To doubt or not to doubt II

Teamwork: New York Times and Science Magazine Seek to Rebut Darwin's Doubt

Casey Luskin September 24, 2013 10:07 AM

 

 

 

It's now evident that, their previous denials notwithstanding, Darwin defenders have been unnerved by Darwin's Doubt. On the same day last week, both the world's top newspaper (the New York Times) and one of the world's top scientific journals (Science) turned their attention to the problem posed by Stephen Meyer. We'll respond later to the review of Darwin's Doubt in Science. For now, let's take a look at science-writer Carl Zimmer's piece in the Times, "New Approach to Explaining Evolution's Big Bang." Zimmer promotes the conclusions of a commentary in Science that accompanies the review of Meyer's book, purporting to explain the Cambrian explosion.

There's something odd about Zimmer's article. Despite the vigorous media dialogue over Darwin's Doubt, reflected in print, online, and over 300 Amazon reviews, Zimmer declines to mention the book or its author. But then the article in Science that claims to reveal the causes of the Cambrian explosion never acknowledges the controversy either. ENV noted a similar reticence in last week's Current Biology paper, which makes reference to "opponents of evolution," and critiques a very Meyer-esque argument, but likewise refuses to cite Meyer or Darwin's Doubt by name.

Zimmer endorses an approach to the Cambrian explosion, taken by M. Paul Smith and David A.T. Harper who wrote the Science commentary, that's often seen in papers on the subject. These papers cite a myriad of explanations, on the apparent assumption that just by tossing out a bunch of scattershot ideas, you've solved the problem. Carl Zimmer describes the method as follows:

Geologists suggested geological causes. Ecologists proposed ecological ones. Many of those ideas have merit, Dr. Smith and Dr. Harper argue in a commentary in this week's Science, but it's a mistake to search for a single cause. They propose that a tangled web of factors and feedbacks were responsible for evolution's big bang.

How did that work? Zimmer writes:

Long before the Cambrian explosion, Dr. Smith and Dr. Harper argue, one lineage of animals had already evolved the genetic capacity for spectacular diversity. Known as the bilaterians, they probably looked at first like little crawling worms. They shared the Precambrian oceans with other animals, like sponges and jellyfish. During the Cambrian explosion, relatively modest changes to their genes gave rise to a spectacular range of bodies.

But those genes evolved in bilaterians tens of millions of years before the Cambrian explosion put them to the test, notes Dr. Smith. "They had the capacity," he said, "but it hadn't been expressed yet."

Isn't that interesting -- bilaterians "evolved the genetic capacity for spectacular diversity," for no apparent reason, long before it was "expressed." The Science paper notes "an apparent > 100-million-year gap between the evolutionary innovation and its consequences"! For all that time, the "genetic capacity" sat on its hands, doing nothing. Then, thanks to sheer dumb luck, it turned out that the "innovation" was exactly what was necessary to evolve into all the diverse forms of animals we observe. The only thing missing was an environmental trigger.

The trouble is that, in Darwinian theory, you don't survive and reproduce based upon what will happen in the future. You survive and reproduce based upon what happens now. Darwinian evolution can't select for future goals, and thus could not evolve the "genetic capacity for spectacular diversity" in the future. Despite their theory, which was formulated to explain away the appearance of teleology in biology, Darwinians are being forced into increasingly teleological-sounding explanations for the Cambrian explosion. Not that Team Darwin is anywhere near to admitting that.

As Meyer explains in Darwin's Doubt, building new forms of animal life requires massive amounts of new biological information in the form of myriads of new genes, non-coding DNA regulatory elements, gene regulatory networks, and epigenetic information. He shows, for several separate reasons, that the neo-Darwinian mechanism lacks the creative capacity necessary to generate these various forms of information.

Recall, for example, that Meyer shows that that functional genes and proteins are exceedingly rare within sequence space. And, for this reason, he argues that a random mutational search will be overwhelmingly more likely to fail, than to succeed, in generating even a single new gene or protein during the entire history of life on earth. Similarly, he shows that mutations in DNA alone cannot produce the epigenetic ("beyond the gene") information necessary to build new animal body plans.

