Cut a Covenant

My wife and I mentor engaged couples preparing to get married at our church. Over the course of four or five meetings with them, we go over their responses to a survey they previously completed. The very last survey question is “We understand that when we exchange our vows, we are entering into a life-long covenant.” This usually leads me to ask what the word “covenant” means to them and a typical response is “a life-long commitment.”

Chapter 15 of Genesis is what I usually think of when I hear the word “covenant”. Gen 15 is popular with theologians because it describes God’s covenant with Abram. It has a parallel with Gen 17 which also describes God’s covenant with Abram. But the promises in Gen 15 are unconditional while those in Gen 17 are conditional on Abram following God’s commands, like circumcision.

Gen 15 breaks down into two distinct units. The first narrative (vv. 1-6) is a promise of a biological son and innumerable descendants while the second (vv. 7-21) is a promise of land. One clue to them being distinct narratives is that they take place at different times. The first takes place at night (Abram looks up at the stars) while the second begins in the evening and continues into the night.

First Promise

The first narrative has been described by some biblical scholars as an oracle of salvation which takes the form of: 1) a pledge of salvation, 2) objection, 3) God’s answer and confirming sign, and 4) praise.

The pledge of salvation occurs in v. 1: “Do not fear, I am your shield; I will make your reward very great.” The promise to be Abram’s protector could be a reference to the battle described in Gen 14 and any fears Abram might have about possible retaliation from the defeated kings.

Abram objects to a promise of more wealth because, with Lot no longer his heir, all the wealth he has already accumulated will be left to a “slave born in my house”, a term which hearkens back to its previous use in Gen 14:14. YHWH answers Abram with the assurance that his heir will be his biological son. For a confirming sign YHWH has Abram step outside and tells him his descendants will be as countless as the stars.

This brings us to the conclusion of the oracle in v. 6. The Hebrew is ambiguous: “And he believed [or trusted] YHWH and he credited it to him as righteousness [or loyalty, fidelity].” Who credited what to whom?

The traditional interpretation is because Abram believed in YHWH, YHWH credited that act of belief to Abram as righteousness. In other words, faith makes one right with God. This verse later became a key verse for St. Paul (Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6) and, through him, was a proof text for the Protestant theology of salvation by faith alone (sola fide).

But if vv. 1-6 are an oracle of salvation, the format calls for praise from Abraham. Because the Hebrew is ambiguous, there is another possible interpretations of this line: Abram trusted in YHWH and Abram credited the promise to YHWH’s fidelity. In other words, Abram trusts YHWH will fulfil the promise because he acknowledges YHWH’s fidelity. This reading of the Hebrew as praise of YHWH betters fits as a conclusion to an oracle of salvation.

Abrahamic Covenant, God Walks the Line (2009) by Wayne Forte (wayneforte.com)

Second Promise and Covenant

The second narrative is the most interesting part of the chapter for me as it describes a bizarre (to us) covenant ceremony. YHWH tells Abram (v. 7) that the land of Canaan will be given to him as a possession and Abram asks for proof. YHWH tells him (vv. 9-10) to take various animals and cut them in two, placing the severed parts opposite each other. After night falls, Abram witnesses (v. 17) a smoking firepot and flaming torch pass between the animal parts.

In the OT, two parties “cut a covenant” in a ceremony involving the sacrifice of an animal, witnessed by the deity. Any party not honoring the covenant will meet the same fate as the sacrificed animal. Jer 34:18-20 describes a covenant ceremony where officials walked in procession between the severed parts of a sacrificed calf. Because the officials did not honor the terms of the covenant, YHWH will enforce the terms by handing them over to their enemies.

The difference here in Gen 15 is that YHWH (appearing as smoke and flame) is a participant in the covenant and not just a witness. This is YHWH’s way of telling Abram that he will be true to his promise.

Four Hundred Years or Four Generations?

The appearance of birds of prey (v. 11) that Abram has to drive off may be an omen that the promise of land will not be fulfilled without a struggle. If true, this would tie into the prophecy made in vv. 13-16, which many commentators have assumed is a later insertion rather than being an original part of the second narrative.

In vv. 13-16 YHWH tells Abram that his descendants will be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years. He also says the “fourth generation” will return to the promised land because “the wickedness of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

YHWH is obviously referring to slavery in Egypt and the exodus. But what is meant by the “fourth generation” (v. 16a) will return to Canaan? And how do you reconcile that with Abram’s descendants being oppressed for 400 years?

The Bible sometimes indicates an Egyptian sojourn much shorter than 400 years. For example, Exod 6:16-20 gives us the genealogy of Moses and Aaron. Levi, one of Jacob’s sons, descends to Egypt with his son Kohath (generation #1). Kohath has a son named Amram (#2) who is the father of Moses and Aaron (#3). Moses dies before reaching the promised land, but his sons (generation #4) live to enter Canaan.

Other passages like Ex 12:40 state clearly that the Israelites were in Egypt for 430 years. There seems to have been two traditions for the Egyptian sojourn. In one tradition, there were only four generations in Egypt; in the other, approximately 400 years. This passage appears to conflate the two traditions.

The Wickedness of the Amorites

Who were the Amorites? If you ask a historian, Amorites refer to the people of Amurru, west of Mesopotamia in modern-day Syria. But in the biblical texts the terms “Amorites” and “Canaanites” are frequently used interchangeably to describe the original occupants of the land. Some texts locate the Amorites in the mountainous areas of Canaan (e.g., Num 13:29; Josh 11:3) and other texts locate them east of the Jordan (e.g., Deut 3:8; Judg 10:8).

What does it mean in v. 16b that “the wickedness of the Amorites is not yet complete”? The author presupposes his audience understands that the Amorites/Canannites were driven out upon the Israelites’ return from their sojourn in Egypt. What was the Israelites’ justification for exterminating the Amorites? Their wickedness. Why did the Israelites have to wait 400 years in Egypt before taking possession of the land? Because the Amorites’ wickedness hadn’t yet run its course. YHWH is granting the Amorites 400 years to rack up all the sins that will then justify their extermination.

The idea that the Israelites will possess the land not because of their righteousness but because of the wickedness of the indigenous population reflects deuteronomic theology (compare Deut 9:4-5). This attitude is still with us today in TV preachers who, after a hurricane in New Orleans or earthquake in San Francisco, blame the loss of life on the sinfulness of the victims. These same TV preachers also believe Israel has a right to appropriate Palestinian territories on the West Bank based on the promise of land God made to Abraham.

Helping interpret current events is another reason why I believe an understanding of the Bible is crucial, even for people who may not necessarily be religious.

Abram Shot First

Every true Star Wars fan knows Han shot first. In the original 1977 Star Wars film, Han Solo is confronted by the alien bounty hunter Greedo in the Mos Eisley cantina. Before Greedo can bring him to Jabba the Hutt, Han sneakily guns down Greedo. The scene cemented Han’s image as a bad boy.

