Genesis 39: Give the Slaves Control

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Joseph and Potiphar's Wife (v. 1-23)

Recall that in chapter 37 Joseph was sold into slavery. He was taken to Egypt and bought by Potiphar who was captain of the guard under Pharaoh. God was with Joseph and made him successful, even Potiphar recognized God's hand in helping out Joseph. So Potiphar put him in charge of everything in the house, he wasn't concerned about anything going on in he house. The blessing of the lord was on the house for Joseph's sake

I know I've asked this question a bunch of times at this point, but why is God acting this way? Why does he favor Joseph so much, why is he making him successful in everything he does like this? We've seen before that God seems to have poor judgement in the people he favors, and all we know of Joseph is that he is an arrogant jerk with no appreciation for how those around him will react to things. Perhaps God sees greatness in him and it will come out eventually...we will see.

Interesting point from Guzik, Joseph getting put in charge of the house took 11 years. This is apparently made clear in an upcoming chapter

Joseph was attractive, and Potiphar's wife wanted him to have sex with her, but he refused saying that Potiphar had been good to him and doing so would also disrespect God.

This is good, finally Joseph is showing some good judgement.

One day, Joseph came into the house and everyone was gone except Potiphar's wife. She grabbed his clothes and insisted he be with her, so he ran, leaving his clothes with her in the process. So she told everyone that he had tried to force himself on her, but he ran when she screamed. Potiphar believed her and threw Joseph in jail.

What a ridiculous story. If he tried to rape her, wouldn't she be the one who winds up naked? I guess the husband really had no choice but to believe her story, why trust a slave above your wife? But still,  her explanation is terrible.

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God gave Joseph favor in the eyes of the jailer, and he was put in charge of all the prisoners. The warden paid no attention to anything that Joseph was doing, or what was going on under his watch.

What the hell? Was it common practice at for prisoners to be in charge of other prisoners? This is just stupid?

From Guzik

As it was in the house of Potiphar, Joseph rose to the top, becoming the chief administrator of the prison. Through his experience in both places, God sharpened the administrative skills Joseph needed to one day save his family and save the whole world.

He's giving him administrative duties so he can use them to save his family, and the world, later? How the hell is that going to play out?

for the verses of note post

--Marriage--

Genesis 39:7-8 Potiphar's wife wants Joseph to sleep with her, but he refuses

"And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, "Lie with me." But he refused..."

Genesis 30: Genetics Work How?

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Jacob's Children [cont.] (v. 1-24)

Jacob's wives get real competitive with one another about having kids and they both enlist their servant for the cause. Jacob winds up having a bunch of kids with all 4 women. Is this the bible or daytime tv?

Jacob's Prosperity (v. 25-43)

Jacob asked Laban to let me gather his family and leave for his homeland. Laban didn't want him to go because he benefited so much from God blessing everything he does. In the time Jacob had worked for him his wealth had increased considerably. But after some discussion, Laban agreed to let him go and asked what he should be able to take with him. Jacob said that he would go through his flocks today and take every animal that is speckled and spotted. Any animal that is not so marked will remain Laban's.

It specifically says  that Jacob will go through the flock today, but that makes no sense because of what happens next, Jacob's plan involves breeding. All I can figure is that it is supposed to say "one day" or something, I did a compare translations but they seem to be pretty uniform in saying "today".

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown seems to be saying that the agreement was to remove the spotted livestock now, and only breed the ones without such markings. Then Jacob would get the ones that come up spotted in the next generation (or perhaps a few generations down the line). The idea was that this would make it unlikely that very many spotted animals would be born next generation, and that is why Laban was quick to accept this deal. That is clearly the way this went down, but it doesn't seem to be the deal that they made according to the way I read it.

v.32 "let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and they shall be my wages."

That really seems like Jacob is supposed to get the spotted animals today doesn't it? JFB's interpretation doesn't seem to be consistent with this verse, but it certainly does match the rest of what happens here. Perhaps this is a translation issue, or perhaps I'm being dense and it's really not as confusing as I'm making it out to be. Whatever, this detail isn't that big of a deal, but it was peculiar.