Does Zimmer, or the article in Science that he cites, address (or solve) these or any of the other problems that Meyer addresses? They don't.

But ID theorists pay close attention to the crucial question: Where does the information necessary to build a new animal come from? Zimmer and the scientists he writes about don't even ask that question.

They just assume the "genetic capacity" arose 100+ million years before it was "expressed" -- without providing any causal explanation for the origin of that information. In other words, they just assume an animal with all the necessary information to produce all future Cambrian animals. That's quite an assumption! Of course, once that information had arisen, all that was then required was some global environmental change to trigger "an evolutionary cascade that led to the rapid rise in diversity" (as the Science paper puts it). Because Earth's history is filled with geological changes and environmental catastrophes, such events aren't hard to find. Indeed, they're practically a dime a dozen. Here's what Zimmer finds:

It took a global flood to tap that capacity, Dr. Smith and Dr. Harper propose. They base their proposal on a study published last year by Shanan Peters of the University of Wisconsin and Robert Gaines of Pomona College. They offered evidence that the Cambrian Explosion was preceded by a rise in sea level that submerged vast swaths of land, eroding the drowned rocks.

I responded to Peters and Gaines's study last year -- and again this year. Because, puzzlingly, it continues to be cited, over and over. As I wrote:

Citing increased chemical weathering around the time of the Cambrian explosion doesn't explain the abrupt appearance of new genes and other genetic information needed to generate new body plans. If they expect us to believe that sedimentation rates explain the sudden origin of new body plans, then it would seem that the Cambrian explosion is still a "mystery."

Wait, there's more. "But these great floods also poisoned the ocean," Zimmer says, and "In order to survive, animals had to evolve ways to rid themselves of the poison." Are we about to hear an explanation for how new information arose? No:

One solution may have been to pack the calcium into crystals, which eventually evolved into shells bones, and other hard tissues. Dr. Smith doesn't think it's a coincidence that several different lineages of bilaterians evolved hard tissues during the Cambrian explosion, and not sooner.

According to this logic, increasing the level of "poison" (calcium) in water generates new information. From there, it's a snap:

These shells and other hard tissues sped up animal evolution even more. Predators could grow hard claws and jaws for killing prey, and their prey could evolve hard shells and spines to defend themselves. Animals became locked in an evolutionary arms race.

OK, I think I now understand why the Cambrian explosion happened. Here's the formula:

• First, the "genetic capacity" to produce all known animal forms arises without any adaptive benefit in some unknown hypothetical ancestral organism.


• Then it does nothing for some 100+ million years. (Nobody's sure exactly how long.)


• Then some environmental trigger adds selection pressure. Earth's history is full of options; choose one, or choose five. Zimmer's scientists choose chemical weathering + sea level rise + oxygenation of oceans.


• Then an "arms race" ensues, and all that untapped genetic information is suddenly "expressed," and boom goes the dynamite: numerous animal body plans appear in a geological blink-of-the-eye.

The Science commentary puts it more artfully: "Together, these interacting processes generated an evolutionary cascade that led to the rapid rise in diversity." And so, there you have it: Cambrian enigma solved -- provided of course that you don't ask any pesky questions about the origin of genetic or epigenetic information.

Genesis17-22NWT(2013 Edition)

17 When A′bram was 99 years old, Jehovah appeared to A′bram and said to him: “I am God Almighty. Walk before me and prove yourself faultless.* 2 I will establish my covenant between me and you,+ and I will multiply you very, very much.”+

3 At this A′bram fell facedown, and God continued to speak with him, saying: 4 “As for me, look! my covenant is with you,+ and you will certainly become a father of many nations.+ 5 Your name will no longer be A′bram;* your name will become Abraham,* for I will make you a father of many nations. 6 I will make you very, very fruitful and will make you become nations, and kings will come from you.+

