--- David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com> wrote:
> How did the Bible writers think about lineages? Maybe some clues are in
> God's covenant with Abraham, by which Abraham was made the "father of many
> nations" (Gen. 17), in how the Israelite community refers to the patriarchs
> and those who left Egypt as their "fathers" (e.g., Psalm 44:2), and in how
> God is sometimes referred to as the "God of our Fathers" (2 Chron.
> 20:6). Clearly,
> these references have nothing to do with modern genetics or the lineages of
> genes. It seems that these references are to the spiritual heritage of real
> individuals whose direct and indirect descendants eventually formed the core
> of an existing community, where the community generally could trace its
> lineage to the patriarchs in that some, if not most, of the individuals in
> the community ultimately could trace a family relationship back to the
> patriarchs.
>
As I was thinking about these issues the other day I remembered Isaiah 53:10:
Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
I remember in a discussion on alt.messianic a number of years ago one of the
Jewish participants said the passage couldn't possibly refer to Jesus, since
Jesus died without offspring. But it means spiritual offspring. The same
applies to Abraham. In fact in Matt 3:9 Jesus says God can raise up children of
Abraham from stones. And of course Paul characterizes the church as the
children of the promise.
Bill Hamilton
William E. Hamilton, Jr., Ph.D.
248.652.4148 (home) 248.821.8156 (mobile)
"...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31
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Received on Sun Jun 11 20:50:43 2006
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Sun Jun 11 2006 - 20:50:43 EDT