An Atheistic Bible Study Of Genesis Chapter Fifteen

Tweet

God tell Abraham (Abram) not to worry, though it isn’t stated whether Abram expressed worries or asked for any advice at this point. God promise him unlimited protection and rewards. Abraham moans to God that as he has no children of his own due to his wife, Sarai being infertile (not Abraham having a low sperm count, perish the thought of that). Abraham fears that when he dies all his property will go to his chief slave, Eliezer of Damascus. God assures Abraham that he will have a son of his own as a direct heir. He then leads Abram outside, suggesting that God has visited Abram in human form. God invites Abram to count all the stars in the night sky, and assures Abram that over several generation, Abram’s descendants (the Jewish race) will outnumber the stars Abram sees. We should assume this was a clear sky view of the Milky Way, not a cloudy night with just a few stars on display but the Bible doesn’t confirm this. Given the rise of other religions, secularism, and the persecutions that have decimated Judaism, their numbers fall well short of the number of stars there are in the universe. Abraham quite reasonably asks how this promise will be fulfilled. God replies only with a request for a sacrifice involving a heifer, a goat, a ram, a dove and a pigeon. This is just like a politician – don’t answer the question, just do something else entirely. Abraham slaughters the creatures to be sacrificed and slices the none flying beasts in two, before lying them all on an altar stone. Abram shoos away birds of prey that try to take the prepared but so far uncooked meats. Genesis now tells of a darkness descending on Abram, even though we already know it is now night time. Abram sleeps and in that sleep comes a vision. In other words he was dreaming! God tells Abram in the dream that one day his descendants (the Jews) will be bound in terrible captivity for four hundred years, but God will eventually liberate the captives and punish their oppressors. God adds that this will only start after Abram himself dies peacefully in his sleep. Later, when it goes dark, even though we are already seeing a deep darkness descending on top of an ongoing night time (three darknesses in one) the altar starts to cook its birds and beasts without Abram lighting a fire there. A brazier an a torch materialize there and do the cooking, as if God has grown impatient and barbequed his own food. God then makes a covenant promise to Abram, offering him, (again) all the land he can see despite much of it already being populated by other peoples. The chapter ends with a long list of lands and people who will fall to Jewish control, including the Canaanites, Kadmonites and Hittites. Another prophesy inserted after the later books have been written, triple thick darkness, and God evading the question. That sums up this chapter. Arthur Chappell