7 “And I will keep my covenant between me and you+ and your offspring* after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring* after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring* after you the land in which you lived as a foreigner+—the entire land of Ca′naan—for a lasting possession, and I will be their God.”+

9 God said further to Abraham: “As for you, you are to keep my covenant, you and your offspring* after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant between me and you, that you and your offspring* after you will keep: Every male among you must get circumcised.+ 11 You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it will serve as a sign of the covenant between me and you.+ 12 Throughout your generations, every male among you eight days old must be circumcised,+ anyone who is born in the house and anyone who is not one of your offspring* and who was purchased with money from a foreigner. 13 Every man born in your house and every man purchased with your money must be circumcised,+ and my covenant in your flesh must serve as a lasting covenant. 14 If any uncircumcised male will not circumcise the flesh of his foreskin, that person* must be cut off* from his people. He has broken my covenant.”

15 Then God said to Abraham: “As for your wife Sar′ai,*+ you must not call her Sar′ai, because Sarah* will become her name. 16 I will bless her and also give you a son by her;+ I will bless her and she will become nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” 17 At this Abraham fell facedown and began to laugh and to say in his heart:+ “Will a man 100 years old have a child born to him, and will Sarah, a woman 90 years old, give birth?”+

18 So Abraham said to the true God: “O that Ish′ma·el might live before you!”+ 19 To this God said: “Your wife Sarah will definitely bear you a son, and you must name him Isaac.*+ And I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant to his offspring* after him.+ 20 But as regards Ish′ma·el, I have heard you. Look! I will bless him and will make him fruitful and will multiply him very, very much. He will produce 12 chieftains, and I will make him become a great nation.+ 21 However, I will establish my covenant with Isaac,+ whom Sarah will bear to you at this appointed time next year.”+

22 When God finished speaking with him, he went up from Abraham. 23 Abraham then took Ish′ma·el his son and all the men born in his house and everyone he had purchased with money, every male in the household of Abraham, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins on that very day, just as God had spoken with him.+ 24 Abraham was 99 years old when he had the flesh of his foreskin circumcised.+ 25 And Ish′ma·el his son was 13 years old when he had the flesh of his foreskin circumcised.+ 26 On that very day, Abraham was circumcised and also his son Ish′ma·el. 27 All the men of his household, anyone born in the house and anyone purchased with money from a foreigner, were also circumcised with him.

 

 

18 Afterward, Jehovah+ appeared to him among the big trees of Mam′re+ while he was sitting at the entrance of the tent during the hottest part of the day. 2 He looked up and saw three men standing some distance from him.+ When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them, and he bowed down to the ground. 3 Then he said: “Jehovah, if I have found favor in your eyes, please do not pass by your servant. 4 Please, let a little water be brought and have your feet washed;+ then recline under the tree. 5 Seeing that you have come here to your servant, let me bring a piece of bread so that you may refresh yourselves.* Then you may go on your way.” At this they said: “All right. You may do as you have spoken.”

6 So Abraham hurried to the tent to Sarah and said: “Quick! Get three measures* of fine flour, knead the dough, and make loaves of bread.” 7 Next Abraham ran to the herd and chose a tender and good young bull. He gave it to the attendant, who hurried to prepare it. 8 He then took butter and milk and the young bull that he had prepared and set the food before them. Then he stood by them under the tree as they were eating.+

9 They said to him: “Where is your wife Sarah?”+ He replied: “Here in the tent.” 10 So one of them continued: “I will surely return to you next year at this time, and look! your wife Sarah will have a son.”+ Now Sarah was listening at the tent entrance, which was behind the man. 11 Abraham and Sarah were old, being advanced in years.+ Sarah was past the age of childbearing.*+ 12 So Sarah began to laugh to herself, saying: “After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I really have this pleasure?”+ 13 Then Jehovah said to Abraham: “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Am I really going to give birth even though I am old?’ 14 Is anything too extraordinary for Jehovah?+ I will return to you next year at this appointed time, and Sarah will have a son.” 15 But Sarah denied it, saying, “I did not laugh!” for she was afraid. At this he said: “Yes! You did laugh.”

