Dr Paul Allen

“There was a man in the land of Uz , whose name was Job.” ( Job 1:1 ) Uz was a son of Aram and a grandson of Shem ( Genesis 10:22-23 ). Shem’s first son, Arphaxad , was born two years after the Flood, and his remaining sons would have been born in some reasonable sequence thereafter, probably around 36 years apart ( Genesis 11:10-26 ). It is unlikely that Aram, Uz’s father, was born past the first century after the Flood. The events at Babel took place during the fifth generation (the generation of Peleg ), and Uz would have been alive then. The land of Uz is later associated with the territory of Edom ( Lamentations 4:21 ), which is near the area southeast of the Dead Sea , toward the upper reaches of the Sinai Peninsula , east of Egypt and just north of the Red Sea. Although that area is not very pleasant now, at the time of Abraham it was “well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah , even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou...

Tower of Babel by Lucas van Valckenborch in 1594 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name." ( Genesis 11:4 ) The Bible has one Author ( 2 Timothy 3:16 ), and it is one Book. Therefore, it should be read as one book, from beginning to end, to understand its full meaning. The Tower of Babel incident ( Genesis 11:1-9 ) illustrates how truth can be gleaned by reading the Bible as a unified whole. Why did God include Genesis 11:1-9 as part of Scripture? First, consider the passage itself and the stated purpose for the Tower: "Let us make us a name". Second, consider the surrounding chapters. Chapter 10 ends with the genealogy of Shem (whose name means "name"), and the rest of Chapter 11 (after verses 1-9) traces Shem's genealogy down to Abraham , to whom God promised, "I will . . . make thy name [Hebrew shem] great" ( 12:2 ). Clearly, thes...

Miriam depicted on the right (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Noah damning Ham Русский: Ной проклинает Хама (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Illustration by James Tissot Copyright de Brunoff 1904 Source: http://www.cts.edu/ImageLibrary/tissot.cfm (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Some people insist that the Bible meant for the races to remain pure, therefore prohibiting any kind of interracial marriage. Usually two biblical texts are drawn upon to support that view. One is the fact that Noah had three sons, Shem , Ham , and Japheth . As you recall, Shem received a patriarchal blessing, and an enlargement of that was given to Japheth. Ham, because he looked upon his father’s nakedness, was cursed. “Cursed be Canaan” was the malediction that Noah pronounced on Ham and his descendants.  Some have neatly contrived from the three sons of Noah , three survivors of the flood, that this is the historic basis for the three basic generic types of human beings: the Caucasian, the Negroid , and the Mongoloid...

Image via Wikipedia "They grope in the dark without light, and he maketh them to stagger like a drunken man." ( Job 12:25 )   The godly patriarch Job lived in the early centuries after the Flood , and he frequently makes passing reference to the events of those difficult times. The twelfth chapter of Job is especially intriguing in this regard.   For example,  verse 12  may refer indirectly to Shem , who lived 502 years after the Flood ( Genesis 11:10-11 ). "With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days is understanding." The coming of the Flood is suggested in  verse 14 : "Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening." The latter clause could even refer to God 's shutting the door of Noah's Ark ( Genesis 7:16 ), thereby shutting off forever the ancient wicked world to him and his descendants. The next verse describes the Flood itself. "He sendeth them out, and they overturn the...