Holy Hormones Bible Study: Teaching — not Entertainment
CAN GOD LEARN NEW TRICKS?
Or did Abraham learn more from the “test” with Isaac than Yehovah did?
The prologue
My previous post, DID THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND JACOB DEMAND HUMAN BLOOD SACRIFICE?, discussed the Akedah (Offering of Isaac, Genesis 22:1–12) so I won’t repeat it here.
The post before that, DOES GOD SAY, “PLEASE”?, discussed the Attributes of God. Ditto on the repeat.
Unintentionally, these two blend into each other nicely because of three little words in Genesis 22:12, “Now I know . . .” For anyone who may have accidentally encountered the series concerning patterns in the Bible (they are in abundance), this is a classic example of not having to know every single word in the Bible. In the likely case that you haven’t, here is an ever-so-brief part of it.
• A characteristic of the human brain is that, once a pattern is recognised — it can’t be unrecognised. This is a useful method of checking the Pulpit sermons on the fly.
• Filter everything said through the known patterns. Keep your eyes closed, if necessary, but warn the preacher you will not be sleeping.
• If something is said that falls outside the patterns you know, it screeches like a grain of sand being drawn across a pane of glass. It jars the intellect, adequately functioning on automatic pilot, awake. It cannot (at least, should not) be ignored.
• Investigation will show it either to be an error, or show that it is valid but a different perspective to what you already know, or show it to be valid and another pattern has been discovered.
OK. Now you are primed the starting point is the Attributes of God
The Attributes of God are well known — whether they are believed or not.
The Attributes of God are axiomatic — whether you believe that one, too.
One of those Attributes is that Yehovah Elohim is Omniscient — He Is All-Knowing. If you are interested in this, you will follow it up yourself. If you are not interested, it is pointless me trying to convince you with my rapier sharp wit. Rather than try to defend Yehovah, (LOL!) this post examines the translation into English of some of the Hebrew words. It could be, “The things that you’re liable to read in the Bible, ain’t necessarily so.”
GOD’S ATTRIBUTES ARE CONSTRAINTS HE HAS PLACED ON HIMSELF.
UNLESS GOD COMPLETELY SATISFIES ALL OF HIS ATTRIBUTES HE CANNOT BE GOD!
One of those attributes is Omniscience: The quality of knowing all things at once; universal knowledge; knowledge unbounded or infinite. An attribute peculiar to God.
IF HE COULD KNOW ANY MORE, HE IS NOT YET GOD. IF HE COULD KNOW ANY LESS, HE WOULD NO LONGER BE GOD.
But not everyone thinks that way
There are those who call themselves by His Name who subscribe to the concept that Yehovah can think new thoughts, make new plans, and respond genuinely to the actions of Humanity in real time. As this post progresses, it is hoped that you will see there is no intention of ridiculing those practising this thought process. My personal experience is not devoid of such thoughts but more of my personal experience is that the Holy Spirit desires with desire (Luke 22:15) to answer ANY sincere question — but smart-arses be wary.
Three little words
“Now I know . . .” SCRRRREEeeech!!!!
Is this a statement to expect from the omniscient Elohim?!
What does the Holy Spirit have to say about the matter?
It is written in Hebrews 6:18 that God cannot lie. || … that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
Also it is written that God declares His own Omniscience in 1 Chronicles 28:9 || As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a loyal heart and with a willing mind; for the Lord searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts…
As well as in Isaiah 46:9–10 || “Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please”
But “FOR NOW I KNOW,” in Genesis 22:12 is in CONFLICT with “GOD CAN’T LIE”, 1 Chronicles 28:9, and Isaiah 46:9–10. Taken on face value, it appears that either God does lie, or God is not Omniscient. If either of these is true, the whole concept of Judaeo-Christianity unravels.
THIS CANNOT BE LEFT DANGLING. IT DEMANDS CLARIFICATION!!
This article examines the evidence and presents a verdict.
Context, context, context
The intended focus group of this exercise is professing Christians. Some level of Biblical literacy is expected.
