Generation No. 25
Abram / Abraham
[25] Terah (=Yawnu) [24] Nahor (=Iyoska) [23] Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu
(=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21] Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber (=Azura) [19] Shelah
[18] Arphaxad [17] Shem (=Seduka-tel-bab) [16] Noah (=Na’amath) [15]
Lamech (=Bilanos) [14] Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael)) [13] Enoch (=Edna)
[12] Jared (=Baraka) [11] Mahlalail (=Sina) [10] Cainan (=Mualet) [9]
Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth (=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith) [7] Eve and Adam, [6]
Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu
and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
married
1) Sarah (Sarai) ("contentious," "princess")
2) Hagar, the daughter of a pharaoh in descent from Nimrod (and thus from Cain!)
3) Keturah
children:
Ishmael (by Hager) (making Ishmael a descendant of Nimrod, Cain, et al)
Isaac (by Sarah) (making Isaac a recombined descendant of Cain, Seth, et al)
by Keturah (6 sons)
Zimran
Jokshan
Medan
Midian
Ishbak
Shuah.
According to
Laurence Gardner,
Genesis of the Grail Kings (pages 15-16, 85-89, 163-167):
“Abraham’s home, Ur of the Chaldees,
was a prominent city of the Sumerian Empire, and contemporary texts
record that Ur was sacked by the king of nearby Elam [present day Iran,
the mountains east of Ur] after 2000 BC.” As it turns out, Abraham’s
family was quite prominent in Ur -- clay tablets with the names of commissioners and governors included the names of Terah, Nahor, Serug, and Pelug. “Clearly, the patriarchs represented no ordinary family, but constituted a very powerful dynasty.”
And accordingly, when things went bad, Abraham, et al headed north to
Haran. “A Sumerian text from 1960 BC...” stated, “Ur is destroyed,
bitter is its lament. The country’s blood now fills its holes like hot
bronze in a mold. Bodies dissolve like fat in the sun. Our temple is
destroyed. The gods have abandoned us like migrating birds. Smoke lies
on our cities like a shroud.”
There is some evidence that by
2000 BCE, Abraham was already deep into Canaan (and on his way for a
visit to Egypt - albeit for business instead of pleasure), when
Sodom and Gomorrah
were taken out in a blaze of light. One theory is that these two
cities encountered nuclear weaponry... and as luck would have it, the
fall out migrated eastward with the winds, and most if not all of Sumer
(Ur, Uruk, Eridu, even Kish further north) were subjected to radioactive
fall out. It was this which may have precipitated [pardon the pun] the
decline of the Sumerian civilization (and leaving it wide open to
invasion after the fact by the “less civilized” Elamites.
Abraham’s first and primary
wife was Sarai, who was initially known for her inability to conceive.
But because Abraham had been promised the post of founding patriarch for
a great nation, Sarai presented “Abraham with her Egyptian companion,
Hagar, ‘to be his wife’ -- but when Hagar conceives she is chastized and
banished by Sarai (Genesis 16:1-16), as if the outcome was unexpected.
In due course, Ishmael, the first son of Abraham, is born to Hagar, but
it is then announced that his inheritance is to be superseded by a
forthcoming son of the hitherto barren Sarai -- a son who will be named
Isaac.”
Meanwhile, Abraham is renamed from his former name Abram, the rule of circumcision is introduced for the family heirs [but not for the non-family members?], and “Sarai’s Mesopotamia name, meaning ‘contentious’, is changed to Sarah, denoting a ‘princess’. ["What’s in a name?" suddenly takes on an all new meaning.] In the context of Sarai’s change of name, [Jehovah, aka] El Shaddai further informs Abraham that the newly designated Sarah will be a ‘Mother of Nations’ and that ‘kings
of people shall be of her’ (Genesis 17:15-16). Although Abraham’s
ancestral family had been influential in Mesopotamia, this is the Bible’s first mention of future Hebrew kingship -- but no reason is given for such an ostensibly important prospect.”
“Genesis (15:18) also contains the promise that Isaac’s descendants will inherit the Egyptian Empire ‘from the river of Egypt, unto the great river, the river Euphrates’. No such promise is made, however, in respect of Abraham’s eldest son Ishmael, nor for any of Abraham’s other six sons by his additional
wife Keturah (25:1-2). Abraham was somewhat bewildered by this and
asked about Ishmael’s prospects, to which El Shaddai replied that he
would ‘make him fruitful’, but ‘my covenant will I establish with Isaac’
(17:18-21).”
El Shaddai did promise that
Ishmael would begat 12 princes, and make him a great nation. At the same
time, any orthodox believer in Genesis 15:18 would likely attempt to
use it to create a greater Israel... and simultaneously deny its use to
any descendants of Ishmael. Despite the reverence held for Abraham by
Islam, clearly this particular Biblical passage is not held in
the same high esteem. It might also be noted that the Euphrates is the
western most river of the Tigris-Euphrates basin, and thus Baghdad
(located on the Tigris) would not be included. However, said greater
Israel would extend as far north as Turkey, and take it ninety percent
of Syria. Forget the Golan Heights... the orthodox Jews are learning
Turkish!
“Isaac was to be recognized as the ancestor of the future kings.
Why, then, did Abraham later concede to slay Isaac with a knife upon
the altar at Moriag (22:0)? And why, when putting a stop to the
slaying, did the angel refer to Isaac as Abraham’s ‘only son’ (22:11),
when we know that he had previously fathered Ishmael?” [Perhaps that particular angel had failed to receive the memo on Ishmael’s birth.]
“The Koran, while relating the same story of the near-sacrifice, does
not name the son concerned. Indeed, many Islamic scholars conclude that
the intended victim was not Isaac, but Ishmael, the son of Hagar, [the
latter] who is described in the Book of Adam as the daughter of a
pharaoh in descent from Nimrod.” This begins to make sense if a line of
descent from Isaac had become pharaohs and that circumcision was
performed initially only in ancient Egypt... such that the authors of
Genesis in writing it all down c. 600 BC would be doing a bit of
revisionist history.
The possibility of Ishmael being
the intended victim makes the story one with whole new implications.
Was Jehovah intending to eliminate an Isaac potential-competitor? What
really stayed Abraham's hand?
Terah’s wifes are reported to be “Tohwait (mother of Sarai) and Yawnu (mother of Abraham).” Tohwait is then identified as”Nfry-ta-Tjewnen, the former wife of Pharaoh Amenemhet I. Her son by this marriage was the succeeding Pharaoh Senusret I -- the very pharaoh who claimed Sarai for his wife [during Abraham’s visit to Egypt]. “This is not surprising, since Sarai was Senusret’s maternal half-sister
(as well as being Abraham’s paternal half-sister) and it was common
practice for Egyptian pharaohs to marry their sisters in order to
progress the kingship through the female line. With this in mind, could it be, perhaps, that Isaac was not the son of Abraham after all, but the son of Sarai and the Pharaoh?”
In Genesis (12:19), the “Hebrew writers were emphatic about the fact
that Sarai and the Pharaoh were actually married for a time.” And...
“if Isaac was the son of Pharaoh Senusret, then the seemingly enigmatic
details of the covenant would fall very neatly into place.”
Isaac might then fulfill the
covenant god gave Abraham... even if Isaac was not his blood kin. On the
flip side, if Isaac was indeed Abraham's natural son, then perhaps the
terms and conditions of the covenant would take a bit longer to be
manifested. In that respect, it might be noted that the Egyptian
pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty (still a half millenia in the future) did
in fact develop an empire from the Nile to the Euphrates. Inasmuch as
Moses became Pharaoh in this dynasty (and after the empire's extension
had been completed) -- after 400 years of the newcomers to Egypt
(Jacob's family) slowly intermarrying with the local, Egyptian royalty
-- then apparently, the promise in Genesis 15:18 was satisfied in all
respects.
However, there was apparently
some fine print in the covenant, or... to papaphrase Benjamin
Franklin... "God has given you an Empire; it remains to be seen if you
will be able to keep it." And considering how Moses [See below] really
botched up the opportunity as Pharoah of said Greater Egypt...
obviously, the fine print, escape clause of god's covenant rather
quickly kicked in... and fueled an Exodus.