Then Laban took all of the animals that should have gone to Jacob and gave them to his sons and they took them a three days journey away and took care of them there. But Jacob prepared sticks of poplar and almond, exposed the white of the sticks and put them by the water where the animals drank. They bred while being watered and this would make them reproduce with spots. Jacob did this for the strong animals but not the weak ones, so he would get the strong offspring and Laban would get the weak.

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You heard it hear folks, if you want to control the coloring on your livestock you just have to be careful about what sticks they look at while they are breeding. Can we just agree that this thing isn't divinely inspired and whoever wrote this didn't understand how the world works? I'm guessing an apologist would argue that God is working behind the scenes and it really doesn't have anything to do with the sticks, but that really veers quite a ways from what the text actually says.

Guzik seems happy to just turn off his brain and take this as fact:

When Jacob put these branches in the the drinking troughs of the flocks it apparently increased the number of speckled and spotted offspring from the solid-colored flock Jacob managed on Laban’s behalf.

It's in the bible, must be true. No sense thinking critically about it one bit.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown also took this as fact

These, kept constantly before the eyes of the female at the time of gestation, his observation had taught him would have an influence, through the imagination, on the future offspring.

This is not how it works! Granted, they wrote their commentary in 1871, unlike Guzik, who as far as I can tell is still alive, they may not have had a reasonable opportunity to know how ridiculous this is. Hell, on the origin of species was only written 12 years earlier.

I'd also like to point out how terrible both Jacob and Laban are in this story. They can't just come to an equitable deal and go with it, they both are trying to game their arrangement and come out ahead unfairly.

for the verses of note post

--Honesty--

Genesis 30:35,41-42 Both Jacob and Laban were dishonest in this deal

"But that day Laban removed the male goats that were striped and spotted...Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding...So the feebler would be Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's"

--Marriage--

Genesis 30:1-24 Everything about this marriage is dysfunctional

--Science--

Genesis 30:39 What you are looking at when breeding affects what traits you pass on

" the flocks bred in front of the sticks and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted."

Genesis 24: Isaac Gets Married

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Isaac and Rebekah (v. 1-67)

Abraham wanted Isaac to get married, but he didn't want him to marry a Canaanite woman but they live in Canaan. So he sent a servant back to their homeland to get him to find a wife for Isaac. The servant asks if he should bring Isaac back to the other land in the event the woman doesn't want to come to Canaan. Abraham says no since God promised this land to his descendants. He tells the servant that if the woman doesn't want to come then he "is free from this oath".

I thought this phrase was somewhat unclear, I'm assuming it just means that he can move on and try to find another girl.

Along with an angel of the Lord, the servant goes to Mesopotamia with 10 camels and a bunch of gifts and such. He goes to a watering hole at the time when a bunch of women will be there and he asks God to let him know who the right woman is because she will get water for him and his camels. Rebekah comes out as he is finishing this thought and she does those things and winds up being the right girl.

This whole thing strikes me as just laziness on the servant's part. Instead of going out and finding a woman in whatever way he might normally, he's just like, God send me a sign. The first person that comes must be the woman God sent to me. It just reminds me of people who don't want to solve their own problems, but expect God to fix things for them.

He meets her family, stays the night with them and eats with them, tells them the whole story and winds up taking Rebekah back to be Isaac's wife.

You might be wondering how such a simple story can be 67 verses long. It's pretty easy actually, you just have to have the characters of the story constantly repeat themselves.

Guest Post: Sliding Down the Slippery Slope

I am out of town for a few days, and Sheldon Cooper from The Ramblings of Sheldon was kind enough to fill in for me today with a guest post. He is a former fundamentalist and is now an agnostic, I highly recommend his stuff. And now on to today's post, Sliding Down the Slippery Slope

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We've all seen it before, the age old logical fallacy of the slippery slope argument. Lately I've been hearing it quite often from people opposing gay marriage, especially now that Illinois is likely to pass a gay marriage bill through it's state House sometime this spring.

I have noticed that two of the slippery slopes they often say that we will slide into are not actually condemned by the Bible, or the Bible is contradictory unclear on these topics.

Which is ironic, because most of the people making these arguments believe that the Bible is the word of God, and that's it's inerrant (without error).

Let's look at the top 2 most common slippery slope arguments when it come to gay marriage:

It will lead to legalization of polygamy!

