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Bible Q

Can you tell me what “shaddai” means?

Even though El Shaddai is generally translated God Almighty, shaddai is from the same root as “breast,” with reference to nurturing. This title occurs significantly in Genesis referring to God’s development of Abraham’s descendants. Exod. 6:4 affirms this: “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name yhwh I did […]

Does God teach both believers and unbelievers through suffering?

Yes, God does teach both believers and unbelievers through suffering. More on this in a moment, but first it’s worth emphasizing that not all suffering is from God (e.g., sometimes suffering is brought by other humans: cf. 1 Sam. 26:19) — so, just because someone is experiencing suffering in their life, it doesn’t mean that […]

Why is there so little evidence for both the Exodus and the events described in the Book of Joshua?

Absence of direct evidence for the Exodus is not surprising. Egyptian records are not well preserved, and there are serious gaps in the records due to physical loss or destruction, including an almost complete lack of records during the Exodus era. Egyptians did not differentiate between Semitic groups living in Egypt (and there were many), […]

How long were the people of Israel enslaved in Egypt?

The following chart (from my book The Times: a Chronology of the Bible) shows some of the major events during this period and shows the period that Israel was in Egypt from 1656 BC to 1446 BC, or 210 years. Some of the evidence for these dates is given below. The date of the Exodus […]