In Genesis 20:2, Abraham announces to the Egyptian king that Sarah "is
my sister." He did not elaborate that she was also wife... leaving that
to Jehovah to take the king aside and suggest that the king was "but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is
a man's wife." The king then claims that he "had not come near her..."
But then, what would you expect him to say? That she was a great lay?
All of this “paints a rather
different picture of Abraham than has hitherto been portrayed. Quite
suddenly, Abraham appears not as an everyday nomad, but as a wealthy
ruler with gold, silver, camels, herds and a large household of
servants. This fits rather better with his earlier brief portrayal as a
military commander (Genesis 14) who defeated the armies of four kings
to rescue his nephew Lot.”
Wikipedia provides us with the more traditional portrayal of Abraham:
Abraham features in the Book
of Genesis as the founding patriarch of the Israelites, Ishmaelites and
Edomite peoples. Abraham is also widely regarded as the patriarch of
Jews and Arabs and the founder of monotheism.
To which, Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings
(pages 85-89) might have responded that monotheism was not exactly an
Abraham innovation, nor a practice. And in fact there was likely a god
and a goddess (as a minimum) in Abraham’s world.
“For the Israelites, the god-and-goddess concept came to an end when they dismissed Ashtoreth and pledged their allegiance to the one and only Jehovah, who was appropriated from El Elyon. But this pledge of singular allegiance was not made in the time of Abraham, nor even in the time of Moses
-- it occurred much later, in the time of Samuel the judge, when ‘the
children of Israel did put away Baal and Ashtoreth, and served the Lord
only’ (1 Samuel 7:4). This was in about 1060 BC.” [The
fact that Moses, as Amenhotep IV, may have attempted a one-god
transformation of Egyptian society, this one-god was not necessarily one
devoted to Jehovah, but Aten. It was only after Moses was in exile
(prior to the Exodus) that Jehovah got his attention. Or course,
already being predisposed toward a single god, Moses may have simply
applied the local god, Jehovah, to be the burning bush voice... or the
burning bush was simply a Moses device for gaining popular support for
his strange and perplexing mission... and the fact that this guy talks
to trees... and hears their replies.]
Back to Wikipedia: According to
Genesis 17:5, Abraham’s name was changed by God from Abram (probably
meaning "the father is exalted) to Abraham, a name which Genesis
explains as meaning "father of many". [Too bad for Terah.] Abraham was sent by God from his home in Ur of the Chaldees to Canaan, the land promised to his descendants by Yahweh.
There Abraham entered into a covenant: in exchange for recognition of
YHWH as his God, Abraham will be blessed with innumerable progeny and
the land would belong to his descendants.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam
are sometimes referred to as the "Abrahamic religions" because of the
progenitor role Abraham plays in their holy books. In the Jewish
tradition, he is called Avraham Avinu or "Abraham, our Father". God promised Abraham that through his offspring, all the nations of the world will come to be blessed (Genesis 12:3) [albeit, the "check is in the mail" excuse is wearing a bit thin after four thousand years]. On the other hand, Genesis 12:3 is interpreted in Christian tradition as a reference to Christ [and thus all payments are current?].
Jews, Christians, and Muslims consider Abraham father of the people of
Israel through his son Isaac (cf. Exodus 6:3, Exodus 32:13) by his wife
Sarah. For Muslims, he is a prophet of Islam and the ancestor of
Muhammad through his other son Ishmael - born to him by his second wife,
Hagar. (Jews and Christians refer to Hagar as Sarah's servant [but this is pretty much just a political put down of the Muslims]). Abraham is also a progenitor of the Semitic tribes of the Negev who trace their descent from their common ancestor Sheba (Genesis 10:28).
BTW, Abraham's descendants may
have been given the land of Canaan... but there was nothing to suggest
that a single line of descent from Abraham should be given the Deeds to
the Land, while all the other lines of descent from Abraham found
themselves homeless. Thus the Jews, Christians, and Muslims separately
can not claim the "holy land" as their exclusive property on the basis of Abraham's convenant... because in effect they were all descended from him.
After Abraham’s brother Haran
died (after becoming the father of Lot), Terah, with his surviving sons
and their families, then departed for Canaan, but settled in Haran,
where Terah died at the age of 205. Following the death of Terah, when
Abram was seventy-five, the Lord spoke to Abram, telling him to leave
his father's house and his kindred and the land of his birth and go "to
the land that I will show you", where Abram will become a great nation.
So Abram departed Haran with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot and all
their followers and flocks, and they traveled to Canaan, where, at Shechem, the Lord gave the land to him and his seed.
This bit about going to a land
that a god is offering for the faithful sounds a lot like the Mormon
story. Only when they reached the Salt Lake valley... and possibily
before they discovered that the lake was salty... the valley with the
great lake laid out in all of its majesty before them prompted the
famous, "This is the place". And then, when the truth was known... how
can one go back on such a grand pronouncement?
On two separate occasions,
Abram/Abraham travels south, where he tells his wife to pretend to be
his sister because he fears he would otherwise be killed because of her.
On both occasions, the ruler in question, firstly Pharaoh and later
Abimelech, are attracted to Sarai/Sarah and attempt to marry her. On
both occasions the Lord and the ruler sends Abraham away with great
wealth...
[And thus
making Abraham one of the world’s first, really successful pimps? Is
that the message that the authors are trying to convey?]
Following the period spent in
Egypt, Abram, Sarai and his nephew Lot, returned to Ai in Canaan. There
they dwelt for some time, their herds increasing, until strife arose
between the herdsmen. Abram thereupon proposed to Lot that they should
separate, allowing Lot the first choice. Lot took the fertile land
lying east of the Jordan River and near to Sodom and Gomorrah, while
Abram lived in Canaan, moving down to the oaks of Mamre in Hebron.
After this, an invading force
from Northern Mesopotamia, led by Chedorlaomer, king of Elam attacked
and subdued the Cities of the Plain, forcing them to pay tribute. After
twelve years, these cities rebelled. The following year Chedorlaomer
and his allies returned, defeating the rebels and taking many captive,
including Lot. Abraham assembled his men and chased after the invaders,
defeating them near Damascus.
During this period, Sarai, being barren, offers her handmaiden [companion?],
Hagar, to Abram. Hagar soon conceives. Sarai, jealous of this, treats
Hagar harshly, forcing her to flee. When in the desert, the Lord
appears to Hagar, telling her to return, but promising that her son
[Ishmael] shall also be the father of a "multitude". [Curiously, it is never explained why someone should agree to covenants when the promise is only for a huge number of descendants.]
When Abram is ninety-nine, the
Lord again appears to him and affirms his promise. A covenant is
entered into: Sarai will give to birth to a son who will be called Isaac
and Abram's house must from thenceforth be circumcised. It is promised
that Isaac will father twelve princes, who will become a great nation.
Abram's name is changed to Abraham and Sarai's to Sarah.
Soon after, the sins of Sodom and
Gomorrah bring two angels down to investigate. Abraham pleads with them
to spare the city if first fifty, then forty-five, then forty, then
thirty, then twenty, and finally ten righteous men are found in the
city. In each case the angels agree that the city would be spared.
They enter the city, where they meet Lot, who offers them hospitality.
Soon a crowd gathers around Lot's house, demanding the two angels that
they may "know" them. Lot offers his daughters, but the men of the city
press forward until the angels smite them with blindness. In the
morning Lot is told to flee and not to look back as the cities are
destroyed. However, his wife disobeys and is turned into a pillar of
salt. [Which could be associated with a blast of radiation?] After this Abraham enters into a treaty with Abimelech at Beer-sheba.
A recurring feature of the story
of Abraham are the covenants between him and The Lord, which are
reiterated and reaffirmed several times. When Abram is told to leave
Ur, The Lord promises "I will make you into a great nation". After
parting from Lot, God reappears and promises "All the land that you can
see" to Abraham and that his seed would be "like the dust of the earth"
in number. Following the battle of the Vale of Siddim, the Lord appears
and reaffirms the promise. Further, it is prophesied that
"your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they
will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years." [Now, that’s a covenant that has got to make one pause.]
