Abraham: The Father of Faith (The Genesis Series, Part 39)

The Bible is full of childlike formulas that I can apply to my life, and when employed, will produce results that are literally out of this world.  That statement might sound like an exaggeration, but I tell you it is an understatement of gargantuan proportion!  The one particular formula that opens the door to the cornucopia of God’s glory delivers to the employer of that formula the power to become a son or daughter of God.  The ROI (return on investment) delivered by this Holy Ghost formula is worth more—far more, unspeakably more—than the aggregate wealth of the entire universe—a universe, by the way, that God created in 24 hours on the fourth day of creation week. 

This immortal gateway formula is what Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, calls BORN AGAIN. John 3:3:

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

You must be BORN AGAIN to see and enter the Kingdom of God.  There is no other way.  Acts 4:10-12:

10 Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.

11 This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.

12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.

BORN AGAIN is the greatest miracle man can know, surely greater than the 24-hour creation of this temporary universe! Here, at BORN AGAIN, one is born a very literal second time, but this time of the Spirit of God.  You were born the first time as a son or daughter of Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So, but when you are BORN AGAIN, you become the son or daughter of God.  If you are not BORN AGAIN, you are not a child of God.  But that can all change, if you say so—on your say so—in mere moments.

The BORN AGAIN formula is discovered in Romans 10:9-10:

9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

The formula is childlike simple:

🕇 Faith in Christ and that God raised Him from the dead; and

🕇 Confession of the mouth.

Dear visitor, have you yet to exercise your God-given right to participate in this formula?  Have you yet to be BORN AGAIN?  In just a few moments, I will invite you to follow me in a simple prompt, and if you follow from your heart, you will become a child of God NOW.  Today, all of your sin and the shame it creates will be washed away by Christ’s cleansing blood.  You will be entirely clean.  Today, all of Satan’s bondages will be broken, no matter how formidable they appear.  The chains will clatter to the ground.  Today is your opportunity to become a new—brand new—creature.

You are in the valley of decision.  Here is the prompt I promised: Click onto Further with Jesus for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God.  NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Genesis 22:17:

That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

GOD SAID, Genesis 23:7-20:

7 And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth.

8 And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar,

9 That he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me for a possession of a buryingplace amongst you.

10 And Ephron dwelt among the children of Heth: and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying,

11 Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy dead.

12 And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land.

13 And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me: I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there.

14 And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him,

15 My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead.

16 And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.

17 And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure

18 Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.

19 And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.

20 And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a buryingplace by the sons of Heth.

GOD SAID, Romans 4:16:

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,

MAN SAID: Anyone who takes the time to look will discover the ineptness of the Christian Bible.  Have I looked?  No, of course not—but everybody knows it! 

Now THE RECORD: Welcome to GodSaidManSaid feature 1259 that will once again certify the supernatural authorship and inerrancy of God’s beautiful Book.  All of these faith-building features are archived here in text and streaming audio for your edification.  If you have a question on any subject, simply type a few key words into our search bar (top right) and your page will populate with features. 

GodSaidManSaid serves as an excellent digital Gospel tract.  Think of a loved one or friend whom you would like to win to Christ, think of an interest they may have, and send a GodSaidManSaid feature addressing that interest.  Follow up with a conversation and expect eternal results!  GodSaidManSaid is in the soul business, and every Thursday eve, God willing, its features grow by one. 

Thank you for visiting.  May God’s face shine upon you with Light and Truth.

