act and potency (intelligibility and potentiality). The masculine has been above all seen as the rational as well as the active and the initiating; and the feminine as receptive, passive, with deep intuitive wisdom.

Dom Bede Griffiths OSB in The Marriage of East and West say that the West, especially since the enlightenment, has been sickened with unbalanced masculine rationality – and that the West is doomed unless it rediscovers the feminine intuitive wisdom of the East (the India he knows so well). But to the West rationality and the knowledge that results from it are dry and arid without intuition and feeling, just as intuition and feeling without rationality become wet and chaotic and ‘sticky’, even nightmarish.

If indeed the West, as Dom Bede says, is sick with unbalanced masculine rationality, then at first glance the feminist revolution might seem a good thing. But a long, hard look at the unisexist feminists (and many more women are unisexists than know it) discloses the truth that, far from representing feminine intuitive wisdom, they are bent on equalling or outdoing men in rationality and toughness, abandoning the clear springs of their own power in aping something we don’t need more of. The more that women forsake womanliness the sicker the West becomes. Feminist is not feminine.

The androgyny that some unisexists urge would bring about the neutered death of both the masculine and the feminine principles.

What we need is a feminine movement, not a feminist or unisexist one.

A beginning point might be found in the wisdom of Confucius whose ethical master principle was for everyone to strive to live up to the Names of their Relationships – the highest connotation of those Names. Thus a woman might do her best to live up to the fullest, deepest meaning of Daughter, Sister, Wife, Maidservant or Mistress, Mother, Friend, and more.

I must at this point tell a story from real life, vouched for by a woman I know. She, an extremely able writer, is a friend of the people concerned, and she told me the story in great detail. Four women, close friends of hers and all in their thirties, had been meeting weekly to study the Bible. One evening they came to St. Paul’s statement in I Corinthians 11 about the headship of the husband. The leader for that evening read it aloud, paused, and read it again. Silence round the table except for a mutter from one of the women: “Jim just couldn’t do it.” Every one of those women – they all knew it – was the head in her marriage. They regarded their husbands as amiable and no doubt lovable blunderers who couldn’t be trusted to think of things and run things competently. Someone said weakly, “Does St. Paul say anything else about it?” An index was consulted, and the other Pauline statements (Col 3:18; Eph 5:22f; I Tim 2:11f) were read out. There was some discussion. Finally the leader said, “Well, girls – what do we do?” Someone else said, “We’ve got to do it.” Another said, “They‘ve got to – the men.” Resolved, they got their husbands together, and explained. The men took it quietly.

Then came the miracle. In less than a year the four women, with amazement and delight, were telling each other and every other woman they knew what had happened. The husbands, all four, had quietly taken over. Every one of them had, so to speak, grown taller in his wife’s eyes: bigger, stronger, wiser, more humorous. It was unbelievable, almost a miracle. And, with no exceptions, every one of the women felt that her marriage had come to a new depth of happiness – a joy – that it had never had before. A rightness.

Seeing this astonishing thing that not one of them had thought possible – not with their husbands – the four wives one day realised an astonishing further truth: they realised that their husbands had never demanded and would never have demanded headship: it could only be a free gift from wife to husband. We are all familiar with the words and concept of a woman’s giving herself to a man. So familiar that we never ask what it really means. The foregoing story illuminates it. This is what it means.

And this is what Davy first intuitively understood and then came in the last years of her life to understand more deeply through her beloved St. Paul.

As I said earlier, slavery is involuntary servitude.

My thinking, along with that hard look at what feminism really was – and was on the way to – had now led me to the rejection of the unisexist, neuterist Spirit of the Age. Was this a change or development? No matter. I had been a feminist; I had listened to and indeed applauded all their cause. And now I had come to reject it. The deeper I looked, the more I realised that the heart of feminism was unisexist, and that the liberation they desired was liberation from being a woman. Their unanimous demand for the right of abortion was proof of that. It is often said that Naziism was corrupted at the heart by the death chambers, killing not only the Jews but the old and infirm. If it was so corrupted at the heart, what then of the heart of feminism, poisoned by the death of millions of unborn babies, painfully killed in the name of women’s rights. The womb, the chamber of life, become a death chamber.