Abraham makes a sacrifice and enters into a covenant: "To your
descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great
river, the Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,
Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and
Jebusites." This covenant refers to Abraham's descendants thru his son
Isaac. [And any contradictory claims by the Kenites, Kenizzites... et al?]
Some time after the birth of
Isaac, Abraham was commanded by the Lord to offer his son up as a
sacrifice in the land of Moriah. The patriarch traveled three days
until he came to the mount that God taught him. He commanded the
servant to remain while he and Isaac proceeded alone to the mountain,
Isaac carrying the wood upon which he would be sacrificed. Along the
way, Isaac repeatedly asked Abraham where the animal for the burnt
offering was. Abraham then replied that The Lord would provide one. [Just the sort of father-son bonding one dreams about.]
Just as Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, he was prevented by an
angel, and given on that spot a ram which he sacrificed in place of his
son. Thus it is said, "On the mountain the Lord provides." As a
reward for his obedience he received another promise of a numerous seed
and abundant prosperity. After this event, Abraham did not return to
Hebron, Sarah's encampment, but instead went to Beersheba, Keturah's
encampment, and it is to Beersheba that Abraham's servant brought
Rebecca, Isaac's patrilineal parallel cousin who became Isaac’s wife.
Sarah died aged about 127, and
was buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs near Hebron, which Abraham had
purchased from Ephron the Hittite, along with the adjoining field.
Abraham, being reminded by this occurrence, probably, of his own great
age, and the consequent uncertainty of his life, became solicitous to
secure an alliance between Isaac and a female branch of his own family.
Eliezer his steward was therefore sent into Mesopotamia, to find from
Abraham's kindred a wife for his son Isaac. Eliezer went on his
commission with prudence, and returned with Rebekah, daughter of
Bethuel, granddaughter of Nahor, and, consequently, Abraham's niece and
Isaac's first-cousin. Many biblical commentators believe that Rebekah
was still a child when she married Isaac, while Isaac was forty years of
age. [Apparently, the lesson of the much older
Sarah being unable to conceive until further along in years... and
without divine intervention... was not lost on Isaac's stewards.]
Abraham lived a long time after
these events. After the death of Sarah, he took another wife, a
concubine named Keturah and she bore Abraham six sons. Abraham died at
the age of 175 years. Jewish legend says that he was meant to live to
180 years, but God purposely took his life because he felt that Abraham
did not need to go through the pain of seeing Esau's wicked deeds. [Seriously?]
In the New Testament Abraham is
mentioned prominently as a man of faith (see e.g., Hebrews 11), and the
apostle Paul uses him as an example of salvation by faith, as the
progenitor of the Christ (or Messiah) (see Galatians 3:16). The New
Testament also sees Abraham as an obedient man of God, and Abraham's
interrupted attempt to offer up Isaac is seen as the supreme act of
perfect faith in God. [Lying to and killing someone is considered ‘the supreme act of perfect faith in God? What about killing others with a bomb?] "By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac [such that Abraham was demonstrating his faith at the expense of someone else -- a curious example of showing a "perfect faith"]. He who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son [which conveniently forgets the older Ishmael?],
of whom it was said, 'In Isaac your seed shall be called,' concluding
that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he
also received him in a figurative sense" The imagery of a father
sacrificing his son is seen as a type of god the Father offering his Son
on Golgatha.
The traditional view in
Christianity is that the chief promise made to Abraham in Genesis 12 is
that through Abraham's seed, all the people of earth would be blessed.
Notwithstanding this, John the Baptist specifically taught that merely
being of Abraham's seed was no guarantee of salvation. [However...] the
promise in Genesis is considered to have been fulfilled through
Abraham's seed, Jesus. It is also a consequence of this promise that
Christianity is open to people of all races and not limited to Jews.
[Depends on the brand of Christianity -- see, for example, The Lost Gospels.]
Many scholars claim, on the
basis of archaeological and philological evidence, that many stories in
the Pentateuch, including the accounts about Abraham and Moses, were
written under King Josiah (7th century BCE) or King Hezekiah (8th
century BCE) in order to provide a historical framework for the monotheistic belief in Yahweh.
Some scholars point out that the archives of neighboring countries
with written records that survive, such as Egypt, Assyria, etc., show no trace of the stories of the Bible or its main characters before 650 BCE. [Abraham, et al might then be primarily fictional.]
Later research into the culture
of Mesoportamia and Syria in the second millennium BCE have seemed to
undercut attempts to tie Abraham in with a definite century, and to
treat him as a strictly historical figure. While it is widely admitted
that there is no archaeological evidence to prove the existence of Abraham,
apparent parallels to Genesis in the archaeological record assure that
speculations on the patriarch's historicity and on the period that would
best fit the account in Genesis remain alive in religious circles.
[And yet,
the entire line of descent from Shem continues to be in question...
even the specifications of Noah and Abraham. Inasmuch as the Pentateuch
(the first five books of the Bible) were largely compiled c. 600 BC,
while the Israelites were still being held captive in Babylon... and
where they would have undoubtedly been influenced by the traditions,
stores, and literature of Mesopotamia... it is more likely that the
entire Shem to Zerubabbal line is based on other heroic tales and
traditions... borrowing a little from wherever... to make one’s
legitimacy more apparent.]
Figure 1. Descendants of Terah and Tohwait (reprise)
Generation No. 26
1. Isaac [26] Abraham
(=Sarah, the Tehama) [25] Terah (=Tohwait) [24] Nahor (=Iyoska) [23]
Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21] Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber
(=Azura) [19] Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem (=Seduka-tel-bab) [16]
Noah (=Na’amath) [15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14] Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael))
[13] Enoch (=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11] Mahlalail (=Sina) [10]
Cainan (=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth (=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith)
[7] Eve and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar
and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
married Rebecca (Bebechak)
children:
Esau
Jacob
Isaac is generally reckoned to be the son of Abraham, but as noted above may have been the son of Pharaoh Senusret I. In any case, it was apparently Abraham who raised Isaac [despite the bit about being ready to sacrifice the boy to assuade the voice his head.]
Sensuret being the dad does make sense when we note that Sarai changed
her name to Sarah (‘princess’), as well as there being the introduction
of the Egyptian custom of circumcision. This would also explain the
otherwise mysterious nature of the ‘birthright’ that was eventually sold
by Isaac’s son to his brother Jacob (Genesis 25:30-34).
From Wikipedia: Isaac
is regarded as one of the patriarchs of the Jewish people, and the
longest-lived of the [post-Flood] patriarchs, living till the age of 180
years. Isaac was the only one whose name was not changed. Isaac was
also the only patriarch who did not leave Canaan, although he once tried
to leave and God told him not to do so. Compared to other patriarchs
in the Bible, his story is considerably less colorful. Some academic
scholars have [even] described Isaac as "a legendary figure" while
others view him "as a figure representing tribal history, though as a
historical individual" or "as a seminomadic leader."
Isaac was born when Abraham was
100 years old, and Abraham circumcised Isaac when the boy was eight days
old. Isaac was Sarah's first and only child, and after Isaac had
been weaned, Sarah supposedly saw Ishmael mocking Isaac, and she urged
her husband to banish Hagar and her child so that Isaac would be
Abraham's only heir. Abraham was hesitant but allegedly at God's order he listened to his wife's request. (Genesis 21:8-12) [Now, that's funny!]
When Isaac was forty years of
age, Abraham sent Eliezer, his steward, into Mesopotamia to find a wife
for Isaac, from Bethuel, his nephew's family. Eliezer chose Rebekah for
Isaac. After twenty years of marriage to Isaac, Rebekah had still not
given birth to a child and was believed to be barren. Isaac prayed for
her and she conceived. (Genesis 25:20-21) Rebekah gave birth to twin
boys, Esau and Jacob. Isaac favored Esau, but apparently, Rebekah
favored Jacob. This turned out to be crucial inasmuch as Isaac grew
very old and became completely blind. He called Esau, his eldest son,
and directed him to procure some venison for him. But while Esau was
hunting, Jacob (with Rebekah’s help) deceptively misrepresented himself
as Esau to his blind father and obtained his father's blessing, making
Jacob Isaac's primary heir, and leaving Esau in an inferior position.