Director George Lucas was unsatisfied with the scene because Han is a hero, not a cold-blooded killer. Lucas wanted to show Han only shot in self-defense, so in the 1997 Special Edition release, he tinkered with the scene to show Greedo firing first (and missing from four feet away). This angered fans who felt it both weakened Solo’s character and turned Greedo into the galaxy’s most incompetent bounty hunter. The DVD version, therefore, shows them firing almost simultaneously.

And now with the launching of the Disney+ streaming service, we get yet another version of the scene. In this one, Greedo says something that sounds like “maclunkey” before he and Solo exchange fire. Apparently, this is supposed to be a threat in Greedo’s language along the lines of “I’ll get you.”

Greedo confronts Han Solo in the Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine (scene from Star Wars, 1977)

What does this Star Wars minutia have to do with the Bible? Chapter 14 of Genesis is the biblical version of the Han/Greedo scene that has been undergone many alterations.

The Maclunkey Version

Genesis 14 reads like nothing that comes before it (or after it) in Genesis. Describing a battle, it starts off with a mind-numbing list of kings and cities. It is reminiscent of the sort of narratives you find in the Second Book of Kings (for example, 2 Kings 24:1-2). When the passage finally gets around to Abram in v. 13, he is called “Abram the Hebrew”, unique in Genesis. In gathering 300 men to fight off a much larger army, Abram acts more like one of the Judges (Gideon, for example) than he does a patriarch.

Gen 14 has frequently been referred to as a “puzzle” or “enigma”. Biblical scholars have been unable to attribute the chapter to any of the usual sources like J or P. Older scholarship thought that maybe it could be an independent account that found its way into the Bible. If we knew who the various kings of Shinar, Ellasar, and Elam were, we could determine the approximate date when such a battle could have taken place. Unfortunately, historians have been unable to identify the characters of Amraphel, Arioch, and Chedorlaomer. The names given for the kings of Sodom (Bera = “in wickedness”) and Gomorrah (Birsha = “in evil”) seem a little too on-the-nose to be historical (sort of like naming a bounty hunter “Greedo”).

The story breaks down into two distinct pieces. First, there is the battle account in vv. 1-12. The kings of four regions in the East wage war against the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, and the other cities of the Jordan Plain. The battle ends badly as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fall into asphalt pits along the Dead Sea and the enemy takes all their goods, as well as Abram’s nephew Lot and other hostages.

The second part of the narrative (vv. 13-24) recounts how Abram and his Amorite allies lead a rescue mission, defeat the foreign kings, and return the goods and people to the king of Sodom. But, before reaching the conclusion of the rescue story, King Melchizedek of Salem pops up out of nowhere (vv. 18-20), bearing bread and wine and offering a blessing. In return, Abram gives him 10% of the recovered plunder. Returning everything else to the king of Sodom, Abram refuses to take as much as a shoe-string.

The Original Release

A closer reading highlights various oddities besides the mysterious appearance of Melchizedek. Although the foreign kings made war against the five kings of the Plain, only the goods from Sodom and Gomorrah were carried away and Abram only returns the goods (and hostages) to the king of Sodom. Who, by the way, was last mentioned as having fallen into an asphalt pit. Although the king of Sodom allows Abram to keep the recovered plunder, Abram almost ostentatiously declines the offer.

We seem to have here a narrative that has been rewritten multiple times. Based on clues found on a close reading [1], the original story probably went something like this: 

The kings of Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela made war with the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. The kings of Sodom and Gomorrah went out and joined battle with them in the Valley of Siddim. Now the Valley of Siddim was full of bitumen pits; and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell into them. So the enemy took all the property of Sodom and Gomorrah and went their way. They took Lot and all his property and went their way.
 When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he mustered the slaves born in his house and went in pursuit as far as Dan. And he divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and routed them. And he brought back all the property, and also his relative Lot and his property he brought back.

In this reconstructed telling of the original story, Abram the warrior chieftan rescues Lot and enriches himself in the process. In Gen 13, we are left thinking that Lot got the better part of his separation from Abram, only now to find Abram in possession of Sodom’s property through right of conquest.

The Special Editions

Apparently the thought that Abram profited from notoriously sinful people like the Sodomites bothered the early story-tellers. In version 2.0 of the story, the king of Sodom is reclaimed from the asphalt pits to meet Abram at the Valley of Shaveh. The king tells Abram to hand over his people but keep the property; Abram refuses the offer. Much as a politician needs to return a campaign contribution made by an unsavory donor, Abram needs to demonstrate that he cannot be bought; his allegiance is to YHWH alone.

In yet a third re-writing, kings from nations in the East are added as the antagonists and the original enemy, the small-fry kings of neighboring cities, became allies of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. Before meeting the combined armies of five cities, the foreign kings first must defeat both mythological and historical inhabitants of regions to the east and south of Canaan. These are the same nations defeated by Moses and the Israelites on their way to the promised land (Deut 2:8-25). With a much more powerful army to defeat, Abram is given Amorite allies, and the hero warrior is recast as the leader of a military coalition. Defeating world-class armies means that Abram’s role is elevated to be on par with these other sovereigns.

The final layer is the introduction of the verses (18-20) referring to Melchizedek. The character of Melchizedek (= “my king is righteousness”) has intrigued many theologians. For Christians, as both king and priest he is frequently seen as a forerunner of Christ (Heb 7), his gifts of bread and wine a precursor to the Eucharist.

Melchizedek from the city of Salem is supposed to represent the post-exilic priesthood of Jerusalem and the importance of paying tithes. The priestly origin of the insertion is evidenced by Abram’s blessing coming through the priestly mediation of Melchizedek instead of directly from YHWH as in the rest of Genesis. If a goal of version 2.0 was to demonstrate that Abram owes his allegiance only to YHWH, the goal of version 4.0 was to show through his tithing that even Abram acknowledges the authority of the priesthood.

To me, peeling away the various layers of rewriting explains inconsistencies and contradictions in the final version of the Gen 14 narrative. You see how each re-edited version tried to redirect the meaning of the previous layer. It allows you to see and understand the original and intermediate levels in a way that is not possible if you only study the canonical narrative as it appears in the Bible. It enriches my understanding of the passage.

[1] Christoph Berner, “Abraham amidst Kings, Coalitions and Military Campaigns” in The Reception of Biblical War Legislation in Narrative Contexts (BZAW 460, Berlin/Boston, 2015), pp. 23-60.

Split Decision

Originally I wasn’t planning on discussing chapter 13 of Genesis because it didn’t seem that significant. To briefly recount the passage, disagreements arise between herdsmen for Abram and those for his nephew Lot. Abram proposes that they separate from one another and offers Lot first choice. Lot chooses the well-watered Jordan valley and they part amicably.

