Biblical Inerrancy

Biblical Inerrancy

Thomas Allen

While some people claim that the Bible contains errors, others claim that it is error-free. Although “liberal” clergymen argue that the Bible contains errors, “conservative” clergymen argue that it does not contain any errors. This article discusses the inerrancy view of the conservative clergymen, who range from extreme literalists to adherents of broad inerrancy.

The original autographs, original manuscripts of each book of the Bible, are without error. Nevertheless, copies of the autographs have errors. However, textual critics have mostly eliminated these errors and have reconstructed the text such that it approximates the original with a high degree of accuracy.

Many proponents of the inerrancy of the Bible tend to be extreme literalists. They believe that wherever the Bible mentions history, science, geography, mathematics, etc., it is absolutely correct and without error. However, most do not go as far as considering Jesus running around heaven as a lamb as he is described in Revelation. They consider such a description as a figure of speech, a metaphor.

Yet, most extreme literalists condemn adherents of broad inerrancy for resorting to figures of speech to explain away confusing, apparently contradictory, or apparently illogical passages. (A figure of speech is an expression in which words are used in a nonliteral sense, such as simile, metaphor, personification, allegory, and  hyperbole. Figures of speech fill poetry and apocalypse.) They tend to pooh-pooh figure-of-speech arguments. Nevertheless, most of the extreme literalists resort to the figure-of-speech argument to explain away Biblical conflicts with current science — although a literal understanding of the Bible does not conflict with the science of the day that the original autograph was written. For example, in 1 Kings 7:23, the Bible states that the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is three instead of 3.14 . . . . (Here, the Bible uses round numbers instead of exact numbers.) Another example is that the Bible describes the earth as geocentric, flat, immovable, and supported by columns. (Here, the Bible is using poetic language to describe the earth from the viewpoint of a person standing on the earth.) However, these explanations are in the realm of broad inerrancy and not in the realm of extreme literalist inerrancy.

Another disagreement that extreme literalists have with adherents of broad inerrancy is the writing-style explanation that adherents of broad inerrancy use. Extreme literalists claim that the writers of the Bible used the same writing style that today’s great nonfiction writers use. They wrote with exactness, precision, and accuracy instead of the way that good novelists often write — who at times sacrifice accuracy and precision with poignancy to better express a truth. According to the extreme literalists, none were like the great novelists who mix fiction with facts to express a truth clearer and better than facts alone would have expressed it. Instead, they were all like good reporters who only reported the facts with no hyperbole, no interpretation, no opinions, and minimum figures of speech.

Nevertheless, most extreme literalists do recognize parables as nonfactual stories used to express a truth. However, if a parable uses a person's name, it ceases being a nonfactual story and becomes a statement of fact — as though Jesus was incapable of varying his parables.

Also, extreme literalists object to placing words in the mouths of people who did not actually say those words, as ancient writers often did. Moreover, they seem to believe that when several writers are writing about the same event, all of them saw that event from the same perspective, which was seldom the case.

Although the original autographs are without errors, copies and translations are not. Translators have to choose among various texts, such as Textus Receptus, Westcott & Hort, Majority Text, Masoretic text, and Septuagint.

For example, some translators use the Greek text for John 6:47 that contains “on me”: “. . .  He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” Others use the Greek text that lacks “on me”: “. . . He that believeth hath eternal life.” (The former is from the King James Version, and the latter is from the American Standard Version.) Thus, the first identifies where one’s faith has to be applied to have everlasting life. According to the second, any faith guarantees everlasting life.

Another example that the choice of the Greek text affects meaning is Acts 17:26. Most translations like the King James use the Greek text that contains the word “blood”: “And hath made of one blood all nations of men. . . .” However, a few translations like the American Standard use the Greek text that omits the word “blood”: “and he made of one every nation of men. . . .” While the first supports the doctrine of the unity of man and therefore evolution, the latter does not. (For another example how a choice text can give a different impression, see “Did Jesus Lie?" by Thomas Allen.)

Moreover, when translating from Hebrew or Greek to English, translators often have a choice of words. For example, in Chapter 1 of Genesis, the Hebrew word that is commonly translated as “day” may also be translated as “age,” as Ferrar Fenton translates it. Having Genesis 1 referring to seven days gives a completely different impression than referring to seven ages.

