History Hound Travels

Chapter 17 discusses the gods and goddesses that the people now began (continued) to worship. Stories of Tammuz were similar to the ones that had been spread around about Nimrod after his death, while Ishtar’s legends were like those Nimrod’s wife Semiramis had out out about herself. Cuneiform writing was birthed at this time, as men struggled to cope with writing in their new languages. It is easy to see how history became so confused since old writings could no longer be read by most of the people, and so new histories must be written.

It is worth noting the story of Ham’s son Menes. He was also known as Mizraim, and we will hear much of him later. As a foretaste, he diverted the Nile River to reclaim the marshland and built the city of Memphis. Ham’s other descendants included Casluhim and Caphtorim who settled on Crete, and Sidon, as well as those who lived on the Sinai Peninsula. Japheth’s descendants were the Hellenists and the Medes. Abraham was a descendant of Shem.

Noah died at 950 years old, about the same time Abraham was born, about 2006 years after the world was created, 350 years after the flood, almost 27 lifetimes into the history of mankind. We’re a quarter of the way to now!

Since The Book of God starts with Abraham, we will stop here with Adam and His Kin. Do read the last chapter, but our discussion will pick up Monday with part one, chapter one of The Book of God.

Technorati Tags: Ham, Menes, Crete, Sidon, Japheth, Shem, Noah, Abraham

Chapters 13 and 14 describe the re-population of the earth, and the wickedness that soon re-developed in the Cushite family. We read also about the cursing of the Hamites.

It was approximately 100 years after the flood that the Tower of Babel was begun. Isn’t it incredible that the sons and grandsons of those that survived the flood could so quickly forget the lessons learned there-in? Nimrod (he was the son of Cush,who was the son of Ham) began to take over the cities that were built up along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. He also killed the those who preached about God.

The largest city was eventually renamed Bel, in honor of the serpent, and it was here that the massive tower, with it’s shrine to Satan at the top, was built. The people were called to come to the city to celebrate. While the city was full of people, the common language was confused, and there were great earthquakes. The tower was destroyed by fire from heaven. The resultant discord caused the people to disperse into like-speaking groups.

Nimrod was now dead, but his wife set herself up as the Queen of Heaven, and was worshiped, along with the supposedly reborn Nimrod.

It was during this time that Noah’s great-great-great grandson was born. Noah was 701 years old. The child was named Peleg, which means Division.

I think the next session will be the last one for this book. I’ll explore something else when we meet on Wednesday, and then Friday we will pick up here again.

Technorati Tags: Nimrod, Cush, Bel, Noah, Peleg

It won’t take us much longer to get through with Adam and His Kin, so if you are reading along with me (or want to start) it’s time to shop for our next book. I’ll be reading and talking about The Book of God by Walter Wangerin, Jr. next.

Please understand that when I pick a book for this site, I am not recommending it for it’s theology, but for it’s value in learning history. I won’t steer you in the direction of anything that is way off base theologically, and I will point out any problems I see as we go along, but the merit is in the historocity. Basically, in matters of faith consult the Bible. For more detailed study of history and culture than the Bible provides, choose an author who loves his/her subject.

I’ll be reading The Lives of Rachel by Joel Gross to go along with this part of our study, but will probably not discuss it in depth.

Technorati Tags: Adam and His Kin, The Book of God, Walter Wangerin, Jr, The Lives of Rachel, Joel Gross

These chapters cover life after the Fall up until the Flood. Vivid pictures are painted of the lives of the patriarchs. For our purposes, I just want to point out some of the time spans. I know for myself, when I read the Bible chronology, I don’t tend to think in sweeping segments of time. Because it is crammed in to so small a space, my mind compresses the time involved. I will not go through the entire geneology, but just highlight a few of the better known patriarchs for you.

We started with the premise of roughly 106 lifetimes between Adam’s creation and now. I’ve already pointed out that Adam had lived almost 2 lifetimes before his third child, Seth, was born. Although Adam and Eve had other children, we only know 3 by name: Cain, Abel and Seth. Cain murdered Abel, and moved away from the area of the Garden of Eden. Seth was born when Adam was 130 years old.

When Adam was 687 and Seth was 557, Methuselah was born. Methuselah was the son of Enoch, who “walked with God and was no more, for God took him.” When Methuselah was 369 years old, his grand-son Noah was born. Methuselah died at 969 years of age, just before the flood. So we can do some simple math and find that the flood occurred approximately 1656 years after creation.

In lifetimes: about 22. To put a little perspective on the length of patriarchal life spans, only 10 generations were recorded, inclusive of Adam and Noah from creation to flood, and Adam was still living when Noah’s father was born. Adam lived 930 years, almost an eon, almost 12.5 lifetimes.

We’ll stop here for now. I’ll be back on Wednesday, hopefully before midnight.

Technorati Tags: Flood, patriarchs, Bible, Adam, Cain, Abel, Seth, Methuselah, Enoch, Noah

The second chapter covers life in the garden before and immediately after the Fall. The themes are so heavily spiritual, that I did consider discussing them on Midlife Musings, but I have decided against that, mainly for two reasons:
1) you really can’t study this time period without investigating a few spiritual issues. Life is connected, after all.
2) the same issues that caused problems then continue to cause them today.

So, the earth has been created, and God has placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He visits them there. It is worth noting that God met face to face with these two people, communing with them and answering their questions. It is from Adam, in fact, that we get our earliest history. Surely one of the things he asked was “where did I come from?” It’s a question we still ask and struggle with today.

While Adam and Eve are enjoying God and the Garden, pride is entering the picture in Heaven, wrapped in the heart of the angel, Lucifer. This pride is what I meant when I said the same issues cause us problems today. Look at WWII, caused by the pride of one race of people thinking they were better than another. Look at Darfur, and South Africa today: same issue.

Lucifer became prideful and wanted to be on a level with God, and he convinced some of the angels to join him. They were ultimately defeated, and tossed out of heaven. Lucifer brought his disgruntlement down to mankind, and now here we are today, still full of trouble originally caused by pride.

The next thing worth noting from a purely historical view is that Adam was not deceived. He knew exactly what he was doing, and the consequences, when he took the fruit from Eve. He chose to enter into her punishment with her, rather than endure life alone. This same desire for acceptance and unity also plays a big role in historical events. Look at the atrocities above: in large part they occurred/are occurring because the people near the event choose to keep silent in order to enjoy acceptance.

The remainder of the chapter brings out themes of legalism and love, best handled on the blog I mentioned before.

Technorati Tags: God, Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden, pride, Lucifer, Darfur, South Africa