Why would a man be given a new name?

The Old Testament genealogies continue to stretch onward. The next well known name in the list is that of Abram, or Abraham. In order to begin research into his background, I'll again start with the primary source, the Biblical account. This starts in Genesis 11:26, but I will skip a few verses to Genesis 12:1-9:

Now the LORD said to Abram,
            “Go forth from your country,
            And from your relatives
            And from your father’s house,
            To the land which I will show you;
And I will make you a great nation,
            And I will bless you,
            And make your name great;
            And so you shall be a blessing;
And 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 will be blessed.”
So Abram went forth as the LORD had spoken to him; and Lot went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan. Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him. Then he proceeded from there to the mountain 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 the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD. Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the Negev.

Transition to Genesis 17:1-5:

Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him,

          "I am God Almighty;
          Walk before Me, and be blameless.

I will establish My covenant between Me and you,
            And I will multiply you exceedingly."
Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying,
"As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you,
            And you will be the father of a multitude of nations.
No longer shall your name be called Abram,
            But your name shall be Abraham;
            For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations."

But the name of Abraham is not confined to Genesis alone. Other books in the Old Testament name him (the following instances are not exhaustive, and this does not include the New Testament yet). There is no mistake about the name being belonging to one with a different story:

• Exodus 2:23-24, "Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
• Abraham - portrayed as a historical man.
• Why would God remember a covenant with a man who never lived?
• Why would God relate a detailed covenant of blessing and land (Genesis 12:1-9) to a man who never lived?
• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--this list of names is replicated numerous times in the Old Testament, indicating that the names must have been rather important to the Israelite people, and to God in speaking with the nation.
• Why would God hearing the groanings of Israel under bondage have anything to do with men (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) who never lived?

• Exodus 3:3-6, "So Moses said, 'I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.' When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, 'Moses, Moses!' And he said, 'Here I am.' Then He said, 'Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.' He said also, 'I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God."
• Abraham - portrayed as a historical man.
• God identifies Himself as both the God of Moses' own father, and the God of Abraham.
• How could the father of someone be paralleled with a man who never lived?
• Why would Moses fear if God was identifying himself as the God of imaginary people? Who would fear the lord of an imaginary world?
• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--again the same genealogical list. 

• Exodus 6:1-5, "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for under compulsion he will let them go, and under compulsion he will drive them out of his land.' God spoke further to Moses and said to him, 'I am the LORD; and I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name, LORD, I did not make Myself known to them. I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned. Furthermore I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, because the Egyptians are holding them in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant.'"
• Abraham - portrayed as a historical man.
• Why would God say He had appeared to imaginary individuals as Almighty God through their imaginary lives?
• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--again the same genealogical list.
• Why would God Himself reference the sojournings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when these stories were imaginary?
• Why would God Himself say that He made a covenant with imaginary people?

• Deuteronomy 1:6-8, "'The LORD our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying, "You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Turn and set your journey, and go to the hill country of the Amorites, and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, in the hill country and in the lowland and in the Negev and by the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. See, I have placed the land before you; go in and possess the land which the LORD swore to give to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to them and their descendants after them."'"
• Abraham - portrayed as a historical man.
• Why would God map out a land promised in an imaginary covenant/with imaginary people?
• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--again the same genealogical list. 
• Why would the nation of Israel be identified as the descendants of imaginary men?
• How could the sons of Israel possibly be motivated to go and conquer a land promised to them merely through men whom they knew to be fictitious?
• How could the nation of Israel really look upon a land promised to imaginary individuals?

• Deuteronomy 9:25-29, "'So I fell down before the LORD the forty days and nights, which I did because the LORD had said He would destroy you. I prayed to the LORD and said, "O Lord GOD, do not destroy Your people, even Your inheritance, whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand. Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; do not look at the stubbornness of this people or at their wickedness or their sin. Otherwise the land from which You brought us may say, 'Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which He had promised them and because He hated them He has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.' Yet they are Your people, even Your inheritance, whom You have brought out by Your great power and Your outstretched arm."'"
• Abraham - portrayed as a historical man.
• Why would Moses, the current leader of Israel, plead with God turn aside His wrath by remembering imaginary individuals? How could this possibly be a persuasive argument on Moses' part?
• Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob--again the same genealogical list. 
• Why would Israel be considered God's people, if so rebellious, unless the stories about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were real?
• Why would the land of Canaan/the Canaanites be likely to mock that God was unable to fulfill promises He never made, or made merely to imaginary people?

"Science Talk" on Origins - Why/How a wet planet?

Moon vs. Earth NASA photo (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter)

National Geographic Article


Scientific Method: Observation, Hypothesis, Prediction, Experiment, Conclusion
 

Some problems with the "science" in the National Geographic article:

1. Non-observational "science" - The researchers did not observe the appearance of water on the Earth.
2. Non-experimental "science" - The researchers cannot repeat their ideas with attempts to generate oceans on other planets.
3. Calling research "science", even though it breaks the chain of scientific reasoning.
4. Calling originators of this research "scientists", even though they don't follow the scientific method.
5. Reporting "thought"s, "suspect"s, "may"s, and "suggest"s as good quality science.

Some problems with original Science article: Adam R. Sarafian, Sune G. Nielsen, Horst R. Marschall, Francis M. McCubbin, Brian D. Monteleone, "Early accretion of water in the inner solar system from a carbonaceous chondrite–like source." Science 31 Oct 2014: Vol. 346, Issue 6209, pp. 623-626.

