Problems in Genesis
Some time ago, I was studying an alleged discrepancy in the Bible. It involved the question of how many of Jacob’s descendants went down into Egypt.
In Acts 7:14 we are told that the total number of Jacob’s descendants that came with him was 75. However, in Genesis 46:27, we are told that it is 70. I remember one Christian preacher-turned-Bible-skeptic, the late Farrell Till, argued that this was a discrepancy. I read an article by a Christian apologist, Eric Vestrup, who argued that there was no discrepancy. Even though I sometimes agreed with Till on many flaws of the Bible, however, with regard to the 75/70 problem, I found myself in agreement with Mr. Vestrup.
It’s my view that we simply don’t know enough about the earliest sources of the Hebrew Bible to decide whether the original autographs listed 75 or 70. I plan to write a detailed reply to Mr. Vestrup because although I largely agree with him, I nevertheless believe that there are two flaws that are in Genesis 46, which are related to the problem of how many people went down to Egypt. The two flaws are found in Genesis 46:8–15 (NIV):
8 These are the names of the sons of Israel (Jacob and his descendants) who went to Egypt:
Reuben the firstborn of Jacob.
9 The sons of Reuben:
Hanok, Pallu, Hezron and Karmi.
10 The sons of Simeon:
Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman.
11 The sons of Levi:
Gershon, Kohath and Merari.
12 The sons of Judah:
Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez and Zerah (but Er and Onan had died in the land of Canaan).
The sons of Perez:
Hezron and Hamul.
13 The sons of Issachar:
Tola, Puah, Jashub, and Shimron.
14 The sons of Zebulun:
Zebulun, Elon and Jahleel.
15 These were the sons Leah bore to Jacob in Paddan Aram, besides his daughter Dinah. These sons and daughters of his were thirty-three in all.
If we make a list of all of these people listed, it comes to 33:
- Reuben
- Hanok
- Pallu
- Hezron
- Karmi
- Simeon
- Jemuel
- Jamin
- Ohad
- Jakin
- Zohar
- Shaul
- Levi
- Gershon
- Kohath
- Merari
- Judah
- Er
- Onan
- Shelah
- Perez
- Zerah
- Hezron
- Hamul
- Issachar
- Tola
- Puah
- Jashub
- Shimron
- Zebulun
- Zebulun
- Elon
- Jahleel
As we can see from this list, there are thirty-three people that were counted. What is more, is that they are all male. This is confirmed by verse 15: “These were the sons Leah bore to Jacob in Paddan Aram, besides his daughter Dinah..”
So what’s the problem here? If we look at the next part of verse 15, we find something inaccurate: “These sons and daughters of his were thirty-three in all.” It states very clearly, that the sons and daughters of his were thirty-three in all.
The problem is that in the list of thirty-three, there were no daughters. All of the thirty-three people listed were all males. Therefore, this verse is in error. The other problem with this passage is that Onan and Er died in the land of Canaan. How, then, could they sojourn with all of the rest of Jacob’s descendants into Egypt if they had died?
Possible Solutions
Whenever I do my own research on alleged flaws in the Bible, I do my very best to play “devil’s advocate” with my own arguments. I imagine myself in a public debate, sparring with a Christian apologist, and I imagine what that person might say in written format. So, what would a hypothetical apologist say with regard to the above? Regarding the first problem, an apologist may argue that verse 15 was not in the original autograph. If it was, then it would be an error, sure. But verse 15 was added by a later scribe for clarification but it accidentally made the problem worse.
But the problem with this explanation is that a scribal addition of this kind raises the problem of what was actually in the autographs. Since we don’t have the autographs or any immediate manuscripts that were flawlessly copied from the autographs, we ultimately cannot tell what was part of the autographs and what wasn’t. If so, Christians cannot argue with any strong degree of confidence that the Bibles that we have today are, indeed, “God’s word.” What we have might be God’s word, but it would take a scholarly analysis to be able to go and prune the Bible so that these embarrassing additions can be erased if that’s what verse 15 is.
I remember back in my Evangelical years, I attended a college youth group meeting one night. I don’t recall what else was going on but I clearly remember reading a story in the gospel of John about a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery (John 8:1–11.) The teachers told Jesus that Moses said to stone this woman and they asked what Jesus’ response would be. Jesus’ classic response: he who is without sin, let him cast a stone at her. The problem is that this passage is not found in the earliest manuscripts of John.
When I read this footnote in a copy of the NIV, it made me really uneasy. Right there, I realized that if this wasn’t in the earliest manuscripts, then it probably wasn’t in the autograph either. If that was a later addition, then what else was a later addition? I came to the realization that the Bible might have been tampered with, and for a young Evangelical like me, that was a frightening possibility. If the story was true, however, it presented a horrible problem for the Christian faith. Moses was right; if a woman was caught in adultery, she should be stoned. For Jesus not to condemn her, but to tell her, instead “Go and sin no more” is a gross violation of the law of Moses, which Jesus supposedly obeyed perfectly all of his life.
Nowadays, I scoff at the idea of Genesis 46:15 being a scribal addition as an apologist’s explanation as if that helps inerrancy in any way. Why did God allow this scribal addition in the first place? Why didn’t God have some later scribe immediately recognize this error and edit it out? If God allowed this scribal addition to stay in the text, then God is just being lazy. If God is too lazy to even bother removing verse 15 from the text, then God can’t blame anyone for thinking that it was part of the original autograph and concluding an error exists.
I have an analogy that might help. Think of a hypothetical newspaper editor who reviews a story for publication and notices an error. Suppose, further, that the editor shrugs his shoulders and thinks, big deal! This person got one detail wrong but the rest of the details are correct. So this editor lets the error slide and publishes the article. Then suppose that a college student comes across the article and decides to quote the article in a term paper. The class instructor reviews the article, fact-checks it, discovers the error, and gives the student a lower grade on the paper because of it. Now if the editor had been more careful and had the journalist correct his error, then the student would likely have gotten a better grade on the paper.
In this analogy, God would be like the newspaper editor. If God lets an error slide like this, he has only himself to blame if anyone thinks that the error in verse 15 was part of the autograph. Unless God works to have a human scribe remove verse 15 or correct it, then God is to blame for this and any other misinformation in our modern Bibles. I have to ask conservative Christians who preach that the Bible is the “written Word of God”: what word of God?
What about Er and Onan, then? I imagine a Christian apologist might say to me, “Matt, there’s no error. What happened is that Er and Onan were originally buried in Canaan, true. But their remains were dug up and they were reburied in Egypt. In Genesis 46:26 the Hebrew word is ‘nephesh’ and that means only the physical totality of some person; the person need not be alive.”
The problem with this explanation is that in verse 26, no distinction is made between living and dead. If verse 26 were to state “All the persons belonging to Jacob, both living and dead, who came to Egypt, his direct descendants, not including the wives of Jacob’s sons, were sixty-six persons in all..” then I would agree that apologists may have a case. But it doesn’t and this leaves the reader with the conclusion that all of the “souls” that came down to Egypt were all living.
I am convinced that there are flaws in the Bible. Yes, sure, a clever apologist can always argue for a copyist error or a flawed scribal addition here and there, but that undermines the conservative Christian’s belief that the Bibles that they have are, indeed, the “inerrant word of God.”
If anyone cares to show me wrong, show me the autograph or a carefully copied manuscript that lacks any such scribal additions.
The clock is ticking…