What the Bible says about polygamy:

There are many examples of famous polygamists in the Bible, including Abraham, Jacob, Solomon and David. Were they condemned for their polygamist ways? No, in fact, David was called "a man after God's own heart", and Solomon was considered an exceptionally wise man.

The only direct condemnation of polygamy itself is in First Timothy Chapter 3, where Paul gives the qualifications for men in church leadership positions, and says that they should be the "husband of one wife". However, no clarification is given as to whether polygamy is banned or considered acceptable for laypersons in the church.

Some see Genesis chapter 2, the creation of Adam and Eve as showing that the Bible considers monogamy to be preferred over polygamy. It is true that husband and wife are referred to in that passage (singular, not plural), but nowhere in that passage is polygamy mentioned, no less condemned, keep in mind that Adam and Eve were supposed to be the only 2 people on earth at the time.

Polygamy in the modern era:

Take note of the list of nations that allow polygamy. Notice a pattern there? Not one single Western nation has legalized polygamy, and only 3 Western nations recognize polygamous marriage performed in nations where they are legal, to any extent of the law.

If the objective of legalizing gay marriage was to prepare people for a push to legalize polygamy, wouldn't the push to legalize polygamy already be underway in a major fashion right now?

Wouldn't European nations that have already approved gay marriage some years ago be clamoring to pass legal recognition of polygamy?

Yet neither has happened..... Of course there has been a little more discussion of polygamy in recent years, because of polygamists in the media, such as the TLC show Sister Wives, but there has not yet been a major movement supporting legal recognition of polygamy, in fact, in many US states, polygamy is still a felony. There's a long way to go as a society if polygamy is ever to get legal recognition, that is if it ever does (which does not seem likely now)



It will lead to legalization and acceptance of incest!

What the Bible says about incest:

Now, on this topic, the Bible at first seems to be more clear. Passages like Leviticus Chapter 20 explicitly ban incestuous relationships, and this feeling is also seen in the New Testament, as seen in I Corinthians 5, where Paul condemns a man who is in a relationship with his mother or stepmother (the term "father's wife" is somewhat vague here).

Sounds good, but here's a few things to think about that shows that the Bible is rather contradictory on the issue. At the end of Genesis 19, we see that Lot was not ever condemned for having children with his two daughters (and also not condemned for offering them up to be gang raped and probably killed by a hostile mob outside his home in Sodom).

Here's a fact you may not have thought of. In Genesis 4, the Bible states that Cain found a woman that he then married, yet the Bible makes no mention of any other families other than the family of Adam and Eve, yet it says in Genesis 5:4 that there were sons and daughters of Adam and Eve (other than Cain, Abel and Seth).



The only logical conclusion to the age old question, "Who did Cain marry?", is a relative of his, whether that be a sister or a niece.

So the Bible bans incest, but thinks that the world came about because of incest within the only family who was created by god? Makes sense.....
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Modern era:

Many people in the US would be surprised to know that first cousin marriage is legal without restriction in 19 states and DC, and is allowed with restrictions in 6 other states. However, these laws were in place before gay marriage was legalized, and have not been expanded since, either into new states, or to include other family relationships. Again, the slippery slope argument fails.



Does the slippery slope argument really work on anyone who didn't already oppose gay marriage already? Probably not, it's more than likely a ridiculous attempt to justify what one already believes in opposition to it.

Genesis 2: Humans are Created

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The Seventh Day, God Rests (v. 1-3)

God had finished creating the heavens and earth and everything in them, and he rested. Then he tells us three times that the reason he was resting was because of all the work he had done.

This redundant book is really redundant, God seems to like to say the same thing over and over because he is a redundant god of redundancy.

The Creation of Man and Woman (v. 4-25)

God created man out of dust and breathed life into his nostrils.

This whole this has got to be really interpretive anyway, why can't people say this is God describing abiogenesis? I'll admit that it is a somewhat silly argument, but yesterday we say Guzik make the claim that light is partly supernatural. Given that baseline why not just say this is evidence from God of abiogenesis?

Out of the ground God made every tree which looks nice and is good for food, as well as the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Why would God make the tree of knowledge of good and evil? What purpose does it have other than to set Adam and Eve up to fail? 

Guzik says that the tree was there as a temptation tree. Again, why would God put that there?

