I recently received mail from a couple who left the Church of Christ after having read internet articles, which convinced them that the doctrine of biblical inerrancy is untenable. They are presently experiencing intensive efforts by the elders of their former congregation to lead them back into the "fold." Since my internet articles were among those that they had studied, they have asked me to reply to some of the apologetic efforts that their former elders have made to convince them that the Bible is indeed the inspired, inerrant "word of God." In this series, I will be replying to some worn-out, frequently discredited arguments that these elders have recycled in correspondence with their former members.

The question of how many children of Israel went into Egypt with Jacob was raised in these discussions. Was it 70, as claimed in Genesis 46:27, or was it 75, as Stephen claimed in his speech in Acts 7:14? I will address this question in Part Two of this series, but first I want to show that there are some serious problems in what the book of Genesis says about the descent of Jacob's extended family into Egypt. Seeing this problem first should help readers see that the "solution" to the 70/75 problem is not quite as simple as these church elders would have their former members believe.

The first problem I will present concerns the accuracy of Genesis 46 in its listing of the family members who made the trip into Egypt with Jacob. According to Genesis 46:26, sixty-six members of Jacob's family allegedly accompanied him on this trip, and three (Joseph and his sons Manasseh and Ephraim) were already in Egypt (Gen. 46:27), so that a total of 70 Israelites, when Jacob is counted, were in Egypt at that time. All of these people were individually listed in verses 8-24, and among them were Hezron and Hamul (v:12), the great-grandsons of Jacob through Perez, one of his twin grandsons born to Tamar, who had tricked Jacob's son Judah into impregnating her (Gen. 38:12-30). The problem is that if Judah actually did have two grandsons who had already been born to Perez at the time of Jacob's descent into Egypt, then other sections of the biblical narrative cannot be numerically correct.

We can determine this from certain chronological information given about Joseph, Jacob's son who was sold into Egypt by his jealous brothers. Joseph was seventeen years old when his brothers betrayed him (Gen. 37:2). Immediately after the events of the betrayal were related, the Genesis writer said, "And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went down from his brethren, and turned in to a certain Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; and he took her and went in unto her" (38:1-2). Now if this happened "at that time," what else can we believe except that the writer meant that Judah married the Canaanite woman at the time following the selling of Joseph? To argue otherwise is to render meaningless a transitional expression ("at that time") that the writer was obviously using to let his readers know when Judah's marriage had occurred. It had occurred at that time, when Joseph was sold into Egypt. This meaning of the expression "at that time" becomes rather obvious when the final verses of Genesis 37 are read in the same context with 38:1.

Genesis 37:31 Then they [Joseph's brothers] took Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe in the blood. 32 They had the long robe with sleeves taken to their father, and they said, "This we have found; see now whether it is your son's robe or not." 33 He recognized it, and said, "It is my son's robe! A wild animal has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt torn to pieces." 34 Then Jacob tore his garments, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days. 35 All his sons and all his daughters sought to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and said, "No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning." Thus his father bewailed him. 36 Meanwhile the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard. 38:1 It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and settled near a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah. 2 There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; he married her and went in to her.

The expression "at that time" was obviously intended to date Judah's departure from his brothers so that readers would know when this happened. Unless it refers back to the event just mentioned, i. e., the sale of Joseph into Egypt, it becomes a meaningless expression, and I am sure that not even biblical inerrantists would try to make the expression mean anything else were it not for the chronological problem that I will be explicating below.

As Judah's story was told in this chapter, his Canaanite wife conceived and bore a son named Er, then conceived again and bore a son named Onan, and finally conceived and bore a third son named Shelah (vv:2-5). Er grew up and married Tamar, but before the marriage had produced children, Er did something to offend God, who then killed him. Under the requirements of Levirate law (which in this story would be an anachronism) Judah told Er's brother Onan to "go in unto [his] brother's wife... and raise up seed to [his] brother." Onan went in to his brother's wife, but, knowing that the child produced would not be legally his, he "spilled [his seed] on the ground." This so angered God that he killed Onan too (Gen. 38:6-10). Judah, fearful that tragedy would befall his last son Shelah, urged Tamar to "remain a widow in [her] father's house till Shelah [his] son be grown up... lest he also die like his brethren" (v:11).