Isaac lived some time after this, and sent Jacob into Mesopotamia to
take a wife of his own family.
According to Laurence Gardner,
Genesis of the Grail Kings
(page 184): “Esau may have sold his birthright to his younger twin
brother Jacob” (whose descendants became kings of Judah), but we find
that through Tuya and Yuya [See
Moses and Miriam],
descendants of Esau did indeed become pharaohs of Egypt. These
particular pharaohs have been known as the ‘Amarna Kings’: they were
Akhenaten [Moses], Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun, and
Aye, who ruled consecutively c. 1367-1348 BC.”
“It
would appear that the selling of the birthright by Esau to Jacob [in
the long term] had no effect whatever; it was not until after the Amarna
period that the lines from Esau and Jacob were united through marriage,
subsequently descending to the Davidic kings of Judah.”
BTW, lest we forget about Ishmael...
2. Ishmael [21]
Abraham (=Hagar of Egypt) [20] Terah (=Tohwait) [24] Nahor (=Iyoska)
[23] Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21] Peleg (=Lamna) [20]
Eber (=Azura) [19] Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem (=Seduka-tel-bab)
[16] Noah (=Na’amath) [15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14] Methuselah (=Edna
(Ezrael)) [13] Enoch (=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11] Mahlalail (=Sina)
[10] Cainan (=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth (=Kalimath of
Enki/Lilith) [7] Eve and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu
[4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
A key factor is that Mahalath of Egypt (Nefru-sobek) joined the ranks of Na’amath, Ora, Iyoska, Tohwait, and Sarah in the Recombining of the Royal Lines Follies, by marrying Ishmael. Their daughter, Bashemath, then married Esau
(the dispensed son of Isaac, the latter who ruled in favor of Jacob).
But then Mahalath really outdid the others by marrying a second time,
this one to Isaac’s son, Esau (who then became the founder of the Dukes
of Edom). Together they produced Igrath, who kept the matriarchal line tradition, and did a major reconnect by marrying Amenenhet III of Egypt. Their offspring was none other than Sobeknefru, the Dragon Queen and Pharaoh of Egypt. [See Figure 1, where Malahath II is the same as Malahath... but only denotes a second marriage.]
While some of this lineage may
be first sons... those having lost their birthright by ulterior means...
the fact remains that they managed to get back into the thick of things
with advantageous marriages. This is, in fact, pretty much the
tradition whereby the males marry the females to gain legitimacy in
royal circles. (Or did I mention that already?)
Generation No. 27
Jacob [27] Isaac
(=Rebecca) [26] Abraham (=Sarah, the Tehama) [25] Terah (=Tohwait) [24]
Nahor (=Iyoska) [23] Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21]
Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber (=Azura) [19] Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem
(=Seduka-tel-bab) [16] Noah (=Na’amath) [15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14]
Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael)) [13] Enoch (=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11]
Mahlalail (=Sina) [10] Cainan (=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth
(=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith) [7] Eve and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag
[5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat
and Absu [1]
married
1) Leah, from whose line the kings descended
2) Rachel
3) Zilpah, (Leah’s maidservant)
4) Bilhah (Rachel’s maidservant}
children:
by Leah
Levi, married Melka, from whom the Levite Priesthood descended (via sons)
Reuben, married Ada
Simeon, married Adiba
Judah, married Shuah (Betasuel), but also had a mistress, Tamar of Kadesh .....(widow of Er)
Dinah (daughter), The Tehama, married Schechem, son of Hamor the Hivite
Issachar (Jesakor Hezka)
Zebulun, who married Niiman (their daughter, Kanita, married Hezron)
.....(Thus bypassing Judah, but still connecting to his grandson)
by Rachel
Joseph
Benjamin
by Zilpah
Gad
Asher
by Bilhah
Dan
Naphatali
According to Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings (pages 166-167, 85-89):
“Jacob
married into the Haran family of Rebecca (as did his father, Isaac).
This included (by subterfuge) Leah, and then Rachel. In addition to
their offspring, Jacob also had children by his wives’ handmaidens
Bilhah and Zilpah, and from this wealth of sons by four different women
sprang the twelve tribes of Israel.” Meanwhile, just as “the name
‘Hebrew’ derives from the patriarch Eber (Heber/Abhar), six generations
before Abraham, the term “Israelite’ comes from the renaming of
Abraham’s grandson Jacob, who became known as Israel (Genesis 35:10-12).
By way of translation, Is-ra-el means ‘soldier of El’, while some say that Ysra-el means ‘El rules’ and others prefer ‘El strives’. Whichever is correct, the name is plainly indicative of the Canaanite tradition of El Elyon, rather than of the later tradition of Jehovah..” [Curiously,
very few scholars consider an alternative reasoning for all of this
name changing in the House of Abraham... i.e., they were running from
the law and trying to avoid debtors with Mafia leanings.]
One source to really give one a real taste for Jacob and his parenthood talents is The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. Another version (from Wikipedia), is one strange tale, i.e.:
Isaac’s wife Rebekah is
extremely uncomfortable during her pregnancy and goes to inquire of God
why she is suffering so. According to the Midrash, whenever she would
pass a house of Torah study, Jacob would struggle to come out; whenever
she would pass a house of idolatry, Esau would agitate to come out. [Very importantly, she believes this story.] She receives the prophecy that twins are in her womb [which might account for her being uncomfortable in her pregnancy].
The two children that are fighting in her womb will continue to fight
all their lives. The prophecy, which Rebekah does not share with her
husband, continues that these two nations will never gain power simultaneously; when one falls, the other will rise, and vice versa. In addition, the elder will serve the younger.
When the time comes for her to
give birth, Rebekah delivers twins. The firstborn emerges red and hairy
all over like a full-grown man; onlookers name him Esau, from the
Hebrew: meaning "completely developed." The second son comes out
grasping Esau's heel and is named Jacob (a play on the word "heel", and
also "he who follows"). [“Heel” actually sounds much more appropriate.]
The boys display very different natures as they mature. "Esau became a
hunter, a man of the field, but Jacob was a simple man, a dweller in
tents" (Gen. 25:27) [aka "a layabout"].
Moreover, the attitudes of their parents toward them also differ: "Isaac
loved Esau because game was in his mouth, but Rebekah loved Jacob" [because?].
On the day that Abraham dies,
Jacob prepares a lentil stew as a traditional mourner’s meal for his
father, Isaac, Esau returns famished from the fields [having actually worked for a living]
and begs Jacob to give him some of the stew. (He refers to the dish
as, ‘that red, red stuff,’ giving rise to his second moniker, “Red”.)
Jacob then offers to give Esau a bow of stew in exchange for his
birthright, and Esau agrees. (Jacob also steals Easu's wife thus
creating more conflict between the two.) [One might wonder if it was the stew or the wife that caused so much sibling rivalry between them.]
Subsequently, in his old age,
when Isaac becomes blind, he decides to bestow his blessing on his
firstborn son, Esau. He sends Esau out to the fields to trap and cook a
piece of savory game for him, so that he can eat it and bless Esau
before he dies. Rebekah overhears this conversation and realizes that
Isaac's blessings must go to Jacob, since she was told before the twins'
birth that the elder son would serve the younger. She therefore orders
Jacob to bring her two goats from the flock, which she will cook in the
way Isaac loves, and to bring them to his father in place of Esau.
When Jacob protests that his father will recognize the deception and
curse him as soon as he feels him — since Esau is a hairy man and Jacob
is smooth-skinned — Rebekah says that the curse will be on her instead.
Before she sends Jacob to his father, she dresses him in Esau's
garments and lays goatskins on his arms and neck to simulate hairy skin.
