Dr Paul Allen

Genesis 11:7 – “Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” The Babylonian intent in their attempt at their sovereign secular kingdom was to have sufficient power to do as they pleased by uniting together and defending themselves from everyone else. God rightly viewed this centralization of power in the hands of proud sinners apart from Him as a dangerous thing and saved them from themselves and saved others from the potential abuses of power by simply scattering them and confusing their languages.  Ironically, this scattering of the people and confusion of the languages were two of the primary things these people were seeking to prevent from happening in the first place. The name Babel, or Babylon, is humorously akin to our English word babble, which is what their communication sounded like once God confused their language. Beautifully, on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 through the power of the Holy Spirit, the gift...

Genesis 29 relates the story of Jacob’s love for Rachel. And yet, on his wedding night, the deceiver was himself deceived. Though he had worked for Laban seven years in order to marry his youngest daughter, Jacob woke up the next morning lying next to Leah, Rachael’s older sister.  And so in verse 25 of Genesis 29, Jacob says to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? Did I not serve with you for Rachel? Why then have you deceived me?”  Laban then responds, “It is not so done in our country, to give the younger before the firstborn. Complete the week of this one, and we will give you the other also in return for serving me another seven years.”  What we have here in this scene is a kind of echo of earlier events. Just as Isaac had been deceived by Jacob at the advice of his mother, Jacob has now been deceived by Leah and her father Laban. After he had deceived his father, Jacob was blessed in the place of his brother and became the inheritor of the fertile land of Canaa...

Can you imagine being Noah and seeing that first rain drop?  What do you think he felt? Relief? Surprise? Joy? Maybe a mix of all three. Perhaps he felt great sorrow as well, as he realized that the people he so faithfully preached to, for around a hundred years, were about to be crushed by the wrath of God. I think about Noah often.  He was all alone. Just him, his wife and his three boys.  He was the only man on earth who had a relationship with God. The whole world lived in utter rebellion against Him. (Gen. 6:11).  They must have thought he was crazy. He was building a huge boat, he was saying that rain would make the whole world flood, he was calling people to repentance. He was warning the world about the wrath of God.  And yet no one listened. No one repented. Everyone mocked. Yet Noah kept the faith. And the writer of Hebrews encourages his readers to have faith like Him. He says, By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built a...

  GENESIS 6:9–11 “These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth” The now-familiar toledot formula (“these are the generations of”) signals a new storyline in the Bible, Until the end of chapter 9, Moses focuses on Noah and his salvation from the flood. Verse 9 elaborates on 6:8, telling us the divine favour Noah enjoys is due to his righteous and blameless disposition. The Hebrew word translated “blameless” is also used for animals without blemish and fit for sacrifice. Noah is a good man; from a human perspective, he might even be called “perfect,” as some translations render verse 9. This raises questions because other biblical passages clearly assert there is no person who is righteous (Ps. 14:1–3; Rom. 3:9–18). Does Moses, therefore, contradict the rest of the Bible in Genesis 6? Distinguishing between the two ways the Bible speaks of righteousness solves our dilem...

One of the strangest is Genesis 6:1–4, the episode in the days of Noah where the “sons of God” (called the “Watchers” in Jewish literature written during the time between the Testaments) transgress the boundary between heaven and Earth in an illicit relationship with the “daughters of humankind.” The act produced the Nephilim, who are the forebears of the giant clans encountered by Moses and Joshua (Num 13:32–33). There have been many attempts to strip this passage of its supernatural elements to make it palatable to modern-day people. All such attempts have significant flaws of exegesis and logical coherence. But the greatest flaw is that any view that humanizes the sons of God and denies the unusual nature of the Nephilim invariably violates the passage’s original context and polemic meaning. Prior to 2010, that assertion may have been contestable. That is no longer the case. Recent scholarly work on Mesopotamian literature associated with events before and after the great fl...

“ Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.… Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem ; and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth , and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant” ( Gen. 9:25–27 ).- Genesis 9:24–29 Exodus 20:12 teaches us necessarily to obey all authorities, for “it pleases God to govern us by their hand” (Heidleberg Catechism, 104). How we treat our leaders (family, church, or civil) reveals what we think of our Father, since He ordains them all ( Rom. 13:1–7 ). Having despised God by dishonoring his father, today’s passage records the curse Ham earned for his seed. These verses illustrate the maladies that can result if we do not obey our authorities faithfully. Let us first note this text has a sordid history of being used to justify ethnic slavery and racism. However, this use is manifestly unjustifiable. The malediction says nothing about race; it is based on faith, and in any case is pronounced on...