Tamar obligingly retired to her father's house, and "in the process of time" (v:12) Judah's Canaanite wife died, at which time Judah went up to his sheep-shearers at Timnah to be comforted. Meanwhile, realizing that Judah's son Shelah was grown but that she had not yet been given to him in Levirate marriage, Tamar posed as a prostitute and conspired to trick Judah into impregnating her. The plan worked, and Tamar subsequently gave birth to twin sons, Perez and Zerah (vv:13-30). It was this Perez who fathered Hezron and Hamul, who were listed in Genesis 46:12 as two of the sixty-six members of Jacob's family who accompanied him into Egypt.

So what is the point of all this? To see the significance of it, we have to think in reasonable terms of how many years would have had to pass for all the events in Genesis 38 to happen. If we assume that Judah married his Canaanite wife the day after he and his brothers had sold Joseph into Egypt, and if we further assume that Judah's wife became pregnant the very night of their wedding, and then if we further assume that Judah's second son, Onan, was conceived immediately after Er's birth, this would have made the brothers about a year apart in their ages. Now, if we suppose that Er married Tamar immediately upon reaching puberty, say, when he was a mere 12 years old, and if we further suppose that Onan went into Tamar when he too was only 12 years old, then Onan's death would have occurred about fourteen years after the selling of Joseph into Egypt, because Onan's puberty (at age twelve) could not have occurred until about fourteen years after Judah's marriage to his Canaanite wife.

There is a clear indication that more than just one year separated Onan and Shelah, because Judah implored Tamar to remain a widow in her father's house "till Shelah [his] son be grown up" (v:11). Exactly how many years separated them we don't know, but the Genesis writer certainly implied that more than just a short while separated Onan's death and Tamar's conspiracy to trick Judah into impregnating her, because the writer bridged the interval by saying that "in the process of time" Judah's wife died. Surely this is not an expression he would have used if only a few weeks or even a few months had passed. Furthermore, the writer said that Tamar had seen that "Shelah was grown up" (v:14). Both of these statements imply the passage of a considerable period of time, for certainly Tamar would not have had to see that Shelah was grown up if he had been only a year or so younger than Onan. She would have known without "seeing" that he was grown. There is even a textual implication that many years separated Onan and Shelah, for the writer said that Judah's wife bore Shelah "at Chezib" (v:5). This place is mentioned nowhere else in the Bible, and some scholars think that this is because it was not a place. They think that the Hebrew word kezib was actually derived from kazab, meaning "to stop flowing." If so, the implication is that Judah's wife gave birth to Shelah and then ceased having her menstrual cycle or in other words experienced menopause, and this is exactly what the NEB understands the word to mean. Lamsa's translation from the Peshitta text renders the verse, "and after she bore him [Shelah] she stopped bearing." These translations are consistent with Judah's request that Tamar return to her father's house and wait until his son Shelah "be grown up" (v:11), a definite implication that Shelah at the time was considerably younger than Onan.

To make my point, however, it isn't necessary to assume that Shelah was "considerably younger" than Onan. Let's just assume that only two years had passed between Onan's death and Tamar's realization that "Shelah was grown up" (v:14). Let's further assume that Tamar, after realizing that "Shelah was grown up," immediately tricked Judah into impregnating her. Even at that, her twin sons, Perez and Zerah, could not have been born until about seventeen years after Judah's marriage to his Canaanite wife, whom he had married "at that time" (the selling of Joseph into Egypt). Let's now be generous to biblical inerrantists and assume that Perez, like his half-brothers Er and Onan, had married immediately upon reaching puberty at age twelve. Let's further assume that he immediately impregnated his wife, whoever she was, and that she also gave birth to twin sons, Hezron and Hamul, who only days after their birth accompanied their great-grandfather Jacob into Egypt with sixty-four other members of the family clan. Even this would put the births of Hezron and Hamul at least thirty years after the selling of Joseph into Egypt. This figure is arrived at by the following formula: 2 (the time it took Judah's wife to give birth to Er and Onan) + 11 (the time required after Onan's birth for Er to attain puberty) + 1 (the time needed after Er's death for Onan to attain puberty) + 2 (the time for Shelah to grow up and Tamar to realize that Judah did not intend to give her to Shelah in marriage) + 1 (the time for Tamar to trick Judah and then carry her twins to term) + 12 (the time for Hezron to attain puberty and marry) + 1 (the time for Hezron's wife to carry her assumed twins to term). The numbers add up to thirty, and surely no one would seriously argue that all of this could have occurred within a time frame of less than thirty years. Reasonable people, who have no pet theories to protect, would even agree that a much longer period of time would have passed. To add ten or even fifteen years to our hypothetical thirty would not be at all unreasonable, because the thirty-year figure is predicated on the assumptions that (1) all events happened in rapid succession, that (2) three brothers all attained puberty at twelve and became sexually active at that age, that (3) one of the twelve year olds was sophisticated enough sexually to know how to prevent pregnancy by coitus interruptus, and that (4) one of the three immediately impregnated his mate. That any one of these happened is very unlikely, but to believe that they all happened, one would have to be naively credulous.