1. "Astronomers know that interstellar water is abundantly available to young planetary systems—our blue planet collected (or accreted) plenty of it." - Logical fallacy here: Hasty Generalization (what other "young planets" besides the solitary example of Earth?)
2.  "Sarafian et al. measured water isotopes in meteorite samples from the asteroid Vesta for clues to the timing of water accretion. Their samples have the same isotopic fingerprint of volatiles as both Earth and carbonaceous chondrites, some of the most primitive meteorites. The findings suggest that Earth received most of its water relatively early from chondrite-like bodies." - Logical fallacy here: False Dilemma (what if the meteorites were generated by the Earth?)
3. "The H, C, and N isotopic similarities between eucrites, Earth, and potentially the Moon allow us to place important limits [emphasis added] on the timing of water delivery to the inner solar system. Earth cannot provide timing [emphasis added] of water delivery because it is currently geologically active. The Moon likely accreted its water at or before ~200 million years after CAIs, or around 4367 Ma (3, 23), but such a constraint is not very rigorous, given that all the planets in the inner solar system are thought to have fully accreted by this time. Eucrites provide a substantially earlier data point, which suggests that the source of Earth’s water was present in the inner solar system very early, ~8 to 20 million years after CAIs (15, 16). This evidence moves back the time at which the terrestrial water reservoir is thought to exist and have been available for accretion. Additionally, this reservoir was present between 1 and 2.4 AU and perhaps throughout the inner solar system. Late-stage addition of water to planets from outer parts of the solar system is therefore unlikely to have affected the water budgets of inner solar system bodies. Thus, the bulk of the highly volatile elements H, C, and N now present in Earth and the asteroid belt most likely arrived from a local source (i.e., carbonaceous chondrite–like material) very early in solar system history. The limited variation in δD over a large range of heliocentric distances (1 to 2.4 AU) supports the notion of a uniform source of water in the inner solar system." - Logical fallacy here: Arguing from Ignorance (there is way too much uncertainty to write a scientific research paper)

Whoah (slow down) . . . double-check the Hebrew.

Yes, that may have seemed a pretty quick write-up (it actually took hours). But I do need to check whether some of those thoughts on Gen. 1:1-30 were stretching the Hebrew meaning.

English to Hebrew to Genesis:

"Earth" - hā-’ā-reṣ, wə-hā-’ā-reṣ, ’e-reṣ, bā-’ā-reṣ, hā-’ă-ḏā-māh

• hā-’ā-reṣ (Strong's 776) - in order of priority, it can mean whole earth, land/territory, or ground surface

  Gen. 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

  Gen. 1:11, "Then God said, 'Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind' . . . "

  Gen. 1:15, "'and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth' . . ."

  Gen. 1:20, ". . . 'and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.'"

  Gen. 1:24, "'Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind' . . ."

  Gen. 1:26, "'Let Us make man in Our image . . . let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'"

  Gen. 1:28, "God blessed them; and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it . . .'"

  Gen. 1:29, "'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed . . .'"

  Gen. 1:30, "'and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant . . .'"

• wə-hā-’ā-reṣ (Strong's 776) - same root word as "hā-’ā-reṣ"
  

  Gen. 1:2, "The earth was formless and void . . ."

• ’e-reṣ (Strong's 776) - same root word as "hā-’ā-reṣ"

  Gen. 1:10, "God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas . . ."

  Gen. 1:24, "'Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind' . . ."

• bā-’ā-reṣ (Strong's 776) - same root word as "hā-’ā-reṣ"

  Gen. 1:22, ". . . 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.'"

  [(12/24/2015)
  
  Gen. 6:17, "'Behold, I, even I am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish.'"
  
  
  Exodus 20:4, "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth."

]

• hā-’ă-ḏā-māh (Strong's 127) - has the same origin as "adam"; in order of priority, it can mean tilled ground, property, earthen material, or ground surface
  

  Gen. 1:25, "God made . . . everything that creeps on the ground after its kind . . ."

Has the Genesis account of creation endured?

Gen. 1:1, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."

• Yes, we still see the starry heavens above.
• Yes, we live on the Earth.

Gen. 1:2, "The earth was formless and void . . ."

• Yes, there are many accounts of creation with the Creator fashioning a relatively "void" world

Gen. 1:3, "Then God said, 'Let there be light . . .'"

• Yes, we definitely still see visible light today.

Gen. 1:4, ". . . and God separated the light from the darkness."

• Yes, we don't see light everywhere.
• We still "see" darkness.

Gen. 1:5, "God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and morning, one day."

• Yes, we still have a name for lighted time (not talking about the exact word here)--"day" in English.
• Yes, we still name the darkened time--"night" in English.
• Yes, we still combine one lighted time and one darkened time into a single unit--"a day" in English. We talk about six days until Christmas, not six days and six nights.

Gen. 1:6, "Then God said, 'Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.'"

• Sounds like this is talking about an empty space of air, or sky, surrounding the Earth (see Gen. 7:11), but some uncertainty, as the opening of the "floodgates", or "windows", of heaven in the account of Noah's Flood may have changed the nature of this "expanse".
• We do have water on or in the earth separated from water above our heads (which we see fall as rain today).

Gen. 1:9, "Then God said, 'Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear . . .'"

• Yes, we still have much dry land separated from surrounding water.

Gen. 1:10, "God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas . . ."

• Yes, we still name the dry land--"earth", "ground", or "land" in English.
• Yes, we still name large bodies of water visible from the Earth's surface--"seas", or "oceans" in English.

 . . . (to be continued) . . . (unless everyone is bored to death)