The Evolution of Abraham

Every superhero has an origin story that explains how they got their superpowers or what motivates them. Nations also have origin stories. Israel has more than one origin story.

This seems like a curious claim. Isn’t the Bible the origin story of Israel? Yes, but as we have seen, the Bible has preserved competing traditions.

Competing Origins

The oldest origin story for Israel is the cycle of narratives surrounding Jacob in Gen 25-35. Judging by the historical context, the substance of the Jacob cycle appears to have been written down at the end of the 8th or the beginning of the 7th century BCE. After cheating his older brother of birthright and blessing, Jacob flees to the land of the Arameans, acquires wives and children and livestock, and obtains recognition as his own tribe (Gen 31). The final chapters have Jacob reconciling with his brother and connect him to sacred sites such as Peniel, Shechem and Bethel.

The Jacob cycle is a complete legend of Israel’s origin. On its own, it explains the existence of the twelve tribes and which are the most important, proves their rights to the hill country of central Palestine, recounts the founding of the main sanctuary at Bethel, and so on. But this Israel is not the one we know from other traditions in the Bible. This Israel is not a community of believers nor a warring nation, but a tribe struggling for recognition.

Compare the origin story of Jacob with the better-known origin story of Moses and the Exodus. Moses, too, had to flee to a foreign land where he married the daughter of a desert sheikh, only to finally return to his homeland with a mission. But Moses is not a patriarch, his sons play no role in the formation of Israel. According to the Exodus story, one is not a son of Israel through genealogy but by hearing the call from YHWH through his prophet Moses. Israel’s origins lie not in the tents of Laban, but in Egypt and the desert.

If this theory of competing origin stories sounds highly speculative to you, there is some hard evidence to support it. In chapter 12 of the Book of Hosea (end of 8^th century BCE), the prophet invites his audience to choose between the competing and conflicting legends of origins. Hosea’s challenge closes with this:

Jacob fled to the land of Aram,
there Israel served for a wife,
and for a wife he guarded sheep.

By a prophet YHWH brought Israel up from Egypt,
and by a prophet he was guarded.

Hosea seems to be asking his audience: Who do you want to be? Biological descendants of a scoundrel or a people called by God? He hoped to persuade his audience to choose Moses but, in the end, Israel refused to choose one origin story over the other and kept both.

Abraham: The Promise by Israeli artist Zvi Leonhard (https://zviandariane.com/). God uses the dust of the earth and stars of the heavens as metaphors for descendants beyond measure (Gen 13:16; 15:5)

Growth of the Abraham Legend

Is the Abraham cycle yet another origin story?

First of all, the Abraham cycle is not as old as the Jacob cycle. References to Abraham don’t appear outside Genesis until Ezek 33:23-29 and Is 51:1-3 (both 6^th century). The Ezekiel reference says Abraham came to possess the land. The reference from Isaiah says YHWH blessed Abraham and Sarah and made them parents of multitudes. In both citations we see expressed the dual theme of the Abraham cycle: the land and offspring.

Despite the fact that the references are 6^th century, biblical scholars believe that the origins of the Abraham legend were formed around the same time as the Jacob cycle (8^th-7^th centuries BCE). The core set of narratives (Gen 13; 16; 18-19; and 21:1-4) is centered on Hebron and the sacred oak of Mamre. Abraham (under his original name of “Abram”) has two sons, but only one belongs to Israel. Through Lot, Abraham is also related to the Moabite and Ammonite people. If the Abraham cycle is an origin story, it is not just an origin story of Israel.

Based on the core narratives, Abraham is an indigenous hero of the south. Isaac, too, is a legendary hero of the south, centered around Beersheba. Early on, Isaac was joined to the Abraham cycle as Abraham’s son. What remains of Isaac’s story (Gen 26) and was recast as narratives involving Abraham (Gen 20 and 21:22-34). Outside of Gen 26, Isaac only appears as either a son of Abraham or a father of Jacob.