16 When the men got up to leave and looked down toward Sod′om,+ Abraham was walking with them to escort them. 17 Jehovah said: “Am I keeping hidden from Abraham what I am going to do?+ 18 Why, Abraham is surely going to become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed* by means of him.+ 19 For I have come to know him in order that he may command his sons and his household after him to keep Jehovah’s way by doing what is right and just,+ so that Jehovah may bring about what he has promised concerning Abraham.”

20 Then Jehovah said: “The outcry against Sod′om and Go·mor′rah is indeed great,+ and their sin is very heavy.+ 21 I will go down to see whether they are acting according to the outcry that has reached me. And if not, I can get to know it.”+

22 Then the men left from there and went toward Sod′om, but Jehovah+ remained with Abraham. 23 Then Abraham approached and said: “Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked?+ 24 Suppose there are 50 righteous men within the city. Will you, then, sweep them away and not pardon the place for the sake of the 50 righteous who are inside it? 25 It is unthinkable that you would act in this manner by putting the righteous man to death with the wicked one so that the outcome for the righteous man and the wicked is the same!+ It is unthinkable of you.+ Will the Judge of all the earth not do what is right?”+ 26 Then Jehovah said: “If I find in Sod′om 50 righteous men in the city, I will pardon the whole place for their sake.” 27 But Abraham again responded: “Please, here I have presumed to speak to Jehovah, whereas I am dust and ashes. 28 Suppose the 50 righteous should lack five. Because of the five will you destroy the whole city?” To this he said: “I will not destroy it if I find there 45.”+

29 But yet again he spoke to him and said: “Suppose 40 are found there.” He answered: “I will not do it for the sake of the 40.” 30 But he continued: “Jehovah, please, do not become hot with anger,+ but let me go on speaking: Suppose only 30 are found there.” He answered: “I will not do it if I find 30 there.” 31 But he continued: “Please, here I have presumed to speak to Jehovah: Suppose only 20 are found there.” He answered: “I will not destroy it for the sake of the 20.” 32 Finally he said: “Jehovah, please, do not become hot with anger, but let me speak just once more: Suppose only ten are found there.” He answered: “I will not destroy it for the sake of the ten.” 33 When Jehovah finished speaking to Abraham, he went his way+ and Abraham returned to his place.

 

 

19 The two angels arrived at Sod′om by evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of Sod′om. When Lot saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the earth.+ 2 And he said: “Please, my lords, turn aside, please, into the house of your servant and stay overnight and have your feet washed. Then you may get up early and travel on your way.” To this they said: “No, we will stay overnight in the public square.” 3 But he was so insistent with them that they went with him to his house. Then he made a feast for them, and he baked unleavened bread, and they ate.

4 Before they could lie down to sleep, the men of the city—the men of Sod′om from boy to old man, all of them—surrounded the house in one mob. 5 And they kept calling out to Lot and saying to him: “Where are the men who came in to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may have sex with them.”+

6 Then Lot went out to them to the doorway, and he shut the door behind him. 7 He said: “Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly. 8 Please, here I have two daughters who have never had sexual relations with a man. Please, let me bring them out to you for you to do to them whatever seems good to you. But do not do anything to these men, for they have come under the shelter* of my roof.”+ 9 At this they said: “Stand back!” And they added: “This lone foreigner came to live here, and yet he dares to judge us! Now we are going to do worse to you than to them.” And they crowded in* on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. 10 So the men reached out their hands and brought Lot into the house with them, and they shut the door. 11 But they struck the men who were at the entrance of the house with blindness, from the least to the greatest, so that they wore themselves out trying to find the doorway.