My initial impression was that the episode merely serves to explain how Abram’s nephew found himself in the city of Sodom; this point is key to Abram’s rescue of Lot in the following chapter. The passage has been sermonized as contrasting the generosity of Abram vs. the selfishness of Lot or as an example in conflict resolution. But a closer reading of the text indicates that this is a critical moment in Abram’s life.

A Little About Lot

We first encounter Lot in the genealogy of Terah in Gen 11:27-32 where Lot is mentioned as the son of Haran, who then dies. When Terah leaves Ur, he takes his son Abram and his orphaned grandson Lot with him and they settle in Haran. Abram later leaves Haran for Canaan and brings his nephew Lot along (12:4-5). We don’t hear of Lot again until he is mentioned going up from Egypt with Abram to the Negeb (desert region in southern Canaan) in 13:1.

The implication from all this is that Abram has adopted Lot as his heir. After all, we were told early on in 11:30 that Abram’s wife, Sarai, is barren. YHWH also told Abram in 12:2 that he would become a blessing and that the land of Canaan would be given to his descendants (12:7). Not having any children of his own, Abram must have assumed that his descendants would be through Lot, unless by some chance Sarai was to conceive or Abram took another wife.

This has two important implications. First, Abram’s welfare was key to fulfilling the promise. As long as he was alive, he could still father a child (through Sarai or someone else). Second, Lot was his backup plan. If something were to happen to Abram or he could not father a child of his own, as his heir Lot would inherit the land of Canaan and fulfil the promise of being a great nation.

From this perspective, Sarai’s welfare was secondary. Knowing this helps us understand Abram’s motivations in Egypt in passing off Sarai as his sister in 12:10-20. In order to fulfill the promise, Abram needed to preserve his own life at all costs. If that meant selling off Sarai to Pharaoh, then so be it. Little did Abram realize at the time that Sarai was absolutely necessary to the promise. His mistaken actions actually put the promise at risk and YHWH had to bail him out by causing a plague in Egypt that led to Pharaoh expelling Abram and his people.

Choice of Lot

Gen 13 literally returns Abram to where he was before his excursion into Egypt. In 12:8 he pitched his tent in the hill country between Bethel and Ai and then travelled by stages – presumably following the flocks as they grazed – down to the Negeb. When famine hit the region, Abram continue moving on to Egypt. In 13:1-3 this migration is reversed. Abram went up from Egypt to the Negeb and then travelled by stages back to “the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had formerly stood.”

Lot makes his choice (artist unknown)

By this point, the flocks and herds owned by Abram and Lot were too numerous for the land to support and quarrels developed. Instead of remaining together and over-grazing the land, Abram proposes they go their separate ways and thereby utilize the resources of the entire land. As the elder, Abram could have selected the best portion for himself, but instead he allows Lot to choose and Abram will take what remains. Lot chooses the well-watered plain of Jordan and sets out eastward, leaving Abram to settle in the land of Canaan.

As mentioned above, I never saw this passage as all that significant. But biblical scholar Larry Helyer has studied the passage in detail and sees implications in Lot’s choice for his status as Abram’s heir.

Helyer [1] points out that Bethel sits atop the ridge of hills that runs through central Canaan. It also sat between the northern pasturage centered around Shechem and the southern pasturage centered around Hebron and Beesheba. The stories in the Jacob cycle are located on the northern pasturage and those in the Abraham cycle are mostly associated with places set in the southern pasturage.

According to Helyer, Abram is presenting Lot with a choice of northern or southern pasturage. You can visualize the two of them standing on the ridge overlooking the land with Abram saying, “If you prefer the left, I’ll go to the right; if you prefer the right, I’ll go to the left.” If they are facing west, the “left” is the southern pasturage and the “right” is the northern pasturage.

Abram provides a binary choice that would keep the land “in the family”, but Lot thinks outside the box. Lot looks behind them and sees how well-watered is the whole “kikkar of the Jordan”. Usually translated as “plain of the Jordan,” kikkar means something round and flat. It could be referring to a circular oasis, a flat plain, or an area bounded by a loop of the Jordan. Whatever the “Jordan Disk” was, it must have been a sight to behold. The narrator compares it favorably to both YHWH’s garden in Eden and Egypt.

Legal Separation

Lot leaves Abram and heads east, finally pitching his tents near Sodom, one of the cities of the Jordan Disk. The narrator does some foreshadowing here of events in Gen 19, informing us that YHWH has yet to destroy Sodom and the other cities of the Disk because of their great wickedness. The reader would be left to wonder what will befall Lot when his new home is destroyed, but Abram would be unsettled for a completely different reason.

From Abram’s perspective, Lot’s choice meant his heir would be leaving the promised land of Canaan. The Jordan River marks the eastern boundary of Canaan. By choosing to live among the cities of the Disk, on the eastern bank of the Jordan (the Transjordan), Lot has removed himself outside the boundaries of Canaan; he will no longer have a share in the promised land. He won't be inheriting the family business.

YHWH tries to cheer up Abram by confirming (13:14-17) that all the land he can see will indeed be given to his descendants. But the problem still remains that Abram has no descendants of his own. That particular plotline is still unresolved and will continue to work its way through the rest of Abraham’s story.

[1] “Abraham’s Eight Crises,” Bible Review, Vol. 11, No. 5 (October 1995), pp. 20-27, 44.

Take My Wife -- Please

Abraham is renowned in the Bible for being a man of faith. Maybe that’s how he ended up, but he certainly didn’t start off that way.

Abram Goes Down to Egypt

The first time we see Abraham – then named Abram – in action is Gen 12:10-20 and it’s not exactly edifying Prefiguring what will happen later in Genesis and Exodus, a famine hits the land of Canaan and Abram goes down to Egypt. Because his wife Sarai is so beautiful, Abram fears he will be killed for her. But if he announces she is his sister; instead of being killed, Abram will get the bride price for her. The plan works. Pharaoh brings Sarai into his harem and rewards Abram with much livestock (including camels) and slaves. YHWH afflicts Pharaoh and his household with plagues on behalf of Sarai. Learning of the ruse, Pharaoh expels Abram and Sarai.

The story is rather unsettling on many levels. Many modern interpreters view the passage as illustrating Abram’s lack of trust in YHWH. Despite having been promised earlier in 12:1-9 that YHWH would make him into a great nation, Abram thought he needed to take matters into his own hands to protect YHWH’s promise. But by endangering Sarai he put the promise in jeopardy and YHWH had to bail him out by punishing the Egyptians.  

An older view is that Abram did nothing wrong. He knew Egypt was a land of evil-doers and there’s nothing wrong with deceiving people who would try to do you harm. In fact, Abram turned the situation to his advantage. Instead of being killed, he walked away much wealthier. Abram is not condemned for what he did but the Egyptians are certainly punished for abducting Sarai.