The story of the four Christian women – in total opposition to the feminist insistence upon men’s oppression of women – taught me that men didn’t conquer women but accepted women’s voluntary gift of themselves, just as men now draw back from headship as women refuse to give themselves.

[1] Vanauken, Sheldon, Under the Mercy (1985), Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988. I highly recommend this book.

What should Adam have done?

by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #012 posted October 3, 2016, edited March 9, 2021.

The Bible indicates that mankind’s troubles began in the Garden of Eden when Adam ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil which God had told him not to eat. When Adam learned that Eve had eaten the fruit, he could not undo what she had done. The question is, what should have been his response to the situation. The Bible gives the answer

When God created the Garden, he placed two special trees at its center: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Tree of Life symbolizes life which is lived dependent upon the Word of God. In the description of New Jerusalem in Revelation 22, the Tree of Life stands adjacent to the river which flows out of the Throne of God and of the Lamb at the center of the City. The tree’s roots are nourished continually by the living waters of the Word of God.

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil symbolizes life which is lived independent of the Word of God – at least in part. That part is the determination of what is good and what is evil. That this determination belongs to God, the serpent later makes explicit when he suggests to Eve that, when she eats of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, “…your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3: 5). As gods? No. As God!

When God placed Adam in the garden, he said:

Of every tree of the garden thou mayest eat freely: But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis 2: 16-17)

This sentence contains three elements: a permission, a prohibition, and a sanction. The permission is extraordinarily unrestrictive; Adam may eat anything in the garden which he wants with only one exception. Considering the variety of flora which must have been there – all past and present species, the permission amounts to almost total freedom. Conversely, the prohibition is very specific; Adam must eschew only the fruit of one tree. But the sanction for disregarding this prohibition is terrible; if Adam eats of the forbidden fruit, he shall die.

God freely gave Adam access to the Tree of Life, just as God freely gave Adam life. God withheld only one thing from Adam; the right to determine what is good and what is evil. God reserved that to himself. God would determine what is good and what is evil – not Adam.

Note that God uttered the permission, the prohibition, and the sanction to Adam before he created Eve. Adam, the man, was responsible.

Furthermore, Adam, the first man, was the representative of all men. It is a biblical principle that one person represents the group of people over whom he exercises leadership or authority: the husband represents the family; the priest represents the congregation; the king represents the nation. In each case the representative’s righteousness or unrighteousness affects the group. The representative’s faithfulness or unfaithfulness, obedience or disobedience, determines the blessings or the curses which God will visit upon the group – sometimes “unto the third and fourth generation,” sometimes to a thousand generations.

A related principle is the covering. God gives a man authority over the women in his household, and God holds a man responsible for protecting and providing for them. The operation of this principle can be seen in God’s view of vows. God views a man’s vow in the following terms:

If a man vow a vow unto the LORD, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond; he shall not break his word, he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth. (Numbers 30:2)

God views a woman’s vows very differently, however. In the case of a daughter:

If a woman also vow a vow unto the LORD, and bind herself by a bond, being in her father’s house in her youth; And her father hear her vow, and her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her: then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand. But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand: and the LORD shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her. (Numbers 30: 3-5)

Or, in the case of a wife,

And if she had at all an husband, when she vowed, or uttered ought out of her lips, wherewith she bound her soul; And her husband heard it, and held his peace at her in the day that he heard it: then her vows shall stand, and her bonds wherewith she bound her soul shall stand. But if her husband disallowed her on the day that he heard it; then he shall make her vow which she vowed, and that which she uttered with her lips, wherewith she bound her soul, of none effect: and the LORD shall forgive her. (Numbers 30: 6-8)

Thus, a man has a duty, not only to fulfill his own vows, but also to protect his wife and daughters from foolish vows or commitments which they make on their own. So that there be no misunderstanding regarding the source of these determinations, Deuteronomy 30 ends with this verse:

These are the statutes, which the LORD commanded Moses, between a man and his wife, between the father and his daughter, being yet in her youth in her father’s house. (Numbers 30: 16)

The operation of this principle can also be seen in another statute regarding the relationship between a man and his wife or daughter.

