May 22, 2010, 6:09 am by dc-agape.

Mark 8:1-21

Jesus left Sidon, in present day Lebanon (geology.com), and he traveled 65 miles (walking, map from BibleHistory.com) to the opposite side of Lake Gennesaret.  In fact, it is somewhere very near the place he drove the herd of pigs into the lake.  We know this because he healed the deaf man in Decapolis.   Since he was close enough to the Sea of Galilee to get in a boat (Mark 8:9-10), he was close to Hippos (Atlas Tours) both times.  And Hippos would have been the closest city to where the pigs were drowned.  Including how racist Jesus was and how he scared the people of Gadara (Hippos) why would an additional 4,000 gentile men (10,000 people counting women and children) come and listen to him.  In Decapolis, there were fewer Jews than the western side of the Sea of Galilee.

Not only did these people come to listen to him, but they stayed for 3 days:

Mark 8:2 I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat.

This is another tall tale from the Word of God.  It is not possible for this story to be anything but a Tall Tale because the people involved were afraid of him, did not believe the Jewish faith, were a completely new group of people (remember he had traveled over 130 miles on foot since the feeding of 5,000 men), and these people could not have left their homes and work for the travel time plus the 3 days.  More, this story is only repeated in two Gospels which in both are followed by the same repeated story of the Pharisee yeast. Yes, the wording is different and yes, it is in another location…but it is still a Tall Tale.

To add to this tale, the disciples pick up bread after feeding the 4,000 men:

Mark 8:8 The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

Yet by the time they got to Dalmanutha they had “forgotten the bread”:

Mark 8:14 The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat.

Where exactly did the seven basketful of bread go?  It was not that long of a trip from Hippos to Dalmanutha (about 10 miles by boat, see map #5 here – Christian Classics Ethereal Library).

Jesus then warns his disciples of the Pharisees and Herod.  But the disciple did not understand.  So what does a loving savior do, he insults them:

Mark 8:17-18 Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened?  Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?  And don’t you remember?

Of course their hearts are hardened…YHWH has not given them the knowledge of Jesus’ divinity yet!  And we know that mankind does not have freewill.  I understand that when you are an all-knowing savior it must get difficult when your followers are slow, but that was really rude of Jesus.  He knew that YHWH had not opened his disciple’s hearts; I guess his human-side took over for a minute!

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April 24, 2010, 9:32 pm by dc-agape.

Mark 6:30-56

The apostles came back from teaching, driving out demons, and healing the sick.  They were exhausted and hungry, but many people were still following them.  So Jesus decides to move to an isolated place, by boat.  This actually turns out to be worse than where they were.  The people followed them along the shores of the Sea of Galilee.  Obviously, Jesus does not have YHWH’s knowledge of the future nor YHWH’s intellect; otherwise he would have known that the people would follow him.

It is even later in the evening when Jesus and his disciples stop on the shores of Galilee, and about 5000 men were waiting for them.  And we know that it was just the men counted:

Mark 6:44 The number of the men who had eaten was five thousand.

So it was more like 10,000 – 12,000 people walked around the Sea of Galilee to follow Jesus in the boat. Getting an idea of where Jesus started his trip around the Sea of Galilee is almost impossible. Each of the Gospels has him placed in different areas prior to the feeding of 5000.  For example the Gospels of Matthew and Mark have him just leaving Nazareth and traveling from village to village:

Mark 6:6 And he was amazed at their lack of faith.  Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village.

In the Gospel of Luke Jesus was at Capernaum prior to the feeding of the 5000 (Luke 8:40-56) men.

Yet the last place Jesus was before feeding the 5000 in the Gospel of John was:

John 5:1 Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews.

This is where Jesus heals the paralyzed man at the Pool near the Sheep Gate.  Much further way from the Sea of Galilee than would make any since!  We can throw the Gospel of John out since he did not recall events in the same order as the other Gospel writers.  If the Word of God is inerrant then the Gospel of John must agree with the other Gospels!