You have arrived at the GodSaidManSaid “Genesis Series;” this is Part 39.  Each of these features begins with the following information from the first feature:

According to a 2006 issue of Discover magazine concerning the deceased Carl Sagan: “Sagan approaches religion like any phenomenon.  He isn’t on a quest for life’s meaning, for a comforting philosophy, or even a guide to how we should treat the neighbors.  Sagan seeks truth of a demonstrable kind.  As a puckish example, he wonders why the book of Genesis didn’t include God-inspired truths…” [End of quote]

I recently reviewed an advertisement from a magazine called Free Inquiry that also has a problem with the God of Creation and the first book of the Bible, called Genesis.  Under the heading “Is God Big Enough for the Universe,” Free Inquiry writes:

The authors of Genesis proclaim that God made the heavens and earth in less than a week.  This feat must have amazed these Bronze Age authors, even though they thought the heavens extended only so far as the sky above them.  Of course, they did not know what stars, planets, or galaxies were.  We now know that the universe is so much bigger and so much more complex. [End of quote]

The BORN AGAIN scratch their heads in bewilderment.  Did these folks actually read the book of Genesis? I suppose they did, but God’s revelation is only revealed to the humbled hearts of the children of faith.  This GodSaidManSaid series will be called “The Genesis Series.”  It is our intention to travel through the entire book of Genesis and publish one major God-inspired truth after another.  We will be pulling from previous GodSaidManSaid features and adding the latest information as we go.

The historicity of Abraham, the father of faith, has been roundly challenged through time by Biblical antagonists, but that doesn’t change the absolute accuracy of the Bible’s portrayal of this mighty and pivotal man of God.  Was there a Father Abraham?  This is the first of five features in the Genesis Series that will certify Abraham, the champion of faith. There is NO DOUBT!!!  

From the GodSaidManSaid feature, “Stars, Sand, and Abraham:”

Genesis, chapter 22, verse 17:

That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

When God spoke to Abraham, He said He would multiply his seed as the "stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore." Hebrews 11:12 refers to Abraham’s seed as innumerable. In Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, innumerable is defined as, "not to be counted, that cannot be enumerated or numbered for multitude."

As an aside, it’s interesting to track the growth of our mathematical vocabulary. As mathematical computations expand, numbers are created for which our vocabulary has no name. As the common use of a huge number grows, a name for that number is established. The largest number in the scriptures, that I am aware of, is 100 million-plus (Revelation 5:11).

The Word of God also states that Abraham would be the father of many nations, and he truly is that. His first born was Ishmael. All Moslems dub themselves Ishmaelites. All Hebrews are of the lineage of faithful Abraham through his son Isaac, the child of promise. After Abraham’s wife Sarah died, he married Keturah who bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah, and all their lineage of course lays claim to Abraham. All Christians are of the seed of Abraham. Galatians, chapter 3, verse 16 and verse 29:

16 Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.

29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

From a faithful man named Abraham, a vast multitude followed, embracing as much as three quarters of the world’s people. At a two-percent growth rate, approximately 160 million people would be added to the ranks of Abraham on an annual basis.

In the days of old, skeptics could confidently point to contradiction in the Word of God concerning Abraham. In quantifying the seed of Abraham, God compared them to the stars of heaven and referred to them as innumerable. He made this promise to Abraham approximately 4,000 years ago. This was in clear contradiction to the wisdom of the day. It was a clear contradiction until Galileo.  Up until then, man numbered the stars at only a few thousand. According to Dr. DeYoung, in his book Astronomy and the Bible, "On a clear, moonless night, about 3,000 stars are visible with the unaided eye." [End of quote] In 1694, Galileo turned his first astronomical telescope toward the sky and put God’s skeptics to silence.

In an attempt to estimate the stars of heaven, Dr. DeYoung offered the following calculation:

The stars we can easily see are all in our corner of the Milky Way Galaxy. The entire galaxy numbers about 100 billion stars. And beyond the Milky Way are other galaxies with many shapes and sizes. Around 100 billion such galaxies are known to exist. Taking the Milky Way as an average galaxy, the total number of stars is 10 to the twenty-second power. This figure would be pronounced as "ten billion trillion" stars.

Psalm 147, verses 4- 5:

4 He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.

5 Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.

