Re: Do you agree with the Ark Encounter?
Posted: Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:03 pm
Just read Hank Hanegraaff's article on the genealogies. I consider him my brother in Christ, but I find his interpretation of some discrepancies in the genealogies to be incredible. For example, when he says that Matthew "skillfully organized the genealogy of Jesus into 3 groups of fourteen", because that is the numerical equivalent of the Hebrew letters in King David's name, all I can say is "What?" Hank's interpretation is "off the wall", and no disrespect is meant toward Hank, but he is assuming that he knows that Matthew was writing in some kind of code. Not only that, but Hank also assumes that he knows what that code is!! Sorry, but unless Hank got a revelation from God, which he does not claim, there's no way he could know those things.
Hank also suggests that Moses deliberately left out one name in the genealogy of Genesis 11, so that there would be two symmetrical groups, ten generations before the flood (Genesis 5), and ten after the flood (Genesis 11). Again, incredible. So, according to Hank, symmetry was more important to Matthew and Moses than truth. Didn't Moses receive the 10 commandments from God, one of which was, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor"? Yet here, Hank wants us to believe that Moses deliberately bore false witness to all of his readers and deliberately left out one name in the genealogy, in order for the two genealogies to be symmetrical!?? I cannot accept that.
Can I explain the discrepancies in the genealogies? No, I can't. But I'm not going to make up an "off the wall" interpretation, as Hank did, to explain them.
Hank also suggests that Moses deliberately left out one name in the genealogy of Genesis 11, so that there would be two symmetrical groups, ten generations before the flood (Genesis 5), and ten after the flood (Genesis 11). Again, incredible. So, according to Hank, symmetry was more important to Matthew and Moses than truth. Didn't Moses receive the 10 commandments from God, one of which was, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor"? Yet here, Hank wants us to believe that Moses deliberately bore false witness to all of his readers and deliberately left out one name in the genealogy, in order for the two genealogies to be symmetrical!?? I cannot accept that.
Can I explain the discrepancies in the genealogies? No, I can't. But I'm not going to make up an "off the wall" interpretation, as Hank did, to explain them.