Now the trip from Capernaum (best guess at a starting place) to the area of Bethsaida was only a 2 miles trip (thanks to Daily Bible Study website).  We also know that Capernaum was the largest village in the area of about 1,500 people (thanks to Rotem at Biblewalks.com).  So this whole story was a tall tell.  The feeding of 5000 men with only 4 loaves of bread and two fish is not the tall tale.  The tall tell is that 12,000 people would be outside of Capernaum.  How did they get there?  How long did they travel to get there?  Where did they stay while they were there?  What did they eat while they traveled from their homes?  How did they support themselves leaving their homes for so long? 

The other part of the story that makes it such a tall tale is when the disciples tell Jesus:

Mark 6:35-36 By the time it was late in the day, so the disciples came to him, “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late.  Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.

They were 2 miles from Capernaum…that is not remote!  The countryside and the villages could, in no way, shape, or form sustain an extra 10,000-12,000 individuals no matter what time they started to look for food. 

This story of feeding 5000 men (not including the women and children) is the tallest tale told in the New Testament and maybe the whole Word of God.  That many people in one area (when you include the women and children) and the distance away from Capernaum makes this story larger than life.  Being able to feed 5000 men is not the problem with this story…it is the location and the logistics of the number of people that make this story impossible.  For an idea of how much space 12,000 people require see this website on the Atlanta Symphony.

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February 27, 2010, 9:08 am by dc-agape.

Mark 1:29-45

This part of the chapter is mostly about the healing powers of Jesus.  I wonder if it was the same 2000 years ago as it is today, with respect to the number of fake “faith healers”.  The US had to create the FDA to minimize fraudulent medical cures (and of course poorly manufactured foods).  So I would have to assume that “miraculous cures” were a dime a dozen in Jesus’ time.  But people were so desperate they would try anything, so when this Jesus entered their town they went to him.  Since he quickly moved from town to town even if he did not heal the people “by faith” many would still come to him in each new town.  Even if Jesus was a true healer, most people were exposed to the fake healer, and as a result, were skeptical of Jesus’ power.  Miraculous cures today are not sufficient to proof the “supernatural” powers; I suspect that it was the same in Jesus’ time, or maybe even worse.

Jesus’ first act of healing that is when he removes a “fever” from Simon’s mother-in-law.  How many women do you know that would get out of bed to serve a “special” guest, all the time claiming that they are perfectly fine?  I would not be surprised if Simon’s mother-in-law did not do the exact same thing.  In fact, the “honor” of having Jesus in her home might have been enough to overcome her symptoms. 

Shortly after this Sabbath healing many more people come to Jesus to be healed.  The next morning Jesus disappears to pray by himself.  Since he has not finished healing all the sick people are still looking for him.  When his disciples find him Jesus tells them it is time to move on.  So he continues his missionary tour of Galilee.

His other recorded healing in this chapter is of a man with “leprosy”.  Leprosy in the OT, and Jesus’ time was any skin discoloration and even clothing.  So a “miraculous” healing of this sort is questionable at best.  The funny thing about this story is that Jesus continues to tell “demons” and this leper not to tell people who he is or what he can do.  Yet this “leper” would have to go to the priest and offer sacrifice for his cleansing.  The priest would of course want to know why he was offering the sacrifice, to verify that it was sanctified.  The priest would also want to know how this man was cured.  So this “leper” would have to break Jesus command of not telling anyone…by directly telling one of the most powerful men in town.  To say the least, the “leper” does not bother to tell the priest…he tells everyone.  This causes a major stir in all of Galilee (yeah right, this one event is responsible) and Jesus can no longer enter the towns but must stay outside “in lonely places”.

So let’s look at it in today’s perspective.  A man shows up for a few days near you and “heals the sick” and “drives out demons (but won’t let them speak)”.  Would you believe that he was a miracle worker?  Or would you be as skeptical of him as you are of all the other “faith healers” that we hear about in the news today?  No wonder YHWH quite doing “miraculous” healing…distinguishing the true ones from the false ones is beyond our poor humanly capacity.  Even today, with all of our medical technology, we have not measured a miracle yet.

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February 13, 2010, 8:43 am by dc-agape.

Mark 1:1-9

These nine verses are all that Simon Peter tells the Romans about John the Baptist, as recorded by John Mark.  The important thing to a TrueChristianTM is that of the message that John the Baptist proclaimed.  Baptism with repentance is the name of the game.  Reading the study notes, the way for a Gentile to convert to Judaism was through baptism.  John the Baptist opens repentance baptism to the Israelites.