Sarai is Taken to Pharoah’s Palace by James Tissot (1836-1902) [courtesy: Wikimedia Commons]

Because It Worked So Well the First Time…

You would have thought he had learned his lesson the first time, but amazingly Abram pulls the same stunt again in Gen 20.

In that passage, Abram – now called Abraham – finds himself in Gerar, in Canaan. Again, he passes off his wife – now called Sarah – as his wife and Abimelech, the king of Gerar, takes her. Unlike the previous version of the story, we are told that God prevents Abimelech from touching her. Later we learn there is a plague of infertility throughout the land (a plague of impotence, perhaps?). God (not YHWH) appears to Abimelech in a dream, sentences him to die, and Abimelech defends his innocence. God agrees. Abimelech demands an explanation from Abraham, returns Sarah to him, and gives him money to restore her honor. Abraham prays on behalf of Abimelech and God lifts the plague.

In this story, it is clear that Abimelech is a god-fearing man. He is horrified to learn that he had unwittingly taken another man’s wife (“I did this in the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands”). He’s also outraged at Abraham’s deception (“What were you thinking?”). Abraham’s pathetic defense is that Sarah is his half-sister, so he wasn’t telling a complete falsehood, just leaving out an important bit of information (in Catholic theology, this would be referred to as a “mental reservation”).

In the lengthy dialogues between God and Abimelech and Abimelech and Abraham, the biblical author of this passage is making it clear that Abraham is the guilty party, even if the outcome was to his benefit.

And, just to prove the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, in Gen 26:1-11 Abraham’s son Isaac pulls the exact same ruse when he tries to pass off his wife Rebekah as his sister with King Abimelech of the Philistines in Gerar. Seriously.

Multiple Versions, Multiple Sources

One possible explanation for multiple versions of essentially the same story is that we are dealing with multiple sources. Gen 26 explicitly references Gen 12 (this famine is different from that of Abraham, “do not go down to Egypt”), but is completely unaware of Gen 20 (does not try to explain why Abimelech fell for the trick again). Gen 12 and 26 mostly use the name YHWH in reference to the deity whereas Gen 20 uses Elohim (God). Gen 20 also has the motifs of God appearing in a dream, “fearing God”, and Abraham as a prophet. The character of Abimelech is tied to parallel narratives (in Gen 21 with Abraham and 26 with Isaac) describing how Beer-sheba got its name.

Based on these indicators, Gen 12 and 26 are usually attributed to the same source (J) while Gen 20 is attributed to a second source. This particular source is called the Elohist (E) because it refers to God as Elohim prior to Exodus. Other hallmarks of the Elohist source are God appearing in dreams, the need to “fear God”, and the establishment of prophetic authority.

If two sources are involved, it is not surprising that we have two versions (doublets) of essentially the same story. There are many examples of this in Genesis. What is surprising, however, is that we have doublets (Gen 12 and 26) within the same source.

Although Gen 12 and 26 apparently come from the same source, they do not appear to come from the same time. Of the two, Gen 12 is the more archaic. As we saw earlier, through his quick-thinking, Abram turns a bad situation into a money-making opportunity. The patriarchal narratives are rife with characters who use deception to advance in the world.

But the version that appears in Gen 26 seems from a later time. In this version, Abimelech is very much the innocent party; he does not take Rebekah into his house. Had he not spied Isaac and Rebekah making a very public display of affection, Abimelech would not even have been aware of their deception. Unlike the other versions of this narrative, God is not involved, neither to plague the kings nor to inform them of the deception.

What About Sarah?

Lost in all of the focus on Abraham is Sarah. A 2015 article from Christianity Today titled “David Was a Rapist, Abraham Was a Sex Trafficker” gets to the heart of the matter: Abraham profited by pimping out his wife. The utilitarian argument could be made that Sarah would have been abducted whether or not Abraham told the truth, so his lie saved his life and made him richer. But what exactly was the rest of the plan? Had God not intervened, what would have happened to Sarah? Would Abraham ever have been able to reclaim her?

Typically, when a king wants to make an alliance with another king, he will give one of his daughters in marriage to seal the deal. The author of Genesis wants to portray Abraham or Isaac as the equivalent of a king, even though they were more akin to tribal chief or sheik. But neither Abraham nor Isaac had daughters that could be married off, therefore the need to pass off their wife as their sister. The sources seem bound to the story-telling convention of a kingly alliance but had to contort it to take account of the daughterless patriarchs, no matter how nonsensical the resulting tale became. (For comparison, Jacob did have a daughter to bargain with the king of Shechem in Gen 34 but that didn’t turn out so well.)

One could say that I’m inappropriately applying 21^st century concepts of women’s personhood and agency to a culture that saw women as the property of men. But if my reading of the variations in the stories are correct, the idea that Abraham would sell Sarah to some foreign potentate bothered the authors three millennia ago. This uneasiness with the patriarchs’ deception may have been due to the development of law codes around adultery and perjury in a legal system that simply did not exist when the original narrative first circulated in an oral tradition.

Opening Up the Bible

The varying nuances and interpretations for odd stories like the wife-sister triplets are one of the reasons why I love a critical approach to studying the Bible. If you believe that the wife-sister stories happened exactly as reported, then you are limited to thinking Abraham was either devious or lacking in faith. He was also very reckless to try his ruse a second time and Abimelech was foolish not to suspect Isaac was pulling the same scam.

However, if you accept a critical approach to understanding the Bible, new avenues of interpretation open up to you. You can explore the possibility of multiple sources or a literary variation on the standard alliance-through-marriage narrative. Why is the author repeating essentially the same story multiple times? What is he trying to say by slightly varying the narrative each time? Can the story be better understood by looking at what happened immediately prior to it or does it shed light on what is to come?

Once you open up the world of the Bible, the Bible opens up for you.

The Camel's Nose Under Moses' Tent

A popular trope in the media is the science-proves-the-Bible story and I reviewed a couple of those (Sodom destroyed by meteor and Joshua witnessed an eclipse) recently. Not quite as popular is the science-disproves-the-Bible story and we have a recent example of that from 2013 where two researchers from Tel Aviv University dated the introduction of domesticated camels in the area south of the Dead Sea to the latter third of the 10^th century BCE.

How does this disprove the Bible? Well, camels are featured prominently in some of the stories in Genesis and these stories supposedly took place hundreds of years before the Exodus. Yet the scientific evidence shows domesticated camels only came into widespread use after the time of Solomon.

The article itself doesn’t address the anachronistic reference to camels in Genesis. That was brought out in media reports in early 2014 such as the one in the New York Times: “Camels Had No Business in Genesis”. Reports like this in the popular media unleashed a wide range of critics questioning the original research in order to defend the accuracy of Genesis.

The problem, though, is that camels aren't the only anachronisms in Genesis.

Handler offering camel rides in the Australian Outback. Camels are not native to Australia. They were imported in the 1800s for use as transportation in the desert. When the camels became displaced by motorized transportation in the 1920s, they were released into the wild. (photo by author, 2012)

Who Wrote the Five Books of Moses?

