Today, I am reading and commenting on  Genesis 12-15.

I have included the last few verses from yesterday’s passage in today’s reading because I do not think we properly understand Abram’s story without them.  Abram’s story actually begins with his father, Terah.  Terah had three sons, Abram, Nahor, and Haran.  I had always thought that Haran was Terah’s eldest son, but today I realized that the passage does not tell us the order of birth for Terah’s sons. I had just assumed that Haran was the eldest because he died before Terah took his family and left Ur.  However the main reason that I want to start with these couple of verses from chapter 11 is because they tell us that Terah left Ur intending to relocate to Canaan, but decided to stop in the city of Harran for reasons which are not explained.  Interestingly, Terah would have left Ur about the time when historians believe that the Epic of Gilgamesh was composed.  The Epic of Gilgamesh contains a flood story which is thought to be the source for the flood story in Genesis, but perhaps it went the other way around.  So, perhaps Terah left Ur because a corrupted version of the stories of Creation which he knew were being used by those in power to consolidate their control. (Hmmm, where else have we seen political leaders corrupt the facts people believe in order to consolidate power? How about repeatedly throughout history?).  Further, when I did my blog post for January 1 of this year I came across an article which made the argument that the Garden of Eden would have been somewhere close to Canaan (perhaps even in Canaan).  Which puts an entirely new light on why God gave Canaan to the descendants of Abram.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.