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Putting on my akshually hat, fellas.
Few will read; most will laugh. So it is.
🍻
This will be long (a two-parter) because I'm addressing the points of the no-man’s-land thread above.
If nothing else, I hope you're entertained.
If you do read through it, you'll see a cool connection regarding the Tower of Babel in scripture I don’t see or hear mentioned often (hardly ever).
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Matthew 28:19-20 (the Great Commission to go out and give the gospel to all of the nations) says "to all of *the* nations." Some English translations keep the definite article; some drop it, saying "all nations."
"The" nations is a distinction made in both the NT and OT.
After the Flood, Noah and his sons (and their sons and so on) fill out into nations. Those are *the nations.*
Genesis 10:32
>These are the families of the sons of Noah, by their births, in their nations, and by these have **the nations** been parted in the earth after the deluge.
Many Christians stumble to explain--and this is a criticism many atheists throw under uncertain, ungrounded Christian heels--why it is that God gives two different instructions to the Israelites conquering Canaan, in regard to how they should handle nations they encounter. Of some nations, he tells the Israelites that their women and herds are permitted to be incorporated. Of other nations, he says that none shall live--that all (even their herds) are to be slain.
The distinguishing line is whether a nation is of the Genesis 10 list of "the nations." It's truly that easy.
Something important to note of the Genesis 10 list of nations: The nations listed are curiously comprising only a single race. They are real nations listed--comprising and descending from a real ethnicity.
Evangelicals and dispensationalists must explain how other races came to be, after the Flood, if the Flood was global.
Or we can stand firm, apart from evangelical and dispensationalist uncertain footing, and we can know that the Flood did not kill all nations (i.e. was not global) and was intended only for the descendants of Adam and where they dwelled, as Genesis 6 states. This would align with the very real flood that did occur around 3100 BC in the area where Whites were, as scripture would have the timeline.
>This is just the OT. What about the NT?
Let me continue with one more OT relevant thread:
Abraham was promised that his seed would become many nations.
When does this happen in the OT? (Hint: It does happen in the OT, not in the NT.) His seed by Ishmael becomes a few nations, sure, and his seed by Isaac (along which the Abrahamic covenant follows) becomes the Israelites, and these become two nations: Ephraim and Judah, also called the Northern and Southern kingdoms.
The Northern and Southern kingdoms fall, and the Israelites are scattered among *the nations* by the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, as God had said he would do with the seed of Israel (many times, Hosea, Amos, Micah, Jeremiah... ). God, however, promised He would bring a remnant of the seed back to the land promised to them. (That's exactly what happens in Nehemiah and Ezra.)
Again and again, throughout the OT, God proclaims to the Israelites He will resolve them into one nation again and establish a covenant with them they cannot break, despite being an unfaithful Bride.
>NT time
Joseph and Mary take Jesus to the second temple after His circumcision. An elderly man, an Israelite named Simeon, is there "looking for the consolation of Israel." He has been told that he will not die before he has seen the Christ. Upon seeing Jesus, he hugs Him, proclaiming Him to be "a light for the revelation of *the nations* and the glory of Your people Israel."
The nations promised to Abraham (*the nations*, where the seed of Israel have been scattered through the last hundreds of years / pages of scripture, *the nations* of which God has repeatedly in the OT said that the Israelites will inherit, where they, now scattered, have been having babies with *the nations*, thus *the nations* fill into Israelites) will be revealed and reconciled by Christ. Paul, in particular, a man raised in education, will be His apostle to *the nations*. Paul will write to them regarding their being the Israelites, to whom belong the covenants. *The nations* where the seed of Israel were scattered receive the good news of God's new covenant (as was promised to the Israelites). Israel is--the Israelites are--one again, no longer shamed / having branches fall off by the law. Even those Israelites that dispersed before the law was given at Sinai to the Israelites (i.e. wild olive trees as opposed to the cultivated olive tree) are grafted in.
This needs a Part 2 to show where in the NT these Genesis 10 nations, *the nations*, are listed again as being "all of the nations of those under heaven."