Thus disguised, Jacob enters his
father's room. Surprised that Esau is back so soon, Isaac asks how it
could be that the hunt went so quickly. When Jacob responds, "Because
the Lord your God arranged it for me," Isaac's suspicions are aroused,
since Esau never uses the name of God. Isaac demands that Jacob come
close so he can feel him, but the goatskins feel just like Esau's hairy
skin. Confused, Isaac exclaims, "The voice is the voice of Jacob, but
the hands are the hands of Esau!" Still trying to get at the truth,
Isaac asks him point-blank, "You are my son, Esau?" and Jacob answers
simply, "I am" (meaning, "I am me," not, "I am Esau"). [Alternatively, Jacob's reply was a premeditated, blatant lie, rationalized by religious fanatics to somehow make him otherwise.]
Isaac proceeds to eat the food and drink the wine that Jacob gives
him, and then he blesses him with the dew of the heavens, the fatness of
the earth, and rulership over many nations as well as his own brother.
Jacob has just left the room
when Esau returns from the hunt to receive his blessing. The
realization that he has been deceived shocks Isaac, yet he acknowledges
that Jacob receives the blessings by saying, "Indeed, he shall remain
blessed!" The rationalization here is that Isaac smells the heavenly
scent of Gan Eden (Paradise) when Jacob enters his room and, in
contrast, perceives Gehenna opening beneath Esau when the latter enters
the room, showing him that he had been deceived all along by Esau's show
of piety. [A great deal is done to make Esau look
really bad in these interpretations. In any modern court of law, it
would be slander and libel on a massive scale... and probably thrown out
of its ear.]
Esau is [naturally] heartbroken
by the deception, and begs for his own blessing. Having made Jacob a
ruler over his brothers, Isaac can only promise, "By your sword you
shall live, but your brother you shall serve; yet it shall be that when you are aggrieved, you may cast off his yoke from upon your neck". [Is this an escape clause, or what? Shouldn't someone be using this about now?] Esau is, of course, filled with hatred toward Jacob for taking away both his birthright and his blessing. [Duh!]
He vows to himself to kill Jacob as soon as Isaac dies. Here again,
Rebekah guesses at his murderous intentions and orders Jacob to travel
to her brother Laban's house until Esau's anger subsides. She convinces
Isaac to send Jacob away by telling him that she despairs of him
marrying a local girl from the idol-worshipping families of Canaan [as Esau has done -- whose wife Jacob had stolen... it’s always nice to be a fly-by-night ‘tent dweller’]). After Isaac sends Jacob away to find a wife, Esau realizes that his own Canaanite wives are evil in his father's eyes, and he takes a daughter of Ishmael, Bashemath, to wife. [This turns out to be a very strategic move on Ishmael's part. He is now connected to Egyptian royalty by blood. See Figure 1.]
En route to Haran, Jacob
experiences a vision in which he sees a ladder reaching into heaven with
angels going up and down it, a vision that is commonly referred to as
"Jacob's Ladder". From the top of the ladder he hears the voice of God,
who repeats many of the blessings upon him. Jacob awakens in the
morning and continues on his way to Haran. He sees a well where the
shepherds are gathering their flocks to water them, and meets Laban's
younger daughter, his cousin Rachel, who is working as a shepherdess.
He loves her immediately, and after spending a month with his relatives,
asks for her hand in marriage in return for working seven years for
Laban. Laban agrees to the arrangement. These seven years seem to
Jacob "but a few days, for the love he had for her," but when they are
complete and he asks for his wife, Laban deceives Jacob by switching
Rachel's older sister, Leah, as the veiled bride. According to the
Midrash, both Jacob and Rachel suspect that Laban will pull such a
trick; Laban is known as the "Aramean" (deceiver), and changed Jacob's
wages ten times during his employ. The couple therefore devises a
series of signs by which Jacob can identify the veiled bride on his
wedding night. But when Rachel sees her sister being taken out to the
wedding canopy, her heart goes out to her and the public shame she will
suffer if she is exposed. Rachel therefore gives Leah the signs so that
Jacob will not realize the switch. [But it does seem ever so ironic that Jacob is fooled... in a manner similar to which he fooled his father.]
In the morning, when the truth
becomes known, Laban justifies himself, saying that in their country it
is unheard of to give the younger daughter before the older. However,
he agrees to give Rachel in marriage as well if Jacob works another
seven years for her. After the week of wedding celebrations with Leah,
Jacob marries Rachel, and he continues to work for Laban for another
seven years. [What a really neat honeymoon for Leah, with her sister sharing her husband's bed seven days after the marriage!]
Jacob loves Rachel more than Leah, and Leah feels hated. God [inexplicably]
opens Leah's womb and she gives birth to four sons in quick succession:
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah. Rachel, however, remains barren.
Following the example of Sarah, who gave her handmaid to Abraham after
years of infertility, Rachel gives Jacob her handmaid, Bilhah, in
marriage so she can raise children through her. Bilhah gives birth to
Dan and Naphtali. Seeing that she has left off childbearing
temporarily, Leah then gives her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob in marriage so
she can raise more children through her. Zilpah gives birth to Gad and
Asher. (According to some commentators, Bilhah and Zilpah are younger
daughters of Laban). [This may therefore constitute
an early commentary on "traditional family values": one man marrying
four sisters. Not quite the spirit of brotherly love... more like
kissing cousins.]
Afterwards, Leah becomes fertile again and gives birth to Issachar, Zebulun, and Dinah. At this point, God remembers Rachel, who gives birth to Joseph. [Now there’s a classic statement!]
After Joseph is born, Jacob
decides to return home to his parents. Laban is reluctant to release
him, as God blessed his flock on account of Jacob. Now Laban offers to
pay Jacob, and Jacob proposes an unusual deal. He suggests that Laban
remove all the spotted, speckled and brown goats and sheep from the
flock; whichever ones would be born after that would be Jacob's wages.
Left alone, Jacob plants rods of poplar, hazel, and chestnut in front of
the flocks' watering holes, and when the animals see them, they give
birth to spotted, speckled and brown foals. Thus Jacob's herds increase
and he becomes very wealthy. As time passes, Laban's sons notice that
Jacob is taking the better part of their flocks, and Laban's friendly
attitude towards Jacob begins to change. God tells Jacob that he should
now leave, and he and his wives and children do so without informing
Laban. Before they leave, Rachel steals all the household idols from
Laban's house. [Remember these household idols -- see below.]
In a rage, Laban pursues Jacob
for seven days. Before he catches up to him, God appears to him in a
dream and warns him not to say anything good or bad to Jacob. When the
two meet, Laban plays the injured father-in-law and demands his idols
back. Knowing nothing about Rachel's theft of the idols, Jacob tells
Laban whoever stole them should die, and stands aside to let him search.
When Laban reaches Rachel's tent, she hides the idols by sitting on
them and pretends she cannot get up because she is menstruating. [Which at the time was equivalent in the patriarchal mind set to a threat of Mutually Assured Destruction - MAD.]
Jacob and Laban then part from each other with a pact to preserve the
peace between them. Laban returns home and Jacob continues on his way.
As Jacob nears the land of
Canaan, he sends messengers ahead to his brother Esau. They return with
the news that Esau is coming to meet Jacob with an army of 400 men. In
great apprehension, Jacob prepares for the worst. He engages in
earnest prayer to God, then sends on before him a tribute of flocks and
herds to Esau, "a present to my lord Esau from thy servant Jacob."
Jacob then transports his family and flocks back across the ford Jabbok,
then re-crosses over towards the direction from which Esau will come,
spending the night alone in communion with God. There, a mysterious
being ("a man", or "the angel") appears and wrestles with Jacob until
daybreak. When the assailant sees that he cannot defeat Jacob, he
touches him on the sinew of his thigh. As a result, Jacob develops a
limp and because of this, "to this day the people of Israel do not eat
the sinew of the thigh that is on the hip socket". [Now... how weird is that?]
Jacob then demands a blessing,
and the mysterious being declares that from now on, Jacob will be called
Israel (meaning "one who has prevailed with God"). Jacob then asks the
being's name, but the being refuses to answer. Because of the
ambiguous and varying terminology, and because the being refused to
reveal its name, there are varying views as to whether this mysterious
being is a man, an angel, or God Himself. One possibility is the being
was the guardian angel of Esau himself, sent to destroy Jacob before he
could return to the land of Canaan. Another theory is that the being
refuses to identify itself for fear that if its secret name was known,
it would be conjurable by incantations. Some commentators, however,
argue that the stranger was God himself, citing Jacob's own words and
the name he assumed thereafter ("One who has struggled with God"). They
point out that although later holy scriptures maintain that God does
not manifest as a mortal, several instances of it arguably occur in
Genesis. [And by the ton in the Sumerian, Babylonian annals... i.e., Jehovah is just Enlil.]