Matthew Henry says that the tree did not grant the knowledge of good and evil, but rather it is a way for God to test Adam to see whether he was morally good or evil. Of course he then defines good and evil to be following God or not. Seems like a pretty crazy explanation to me. Why does God need to test Adam if he is all knowing? And the tree of life gives life, you would think the tree of knowledge would give knowledge.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown also say it is just a test of obedience. That really does seem to be the one thing God cares about.

I have a minor anecdote here, when I was leaving Christianity I remember focusing on the tree of knowledge pretty intensely and being disgusted that the biggest sin ever committed was to gain knowledge. It's actually pretty significant symbolically.

We get way too much detail about some rivers that keep Eden watered, then God tells Adam that he can eat anything he wants except for the tree of knowledge. The day he eats it he will surely die.

I didn't realize that God told Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit before Eve was created. I will be interested to see if he tells them again not to eat that fruit. Also, as we are presumably all familiar with the broad strokes of this story, we know that they don't die the day they eat the fruit. So what's up with that?

From Guzik

The presence of this tree - the presence of a choice for Adam - was good because for Adam to be a creature of free will, there had to be a choice, some opportunity to rebel against God. If there is never a command or never something forbidden there can then never be choice. God wants our love and obedience to Him to be the love and obedience of choice.

If Adam has yet to eat from the tree, then he doesn't understand good an evil. So when God tells him not to eat he is really telling him that eating from the tree is bad, and Adam doesn't understand what that means. No, Adam is being set up to fail here, which is also evident by the fact that God forbids the eating of the fruit before Eve is there, which Guzik also mentions

God made this command originally to Adam, not to Eve; God had not yet brought woman out of man.

Right, I'll be interested to see if god makes this proclamation again when Eve is around, I guess I'll see tomorrow. And one more thing from Guzik

God not only made His command clear to Adam, but He also clearly explained the consequences for disobedience.

Yeah, except that doesn't happen. I suppose they will try to spin that as mercy. 

God brought forth all of the animals to try to find Adam "a helper fit for him". Adam "gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field"

Let's stop there for a minute, I'm not exactly sure what animals fit into this, what counts as livestock and what counts as "beast of the field"? but it certainly says that he named every bird. How many birds are there? This would have taken a long time, although I guess there is no death yet, so it could have taken 100 years *shrug*

More from Guzik, he's a treasure trove today

For the first time, God saw something that was not good - the aloneness of man. God never intended for man to be alone, either in the marital or social sense.
i. Marriage, in particular, has a blessed “civilizing” influence on man. The most wild, violent, sociopathic men in history have always been single, never under the plan God gave to influence men for good. This is not good!

There's no way this is true. A very quick google search got me to John Wayne Gacy who was married when he committed at least some of his crimes. I love the internet, it's so easy to call people on their bullshit.

My comic archive [edit - d'oh, forgot to sign this one]

No helper was found among all of the animals (shocking) so God put him to sleep and created woman out of one of his ribs.

If man was created out of dust why did God need one of Adam's ribs?

Guzik claims that God had Adam name the animals to see that they came in pairs and show him that he needed a mate. Seems to me that he is reading something that isn't there, unless I'm missing something. It doesn't say anything about the animals coming in pairs.

It is important to realize that there are not two beginnings to the human race, one in Adam and one in Eve. There was one beginning of the human race in Adam.

Didn't take too long to get to the sexism inherently in the bible did it?

So a man shall leave his father and mother and become one flesh with his wife.

So what, this is the moral of the story? Clearly this is a fairy tale of an ancient primitive group of people. If this was really the account of the creation of man and woman, why would this line be in there?

More from Guzik:

They shall become one flesh: This passage forms the foundation for the Bible’s understanding of marriage and family. Both Jesus (Matthew 19: 5) and Paul (Ephesians 5:31) quoted it in reference to marriage.

Just like I was complaining about yesterday with creationism and evolution, the basis for this stuff is practically nothing. It's so short and there is almost nothing here. Is this really what we should base marriage on?

The man and his wife were both naked and not ashamed.

Why would they be ashamed? I never thought about this before, but why would they be ashamed? Why would a husband and wife be ashamed of being naked?

And one more from Guzik

Before the fall, Adam and Eve were both naked . . . and not ashamed. The idea of “nakedness” is far more than mere nudity. It has the sense of being totally open and exposed as a person before God and man. To be naked . . . and not ashamed means you have no sin, nothing to be rightly ashamed of, nothing to hide.

