Genesis 15:1 "After these things (what things?) the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy great reward."

    If you really want to win friends and influence people, try convincing them you're their great reward.
    As usual, old selfless Abe is ready to play Let's Make a Deal. Not only is Abe having visions, he's talking to them. I once knew a guy who lived in a cardboard box under a bridge, who used to do that, but I'm much better now. (And so am I.)

15:2 "And Abram said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus?
15:3 "And Abram said, Behold," (they said "behold" a lot in those days, we just use, "say, looky here," but I suppose "behold" is shorter) "to me thou hast given no seed: and lo, one born in my house is mine heir."

    Quick translation, if I might - he's telling his vision that since he has no children, his house steward, Eliezer, must then become his heir in the event of his death. And what's Sarai, Abe's sister/wife, chopped liver ?

15:4 "And behold, the word of the lord came unto him, saying, this (Eliezer) shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir."

    Now that's a trick I gotta see! If that's where this god thinks babies come from, his daddy should have sat him down a long time ago and had, the talk!

15:5 "And he (god) brought him (Abe) forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell (count) the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he (god) said unto him (Abe), So shall your seed be."

    So this single verse establishes several things: first, that heaven is definitely up, because, from any point on earth, that's where the stars are; secondly, that this conversation must be taking place at night, otherwise, Abe wouldn't have been able to see the stars; and thirdly, since our own galaxy contains between 200 and 400 billion stars, and there are billions and billions (thank you Carl, we miss you) of such galaxies in the universe, either this god didn't know just how many he'd created, or he didn't think far enough ahead as to where Abe's seed were all going to stand (not to mention what they were going to eat, so I won't mention it), OR, one more possibility - though I know it may sound a bit far fetched - but, just maybe it didn't happen --?
    I'll leave that decision in your capable hands.

15:6 "And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness."
15:7 "And he (god) said unto him (Abe), I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it."

    See, there we go again, with the whole "Ur of the Chaldees" thing. The Bible is either subconsciously trying to demonstrate its own errancy, or the writers were convinced that no one would ever be able to prove otherwise (an omniscient god would have foreseen Google). Hopefully, Bible permitting, the following will finally lay that subject to rest:

"Ur was Sumerian and had no connection with the people known as the Chaldaeans until a thousand years after any possible date to which Abraham can be attributed." – M. Grant, The History of Ancient Israel, p32.

"'Ur of the Chaldees' in Genesis is clearly an anachronistic reference … 'Chaldaeans' did not appear in Mesopotamia until the 7th century BC."
– Magnus Magnusson, The Archaeology of the Bible Lands-BC, pp 31, 206.

    These opinions too, are "in the book" - just in different books.

15:8 "And he (Abe) said, Lord God ("El-i-lil," in Semitic Akkadian), whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?"

    Are you listening to this?!! Ten seconds earlier, Abe had said, "15:6 'And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.'" And now he has the unmitigated gall (ever wonder how mitigated gall is different? I know I have) to ask the god of his vision, "Behold, just how can I really be sure I'm gonna get all of this land?"
    I'm no god (as long as I take my meds), but if I were, that question would rate a Zot, a puff of smoke, and everybody asking, "Anybody seen Abe?"

15:9 "And he (god) said unto him (Abe), Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove and a young pigeon."

    There was no mention of how old the turtle dove and pigeon needed to be.

15:10 "And he (Abe) took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against the other: but the birds divided he not."

    Far be it from me to act like a minister here and tell you what to believe as to what this verse means, but I don't think it's out of bounds to tell you what I think it means, and let you decide for yourself.
    As I take it, 85+-year old Abe went out in the middle of the night (while the stars could still be seen), culled cattle out of his herds that he got from Pharaoh for pimping out his sister/wife, slit the throats of the animals, while likely wringing the necks of the young pigeon and the turtle dove, left the dead birds intact, while cutting the dead calf and the two dead goats in half, and laid out their body parts on the ground, "one piece against another."
    You might notice (though I predict that few who read the Bible ever have), that Abe's vision never told him what he should do with these animals, once he'd taken them. Maybe he was just supposed to give them baths and flea collars. Did Abe improvise?
    I wouldn't call that odd behavior for the man who was to become the cornerstone of the Judeo/Christian/Islamic faith, would you? I like to try and imagine Abe's answer if someone had come along and said, "Hey, Abe, whacha doin'?" But then, I guess it's good to be the Patriarch.

15:11 "And when the fowls came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away."

    I'm confused again. I know a little bit about fowls, and except for owls, you don't find a lot of birds flying about at night - they tend to bump into things. Ever wonder about those "things that go bump in the night"? Flying birds, nearly every time.
    The next verse raises even more confusion:

15:12 "And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him."

    See what I mean? The god-vision took Abe outside (one must presume, of his tent) to try and count the stars, then he's told to take the animals, which he does, and kills and splits them and lays them out, while fighting off night-flying birds, and suddenly, the sun is going down. How does that work, exactly? Or was the author of the chapter writing with an open bottle of home-made kumquat wine on his desk, as this author often does?

