that would be not necessarily moral descendants of
Abraham but people who have accepted and chosen to follow Abraham’s God.
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What is the difference between moral descendants and followers of Abraham’s god?
Your question is actually beside the point. …especially for a blog trail about some “Horite Hebrews” that ??? to begin with.
I had to go look back a few “comments” here to see where Abraham’s name popped up.
Abraham was the guy in Ur who, along with his father and family, set off for Canaan and settled in Haran. After his father died, God told Abraham/Abram to continue on his way “to the land I will show you.” (see again Genesis 11:31— 12:1-3). He was given great promises by God (including the one about his aging wife giving birth) and was told that he (Abram/Abraham…a man with no children) would become “a great nation” and that “all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” This might be where the issue of moral descendants (in addition to the biological ones) might come up. Read Genesis for more on this. YOU and I have Genesis and a whole Bible. Abraham, remember, had nothing…but believed what God had given him.
So maybe the short answer to your question is that descendants of Abraham — whether biological or otherwise, moral or not --are those who trust in the Creator of the Universe who revealed Himself to Abraham. Not a bunch of deities…no such thing (“Hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One”—and more such statements)…It’s not a given that a person is biologically descended from someone and has their best (or most notable) qualities. That is true generally…In this case, biological descent does not mean faith. And biology is not the thing that “saves”. The larger issue — and too big a discussion for right here/right now —is the scope of what Abram was led into…a man who (for example) had no Bible, no churches (etc)…in other words, had much less to go on…yet obeyed God, by faith. He was told that he would become the father of a nation —at a time when his wife was too old for the whole “childbirth thing.” And through that nation --far down the road — would come the Messiah (Jesus of Nazareth) through whose death and resurrection the penalty for the sins of all humans – including bluebird and bharatjj —etc etc —would be paid. And more, of course…
But you have to ask God to forgive you based on what Jesus did, not your own magnificent self–and follow Him…people who do not acknowledge what God did through Jesus (MAJOR topic, no room here) have, essentially, refused the offer of forgiveness and will face something unthinkable in the future. Followers of Abraham’s God have placed their faith in the One Whom God appointed as the means of their eternal salvation, not through our own ideas or good deeds etc. OK here is the part where I am tempted to write huge run-on sentences…or to keep repeating myself…so I will stop.
Hope this helps.
Big topic…but enough for now…and I think this basically touches the sort of thing you were asking about.
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Agree in essence. Have the Jews gone astray?
what do you agree with “in essence”?
I would like to write a response in support of St Roymonds statements below. We disagree on a lot of things, however, i agree with this and feel its important that i recognise what he has written with a supportive personal comment. Thanks St Roymond.
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I would like to highlight and focus on part of your comment…the phrase “the man”
The Bible tells us this was clearly God / the Angel of the Lord.
As i am trinitarian, I lean towards it being the pre-incarnate Christ. Some commentators say that Elohim is the Father, others say its Christ and can be both…i lean towards Christ as i am still convinced that the Father has never revealed Himself face to face to sinful men…however, i think i lean towards the belief that the Son in His immortal form has come face to face with mankind on many occasions before and after the ressurection.
The incarnate Christ said that He reveals the Father to us…so that is the basis for my theology there (im open to correction on this because im not referencing at present…just going off the top of my head)
Anyway my reason for belief that Jacob wrestled with God is because Jacob himself says so in verse 30:
30So Jacob named the place Peniel,g saying, “Indeed, I have seen God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
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It’s an interesting text because it says “a man”, but then we learn that the “man” was God – it could be translated as “gods” i.e. divine beings but that would be silly in the context. And we know from the previous chapter that the Angel of Yahweh had talked to Jacob, and had called Himself “the God of Bethel”. So we have the Angel of Yahweh = God = “a man”.
This is one of those passages that rabbis in second Temple Judaism recognized as showing the “second Yahweh” Who walked the earth as a man, part of the “two powers (of heaven)” doctrine. That doctrine was one of the reason that many Jews across the Roman empire converted to Christianity fairly quickly: they were already accustomed to thinking that Yahweh could show up as a man, so once other Messianic aspects were recognized it made sense: the Father was the Yahweh Who was always in Heaven, and Jesus was the Yahweh who showed up on Earth as a man.