Again, when it comes to just a husband and wife, I think it is totally normal to be completely "exposed as a person" to each other. There's no reason for 2 married people to be ashamed of their nakedness, even this expanded definition of nakedness.

For the Verses of Note page:

--Abiogenesis--

Genesis 2:7 God creates life from non-life

"then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature."

--Knowledge--

Genesis 2:17 God threatens death to learning

"but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

--Marriage--

Genesis 2:24 Supposedly this is the basis for marriage

"Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."

--Women--

Genesis 2:21-22 Women are less than men

"So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man."

1 Peter 3

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Wives and Husbands (v. 1-7)

Wives should "be subject" to their husband, even if he doesn't obey the word. They should see your good conduct and be won back over to the lord. You should submit to your husband as Sarah obeyed Abraham.

Nothing surprising here, just the same misogyny as we've seen a number of times. I wonder, if you are a good Christian woman, how do you wind up being married to a man who isn't? Did she choose poorly when marrying (or possibly did her father choose poorly) or has a good husband fallen away from the faith? At any rate, this is ridiculous as usual, is the wife supposed to submit no matter what? Does this include if he is beating her? It's also interesting why the wife should do this, she is supposed to submit and be good so that her husband can be saved. All of the focus is on him, it really shows where society was at the time.

From Guzik: "This submission isn’t a reward for the husband’s good behavior, it is commanded by God as the proper order for the home." I'm not sure what to add here, these ideas from the bible are clearly holding us back as a society.

Then I saw this from him "Wives may want to shape their husbands - either to Christ or in Christ - through their words. Peter reminds them that God’s plan is that wives impact their husbands not through persuasive lectures, but through godly submission, chaste conduct, and the fear of God." I had to go back and look at the verse again, and sure enough it says that women should win their husbands over without a word. Guzik seems to interpret this to say that women should shut up. And you know, this seems to be consistent with other teachings of the bible.

Don't focus your attention on your outward appearance, you should develop your inner beauty.

This is good advice, of course the text is talking about developing spiritually, but I think it is easy enough to take it as developing a good personality in many other ways as well. 

Husbands should understand and honor their wives, for they are weaker than you.

Same old thing, wives have to submit, husbands have to 'honor'. Problem is, honor can mean almost anything, so ultimately the man can do whatever he wants. "I beat my wife to teach her what is right so she will act properly in the future, in this way I have honored her." 

Suffering for Righteousness' Sake (v. 8-22)

You should all have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil.

Other than the unity of mind, I like all of these things. Unity of mind might sound good on the surface, but it is important for everyone to think for themselves.

It is better to have a good conscience and suffer for doing good than to do evil.

Usually I am against the ideas of suffering offered up in the bible, but that is because the suffering itself usually takes center stage. Here, we aren't talking about suffering for its own sake, we are talking about doing good in the face of evil and if suffering happens, so be it. This is a good message, stand up for your principles even if you face negative consequences.

Jesus also suffered, he died and was revived in the spirit, then he went to talk to spirits in prison because they did not obey. When Noah was preparing the ark, God waited patiently to save those 8 people while he flooded the rest of the world. Baptism corresponds to this even.

So yeah, this last paragraph is a little hard to parse. The punctuation is all weird and the ideas jump a bit. It goes from Jesus to Noah's ark to baptism without catching a breath. I don't really get the whole thing, but I think the basic idea is that Jesus suffered so you can too. If I'm wrong here feel free to correct me.

Guzik suggests that Jesus is talking to spirits who have been imprisoned since the great flood. He is preaching to them because they didn't have a chance to be saved back then. That makes a little bit of sense, I guess the prison is supposed to be hell, or purgatory, or something. Too cryptic to be useful as far as I'm concerned. 


For the overview post (If you think I should add or remove stuff from this list please let me know, I think it would make good conversation)

Good:

3:3-4 spend time developing a good personality and not just outer beauty

"Do not let your adorning be external--the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear-- 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious."

3:8-9 good values

"Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 9 Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling...

3:17 Do good, even if you risk personal suffering

"For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil."

Bad:

3:1,5 wives submit to your husband no matter what they do

"Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands..."

"For this is how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves, by submitting to their own husbands"