Traditionally, Genesis and the other four books of the Torah (or Pentateuch) were attributed to Moses. That’s why they are called “the Five Books of Moses”. And when I say “attributed”, I don’t mean people only thought the traditions in them go back to Moses. No, the commonly-held view for centuries was that the Torah was entirely penned by Moses. Some allowance was made for Joshua recording the events of Moses’ death and burial (for obvious reasons) but that was it.

However, over the centuries astute students of the Torah noticed Moses was unlikely to have called himself “more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Num 12:3). That’s not the sort of thing a humble man would say.

Other verses point to the Torah having been written long after Moses:

• “Canaanites were then in the land” (Gen 12:6) implies that Canaanites were no longer in Canaan
• “before any king ruled over the Israelites” (Gen 36:31) implies that kings had ruled over Israel at the time this was written
• “since then, no prophet has arisen in Israel like Moses” (Deut 34:10) implies that the present time of the author is long after that of Moses

In addition to the aforementioned camels, references to “Philistines” in the Torah are out of place as the Philistines did not arrive at the coastal areas of Canaan until around 1200 BCE (more than a century after Moses). Genesis 11:28 refers to “Ur of the Chaldeans” but the Chaldeans did not occupy the region containing the city of Ur until about 1000 BCE.

Clearly, the Torah wasn’t written in Moses’ time. Nor, as we have seen from studying the creation and flood stories, was it written by a single author. There was a Yahwist source (J) and a Priestly source (P) who contributed the bulk of Genesis through Numbers with the Deuteronomist (D) who was largely responsible for Deuteronomy. Based on internal clues, J’s setting best fits in the 9^th/8^th centuries BCE and P belongs to the 6^th century BCE (after the fall of Jerusalem).

Writing in the 9^th or 8^th century BCE, the author would be familiar with the idea of domesticated camels. Camels would have been part of the cultural milieu for one or two centuries. Writing down a story about Abraham or Isaac, the Genesis author would have naturally assumed the patriarchs used camels as well.

Cultural Memories

Unlike stories of the exodus or conquest that could be proven or disproven by archaeology, the patriarchal narratives of Gen 12-50 are family stories and, barring the excavation of a clay tablet recording Abraham’s purchase of a burial plot or an inscription announcing the appointment of Joseph to pharaoh’s court, verifying the existence of individuals through archaeology is next to impossible. The destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire and brimstone would be one possible avenue to archaeological verification, but the evidence presented so far seems extremely weak.

True, just because the patriarchal narratives were written down hundreds of years after they occurred doesn’t mean truly old traditions couldn’t have been handed down orally for generations. But I think we need to be very modest as to what can reasonably go back to the period of 2000-1500 BCE. Details of individual events will be lost after a few generations, but events happening in the longer timescales of society, religion, and ethnicity are more likely to be recalled centuries later.

Given all this, what aspects of the patriarchal narratives may go back to a pre-Israelite period? Two things stand out: the location of the ancestral home in the Haran region and worship of the Canaanite god El.

The older J source places Abraham’s home in Haran, a city in upper Mesopotamia. The names of Abraham’s ancestors – Serug, Nahor, Terah – are all place names in the region around Haran. The P source overwrote the tradition of the ancestral home of Haran with “Ur of the Chaldeans”, a major city in lower Mesopotamia, but still retained Haran as a stopover point. Abraham’s relatives (including Laban) remained behind in Haran when Abraham continued his journey to Canaan.

By the time the stories were collected into the Torah, Arameans occupied the ancestral homeland. That’s why we see references to “Laban the Aramean” (Gen 25:20; 31:20, 24) and “my father was a wandering Aramean” (Deut 26:5). The current occupants of the Haran region were assumed to have existed at the time of the patriarchs just as camels were.

The other element of pre-Israelite cultural memory is the worship of the Canaanite God, El. The P source is quite clear that YHWH was known to the patriarchs only as El Shaddai (Ex 6:2-3). Bethel and Penuel, two prominent cultic sites in the patriarchal narratives are compounded with the name El, as is the name Israel itself. Although the J source insists that the name YHWH was invoked from almost the very beginning, there are no names compounded with YHWH until the era of Moses (Jochebed and Joshua are the first).

In my view, it is clear that the stories in Genesis were written centuries after the time they supposedly took place. The patriarchal narratives may retain some accurate cultural memories of an ancestral homeland in Haran and the worship of the Canaanite god El prior to the introduction of the YHWH cult. But the individual stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph are simply not historical in the same sense as those pertaining to David, Jeremiah, and other figures appearing later in the Bible.

Total Eclipse of a Farce

While researching the claim that a meteor destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, I ran across a reference to another celestial event “proving” the Bible: a solar eclipse in the time of Joshua.

According to a paper by Colin Humphreys and Graeme Waddington published in the October 2017 issue of Astronomy & Geophysics, the biblical event where Joshua orders the sun and moon to stand still (Josh 10:12-14) refers to a solar eclipse and this can be dated to 30 October 1207 BCE. Previous researchers had looked for a total solar eclipse over Canaan during the expected time frame and didn’t find one.

Humphreys and Waddington thought, “What about an annular eclipse?” In an annular eclipse the moon is a bit further from Earth and therefore its disk is smaller and does not completely block the sun. There would still be a narrow ring of sunlight along the edges of the moon’s disk. When Humphreys and Waddington wrote a program to calculate annular eclipses over Canaan in the expected time frame, they found one in 1207 BCE.

Another team of Israeli researchers (physicist Ḥezi Yitzḥak, biblical scholar Daniel Vainstub, and archeologist Uzi Avner) independently reached the same conclusion and published their findings in January 2017 in the Hebrew journal Beit Mikra. Coincidences like this happen frequently in science. Because I don’t have access to that paper, I’ll restrict my discussion to the arguments presented by Humphreys and Waddington.

An annular eclipse, photographed on 10 May 2013. (Image: Fabrizio Melandri)

Not Enough Hours in the Day

As many critics have commented, Joshua 10 does not seem to be describing an eclipse at all. The chapter recounts a battle that Joshua’s army fought after an all-night march from Gilgal. The way the story is traditionally read, Joshua just didn’t have enough hours in the day to completely defeat all his enemies. So Joshua spoke to YHWH and the sun and moon stopped in the sky, giving him enough time to win the battle.

Arguing that the celestial event being described is an eclipse, Humphreys and Waddington point to the word usually translated as “stand still” saying it really meant “stop shining” not “stop moving”.

But a solar eclipse in the late afternoon would have given Joshua less daylight hours for his battle, not more. Also, when you read the text, Joshua calls for the sun to stand still at Gibeon and the moon to stop in the valley of Aijalon. Gibeon and Aijalon are ten miles apart on an east-west axis. In other words, the sun and moon appear to be in opposite sides of the sky, which makes an eclipse impossible since the moon needs to be in front of the sun for that to happen.

