According to Jacob, He did and I see absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Jacob was lying, so AFIAC, until you can present such evidence, you have no point to press here.
you see, when someone does something, and then tells someone that someone else did that thing instead, we call that "lying."
The changes in the terms that Jacob had to work for Rachel and Leah is a separate issue.
yes, it is. that's the issue.
It seems clear to me that your argument for Jacob setting the terms and not Laban is pointless. The fact is that they both agreed to them. It seems likely to me that Jacob felt obligated to fulfill the full amount of years of work for the share in the flock that he got off the bat. If the sheep and goats kept giving birth to speckled and spotted offspring than it makes sense to me that Laban would object and probably even suspect foul play on the part of Jacob. Jacob, was getting additional sheep and goats out of the deal, and he also was connected by marriage to Laban. That he didn't say, "hey wait a minute, this is not what we originally agreed on" and then promptly left because Laban renigged on his initial agreement, makes perfect sense to me. Perhaps this is unimaginable to you. But I view it as quite logical and in no way a problem for Biblical honesty.
that's great, but that's not the story in the bible. the story in bible goes like this:
laban says to jacob, "let me pay you."
jacob replies "keep your money."
laban says, "no, really. let me pay you."
jacob says, "well, if you insist. but i want sheep, not sheckels. actually, i don't even want good sheep, i want the rejects. i'll go through your flock, and pick out the nasty-looking ones, and those will be mine."
laban says "deal," and then promptly instructs his sons to collect all of the ones jacob would take and hide them three days walk away from jacob -- making jacob's share nothing.
jacob sees this and is unphased. he grabs some poplars and almonds and whatnot, and makes the sheep throw spotted and streaked young. he makes the product of two strong sheep spotted, and the product of two week sheep clean. and so he takes all of the strong offspring for himself, leaving laban a bad flock of good-looking sheep. then he leaves with his sheep, his wives, and his kids.
he tells his wives that god vindicate him by making all the sheep spotted and streaked.
those are the facts of what the biblical account is. it's a rather simple story, i don't know why you're having such a problem understanding what's going on. laban rips jacob off for twenty years straight, but jacob outsmarts him.
do you really think jacob had nothing to do with it?
This has already been addressed and no offense but I get tired of the repititon. If you want an answer to this, simply re-read my earlier posts and try to spot what evidently you have forgotten.
perhaps you can show the act of god in genesis 30? or where the angel speaks to him? because all i see is jacob doing something and affecting the outcome. now, you're saying that the bible is being deceitful, in that there was really a miracle in there somewhere they just failed to acknowledge.
the only thing getting repetitive here is "I've already addressed this." especially when you haven't. you've also failed to notice that one story has laban ripping jacob of one way, and the other story has laban ripping him off the other way. and you didn't answer how speckled and spotted he-goats and he-sheep were the only ones "jumping on the flock" when they were 3 whole days away, hidden from jacob.
He schemed to rip Laban off. Was he actually doing this? No. But in the Bible not all sin is an action, sometimes it's a thought or a motive.
so he thought up the scheme and went through the actions -- which didn't actually do anything. god did all the work, and joseph's actions were inconsequential. had he not placed the rods before the sheep, the outcome would have been the same. right?
why did jacob think this scheme would work? nevermind that it did -- what lead him to believe that some twigs would make goats throw spotted young? please note that even in jacob's LATER version where god tells him something, god neither indicates that jacob needs to take action (the male cattle do all of that), nor is anything mentioned about "rods." so for your view to make sense at all, something is completely left out of both accounts and god omits something.
Did it ever occur to you that perhaps not all 10 are mentioned to avoid being longwinded?
i've told you ten times already that it's just an expression. and no, it never occurred to me. have you, uh, read the bible? it's quite long-winded at times.
do you agree that characters in the bible lie? or no?
I've already responded to this.
no, actually, you did not. besides, you have to make 33 keystrokes to write "I've already responded to this." "yes" has only 3, and "no" has only 2. far, far less effort and much more clear.
because the actual answer is far shorter than your non-repsonse, i can only assume that you're dodging the question.
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