Biblical Error?

[sealchan]

Genesis 26 just lists Esau's first two wives

Genesis 36 is genealogy and would only list Esau's wives who had sons who survived and they in turn bore other sons to continue his line

Also Esau could have married more than one woman with the same father just as Jacob did

The trick for me and for others perhaps, is to realize that the style of scripture is terse and often not concerned to resolve potential misunderstandings for a variety of reasons. That these reasons aren't merely conveniences for apologists is born out by application of these reasons across scripture in a thorough way. It yields fruits in a variety of places and shows intent on the author's part.

 

[Neuropteron]

I am reposting this under a new title in the hopes of getting more interest and response. This originally comes from my thread Gradual Dominance: Esau's Descendants and The Rulers of Edom: Genesis 36

In the Bible there is the following conflict in reporting on Esau's wives...

Genesis 26
When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and also Basemathdaughter of Elon the Hittite

Genesis 36
Esau took his wives from the women of Canaan: Adah daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Oholibamahdaughter of Anah and granddaughter of Zibeon the Hivite— also Basemath daughter of Ishmael and sister of Nebaioth.

Granted that in Genesis 26 we might allow that Esau only married two wives at that time, we have one match but the other wife in Genesis 26 doesn't match either of the other two offered in later scripture. And Oholibamah's father seems to be different in each case.

It would appear that either there was an unfortunate failure on the part of the editor to correct these contradictions or it was felt that both sources were authentic and although contradictory had to be kept intact. Perhaps the separation of ten chapters was the best the authors could come up with in order to minimize the impact of the contradiction. In any case this would appear to be a fairly clear cut example of literalistic error in the Bible.

.......

At Gen 36:2 In the Masoretic text, the grandfather of one of Esau's wives is called" Zibeon the Hivite" At Gen36 , hocever, he is shown to be a descendan to Seir the Horite. "Horite" may mean merely "cave dweller" , from Hebrew chor (hole) This would make zibeon a Hivite who was a cave dweller.

not sure if this helps.

All the best

 

[URAVIP2ME]

.......
At Gen 36:2 In the Masoretic text, the grandfather of one of Esau's wives is called" Zibeon the Hivite" At Gen36 , hocever, he is shown to be a descendan to Seir the Horite. "Horite" may mean merely "cave dweller" , from Hebrew chor (hole) This would make zibeon a Hivite who was a cave dweller.
not sure if this helps.
All the best

At age 40 Esau made his own arrangements for marriage. Esau took two (2) pagan wives:
* Judith (Oholibamah?), and * Basemath (Adah?) as wives.
Both proved to be a source of bitterness -
Genesis 26:34-35; Genesis 36:2; Genesis 24:1-4; Genesis 24:50-51.

True children of Abraham are Not necessarily by fleshly descent, but those having faith like father Abraham.