After the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians in 721 BCE, the survivors brought their national origin story (the Jacob cycle) to the southern kingdom of Judah where it was merged with the combined Abraham-Isaac cycle. During the Babylonian exile, the conjoined Abraham/Jacob cycle of stories was modified to reflect a promise of land because the Israelites were no longer in possession of the land. A Babylonian backstory was provided for Abraham. The divine command that came to Abraham in Ur to go forth to Canaan was a call for the exiles to leave Babylon and return to the promised land.

With the addition of the primeval history and Joseph narrative, Genesis became a prequel to the Exodus story.

The Ecumenical Patriarch

While it may have started as legends of a southern hero, the Abraham cycle evolved into something else. What is his ultimate role in the OT?

One clue can be found in  a curious note (Gen 15:9) made upon the death of Abraham:

His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite, east of Mamre, the field that Abraham purchased from the Hittites.

We thought we had seen the last of Ishmael back in Gen 21:8-21 when he and his mother Hagar had been expelled to the desert. At a story level, the purpose of Ishmael's exile was leave Abraham only one remaining son when God called for a sacrifice (Gen 22). Yet the P source brings Ishmael back into the story as a reminder that Abraham is not only the father of Israel or Judah or the Jews, but is the ancestor of many nations.

According to an interesting article by Albert de Pury, Professor for OT studies at the University of Geneva, Abraham was ultimately seen as an “ecumenical patriarch.” In contrast to other traditions that found their way into the Bible insisting the promised land must be taken from the Canaanites in a war of conquest that ends in the extermination of all the land’s former inhabitants, Abraham is seen as peacefully co-existing with the various Canaanite clans. He is the father of or is closely related to neighboring nations such as the Arabs (Ishmael is the ancestor of the twelve tribes of the Arab federation), the twelve tribes of Israel (through his grandson Jacob), Edomites (through his grandson Esau), Midianites (through his second wife Keturah), and Ammonites and Moabites (through Lot).

De Pury uses the adjective “ecumenical” in the sense of “worldwide or general in extent, influence, or application.” As the father of many nations (Gen 17:5), perhaps a better adjective – although more technical – for Abraham’s role in Genesis would be “transethnic” or “transnational” patriarch.

The more commonly-used meaning of the word “ecumenical” is “of, relating to, or representing the whole of a body of churches.” It is in this sense that the term “ecumenical patriarch” is appropriate for how Abraham is viewed today.  Abraham is venerated by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. If the children of Abraham can focus on him as a symbol of what we have in common rather than what divides us, the world will be a better place.

The Ages of Man

Among the many unbelievable aspects of Genesis (creation in six days, talking snakes, global flood, etc.) are the incredible lifespans. Prior to the flood, the lifespans are just shy of 1000 years. In Gen 6:3, YHWH sets a limit of 120 years but that seems more of a goal than a limit because descendants of Noah continued to live for hundreds of years, although the lifespans decreased with every pasing generation (see Gen 11:10-32). The genealogies document a devolution from the golden age of God’s original creation.

In Genesis, the genealogies and chronologies come from the P source. The non-P sources rarely provide any sort of genealogy and never mention ages. But when you combine the two sources together, the combination raises some narrative oddities.

Putting the Sexy in Sexagenarian

I’ve already discussed the stories (Gen 12 and Gen 20) of Abraham passing off his wife Sarah as his sister. When these stories are given context by the P chronology, it casts them in a different light.

Gen 12 takes place some time after Abraham arrives in Canaan. According to the P source, this happened when he was 75 years old and Sarah is 10 years younger than Abraham. This means that when Abraham feared that pharaoh would kill him to take Sarah as his wife because of her great beauty, he was talking about a woman in her late 60s.

Gen 20 takes place in the year before Isaac’s birth. Isaac was born when Abraham was 100 years old (Gen 21:5). Abimelech of Gerar, therefore, is supposed to have taken a pregnant 90-year-old woman into his harem. She must really have been a beauty for Abimelech to ignore the obvious drawbacks.

The Expelled Handmaid

Hagar’s story in Gen 21:8-20 is a parallel narrative to her story in Gen 16, previously discussed. In both stories, the deity finds Hagar wandering in the wilderness and announces her son will become a great nation. Because the deity is referred to as YHWH in Gen 16 and Elohim in Gen 21, the Gen 16 version is attributed to the J source and the Gen 21 parallel is attributed to the E source.

