Biblical Genetics

Mike Lynch and colleagues published a paper that is devastating to thousands of past studies on natural selection. By sequencing DNA from multiple natural populations over several years, they showed that the net effect of natural selection is “zero” for most genetic variants. They caution that selection pressures in the natural world fluctuate. This cause the chromosomal targets of selection to shift over time, etc., meaning that many thousands of scientific studies that found evidence for natural selection are probably wrong. This paper is a gold mine of quotes, so Dr Rob quotes it extensively.

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Neanderthals got their name from a valley that was, in turn, named after a beloved pastor and hymnwriter named Joachim Neander. Thus, since their first discovery, they have been associated with Christianity, believe it or not. Problem is, Neanderthals have been consistently used as arguments against the very foundation of Christianity: the Bible. Can we incorporate these enigmatic people into any sort of biblical history? If so, how? Dr Rob gives his solution here. Neanderthals are a post-Flood people group, descendants of Adam and Eve, and descendants of Noah. There were fully human, but also highly mutated.

Thumbnail photo by Jakub Hałun  Model of Homo neanderthalensis man in The Natural History Museum, Vienna – via Wikimedia Commons. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homo_Sapiens,_Cro-Magnon_1_The_Natural_History_Museum_Vienna,_20210730_1223_1272.jpg.

There are two conflicting genealogies of Jesus in the New Testament. Anyone can see that the name lists in Matthew 1 and Luke 3 are not at all similar. Worse, 1 Chronicles 3 adds a THIRD conflicting genealogy for a pivotal person in these lists, Zerubbabel, the first governor of Judah after they were restored from the Babylonian Captivity. In this episode, Dr. Rob presents a logical answer to the problem that follows Old Testament law and basic logic and that does not have to invoke improbable circumstances. The key is realizing that Matthew is probably not a genealogy. Instead, it is a list of the rightful kings of Judah. Jesus, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, was the rightful king and a descendant of David. His kingship and his descent from David are both attested to in the New Testament.

In this, the 7th episode in our series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob takes us deep into the genealogy of the nation of Edom. This was a people/tribe/kingdom that existed south of the Dead Sea and southeast of the kingdom of Judah, which dominated Edom for several centuries. There are several textual mysteries in Edom’s data, but they can be solved satisfactorily if we think through the issues carefully.

Video Link:

https://youtu.be/OTj_P8P1v6Q

In this, the 6th episode on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains where the nation of Edom came from, how they tie into the main biblical story, and how to handle several tricky textual problems in Genesis 36.

In this, the 5th episode in our series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains the origins of the nations that surrounded (and still surround) Israel. He explains who the Philistines, the Phoenicians, the Aramaeans, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites were while adding lots of interesting little factoids that help us better understand the Bible.

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In this fourth installment in a series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob works through three challenging details that must be overcome if one is to use those genealogies to build a chronology of biblical history: how to link Genesis 5 and 11, how old Terah was when Abram left Haran, and how old Abram was when God made the “Promise”.

In this third installment in our series on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains why the data in Genesis 5 and 11 are so important. These are not just lists of names. The added ages allows us to piece together a timeline of biblical history. Problem is, you can’t directly connect the two passages. A several-year ambiguity is created when you try. There are other interesting factoids that pop out when one studies the chronogenealogies, so you will enjoy this episode much.

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In this second installment on biblical genealogy, Dr Rob explains why all those names (or at least most of them) in the Bible are so important. This should be encouraging to anyone who struggles to read the Bible for comprehension.

This is the first in a multi-part series on biblical genealogies. To understand what we are dealing with, we first need to know that there are two completely different types of name lists in the Bible. The first, an ancestor tree is easy. Ancestor trees are balanced and have a known number of people at each level. Even better, nearly all biblical ancestor trees only list fathers, so there is but one person at each level. The second, descendent trees, are the stuff of genealogical nightmares. Dr Rob makes it all easy.

Here are some helpful images.

2. A descendant tree:

3. A mixed tree: