Dake Bible Discussion BoardTerah age

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stand
John
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Terah age

Post by stand »

Gen11:26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
However, in Dake's anotatated bible, Dake wrote
Notes For Verse 26
a [ Abram, Nahor, and Haran] The fourth instance of God choosing the younger over the older (see Twelve Examples of Choosing the Younger. He is mentioned first here because his history as the father of the Hebrews is the subject of this part of Genesis. Terah was 130 when Abraham was born (Gen. 11:26 -- Gen. 12:5).

So in KJV, Abram was born before Terah was 70, but Dake said Terah was 130 when Abram was born. Was Dake wrong in the interpretation?



stand
John
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Re: Terah age

Post by stand »

Thanks. I used to read Abram left Haran after his father died until I am recently reading the book of Jasher. This book actually said Terah was still alive when Isaac was born. Based on this information I thought this book must be wrong, until I read if Terah gave birth to Abram at 70 or before and he died at 205, Abram was over 135 when Terah died, and Isaac would have been older than 35 when Terah died. This book talked about Abram learned from Noah and Esau killed Nimrod. Cannot trust it totally, but it is sort of entertaining.



stand
John
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Re: Terah age

Post by stand »

And also Genesis does not actually clearly say Abram left Haran after his father died, we just assume chapter 12:1 happened after chapter11:32



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branham1965
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Re: Terah age

Post by branham1965 »

who wrote that one i reckon???? +wink


stand wrote:Thanks. I used to read Abram left Haran after his father died until I am recently reading the book of Jasher. This book actually said Terah was still alive when Isaac was born. Based on this information I thought this book must be wrong, until I read if Terah gave birth to Abram at 70 or before and he died at 205, Abram was over 135 when Terah died, and Isaac would have been older than 35 when Terah died. This book talked about Abram learned from Noah and Esau killed Nimrod. Cannot trust it totally, but it is sort of entertaining.



stand
John
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Re: Terah age

Post by stand »

want to get back to the subject. If the Bible says Terah had Abram as his son at 70, that Abram must have been born before Terah was 70. So how can Dake said Terah gave birth to Abram at 135?



titus213
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Re: Terah age

Post by titus213 »

"If the Bible says Terah had Abram as his son at 70, that Abram must have been born before Terah was 70. So how can Dake said Terah gave birth to Abram at 135?"

The Bible doesn't say that Terah had Abram as his son at age 70. If we read Genesis 11:26 in that way, we'd have to say that Terah had triplets born to him because the verse says "When Terah had lived 70 years, he fathered Abram, Nahor, and Haran." That's not what the text is telling us. We know that Abram didn't leave Haran until after his father died (at the age of 205). We also know that Abram was 75 himself when he left Haran (Gen 12:4 and Acts 7:4).

So what the text is telling us in Genesis 11:26 is that Terah began having children at age 70. Abram is mentioned first, not because he was the first child but because he was the most important of Terah's sons. This isn't an unusual practice in genealogies.

The result: Abram was born when Terah was 130.

However, in another one of the 12 known ancient versions of the Genesis account (the Samaritan Pentateuch) Terah died when he was 145. The timing of his death is adjusted in order to allow for Abram to have been born to Terah at age 70.



stand
John
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Re: Terah age

Post by stand »

The bible does not clearly say Abram left Haran after his father died. There is interpretation said the father in Acts is actually not Terah but Noah. Since Noah at some stage was with Abram. Other the statement of Terah had the 3 sons when he was 70 was meaningless or a fault.



titus213
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Re: Terah age

Post by titus213 »

stand wrote:The bible does not clearly say Abram left Haran after his father died. There is interpretation said the father in Acts is actually not Terah but Noah. Since Noah at some stage was with Abram. Other the statement of Terah had the 3 sons when he was 70 was meaningless or a fault.
You are mistaken. Acts 7:4 is crystal clear: "Then he [Abram] went out from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. And after his father died, God removed him from there into this land in which you are now living." Noah is never even mentioned in Acts 7. The words "his father" cannot be stretched to mean "his forefather Noah".

The Bible doesn't say that Terah had 3 sons when he was 70. It says he fathered (or begat) 3 sons when he had lived 70 years, not AT the age of 70. He was 70 when he began having kids. We see the same kind of statement in Genesis 5:32, "Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth." Again it is not trying to tell us that Noah had 3 sons all at the age of 500. It cannot mean that, because we know from Genesis 9:24 that Ham was the "youngest son" of Noah.

When interpreting the Bible, it's not legitimate to assume the Hebrew and Greek writers used English expressions!



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