Bible Study, Part 12
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| Creation of Light (אוֹר) By Gustave Doré |
Genesis, Chapter 12 |
Sunday – September 13, 2026
Having had some issues with this platform, I am back without issues, seemingly, and I can continue with this series; I had plans there for a while to postpone this series by a week. Again, using images (pictures) is paramount for this series and many others series on this platform, and quite frankly, it would not be possible for me to continue this without also being allowed to rely on important imagery. The Creation of Light by Gustave Doré is a prime example of why images matter. Now, I cannot quite explain the issue that led to me being unable to upload images before, but I can assure you that I attempted to do this on multiple different machines/devices and nothing worked until around recently of course. Hopefully this was a temporary issue that hopefully will not repeat. If you wonder why there is no information on the INFO page, this is why; I simply had no time to update that page. Again, I will assume that no issues like this will happen during the foreseeable future, which is not too long on the internet. These things are always unfortunate, and to some extent it would perhaps be true to say that these things tend to order themselves, or at any rate it would be hard to prove something else.
Anyhow, this will be the 12th part of this series and as usual I want to remind you to read each proceeding part, as this series is written with that intention in mind, this is why I will provide you the link also to the 1st (first) post in this series and the previous post in this series, part 11. If you still decide to read this post without having read any of the previous parts, then you may find that this part makes little sense. So again, please read the previous parts. Now, because these introductions have been too long, I have decided to attempt to cut the introduction to this post down, which means that I will try to compress important information, information that you need, but also information that you can find in each previous post. I should also say that I am working on a separate page entirely, a page that I will link to in the future so that none of this information has to be repeated here. Due to my lack of time, I simply have not had time to do this yet, so do bear with me. But again, this post is but a link in a chain that makes up this series, and this is actually in accordance with the Bible, as the Bible is written in a chainlike manner, although again, this is sometimes not necessarily the same case as chronological order, but that consideration is not relevant here. Note as well, that I will keep referring to God, the Creator, as Yahweh (יהוה), as we are still only dealing with Genesis (בְּרֵאשִׁית), or the Old Testament, the Tankah (תָּנָ״ךְ), and more specifically the Torah (תּוֹרָה). Verily, when the Torah descended down to the world (the Earth), this was specifically a sacred covenant between the Hebrews (the Jews) and Yahweh, and it would quite frankly be inconsistent and inappropriate to refer to Yahweh as anything else that by his name, no titles are relevant here.* If you do not understand the importance of this delineation, then I do not expect you to have understood anything in this series, which is quite sad, but encouraging still: it should encourage you to keep reading the Bible and more specifically this series, but all over again, oh yes.
In terms of rules, I still do not have any hard rules, and sometimes I will apply my soft rules, and other times I will not apply them, except for what I referred to above when it comes to my strict usage of the name of Yahweh whenever I shall refer to events from the Old Testament. But some recurring rules in this series will be me relying on specific and certain publication of the Bible, and how I deal with quotations from relevant passages. Because I have a strict rule of only using the name Yahweh in the Old Testament, it is necessary for me to substitute the name God, the title Lord, and the title Creator with Yahweh, and this will happen by me simply replacing those names and titles with Yahweh, and this will be indicated by the usage of two brackets, [Yahweh]; again, this rule is strict and I refuse to not apply it. I will also sometimes find it necessary to not include less relevant passages into my quotations, and this will be indicated by the usage of three dots inside two brackets, [...], indicating that something is missing; if you wish to read these missing quotations, then you may do so on your own. The reason that they are not included in my quotations is because they are not relevant to the progression of the story and of this study; again, you are free to look them up yourself. I should also mention that from time to time I will substitute the neologism "humankind" with "mankind", but this happens infrequently and cannot be said to be a "rule". Lastly, I am relying on the Catholic New Revised Standard (NRSV-CE), as I regard this publication to be the best for the purposes of this study, and the reasons are many and varied, but I need to ensure you that the reasons why I have decided to rely on the NRSV-CE have almost nothing to do with spiritual authority; these are merely material considerations.