When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her. (Deuteronomy 25: 11-12)

A man’s manhood is so important to God that he requires that a woman be maimed for touching another man’s genitals – even if that man is threatening the life of her husband.

Thus, Adam was set as protector and provider over Eve, and Eve was required to honor Adam’s authority over her.

Now Adam and Eve were living in the garden in harmony with God when the serpent set out to foster rebellion against God. His target, of course, was Adam, the first man and the head of the family (1 Corinthians 11: 3-7, Ephesians 5: 23). Because the serpent is very subtle, however, he approached Eve.

Eve engaged in conversation with the Serpent without Adam being present. In doing so, she rejected both his authority and his protection. In her pride, she believed that she did not need her husband, that she could handle the Serpent on her own. That was the first step in mankind’s rebellion against God.

Now, rebellion always involves tinkering with the Word of God. First, the serpent misquoted God:

Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden? (Genesis 3:1)

That is not what God said. He said that Adam could eat of every tree in the Garden but one. The serpent changed the Word of God. Eve responded by saying:

We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. (Genesis 3: 2-3)

Then, Eve also misquoted God. She subtracted the words “freely” and “every.” She did not differentiate between the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; she even confused them. Lastly she added to the Word of God by saying “neither shall ye touch it.”

Finally the Serpent contradicted the Word of God: “Ye shall not surely die” (Genesis 3: 4), and then uttered the Great Lie: “Ye shall be as gods” (Genesis 3: 5).

Thus tempted, Eve looked at the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and saw that it was “good for food,…pleasant to the eyes, and…to be desired to make one wise” (Genesis 3: 6), the three attributes of this world of which John wrote:

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world is the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. (I John 2: 15-16)

Eve ate of the forbidden fruit.

What is clear from the Scriptures, however, is that Eve’s transgression did not constitute the Fall. Adam had not yet sinned, and he had the opportunity to repudiate what Eve had done. Indeed, it was his duty to do so. Instead, he allowed Eve to persuade him to eat also (Genesis 3: 6). That constituted the Fall.

…death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come….For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. (Romans 5: 14, 19)

Immediately both Adam and Eve felt naked, and they tried to cloth themselves with aprons of fig-leaves and hide from God. Of course Adam and Eve felt the shame of physical nakedness, but this shame was only a part of their sense of nakedness. Moreover, they had succeeded in clothing themselves in aprons, and thus their physical nakedness was not the real issue. The key to what transpired here is contained in Adam’s explanation to God of why they hid:

I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid. (Genesis 3: 10)

Previously they had no reason to fear God and in fact had enjoyed God’s companionship; now they knew that they were exposed to God’s wrath. They were uncovered (the concept of the covering again), and the aprons did not remedy this situation.

When God questioned Adam concerning whether or not they had eaten of the forbidden fruit, Adam admitted that they had, but then blamed Eve:

She gave me of the tree, and I did eat. (Genesis 3: 12)

Eve then blamed the serpent:

The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. (Genesis 3: 13)

God passed judgment upon all concerned. Because it instigated man’s rebellion, God condemned the serpent to crawl upon its belly in the dust forever and to be bruised in the head by the seed of the woman (the Lord Jesus Christ). Because she rejected her husband’s covering and persuaded him to rebel, God condemned Eve to bear children in pain and to desire and be ruled over by her husband. Finally, because he ate of the forbidden fruit – for he is the one to whom God gave dominion over the Garden and thus whom God held ultimately responsible, God condemned Adam to toil for food and to die physically – he had already died spiritually. In order to force Adam to toil, God cursed the earth: henceforth it would bring forth thorns and thistles and resist Adam’s efforts to cultivate it.