12 Then the men said to Lot: “Do you have anyone else here? Sons-in-law, your sons, your daughters, and all your people in the city, bring out of this place! 13 For we are going to destroy this place, because the outcry against them has indeed grown great* before Jehovah,+ so that Jehovah sent us to destroy the city.” 14 So Lot went out and began to speak to his sons-in-law who were to marry his daughters, and he kept saying: “Get up! Get out of this place, because Jehovah will destroy the city!” But to his sons-in-law, he seemed to be joking.+

15 As dawn was breaking, the angels became urgent with Lot, saying: “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here with you, so that you will not be swept away in the error of the city!”+ 16 When he kept lingering, then because of Jehovah’s compassion for him,+ the men seized hold of his hand and the hand of his wife and the hands of his two daughters, and they brought him out and stationed him outside the city.+ 17 As soon as they had brought them to the outskirts, he said: “Escape for your life!* Do not look behind you+ and do not stand still in any part of the district!+ Escape to the mountainous region so that you may not be swept away!”

18 Then Lot said to them: “Not there, please, Jehovah! 19 Please, now, your servant has found favor in your eyes and you are showing great kindness* to me by preserving me* alive,+ but I am not able to flee to the mountainous region because I am afraid that disaster may overtake me and I will die.+ 20 Please, now, this town is nearby and I can flee there; it is only a small place. May I, please, escape there? It is only a small place. Then I will survive.”* 21 So he said to him: “Very well, I will also show you consideration+ by not overthrowing the town you speak of.+ 22 Hurry! Escape there, because I cannot do anything until you arrive there!”+ That is why he named the town Zo′ar.*+

23 The sun had risen over the land when Lot arrived at Zo′ar. 24 Then Jehovah made it rain sulfur and fire on Sod′om and Go·mor′rah—it came from Jehovah, from the heavens.+ 25 So he overthrew these cities, yes, the entire district, including all the inhabitants of the cities and the plants of the ground.+ 26 But Lot’s wife, who was behind him, began to look back, and she became a pillar of salt.+

27 Now Abraham got up early in the morning and went to the place where he had stood before Jehovah.+ 28 When he looked down toward Sod′om and Go·mor′rah and all the land of the district, he saw quite a sight. There was dense smoke rising from the land like the dense smoke of a kiln!+ 29 So when God destroyed the cities of the district, God kept Abraham in mind by sending Lot out from the cities he overthrew, the cities where Lot had been dwelling.+

30 Later Lot went up from Zo′ar with his two daughters and began living in the mountainous region,+ because he was afraid to live in Zo′ar.+ So he began living in a cave with his two daughters. 31 And the firstborn said to the younger: “Our father is old, and there is not a man in the land to have relations with us according to the custom of the whole earth. 32 Come, let us give our father wine to drink, and let us lie down with him and preserve offspring from our father.”

33 So that night they kept giving their father wine to drink; then the firstborn went in and lay down with her father, but he did not know when she lay down and when she got up. 34 Then on the next day, the firstborn said to the younger: “Here I lay down with my father last night. Let us give him wine to drink tonight also. Then you go in and lie down with him, and let us preserve offspring from our father.” 35 So that night also, they repeatedly gave their father wine to drink; then the younger went and lay down with him, but he did not know when she lay down and when she got up. 36 So both daughters of Lot became pregnant by their father. 37 The firstborn gave birth to a son and named him Mo′ab.+ He is the father of the Mo′ab·ites of today.+ 38 The younger also gave birth to a son, and she named him Ben-am′mi. He is the father of the Am′mon·ites+ of today.

 

20 Now Abraham moved his camp from there+ to the land of the Neg′eb and began dwelling between Ka′desh+ and Shur.+ While he was residing* at Ge′rar,+ 2 Abraham repeated concerning his wife Sarah: “She is my sister.”+ So A·bim′e·lech king of Ge′rar sent for Sarah and took her.+ 3 Afterward, God came by night to A·bim′e·lech in a dream and said to him: “Here you are as good as dead because of the woman whom you have taken,+ since she is married and belongs to another man.”+ 4 However, A·bim′e·lech had not gone near her.* So he said: “Jehovah, will you kill a nation that is really innocent?* 5 Did he not say to me, ‘She is my sister,’ and did she too not say, ‘He is my brother’? I did this with an honest heart and innocent hands.” 6 Then the true God said to him in the dream: “I know that you did this with an honest heart, so I held you back from sinning against me. That is why I did not allow you to touch her. 7 Now return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet,+ and he will make supplication for you+ and you will keep living. But if you are not returning her, know that you will surely die, you and all who are yours.”

