Day 2: Negev

The desert land is so different from the hill country, and even from the Shephelah. Everything there looks the same, and there is not often great living conditions. Beer Sheba, although in the Negev, gets about 6-12 inches of rain per year and is right near a wadi, so the water supply is sufficient for life. It makes sense that it would be a step on the international route from the Mediterranean to Arabia. More than all of hte detailed layout of the city that can be seen, the history of the Biblical events that surround it is what interests me. Abraham stopped there during his journeys, so it must have been a place of importance.

There is a struggle to understand the culture at the time of the Old Testament that is growing in me as I learn about more situations that I have been viewing incorrectly in a typical western way of thought, ignorant of the values and way of life at the time of the event.
A question was raised about Sarah being called Abraham's sister and taken by other kings in order to save Abraham. Although we may look at this and say that what Abraham did was morally wrong, we cannot judge Abraham through the lens of our modern culture. What he did would have been expected in his culture, or so we would think, in order to save his clan and the opportunity for his line to continue. Yes, God has promised Abraham a son, and so we are quick to say that Abraham lacked faith in God's promise. But at this point, Abraham did not know through what man (or what woman, for that matter) the heir would be, since he had no sons. He simply did what he saw as necessary to preserve the rest of the clan, because God had promised an heir. What I do find interesting, though, it that is what Abraham did was based on cultural values, why does Pharaoh rebuke him for lying about Sarah? Was it perhaps because he was threatened by God? Or were his cultural values different from Abraham's? Regardless, it is amazing that this example would be in the Biblical text; perhaps to teach usabout the importance of Abraham's heir to him? The question of why God chose the time and place that he did to step into human history is a huge one for me. Many people talk about Jesus coming at just the right time to fulfill prophecies, but he could have ordained it differently. Why then? Did God want to correct certain cultural values or reinforce them or either?

Along these lines, i find it facinating that God often uses the attributes of other deities, or the rituals for worshipping them for himself. It seems to be a way of showing His superiority over other gods, when He takes an attribute and "one-ups" it. Yet this also seems to lead to confusion or apathy among the people. They see other gods and then Yahweh and his similarities to them, and ignoring His sovereignty, they worship the lesser ones, or bring Yahweh down totheir level. There seems to be similar case of this at Arad. where the temple, made similar to Yahweh's temple in Jerusalem, had 2 insense altars and 2 standing stones. There were inscriptions found written to"Yahweh and His Asherah." Maybe because the people saw Yahweh as male, they wanted Him to have a female counterpart goddess, Asherah. Once again, though we look at this today and try to bend the people of the OT to our image. We can't accept that they might have thought this way--they were suposed to be Yahwists. So maybe there were 3 altars and 3 standing stones.. we can handle that, right? foreshadows of teh trinity.. but 2?
I'm not so sure the people of God always got it right, I'm not even sure we always get it right today. In fact I'm sure we don't.




















The edge of the Mahktesh Ramon (the largest crater by erosion in the world!!)