So what should Adam have done? He should have repudiated what Eve did and plead with God to be merciful to her. If he had, the history of mankind would have been very different.

Does Palestine belong to the Jews?

by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #011 posted September 26, 2016, edited March 9, 2021.

That events in the Middle East occupy prominent positions in the reporting of newspapers and TV stations throughout the world on a daily basis does not get much attention. Moreover, what the Bible says about God’s election of the ancient Hebrews as his Chosen People and his gift to them of the Land of Canaan in perpetuity gets even less. Yet God created Universe and is absolutely sovereign over it. To ignore in the 21^st century AD what he chose to do in the 19^th century BC invites his wrath. Expect trouble.

Preamble

Although Palestine is not a Biblical name for the land which God promised to Israel, and which is now occupied in various degrees by the Lebanese, Syrians, Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians, and Saudis, I use it because it is the term which most people today use for the portion of the Promised Land which is currently occupied by the Palestinians and Israelis, and which appears stuck in the craw of the world.

SEVEN-FOLD PROMISE OF LAND

God uttered His promise of land to the Hebrews seven times – five times to Abraham, once to Isaac, and once to Jacob. The promise was then confirmed by Moses.

1^st Promise – given to Abraham: “And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him” (Genesis 12:7).

2^nd Promise – given to Abraham: “And the LORD said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee” (Genesis 13:14-17).

3^rd Promise – given to Abraham: “And he said unto [Abram], I am the LORD that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it” (Genesis 15:7).

4^th Promise – given to Abraham: “In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: The Kenites, and the Kenizzites, and the Kadmonites, And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims, And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites” (Genesis 15:18-21).

5^th Promise – given to Abraham: “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God” (Genesis 17:8).

6^th Promise – given to Isaac: “Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father” (Genesis 26:3).

7^th Promise – given to Jacob: “And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed” (Genesis 28:13).

Moses’s confirmation of God’s promise of the land. “When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt” (KJV Deut 7:1-8).

EXTENT OF THE PROMISED LAND.[1]

In addition to promising the Land of Canaan to the Jews, God specified the extent of the Promised Land so that mankind could not plead ignorance concerning what he was doing.

Certain territory. In His fourth promise of the Land (Genesis 15:18), God defined the territory that He was giving as all the land between the Euphrates River in the north and the River of Egypt (now the Wadi El Arish in the Sinai peninsula) in the south. Moreover, God and Moses mentioned the following people that must be driven out of the land or destroyed: the Amorites twice, the Canaanites twice, the Girgashites twice, the Hittites twice, the Hivites, the Jebusites twice, the Kadmonites, the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Perizzites twice, and the Rephaims. In addition, in his sixth promise of the land, God appears to have included Philistia. Thus, the Promised Land includes all the land between the Euphrates on the north and the Wadi El Arish on the south, and between the Jordan River on the east and the Mediterranean Sea on the west – that is, Lebanon, Syria south of the Euphrates, Israel, Jordan west of the Jordan River (i.e. the west bank), and Sinai north of the Wadi El Arish.

Probable territory. The Promised Land probably also includes Gilead, the land on the east bank of the Jordan River that was occupied by Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. “And the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh returned, and departed from the children of Israel out of Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go unto the country of Gilead, to the land of their possession, whereof they were possessed, according to the word of the LORD by the hand of Moses” (KJV Joshua 22:9).

BASIS OF GOD’S GIFTS: GRACE

In the case of both his gift of election and his gift of land, God made clear to the Jewish people that he was giving them these things for his own reasons, one of which was that he had decided to love them, and one of which was that he wished to demonstrate that he always keeps his Word. Neither gift was merited in any way. Indeed, God went out of his way to point out that they were insignificant in number, unrighteous in character, and generally “stiff-necked” (i.e. stubborn and troublesome).