With the chronology in this period of Judah's life agreed upon, let's now return to Joseph. As previously noted, he was seventeen when his brothers sold him into Egypt (Gen. 37:2). Through a long, complicated process that I will be as brief as possible in relating, Joseph found favor with the Egyptian pharaoh and was made food administrator. If the Bible record is historically correct, Joseph was in Egypt thirteen years before this promotion occurred, because he was "thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt" (Gen 41:46). Joseph was put into this administrative position as a result of his dream interpretations in which he had predicted seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. When he made himself known to his brothers, who had come into Egypt to find food during the famine, Joseph said in identifying himself, "For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years, in which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest" (Gen. 45:6). So if Joseph was 30 years old when he "stood before pharaoh" and if seven years of plenty and two years of famine had passed when he revealed his identity to his brothers, then he was only thirty-nine at this time. In other words, Joseph's reunion with his brothers occurred only twenty-two years after he was sold into Egypt. He then sent his brothers back into Canaan to bring his father and family into Egypt where there would be food to sustain them during the famine (Gen. 45:19-28; 46:1-27).

The problem should be apparent by now. Between the selling of Joseph into Egypt and his reunion with his brothers, certain events had allegedly transpired in Judah's life that required a bare minimum of thirty years, and, as I indicated, we have to stretch every detail of the story to confine these events to only thirty years. Yet during all of this time only twenty-two years had passed in the life of Joseph. How could that have happened?

The conclusion is inescapable: either the events that the Genesis writer recorded in the life of Joseph are not chronologically accurate or else the events he recorded in Judah's life are not chronologically accurate. It is impossible for his chronology of both lives to be numerically correct.

Inerrantists who try to "resolve" this discrepancy will often comment on the assumptions that I made in presenting it, but I trust readers will see that these were all assumptions that would give inerrantists maximum advantage to show that there is no discrepancy in the time frames that Genesis presented in the lives of Judah and his brother Joseph. In other words, I didn't ask readers to assume that Er and his brothers were 16 or 17 or older when they began their sexual activities; I suggested instead that we assume that they were just 12, which would be about the earliest age of puberty imaginable for brothers maturing at different times. This made the time passage in Genesis 38 much shorter than it would otherwise have been and thereby made it closer to the time span in Joseph's life during the same interval. Still with this advantage, inerrantists are left with a gap of about eight years that they must explain. How could it be possible that about 30 years had passed for Judah in Canaan while only 22 years were passing for Joseph in Egypt?

There is a clear chronological problem here.

Inerrantists, however, will never admit that there are mistakes in the Bible, so they have leaned over backwards and twisted themselves into verbal pretzels to try to show that there is no chronological discrepancy in the Genesis stories of Judah and Joseph. I will now present the "explanations" that inerrantists have resorted to in trying to explain this discrepancy and show why they will not work.

The "dischronologized" explanation: Some have argued that the expression "at that time" in Genesis 38:1 referred not to the betrayal of Joseph by his brothers but to events earlier than that. As I showed above, however, by quoting this verse within the context of the final verses of Genesis 37, the expression "at that time" was obviously referring to the selling of Joseph. The final verse of Genesis 37 says that the Midiantites sold Joseph into Egypt to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard, and then the very next verse says that "it came to pass at that time that Judah departed from his brothers and went down to Addulam," where he had all of the experiences told in chapter 38.

