tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-688820610845171516.post7266751378223139800..comments2024-03-24T11:03:03.106-07:00Comments on Just Genesis : Jacob Leaves BeershebaAlice C. Linsleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13069827354696169270noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-688820610845171516.post-74569093117055113492012-10-08T14:39:36.850-07:002012-10-08T14:39:36.850-07:00If Rachel were the half-sister, Jacob and Rachel w...If Rachel were the half-sister, Jacob and Rachel would have had different mothers, but the same father. There are hints that Isaac had a wife before Rebecca arrived in Beersheba.Alice C. Linsleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13069827354696169270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-688820610845171516.post-83928590780548750412012-10-08T14:37:56.198-07:002012-10-08T14:37:56.198-07:00Jonathan,
You are asking excellent questions and...Jonathan, <br />You are asking excellent questions and I don't have the answers. Leah and Rachel are called the daughters of Laban. The words "cousin" and "sister" are often interchanged in some places in Scripture. Likely Leah and Rachel were Laban's duaghters, but I tend to read the text with some suspicion since elements in the story come from different perspectives. Certainly Jacob's marriage to these 2 women doesn't fit the pattern for first born sons who ascend to the throne, but then Jacob was not the first born son. Alice C. Linsleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13069827354696169270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-688820610845171516.post-33228373443794638772012-10-08T11:00:36.318-07:002012-10-08T11:00:36.318-07:00I read your posts all the time, and while I am get...I read your posts all the time, and while I am getting comfortable with the idea of deriving rewards of discovering hidden meanings in passages of Scriptures from the application of the tools of kinship analysis, as you are continually projecting here, I am getting uncomfortable with the notion that, whenever a text is "problematic" it means that the kinship analysis has supersede what the text literally says. So, in the passage at hand, while I am willing to go along with you to the points that, notwithstanding our traditional understanding, Leah might actually have been the cousin (second) bride, and that no kingdom is gained by deception, so Laban's deception cannot be the whole story, etc., it is troubling that, in order to achieve the result of Rachel having actually been a half-sister bride, you seem to need to negate the text of the Scriptures where it says (Gen. 29:16) that Rachel and Leah are two "daughters" of Laban. Or is the Hebrew word for "daughters" (Gen. 29:16) flexible enough that it could include the possibility of a more distant relationship? For Rachel to have been the half-sister bride, it means that Rachel's father would have to have been Isaac, right? Jonathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09829257111579899926noreply@blogger.com