Of whom was he so afraid that it was necessary for God to make a sign stating, don't smite this man, when he was sent into exile? Who were these people in The Land of Fugitiveness and from whence had they come?
Inquiring minds want to know...
People have been asking that question since we wrote down the five books (Pentateuch/Torah)
But it seemed all the more pressing to "give an answer" to what this story means in relation to everything else ...
after Scottish geologist Sir Charles Lyell wrote Principles of Geology, in 3 volumes. (1830–33),
and in those works Lyell rejects you need supernatural explanations to explain things like mountains and so on.
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Like I said in a different post my brain has been on fire how recent things are, yet we think everyone thought the things in a way that seems so much older.
This is because Brad Delong released his economic history book today (Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century) a book I been waiting for years as much as I been waiting for the most recent George RR Martin one.
God just think about it, it was only 40 years between the Panic of 1873 that caused the Long Recession to World War 1, likewise the distance from today to Ronald Reagan starting his first day of presidency is 41 years.
It is "so recent" everything we think we know about Humanity.