-Mercury- said:
First let me clarify some things.
The poles may have been, for all we know, an aphrodisiac to the animals, either the sight of the streaked rods, the chemicals in the wood--what have you. They may have induced the animals to mate, but they had no hand in the color of the offspring. The speckling and spotting were a miracle.
THe problem seems to be in what you think I think.
A. God is all-knowing.
True
B. Being all-knowing, God would have known that Genesis 30:37-39 would be interpreted literally by the Hebrews -- that they would think he meant exactly what he said, having no reason to think otherwise.
Wrong,
He did not say that the poles were the cause of the coloring
I think that the Hebrews of the time (whom many of had sheep themselves) would have also considered it a miracle.
C. You believe this event was a miracle and not caused by the striped branches.
True--I belive the spotting was not caused by the branches, but was a miracle.
D. You think that what is said in Genesis 30:37-39 is not literally true (as the Hebrews supposed).
Wrong,
What was said was literally true.
Therefore, you think that what God wrote in Genesis 30:37-39 was not historically true
I think the events recorded are completely factual. Jacob did whittle some sticks, and he did set the sticks before the animals. They did mate, the animals born were spotted and speckled.
The cause of this phenomenon, (the spotting) which is not directly spoken of in the passage, I belive to be a miracle.
God knew it was not true
See point B.
and that the Hebrews would think it was true
See point B.
THe actual verse
And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chesnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which [was] in the rods.
Gen 30:38 And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink.
Gen 30:39 And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ringstraked, speckled, and spotted.
Gen 30:40 And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstraked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban; and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle.
Gen 30:41 And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods.
Gen 30:42 But when the cattle were feeble, he put [them] not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's.
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Here's a few from after Darwin.