Another example is Genesis 7:19-24. Since the King James Version describes the Noachian Flood covering the earth, most people interpret this to mean that the Flood covered the entire planet. However, the Hebrew word that the King James and other versions translate as “earth” other translations translate as “land,” “country,” or “ground.” The latter translations give the impression that the Flood was not global.

Matthew 24:3 is another example. The Greek word that the King James translates as “world” most modern translations translate as “age”: Instead of the world ending, the age ends.

In Matthew 2:11, the Greek word that the King James and other translations translate as “worshiped” some translators translate as “paid homage,” which gives a different impression. (For another example how the choice of a word can change the meaning of a text, see “Commentary on John 3:36" by Thomas Allen.)

Ferrar Fenton’s Trinitarian bias shows itself in his translation of John 1:14: “And the WORD became incarnate, and encamped among us — and we gazed upon His majesty, such majesty as that of a Father's only Son — full of beneficence and truth.” As far as I know, he is the only translator that uses “incarnate.” All other translations are similar to the King James: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.”

An example of deliberate mistranslation is the New King James Version’s translation of Chapter 10 of Ezra. It mistranslates this chapter to thwart its use as a proof text that God prohibits miscegenation. In Chapter 10 of Ezra, the Hebrew word that nearly all other versions translate as “foreign” (the King James uses “stranger”), the New King James translates as “pagan.” According to the New King James, the men sent their wives away because of religion: The woman worshiped false gods instead of or in addition to Yahweh. However, the man stayed even if they worshiped false gods. According to the other versions, the men sent the women away because of their race and regardless of their religion. Their race was the issue and not their religion. (In Chapter 10, the Hebrew word translated as “foreigner” refers to people of another race — see “Stranger in the Old Testament” by Thomas Allen). Consequently, the New King James creates a hypocritical double standard. Female idolists are sent away, but male idolists are not. Many of the men were practicing a false religion or else they would not have married women of a different race, because Yahweh prohibits interracial marriages (see “Does God Abhor or Approve Miscegenation?” by Thomas Allen). Thus, the two different translations give entirely different impressions. For one, the separation is because of religion; for the other, it is because of race.

The Bible is error-free. However, people’s understanding is flawed, and the biases of the translators have only added to this problem. Besides, God must receive a good deal of joy watching people argue and even kill each other about what His word means, or else He would have had it written and translated with much greater clarity.

Copyright © 2020 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck

Thomas Allen

[Note: This article is based on observations obtained from listening to Beck’s radio program.]

Like most conservatives, Glenn Beck, a talk-show host, is a racial nihilist. He has adopted the new morality of sanctifying the races on the alter of humanity. Also, he is a Zionist and a worshiper of St. Martin Luther King the Divine, although he fails to revere him above Jesus.

Moreover, he asserts that the United States are an exceptional country, a propositional country, a conventual country, and not a genetic country. Thus, he believes that “all men are created equal” as he processes to describe their natural inequality. Therefore, the US Constitution and American history should be understood in the light of this proposition. Naturally, he rejects the fact that the Constitution was written for Whites and not for Blacks and other nonwhite races — therefore, the need for the illegal fourteenth amendment.

Further, Beck professes to be a Christian. However, like most Christians, he has no objection to miscegenation and refuses to recognize God’s prohibition of miscegenation. He finds interracial mating acceptable if done in marriage.

Moreover, Beck acknowledges that God created the races and, therefore, the races should be preserved. (Thus, this belief makes him appear to be a racial preservationist. However, his actions and most of his comments related to race show that he is definitely a racial nihilist. Perhaps, he suffers from some kind of dissociative disorder. To illustrate this disorder, Beck has no objection to or concern about interracial mating although it results in the genocide of the races intermating, which racial nihilist support. If he were a true racial preservationist, he would support racial separation, but he does not. On the contrary, he opposes racial separation.) Further, he suggests that races differ because God created them with different attributes and for different purposes. If true, the races and, therefore, individuals of different races cannot be equal. Thus, Beck’s beloved proposition “that all men are created equal” dies.

Additionally, Beck claims that slavery is contrary to Christianity and the Bible. One wonders what Bible he uses. No where does the Bible or Christianity as taught in the Bible condemn slavery. On the contrary, the Bible sets forth a code for the treatment of slaves. Peter even urged slaves to be obedient to their masters regardless of how the master treated his slaves. (Because the Bible does not condemn slavery, the abolitionists abandoned it.)