Here is one of the first Tall Tales in the New Testament:

Mark 1:5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him, confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

That is one whooper!  Everyone in Jerusalem and the countryside were baptized and heard john the Baptist preach about the coming of someone more powerful than him.  Everyone?  Come on, we know the Pharisees and the Sadducees did not get baptized.  Otherwise they would have been waiting with open arms for Jesus! 

But this is not the only non-truth in these nine verses.  Read Mark 1:1-3.  Notice that Mark combines two different verses from the OT together to make one prophecy.  But everyone should take a closer look at where those verses come from.  The TrueChristianTM complains that Atheists take verse out of context.  Well, let’s just see how badly John Mark takes verses out of context.

Mal 2:17-3:1 You have wearied the Lord with your words.  “How have we wearied him?” you ask.  By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?” “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me.  Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple: the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” Says the Lord Almighty.

We need to continue this passage to see how badly out of context John Mark has taken it, read Mal 3:2-5 here.  This set of verses in the Book of Malachi is not about John the Baptist.  This prophecy in Malachi is not even about Jesus’ first coming, no, it is about his second coming…the day of Judgment.

But that is not all that is out of context, the section from Isaiah is also wrong, take a look:

Isaiah 40:3-4 A voice of one calling: “In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a high way for our God.  Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.

There is no “voice calling in the desert”!  It is a voice calling to make a way through the desert.  The same voice is calling to flatten mountains, rough terrain, and hills.  And don’t forget to raise up the valleys, that is what the voice is doing…it is not calling out from the desert!

John Mark has made two major blunders and he has not even said a word about Jesus!  Can we be certain that the rest of the Book of Mark will be any better?  Where is the Holy Spirit when you need it to keep the Word of God inerrant?

To make matters worse, this Book of Mark is the source material for the Books of Matthew and Luke.  This is not looking good for the Inerrant Word of God.  I certainly see why it is said in:

1 Cor 2:14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the thing that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Let’s hope that the Book of John is better!  Well on the other hand, the Book of John does not look promising when you read this Wikipedia article.  I know it’s that evil Wikipedia, but hey it’s the most concise material on the web.  Talk about “god bias” verse “non-believer bias”, all the web pages and books revering to the authorship of the Johannine works are so biased it is impossible to tell if the Book of John was written as early as 57AD or as late as 140AD.  But I will get to that in much later posts. 

Before I get to the Book of John I want to cover much more of the OT, NT, Gnostic writing, Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Apocrypha.  I have so much material to work with, and it is all impossibly intriguing to me.  This is so much fun, and I think it will get even better.  Even though I am not looking forward to the Book of Numbers or the repetitiveness of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  The same problem exists, of repetitiveness exists in the Books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles.  I do plan on stirring this stuff up and making it interesting for me.

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December 8, 2009, 7:55 am by dc-agape.

A Vision of a New Jerusalem

The good news is that I finished the proposal for my trip to Korea!  The bad news is that I still have 2 journal articles to write and prepare 2-3 presentations for upcoming professional conferences!  Hopefully I will have time to devote to this blog again.

In attempting that I want to discuss the next Scroll from the Dead Sea Scrolls entitled “A Vision of a New Jerusalem”.  But this scroll will take two posts.  This post is dedicated as an introduction, whereas the second post will be the actual reading of the scroll.  The concept of a new Temple and a New Jerusalem is the reason for this scroll and I want to cover a little history before delving into the actual Scroll.

Of course the Old Testament has a number of references to a new Temple.  But only the New Testament (Ezekiel, Isaiah, Ezra and Tobit) has a reference to the New Jerusalem (Ezekiel and Revelation).  The Dead Sea Scrolls has an additional Scroll call the Temple Scroll that only deals with the New Temple itself.  What I want to do in this post is look at the other religious documents that relate to the Vision of a New Jerusalem.  These would be the five that I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph.