To show that the expression "at that time" had probable reference to the event mentioned just before it, we have only to look at other texts where this same chronological marker was used. In Genesis 21:22 the identical Hebrew expression was used. When examined in its context, we can see that it had obvious reference to events that were mentioned just before it.

Genesis 21:20 God was with the boy [Ishmael], and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt. 22 At that time Abimelech, with Phicol the commander of his army, said to Abraham, "God is with you in all that you do; 23 now therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my offspring or with my posterity....

Since there is no discrepancy involved, no one reading this would think that the expression "at that time" had reference to something that had happened years before Hagar had taken her and Abraham's son into the wilderness of Paran. Readers will readily agree that the passage was saying that Abimelech and Phicol approached Abraham at the time that Hagar got an Egyptian wife for Ishmael while they were living in the wilderness of Paran. In the same way, objective readers, who have no inerrancy axes to grind, should be able to see that Judah departed from his brothers (Gen. 38:1) at the time when he and his brothers had sold Joseph into Egypt.

Besides the rather obvious flow of this verse within its broader context, which told of Joseph's betrayal, there are other textual reasons to conclude that the Genesis writer was introducing events in the life of Judah by beginning them at the time when Joseph had been betrayed. To say that these events happened at some time before the plot of Joseph's brothers to sell him into Egypt would make "at that time" a meaningless--and even misleading--transitional marker. Some inerrantists will argue that Judah's marriage to the Canaanite women took place during the betrayal of Joseph, but if the marriage happened during the time of the plot against Joseph, what advantage do inerrantists gain? After all, they can't find anything in the story of Joseph's betrayal to indicate that he was in the pit, which his brothers had thrown him into, for any extended period of time. Indeed, the story indicates that his betrayal and selling both happened within a short period of time. The brothers threw Joseph into a pit that had no water in it (37:24). They sat down to eat bread and looked up and saw an Ishmaelite caravan coming (v:25). Judah suggested that they sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites (>v:27), so they sold Joseph to Midianite merchants (v:28). Then the brothers took Joseph's coat, dipped it in goat's blood, and took it to Jacob to deceive him into believing that Joseph was dead. Judah was specifically mentioned in the plot against Joseph, so if he was marrying a Canaanite woman "during" all this, he must have been able to be in two places at once.

I make this last observation, because the plot against Joseph happened at Dothan (v:17), which was located north of Samaria.

Genesis 37:13 And Israel [Jacob] said to Joseph, "Are not your brothers pasturing the flock at Shechem? Come, I will send you to them." He answered, "Here I am." 14 So he said to him, "Go now, see if it is well with your brothers and with the flock; and bring word back to me." So he sent him from the valley of Hebron. He came to Shechem, 15 and a man found him wandering in the fields; the man asked him, "What are you seeking?" 16 "I am seeking my brothers," he said; "tell me, please, where they are pasturing the flock." 17 The man said, "They have gone away, for I heard them say, 'Let us go to Dothan.'" So Joseph went after his brothers, and found them at Dothan.

As Genesis 38:1-2 shows, however, Judah met his wife when he visited the home of an Adullamite. Adullam was located miles away west of Jerusalem on the coastal plain of the Philistines. This was where David hid from Saul after fleeing into the land of the Philistines (1 Sam. 22:1).

Inerrantists can, of course, quibble--and probably will--and say that it was possible that an Adullamite was living in Samaria, but the story of Judah as told in Genesis 38 situated him in the general area of Adullam. After he had mourned the death of his Canaanite wife, for example, Judah went up to his sheep-shearers in Timnah (38:13) with his friend Hirah the Adullamite. Timnah was in the southern region of Judah, just a short distance north of Adullam but miles away from Dothan, which was up in the region that became Samaria. When Tamar heard that Judah was going to Timnah, she disguised herself as a prostitute and sat at the gate of Enaim (38:14), which was located between Adullam and Timnah. A map of Bronze-Age Palestine shows Timnah west of Jerusalem and Dothan some 60 miles northeast of it, and a map of David's flight from Saul shows that Adullam was located south of Timnah. In other words, everything about this story locates the events in Genesis 38 miles southwest of Dothan, where Joseph was betrayed by his brothers. How could Judah have been marrying a Canaanite woman (who lived some 60 miles away)"during" his participation in the betrayal of Joseph? And even if inerrantists could prove that the marriage did take place during the betrayal, they would gain nothing, because I have shown above that only a short period passed from the time that Joseph was thrown into the pit until he was sold to the Midianite caravan.

