Biblical Eugenics - being wrong about how to colorize your goats

Hello Paulk, I am not really wanting to further this conversation because I don't think this story happened, it is not god inspired scripture and I agree at this point in time that it is a clear issue for biblical literalists. However, I thought I would respond to you to sum up the conversation. I will draw out the contradiction in the story and leave it at that. I realize you may respond with a disagreement but that is fine we can disagree about the contradiction. It does not change much in the overall story (I've changed my mind in contrast to prev post about the overall point of this story). I have already noted that there are several views of this story and this won't change in my mind (which you admitted 30:40 does not fit well). In any case the story was most likely added by the jews to show the overall story of how amazing god is to its faithful. If you read 39;

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NIV 39 they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.

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Here we see colored flocks being born/breed by jacob with the usage of the rods (Colored flock born after all of laban's colored flock were removed by laban in 35. So there is no way for jacob to breed colored flock without the rods because he does not have access to colored flock as of V 35.).If you read 40 (FYI: I added grouping to the quote to help with understanding of my point);

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NIV 40 Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves (group 1), but made the rest (group 2) face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban (group 3). Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban’s animals.

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Jacob separated flocks facing flocks toward laban's colored flock (here we see two groups laban's colored flocks and the flocks facing laban's flocks (yellow and green groups). It is 2 separate groups facing each other but both of these 2 groups are laban's). We also see another group of flocks being separated by themselves (jacob's new flock the orange group).Next we will see another factor in how jacob separated them (other than the 3 groups).

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NIV 41 Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches,

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Here we see that jacob favored using the strong cattle when he was breeding. Group 1 (the young and strong cattle).Next we will see the contradiction laid out. It is all relative to v 40.

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NIV 42 but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob.

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Interpretation of facts: Here we see that jacob didn't use weak cattle to breed. Then it reads the weak animals went to laban and the strong to jacob. So (group 2) and (group 3) from v 40, (group 2) being the the group of weak flock (according to 42 since he didn't use them to mate) facing the colored flock (since they were present per v 40) and (group 3) being the colored flock of laban's (from v 40). Conclusion of contradiction: Colored flock present during jacob's breeding event. IF laban removed the colored flock in v 35 how is this possible for these colored flock to be present during jacob's breeding event in 37-42?Edited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : err

Well your post is one interpretation. IT is a sound contradiction because it contradicts the story line. In 35 we see laban removing the colored animals. In 40 we see that colored animals are still present. Thus why this story is not clear. Thus why there are several interpretations. Your vantage is one of those interpretations. I see where you are coming from I am just pointing out the contradiction if one simply follows the story line. Another example of an issue in this story is that laban didn't remove the sheep mentioned in 32 by jacob. In 32 we see speckled or spotted sheep, dark colored lamb and every spotted or speckled goat. In 35 we see removed all male goats that were streaked or spotted, all speckled or spotted female goats and all dark colored lambs. No mention of sheep at all as per 32. And if you read 40 it mentions speckled or spotted flock which could be the sheep but it also mentions dark colored animals (which would have been the lambs removed in 35). This story is all broken. Verses below. Edited by Alias, : Err

The story reads in 41 that jacob put the branches in front of the strong animals so they would mate in front of the branches. Whenever the animals were weak he did not place them in front of the branches they just went to laban as per 42. Strong to Jacob weak to laban. Says nothing of what you posted.Edited by Alias, : Err

Repost of the contradiction . Paulk made some points that made me realize that I was labeling all animals with the same labels. I was just calling them colored animals/cattle/flock/etc but in this post that will not happen and yet the contradiction still is an issue. I also tried to fix some issues for clarity. I added a green highlight to words added to a quote and red highlight to the contradiction data. No actually in verse 41-42 (NIV) it also matters whether or not the animals were strong or weak if they were breed by jacob. Yes weaker animals were possibly permitted to mate but it does not describe it. All it says is that 41 jacob would put the rods in front of the stronger animals to mate when in heat but 42 when the animals were weak he did not have the rods in front of them EVER and that the weaker animals went to laban and stronger animals to jacob (it's an assumption that the weak animals mated, no information is provided as to that point. Hence why I noted that jacob did not breed weak animals.). Verses below.fyi: breed definitionMoving on with the contradiction.If you read 39;

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NIV 39 they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.