Remember that in God’s prophecy concerning Abraham, He compared stars and sand. A final excerpt from Dr. DeYoung’s book is a calculation of the sand on the world’s seashores. It reads:

Let us consider a rough estimate for all the sand grains on the seashores of planet Earth. We will depict this total as a block of sand that is 10 feet deep, 100 feet wide, and 1,000,000 miles long. This length equals 42 trips around the world, a generous figure for the extent of the world’s sandy beaches.  [End of quote]

After a series of complicated computations, the result is that the sand upon the seashore equals 10 to the twenty-second power. This is the same number used by astronomers when they estimate the stars of heaven: 10 to the twenty-second power.

So in review, when God spoke the prophetic words over Abraham in Genesis 22:17, man had a number for the stars, which was only a few thousand. The sand was obviously innumerable, but the stars were not, therefore, the skeptics pointed to the error of the Holy Scriptures. Today, modern astronomy estimates the stars one can see with the most sophisticated telescopes to be 10 to the twenty-second power. Modern mathematics estimates the sand upon the seashores at the same 10 to the twenty-second—basically innumerable. Only the God of creation could have known that the stars of heaven and the sand upon the seashore would compare in quantity. And only the God of heaven could record it in His Word thousands of years before man would be able to certify its veracity. Genesis 22:17 is just another beautiful proof that the God of the Bible is our Creator. [End of quotes]

The following excerpts have been lifted from the GodSaidManSaid feature “Watch Out, World, It’s Not Good News! Abraham Prepares to Speak:”

How reliable is the record given in the majority-text Holy Bible?  Is it just the writings of mere men, as critics claim, or is it the inerrant Words of the living God, as presented?  Consider carefully: The living God is cataloging your response to the question even at this very moment.

GodSaidManSaid has established, via highly-credible, third-party attestation, the supremely supernatural bonafides of the Word of God, beginning with the beginning.  The world’s scholars have challenged the beautiful Book from the start, and they continue their incessant efforts to upend God’s Holy Book to this day.  They just meet with one ugly failure after another each and every time.  The confrontation began in the Garden of Eden and it will end soon. Be of good cheer, child of God, the Word has not suffered a scratch, not even a mild abrasion. 

In the Scriptures, Abraham is known as “the father of all them that believe.”  Romans 4:11:

And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also:          

Romans 4:16:

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,

In the 1600s, Bishop Ussher wrote his master chronology of time, a tome titled The Annals of the World, in which he wrote that Abraham was born just two years after Noah died.  That dates Abraham back to just over 4,000 years.  Father Abraham is a very real and historic figure, and believe me, he is not done talking yet!

Abraham was not a Jew by birth.  He was from Ur of the Chaldees, the land he left at the age of 75.  According to the ancient historian Josephus, Abraham left the land of the Chaldees once his study of astronomy and mathematics made it clear to him that there was only one God over all, and He alone was to be worshipped and feared.  This revelation was not well received by the Chaldeans, who held a polytheistic religious view.  Satan promoted polytheism from the beginning.  Genesis Chapter 3 details Satan’s conversation with Eve, during which Satan discredits God and His Word, telling Eve that she would not die if she ate of the forbidden fruit as God said, but instead would have her eyes opened and be “like the gods.” Genesis 3:1-5:

1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Abraham was not chosen because of his Jewishness, for he was the father of that order. Rather, he was chosen because of faith in God and God’s Word that was spoken to him.  The first time the word righteousness is recorded in the Bible is in association with Abraham and faith.  Genesis 15:4-6:

4 And, behold, the word of the LORD came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir.

5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

6 And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Righteousness is the action of faith.  Due to Abraham’s faith and obedience to God and His Word, the following promise was made to him by God.  Genesis 22:17-18:

17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

A very short list of Abrahamic blessings would include:

1. Faith and fear in the one true God;

2. Circumcision;    

3. Advanced knowledge of mathematics and astronomy;

4. The laws of God, given to Moses, who was of the seed of Abraham;

5. The legal system;

6. Social order;

7. The structure and funding of the church;

8. The world’s premier dietary laws;

9. Medical and quarantine instructions;

10. and surely most importantly, Jesus Christ the Righteous, who is, in the flesh, the son of David, and of course, the seed of Abraham. 