The geographical setting of Genesis 38 also shows the absurdity of the inerrantist quibble that this chapter was "dischronologized," because using that as an explanation to this discrepancy would require its proponents to say that Judah went to Adullam, 60 miles from where his father and brothers were living, married, started a family, began to acquire his own flocks and herds, and then neglected his own sheep in order to go back to Dothan to help his brothers "feed their father's sheep" (37:12) and was there long enought to help his brothers betray Joseph. Then he went back to Adullam and had the experience with Tamar. That is the kind of silly scenarios that inerrantists will resort to in order to cling to their untenable belief that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant "word of God.

If inerrantists still aren't convinced that their "dischronologized" quibble just won't pass muster, they should consider a grammatical element in the Hebrew text that should settle all doubt that the Genesis writer intended his readers to understand that he was relating events in a chronological order. Even in English, when a narrative text links events together with the conjunction and, readers instinctively recognize that the story is being told in chronological sequence, but in the case of the Hebrew text, we have more than just conventional narrative writing principles to let us know that the events in Genesis 38:1-2 were related in chronological sequence. Hebrew used what is called a "waw consecutive" to indicate that the narration of events was intended to be understood in consecutive order. In other words, the "waw consecutive" signaled that the second event followed the first event in a chronological order, the third event followed the second event in chronological order, and so on.

If inerrantists will check the Hebrew text, they will see that the "waw consecutive" was affixed to the verbs in Genesis 38:1-2. I will indicate the order by putting WC, for waw consecutive, in brackets after each verb where the waw consecutive was used.

Genesis 38:1 It came to pass [WC] at that time that Judah departed [WC] from his brothers, and [Judah] visited [WC] a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah. 2 And Judah saw [WC] there a daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua, and he married [WC] her and [he] went [WC] in to her.

Waw was a letter in the Hebrew alphabet, but it was also used as a conjunction, which was attached as a prefix to verbs. The Masoretic text of Genesis 38:1 and 2 will show that the waw was pointed with the petah to indicate its usage as a "waw consecutive." Hence, the text was saying Judah departed from his brothers and then he visited the Adullamite and then he saw there a Canaanite woman and then he married [took] her and then he went into her.

Another point that should be made is that Genesis 38:1 also begins with a "waw consecutive." Literally, the text begins, "And [WC] it was at time that went down Judah away from his brothers...." Hence was had a "waw consecutive" attached to it to indicate that the writer was indicating that this verb followed in consecutive order what had been said immediately before it. And what was said in the verse immediately before this?

Genesis 37:36 Now the Midianites had sold him [Joseph] in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard.

So the use of the "waw consecutive" in this passage shows that the writer intended his readers to understand that the Midianites sold Joseph into Egypt and then Judah departed from his brothers and then Judah visited an Adullamite and then Judah saw there a Canannite woman and then Judah married [took] her and then Judah went in to her. The narrative was obviously written in chronological sequence, and that would be evident even if Hebrew had not used the "waw consecutive" to signal that sequence.

Anyone who doesn't have an inerrancy axe to grind can read on through Genesis 38 and see that the writer was obviously using the "waw consecutive" to show that he was relating the events in chronological order.

Genesis 38:1 It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers and settled near a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah. 2 There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua; he married her and went in to her.

I have already analyzed the use of the "waw consecutive" in these verses, but notice now how the writer continued to use it as he told his story of Judah's life in the region of Addullam. The use of this conjunction is not always evident in English translations, which didn't always translate the "waw consecutive" as and, so I will again use [WC] to show where it was used in the narrative.