8 A·bim′e·lech got up early in the morning and called all his servants and told them all these things, and they became very frightened. 9 Then A·bim′e·lech called Abraham and said to him: “What have you done to us? What sin have I committed against you that you would bring upon me and my kingdom such a great sin? What you have done to me was not right.” 10 And A·bim′e·lech went on to say to Abraham: “What were your intentions when you did this thing?”+ 11 Abraham said: “It was because I said to myself, ‘Surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.’+ 12 And besides, she really is my sister, the daughter of my father but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.+ 13 So when God caused me to wander from the house of my father,+ I said to her: ‘Let this be how you show loyal love to me: Everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”’”+

14 A·bim′e·lech then took sheep and cattle and male and female servants and gave them to Abraham, and he returned his wife Sarah to him. 15 A·bim′e·lech also said: “Here my land is available to you. Dwell wherever you please.” 16 And to Sarah he said: “Here I give 1,000 pieces of silver to your brother.+ It is a sign of your innocence* to all who are with you and before everybody, and you are cleared of reproach.” 17 And Abraham began to make supplication to the true God, and God healed A·bim′e·lech and his wife and his slave girls, and they began having children; 18 for Jehovah had made all the women of the house of A·bim′e·lech barren* because of Sarah, Abraham’s wife.+

 

 

 

21 Jehovah turned his attention to Sarah just as he had said, and Jehovah did for Sarah what he had promised.+ 2 So Sarah became pregnant+ and then bore a son to Abraham in his old age at the appointed time God had promised him.+ 3 Abraham named his newborn son, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac.+ 4 And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, just as God had commanded him.+ 5 Abraham was 100 years old when his son Isaac was born to him. 6 Then Sarah said: “God has brought me laughter; everybody hearing of it will laugh with me.”* 7 And she added: “Who would have said to Abraham, ‘Sarah will certainly nurse children’? Yet, I have given birth to a son for him in his old age.”

8 Now the child grew and was weaned, and Abraham prepared a big feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah kept noticing that the son of Ha′gar+ the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, was mocking Isaac.+ 10 So she said to Abraham: “Drive out this slave girl and her son, for the son of this slave girl is not going to be an heir along with my son, with Isaac!”+ 11 But what she said about his son was very displeasing to Abraham.+ 12 Then God said to Abraham: “Do not be displeased by what Sarah is saying to you about the boy and about your slave girl. Listen to her,* for what will be called your offspring* will be through Isaac.+ 13 As for the son of the slave girl,+ I will also make a nation out of him,+ because he is your offspring.”*

14 So Abraham got up early in the morning and took bread and a skin bottle of water and gave it to Ha′gar. He set these on her shoulder and then sent her away along with the boy.+ So she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Be′er-she′ba.+ 15 Finally the water in the skin bottle was used up, and she pushed the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went on and sat down by herself, about the distance of a bowshot away, because she said: “I do not want to watch the boy die.” So she sat down at a distance and began to cry aloud and to weep.

17 At that God heard the voice of the boy,+ and God’s angel called to Ha′gar from the heavens and said to her:+ “What is the matter with you, Ha′gar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy there where he is. 18 Get up, lift the boy and take hold of him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation.”+ 19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled the skin bottle with water and gave the boy a drink. 20 And God was with the boy+ as he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an archer. 21 He took up dwelling in the wilderness of Pa′ran,+ and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

22 At that time A·bim′e·lech together with Phi′col the chief of his army said to Abraham: “God is with you in everything you are doing.+ 23 So now swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me and with my offspring and with my descendants, and that you will deal with me and with the land where you have been residing with the same loyal love that I have shown you.”+ 24 So Abraham said: “I swear to this.”