Yet again, before we can proceed with the study at hand: if you have complaints about anything that I have written and asserted, then you are free to post them in the comment section below this post. I have received a few complaints so far on the official email attached to this page (etherealinsight@protonmail.com), but my policy is to only handle complaints in the comment section, as I have largely reserved other channels of communication for discussions of a more private nature, such as readers sending forward letters containing privileged information, etc. What this means is that I am unlikely to respond to an email complaint as I simply do not have time to handle them, nor do I have time to connect each complaint to each relevant post; simply using the comment section is the best and most straightforward option. This is not a hard rule, but it is a recommendation if you actually want me to respond; I also call on you to refrain from using offensive words in your comments. I should also mention again, that it is my intention of creating a separate page that will take care of all of the possible confusions and other important information to be considered in this study; that page is still not finished, and when it is finished I will simply link each post to that page in order that can skip having to reiterate all of this information in each of these posts, as I mentioned above.
✠ The Call of Abram ✠
Genesis 12:1 – 3:
Now [Yahweh] said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.'
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| Abraham (אַבְרָהָם) Sees Sodom in Flames, by James Tissot |
Verily, we must, again, return to the concept of a primordial body, for if we hold that the nation is an organism and an organism that can be organized in a corporative manner, read "Hierarchy", what better way to do this than to start by listening to the commands of Yahweh. In this way, Abram, later Abraham, can be understood not only as the head of his household, but as the head of all nations, and from his descendants and onward all other nations can be said to be derived, and this would of course occur in a manner away from higher principles towards lower principles, a stepwise and downward movement away from the primordial body towards the original nations,‡ and today towards chaos, individuation, and artificial bastard concepts of such things as nations. Really, Abram will be the initiating force on earth in this sacred covenant between the Jewish people and Yahweh, and from this point onward, it would be quite right to describe this moment of pure potential as Abram standing on the cusp of the New Monday, and conversely in the shadow of the old world, the pre flood world (Antediluvian). In truth, this was the first moment of the current cycle, the current era, and the last moment of the previous world – an entire world was to be born anew through the life and mission of Abraham.
Genesis 12:4 – 9:
So Abram went, as [Yahweh] had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his brother’s son Lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then [Yahweh] appeared to Abram, and said, 'To your offspring I will give this land.' So he built there an altar to [Yawheh], who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to [Yahweh] and invoked the name of [Yahweh]. And Abram journeyed on by stages toward the Negeb.
Abram heeds the commands of Yahweh, for he realized that he had been called, as alluded to above, to lead a great nation, and this happened to in a stepwise manner, in a manner not unlike that in our own days, a kind of progression, although we must not confuse this modern concept of "progress" with this staged development towards higher knowledge. In this sense, it could also be construed that Abram is still only a student, a student under Yahweh, the master, and therefore he has not yet earned the name that he will be given later, again Abraham, which I also have alluded to multiple times already.
We are once again also made aware of the land of Canaan (כְּנַעַן), and note from the previous part, that Abram was born in Ur (אוּר), Mesopotamia (Modern day Iraq), and this is the land that Yahweh promised to the descendants of Abram, a land that will be sure to become very significant later on, but for now we must put the land of Canaan aside, apart from making some more commentary in the connection to these passages. Of course, it is also the case that the land of Canaan in this, from our point of view, remote corner of history, was quite different from the land of Palestine, Jordan, and and Lebanon today, and that the nationalism of Israel is another modern confusion, almost disconnected from purpose of Yahweh's divine instruction received by the patriarch Abram.§
Another point about Yawheh making his presence known to Abram must be made clear: what we are dealing with here is clearly a matter of divine instruction, and not something that can be explained or understood in material terms, and this is, again, an issue that I keep returning to in this study: it is simply not the case that it carries any meaning to attempt to understand these matters from a purely material point of view. Now, this is not to say that the divine instructions received by Abram were illusory or mystical, but it is to suggest that it is quite stupid to attempt any kind of fundamentalism in order to understand these matters, for most people are quite clearly and frankly unqualified in this regard anyways. Yes, Abram was in this sense preordained to receive divine instruction, which made him as well, one of the first persons in this new generations and on this new monday being able to bridge the heaven and the earth, a sign of his divine inspiration, for he saw in the stars the future.