Gen 21:8-20 takes place after Sarah has given birth to Isaac. At the feast to celebrate Isaac’s weaning, Sarah sees Ishmael playing with Isaac and grows jealous thinking that Ishmael will inherit alongside Isaac. She demands that Abraham get rid of the boy and his mother.

In Gen 16:16 we are told that Abram was 86 years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael. Since Abraham was 100 years old at the birth to Isaac, by simple arithmetic Ishmael is 14 years at the time of Isaac’s birth. He’s well into his teenage years by the time of Isaac’s weaning feast.

Abraham is reluctant to expel Ishmael because he is his son after all, but God tells him it will be okay. With the divine reassurance, Abraham gives Hagar some bread and water and sends her off into the desert with Ishmael. In no time, the water is gone and she and the boy prepare to die. God hears their cry, gives Hagar the encouragement that Ishmael will become a great nation, and she sees a life-saving well of water.

Reading this narrative in isolation, Ishmael does not appear to be a teenager of 16 or more years. At that age, he should be able to fend for himself yet he is completely passive, totally dependent on Hagar. In the isolated story, Ishmael is treated as a small child and that is how artists through the centuries have portrayed him. Only when you marry the story to P’s chronology do you get the cognitive dissonance of a teenager in the role of a small child.

Hagar in the Wilderness by Camille Corot (1796-1875). This represents about 1/12 of the entire painting which is more of a landscape study.

Repeats and Reboots

In case you haven’t noticed, at this point Genesis is well into the rerun season. The wife/sister story of Gen 20 is another version of the one in Gen 12 and Hagar’s encounter with God in Gen 21 is an alternate version of Gen 16. The only portion of these two chapters that isn’t recycled is Gen 21:22-34 which provides an origin story for the site of Beersheba. The Hebrew word sheba’ sounds similar to shwebaa’ (= “seven”) and shebu’ah (= “swear”), so the story describes an oath between Abraham and Abimelech involving seven ewe lambs.

An alternative origin story for Beersheba will be told in Gen 26:17-33.  This narrative involves digging multiple wells and ends with an oath between Isaac and Abimelech of Gerar. If Gen 20 and 21 are reruns of the wife/sister and Hagar stories associated with Abraham, then Gen 26 (wife/sister and Beersheba origin) is more like a reboot featuring Isaac as the protagonist in the same situations that Abraham faced.

Isaac’s version of the wife/sister narrative in Gen 26:1-11 supposedly takes place after death of Abraham at age 175 (recounted in Gen 25:7-11) and the birth of Esau and Jacob when Isaac was 60 (Gen 25:19-26). Which would mean that when Isaac passes off Rebekah as his sister, he must have also passed off Esau and Jacob as his nephews.

Live Long and Prosper

Now, according to the P chronology, Isaac was born when Abraham was 100 and Isaac was 60 when his twins were born. This would mean that Abraham died when his grandsons Esau and Jacob were teenagers.

But in Gen 24, the aged Abraham sends off his servant to find a bride for Isaac. You are led to think that Abraham is at death’s door and wants to see Isaac married to someone from the “old country” before he dies. But according to the P chronology, Abraham is “only” 140 years old and has another 35 years ahead of him. Thirty-five years in which he will take another wife named Keturah and have six more sons (Gen 25:1-6). Seems like Abraham is still pretty spry for an old guy.

Something similar happens with Isaac. Old and blind, he wishes to impart his blessing to his Esau before he dies (Gen 27:1-4). When Jacob cheats Esau out of the birthright, Esau plans to kill Jacob once Isaac has died and the period of mourning is over (Gen 27:41). He’s going to have a long wait, because P’s chronology has Isaac living another 80 years (Gen 35:27-29). Using this chronology, Isaac would still have been alive at the time Jacob’s son Joseph was sold into Egypt. That’s wild!