In the morning, Jacob assembles his family placing Rachel and Joseph in the rear and Leah and her children in the front. [Apparently]
Jacob continues to favor Rachel's children over Leah's, as presumably
the rear position would be safer from a frontal assault by Esau, which
Jacob fears. Jacob himself takes the foremost position. Esau's spirit
of revenge, however, has by this time been appeased by Jacob's bounteous
gift of camels, goats and flocks. Their reunion is an emotional one.
Esau offers to accompany them on their way back to Israel, but Jacob
protests that his children are still young and tender; they will
eventually catch up with Esau at Mount Seir. According to the Sages,
this was a prophetic reference to the End of Days, when Jacob's
descendants will come to Mount Seir, the home of Edom, to deliver
judgment against Esau's descendants for persecuting them throughout the
millennia. [Esau's descendants persecuting Jacob's? How is that again?]
Jacob arrives in Shechem
(where Abraham had been welcomed many years prior). Jacob is allowed to
buy a parcel of land that will eventually house Joseph's Tomb. In
Shechem, his daughter Dinah is kidnapped and raped by the prince's son,
who desires to marry the girl. [Alternatively, Dinah is not only willing but eager to marry the prince’s son, and thus there is absolutely no rape involved.]
Dinah's brothers, Simeon and Levi, agree to go ahead with the match as
long as all the men of Shechem first circumcise themselves, ostensibly
to unite the children of Jacob in familial harmony.
[However...] On the third day
after the circumcision, when all the men of Shechem are most weak,
Simeon and Levi put all the residents to death by the sword and “rescue”
their sister Dinah. Jacob remains silent about the episode, but later
rebukes his two sons for their anger in his deathbed blessing.
[The Red Tent
cited above takes the view that Dinah did not want to be rescued.
Also, after the genocide, Jacob steals everything not nailed down,
including the women and a hoard of jewelry and then takes it on the lam,
trying to distance himself from the land of Schechem as quickly as
possible. He also buries all of the foreign idols -- including
supposedly all of those that Rachel had stolen. Dinah is also
infuriated and eventually migrates to Egypt to rid herself of Jacob.]
As Jacob and his entourage near
the border of Canaan, Rachel goes into labor and dies as she gives birth
to her second—and Jacob's twelfth—son, Benjamin. Jacob buries her and
erects a monument over her grave, which is located just outside
Bethlehem. Rachel's Tomb remains a popular site for pilgrimages and
prayers to this day. [Why exactly is that?]
Jacob is then finally reunited with his father Isaac in Mamre (outside
Hebron). When Isaac dies at the age of 180, Jacob and Esau bury him in
the Cave of the Patriarchs, which Abraham had bought as a family burial
plot.
As a mini Executive Summary, we might note that:
Jacob begins by fooling his
blind father in order to obtain his blessing (Genesis 27:1-29), runs
away from a legitimately angered Esau (27:43-45), gets his comeuppance
from his uncle (29:21-28), and then returns the favor by some highly
selective breeding of sheep (30:31-31:1). Jacob then runs from Laban
(31:31), before being forced to make amends with Esau. Then when Jacob
arrives at Shechem (33:18), he is greeted hospitably and allowed to buy a
parcel of land from the children of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the
country. When his daughter, Dinah, attracts the attentions of the
prince's son, Jacob demands as the dowry price that every male in the
princedom be circumcised. Jacob goes on to say, 'Then will we give our
daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will
dwell with you, and we will become one people.' (34:16). The last
comment was apparently a con, and obviously bore no semblance to a
binding agreement in Jacob's mind.
“Jacob's sons, Simeon and
Levi, then took advantage of the men of the city having just been
circumcised to slay each and every one of them – including Hamor and his
son Shechem – and stealing back their 'defiled' Dinah. They then
spoiled the city (34:27-29), took all their wealth and wives and
'spoiled even all that was in the house.' Jacob then fled the area,
even after leaving 'all the strange gods' and all their earrings buried
under an oak tree. One assumes that Jacob did not bury under this same
oak tree the livestock, Shechem wives, and other wealth. Just the idols
and costume jewelry.” But everything was okay (kosher?) because God
had told him to do it. Or in modern jargon, “the Devil made him do it!”
The Bible next relates the story of Joseph,
who is separated from his father Jacob at the age of 17 and sold as a
slave by his brothers, who are jealous of his dreams of kingship over
them. Jacob is deeply grieved by the loss of his favorite son, and
refuses to be comforted. Joseph is taken down to Egypt, where he is
treated well in the house of Potiphar. But his beauty catches the eye
of Potiphar's wife, who attempts to seduce him. When he refuses and
runs out of the room, she screams out that she has been accosted and
accuses him of trying to rape her. Joseph is thrown into prison, where
he again finds favor with all and is promoted by the warden to oversee
his fellow prisoners. When two of the other inmates, Pharaoh's former
butler and baker, dream strange dreams one night, Joseph interprets
these dreams correctly. Two years later, Pharaoh himself has two
troubling dreams, and the butler recommends that Joseph be asked to
interpret them. Joseph explains the dreams as relating to seven years
of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Pharaoh is so impressed
that he makes Joseph viceroy over Egypt and the manager of Egypt's grain
stores. Joseph artfully manages first the storage and then the
distribution of Egypt's grain, making Pharaoh quite wealthy.
[This
rags to riches scenario would appear to be far less likely than the
Pharaoh recognizing Joseph as the great grandson of Abraham, or more
importantly, possibly Sensuret I. Keep in mind that Esau's daughter,
Igrath, married Amenemhet III, such that the entire Joseph to Egypt
story sounds a bit contrived. Joseph may indeed have spent some time in
Pharaoh's prison, but the reason for it may have been more likely one
of Joseph having done precisely as Potiphar's wife had claimed.
(Sometimes in the "he said; she said" bit, the female is the one telling the truth.) Then, when Joseph had paid his just dues... it was back on the royalty career path.]
When the famine strikes Canaan,
Jacob sends 10 of his sons to Egypt to procure grain for their starving
families. Upon meeting Joseph for the first time in 22 years, they do
not recognize him, since he now dresses and speaks like an Egyptian [demonstrating that rather clearly, Joseph has gone native].
However, Joseph recognizes them and demands to see the twelfth brother
of whom they speak, his own full-brother, Benjamin. As a way of making
sure they will come back, he holds Simeon (being the oldest who plotted
to sell him, since Reuben intended to rescue him) as a hostage until
they return with Benjamin.
Jacob is distraught when he
hears this news, for Benjamin is all that is left to him of his beloved
wife Rachel's children, and he refuses to release him lest something
happen to him too. But when their food stores run out and the famine
worsen, Jacob agrees to Judah's promise to protect Benjamin from harm.
The brothers return to Joseph with Benjamin, and when Joseph sees
Benjamin he is overcome with emotion, and reveals himself to his
brothers. He invites them to bring their families and their father,
Jacob, down to Egypt to live near him, and gives them a place to live in
the Egyptian province of Goshen.
Jacob's final 17 years are spent
in peace and tranquility in Egypt, knowing that all his 12 sons are
righteous people, and he dies at the age of 147. Before his death, he
makes Joseph promise that he will bury him in the Cave of the
Patriarchs, even though Jacob buried Joseph's mother, Rachel, by the
side of the road and not in the Cave (Leah is buried there instead,
along with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah). With Pharaoh's
permission, Joseph leads a huge state funeral back to Canaan, with the
12 sons carrying their father's coffin and many Egyptian officials
accompanying them. Before he dies, Jacob also adopts Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as his own. [Such that Jacob now had a baker's dozen of sons.]
He also blesses each one of his sons. According to the Midrash, he
desires to tell them the exact date when the Mashiach will arrive, but
the prophecy fails him.