Also, Beck suffers from Dixiephobia and Confederaphobia. He claims to be highly knowledgeable in American history. Yet, his knowledge (or should we say ignorance) of Southern history and, especially, the US Constitution and secession is appalling. He erroneously believes that slavery was the real cause of Southern secession despite slavery being better protected within than without the Union. For him, Father Abraham is the savior of the Union although the Union that Lincoln and the Radical Republicans created only superficially resembled the Union that the founding fathers created.

Beck claims that liberty and everything else good with the country comes from the Pilgrims and out of New England. (In The War Between the States, p. 138, Albert T. Bledsoe wrote, “The pilgrim fathers of Massachusetts delighted in two things: first, in the freedom from persecution for themselves; and, secondly, in the sweet privilege and power to persecute others.” This is an accurate description of the Yankee that Beck seems to admire.) Everything bad comes from Jamestown and out of the South. That is, Yankees and Northerners are righteous, and Southerners are evil. (Apparently, all those liberal and progressive Democrats in the North whom Beck despises are immigrants from the South masquerading as Yankees. He seems to believe that most Democrats today are still Southerners, and most Republicans are Northerners and Yankees. Yet, he seems schizophrenic about Southern Republicans, i.e., he praises them as Republicans but condemns them as Southerners.)

He implies obliquely that the first thing that the colonists in Virginia did was to build a fleet of slave ships, sail to Africa, kidnap thousands of Africans, returned to Virginia where they daily beat the Africans who survive the journey and inflicted all sorts of cruelties and tortures on them just to satisfy their sadistic lust. Further, he seems to suggest regret about the Radical Republicans’ failure to genocide the Southerner during Lincoln’s War and Reconstruction.

Beck says that Americans need to choose between the liberty (of the Pilgrims) and despotism (of the Southerner). In 1861, Southerners tried to separate themselves from Beck’s utopia of the freedom-loving and liberty advocating Puritan Yankees. However, Beck’s beloved Yankees would not let the South go — a decision with which Beck approves. Because the United States are (“is” as he would say) a propositional country and a conventual country, the North could not let the South go. It had to purge it of its evil. (In Beck’s mind, this evil was slavery. To the Northerner, this evil was depriving the U.S. government of 85 percent of its revenue, of which 80 percent paid for subsidies to Northern industries, if the secession of the Southern States were successful. Moreover, like most Northerners of that time, Beck hates the South and Southerners.)

Most of the State governments that Beck praises are in the South while most of the State governments that he condemns are in the North and on the West coast. Thus, most Southerners must have migrated to the North and West coast, while most Yankees must have migrated to the South. Unfortunately for him, population statistics do not support such migration.

Moreover, despite his Dixiephobia, most of what Beck likes in the country reside in the South, except its traditional social system, which he despises. Most of what he dislikes in the country resides in the North, except its racist hypocrisy, which he accepts. Thus, Beck seems to have some kind of dissociative disorder.

Like the Palestinians, Southerners are subhuman. Therefore, equality does not apply to the Southerner, especially the unreconstructed Southerner.  Nor does equality apply to Palestinians.

Except for the curse of slavery, Southerners contributed nothing to the founding of the United States. Apparently, Washington and Jefferson were not true Southerners; they were Yankees disguised as Southerners, so Becks seems to suggest.

Moreover, Beck judges historical figures by today’s racial standards, which Beck has adopted. Thus, President Wilson is a racist because he fired the Black personnel on the White House servant staff and segregated federal offices. Andrew Jackson is even more deplorable than Wilson because he forcibly moved Indians in the Southeast to Oklahoma (where they later allied with the Confederacy against the United States).

Like most conservative commentators these days, Beck insinuates that today’s Democrats are antiblack, anti-integration, pro-segregation, and White supremacists because most Democrats before World War II favored segregation and White rule. (This is called guilt by association.) However, he fails to identify pre-World-War-II Republicans who were segregationists and White supremacists — as nearly all pre-World-War-II Republicans were. Examples are repatriationist, White supremacist Lincoln; slaveholder, White supremacist Grant; and progressive, imperialist, eugenist, White supremacist Teddy Roosevelt. Instead, Beak defends the first two of these racist Republican presidents and treats them as great patron saints of racial equality, i.e., Black privilege, power, and supremacy — for that is the meaning of racial equality. Roosevelt, he identifies as a progressive because he ran as the Progressive Party’s candidate in 1912, and not as a Republican although he was the Republican president from 1901 to 1909.