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That’s all a good possibility, Adam.
I kind of enjoy discussing things about these earliest chapters of the Bible because they get discussed so little in your average Bible study. That is, I am interested until someone starts running off the rails, and then I wonder…?
As for “the man” in Genesis 32. I have a commentary by Westermann who decides in his analysis of verses 25-27 that the attacker may be a demon who nonetheless finds he cannot prevail over Jacob and who – in Westermann’s analysis – loses his (the demon’s) strength with the breaking of day… Westerman just continues with his belief that Jacob did not know who his attacker was “the river demon who wanted to stop him [Jacob] from crossing.”
I never quite heard that interpretation before. Westerman is contradicted by Wenham and most others I have ever heard remark on this pericope. Wenham, in fact, specifically names Westermann as someone whose interpretation (of other aspects of this pericope) he disagrees with. In commenting on verse 30, Wenham says “The ‘man’ now implicitly identified with God…refuses to give his name, lest it be abused…and then he blesses Jacob. And then he disappears into the dark, as suddenly as he came.”
And Sailhammer, in his commentary, said the one Jacob struggled with was an angel, but “an angel of the Lord”. But seeing “the ‘angel of the Lord’” was enough to make it okay to say that “he had seen the face of God.”
So Jacob could say he “saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared”.
I’m OK with the idea that Jacob was wrestling with God—or with an angel of the Lord who was “enough” for it to be a struggle between God and man, in that situation. Thought Westermann’s take was unusual but interesting too. And yes, I believe in the Trinity. It is hard to miss as a point of discussion for some. All for now
Merry Christmas! .
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Good comment, St Roymond. I have not (until now) heard this “second Yahweh” tradition applied to the situation with Jacob and “the angel of the Lord” in Genesis. But I have read that Daniel’s “Son of Man” vision—and some intertestamental writings (that did not make the canon) raised that issue — that is, of a binary (they would not have thought “trinitarian” in BC days) aspect of the (nonetheless) One God. I have read some modern Jewish commentators who have said something similar but added that Judaism changed its tack when they saw, in the first century or so AD/CE — what followers of Jesus did with the idea.
Merry Christmas!!
Oh, Claus, how silly!
Seriously, the things some people come up with – that’s a serious stretch given the context.
There are texts all over that have a dual YHWH happening. Genesis 32 isn’t one of the foremost, but it’s still there.
I was privileged to know and learn from a rabbi who was amazingly honest at how many Jewish teachings were jettisoned because of “what followers of Jesus did with” them. It really doesn’t begin until the second century, but then it really gets rolling and Judaism became a shadow of its former existence.
Did this rabbi you onnce learned also know of some “midrash” about the Messiah being born in Bethlehem? I read that from Boyarin in a book of his. Of course, you could say that it mimicked the Christian story a few centuries later…but have wondered about that one
As for Claus — I think he is interesting but he has a different perspective…indeed
@bharatjj what is this drawing about?
@St.Roymond what is jettisoned?
I looked this word online
Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
jet·ti·son
/ˈjedəs(ə)n/
verb
past tense: jettisoned; past participle: jettisoned
throw or drop (something) from an aircraft or ship.
“six aircraft jettisoned their loads in the sea”
abandon or discard (someone or something that is no longer wanted).
“individuals are often forced to jettison certain attitudes and behaviors”
So what did the followers of Jesus do that threw out the Judaism throw toss? That caused Judaism to become a shadow of its former existence.
If there’s no separation, does what is thrown toss out still of us?
Or where do you think thoughts that are tossed out go? What is replacing thoughts? Is that a story?
Oh I found a Christian who claims the bible shows reincarnation
What do you think?
Circular reasoning!
It’s not a single drawing. The two tall figures are male and possibly meant to be deities; the cow – contrary to the yellow addition to the drawing – is curious since a cow is female and both Yahweh and Ba’al are male. The reference to Exodus is misleading. It could be meant as Yahweh, if you don’t mind the gender confusion, since Samaritan religion sort of replaced Baal with Yahweh – or merged the two – but that’s a historical question, not a scriptural one.