“And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.” ( Genesis 9:11 ) When God gave Noah this promise, the world had just been through the devastating cataclysm that flooded the entire globe and destroyed all except those on Noah’s Ark. The world was fearful and barren and there seemed nothing to prevent another such flood from coming on the earth. Nevertheless, God’s promise—not only to Noah but also to the animals ( Genesis 9:9-10 )—has been kept for years. God later reminded Job of this promise when He told him that He had “shut up the sea with doors. . . . And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed” ( Job 38:8 , 11). The psalmist also referred to this covenant. When the whole earth had been covered “with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. At thy rebuke they fled. . . . Thou...

Unbelievers constantly assert that the Bible says that Cain went into the land of Nod and took to himself a wife. What the Bible does say is that “Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden . And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch” ( Genesis 4:16–17). What the Bible means by “knew” in such connection anyone can discover for himself by taking his concordance and looking it up. He will discover that the word used in this connotation does not mean to get acquainted with, but is connected with the procreation of the species (see Genesis 4:1; Judges 11:39; 1 Samuel 1:19; Matthew 1:25 ). Cain doubtless had his wife before going to the land of Nod and took her there with him. But who was she, and where did he get her? In Genesis 5:3–4 we learn that Adam in his long life of 930 years begat many sons and daughters. There can be but little doubt that Cain married one of those numerous daughters. But someone will say, ...

English: Moses striking the rock (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Timed for a Christmas season release, director Ridley Scott ’s intended blockbuster, Exodus : Gods and Kings hit the big screens this past weekend. On its opening weekend the movie shot to the top of the box office charts, displacing the latest Hunger Games movie, but falling considerably short of expected receipts. The best single line analysis of the movie and its failure to garner either critical acclaim or more viewers was offered by Eric D. Snider of Geek Nation: “This big dud isn’t blasphemous enough to be outrageous, emotional enough to be inspiring, or interesting enough to be good.” Well, I partly agree with the first two points of criticism, but I did find the movie interesting. Indeed, I even liked much of the movie, and I would not argue that mature and thoughtful Christians should not see it, even if the concerns about it are major. And make no mistake, the concerns are major. Earlier this year, director Dar...

Let’s admit it, there are certain parts of the Bible we skim because . . . well . . . because we think they’re boring. They’re repetitive, overly detailed, full of names and places we can’t pronounce. So why bother with them? There are many reasons — not the least of which is that even the parts of the Bible we deem to be boring are significant because they are God’s word to us.  Here’s top ten list of the best things about the boring parts of the Bible. 10 After a poetic Creation and a cosmic disaster, the story of the Bible slows down in Genesis by tracing the sons of Adam and Eve’s son, Seth, through numerous generations. Why do we need to know this? Because God made a promise recorded in Genesis 3 about a particular descendant of Eve. The whole of the Bible is most significantly about this descendant. So, the tenth best thing about the boring parts of the Bible is: Tracing the line of descendants from Adam and Eve forward keeps us tuned in to what is most important i...

English: The ark of Noah and the cosmic covenant / L'arche de Noé et l'alliance cosmique / 04 CATACOMBES NOE ET LA COLOMBE SAINTS PIERRE (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) The last of the ten antediluvian Patriarchs and hero of the *FLOOD. He was the son of Lamech, who was 182 (Samaritan Pentateuch, 53; LXX, 188) years old when Noah was born (Gn. 5:28–29; Lk. 3:36). a. Name The etymology of the name, nōaḥ, is uncertain, though many commentators connect it with the root nwḥ, ‘to rest’. In Genesis (5:29) it is associated with the verb nḥm (translated ‘comfort’ in AV and RV; ‘bring relief’ in RSV), with which it is perhaps etymologically connected; though this is not necessarily required by the text. The element nḥm occurs in Amorite personal names and in the name Nah̬mizuli which figures in a Hurrian fragment of the Gilgamesh epic found at Boǧazköy, the Hittite capital in Asia Minor. The LXX gives the name as Nōe, in which form it appears in the NT (AV). b. Life and character Noah ...