On the plus side, Beck does oppose socialism and much of the economic agenda of liberals and progressives. Moreover, he favors controlled borders and is pro-life. Unfortunately, he has adopted most of the social agenda of the progressives, liberals, and socialists.

Conservatives like Beck are a greater threat to the South and Southerners (true Southerners, not White wokespersons, White social justice warriors, and the like who happen to be born in the South) than are Black Lives Matter and Antifa. Black Lives Matters and Antifa are the enemies without while conservatives like Beck are the enemies within. Enemies within are far more dangerous.

Afterthought
Beck ranks Wilson among the worst presidents because he ordered the racial segregation of federal offices. Yet, he seems to ignore Wilson’s real crimes: bringing the interventionist foreign policy to the United States and thus globalism to America, establishing the Federal Reserve System, adopting draconian laws that destroyed free speech and other liberties in the name of national security, lying the United States into World War I, dictatorially controlling the US economy and nationalizing the railroads and radio broadcasting to control information, and establishing the regulatory state where regulatory agencies enacted rules (legislative), enforced their rules (executive), and decided if their rules had been violated (judicial).

Like other neoconservatives, Beck ranks Lincoln among the greatest presidents mainly because he freed the slaves although he never freed a slave. He seems to overlook Lincoln’s real accomplishments: making himself absolute dictator who was above the States and the US Constitution, destroying the Constitution, imprisoning people who disagreed with him without due process of law, sacrificing more than 600,000 men to impose his protective tariff, authorizing the deliberate killing of women and children, giving the country legal-tender paper fiat money, establishing the imperial presidency, and committing treason according to the Constitution when he levied war against States that he calmed never left the union.

Copyright © 2020 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Analysis of a Speech Given to Black Lives Matters

Analysis of a Speech Given to Black Lives Matters

Thomas Allen

A local newspaper in a small town covered a small Black-Lives-Matter protest of about a dozen protestors.[1] (Based on the picture, Whites outnumbered Blacks.) This article analyzes that speech as presented in the newspaper article. My comments are enclosed in brackets.

Beginning the Black-Lives-Matter event, the organizers made some introductory remarks. They said that the event was being held for the cause of Black Lives Matter. Then, they introduced the guest speaker, who was a retired US Army Black female colonel.

The colonel began by praising the organizers and Black Lives Matter. [However, she failed to mention that goal of Black Lives Matter was to destroy White America and replace it with a socialistic Black America.]

Vigorously and joyfully, she approved of dismantling and removing the local Confederate monument. [Obviously, she is a Confederaphobe and probably a Dixiephobe, a hesperophobe, and an albusphobe. Consequently, she appears to suffer from mental problems. Ironically, she gave  her speech in front of another Confederate memorial, which has so far escape desecration.]

The article notes that the town has been sued for removing the statue. [However, the article does not mention that the statue was removed in violation of State law. Also, it was removed in violation of international law: “Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II),” Article 16 – “Protection of cultural objects and of places of worship,” which reads:

Without prejudice to the provisions of The Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 14 May 1954, it is prohibited to commit any acts of hostility directed against historic monuments, works of art or places of worship which constitute the cultural or spiritual heritage of peoples, and to use them in support of the military effort.]

She notes that people can never change history, but they can change their beliefs [by rewriting history to fit the current ideology or agenda — a la 1984].

Next, she comments about her father, who was a veteran of World War II, and about him being treated like a second class citizen. [Now, because of the civil rights laws of 1964 and 1991 and various other laws, court decisions, and administrative regulations, Whites are treated like second class citizens.] Moreover, when he returned home, he saw statues memorializing the Confederacy and none honoring the veterans of World War II. [When the Confederate soldiers returned home, they saw no statues honoring them. All they saw was devastation. Unlike her father, they also faced starvation. Moreover, most of these soldiers never saw a Confederate statue. Most of these statues were erected around the semicentennial and the centennial of Lincoln’s War.]