The Book of Ezekiel was written between 593 and 565 BCE.  During this time Nebuchadnezzar and his armies destroyed the original Temple in 586 BCE, which Solomon built in 960 BCE.  Interestingly, when one does physical research on this “First Temple” there is not documentation (except the Bible) of it ever existing and worse is that there is no archeological proof that it existed either!¹  To add to this, even the Jewish Talmud claims that the Temple was not destroyed until 420 BCE.²  But if we should take Ezekiel at face value…his writings were either recorded as the Temple was destroyed or after the destruction.  One must keep in mind that the war between the Babylonians and the Israelites had been in progress since 597 BCE, prior to the recording of the Book of Ezekiel.  The chapters in the Book of Ezekiel of importance to this post are chapters 40 – 48.  Here Ezekiel has a vision of a new Temple surrounded by a new territory for the Israelite community.  As recorded in Ezekiel 45:1 the Temple grounds would be 25,000 cubits by 20,000 cubits (4.73 x 3.78 miles, 7.62 x 6.096 km) and the city itself would be an additional 4.48 sq. miles.  Yes that is right the temple would 8 times the size of the city of Jerusalem.  So the Temple plus the city would be 22.4 sq. miles, as big as Dover, Delaware, USA (the capital of that state)!  But 88% of the city would be devoted to the Temple.  The Levites would live in 11% of the city and the rest of Israel (the other 11 tribes) would have the remaining 11%.  This would be a very large city to cross by horse!  It is also the oddest organization of a city ever designed.  Most likely Ezekiel was fantasying about the good old days and exaggerated the size of the city.

This New Jerusalem’s design is almost as staggering as that proposed by John of Patmos who describes a city in the Book of Revelation.  In Rev 21:9-27, John of Patmos describes a city that is 1,350 x 1,350 miles in size.  That is nearly the entire area of the planet when the oceans have been removed (1,822,500 sq miles or 4,720,000 sq km)!  For a reference to this size: the USA is 9.6 million sq km and India is only 3.3 million sq km.  Heaven will be only half the size of the present day US.  I certainly hope there are not too many souls there!  India has become over populated at the present count of 1.2 billion people.

Two more of the references describe the dreams of the Israelite people and how they long for a splendor of the old days.  In the Book of Isaiah (Isa 54:11-12) the New Jerusalem is described as having layers on layers of fine jewels.

Isaiah 54:11-12 “O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted, I will build with stones turquoise, your foundations with sapphires.  I will make your battlements of rubies, and all your walls of precious stones. 

Will we can certainly say that this Zion has never been built!  Earlier in this chapter two other promises from YHWH have still not been fulfilled either (Isaiah 54:3 or 8).   Reading this chapter it is quite obvious that Isaiah was describing an earthly kingdom.  Nothing of the description of the New Zion indicates a heavenly city.  It is beautifully written, and beautifully described but these three promises have not been fulfilled.  So we can be sure that these were fantasies of a misplaced society wishing for better days.  The other Old Testament reference is only found in the Catholic Bible. 

Tobit 14:5 And that again God will have mercy on them, and bring them again into the land, where they shall build a temple, but not like to the first, until the time of that age is fulfilled; and afterward they shall return from all the places of their captivity, and build up Jerusalem gloriously, and the house of God shall be built and it forever was a glorious building, as the prophets have spoken thereof.

The Book of Tobit was canonized in 397 AD.  So if it existed as an Old Testament book written by the Jewish people we have no proof of that.  So here we have a catholic writer pretending to be a Jewish writer wishing for the better Jerusalem.  Is it just me, being an Atheist that this sounds wrong?

One verse in the Old Testament does describe how the people of Israel were disappointed by the New Temple.  This would be from the Book of Ezra.  In verse 12 of that book it describes how the older members of the community wept bitterly for they knew that the New Temple was not what the prophets had described.  So here the bible explicitly indicates that the Second Temple was not the prophesied Temple of YHWH.  So even though an earthly temple was described by the prophets, as of this date no such temple has been built.  As an Atheist this would seem to be an unfulfilled prophecy, making it a false prophecy.  Yet to get around this problem, Christian apologist claim that the prophecy is related to a heavenly Jerusalem instead of an earthly one.  What a load a crap!

¹ D. Langmead and C. Garnaut (2001). Encyclopedia of architectural and engineering feats (3rd, illustrated ed.). ABC-CLIO, Inc. pp 314-319.

² Seder Olam Rabbah; An Ancient Post-exilic Judaic document written in the Hebrew language.

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November 28, 2009, 1:42 pm by dc-agape.

