These Are the Families

Summary

This week, Fr. Paul explains how Scripture defines its own terminology in the way that words are used and when they are used in the text. If you hear Genesis 10 in context of the previous chapter, the first appearance of the Hebrew word for families, mishpahhot, emphasizes the human being as one of the many mammals spread upon the earth. In this way, Fr. Paul argues, social life in the Bible does not refer to artificial cities made by the hand of man, but to animal life, which does not have a civilization, and instead lives through procreation, as God commanded. (Episode 97)