Grace, not merit, was the basis of God’s election of Israel: “For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations” (Deuteronomy 7:6-9).

Grace, not merit, was the basis of God’s gift of the Land: “Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee. Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiff-necked people” (Deuteronomy 9:4).

WARNING

Until the nations of the world realize and acknowledge that God chose the Jewish People to be “the apple of his eye”[2] and gave them the land of Canaan (Palestine) to hold in perpetuity, Israel is going to be a constant source of trouble for the nations. Moreover, if any nation turns against Israel, it will suffer retribution at the hands of an angry God, for “…the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (KJV Genesis 12:1-3).

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[1] The Promised Land is synonymous with Canaan – see fourth and fifth promises.

[2] Zechariah 2:8.

Was Noah’s ark overcrowded?

by John Holbrook Jr.
A Biblical View, Blog #010 posted September 19, 2016, edited March 9, 2021.

One of the many Bible stories on which skeptics like to jump with both feet is the account of Noah’s ark – particularly the claim that the ark carried a male and female of every sort or kind of animal on earth. How, they ask, could the ark contain elephants, lions, tigers, rhinoceroses, giraffes, etc. and the food necessary to sustain them– let alone how eight people could tend them and keep the ark from becoming an unsanitary and nauseous dungeon? Surprisingly, the answer is simple and came to me from an unlikely source.

According to my chronology of ancient history, the Antediluvian Era lasted roughly 1656 years (3977-2321 BC). The Bible makes clear that the men of this era (a) failed to honor God and his commandments and (b) indulged in every form of iniquity. Some of the trouble appears to have been caused by (a) the nephilim (sometimes translated “giants”), who were mighty men of renown and may have been warriors that introduced conflict and war into antediluvian life and (b) marriages between “the sons of God” (perhaps God-honoring covenant-keepers) and the “daughters of men” (perhaps God-dishonoring covenant-breakers), thereby becoming “unequally yoked.”

In any event, God became disgusted by the behavior of his creatures and decided to destroy the civilization which they had managed to construct.[1] God instructed Noah to build an ark in which to preserve his family and representatives of every animal and avian species on earth.

God provided Noah with the plans and specifications of the Ark.

Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch. And this is the fashion which thou shalt make it of: The length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it. (KJV Gen 6:14-16)

The Ark’s passengers were Noah and his wife, his oldest son Japheth and his wife, his middle son Seth and his wife, and his youngest son Ham and his wife – four men and four women. In addition, there was a pair (male and female) of every animal species on earth.

…and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee. And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female. Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee, and for them. (KJV Gen 6:18-21)

The LORD himself shut Noah and his fellow passengers in the Ark. I believe that the door was closed and locked from the outside.

And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him [Noah]: and the LORD shut him [Noah] in. (KJV Gen 7:16)

In 2321 BC, when Noah was 600 years old, a global flood devastated the earth. It utterly destroyed and buried the Antediluvian civilization and left the land surface devoid of plant and animal life and overflowing with mud and muck. For the next 370 days, the ark carried its passengers safely through the cataclysm.

Now the idea that the ark carried pairs of every animal and avian species for 370 days without touching land has engendered vigorous debate over the past four millennia. It is often ridiculed by representatives of the Academy.[2] The questions are always the same: How could pairs of dinosaurs, elephants, lions, and tigers, etc. fit into and coexist peacefully in the ark? How could four men and four women feed all the animals and birds, let alone keep their respective cages clean and dispose of the refuse?

Is this what the ark looked like from the exterior?

Exterior of Noah's Ark (1)

Is this what the ark looked like from the interior?

Interior of Noah's ark (1)

In 1982, I was a member of a house church, and one Sunday, after the worship service, all the men were gathered in the living room discussing the Scriptural text for the day,[3] which was a portion of the story of the flood.[4]

The men took turns commenting on the above questions. The discussion touched on the size of the ark, the number of interior decks, the number of species involved, the various sizes of the cages necessary to accommodate them, the difficulties of storing and distributing the food, the dangers involved in dealing with dinosaurs, elephants, lions, tigers, etc., the herculean task of cleaning the cages and disposing of the refuse. The discussion produced more questions than answers.