However, she does note that most of these Confederate statues were erected in the 1910s and 1920s with another wave of erections occurring in the 1950s and 1960s. She is convinced that they were erected to symbolize Jim Crow. Their purpose was to terrorize Blacks and convince Blacks that the White South had won Lincoln’s War. [If that were their purpose, they were highly ineffective. How many Southerners have ever met a Black who was so possessed by superstition that he lets statues terrorize him? This colonel has a low opinion of Blacks during this era if she believes what she says. Most Blacks seem to have ignored Confederate statutes until the White Confederaphobes demanded their removal. Just as the Puritan Yankee used the Negro to genocide the Southerner during the First Reconstruction, so he again uses the Negro to genocide the Southerner during the Second Reconstruction.]

Then, she attacks the Confederate soldier. According to her, they fought to defend an economic system based on the brutal destruction of Black families. [Apparently, she never considered that most Southerners were fighting to defend their homes and families from an invading horde. Furthermore, the welfare state of the Civil Rights Era has done more to destroy the Black family than slavery ever did. If she wants to save the Black family, she should lead the charge to dismantle the welfare state instead of focusing on destroying Confederate monuments.]

Like progressives, liberals, and neoconservatives, she accuses the Confederate soldier of treason. [If any treason were involved, Lincoln and his followers are the traitors. The reason that the US government never tried Jefferson Davis for treason is that it could not win the case. It even hired several leading attorneys to prosecute the case. These attorneys turned down the offer and advised the government that it had no case. Davis had no problem acquiring leading attorneys to defend him. Of course, this was a time when the courts had not been politicized as they are today.]

She claims that Southerners rebelled against the United States because they refused to accept a political solution to slavery. [Her knowledge (ignorance) of history ranks down there with that of the typical progressive, liberal, and neoconservative. Slavery was not the cause of the war; taxes were. Lincoln offered to concede almost any kind of protection and guarantee of slavery that the South demanded if it remained in the Union and let Lincoln collect the taxes for the benefit of the North. About Lincoln’s War,  The Quarterly Review of London wrote in 1862:

For the contest on the part of the North is now undisguisedly for empire. The question of Slavery is thrown to the winds. There is hardly any concession in its favor that the South could ask which the North would refuse, provided only that the seceding States would re-enter the Union. . . . Away with the pretense on the North to dignify its cause with the name of freedom to the slave!

In 1861, Karl Marx, who was an opponent of the South, summarized the war as follows:

The war between the North and the South is a tariff war. The war is further, not for any principle, does not touch the question of slavery, and in fact turns on the Northern lust for sovereignty.]

After she has spent most of her speech lambasting, condemning, castigating, degrading, and lying about Confederate soldiers, she asks their descendants to join her and her agenda. She asserts that she wants peace, unity, and change. [Does her desire for change include ending Black supremacy and Black privilege that now controls the United States? Does it include ending the genocide of the Southerner in particular and the White race in general? Does her idea of unity mean unity in the genocide of the Southerner and the White race? Is her definition of peace the communist definition: Peace means no resistance to the agenda of Black Lives Matter and all the destruction that it entails? To the first two questions, the answer is “no.” To the last two questions, the answer is “yes.”

Disappointingly, far too many Southerners suffer from Confederaphobia, Dixiephobia, hesperophobia, and albusphobia. They gladly join the colonel and Black Lives Matter in the eradication of the South and the White race and the destruction of America and Western Civilization.

In a closing note, one must wonder whether she became a colonel because of merit or because of Black privilege. Until proven otherwise, the safe assumption is that she became a colonel because of privilege as she is doubly privileged: first as a Black and second as a woman.]

Endnote

1.   Carey Johnson, “A Plea: ‘Move Forward Together,’” The Franklin Times, August 6, 2020, p. 1A.

Copyright © 2020 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Who sold Joseph to the Egyptian?

Who sold Joseph to the Egyptian?

