Category: Genesis

Genesis 46, Jacob goes to Egypt, total sixty-six, not counting wives, daughter and grand daughters.

The discrepancy between sixty-six and three score and fifteen is that 9 wives were not counted, nor any of Jacob’s grand daughters, Two of his son’s wives had obviously already passed away.

Genesis 41, Pharaoh’s dreams, Joseph’s interpretation and rise to power.

Here let me interject a story from my childhood. In Sweden at that time we had Christianity as a subject first thing in the morning every day in the lower grades. My younger brother was in first grade, the teacher always started with Genesis, and had come to this passage in the Bible. I was in middle school in town, and his elementary school was local. Anyhow, upon hearing the story he exclaimed “It is the same with my big brother, he eats and eats and is never getting any fatter” The story spread from our village to town, and I got yet another nickname.

It was an early dream of Climate change.

Climate Change is “best” solved by taxation of the abundance, but unlike today that abundance was not to be spent immediately, but be put in storage for the lean, dry years.

The famine is recorded in hieroglyphs, like in the tablet below.

Genesis 40, the dreams of the cup bearer and baker, Joseph’s interpretation and their fate.

Joseph is in prison.

Dreams are prominent in the Old Testament.

 

 

 

In the New Testament the importance of dreams did go away. The reference in Acts is from Joel 2:38 “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”  

The reference in Jude is a warning not to trust in dreams: Jude 8: In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings.

The importance of visions continues through the New testament.

Trances are mentioned three times, all in Acts.

 

 

 

Genesis 38, Judah and Tamar, Onan’s sin, the scarlet thread.

Not the most inviting country setting.

The sin of Onan was not that he spilled his seed on the ground, but that he disobeyed God. It has often been misunderstood.

The scarlet thread is meaningful through the Bible. Another time it was used as a signal was in Joshua 2:21 “Agreed,” she replied. “Let it be as you say.”So she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

Probably the best known Bible passage  is found is Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

And the color worn by Roman Catholic Cardinals is scarlet).