Generation No. 28
Judah (Juda/Judas)
[28] Jacob (=Leah) [27] Isaac (=Rebecca) [26] Abraham (=Sarah, the
Tehama) [25] Terah (=Tohwait) [24] Nahor (=Iyoska) [23] Serug (=Melka)
[22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21] Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber (=Azura) [19]
Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem (=Seduka-tel-bab) [16] Noah (=Na’amath)
[15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14] Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael)) [13] Enoch
(=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11] Mahlalail (=Sina) [10] Cainan
(=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth (=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith) [7] Eve
and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar and
Kishar [3] Lahmu / Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
married
1) Bat Shua (Illit), daughter of Shuah, a Canaanite
2) illicit coupling with daughter-in-law) Tamar, of Kadesh (widow of Er... and Onan)
Children
by Bat Shua
Er, who married Tamar, but he died without issue
Onan, who married the hand-me-down, Tamar, but he died without issue too
Shelah
by Tamar
Pharez
Zerah (twin to Pharez)
According to Laurence Gardner, Genesis of the Grail Kings (pages 166-167):
“The original biblical Tamar
was the daughter-in-law of Isaac’s grandson Judah and there is a very
strange story in Genesis (38:1-30) of how she conceived of her
father-in-law [got pregnant by the old dude] who did not recognize her. [I suspect we've heard that excuse before.]
Some not very convincing excuses are made for Judah’s action but...”
because of her exceptional lineage -- “Tamar would have been the obvious
choice as a founding matriarch of the kingly line promised to Isaac’s
descendants. Judah had thus selected her to be the wife of his
firstborn Er, but when Er died unexpectedly, Tamar was passed to Er’s
younger brother, Onan, who was also prematurely slain. [There is no comment, curiously enough, about Tarmar being something of a jinx.]
The writers [of Genesis] attributed both these deaths to the will of
Jehovah and then told of how Tamar was accosted by Judah, who seemingly
mistook her for a harlot, pledging a kid from his flock in payment. No
reason is given for Tamar’s failure to announce her identity, but in due
time she gave birth to Pharez and the Hebrew line towards King David was under way.
“Whatever the truth of Judah’s
illicit liaison with his widowed daughter-in-law, it is plain that,
within a culture that held kingship to be a matrilinear inheritance,
this Tamar was significant to the succession. The facts of the
matter were corrupted, however, by the later Bible writers at a time
when the concept of a patrilinear dynasty was being promoted in a
male-dominated Hebrew environment. Because of this, the hereditary
importance of Tamar was lost. Also, by virtue of Tamar’s illegal
conception, the line of Judah was strictly illegitimate and it was not until a later time that a lawful marriage cemented a proper link with the Cainite royal strain. [Another Tamar
turns up as the daughter of King David and there is a very similar tale
of how too she was duped (in this case, sleeping with her brother
Ammon). Also, Absalom, another of David’s sons, had as a daughter, yet
another Tamar, as did the later King Zedekiah, and Jesus. The stories of individual family males finding it necessary to conceive with a Tamar are each wrapped in diverse and sundry blankets of weird excuses],
but the females were of eminent station, conducive to perpetuating the
true sovereignty of the line as it progressed from the time of Isaac in
parallel with the main Egyptian succession.”
One might even consider the fact
that the problems encountered by Abraham's first several generations of
descendants was due in large part to the fact that Abraham's lineage
was the secondary or junior royal line... and was simply got given the
same status as the senior royal lineage that had descended from Cain and
was spending an inordinate amount of time ruling in Egypt. On the one
hand, one has Kings... and on the other, royal wanabees. There goes the
new king...but for the senior in line to the throne.
Wikipedia’s (comparatively
boring) version of Judah’s story is that he was the fourth son of Jacob
and Leah, and the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Judah. Wikepedia's
saving grace is that "some Biblical scholars view this as postdiction,
an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the
tribe to others in the Israelite confederation." [Say what?]
With Leah as a matriarch, Biblical scholars regard the tribe as having
been believed by the text's authors to have been part of the original
Israelite confederation; however, it is worthy of note that the tribe of
Judah was not purely Israelite, but contained a large admixture of
non-Israelites, with a number of Kenizzite groups, the Jerahmeelites,
and the Kenites, merging into the tribe at various points.
After Er died without any children, Tamar became Onan's wife in accordance with custom, but he too died without children [apparently, not in accordance with custom].
The narrative continues by stating that Judah decided that marriage to
Tamar was cursed to be fatal, and so avoided letting Shelah marry her.
However, this would have left Tamar unable to have children, so she [allegedly] managed to trick Judah into having sex with her, by pretending to be a prostitute. According to the text [written by whom?]
when Judah discovered that Tamar was pregnant, he intended to have her
burnt, but when he discovered that he was the father, he recanted and
confessed that he had used a prostitute. [This stuff is right out of the Bible! Amazing.] As it turned out, Tamar was pregnant with twins, and they were Pharez
and Zerah, the fourth and fifth sons of Judah. According to the
Talmud, Judah's confession atoned for some of his prior faults, and
itself resulted in him being divinely rewarded by a share in the future
world.
While all of this Biblical begating soap operas can be fun, there is even more from other sources. E.g.:
Classical rabbinical sources
allude to a war between the Canaanites and Judah's family (which isn't
mentioned in the Bible), as a result of their destruction of Shechem in
revenge for the [alleged] rape of Dinah.
Judah features heavily as a protagonist in accounts of this war. In
these accounts Judah kills Jashub, king of Tappuah, in hand-to-hand
combat, after first having deposed Jashub from his horse by throwing an
extremely heavy stone (60 shekels in weight) at him from a large
distance away. The accounts say that Judah was able to achieve this
even though he was himself under attack, from arrows which Jashub was
shooting at him with both hands. The accounts go on to state that while
Judah was trying to remove Jashub's armour from his corpse, nine
assistants of Jashub fell upon him in combat, but after Judah killed
one, he scared away the others; nevertheless, Judah killed several
members of Jashub's army (42 men according to the Book of Jasher, but
1000 men according to the Testament of Judah). [Cool movie idea, but it gets better!]
In the Torah's Joseph narrative, when his brothers are jealous of Joseph and contemplate murdering him, Judah suggests that the brothers should sell Joseph to some passing Ishmaelites;
it is unclear from the narrative whether Judah's motives were to save
Joseph, or to harm him but keep him alive. The narrative goes on to
state that the brothers dipped Joseph's coat in fresh goat's blood, and
showed it to Jacob, after Joseph had gone, so that he would think that
Joseph was dead. Jacob may have suspected that Judah had killed Joseph,
especially when Judah was the one who had brought the blood stained
coat to Jacob. Since rabbinical sources held Judah to have been the
leader of his brothers, these sources also hold him responsible for this
deception, even if it was not Judah himself who brought the coat to
Jacob. Even if Judah had been trying to save Joseph, the classical
rabbinical sources still regard him negatively for it; these sources
argue that, as the leader of the brothers, Judah should have made more
effort, and carried Joseph home to Jacob on his (Judah's) own shoulders.
These sources argue that Judah's brothers, after witnessing Jacob's
grief at the loss of Joseph, deposed and excommunicated Judah, as the
brothers held Judah entirely responsible, since they would have brought
Joseph home if Judah had asked them to do so. Divine punishment,
according to such classical sources, was also inflicted on Judah in
punishment; the death of Er and Onan, and of his wife are portrayed in
by such classical rabbis as being acts of divine retribution. [Yeah, yeah.]
The Biblical Joseph narrative
eventually describes Joseph as meeting his brothers again, while he is
in a position of power, and without his brothers recognizing him; in
this latter part of the narrative, Benjamin initially remains in Canaan,
and so Joseph takes Simeon hostage, and insists that the brothers
return with their younger brother (Benjamin) to prove they aren't spies.