It all began in Abraham with the revelation of one true God, the Creator of all.  Regarding this issue, famed ancient historian Josephus records the following:

Now Abram, having no son of his own, adopted Lot, his brother Haran’s son, and his wife Sarai’s brother; and he left the land of Chaldea when he was seventy-five years old, and at the command of God went into Canaan, and therein he dwelt himself, and left it to his posterity.  He was a person of great sagacity, both for understanding all things and persuading his hearers, and not mistaken in his opinions; for which reason he began to have higher notions of virtue than others had, and he determined to renew and to change the opinion of all men happened then to have concerning God; for he was the first that ventured to publish this notion, that there was but one God, the Creator of the universe; and that, as to other [gods,] if they contributed anything to the happiness of men, that each of them afforded it only according to his appointment, and not by their own power.  This his opinion was derived from the irregular phenomena that were visible both at land and sea, as well as those that happen to the sun and moon, and all the heavenly bodies thus: —“If [said he] these bodies had power of their own, they would certainly take care of their own regular motions; but since they do not preserve such regularity, they make it plain that in so far as they co-operate to our advantage, they do it not of their own abilities, but as they are subservient to Him that commands them; to whom alone we ought justly to offer our honour and thanksgiving.”  For which doctrines, when the Chaldeans and other people of Mesopotamia raised a tumult against him, he thought fit to leave that country; and at the command, and by the assistance of God, he came and lived in the land of Canaan.  And when he was there settled, he built an altar and performed a sacrifice to God.  [End of quote]

Concerning Abraham and the great wisdom God had imparted unto him, Josephus continues:

Berosus mentions our father Abram without naming him, when he says thus: —“In the tenth generation after the Flood, there was among the Chaldeans a man righteous and great, and skillful in the celestial science.”  But Hecataeus does more than barely mention him; for he composed and left behind him a book concerning him.  And Nicolaus of Damascus, in the fourth book of his history, says thus: —“Abram reigned at Damascus, being a foreigner, who came with an army out of the land above Babylon, called the land of the Chaldeans.  But after a long time he got him up, and removed from that country also with his people, and went into the land then called the land of Canaan, but now the land of Judea, and this when his posterity were become a multitude; as to which posterity of his we relate their history in another work.  No the name of Abram is even still famous in the country of Damascus; and there is shewn a village named from him, The Habitation of Abram.

Concerning Egypt and Abraham’s time there, Josephus writes:

For whereas the Egyptians were formerly addicted to different customs, and despised one another’s sacred and accustomed rites, and were very angry one with another on that account, Abram conferred with each of them, and confuting the reasonings they made use of every one for their own practices, demonstrated that such reasonings were vain and void of truth; whereupon he was admired by them in those conferences as a very wise man, and one of great sagacity, when he discoursed on any subject he undertook; and this not only in understanding it, but in persuading other men to assent to him. He communicated to them arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy; for, before Abram came into Egypt, they were unacquainted with those parts of learning; for that science came from the Chaldeans into Egypt, and from thence to the Greeks also. [End of quotes]

TheTrumpet.com published the following article under the heading “Astronomy, Mathematics, and Abraham:”

Some of the earliest chapters in the Bible focus on a man named Abraham.  The Scriptural record of his life begins with God telling him to leave his country and take a journey of faith to the land of Canaan.

Did you ever wonder why God told Abraham to do this?  Surprising as it may sound, archaeological discoveries and ancient texts suggest that Abraham’s journey actually related to astronomy and advanced mathematics.  These clues have helped shed light on the remarkable life of Abraham before his sojourn in Canaan—and one reason he had to leave.

Modern scientists have been coming to grips with the sheer mathematical genius of the ancient Babylonians.  Here is an example: You may remember the Pythagorean theorem from the math classes you took in school.  Around the early 500s BC, Greek mathematician Pythagoras discovered the theorem for working out the hypotenuse, the longest side of a right-angle triangle.  Since that time, Pythagoras’s name has been given to the method.  But the Babylonians had already discovered it over 1,200 years earlier!