15:13 "And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years.
15:14 "And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and they shall come out with great substance.
15:15 "And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
15:16 "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full."

    Now that is clever! That is some really clever writing! There was a Mastermind behind that little ploy! We (you and I, just now) have witnessed a prophecy, issued by a god-vision, that came true! Verily, it did! According to the Bible, Abe's son, Issac, would have a son, Jacob/Israel, who we will later see went with his entire clan to Egypt, and his progeny remained there for four hundred years before Moses led them out! But this prophecy was made to Abram, hundreds of years earlier! How could that be, unless this really WAS an actual, live, omniscient god?!
    Before you and I drop to our knees, let me address that question - the answer is plain, simple, David Copperfieldian, slight of hand.
    Abe (if he ever existed) was reputed to have been born c.1952 BCE (others say c.1813 BCE), while Moses (if he ever existed) was alleged to have gone for his little baby boat ride c.1350 BCE, yet parts of Genesis (the J Source) were written in 950 BCE, the rest (E Source) in northern Israel in 850 BCE, combined in 750 BCE into JE, and finally incorporated into the Torah/Penteteuch in 400 BCE.
    Imagine, if you will (that was my best Rod Serling) that I wrote a book in 2012, predicting that there would be a global armed conflict, beginning in 1939 - then some way, some how, convinced a gullible public that I had written it in 1925 - some might say that I had seen the world's economic situation, the Phoenix-esque rise of Germany to power for a second time, as well as its alliances with Italy and Japan, and surmised that conflict was inevitable - but, imagine I were able to convince everyone that the book was written in 1325! O-M-G! Instant prophet!
    You take an illiterate population, with no other source of information besides the Priesthood, you write a book that contains predictions of events that have already happened, and convince them the book was actually written hundreds of years before the events occurred. And that, says the Masked Magician, is how it's done.
    And what's with that phrase, "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full"? Is there an iniquity gauge somewhere that we haven't heard about? Besides - Abe's best buds, who helped him chase five professional armies over 180 miles, the brothers, Mamre, Aner and Eshcol, were all Amorites. What's wrong with Amorites?
    I'll discuss the issue of the Amorites, or as they were better known at the time, Amurrites, shortly, but first, let's finish this chapter.

15:17 "And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.

    OK - let's look at that a little more closely. Gen 15:1 relates that Abe had a vision, and in his vision, this god took him outside, at night, showed him the stars, and promised Abe a large area of land, and that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars above, yada, yada, yada. Abe claimed to believe him, but cautiously asked how he could really know for sure that this god was telling the truth. The god told Abe to cull some animals out of his herd, but didn't instruct Abe as to what to do with them, so Abe lept to conclusions, killed them, cut them in half, and laid the pieces on the ground. Then, as the sun went down, a "deep sleep" and "an horror of great darkness fell upon him." Then, what sounds astonishingly like a laser beam passed between the pieces of meat, apparently somehow satisfying Abe's uncertainty.
    The first thing that one has to wonder, is why the light show? Seriously, what was it intended to prove? That this god was powerful? Couldn't he have found a better avenue than making a beam of light pass between pieces of butchered meat? First, he hides the knowledge of good and evil and the secret of eternal life in the fruit of trees, and now this! Really?
    Apparently, the cutting up of animals, laying them down and walking between the divided carcasses was some sort of primitive ritual.
    Of the custom, The New American Heritage Bible, published by the Catholics, informs us that the phrase in 15:17 above, "smoking furnace," is translated from the Hebrew word for "brazier," literally, an oven.
    TNHB goes on to explain: "Although the text doesn't mention it, Abraham no doubt walked between the split carcasses. For the meaning of this strange ceremony, see note on Jerimiah 34:18."
    Hopscotching ahead to Jerimiah 34:18, we find the following note: "As the Bible and contemporary inscriptions make clear, agreements were sometimes ratified by walking between divided pieces of animals while contracting parties invoked on themselves a fate similar to that of the slaughtered beast if they should fail to keep their word." Does that mean that an omnipotent god accepts those same terms, i.e., to be slaughtered and his carcass divided if he fails to keep his agreement? And how would that process be accomplished?
    I'll bet the collective sigh of relief from the Middle East hit at least 7 points on the Richter Scale the day they invented the handshake.
    But the real question, is where did Abe's vision begin and end? Did he only envision he killed and cut up those animals and shooed away crows and vultures? Did he envision the "deep sleep" and "horror of great darkness"? What about the time disorientation - the late-night stargazing, followed by an evening sunset? The laser beam? Did he dream the whole thing? Was this entire episode possibly a psychotic break in the mind of a man capable of taking his young son and traveling with him for three days, for the purpose of slitting his throat and burning him on an altar?

15:18 "In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt (the Nile) unto the great river, the river Euphrates:
15:19 "The Kennites, and the Kennizites, and the Kadmonites,
15:20 "And the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Rephaims,
15:21 "And the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Gergashites, and the Jebusites."

    Let's take a closer look at that, while we're in the neighborhood.