Thomas Allen

Did the Midianites sell Joseph to the Egyptians (Genesis 37:36: “And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard”), or did the Ishmaelites sell him (Genesis 39:1: “And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hand of the Ishmaelites, that had brought him down thither”)? Moreover, did Joseph’s brothers sell him to the Ishmaelites as Genesis 37:25–27 implies? Or, did the Midianites steal Joseph from the pit where his brothers had thrown him and sell him to the Ishmaelites as stated in Genesis 37:28.
According to some modern critics, the writer or editor of Genesis has combined two stories taken from two different sources: the Jehovistic or Yahwistic and the Elohistic. (The Jehovistic source uses the divine name of Jehovah, Yahweh, whereas the Elohistic source uses the divine name of Elohim.) These two stories explain Joseph’s arrival in Egypt differently.
According to the Jehovistic story, Judah saved Joseph by selling him to the Ishmaelites, who later sold him to the Egyptians. As stated in the Elohistic story, Reuben saved Joseph by persuading the other brothers to cast Joseph into a pit from which the Midianites later stole him. They do so without any of the brothers witnessing the kidnaping. Then, the Midianites sold him to the Ishmaelites according to Genesis 38:28 or directly to the Egyptian according to Genesis 38:36. (Genesis 40:15 [“for indeed I {Joseph} was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews . . .”] supports the Midianites kidnaping Joseph.) Apparently, the author attempted to make the stories agree by having the Midianites selling Joseph to the Ishmaelites, but for some reason left in the sentence about the Midianites directly selling Joseph to the Egyptian.
Some commentators skirt the apparent conflict by claiming that Midianite merchants were accompanying the Ishmaelites caravan. The Midianites kidnaped Joseph and sold him to the Ishmaelites. Then, the Midianites continued journeying to Egypt with the Ishmaelites, and the two tribes arrived in Egypt together. From here the Ishmaelites and Midianites get confounded with one story identifying the Midianites as selling Joseph to the Egyptian and the other identifying the Ishmaelites as the seller. Nevertheless, this explanation fails to identify who really sold Joseph to the Egyptian: the Midianites or the Ishmaelites.
Others claim that the Midianites and Ishmaelites were the same people. (A major problem with this explanation is that the Ishmaelites stole Joseph and sold him to themselves.) Many commentators avoid the apparent conflict of the two stories by not mentioning it.
A possible resolution of the conflicting stories follows. Judah and his brothers discussed selling Joseph to the Ishmaelites whom they see approaching, but they did not sell him. Instead, they left him it the pit where Reuben had persuaded them to put him while they departed to eat lunch — perhaps continuing their discussion of selling him. While his brothers were eating, Reuben returned to the pit to rescue Joseph. However, before he returned, the Midianites discovered Joseph in the pit, took him out, and sold him to the Ishmaelites. Unfortunately, this explanation does not eliminate the problem of Genesis 37:36, which states that the Midianites, not the Ishmaelites, sold Joseph to the Egyptian.
Why did the author keep Genesis 37:36? Only God knows. Without this sentence, the two stories can be made to harmonize. However, this sentence creates a conflict that cannot be easily explained away, if it can be explained away at all. So, the question remains: Who sold Joseph to the Egyptian? The weight of the evidence supports the Ishmaelites selling Joseph to the Egyptian. However, Genesis 37:36 makes this conclusion uncertain as it clearly states the Midianites sold Joseph to the Egyptian, although Genesis 37:28 clearly states that the Midianites sold him to the Ishmaelites. The solution to this dilemma may never be known. Thus, lacking a satisfactory answer are these two questions: (1) To whom the Midianites sell Joseph: — the Ishmaelites (Genesis 37:28) or the Egyptian (Genesis 37:36), and (2) who sold Joseph to the Egyptian — the Midianites (Genesis 37:36) or the Ishmaelites (Genesis 39:1)?

Appendix
The Ishmaelites were descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s son by Hagar, a Mizraim (Egyptian). They inhabited the desert of northern Arabia between Havilah, Egypt, and the Euphrates. Also, allied desert nomads who inhabited the region inhabited by true Ishmaelites were often included among the Ishmaelites.
The Midianites were the descendants of Midian, Abraham’s son by Keturah. Like the Ishmaelites, they were desert people. Their habitat was the northwest Arabian desert, east of the Gulf of Aqaba, and south of Moab. Moses’s wife was a Midianite.

References
Davis, John D. A Dictionary of the Bible. 4th rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Michigan: Baker Book House: 1957.

Eiselen, Frederick Carl, Edwin Lewis, and David G. Downey, editors. The Abingdon Bible Commentary. New York, New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1929.

Miller, Madeleine S. and J. Lane Miller. Harper’s Bible Dictionary. 6th ed. New York, New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1959.

Peake, Arthur S., ed., A Commentary on the Bible. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, n.d.

Laymon, Charles M., Editor. The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary on the Bible. Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1971.

Copyright © 2019 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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