A mathematical tablet discovered a century ago and dating to around 1800 BC showed text fulfilling the triangular equation of a² + b² = c².  The artifact, known as Plimpton 322, has only recently been reexamined.  Scientists have been stunned, not only by this one equation, but also by the general knowledge of trigonometry the tablet displays.  Like the Pythagorean theorem, trigonometry was classically attributed to the Greeks, dated to around 120 BC.  Yet this Babylonian document displays trigonometric understanding around 1,700 years earlier!

Mathematician Daniel Mansfield stated: “Our research shows [Plimpton 322] is a trigonometric table so unfamiliar and advanced that in some respects it’s superior to modern trigonometry.”

And their genius went beyond complex mathematics—it was also evident in astronomy.  Some of the earliest known astronomy texts from Babylon describe observations of the planet Venus.  The Babylonians were able to predict where certain planets could be found in the sky at any given point in the future.  They could also work out and predict, hundreds of years in advance, when and where eclipses would occur.

In the fourth century BC, Greek philosopher Callisthenes acquired a series of Babylonian astronomy documents covering observations from throughout the previous 2,000 years.  And some time after 400 BC, a Babylonian tablet was written showing a “trapezoid procedure” for calculating the path of the planet Jupiter.  This method displayed one of the foundational principles of calculus—thought to have been discovered 1,400 years later.

What does any of this have to do with the patriarch Abraham?

The book of Genesis states that Abraham was originally from the Chaldean city of Ur.  The Chaldeans were a Babylonian tribe of especially gifted scientific people.   Abraham grew up right in the golden age of scientific discovery in Babylon during the 1900s BC.  But he wasn’t merely exposed to Chaldean-Babylonian astronomy and mathematics; ancient historians record that he was a leading light in these fields.

Sir Walter Raleigh’s The History of the World (1614) referenced first-century AD historian Philo of Alexandria, saying that Abraham, through astronomy, “together with the motions of the stars and other heavenly bodies … found out the knowledge of the true God, while he lived in Chaldea.”  He further referenced a number of ancient historians who collectively agreed “that Abraham, the holiest and wisest of men, did first teach the Chaldeans, then the Phoenicians; lastly, the Egyptian priests, [astronomy] and divine knowledge” (Chapter 2, section 2).

Thus we see Abraham attributed by many as one of the chief instructors of the elite Chaldeans in their advanced knowledge! 

But Abraham did not just study and teach science for science’s sake. Through science, he proved the existence of the one true God.  [End of quotes]

On August 4, 2021, BBC Science Focus Magazine reported, “The Babylonians were using Pythagoras’s Theorem over 1000 years before he was born.” 

One historian headlined, “Abraham as Chaldean Scientist and Father of the Jews.”

One of the world’s oldest historic sites is the cave of Machpelah in Israel.  The following excerpts are from the GodSaidManSaid feature, “Archaeology Keeps on Saying Yes:”

This great man of God, Abraham, the very patriarch of faith, lived about 4,000 years ago.  Is the Genesis account given by God unto Moses accurate?  Is there any existing record or monument?

Two thousand years ago, King Herod built a colossal monument that enshrines the burial place of Abraham and his dead.  The following excerpts are from an article in Biblical Archaeology Review, titled, “The City of the Patriarchs Slowly Yields Its Secrets:”

When modern tourists visit Hebron, they focus almost exclusively on the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a magnificent shrine built 2,000 years ago during the Herodian period over the traditional site of the Cave of Machpelah.  The Bible tells us the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca and Leah were all buried there.  The relative dimensions of the structure, and even the style of its ashlar masonry, are similar to the great Temple Mount enclosure wall that Herod built in Jerusalem, on the site where Solomon had built the First Temple and where the exiles returning from Babylon built a more modest structure that Herod replaced.