25 However, Abraham complained to A·bim′e·lech about the well of water that the servants of A·bim′e·lech had violently seized.+ 26 A·bim′e·lech replied: “I do not know who did this; you did not tell me about it, and I heard nothing about it until today.” 27 At that Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to A·bim′e·lech, and the two of them made a covenant. 28 When Abraham set seven female lambs apart from the flock by themselves, 29 A·bim′e·lech said to Abraham: “Why have you set these seven female lambs here by themselves?” 30 Then he said: “You are to accept the seven female lambs from my hand as a witness that I dug this well.” 31 That is why he called that place Be′er-she′ba,*+ because there both of them had taken an oath. 32 So they made a covenant+ at Be′er-she′ba, after which A·bim′e·lech got up together with Phi′col the chief of his army, and they returned to the land of the Phi·lis′tines.+ 33 After that he planted a tamarisk tree at Be′er-she′ba, and there he called on the name of Jehovah,+ the everlasting God.+ 34 And Abraham stayed* in the land of the Phi·lis′tines for a long time.*+

 

 

 

22 Now after this the true God put Abraham to the test,+ and he said to him: “Abraham!” to which he replied: “Here I am!” 2 Then he said: “Take, please, your son, your only son whom you so love,+ Isaac,+ and travel to the land of Mo·ri′ah+ and offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will designate to you.”

3 So Abraham got up early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his servants along with him and his son Isaac. He split the wood for the burnt offering, and then he rose and traveled to the place that the true God indicated to him. 4 On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place from a distance. 5 Abraham now said to his servants: “You stay here with the donkey, but the boy and I will go over there and worship and return to you.”

6 So Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and put it on his son Isaac. Then he took in his hands the fire and the knife,* and the two of them walked on together. 7 Then Isaac said to his father Abraham: “My father!” He replied: “Yes, my son!” So he continued: “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?” 8 To this Abraham said: “God himself will provide the sheep for the burnt offering,+ my son.” And both of them walked on together.

9 Finally they reached the place that the true God had indicated to him, and Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac hand and foot and put him on the altar on top of the wood.+ 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife* to kill his son.+ 11 But Jehovah’s angel called to him from the heavens and said: “Abraham, Abraham!” to which he answered: “Here I am!” 12 Then he said: “Do not harm the boy, and do not do anything at all to him, for now I do know that you are God-fearing because you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.”+ 13 At that Abraham looked up, and there just beyond him was a ram caught by its horns in a thicket. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son. 14 And Abraham named that place Je·ho′vah-ji′reh.* This is why it is still said today: “In the mountain of Jehovah it will be provided.”+

15 And Jehovah’s angel called to Abraham a second time from the heavens, 16 saying: “‘By myself I swear,’ declares Jehovah,+ ‘that because you have done this and you have not withheld your son, your only one,+ 17 I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring* like the stars of the heavens and like the grains of sand on the seashore,+ and your offspring* will take possession of the gate* of his enemies.+ 18 And by means of your offspring*+ all nations of the earth will obtain a blessing for themselves because you have listened to my voice.’”+

19 After that Abraham returned to his servants, and they got up and went back together to Be′er-she′ba;+ and Abraham continued to dwell at Be′er-she′ba.

20 After this it was reported to Abraham: “Here Mil′cah has also borne sons to Na′hor your brother:+ 21 Uz his firstborn, Buz his brother, Kem·u′el the father of A′ram, 22 Che′sed, Ha′zo, Pil′dash, Jid′laph, and Be·thu′el.”+ 23 Be·thu′el became the father of Re·bek′ah.+ Mil′cah bore these eight to Na′hor the brother of Abraham. 24 His concubine, whose name was Reu′mah, also bore sons: Te′bah, Ga′ham, Ta′hash, and Ma′a·cah.