The seated figure, if the two tall ones are gods, would be the head deity; sitting was regarded as being the one in authority.
The bit on the left looks like it was a horse figure; I don’t know if there’s a gap in the drawing or not, but somehow the front of the horse got cut off. The missing part could be important if it was drawn by the same person who drew the other figures: to the left of the tall central figure are some markings I can’t make sense of since the rest of them is missing in the blank area.
Then under the cow someone later on was making tally marks. The marks in the lower right make no sense to me; I’d guess that parts of the image are missing both below and further right.
To get speculative, the tall figure seems to be standing on the ground while the one behind him could be above water – that little line with two peaks might be meant to depict a wave, in which case this god is either or a shore or is walking or gliding over water.
Oh – last bit: if the cow is meant as a deity I have no idea why the suckling calf. My guess is that the cow and calf are the oldest drawing and had no religious significance, and the gods and horse were added later.
A connection of the drawing to the inscription “Yahweh and his asherah” is doubtful.
The biggest was the declaration of a chunk of their theology known as the “Two Powers in Heaven” doctrine. This doctrine noted that Yahweh in the Old Testament can be found in Heaven plus on Earth in the form of a man at the same time, thus making two Yahwehs. The idea of Yahweh walking the earth in form of a man was too convenient for the Christians to make the case that Jesus is Yahweh, so the Jews declared it to be heresy.
A second would be changing the interpretation of a number of obviously Messianic prophecy to refer to Israel the nation and not a single person.
This left Judaism as a shadow of its former self because it stripped away not merely much of its richness but of the plain meaning of a fair amount of their scriptures.
Riversea…look “jettisoned” up in the dictionary if you want to know
The Bible does NOT teach reincarnation…save for the reality that there is going to be a judgment some day…and that is not reincarnation…that is judgment.
And why are you changing the subject Riversea! The initial query was about the location of Haran and Canaan, etc?
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Riversea…If you want to actually understand something and solve a question in your mind about an issue…then persue that issue.
Flitting around from one subject to another makes it look almost as if, when the answer you get is not what you want …so “no matter; we will just move along.”
Your source is someone who is trying to sell a book and also to re-make someone else’s religion and holy book to suit his own beliefs. That in itself is a controversial move…but…
Fair enough if he has history and/or archaeology on his side.
Since the initial conversation was about Jews originating in India…then see below:
he Jewish community has been living in India since 75 CE and comprises a tiny but important part of the population. Many Jews settled in India after fleeing coastal areas of what is now Israel after the fall of King Solomon’s second temple. They sought to avoid persecution from the Greeks.
This is just an “off the Internet” summation. It is consistent with larger more academic sources…cited by others on this site elsewhere…
And 75 CE, if you are wondering, was five years after the date of the destruction of the Jewish temple—and also, “after the birth of Christ,” etc…
Trade routes are one thing. They were commercial enterprises, not signs of mass immigration…But for an INDIAN source on all this…
Here is an Indian (Indian as in India) description of migrations from India. See below…
below from science.smith.edu
Decline of the Indus River Valley Civilization (c. 3300-1300 BCE)
What happened?
- The Indus River Valley Civilization, also known as the Harappan Civilization, was one of the three early civilizations in northwestern South Asia, along with Egypt and Mesopotamia. It was located in what is now Pakistan and northwestern India.
- This civilization existed between 3300 and 1300 BCE, with some cities reaching a population of 60,000 at their peak from c. 2600 to 1900 BCE. The Harappan people traded with Mesopotamian cities, built complex infrastructure with sewage systems, and had their own form of writing. They relied heavily on the flooding of the Indus River for crop irrigation and agriculture, and they built wells, drains, channels and dams to control the river water.
- Around 2500 BCE, civilization in the Indus River Valley began to decline as people migrated eastward to the Himalayan foothills. Here, they shifted from a civilization composed of large cities to one of mostly small farming villages (map below). By 1800 BCE, most Harappan cities were almost completely abandoned. Eventually, the villages in the foothills declined too.