✚ Abram and Sarai in Egypt ✚
Genesis 12:10 – 16:
Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to reside there as an alien, for the famine was severe in the land. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, 'I know well that you are a woman beautiful in appearance; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account.' When Abram entered Egypt the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. When the officials of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male and female slaves, female donkeys, and camels.
Egypt is a land that has been mentioned previously as well, and Egypt (מִצְרַיִם) is a land that we must return to later as well, particularly in Exodus (שְׁמוֹת), but already we are made aware of passages referring to Pharaoh (פַּרְעֹה), which helps us to put this all into perspective, historical perspective that is, and it also helps remind us that indeed, these are historical accounts, although this history has now almost been completely lost today.‖ Perhaps it would be appropriate at this time to also make some comments about the mention of his wife Sarai's (שָׂרַי), also later Sarah (שָׂרָה), beauty, for this was surely a point of great importance: because Sarai was beautiful, she was able to come near Pharaoh, at that time temporal power, which also saved Abram, when they were made to believe that Abram was the brother of Sarai, and this was just as well, although I am sure that some modern people, if not all, would find this passage quite distasteful and even reprehensible, truly depressing. Well, this is how most of these things have always worked, and to this extent the Bible should stand as a testimony of time and of the human condition, whether or not we like it, but I digress.
I suppose as well that these same moderns, read the humanist axiom, would make a great many ignorant comments about the matter of slavery, something that I intend to cover at another time, mentioned here, and perhaps as well the fact that Abram received animals on the seemingly the same level as his male and female slaves, but again this is a modern confusion, a confusion that would prompt this kind of subversive and corroding thinking, a thinking that has turned the world completely upside down, compared to the time of Abraham. Slavery was quite just and just as well anyways, for these people would have died without their bondege, and there was no room for abuse in these relationships, strictly hierarchical though they had to be, otherwise there we would deal with something quite revolutionary, but again I must digress.
Genesis 12:17 – 20:
"But [Yahweh] afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, 'What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone.' And Pharaoh gave his men orders concerning him; and they set him on the way, with his wife and all that he had."
Sure, Sarai was Abram's wife, and Yahweh did not approve of this, because she was another man's wife, and marriages are indeed sacred things, and sacred things must be respected. And I suppose as well, that this passage has, again, provided me with an opportunity to mention Exodus, as Egypt will become an even more relevant place in the Bible, the Old Testament soon. Of course, a marriage in the time of Abram was quite different from the modern monstrosity, at least this much must be understood from the Bible, at least this much must be understood from the Bible. This is the end of this part...
You have reached the end of this part of the Bible, or rather my examination of the Bible. For more on this series, follow the label "Bible Study series". If you are interested in me, read my "About me" page and my "Who Am I" post.
Reginald Drax (AKA, M. C. Dutt) – September 13, 2026.
Footnote(s)
* For more on this, I must, again, direct you to my posts specifically dealing with this issue: "Yahweh Elohim" and "Proof of the Name of Yahweh". These posts deal with this issue in greater detail, as going on about this subject is outside the scope of the present study.
† Again, for more on this, I must direct you to my post "The Problem with Nationalism", where I go into greater detail about this subject, as there is no room for a more extended discussion about this within the purview of this post. Another post that I direct you to is "My Views on the Nation-State".
‡ It is perhaps a good idea to make yourself more familiar with the concept of quality, quality in the shadow of the materialism of today. To read more about this, I direct you toward my posts: "Quality" and "Qualification". What I can say about Abram in this connection is that he was truly qualified, for he was the immediate recipient of divine instruction.
§ This is a point that will be sure to be disputed, but the fact is that from a Biblical point of view, modern day Israel can hardly be said to be the same thing as what Yahweh promised to Abram and his descendants all of those centuries ago, but as I refuse to engage in politics, and as doing so would be outside the scope of the present study, I will digress. In this connection, the overall point made about nationalism in the above notation must stand firmer still.
‖ Here, I am again made to direct you to my posts: "My Views on Fundamentalism" and "The Hypocrisy of the Pious", as these posts will deal in greater derail with the common errors made in this connection. I could also make this point further in connection with me mentioning liberalism further above still. Another relevant post in this context is: "Naturalism and Its Confused Opponents".
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