Proper Exegesis must account for the context in which a word is used. It has been mentioned numerous times in my posts that there are shades of meaning for most words in each individual language, and some words can’t be crisply translated from one language to another. Couple this with the reality that both Hebrew and Greek are self-parsing so the English translators carry the baggage of their own belief about the punctuation to the table.
Atheists will believe what they choose but my experience with the Written Word of God is that it is INSPIRED, INERRANT, INFALLIBLE. Another example of this is presented in QUEEN ESTHER AT NUREMBERG. Now; I know precious little about Hebrew but people who say they know tell me that it is a language which is dependent on the order of words so it is the Holy Spirit Who chooses the what-and-where of each word in the original rendering. It is the responsibility of each Saint to determine why the Holy Spirit chooses a particular word and places it where He does. If you don’t subscribe to that you are wasting your time here. Go and waste your time elsewhere.
Grammar alert
[NOTE: There is a mixture of pointed and unpointed Hebrew in this post because I don’t have the skill to transpose the points correctly. Also, the pointing is not consistent over all sources. So the conclusions may not be crisp — but are crisper than a lot of other stuff I’ve encountered on Medium. You will have to decide for yourself.]
Hebrew word of concern is H3045 — yāḏaʿ : root word ידע , inflexion ידעתי .
Figure 1 demonstrates the confusion with the English tense of the key Hebrew word ידעתי. Each of these translations come from reputable sources so it becomes apparent that the problem does not lie with God’s Word but with what Humanity does with that Word.
Figure 1: Confusion over the English tense of ידעתי
What happens when we dig deeper?
Figure 2 shows the BLB Hebrew/English interlinear of Genesis 22:12. The word of concern “I know” is highlighted.
Figure 2: Genesis 22:12 Interlinear Hebrew/English
Figure 3 shows the Hebrew word is translated as present tense, “I know,” about 80% of occurrences and past tense, “I knew,” about 15% over the entire KJV.[1]
Figure 3: Dispersion of ידעתי in KJV
This is affirmed by Figure 4 which shows that about 8% of the root word ידע is translated as the past tense, “knew”.
Figure 4: Dispersion of ידע in KJV
A flaw in blindly following modern ¿scientific? methods of Bible analytics
That Figures 3 and 4 are easily generated on free websites makes it self-evident that random statistical analysis is widely used in Bible scholarship. It sounds good but there is a fatal flaw in this case because the context of who is speaking is ignored.
There are only two types of persons using ידעתי in the Bible. The Omniscient and the others. The Omniscient always knew. That is not the case for the others. The result being that two very different populations are lumped together, resulting in significant error.
It is written in Psalm 139 || You know my sitting down and my rising up … You understand my thought afar off … Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed … And in Your book they all were written … The days fashioned for me … When as yet there were none of them.
(David may not have known much about statistics but he was a man after the Heart of Yehovah.)
So, separating the populations, the frequency of “knew” for Yehovah Elohim is 100%; the frequency for the others doesn’t matter.
Cogitate on this as you skim through the Bible: The works attributed to Shakespeare must be considered word-by-word because they are so subtle — and he is only human.
Let’s look; perhaps there’s more
The Hebrew Translation site, ‘Do it in Hebrew.com,’[2] has been used to wring as much information out of this as possible.
ידעתי is a compound word ידע + תי . Figure 5 shows that both ידעתי and ידע תי are translated as “I knew.”
Figure 5: Translating ידעתי using Do it in Hebrew
It is recognised that this site deals in modern Hebrew which may differ to some degree from the Hebrew of the Tanakh (somewhat similar to the difference between King James English to modern English). The complications of translation are also recognised — especially when using an Artificial Intelligence process. An invitation is extended to anyone having knowledge in Hebrew to provide any corrections. In which case the argument presented in this article may collapse.
What about the Septuagint ?
The corresponding Greek word for the Hebrew ידעתי in this verse is ἔγνων.
Figure 6 shows something interesting has happened in the LXX.
• The order of the words, FOR NOW I, has been changed to NOW FOR I. The result may be seen below.