Poetic License

The story of the sun and moon standing still come from vv. 12-14. These verses seem very intrusive to the story presented in the rest of Josh 10:1-15. You could remove them and nothing would be missed.

To recap the story, in vv. 10-11 the combined army of five Canaanite kings (referred to as the Amorites) is fleeing, under constant attack from Joshua’s forces. YHWH gives the Israelites a bit of help by lobbing hailstones at the Amorites. The Bible reports more of the Amorites were killed by the hailstones than by the Israelites. It seems like the battle is over. If we skip over to v. 15, Joshua’s victorious army returns to Gilgal. It seems like a natural conclusion to the battle story, no eclipse needed.

In contrast, vv. 12-14 is a self-contained unit. After a brief introduction in v. 12a, vv. 12b-13a recite a bit of poetry taken from “the Book of Jashar” (or “the Book of the Upright” if “Jashar” is not a proper name). The rest is an elaboration on the poetic passage. Since these poetic verses come from a different source, they don’t necessarily refer to this specific battle. 

We don’t know if these verses are older or younger than the source for the rest of Joshua 10. In the main battle story, YHWH had already provided divine aid in the form of accurately targeted hailstones. The reference to an extraordinary celestial event such as stopping the motion of the sun and moon seems like a later legendary enhancement.

The Merneptah stele is a 10-foot (3-meter) slab of black granite recounting the pharoah's victories over Libya and its allies. The reference to "Israel" appears on line 27 (highlighted).

It’s About Time

The solar eclipse hypothesis is already looking shaky. But the title of the article by Humphreys and Waddington is “Solar eclipse of 1207 BC helps to date pharoahs” and therein lies another problem.

Historians agree that the first mention of Israel outside the Bible is in the victory stele of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah (reigned 1213-1203 BCE). Dated to Merneptah’s fifth year, it recounts his recent victory over neighboring peoples, one of them being “Israel”. Arguing that the confrontation with Israel would have happened a year or two before the victory stele was created, Humphreys and Waddington state that the 1207 eclipse would allow us to place the start of Merneptah’s reign as 1210 ± 1 year.

I had to read this part of their paper several times because I thought I missed something. But I didn’t. For some reason known only to them, Humphreys and Waddington equate the eclipse of 1207 BCE to Merneptah’s victory over Israel. But according to the Bible, Joshua was doing battle with five Amorite kings, not Egyptians. And Joshua won the battle, to boot! I’m really at a loss to understand how they put 2 and 2 together and got 5.

Even if you accept that the event cited in Josh 10:12-14 refers to a solar eclipse – and that’s a big “if” -- there is absolutely no connection between that and a victory of the Egyptians over Israel referenced in the Merneptah stele.

Where does this leave us?

There’s little doubt that an annular solar eclipse transpired on 30 October 1207 BCE in Canaan. You can check it out for yourself using the NASA eclipse calculator. The claim that Josh 10:12-14 refers to an eclipse depends on a debatable understanding of the Hebrew, and the reference to the sun and the moon in opposite parts of the sky seems to rule it out. The verses about the sun and moon are also not original to the rest of the story in Josh 10:1-11, 15.

Other than an interesting astronomical factoid, the eclipse of 30 October 1207 BCE doesn’t tell us anything about Egyptian chronology or the veracity of the Bible.

...Requires Explosive Evidence

In part one of this article I examined a claim that the biblical city of Sodom had been destroyed by an exploding meteor. Part one mostly reviewed the surprisingly negative response from biblical literalists. In part two, I would like to survey the physical evidence presented to support the explosive claim.

Explosive Evidence

The claim was put forward in a paper presented at the 2018 annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR). The paper’s authors were a team composed of excavators at the Tall el-Hammam site along with researchers from the Comet Research Group. The physical evidence presented in the paper was collected from the dig at Tall el-Hammam, claimed to be the site of biblical Sodom.

Tall el-Hammam. A "tall" or "tell" is is an artificial hill created by many generations of people living and rebuilding on the same spot.(Credit: Aerial Photographic Archive for Archaeology in the Middle East)

The paper presented at ASOR begins by noting that many archaeological sites in the Jordan plain north of the Dead Sea were abandoned in the Middle Bronze period (2000-1500 BCE) and remained unoccupied for centuries. The authors propose an exploding meteor as the explanation for the sudden end of the Middle Bronze Age civilization in that region.

Four main pieces of physical evidence were put forward:

1. Concussive evidence: Only stone foundations remain; the mudbrick superstructures are mostly missing. Very few intact pieces of pottery were found.
2. Directional evidence: Where tumbled mudbrick walls were found, they were northeast of the stone foundations. Pottery fragments were scattered in a northeasterly direction.
3. Chemical evidence: A salt and sulphate content of 6% in the ash layer marking the city’s destruction in the Middle Bronze Age. The chemical composition of the salts is virtually identical to that of Dead Sea water.
4. Thermal evidence: A small portion of pottery sherds are partially melted (“vitrified”) on the surface, indicating an exposure to temperatures between 8000° C and 12,000° C for less than a few milliseconds. A “melt rock” composed of melted and fused quartz and sandstone was found at another site 8.5 km away.

On my first read, I found this all very interesting but not completely convincing. I consider myself an educated reader but certainly no expert on Middle Bronze excavations. I did some Internet searches to see what experts had to say. The vast majority of articles were breathless announcements of the findings like those mentioned in my previous article. The only negative opinions were outright rejections (“this is pseudoscience”) with no assessment of the physical evidence.

Examining the Evidence

Barring analysis from an expert, I can only share my own thoughts.

Inhabited mudbrick structures need constant upkeep and will quickly deteriorate once they are abandoned. After all, the bricks are just dried mud. Only mudbricks that have been buried since their last use and thus protected from the elements will be uncovered on an archaeological dig. Archaeologists rely on stone foundations to tell them where mudbrick walls once existed. Therefore, an absence of mudbrick structures at Hammam is not at all unusual.

Similarly, unbroken pottery is more the exception than the rule at a dig. Only in an undisturbed burial context should you reasonably expect to find intact pots.

With respect to the directionality of the found remains for mudbrick and pottery fragments, maybe that had something to do with the prevailing wind direction for the area in ancient times. A steady wind off the Dead Sea could have blown debris material towards the northeast. Blown debris covering fallen mud bricks in the northeastern sections of the site would have preserved them from eroding away.

Wind blowing off the Dead Sea may have also had something to do with the concentration of salt and sulphates. These were found in the ash layer marking the end of the site’s Middle Bronze occupation. The site was unoccupied for six or seven centuries until the Iron Age. Core samples indicate that during the Middle Bronze the water level of the Dead Sea had fallen and the south basin was entirely dried up until around 1500 BCE. Over that time, salts blown off a desiccated Dead Sea could have accumulated in high concentrations just offshore.