3 She conceived [WC] and bore [WC] a son; and he named [WC] him Er. 4 Again she conceived [WC] and bore [WC] a son whom she named [WC] Onan. 5 Yet again she bore [WC] a son, and she named [WC] him Shelah. She was [WC] in Chezib when she bore him. 6 Judah took [WC] a wife for Er his firstborn; her name was Tamar. 7 But Er, Judah's firstborn, was [WC] wicked in the sight of Yahweh, and Yahweh put him [WC] to death. 8 Then Judah said [WC] to Onan, "Go in to your brother's wife and perform [WC] the duty of a brother-in-law to her; raise up [WC] offspring for your brother." 9 But since Onan knew [WC] that the offspring would not be his, he spilled his semen on the ground whenever he went in to his brother's wife, so that he would not give offspring to his brother. 10 What he did [WC] was displeasing in the sight of Yahweh, and he put [WC] him to death also. 11 Then Judah said [WC] to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Remain a widow in your father's house until my son Shelah grows up"--for he feared that he too would die, like his brothers. So Tamar went [WC] to live in her father's house. 12 In course of time the wife of Judah, Shua's daughter, died [WC]; when Judah's time of mourning was [WC] over, he went up [WC] to Timnah to his sheepshearers, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite.

As I explained above, the reference to Timnah and Hirah the Adullamite shows the writer's intention to let readers know that these events were happening in the region of Adullam and not in the vicinity of Dothan, where Joseph's brothers betrayed him. More important, however, is the usage of the "waw consecutive," which clearly communicated that the author was relating events in a chronological sequence. Surely, no one would read this narrative and think that the writer was saying that Judah's wife gave birth to Er before she had conceived him or that she had given birth to Onan before she had conceived him or that Onan was born before Er or that Yahweh had killed Er before Er had done something displeasing to him, and so on. The same common sense should tell readers that the writer had also obviously meant earlier in his narrative that Joseph's brothers betrayed him, sold him into Egypt, and then at that time, Judah departed from his brothers and went down to Adullam, where he married a Canaanite woman and had all of the experiences related in the rest of the chapter. Those who argue that events were not related chronologically in this story quibble shamelessly for no other reason but to protect an inerrancy belief that is emotionally important to them.

The expression in Hebrew didn't really mean "at that time." Some inerrantists have argued that the Hebrew expression used in Genesis 38:1 didn't actually mean "at that time" but was just an expression that was idiomatically used to go from one story to another without intending any specific reference to when the new story began. To so argue, however, is to ignore a mountain of scholarship represented in the various translations that clearly indicate that the Hebrew expression that begins Genesis 38:1 meant "at that time." Here are twenty-two examples of English translations, which all indicated that the Hebrew expression meant "at that time" or its equivalent.

KHV: And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went down from his brethren....

NKJV: It came to pass at that time that Judah departed from his brothers....

ASV: And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went down from his brethren....

NASV: And it came about at that time, that Judah departed from his brothers....

RSV: It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers....

NRSV: It happened at that time that Judah went down from his brothers....

NIV: At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam....

NEB: About that time Judah departed from his brothers....

NAB: About that time, Judah parted from his brothers....

GNB: About that time, Judah left his brothers....

NCV: About that time, Judah left his brothers....

CEV: About that time, Judah left his brothers....

Darby's: And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went down from his brethren....

Amplified Bible: At that time Judah withdrew from his brothers....

Revised Berkeley Version: About that time Judah withdrew from his brothers....

Jerusalem Bible: It happened at that time that Judah left his brothers...

Lamsa's: And it came to pass at that time that Judah went down from his brothers....

Tyndale's: Now it fortuned at that time that Judah went from his brothers....

Moffatt's: It happened about then that Judah withdrew from his brothers....

Young's Literal: And it cometh to pass, at that time, that Judah goeth down from his brethren....

Hendricks Interlinear: And at time that went down Judah away from his brothers....

Hendricks Marginal: And it happened at that time that Judah went down away from his brothers....

Segond's French translation is even more emphatic in showing that the Hebrew expression made reference to a specific time.

En ce temps-là, Juda s’éloigna de ses frères et se retira vers un homme d’Adoullam, nommé Hira.