The phenomenal ages given in the P source play havoc with the narrative arc. Much like a monarch, the patriarch is the tribal leader for life. Abraham has to die before Isaac can become the patriarch and Isaac must die before Jacob can take over. And this is exactly how the J narrative plays out. It’s only when you combine the J narratives with the P chronology that you end up with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as contemporaries.

The Original Handmaid's Tale

In the dystopian world of The Handmaid’s Tale (book and TV series), a totalitarian state addresses its infertility crisis by turning the few remaining fertile into broodmares for the men running the country. These women are called “handmaids” and the idea of using a slave to bear children for a barren wife comes from Genesis. The first such passage is chapter 16 of Genesis.

The Runaway Handmaid

Abram’s quest for an heir is the narrative thread that runs through the cycle of stories related to him. First, he thinks that his nephew Lot will be his heir, only to have Lot leave the promised land of Canaan, thereby effectively removing himself as Abram’s successor. In Gen 15, Abram complains to God that his lifelong slave Eliezer will be his heir only to have God promise that Abram’s biological son will be his successor.

That still leaves Abram with the problem that his wife Sarai is barren and Sarai decides to address that problem on her own. She proposes to Abram that he have sexual relations with her Egyptian slave, Hagar, and Sarai will claim the child that Hagar bears as her own. Abram quietly acquiesces to this plan and soon Hagar is pregnant.

This is where the plan goes awry. Now that Hagar is pregnant, there is a change in the power balance between the women. Her pregnancy gives Hagar a higher status than she previously had. Sarai complains to Abram as if this were all his fault and he gives Sarai some of the worst advice possible: “Do to her as you please.”

Sarai proceeds to abuse poor Hagar and, quite understandably, she runs away. An “angel of YHWH” finds Hagar besides a spring of water in the desert and, instead of being the voice of liberation, he tells her: “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” In exchange, he promises that she will bear a son, name him Ishmael, and he will have many offspring. And the spring became known as Beer-lahai-roi (= “the well of the living one who sees me”).

Lots of Unanswered Questions

The story leaves modern readers with both unanswered questions and a bad taste in our mouth.

Judging by ancient records, Sarai’s plan to become a mother through her slave-girl Hagar was a well-known practice of barren women. Her subsequent jealousy at losing status in the eyes of her slave and taking out her frustration on Abram is all too psychologically believable. Abram does not come off well here in allowing Sarai to regain her authority by mistreating Hagar. Where is the man who allowed Lot first pick of the land or will demand YHWH act justly towards Sodom?

But what really seems out of place to a modern reader like me is that when YHWH’s angel reassuring word finally comes to Hagar in the desert, it is to instruct her to return to Sarai and submit to her abuse. Talk about turning the other cheek! And Hagar’s response is to happily name the deity El-Roi (= “God who sees”) because he took notice of such a lowly slave? And who is this “angel of YHWH” anyway?

Finally, from a narrative perspective, Hagar’s abortive escape seems pointless. As we shall later find out in Gen 21:8-21, Hagar and Ishmael will be cast out after the birth of Isaac. Once again God’s angel will find Hagar in the desert beside a spring of water. What was the purpose in sending the pregnant Hagar back to her abuser only for her to return to the same spot years later?

YHWH's messenger finds the pregnant Hagar by the well (artist unknown)

Send Me an Angel

Let’s first address the question of the “angel of YHWH” (Hebrew: mal’akh YHWH) first mentioned in Gen 16:7.

The Hebrew word mal’akh means “messenger” and in Greek, this was translated as angelos. Angelos could mean a supernatural messenger (like Mercury in Roman mythology) or a human messenger. In the Latin Vulgate, angelus was used when the original biblical reference was to a supernatural messenger, but nuntius or legatus were used when a human messenger was involved.

Almost every English translation follows the Vulgate tradition by continuing to translate mal’akh YHWH as “angel of the Lord” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NABRE, ESV). The Common English Bible (CEB) was the only English translation I could find that used the translation “the Lord’s messenger”. It’s unfortunate because the word “angel” immediately makes people think of the winged spiritual beings frequently seen in medieval and renaissance Christian art.