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Here we see streaked or speckled or spotted flocks being born/BREED (because he was actually influencing them to mate we can refer to it as jacob breeding animals) by jacob with the usage of the rods (streaked or speckled or spotted flock born after all of laban's streaked or speckled or spotted male/female goats and dark colored lamb were removed by laban in 35. So there is no way for jacob to breed spotted, streaked, speckled male/female goats or dark colored lambs without the rods because he does not have access to those specific flocks (please pay close attention to the type of flocks don't generalize that were removed) as of V 35.).If you read 40 (FYI: I added grouping to the quote to help with understanding of my point);

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NIV 40 Jacob set apart the young of the flock by themselves (group 1), but made the rest (group 2) face the streaked and dark-colored animals that belonged to Laban (group 3). Thus he made separate flocks for himself and did not put them with Laban’s animals.

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Jacob separated animals facing flocks toward laban's streaked and dark-colored animals (here we see two groups laban's streaked and dark-colored animals and the flocks facing laban's streaked and dark-colored animals(yellow and green groups). It is 2 separate groups facing each other but both of these 2 groups are laban's). We also see another group of young animals that jacob breed being separated by themselves (jacob's new flock the orange group).Next we will see another factor in how jacob separated them (other than the 3 groups).

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NIV 41 Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches,

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Here we see that jacob favored using the strong cattle when he was breeding. Group 1 (the young and strong animals).Next we see the weak set aside and not used to breed.

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NIV 42 but if the animals were weak, he would not place them there. So the weak animals went to Laban and the strong ones to Jacob.

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Facts: Here we see that jacob didn't use weak flock to breed (no rods used so its not technically breeding) animals in v 42. There is no description of the weak animals mating either. We also know that the weak flocks that were present (not sure if more were born) were given to laban as per v 42 and the strong to jacob. WRT (group 2) and (group 3) from v 40, (group 2) being the the group of weak flock (according to 42 since he didn't use them to breed) facing the streaked and dark-colored animals (since they were present per v 40 as well) and (group 3) being the streaked and dark-colored animals of laban's (from v 40). Conclusion/Contradiction described: Streaked and dark-colored animals were present during jacob's breeding event as per v 40. IF laban removed the "male goats that were streaked or spotted, and all the speckled or spotted female goats (all that had white on them) and all the dark-colored lambs" in v 35 how is this possible LATER IN TIME for there to be streaked and dark-colored animals present during jacob's breeding event in 37-42?We can argue that these are separate breeding events but 40 is still linked to a single breeding event from 37-39. So we come back to the same conclusion. All we're doing is reinterpreting the story due to the contradiction. OR we can go with my other interpretation. Just because he was a con artist does not mean he was conning this time around. The only issue with that interpretation is that it makes 35-36 a bit rocky. Either we remove the contradiction or we add meaning to 35-36 that is really not present. These are both interpretations.Anyway it does not matter because I am perfectly fine with deeming this story and all of those surrounding jacob as not god inspired scripture and that they were just added in to show how awesome god is to his faithful people.Edited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : err

Im not trying to make jacob look angelic lol. I'm done with that all that has been understood. Jacob was a punk. Ref post 114.

No. I am responding to your post. I stand by what I post at all times unless it is refuted. Several things have been refuted and I am accepting of those points. When I debate I through pawns out there in order to attack the issue (I thought maybe this will float but I was not extremely confident). Those were just pawns as I noted to CS that it was all side noise. In cases where I did not say your point was moot/or another persons point was moot I accepted their argument. If I responded to a person and didn't answer all points that is because I took the points I didn't answer or respond to as my point being refuted. Hence the same for this post. This post you are now posting makes it seem like you didn't understand what I was saying at all in prev post. Ref to post 114. Edited by Alias, : err

Paulk your 2 interpretations are just 2 interpretations just like mainstream thought is just thought. They manipulate the text. You are making up your own stories. You don't KNOW your claims are true, you argue they are true and neither of your made up interpretations clean up the story any better than my interpretation even though you claim one of them is a solution. They both make all kinds of assumptions. My interpretation has no contradiction it just simply reads 35 as Jacob removing the animals which works fine with 36 and 32 per their agreement (just creates grammatical issue because 35 and 36 use he vs names which makes sense due to translating from ancient to new languages). Another thing, your interpretation creates a bigger issue for literalists than mine. I will just disagree with you happily. Ref last paragraph of 114 for my closing thoughts.Edited by Alias, : ErrEdited by Alias, : ErrEdited by Alias, : ErrEdited by Alias, : No reason given.Edited by Alias, : No reason given.Edited by Alias, : No reason given.