• Present tense, ‘know,’ has been changed to past tense, ‘know-ed = knew.’
Figure 6: LXX translation of Genesis 22:12
Where is the inflexion ἔγνων used elsewhere in the Bible?
LXX[3] 39 times in 39 verses.
NT[4] 6 times in 6 verses.
Figure 7: Occurrences of ἔγνων in the LXX
Figure 8: Occurrences of ἔγνων in the NT
But the most well known, and understood, are in the NT.
It is written in Matthew 7:23 || And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew (ἔγνων) you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
Also, in Matthew 25:24 || “Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew (ἔγνων) you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed.
It is discussed earlier (Figures 3 and 4) that each individual occurrence must be considered, in order to assess who is speaking, so relying on statistics is secondary to knowing the Character and Attributes of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
You mean you’ve subjected me to terminal grammar boredom for nothing?!!!!
“Yes,” and, “No.”
This is a good example that understanding the Bible is not merely churning out some formulas pertaining to a word, i.e. this-word-means-that-&-that-word-means-this. Context includes who is speaking the word. As discussed earlier, when God speaks random statistics do not apply.
Yehovah is confident enough to place rigorous constraints on Himself.
EVERY ONE OF HIS ATTRIBUTES MUST BE COMPLETELY SATISFIED OR HE CANNOT BE GOD!
So what has this got to do with Prophecy?
Good thing you asked.
In Matthew 22:37–40 Yeshua explains the OT (Tanakh). He was speaking to Jews who knew the Old Testament when it was the only Testament, and He gave equal weighting to the Torah (Teachings) and the Prophets (what the Teachings were all about). I’m open to correction but, to me, there were words unspoken that His hearers understood.
• Know the Torah (Teachings)
• Know what the Torah said about what the Prophets said.
The Bible is Yehovah’s Gantt Chart,[5] exemplified in Figure 9. He lays out His Redemption Plan from the very beginning and keeps everyone informed.
Figure 9: Schematic of God’s Prophecies through each of the books in the Book
It is written in Isaiah 46:9–10 that He is the One Who makes known the end from the beginning by informing His Prophets beforehand, Amos 3:7. And in Deuteronomy 18:21–22 He decrees something along the lines, “If someone makes a prophecy which does not come to pass, that false prophet must die.”
For those interested, this is covered in more detail here, PROPHECY 101 Introduction to Bible Inerrancy .
The logical conclusion
ALL the books in the Book contain some form of Divine Prophecy that Yehovah has ordained will come to fruition.
What if He didn’t know something and things didn’t turn out as He said they would? That is, He got it wrong. We would have the situation described in Deuteronomy 18:21–22. He would not be Omniscient! He would not be God! WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THEN?!!! Everything — EVERYTHING! — would unravel.
Does this mean that Grammar isn’t really useful, after all?
(So I don’t have to make the effort to learn it? Praise the Lord!)
No. It means that the the investigator/translator has fallen foul of the “Prosecutor’s Error.” (S)he stopped too early. ALL the evidence has not been used — in this case, ALL of Yehovah’s Attributes. The original Translator did not subscribe to the Omniscience of God, and no one seems to have checked up on him. What has happened? I don’t know (I’m not omniscient). I can’t imagine that I’m the only one who has ever heard the SCRRRREEeeech!!!!
But it remains that the, “Now I know,” translation violates one of the Attributes of God. I have heard sermons about the “Father heart of God,” using this phrase to explain a father encouraging his child, “Now I know you can do it,” but that not only white-ants the Divinity but it is also discouraging for the child because it implies the father had doubt. “I knew you could do it!” is not only encouraging, it complies with the constraints God lays on Himself.
All requests to preachers for explanation were left dangling.
Explanations can’t be left dangling
• All explanations must end somewhere. If you come to a point in an explanation where you curtail the process with an exasperated, ‘It must be,’ it means that you have come to the end of your imagination or the end of your interest.
• Every explanation must have an ending but why expect an explanation more simple than the question? (Explain Coca-Cola to someone who has no idea what it is.)
• An explanation without relevant evidence is a guess, no matter how loudly you shout.