There are no degrees of separation between YHWH’s messenger and YHWH. You could consider mal’akh YHWH as YHWH’s avatar. In v. 10, the messenger tells Hagar, “I will greatly multiply your descendants.” In v. 13, the narrator states Hagar gave the name El-roi to “YHWH who spoke to her” because she had seen God yet lived to tell the tale.

Similar passages have led scholars to conclude that the original reference in the text was simply to YHWH. As theological attitudes changed over time, the reference to YHWH was changed to mal’akh YHWH due to discomfort over presenting YHWH in visible form or taking an adversarial role. We can see an example of this in Exod 4:24 where the Hebrew MT describes YHWH trying to kill Moses but the Greek LXX says “an angel of the Lord” was the attacker.

More Secondary Additions

If mal’akh YHWH is a secondary addition to the original reference to YHWH, could there be other secondary additions in this passage?

I agree with biblical scholars who think the original Gen 16 narrative did not include vv. 9-10. These scholars note three repeated references to “YHWH’s messenger said to her” in vv. 9, 10, and 11. Only one of these is required to indicate a change in speaker from Hagar in v. 8. This strongly suggests that vv. 9-10 are secondary additions.

Without these additions, the story flows naturally from v. 8 to v. 11. After Hagar tells YHWH that she is fleeing from Sarai, YHWH pronounces that she will bear a son, will call him Ishmael (= “God hears”), and he “shall be a wild ass of a man”. Now this sounds to a modern reader as though Ishmael will be a stubborn jackass and that doesn’t sound very encouraging. But a “wild ass” back then would be the equivalent of a “wild mustang” to us. In other words, the son of the slave Hagar will be born a free man.

This would indeed be an encouraging word for the fleeing Hagar that would lead her to give YHWH the name “God who sees”. But there’s a problem because Gen 21:8-21 has the tradition that Hagar and Ishmael were expelled after the birth of Isaac and rescued by God in the desert.

When Gen 16 (J source) was combined with Gen 21 (E source), it had to be explained how Ishmael could have been born free yet also expelled from Abraham’s camp. The theory is that a redactor introduced v. 9 in which YHWH orders Hagar to return to Sarah’s abuse and, as something of a compensation in v. 10, promises Hagar she will be the mother of multitudes.

While it is encouraging to think that YHWH may have been more favorable to Hagar’s plight in the original narrative, it is only a theory. Someone commenting on the Bible has to interpret the passage as we currently have it and, sad to say, YHWH crushes Hagar’s hopes by directing her to return to her abuser. Spiritual directors today should not use this passage as guidance in providing advice to women seeking to escape domestic violence situations.

Foolish Galatians

Here in the United States we’re in the middle of a presidential election year, with candidates doing their best to win over as many voters as possible. In a sense, a political campaign is not that different from how 1st century Christian missionaries tried to win over Jew and Gentile converts to their particular interpretations of Christianity.

In a contemporary political campaign, when one candidate critiques the positions of their opponent, the audience is familiar with what the opponent has said or done. But when it comes to Paul defending his ministry against his opponents, such as the Judaizers in Galatians, we only hear one side of the story. We have to reconstruct the opposing viewpoint from how Paul argues against it in his letters. And, just as a modern politician tends to twist their opponent’s position, you can be sure that Paul is giving his audience neither a complete nor a generous interpretation of the Judaizers’ position.

Arguments Against the Judaizers

The core of Paul’s refutation of the Judaizers in Galatians lies in chapters 3 and 4. A key argument is an experiential one: the Galatians received the Spirit without doing works of the Law, so how can doing works of the Law be necessary for justification (3:1-5):? Prior to receiving the gospel, the Galatians were enslaved to the “elemental spirits of the world.” Faith in God’s son redeemed them from their slavery and made them adopted children of God. How can the Galatians return to slavery (4:1-9)?

Paul also relied on Scripture to refute the Judaizers: God promised Abraham, a man whose faith was reckoned as righteousness (Gen 15:5-6), that through his offspring all the nations would be blessed (Gen 22:18). They will be blessed not because they are circumcised, but because they believed, like Abraham did. And this promise to Abraham was made 430 years prior to the Law being given to Moses, so how can it be contingent on observing the law (Gal 3:6-18)?

