Children and Passing on Wisdom

May 16, 2009, 9:19 am by dc-agape.

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The Last Words of Levi (Part 3)

I will cover two sections of this Tractate in this post.  The first one is about the life of Levi.  He speaks of his children, his murderous actions in Shechem, and his final age at death.  The second one is about seeking wisdom.  Not wisdom from YHWH, but wisdom from reading and writing.  In fact, in this entire post, YHWH is not present, not even when his children are born.  This is quite a telling point to an Atheist. Shouldn’t the high priest of YHWH praise YHWH for every event in his life?

The first event in Levi’s life that can be linked to the Bible is the story of how he murdered the entire town of Shechem for revenge.  This occurred when he was 18 years old.  One year later he became the priest of YHWH.  Joseph was still around at that point, but was only 10 years old.  Yet we know from the birth files that

From this section a time line can be created from the events in the Word of God and the events recorded in this Tractate.  The second event that can be linked to the Bible is that Levi was 25 years old when Joseph was sold into slavery.  Joseph was ~17 years old when this occurred. The Tractate claims that Levi was 118 years old when Joseph died.  Since the Bible tells us that Joseph died when he was 110 years old (Gen 50:22) this would make Levi eight years older than Joseph.  Three years later, Levi married the daughter of his mother’s brother.  In other words, his first cousin!  Through this marriage he has four children.  The oldest son, being Gershom, was born to him when he was 30.  Four years later, his second son was born to him, Kohath.  Here again, the second son would inherit everything from the father.  Gershom was evil and did not become the high priest that was Kohath who inherited the position.  It took another six years for his third son to be born, Merari.  The Tractate says that this son was dying when he was born, yet later says that Merari had two sons.  24 years later he had a daughter, who he named Jochebed. 

Now things get interesting.  Levi gives his daughter Jochebed to his son Kohath as a wife!  So not only do we have first cousins marrying in this Tractate but we have sibling marriage.  This is what the “Defenders of Biblical Marriage” want?  This was acceptable to YHWH?  In the book of Leviticus two verses condemn this practice (Lev 18:6 and Lev 18:9).  I guess it was tougher to find appropriate wives when the clan was so small. 

Here the Tractate and the Word of God also disagree.  The Tractate claims that the descendants of Gershom would be homeless.  Yet in Joshua 21:33 the Gershomite tribe inherited 13 towns.  That does not sound like being homeless to me!

The second section is about gaining wisdom.  First he tells his sons this:

4Q213 col E 14-16 Whoever sows goodness will reap goodness; but whoever sows evil, his seed will return to him.

Pretty good advice and YHWH is not involved!  Levi continues to encourage his sons to learn and teach writing, discipline, and wisdom.  I wish that the Religious Right, here in the US, would reflect on this subject more!  Our students are some of the least bright in the world!

30 million people in the US are below basic reading skills!  And only 28 million are proficient.  This is hideous results.  Worse is that it has not changed in a decade!

Levi ends this section with a warning or promise.  No one can take away wisdom, they can steal all your property, take you as slaves and take your land, but they can never take away your learning.  He also promises that people will come from all around to listen to the wisdom that his sons will learn.  Good advice, I wish the citizens of the US would take some of this to heart.  It even comes from a religious document, shouldn’t they listen to this? 

Both graphs come from National Center of Educational Statistics.

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