The narrative goes on to state that Judah offers himself to Jacob as
surety for Benjamin's safety, and manages to persuade him to let them
take Benjamin to Egypt. According to classical rabbinical literature,
because Judah had proposed that he should bear any blame forever, this
ultimately led to his bones being rolled around his coffin without
cease, while it was being carried during the Exodus, until Moses
interceded with God, by arguing that Judah's confession (in regard to
having sex with Tamar) had led to Reuben confessing his own incest. [Incest? There’s something wrong with incest... in that day and age, with brothers marrying half-sisters (e.g. Abraham)?]
When, in the Joseph narrative,
the brothers return with Benjamin to Joseph, Joseph tests whether the
brothers have reformed by tricking them into a situation where he can
demand the enslavement of Benjamin. The narrative describes Judah as
making an impassioned plea against enslaving Benjamin, ultimately making
Joseph recant and reveal his identity.
Some argue that Judah reacted
violently to the threat against Benjamin, asking Naphtali to enumerate
the districts of Egypt, and after finding out that there were 12
(actually 20 in Lower Egypt and 22 in Upper Egypt), he decided to
destroy three himself, and have his brothers destroy one of the
remaining districts each; the threat of destroying Egypt was, according
to these sources, what really motivated Joseph to reveal himself to his
brothers. [Now, that is fascinating... and probably more likely the truth.]
Generation No. 29
Pharez (Perez) [29]
Judah (=Tamar) [28] Jacob (=Leah) [27] Isaac (=Rebecca) [26] Abraham
(=Sarah, the Tehama) [25] Terah (=Tohwait) [24] Nahor (=Iyoska) [23]
Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21] Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber
(=Azura) [19] Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem (=Seduka-tel-bab) [16]
Noah (=Na’amath) [15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14] Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael))
[13] Enoch (=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11] Mahlalail (=Sina) [10]
Cainan (=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth (=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith)
[7] Eve and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag [5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar
and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat and Absu [1]
married Barayah (Jacob's descendant)
children:
Hezron (Ezrom)
Zerah (Hezron's twin -- as you may have noticed, twins run in this family)
From Wikipedia: Pharez ("Breach") was the son of Tamar and of Judah, and was the twin of Zerah.
The text argues that he was called Perez because he was the first twin
to be born, and thus had breached the womb. The Book of Ruth lists
Perez as being part of the ancestral genealogy of King David, and the
Book of Matthew consequently mentions him when specifying the genealogy
of Jesus. That’s about it for Pharez.
Generation No. 30
Hezron [30] Pharez
(=Barayah) [29] Judah (=Tamar of Kadesh) [28] Jacob (=Leah) [27] Isaac
(=Rebecca) [26] Abraham (=Sarah, the Tehama) [25] Terah (=Tohwait) [24]
Nahor (=Iyoska) [23] Serug (=Melka) [22] Reu (=Ora of Ur-Nammu) [21]
Peleg (=Lamna) [20] Eber (=Azura) [19] Shelah [18] Arphaxad [17] Shem
(=Seduka-tel-bab) [16] Noah (=Na’amath) [15] Lamech (=Bilanos) [14]
Methuselah (=Edna (Ezrael)) [13] Enoch (=Edna) [12] Jared (=Baraka) [11]
Mahlalail (=Sina) [10] Cainan (=Mualet) [9] Enosh (=Neom) [8] Seth
(=Kalimath of Enki/Lilith) [7] Eve and Adam, [6] Enki and Nin-khursag
[5] Anu and Antu [4] Anshar and Kishar [3] Lahmu and Lahamu [2] Tiamat
and Absu [1]
married Kanita (daughter of Zebulum)
children -- ?
From Wikipedia: Hezron (meaning "Enclosed") is a name which occurs 3 times in the Hebrew Bible.
* (1.) A plain in the south of Judah, west of Kadesh-barnea (Joshua 15:3).
* (2.) One of the sons of Reuben (Genesis 46:9; Exodus 6:14, Numeri 26:6).
* (3.) The older of the two sons of Pharez In (Genesis 46:12), he is mentioned among the
youngest generation of the 70 Israelites to move to Egypt with Jacob.
Generations No. 31 - 50
The Bible’s Missing Generations -- From the 18th to the 14th Century BC
There is a rather long hiatus
of Biblical record between Genesis and Exodus (allegedly 400 years of
bondage and hard labor -- the latter which will in due course be shown
to derive from the overactive imaginations of a people who have always
relished the victim roles). This period of time extends from the time
of Hezron, a couple of generations after the Israelites had escaped the
famine and migrated to Egypt, where they were treated royally upon their
arrival, and so forth and so on... until a time when, according to
scripture, things were not going all that well. During, this period...
at least from a Biblical perspecive, the trail of this particular royal
blood line becomes a bit cold. There are in fact no real clues --
written down, as it were -- as to... to put it bluntly... who begat who.
Nevertheless, it is a fair bet that the principals involved were
extremely knowledgeable about who was doing it to whom... except perhaps
for those with Judah's flair for imaginative couplings with royal
princesses under the guise of prostitution. We can assume that the
people in the royal front lines were keeping appropriate tabs, even if
written records of their success or failure to do so have not,
apparently, survived until the present day.
In a nut shell, the Seth royal
line has entered something of a genealogical limbo. And said limbo will
continue until researchers discover a heretobefore unknown document...
explaining in great detail who begat who. Short of that we will be
forced to pick up the Seth line of royal ancestors when we again
encounter some one with record keeping skills. This turns out to be
someone named Ram (Rama) (c. 1360 BCE) -- albeit, if the truth be known, it wasn't necessarily Ram's record keeping as it was Kiya-tasherit and the Egyptian record keepers who noted the marriages with Seth's descendants.
By the way, based on some creative math and assumptions, we have assumed the Bible's
Missing Generations to constitute the 31st through the 50th generations in the Seth line. [See
Tohwait's Tree,
Muddled Generations (33 - 41) for a full explanation of said calculations.]
Meanwhile, back in Egypt, where
the Cain descendants were still keeping track of ball scores and the
royal lineages... albeit with something less than total precision... we
must move -- with undue haste -- from the 12th Dynasty of Egypt
(Sobeknefru, et al - c. 1780 BCE) to the beginning of the 18th Dynasty
(c. 1570 BCE). This is when Ahmose I rolled into town,
fired all the previous writers and scribes, and began recording a bit
more definitive information than most of his predecessors. In fact, he
was carving it in stone... as per local tradition.
Forward to:
7 comments:
A. If as you have written, both sexes were circumcised among the Horites, Egyptians, and/or Afro-asiatic people of Abraham's father, Abram was commanded to leave his father and his gods behind.
B. Scripture tells us that Abram was not circumcised before the Covenant with God.
C. Logically, we must assume new standard is that only men and not women of God's new covenant people are to be circumcised. This is would give women more equality, more pleasure and less infection/injury/pain.
D. Male only circumcision puts the onus on the male to curtail lust and put his pleasure, power, progeny, prosperity under the dominion of God, is responsible to be the leader, role model for the wife and family. She is now his partner and equal in both pleasure and prosperity...not his property. Moses gave women their father's inheritance. Under Jesus, and in the new Church, women were valued and considered partners (not overseers, shepherds) in the Gospel.
Besides the circumcision of the flesh/foreskin, there is that of the heart, eyes, lips, ears, and whole being (or life) not made by hands.
There is a correlation between circumcision and crucifixion as well.
There is only one statement in the Bible to indicate that Terah was an idol worshipper and it comes from a source long after Abraham's time. No other text supports this view. Terah's name means devoted to God and his was a Horite ruler-priest.
The idea of covenant, in the Jewish sense, also comes from a time much later than Abraham. This source also tells us that circumcision was the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, which is historically accurate, though this doesn't mean that circumcision started with Abraham. Since Abraham was the youngest of Terah's sons (as was David the youngest of Jesse's sons and chosen) Abraham would not have been circumcised as a youth. Only the sons who would be priests were circumcised among the Horites.
The women in Genesis were well treated and of high social rank. The only one who was abused was Hagar and she was abused by a woman.
Ur of the Chaldeans is an anachronism.
When you read or hear something that you have never heard before, don't dismiss it. Possibly you are learning what will one day be widely accepted.
Terah was a descendant of both Ham and Shem as these Horite ruler-priests lines intermarried. This is shown in the diagram.