The Allegory of Sarah and Hagar

Paul cites the story from Genesis of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar, but says the Judaizers have misinterpreted it. This requires a little explanation. In Genesis 16 Sarah, seeing that she was childless, gave her Egyptian slave-girl Hagar to Abraham as a concubine. Hagar conceived but became contemptuous of Sarah, who then mistreated her to the point that Hagar ran away. But YHWH found Hagar by a spring of water in the wilderness and told her to return, later giving birth to Ishmael. In Genesis 21:8-21, Hagar is again driven off into the wilderness where God intervenes once more to save the life of mother and child.

Hagar and Ishmael Banished by Abraham (1781) by Flemish painter Pieter-Jozef Verhaghen

As well as we can reconstruct it, the Judaizers’ argument was that Abraham had two children, one (Isaac) the son of the free woman Sarah, the other (Ishmael) the son of the slave-girl Hagar. Jews are the descendants of Isaac and Gentiles are the descendants of Ishmael, so both Jew and Gentile are children of Abraham. But the Jews are the true children of Abraham because, like him, they practice circumcision and observe the Sabbath and other feasts. As the Messiah, Jesus offers Gentiles the opportunity to share in God’s promise of blessings to Abraham’s descendants. All they have to do is accept circumcision and observe the Mosaic Law.

Paul interprets the story of Sarah and Hagar as an allegory (Gal 4:21-31). The child of the slave woman (Hagar) is born according to the flesh and the child of the free woman (Sarah) is born according to the promise. The descendants of Hagar are not the Gentiles but the Jews, for they are enslaved to the Law. The descendants of Sarah are those born according to the Spirit, in freedom. Sarah had Abraham drive out Hagar because she did not want the child of the slave to share Abraham's inheritance. Thus Paul makes a subtle suggestion that the Galatians are to drive out the Judaizers.

Such an allegorical interpretation of Scripture was once popular, but has been out of favor since the Middle Ages. It’s not hard to see why. There are simply no controls to the interpreter’s imagination. Are Jews the children of the free woman or the slave woman? As you can see, this approach allows for diametrically opposed interpretations of the same biblical passage. How can someone possibly judge which of these allegorical interpretations is correct?

It’s not entirely an academic question. Paul is trying to refute those who would impose the Mosaic Law on Gentiles. From his perspective, the Judaizers are trying to enslave his Christian converts. But to say Paul is denigrating Judaism as a religion that enslaves people is to completely misinterpret Paul. That’s exactly what the 2nd c. theologian Marcion did, concluding that the God of the OT was incompatible with the teachings of Jesus. Anti-semites down through the centuries have also used Paul to justify their prejudice.

Abraham vs. Jesus

The Judaizers’ elevated focus on Abraham and Law caused Paul to reflect on the role of Jesus and “the Law of Christ” which he defines as “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). It is the love of Christ “who loved me and gave himself for me” that now lives in Paul (2:20). The magnitude of Christ’s love is his self-sacrifice on the cross (a death, by the way, that is condemned by the Law [3:13]).

The Christian is freed from obedience to the Law but that does not mean – contrary to what the Judaizers might say – that Christians are free to indulge the desires of the flesh (5:16-21). The works of the flesh lead to destruction of the individual and the community, but the fruit of the Spirit lead to building up the individual and the community (5:22-26). Use your freedom to become slaves to one another (5:13) because it is only by bearing one another’s burdens that one fulfills the Law of Christ (6:2). Christ himself said that the whole Law could be summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Did Paul’s letter bring the Galatians round to his side again? His letter was preserved, so at least some in Galatia thought his writing was worth keeping and sharing with other churches. Galatians served as a rough draft for Paul’s letter introducing himself to the churches in Rome, where he was able to expound on his theological ideas of justification by faith. Both Galatians and Romans would inspire Luther to develop his doctrine of sola fide (justification by faith alone).

Maybe Paul was misunderstood in his own time, but his writings have continued to inspire Christians throughout the centuries.