A quasi-literal translation of this verse would be, "In that time there, Judah distanced himself from his brothers and retired himself to a man of Adullum named Hira." The usage of là, highlighted in bold print, is what makes the reference to time more specific than it is in English translations. This word is an adverb that means there. A French speaker could say, "In that time, such and such happened," and the meaning would be clear, but when là is attached with a hyphen to temps [time], that makes the meaning much more specific. A hypothetical example would explain why. If a person bitten by a dog had called for police to investigate his complaint and upon their arrival, the police found several dogs on the scene, the police would probably ask which dog had done the biting. If so, the complainer would probably point at the dog and say, "Ce chien-là," which would mean "this dog there." It would be the speaker's way of saying, "This very dog," and would be much more specific than just saying, "Ce chien" [this dog].

The Old Testament, of course, was not written in French, but I have quoted the English translations and cited the specificity of the French version to show that there has been widespread agreement among Hebrew scholars that the three-word Hebrew expression that begins Genesis 38:1 meant "at that time," and the way that Segond translated it in French shows that a scholar who was knowledgeable enough in Hebrew to translate the Old Testament understood that the expression was very time specific. If the discrepancy that I have explicated in this article didn't exist, even biblical inerrantists would see this verse in the same way that I have presented it: Joseph's brothers sold him into Egypt, and then after that Judah departed from his brothers, went to Adullam, and had all of the experiences narrated in chapter 38.

The in-lumbis-patrum solution. Some inerrantists have been honest enough to admit that the chronological markers from Genesis 37:2 (the time of Joseph's betrayal) through Genesis 45:6 (the time of Joseph's reunion with his brothers) do not allow enough time for Judah to have had the grandsons (Hezron and Hamul) who were listed among members of Jacob's extended family, who went into Egypt went him. Hence, they resort to one of the most absurb "solutions" imaginable to this problem. They actually argue, with straight faces, that Hezron and Hamul had not yet been born when Jacob's family went into Egypt, and so they had gone into Egypt only in an in-lumbis-patrum sense. This is a Latin expression that meant "in the loins of the father," so those who resort to this explanation are quibbling that Hezron and Hamul did not literally go into Egypt but that they went only in the sense that they were still in the loins of their father waiting to be born later in Egypt.

This is no joke. Inerrantists have actually argued this as an explanation for the discrepancy now under consideration. In a written debate that I began eight years ago with Michael Hatcher, a Church-of-Christ preacher now located in Pensacola, Florida, I presented the problem of Judah's grandsons in my first manuscript. In reply, Hatcher tried the usual "solutions," which I discussed above, and then tried the in-lumbis-patrum "explanation."

However, even if we allowed all that Mr. Till has said, we still do not have a problem, and his conclusion ("it is impossible [for the Genesis writer's] chronology of both lives to be numerically correct") does not follow. We readily admit that not all mentioned in the list of Genesis 46 were born when Jacob went into Egypt. These went into Egypt "in lumbis patrum," or by "prolepsis" or "anticipation."

Prolepsis is a figure of speech that speaks of something yet future as if it had already happened, so Hatcher's position was that Hezron and Hamul, and possibly some of the others in the list, had not yet been born when Jacob took his extended family into Egypt, but they were listed in anticipation of their being born later in Egypt. I suspect that the absurdity of this "explanation" embarrassed Mr. Hatcher, because he dropped out of the debate after I sent him my rebuttal of his in-lumis-patrum argument. I later asked him for permission to publish in The Skeptical Review the exchanges that we had made before he quit, and he refused to permit the publication of his manuscripts. If he really believed that his explanation was tenable, he should have been willing to let me publish his manuscripts for a larger audience to see that the names of Hezron and Hamul in the Genesis-46 list is not a discrepancy.

The list in Genesis 46 brings us back to the problem that I mentioned in my introduction to this article. How many Jacobites went into Egypt, 70 (as claimed in Genesis 46:27) or 75 (as claimed in Acts 7:14)? In a follow-up article, I will address this issue, and in so doing, I will show in detail that the in-lumis-patrum patrum "solution" referred to above is untenable. I think that objective readers will see that it is, in fact, a downright ludicrous "solution" to the problem of why Judah's grandsons Hezron and Hamul were mentioned in the Genesis-46 list.