—from Wikipedia article on the Harrupan language:
The Harappan language is the unknown language or languages of the Bronze Age (c. 2nd millennium BC) Harappan civilization (Indus Valley civilization, or IVC). The language being unattested in any readable contemporary source, hypotheses regarding its nature are reduced to purported loanwords and substratum influence, notably the substratum in Vedic Sanskrit and a few terms recorded in Sumerian cuneiform (such as Meluhha), in conjunction with analyses of the undeciphered Indus script.
There are a handful of possible loanwords from the language of the Indus Valley civilization. Sumerian Meluhha may be derived from a native term for the Indus Valley civilization, also reflected in Sanskrit mleccha meaning non-Vedic or native, and Witzel (2000) further suggests that Sumerian GIŠšimmar (a type of tree) may be cognate to Rigvedic śimbala and śalmali (also names of trees).[3]
Identification[edit]
There are a number of hypotheses as to the nature of this unknown language:
- One hypothesis places it within or near the Dravidian la
below from ncbi.nih etc
The earliest evidence of farming-based economies in South Asia has been traced back to Mehrgarh, Pakistan ∼9 kya.1, 2 From there, farming and a settled way of life spread farther east, laying foundations for the later Indus Valley civilization (3300−1300 BCE). Climatic reconstruction and other studies suggest that the decline of the Indus Valley civilization in the Bronze Age was most likely driven by a long-term drought, which might have triggered a movement of its inhabitants eastward toward the Gangetic Plain in about 2300 BCE.3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Contemporary populations of this region vary in their rituals and display diverse ethnic backgrounds.9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 The eastern Indus Basin, part of the early Vedic India (c. 2000 to c. 600 BCE), comprises the historical Kurukshetra15, 16 (now a district in the Haryana state). It adjoins Northwest (NW) India, which is the homeland of various ethnic communities whose long-term occupation of the area has been described in many Vedic and Hindu scriptures.17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22
Previous genetic studies have revealed a higher West Eurasian affinity among Northwest Indian and Pakistani (PNWI) populations than among South and East Indians.23, 24, 25, 26,
below from eupedia.com/genetics
Haplogroups of Bronze Age Proto-Indo-Europeans
Author: Maciamo Hay.
In the 1950’s Lithuanian-American archeologist Marija Gimbutas proposed the so-called Kurgan hypothesis, which postulates that the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language arose in the Pontic steppe. During the Yamna period, one of the world’s first Bronze Age cultures, Proto-Indo-European speakers migrated west towards Europe and east towards Central Asia, then South Asia, spreading with them the Indo-European languages spoken today in most of Europe, Iran and a big part of the Indian subcontinent. The Kurgan model is the most widely accepted scenario of Indo-European origins.
Most linguists agree that PIE may have been spoken as a single language (before divergence began) around 3500 BCE, which coincides with the beginning of the Yamna culture in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, and of the related Maykop culture in the northwest Caucasus. There is now compelling genetic evidence that haplogroups R1a and R1b, the most common paternal lineages in Europe, Central Asia and parts of South Asia, were mainly propagated by the Indo-European migrations during the Bronze Age. A sizeable part of European maternal lineages also seem to be of Indo-European origin, although the proportion varies a lot across Europe, but generally correlating to a large extent with the proportion of Y-haplogroups R1a and R1b.
Other paternal lineages, such as G2a3b and J2b2 may have spread during the Copper Age from the Balkans to modern Ukraine, then to have been absorbed by the expansion of R1a and R1b people respectively from central Russia (Volga basin) and southern Russia (Kuban, northwest Caucasus). The first PIE expansion into Europe was the Corded Ware culture, which so far have yielded only R1a and G2a samples. R1b is thought to have invaded the Balkans, then followed the Danube until Germany, from where it spread to western Europe and Scandinavia. The Asian branch originated around the Volga basin, then expanded across the Urals with the Sintashta culture, then over most of Central Asia and southern Siberia.