If we go by that thought, that perhaps there were other streaked, spotted, colored animals like sheep present there is no reason to think a con happened because in 37-43 it does not mention what animals jacob breed. It's just streaked, speckled, spotted strong animals. What we see now is simply miss-treatment of jacob by laban.

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Then Jacob made more colored animals with the colored wood, and had them face the colored animals that were still Labans, which would be the sheep.

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Well we don't know that the rods were used by jacob to breed a new kind. Jacob could have been using them to encourage mating vs breeding a new kind. Its reasonable to say jacob breed streaked, speckled, or spotted strong sheep (the speckled and spotted sheep were not removed by laban from earlier as you noted and he had access to streaked and dark colored animals in 40 since a group of animals were being faced toward them. Some of those streaked animals could have been sheep so he could have used those and this idea is based on the text). The text does not mention otherwise (just streaked speckled spotted young strong animals born from 39.). and we don't want to add info if we can avoid it. This interpretation is yet another 1 and seems very sound. Edited by Alias, : ErrEdited by Alias, : ErrEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : add

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I acknowledge that there is an ambiguity about who does what in verse 35. I think the ambiguity is resolvable, but there is no need to address that issue here.

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There is no such ambiguity in verse 36. If you think there is a translation error, you need to dig that out instead of just assuming there is one. But there is no facial ambiguity.

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I agree with you.

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There is simply no way that Jacob set three day's journey to separate himself from Jacob. You cannot replace the "he" and "himself" and get any kind of sensible thought. The text clearly refers to Laban moving. Further, it is clear, regardless of who took the sheep in verse 35, that those sheep are not included in "the rest of Laban's flocks".

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I agree with you.

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That claim is laughable and false. By your own admission, your interpretation requires you to denounce the entire Laban/Jacob story as false, uninspired, and not proper scripture. Fundamentalists on the other hand just chalk up the birthing of spotted cattle from non-spotted parent cattle to God's intervention. As is evidenced from the commentary I cited, fundies don't have much of a problem with Jacob's breeding experiment.

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Ref post 121-124 and follow those. CS has presented a better interpretation of the contradiction I kept mentioning, and we are elaborating on that now. I've pointed out some good info as well with respect to his point that I am not sure he realized when he made his post. IT does seem very sound overall. It seems like a good literal reading of the story, it does not hurt literalists in the end, it has no contradictions, no con and laban is an ass in the end (perhaps I was wrong again when I said it was not god inspired lets just keep following a long this line of thought in those posts and see where it takes us).. Edited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : err

The branches are not sparkled spotted or streaked they re white. It does not make sense by that logic. Also if you read 42 it reads 2 different ways. 1 way it is as you say that the branches were placed in front so they mate sparkled spotted or streaked (even though the branches are white so that's confusing but I get it.).Another way to read 42 is that the branches were put in front of the animals so they would mate in front of them as if to influence them to mate (same with 39). Then you get the sparkled spotted streaked animals (sheep) since that's their species and kind.

CS, please don't talk to me like I'm an idiot. I have a bachelor's degree in applied science. I have also studied the bible since I was about 10 which is roughly 22 years. Typically I try to be humble for the sake of respect. I see your point but it's 1 thought. FYI: main stream thoughts are always changed. I'm offering you another good argument using all the same facts. One thing you should learn is everything is a argument. Stripes are not spots or speckles. Also stripes are different than streaks. another thing I think is important is to remember, we're reading manuscripts (copies of copies of copies probably very removed from the originals) not autographs plus translations so I highly doubt we're reading a spitting image if the original context.Edited by Alias, : ErEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : err