• Opinion is the most democratic of all social interactions. Everyone has equal opportunity to be wrong.
• A slap-down shows you can’t argue your point (it shows you don’t even have one).
• “Everyone agrees with me,” is the classic Appeal to Popular Opinion fallacy. (There is a Bible verse that warns about that.)
• When an explanation dies the death of a thousand qualifications it is not the Truth.
• If God is a Necessary Being He needs no explanation. God is not improbable if He is a Necessary Being because the probability of a necessary being is 100%.
Study Hints for a difficult passage that falls outside the pattern you know:-
1. Remove all punctuation and capital letters except proper nouns.
2. Exegesis of all the possible meanings of the words.
In this case the choice is between know/knew.
3. Know God’s character .
He is good. His Attributes have been already listed. He must comply to ALL of them.
4. Forget tradition.
Ignore what the Theological Glitterati has said. Don’t regurgitate. Finish your study before going to the Commentaries.
5. Rearrange the words until the pattern is satisfied.
We have the translation performed by someone who does not believe that God is Omniscient in every English translation in print. For someone who does believe, Genesis 22:12 becomes:-
do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son your only son from me
There are at least two word rearrangements according to Figure 6
(A) || Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him now. For I knew that you fear God …
(B) || Do not lay your hand on the lad or do anything to him for now. I knew that you fear God …
I’m open to correction but, as I hear the words unspoken, there is a sense of urgency in the use of ‘for’ and ‘now’ to stop Abraham in his tracks. Selecting the past tense, ‘knew,’ implies that Yehovah was aware of what Abraham would do. Moving a period mark one word to the right, and changing one vowel, is legitimate according to the evidence presented above and changes the vibe of the whole Bible.
6. NOW go to the commentaries.
The best Commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself. Hebrews 11:17–19 is the place to go for the answer of why Abraham did Yehovah’s bidding. Over about half-a-century, Yehovah had trained Abram → Abraham to trust Him. The late American Bible Teacher, Chuck Missler, coined it well. Abraham thought something along the lines, “You have given your promise, and Yours is the Faithfulness that counts. If you kill him, YOU have a problem — not me.” (Credited it to him as faith.)
My conclusion, for what it’s worth
Yehovah was ‘testing’ Abraham to show him how far he had come. The early adventures of Abram imply that there was no chance he (Abram) would comply. But he (Abraham) was now walking the Walk and not just talking the talk.
It is not what the Holy Spirit wrote that is the problem. It is what Humanity’s Arrogance of Ignorance has done to what has been written.
Psalm 139 says it all.
The epilogue
The original intention of this article was to deal only with the misunderstanding among the Saints of the Omniscience of Yehovah at the end of the text, and get back to the Feast of the Unleavened Bread series. Comments from various Saints as to why God would tell Abraham to kill his son have surfaced, so this thread will continue by returning to the beginning of the text. The honest question to be answered will be, “If you have or had a son and you believe God asked you to kill him for the sake of testing your dedication, would you automatically do it without hesitation as this story indicates?”
However, there will be a hiatus because, by popular demand, I have a Grampa-duty gig. Perhaps you could do some of your own study in the meantime.
The forgoing evidence has not been presented to convince any reader but to allow a personal decision to be made. There is much more to know about this subject. Perhaps you’ll pay another visit, sometime.
All Glory to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
(We all have a plank in our eye. It’s bigger than we think.)
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[1]Scripture 4 All https://www.scripture4all.org/
[2] Do it in Hebrew https://www.doitinhebrew.com/Translate/default.aspx?kb=IL%20Hebrew%20Phonetic
[3]LXX https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/inflections.cfm?strongs=G1097&t=KJV&ot=LXX&word=%E1%BC%94%CE%B3%CE%BD%CF%89%CE%BD
[4]NT https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/inflections.cfm?strongs=G1097&t=KJV&ot=TR&word=%E1%BC%94%CE%B3%CE%BD%CF%89%CE%BD
[5]Gantt Chart https://www.teamgantt.com/what-is-a-gantt-chart