Genesis Chapter 42

The famine reached all the way from Heliopolis to Hebron, a distance of at least 160 miles (and possibly 200 miles away).  That would be like saying that a drought centered in Knoxville, TN also destroyed crops in Nashville, Hickory, NC, Atlanta, GA, and Lexington, KY.  Since the sons of Israel took their flock 80 miles north of Hebron we are talking about a famine that would also reached Louisville, KY and Charlotte, NC.  And people complain about the weather now days!  Adding in the rest of Egypt, this famine would basically cover the entire south-eastern seaboard.  Can you imagine the damage of a 7 year famine of this size in the US?

For another example, the Wollo, Ethiopia famine of 1984-85 was of a smaller area (Tigray, Afar, and Amhara) than that described in the Word of God.  True there was another famine in the southern part of Ethiopia during this time, but it had a secondary cause.  So maybe with this in mind, you can see that this famine was a tall tale!  The worst we have recorded did not come close to what the Word of God describes. 

In the Word of God, Israel sends 10 of his sons to Egypt to get the “grain” that has been stored by Joseph for the past 7 years.  Joseph actually meets his brothers at the grain market.  The man in charge of all the grain in all of Egypt meets 10 lowly purchasers of grain.  How many thousands of people were buying grain on that day?  Is it possible that this chance occurrence could even happen?  Well Joseph does not tell his brothers who he is.  In fact, he does the exact opposite; he lies to his own brothers after 21 years.  Man do I call that holding a grudge!  His appearance has changed; he uses an interpreter (that by the way Abraham did not need).  And he even calls them spies!  He does this not just once, but he insists that they must be spies, again.  Lying, in the Word of God, can you believe this!  Knowing better, Joseph repeats the claim a third time.  So he puts all of them in custody for three days!

Somehow the brothers believe that this is related to an event 21 years in the past.  They’re right, but come on…does anyone feel guilt for that long!  And if they did feel guilt for 21 years, it seems cruel of Joseph to heap punishment on top of the guilt.  They have a conversation about the event directly in front of Joseph, but Joseph continues the deception. 

He chooses Simeon to kidnap and bound directly in front of his brothers.  This Joseph fellow has a lot of rage pent up since his 17^th birthday!  He just keeps heaping pain and suffering on his brothers.  So much for naming his first son “because God has made me forget all my troubles and all my father’s household”.  He has not forgotten anything and certainly has not forgiven. 

It turns out that Joseph has returned his brothers money to them.  But this only makes matters worse.  Now his brothers are in fear for their lives!  It’s kinda funny how the first thing they blame is YHWH. 

Gen 42:28 “My silver has been returned,” he said to his brothers.  “Here it is in my sack.”  Their hearts sank and they turned to each other trembling and said, “What is this that God has done to us?”

What a mighty show of faith!  This is an example to all humans about how to respond to YHWH? 

Joseph has even dishonored his father, Jacob.  The fear that he created in his brothers is visited upon Jacob.  Jacob is severely distraught over the loss of Simeon and the thought of losing Ben-Oni.  Reuben, the adulterer, attempts to calm his father…by offering his sons as “collateral” that Simeon will be returned and that no harm will befall Ben-Oni.

The chapter ends with Jacob swearing that Ben-Oni will not go to Egypt.  But in the same breath says that if harm comes to Ben-Oni from the trip, Jacob will go to his grave in sorrow.  That being odd in itself, the oddest part is that the use of “My son” seems that Ben-Oni is his only son!  He has 10 other sons in front of him yet he talks as if only Ben-Oni matters!  What a loving father.  This is a great example of how YHWH wants all fathers to treat their sons!  Joseph is a wonderful example of forgiveness and truthfulness, as well.

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November 21, 2009, 10:18 am by dc-agape.

Genesis 41:41-57

Here is the story of how Joseph single-handedly saved the world, Egypt and the surrounding countries from the famine that YHWH created.  The Pharaoh of Egypt made Joseph, a slave and a convict, his second-in-command.  What did Joseph do that was so spectacular…he predicted a famine seven years in the future!  Can you imagine a ruler today even taking a person like this serious?  Can you imagine a ruler today waiting seven years to see if this person was right?  But the Pharaoh had faith in Joseph.