Vitrified potsherd. Only the top 1mm of the 5mm-thick sherd was melted to glass. The next 2mm of clay was darkened and the bottom 2mm are the natural color. (Photo from paper discussed in this article.)

The vitrified potsherds seem like the strongest pieces of evidence for something unusual. Middle Bronze pots were fired at low temperatures of around 800° C.  They may not have had the technology to fire a pot hot enough to glaze it. But maybe they did. Had there been a flash thermal event of 8000° to 12,000° C, it seems to me that much more than just a few pieces of vitrified pottery would have been found. Sand anywhere in the vicinity should also have been turned the glass. Lightning is known to vitrify sand, soil, and rocks into fulgurite, so imagine what a thermal event such as what was proposed would have done.

The “melt rock” was a surface-level find, so who knows where and when it came from.

The paper goes on to identifier several typical markers of an airburst event. I’m not convinced that an aerial burst would generate those kinds of markers, but the point is moot because the authors go on to  admit that preliminary analysis reveals some of these markers at the Hammam site, “but not at compelling levels.” If it’s not compelling to them, it’s certainly ain’t compelling to me.

Evidence Demands a Verdict

One thing not mentioned by the article involves the conditions at other sites in the area. The Bible states that Sodom was only one of the “cities of the plain”. In addition to Sodom, there’s the well-known sister site of Gomorrah and the less-known cities of Admah and Zeboiim. Being the largest ruin in the area, Tall el-Hammam is supposedly the main city of Sodom and the neighboring Tall Kafrayn is assumed to be Gomorrah. Tall Nimrin is proposed as Admah and other sites for Zeboiim.

If a meteoritic airburst took out Sodom, it would have affected the neighboring cities as well. I reviewed the papers from the teams excavating Tall Kafrayn and Tall Nimrin and nothing out of the ordinary was mentioned there. Maybe I missed it. Or maybe the teams exploring those sites failed to spot salt haze and vitrified potsherds.

Where does this leave us? The physical evidence proposed for a meteoritic airburst hardly seems conclusive. There are simpler alternate explanations that come to my mind. I would think that an expert in the field would be able to suggest more likely explanations than what I was able to come up with. We would also need to see evidence from other sites in the Jordan plain, not just Tall el-Hammam.

I am sympathetic to the airburst theory. A major catastrophe like that would be remembered for centuries and handed down in legends. It would be cool if it were true. But based on the physical evidence presented, I have to conclude that it is not. Or at best, not proven.

Tall el-Hammam may have been the biblical city once known as Sodom, but that doesn’t mean it was destroyed by an exploding meteor.

Explosive Claims...

I don’t think anyone can accuse me of not keeping up with current events, but even a veteran news reader like me missed the reports that came out about a year ago from a team of researchers from Trinity Southwest University, an unaccredited theological school and Bible college in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Since 2005 they have been digging at the Tall el-Hammam site a few miles north of the Dead Sea in Jordan.

The Trinity Southwest team began digging there because they thought it might be the biblical city of Sodom. And then they began looking for evidence that it had been destroyed in some sort of fiery cataclysm to confirm their hypothesis. Because, short of finding a “Sodom City Limits” sign, how else can you conclusively prove you actually found the biblical city of Sodom?

Kaboom Town

The archaeologists from TSU say they found what they were looking for: widespread destruction over a 200 square-mile area north of the Dead Sea that left the region uninhabitable for six centuries. The researchers theorized the destruction was caused by shock waves of heat and pressure from a meteoritic airburst. Not only did the airburst kill everyone in the immediate vicinity, but a tsunami of superheated brine from the Dead Sea poisoned what had previously been a fertile area.

Artwork for a scene from a Christian movie called "God's Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah" by a group called Eastern Lightning (https://en.easternlightning.org/videos/destruction-of-sodom-and-gomorrah.html)

While extraordinary, these are not outlandish claims. Meteoritic airbursts do happen. The Tunguska event of 1908 is perhaps the most well-known. That event had an explosive force of 10-15 megatons and flattened trees over an 825 square-mile area in a forest in Siberia. More recently is the Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded with a force of 400-500 kilotons over the southern Ural region of Russian in February 2013. 1200 people were injured, mostly from glass shattered by the pressure wave. It would have been much worse if the meteor had entered the atmosphere at a steeper angle; the main force of the blast would then have been directed towards the ground.

Dashcam footage of the Chelyabinsk meteor explosion.

The TSU researchers date the destruction of their site to ca. 1700 BCE, the Middle Bronze II period. They claim this is the time of Abraham. Many biblical scholars doubt there was a historical Abraham, but those who believe there are historical memories in the patriarchal narratives (Gen 12-50) would date them to the early 2^nd millennium. A meteoritic explosion causing the destruction of several Middle Bronze communities and the wasting of the surrounding lands could have been memorialized as a story of God bringing down his wrath on a wicked populace much as television preachers are quick to blame the sins of the victims of especially destructive hurricanes or earthquakes.

As you can imagine, the combination of the words “Sodom” and “meteor” is catnip to the media and the period of late Nov/early Dec 2018 saw titles in online articles such as:

“New Science Suggests Biblical City of Sodom was Smote by an Exploding Meteor”

“Biblical Sin City of Sodom Destroyed by Giant Meteor says Archaeologist”

“Scientists Find Evidence of Meteorite Responsible for Destroying Sodom and Gomorrah”

Fundamental Disagreement

You would think that such a confirmation of the Bible would make fundamentalists very happy. You would be wrong.

Some biblical literalists take a nihilistic approach. The Bible says God utterly destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Since they were utterly destroyed, there would be no ruins left to dig up. Alrighty.

Other literalists object to the time. According to them, the figures provided in the Bible date the overthrow of Sodom to 2067 BCE. If Tall el-Hammam was Sodom as the researchers from TSU claim, then its destruction ca. 1700 BCE doesn’t leave enough time for a 430-year sojourn in Egypt by the Hebrews before the exodus in 1446 BCE.

Dr. Steven Collins, the co-director of the dig at Tall el-Hammam, has been vociferous in his promotion and defense of the Hammam site as ancient Sodom. As an evangelical, he believes in the inspiration and authority of the Bible, but he does not take the patriarchal lifespans literally. For example, when the Bible says Abraham died at the age of 175, he says that number may reflect an actual age of 55 years plus three “honorific” supplements of 40 years. Otherwise, if 175 is taken literally as Abraham’s age, he would still be alive when his grandson Jacob was a teenager.

A final objection from literalists is to the place. They insist Sodom was south of the Dead Sea, not north of it. They reference Gen 14:3 placing Sodom in the “Valley of Siddim, which is the Salt Sea”. Dr. Collins argues that Gen 14 is describing the location of a battle, not the location of Sodom. He also points out that the “Southern Sodom Theorists” ignore Gen 13:10-12 which places Sodom in the “plain of Jordan” and that can only be north of the Dead Sea since the Jordan terminates in the Dead Sea.