Dude, I've admitted when I am wrong each time. I have no problem admitting when I am wrong (even though that is merely limited to thought, so I could be right but within current logic at the time I was wrong). I've only ridiculed when the other started ridiculing FIRST. GET that RIGHT. Honestly this website so far in my experience is anti bible and that bothers me. I prefer OPEN thought vs mainstream thought. Mainstream thought originates from open thought. This thread is about biblical eugenics which is NOTHING MORE than a ARGUMENT (don't care if most of christendom accepts that interpretation or does not accept it). The moment I read that topic I thought to my self lets shatter this issue (just like CS noted glad he realized that is what I was doing even though he positioned it like it is a bad thing I disagree. I was purposely using the people in this thread to do their own research against their own claims. I don't care about typical processes I do things my way always. Eff main stream thought. If you are going to make a CLAIM and you want to have a conversation about it I am going to MAKE you do the research and post your thoughts exposing why YOU could be WRONG. You will see this is my tac in this thread. Don't care how you feel about it. Apparently the poster does not care about how others feel either hence his topic name...) to EXPOSE each and every part of this issue. I am not here for a member rating LOL. As much as Theodoric would like to hit that minus sign over there near my name it means nothing to me, I do find it hilarious though that he is doing that because I know he is doing it because I've done it to him (only because I didn't like his post and it only happened a couple times. He is hitting it like he has some sort of vengeance and he is trying to communicate it as well. Hilarious that he values the member rating at this website. HILARIOUS. Please do me a favor and all of you HIT the minus sign over by my name so I can have the lowest rating. Paapaa Pleeeaassee!!! Anyway, by throwing EVERYTHING at the issue (knowing I could be wrong) it has exposed (thank you for doing most of the research :-P) that we can read the text in a different way utilizing the very same facts (granted some are less plausible at this time WE don't have the autographs). AND it appears the poplar branches were white striped not speckled, spotted, or streaked. It does not make perfect sense for the white striped branches to have been used to breed speckled, spotted or streaked animals. Jacob had access to streaked and dark colored animals in v40 after laban removed the animals in 35. He also had access to speckled or spotted sheep from 32-35. It does not read anywhere that jacob used the white striped branches to make speckled, spotted and streaked animals but it does read that jacob used them so they would MATE in front of them. SO INSTEAD of PRESUMING biblical eugenics happened in gen 30 (or that jacob was conning which has also now been shown to be not necessary) I would conclude (based on facts) that jacob had access to the animals he needed to breed the ones that were born in 39-42. It also works with the flow of ch 31 and ch 29. Feel free to believe what you WANT though. AS I've said numerous times I'm perfectly fine disagreeing. Don't care if paulk finds that to be "protesting" it is actually just me keeping my own opinion utilizing free thought. Stop following mainstream thought and open your mind to free thought. Which is the only thing I've really been practicing in this thread not any of the other things you claim. If I agreed to something in a prev post that post is altered by this post because that was earlier in time. FYI: I will not be responding to post 130 you should find those answers here.Edited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : colorEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : err

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KJV 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

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NIV 41 Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches,

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Now were talking translation issues which I've mentioned. It uses the word heat in the NIV instead of conceive from the KJV...Check ref it can be used both ways which means we have ultimately two ways to read ch 30... In one hand the bible supports the idea of eugenics the other hand it does not.FYI: All "in heat" means is that they were fertile (the oocyte was properly positioned to be fertilized by the sperm) it does not mean they were horny... SO it was the perfect time to help them MATE.About ridicule, go back and look. Post 33. You started it just like paul and CS.FYI: I answered all your questions in 132 (Again you trash talk.) You didn't blow any thing up.My trash talk resp = "you just made a bunch of assertions that show you to not be reading my posts that well".And if we follow the posts from 33 this type of thing escalated. Now it is escalating again. Learn to be respectful. IF you read my last sentence in 132 this is what I said about your post 130... Edited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : errEdited by Alias, : urlEdited by Alias, : err

I've admitted when I'm wrong. In cases where it has yet to be shown I'm wrong there is nothing to admit. Hence your last post. Its all your interpretation.The animals didn't mate until they were in front of the branches hence the interpretation that it helped them mate.

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38 Then he placed the peeled branches in all the watering troughs, so that they would be directly in front of the flocks when they came to drink. When the flocks were in heat and came to drink,

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39 they mated in front of the branches. And they bore young that were streaked or speckled or spotted.

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Branches in front of animals and when in heat and came to drink THEN THEY MATED

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41 Whenever the stronger females were in heat, Jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so they would mate near the branches,

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The females were in heat, jacob would place the branches in the troughs in front of the animals so THEY WOULD MATE near the branchesIn both cases the branches were there and they came in front of the branches AND THEN THEY MATED... READ...Edited by Alias, : ERR