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CR18Day_05 @ nkjv@Genesis:10 @ RandyP comments: This is now the second re-population of Genesis, first being the more controversial from Adam and Eve. Critics often ask "where did Cain and Seth get their wives"? The answer most likely is that they were sisters, but it doesn't have to stop there. Genesis was written not as an overall history as much as it was of all redemptive history (the details that would be important to our understanding of God's redemption). Seth and Cain's brothers and sisters are unnamed and unnumbered. Over the course of nine hundred plus years Eve surely bore Adam many. Those children married and had children. Those children bore many children. It could be that Cain and Seth married nieces or even grand nieces. While Cain was the first child, neither Able nor Seth necessarily have to be second and third if we are to look at the narrative as a redemptive history. In this passage we are back down to eight persons starting all over again. In both passages we can see how quickly the multiplication of being fruitful adds up.

CR18Day_19 @ nkjv@Genesis:35 @ RandyP comments: "Then God (Eloheem) went up from him in the place where He talked with him". The Apostle John quotes Jesus twice that "no man has seen God" and mentions it a third time in his first letter, yet there are multiple mentions of filter:OT LORD+AND+appeared in the Old Testament. Of interest we also have indication as here stated of the LORD going up afterwards, else coming down or just leaving. There seems to be no doubt nor unfamiliarity as to whom it is appearing in man's presence; no proof has to be given. Even when other angelic beings are beside Him His identity is obvious. There are a couple ways possible for us to interpret how this apparent contradiction can be resolved. The most prominent idea is that these are Christophanies (appearances of Christ before becoming human flesh); Christ is God but in viewable form. The second is what we see is as much of HIMSELF as God can show us without posing a danger to the lives of those HE is appearing to; a projection into our finite dimension or else avatar within a presentable form. Third HIS appearance is a vision HE plants within our mind. Fourth, we have the idea that an angel is making a substitutionary appearence for God. Some appearances are identified specifically as visions, others leave the impression that He is there (and is eating for instance), others are not as clear. These appearances are to be differentiated from the times when we are simply told that God or the LORD spoke saying... By all evidence God has been quite vocal and quite visable in these testaments.

CR18Day_23 @ nkjv@Mark:16 @ RandyP comments: Let us be clear as to why we believe in the death/resurrection/ascension of Jesus Christ the Son of God. It is not just because of these few testimonies from people that had seen Him in the flesh resurrected at the time (central and key as this evidence is). No we believe because of all that God has established prior to these testimonies even before Jesus Himself was born incarnate. We believe because of what was promised Adam and Eve of a seed to crush Satan, we believe because of what was promised Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, we believe because of what was promised to Moses and David and several verifiable prophets speaking to all Israel. We further believe because of the way God conducted HIMSELF even in man's utter disobedience, we believe because of the grace and mercy and longsuffering HE has shown successively to each generation, what HE has brought HIS people through, how HE has gathered HIS people, how lovingly HE has at times corrected them, how HE has stayed true to HIS word and not forsaken us even when we have not fully reciprocated. Much more do we believe because of the manner in which Jesus was born, the attention and resistance and tension from men His presence received even early on as an infant, later because of His teachings, because of His works (their size and scope and form). We believe because of the way He became despised and rejected for little or no tangible reason, sought after to kill, illegally tried and sentenced, brought before the Roman magistrate to execute because the Jews could not themselves do it. We believe because of the way people responded after His death, during the reports of His resurrection, the wild fire that immediately started throughout the region because of His gospel. We believe because of the effect this essential truth has proven to be in the everyday lives of everyday people throughout the ages ever since. In other words we believe because of all that God has established before and after to make this known, to confirm it as happening, to bless and favor those that this gospel has touched. In essence we have collected the best individual books relating to this evidence and establishment into one larger book of books. Each has it's own place in the chain of evidence. This Bible is why we believe what we do about that Jesus of Nazareth, His death/resurrection/ascension, that is why we believe even further in the revelation of His soon second coming and the day of final judgment. It is because of all that God has done throughout man's time on earth that brings us to these very same conclusions. Many will argue the resurrection and ascension singularly as if that were all it took to dispel all this other. I would say rather that it is all this other that proves the case for this one tremendously joyous thing: Christ indeed has Risen!

CR18Day_27 @ nkjv@Genesis:50 @ RandyP comments: "God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." We don't typically think of Jacob and Joseph as prophets of the bible, let alone major prophets in the class of Daniel/Isaiah/Ezekiel/Jeremiah. In the last chapter we saw Jacob lay down the foundation of the future of Israel all the way to Shiloh/Messiah that all prophets of Israel to come will build upon. In this chapter we see Joseph confirming a major prophecy laid down by Abraham concerning the next four hundred years in Egypt plus the eventual visiting of God to bring them into the land promised Abraham: Canaan. Not only are Joseph's words prophetic, the story of his life is prophetic of Israel's future rejection of God's chosen one Shiloh; a theme future prophets would fully develop later.