The Better Argument

Examining both the Northern Sodom and Southern Sodom arguments, I would say that Dr. Collins makes the better case for a Northern Sodom. A destruction date of ca. 1700 BCE poses no difficulties for anyone who doesn’t take biblical chronology literally. The core reason for arguing for a Southern Sodom site like Bab edh-Dra appears to be that it gives you a destruction date of 2350 BCE (Early Bronze) which is a closer fit (but still not exact) to the Bible-generated date of 2067 BCE.

Dr. Collins does not believe in evolutionary theory or that the OT was composed from multiple sources. He can’t make the argument that the Bible is not always consistent. Any references to Sodom being south of the Dead Sea have to be argued away.

As someone who accepts a critical understanding of the Bible’s development, I can accept that the location of Sodom – assuming it actually existed – could have been misremembered, showing up north of the Dead Sea in some traditions and south of the Dead Sea in other traditions. It’s not a big deal to me either way.

My main interest is what evidence has been found for an aerial burst in the Dead Sea area. Ascribing the destruction of Sodom to a meteoritic explosion is an extraordinary claim. And, as Carl Sagan frequently said, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” But it’s a potentially provable claim, so the evidence will either bear it out or not.

How does the evidence stack up? I’ll examine that in part two of this article.

Gardener of the Gods

In addition to original programming like Orange is the New Black and Stranger Things, Netflix also streams various documentaries (although not as many as Amazon Prime). One interesting documentary I’ve recently watched is a 3-part BBC Two series from 2011 called The Bible’s Buried Secrets hosted by Dr. Francesca Stravrakopoulou, Senior Lecturer in the Hebrew Bible at Exeter University. This is not the same program as the two-hour NOVA episode with the same name that aired on PBS in 2008 and is not to be confused with the similarly titled Buried Secrets of the Bible with Albert Lin that aired in March 2019 on the National Geographic channel. (Note to TV producers: try to be more original in naming your bible programs.)

Dr. Francesca Stravrakopoulou, host of BBC's 2011 series The Bible's Buried Secrets.

The first episode in the series (“Did King David’s Empire Exist?”) reviewed the archaeological evidence that cast doubt on the Bible’s claim to the extent – or even existence – of a United Kingdom under David and Solomon. The second episode (“Did God have a Wife?”) looked at evidence from archaeology and the Bible itself that belief in multiple gods in Israel was much more widespread prior to the Babylonian exile than is commonly believed. Neither episode presented anything to me that I had not previously encountered, although they could be eye-opening to those unfamiliar with the current state of biblical studies.

The Real Eden

Not so with the third episode, “The Real Garden of Eden”. Dr. Stravrakopoulous (hereafter, “Dr. S” for brevity’s sake) presents an intriguing hypothesis that the story of the Garden of Eden from Gen 2-3 is an allegory for the fall of Jerusalem. Understanding how she gets there requires following a chain of arguments.

Beginning in the British Museum, Dr. S shows us Assyrian reliefs presenting the king in his garden. The king’s palace was meant to be monumental, to show off the king’s power and wisdom. It was also considered a religious center. The king was the link between the people and the gods.

Gardens were built by the king to demonstrate his control over the environment, creating lushness in a barren environment. Gardens were built and maintained by the king as a place for the gods to reside.Only the king was granted privileged access to the garden to tend it and cultivate it.

Royal gardens were more like what we would think of as small parks and she takes us the garden surrounding the Alhambra in Spain for a modern example.

One of the gardens at the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain.

The king was the gardener for the gods. In the Eden story, Adam plays the role of the king. There are still traces of this concept in Gen 2-3 where it states (Gen 2:15) Adam was put in the garden to “tend it and keep it.” Later (Gen 3:8), YHWH is seen enjoying his garden, walking about in it at “the breezy time of the day.”

Cherubs and Rivers

Another clue to the true identity of Eden comes after Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden. Gen 3:24 states that YHWH posted a cherub at the entrance to the garden to prevent humans from returning. Cherubs were winged creatures who accompanied the gods and marked their dwelling places. Back the British Museum to see the giant cherubs that flanked the entrance to the royal palace at Nimrud. Dr. S reminds us of the cherubs affixed to the top of the Ark of the Covenant and those that dominated the Holy of Holies in the temple.

Assyrian cherubs from the North-West Palace of Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE) in Nimrud. These colossal statues are on permanent display at the British Museum in London (photo by author, 1996).

Dr. S’s final clue is in the names of the four rivers flowing out of Eden (Gen 2:10-14). One of these is the Gihon and the only Gihon we know of is a modest stream that provided water for Jerusalem in ancient times. This, she tells us, allows us to identify the true location of Eden as the Jerusalem temple. Just as the garden was known as the abode of the gods, the Jerusalem temple was where YHWH lived. It was the heart of religious life in ancient Judah, tended by the king. But in this case, the temple was a symbolic garden. The Jerusalem temple was built of cedar and decorated with palm trees, flowers, lilies, and pomegranates.

When the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in 587 BCE, it was a psychic blow to the survivors. They had lost their link with God and began to wonder how it could have happened. Some great sin on the part of the king must have led God to withdraw his presence from among his people. This became allegorized as Adam (representing the king) being cast out of God’s garden (representing the temple).

Backwards Argument

It’s an interesting theory and the individual components make sense, but I believe Dr. S drew the wrong conclusions. To be precise, I believe she got it backwards. Instead of the Eden story composed as an explanation for the loss of the temple, it makes more sense to me that the temple was built as an earthly model of the divine garden in which YHWH resides.

For Dr. S’s hypothesis to work, the Eden story would have to have been created after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. True, the majority of biblical scholars believe that the Bible as we have it today was compiled during the Babylonian Exile in the 6^th century BCE. But the Eden story is usually attributed to the Yahwist tradition, one of the oldest sources in the Bible dating from 8^th or 9^th century BCE.

My study of the Garden of Eden story convinces me that it is an etiological tale meant to explain why men have to labor to work the land, why women experience pain in childbirth, and so on. Dr. S never explains directly why these parts would be in an allegory of the last king of Judah. The closest she comes to that is a last-minute mention that the true villains were the serpent and the woman. The serpent was included to discredit serpent worship in the temple and Eve was included because women are usually blamed whenever a man misbehaves.

I couldn’t easily find an academic paper arguing Dr. S’s exact hypothesis but I did discover that a presentation of the Garden of Eden as a temple is not unheard of. While I believe it makes more sense that the temple was built on the model of the Garden of Eden than the Eden story was inspired by the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, there is value in exploring the ancient idea of the garden as a place where humans and the divine could co-exist. If nothing else, it challenges the common conception that Eden was simply meant to be a paradise for human beings.