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.