Most visitors depart unaware that just a thousand yards to the west, easily visible from the shrine, is the mound that was the site of the ancient Biblical city of Hebron.  The hill, called Jebel er-Rumeide in Arabic, rises prominently above the surrounding buildings in the center of the modern city. [End of quotes]

This last quote is from the GodSaidManSaid article, “Archaeology Certifies Bible, Miracles and All:”

In reviewing Dr. Paul McCoy’s 468-page book, Scripture Insights from Science and Archaeology, we have pulled excerpts that highlight the accuracy of Holy Writ.  They follow:

Genesis 23:3-18.  Cave at Machpelah.  The name means “double or fold.”  The site was sanctified in the Hasmonean period, and Herod the Great built the present building over the cave in 10 BC.  This is very likely the oldest authentic site in Israel, with Jacob’s well at Shechem the second oldest.  It was purchased from Ephron (the Hittite) at Hebron (20 miles south of Jerusalem).  In a bargaining tactic still used today, by insisting on paying for the cave, Abraham was obligated to buy it (at the offered price, 400 shekels of silver ca. [approximately] 300 troy oz.).  The Code of Hammurabi lists the wages of a working man at 8-11 shekels per year—Law 274, or a cost of 36 years’ wages.  A high price indeed. [End of quote]

When their criticisms are silenced at one particular confrontation, they pull up their stakes and tents of unbelief and move their whole camp to a new location to carp from there.  “Ok,” they begrudgingly concede, “Maybe there was an Abraham, but a God who communicates with him, lips to ear, an eternal covenant, and all of his life’s miraculous interactions?  Of course not! That’s absurdity!” 

Be of good cheer, child of God!  Your faith in God’s Word will never be disappointed.  Not only did God’s mighty Abraham once live just as the Bible declares, his remains remain with us to this very day in the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham purchased from Ephron the Hittite.  The cave of Machpelah is found in the Israeli city of Hebron.   This cave is one of great contention—the Muslims, Jews, and Christians all lay claim to it.  Was there a Father Abraham?  Of course yes.  His remains remain with us to this very day.

God’s Word is true and righteous altogether, a place to build a life that will last forever.  Embrace the beautiful Book.  It’s full of God-inspired truths.

GOD SAID, Genesis 22:17:

That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

GOD SAID, Genesis 23:7-20:

7 And Abraham stood up, and bowed himself to the people of the land, even to the children of Heth.

8 And he communed with them, saying, If it be your mind that I should bury my dead out of my sight; hear me, and entreat for me to Ephron the son of Zohar,

9 That he may give me the cave of Machpelah, which he hath, which is in the end of his field; for as much money as it is worth he shall give it me for a possession of a buryingplace amongst you.

10 And Ephron dwelt among the children of Heth: and Ephron the Hittite answered Abraham in the audience of the children of Heth, even of all that went in at the gate of his city, saying,

11 Nay, my lord, hear me: the field give I thee, and the cave that is therein, I give it thee; in the presence of the sons of my people give I it thee: bury thy dead.

12 And Abraham bowed down himself before the people of the land.

13 And he spake unto Ephron in the audience of the people of the land, saying, But if thou wilt give it, I pray thee, hear me: I will give thee money for the field; take it of me, and I will bury my dead there.

14 And Ephron answered Abraham, saying unto him,

15 My lord, hearken unto me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that betwixt me and thee? bury therefore thy dead.

16 And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.

17 And the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre, the field, and the cave which was therein, and all the trees that were in the field, that were in all the borders round about, were made sure

18 Unto Abraham for a possession in the presence of the children of Heth, before all that went in at the gate of his city.

19 And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre: the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.

20 And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a buryingplace by the sons of Heth.

GOD SAID, Romans 4:16:

Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,

MAN SAID: Anyone who takes the time to look will discover the ineptness of the Christian Bible.  Have I looked?  No, of course not—but everybody knows it! 

 

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

Blumner, R., Free Inquiry

GodSaidManSaid, “Archaeology Certifies Bible, Miracles and All”

GodSaidManSaid, “Stars, Sand, and Abraham”

GodSaidManSaid, “Watch Out, World, It’s Not Good News! Abraham Prepares to Speak”

• Go Further With Christ
• Email To a Friend
• Comments or Questions?