Bible Studies, Inspired by Faith and Science

Twelve Tribes of Israel 1. What relation is Laban to Jacob? 2. How many holy dreams did Jacob have? 3. How long after marrying one sister did Jacob get to marry a second? 4. How many children did Leah have before Jacob began sleeping with the maids? 5. What have Jacob’s sheep got to do with the Bible? 6. What happened to Laban’s household gods? 7. What happened to the hollow of Jacob’s thigh? 8. What happened to Dinah? 9. When did Jacob’s name change to Israel? 10. How did Judah become the most important son? Jacob goes to Padamaram, or Haram, or Nahor, where he stays with his uncle Laban, brother to Rebekah and grandson of Abraham’s brother Nahor (hence that extra generation in Abraham’s age—he was indeed an elderly father). Their relationship is cordial and Jacob works 7 years for the privilege of marrying the younger daughter Rachel, but finds himself wed to Leah instead. (There really were traditions that oldest daughters should marry first, and that wives and their maid...

Lesson 9: Israel in Egypt: Genesis 46-50 What if… faith and science agree on Israel going to Egypt? The Land of Goshen: What if… Egyptians didn’t like shepherds? In Genesis 45:16-20 Pharaoh promises the best land to Joseph’s family. But Joseph is clearly nervous and needs God’s reassurance that this is okay ( Genesis 46:1-4 ). He reminds his family ( Genesis 46:31-34 ) that the Egyptians really don’t like herdsmen. When Pharoah gives them the land of Goshen he puts them in charge of his livestock ( Genesis 47:6 ), but livestock certainly wouldn’t be kept on the best land. Goshen may well be a hilly area near the Nile delta. Egyptians would not want to live there, so the Israelites would live undisturbed for almost 400 years, able to consolidate their stories and their beliefs without the pollution of foreign mythologies. Perhaps this was God’s provision for them, a time of strengthening. When a later Pharaoh began building the city of Rameses in the delta, the Israelites would have ...