The Pharaoh had so much faith in Joseph that not only did he make him his second-in-command; he gave Joseph the power to do anything at all.  This gave Joseph complete control over every single person in Egypt.  Joseph carries out the orders to store 20% of the grain crops each year.  Which will have rotted by the second year, but who’s counting, Joseph certainly was not.

The Pharaoh also gives Joseph a new and improved name: Zaphenath Paneah.  One of the benefits that Joseph received was a wife.  Yes, an idol worshipping wife from Egypt.  And not any idol worshipper, her father was a priest of On (possibly a priest in the city of Heliopolis).  By the way, there was never a god of Egypt named On!  For some reason the Word of God gets the priest’s patron god’s name wrong and cannot keep the meaning of Joseph’s Egyptian name.  Infallible, my foot!

From his marriage to the idolater, Joseph does get two sons: Manasseh and Ephraim.  I wonder what Abraham and Isaac would say about this, can an Egyptian idolater be better than a Canaanite idolater.  The names of the sons tells a lot about Joseph.  Manasseh means “to have forgotten his troubles and his family”; Ephraim means “that YHWH has made me fruitful”.  Funny how the first one is named after forgetting his family!  It is the second one that he remembers YHWH.  So for Joseph forgetting his father’s family is more important than honoring YHWH!

The famine arrives, and only Egypt is ready for it.  The entire world feels the effect and people from every country come to by grain from Joseph.  Now, if we attempt to interpret this literally, this has got to be the second biggest “Tall Tale” of the Word of God, the “Arc of the Flood” being the biggest.  I say that it is a very big tall tale because grain cannot be stored for seven years, and enough grain for the entire world and all the livestock, as well…impossible!  Also, can you imagine the mass die off of wild animals?  A famine does not affect only humans; one that lasts seven years would be just as deadly as the Flood.  All the livestock would be dead; all the seeds for planting new crops would be dead.  Humanity would have nothing to start anew with.  So surviving the 7 years of world-wide famine would really not accomplish much.  The earth’s ecosystem would have collapsed.  This story could not have happened as written in the Word of God.

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November 14, 2009, 1:44 pm by dc-agape.

Genesis 41:1-40

In this story we see prophetic dreams again.  YHWH knows the future, in fact he has plans to use a hideous famine (that he creates) to form his Chosen Nation out of his Chosen Family.  Two years have passed since the last prophetic dreams of the Cupbearer and the Baker.  Jacob has continued to be a prisoner in Potiphar’s house under something like Cupcake Camp (except that Potiphar’s house is mostly for men). 

On the day of Potiphar’s birthday, he has a dream. In the first dream, seven healthy cows are eaten by seven scrawny ones.  In the second dream, seven healthy heads of grain are consumed by seven withered ones.  None of the Pharaoh’s wise men could see the meaning of these dreams.  But all agreed that the dreams had a meaning.  Hindsight being 20/20, these dreams are quite easy to interpret.  In Pharaoh’s day only one person can figure out what the dreams mean:  Joseph.  Joseph, of course, claims that only YHWH can interpret the dreams that YHWH gives to people about the events that YHWH sets in motion.  Joseph tells the Pharaoh that both dreams mean the exact same thing.  There will be seven years of good crops and seven years of famine. 

Joseph goes on to tell the Pharaoh what to do to advert the disaster.  Pretty gutsy of Joseph, to tell a god-king what to do!  He tells the Pharaoh to store 20% of the harvest each year for used during the famine.  The Pharaoh sees this as good advice.  But he does not know of anyone, in his advisors, who can accomplish the job required.  He immediately appoints Joseph as the man of the hour.  And instantly, Joseph is made equal to the Pharaoh except in respect to the throne.

From a realistic point of view there is one major problem with this plan.  All grains, except rice, are very perishable.  And we know that the Egyptians did not grow rice!  Rice cultivation did not make it to the Mediterranean area until Alexander the Great in 344-324 BC.  We also know that rice by-product do not feed cattle very well.  So if grains do not store well, and does not feed animals at all, how can storage of 14 years of grain actually occur at all?  More can be read about grain storage here which includes problems with temperature, humidity, and pests.  This story could not have happened the way it is written!  The Word of God does not tell the “Truth”!  This story is a tall tale just like Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan.

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