Meanwhile, an eight year old girl, the daughter of one of the men, sat in our midst. Her name was Jennifer. She had obviously been raised to listen to, but not interrupt her elders. After sitting still and silently for some time – at least half an hour – she finally couldn’t stand it another minute and said in a quiet voice, “Maybe they were babies.”

All of us men were struck dumb. I don’t exaggerate. We said nothing for several minutes, and then one of us said, “Out of the mouth of babes…!” [5]

In all the reading that I have done, I have never run across the suggestion that all the animals, birds, etc. on the ark were babies. Yet it is the obvious answer to all the troubling questions that I have noted above.

The adults in our house church that morning were given two lessons:

First, the Lord has a role for everyone among His followers to play. He can and does use every man, woman, and child, no matter how humble their abilities and circumstances, to contribute to the equipping of the saints for ministry. Everyone of us there that morning went out into the world better able to explain the Word of God to unbelievers because the Lord spoke to us through the mouth of an eight year old girl.

Second, when you are confronting a puzzling situation, it is essential to ask yourself, “Have I put this situation in a box? Have I made one or more inferences that prevent me from seeing the truth of this situation? If I have, what are the inferences and what possibilities emerge after they are eliminated – that is, how do I start thinking outside the box that I have created in my mind?”[6]

In the case of the Biblical account concerning Noah’s ark, people infer – the story does not imply – that the pairs of species are adults. They know, however, that God specifies pairs (a male and a female) because he intends that they reproduce and thereby preserve their respective species. This intention catapults people’s thoughts into the adult world. They infer that adults are meant because babies cannot reproduce – yet. They have created a box in their minds that leads to a disbelief in the story because pairs of all species on earth can neither fit in the ark nor be cared for by four men and four women. In the case of our discussion on that Sunday morning, the box in our minds was smashed by four, softly spoken words, “Maybe they were babies.”

Thank you Jenny.

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[1] The civilization was undoubtedly singular, for it occupied a single land mass, and its people spoke a single language.

[2] I use the term Academy to refer to the scientists and scholars who rely on the consensus of their peers rather than the written Word of God.

[3] All the women were in the kitchen preparing a sumptuous meal.

[4] The story runs from Genesis 6:13 to 8:19. I can’t remember the exact portion that was read that morning.

[5] See Psalm 8:2 and Matthew 21:16.

[6] One of my favorite examples of a puzzling situation, which tripped up most adults in the 20^th century, is the following story: While driving in the family car, a man and his son are in a terrible accident. Both are severely injured, rushed to the nearest hospital, and put in separate operating rooms. The doctor who is assigned to work on the son enters the operating room, looks at the boy with horror, and cries out, “I can’t operate on him. He is my son!” (Many hospitals will not permit its medical personnel to operate on members of their own families.) Then who is this doctor? This question stumped most people in that era, some of whom devised intricate attempts to identify this “man” who is not the man lying on the table in the operating room next door. The only trouble is – this doctor is not a man. This doctor is the boy’s mother. Why couldn’t most people see this immediately? Because, when they heard the word “doctor,” they saw in their minds’ eyes first someone in a surgical gown (inference #1) and second a man in a surgical gown (inference #2). Then, since the doctor exclaimed, “He is my son!,” they inferred that the doctor is the boy’s father (inference #3). Thus they believed that they were dealing with two fathers (an impossibility excepting to homosexuals, who are now siring children with surrogate mothers and adopting other people’s children, about which I will not comment), which threw them into confusion. That they had been culturally conditioned to make inference #2 does not alter the nature of what was going on here. They were seeking to understand and evaluate reality on the basis of erroneous inferences, to which they clung despite the impossibility of inference #3. Alas, we humans do this all the time.