Hail and Well Met

One of the books that became a major influence on how I approach the Bible is The Art of Biblical Narrative by Robert Alter. A professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley, Alter sees the OT with the eyes of a literary critic, subjecting the biblical texts to the kind of critical analysis one might apply to the works of Shakespeare. The texts display literary artistry and are not simply cobbled together from various sources.

In chapter 3 of the book, Alter speaks of something I’ve written about in previous articles, how the same story gets told two or three times, sometimes with the same characters:

Three times a patriarch is driven by famine to a southern region where he pretends that his wife is his sister, narrowly avoids a violation of the conjugal bond by the local ruler, and is sent away with gifts. Twice Hagar flees into the wilderness from Sarah’s hostility and discovers a miraculous well and that story itself seems only a special variation of the recurrent story of bitter rivalry between a barren, favored wife and a fertile co-wife or concubine. That situation, in turn, suggests another oft-told tale in the Bible, of a woman long barren who is vouchsafed a divine promise of progeny, whether by God himself or through a divine messenger or oracle, and who then gives birth to a hero. (p. 49)

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear

Alter provides a modern-day example that particularly stuck with me over the years. Think of the gun-slinging hero in Westerns, able to draw and outshoot the bad guys before they can even pull their triggers. In a similar analogy I used way back when I began my blog five years ago, suppose that centuries from now, only a dozen Western movies have been preserved. In all but one, the hero has such a “hyperreflexive arm”. In the one exception, the hero has a withered arm and has taught himself to shoot from a rifle slung over his back.

Alter imagines that, having studied the surviving samples of 20^th-century Western cinema, future scholars might hypothesize these are all derivations of one original story of a hero with lightning reflexes. The oddball story of the rifleman with a withered arm would be a variant from a different source tradition.

Unlike these imaginary scholars of Western cinema studies, we who have seen untold number of Westerns from the Lone Ranger to Matt Dillon know that the image of the quick-on-the-draw gunfighter is a convention in that genre. When you have a major departure from the convention, the uniqueness tells you something about the character or story. In this case, it might be the hero’s determination to overcome a physical handicap or the rifle provides some advantage over the typical six-shooter.

Alter calls these conventions “type-scenes” and identifies several in the Bible: “the annunciation … of the birth of the hero to his barren mother; the encounter with the future betrothed at a well; the epiphany in the field; the initiatory trial; danger in the desert and the discovery of a well or other form of sustenance; the testament of the dying hero” (p. 51).

Betrothal type-scenes

Alter spends the rest of the chapter discussing a particular convention he calls the “betrothal type-scene” in which the hero of the story meets his future bride at a well in a foreign land. He draws water for the “girl” (how she is usually referenced) who then rushes home bringing news of the stranger. The stranger is invited to a meal, after which the betrothal between the stranger and the girl is finalized. 

I’ll skip over the first betrothal type-scene in Genesis for now and return to it later. In the second example (Gen 29:1-20), Jacob, escaping from his brother’s wrath, arrives at a well in a foreign land. Rachel arrives to water her flock but a large stone covers the well’s mouth. Jacob moves the massive stone and waters her flock. After Jacob informs Rachel that he is her kinsman, she runs to tell her father, Laban. The closed well is a metaphor for Rachel’s closed womb and Jacob’s labor in moving the stone foreshadows the various obstacles he will need to overcome in securing his bride and making his fortune. Stones also feature prominently in the Jacob cycle of stories.

The third example comes from Exodus (2:15b-21) where Moses, escaping from Pharaoh’s wrath in Egypt, arrives by a well in Midian. Zipporah and her six sisters come to water their flock but are driven off from the well by shepherds. Faced not just with an inanimate obstacle but with enemies, Moses drives off the hostile shepherds and waters the flock of Zipporah and her sisters. How Moses rises to the challenge is entirely appropriate for someone who has killed an Egyptian taskmaster, will later face off with Pharaoh to liberate his people, and become Israel’s military commander for the next forty years. That the tale is briefly told is typical of how the Torah doesn’t dwell on Moses’ personal life.

Elizarus and Rebekah at the Well (1670s) byJohann Carl Loth. The name of Abraham's oldest and most-trusted servant isn't given in Gen 24, but earlier in Gen 15:2 Abram laments that without a son, "Eliezer of Damascus" will be his heir.

Rebekah takes charge

Now that we have reviewed a couple of examples, let’s return to the first betrothal type-scene (Gen 24:10-61) and see how it differs from the simpler stories we just examined.

The main difference is that it is Abraham’s servant – instead of Isaac – who travels to the foreign land. The servant showers Rebekah with gifts that her brother is quick to notice. This is revealing of Laban’s grasping nature and why he will later become one of Jacob’s obstacles.

Alter says this is the only example in the Bible of a surrogate meeting the future bride. This is fitting because Isaac is a passive and shadowy figure in Genesis. We last saw him about to be sacrificed at God’s request. He’s not mentioned again until this betrothal episode, and then he only appears at the end to take Rebekah as his wife. Isaac appears in Gen 26 but these are recycled stories (wife-sister, treaty with Abimelech, dispute over wells, and origin of the name of Beersheba) from the Abraham cycle. Isaac plays a part in Gen 27 in which Jacob steals his blessing from Esau, but by then Isaac is old and blind.

The other major departure is that Rebekah draws water for the stranger (= the servant) instead of the other way around. The number of actions (11 verbs in the four verses of vv. 16-20) Rebekah takes (drawing water, filling her jar, pouring, giving drink, etc.) are emblematic of the dominant role she later plays (taking, cooking, dressing, giving) in the story of securing the blessing for her favored son, Jacob (Gen 27). As the most-controlling of all the matriarchs, it is appropriate that she dominates her betrothal scene.

Jesus the Bridegroom

Being a professor of Hebrew literature, Robert Alter limits his analysis to the OT. But if we include the NT, we see something that looks like a betrothal type-scene in the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:1-42. Once again we have a stranger (Jesus) in a foreign land (Samaria) who is sitting beside Jacob’s well about noon when a Samaritan woman arrives to draw water. A conversation ensues, after which the woman leaves her water jar behind and returns to the city to inform its citizens of the stranger she just met. Moved by her testimony, they invite Jesus to stay with them for a couple of days.

A major difference in this version is that, instead of a maiden, we have a five-times married woman. There is no actual exchange of water, although the subject of water is the lynchpin of the dialogue that ensues in which Jesus contrasts the stagnant water of the well with his living water (the gift he has to offer). The episode ends not with a betrothal contract but with the townsfolk coming to believe in Jesus.

Understanding the literary conventions puts the modern reader of the Bible in the mind of the originally intended audience. When we watch a Western and see the hero face off with the bad guy on a dusty street in front of a saloon, we expect a shootout. Similarly, when the ancient audience saw the hero arrive at a well in a foreign land, they expected he would meet his future wife there. Knowing how the scene is supposed to play out, the audience – modern or ancient – revels in any twists from the standard convention. As the saying goes, “God is in the details.”

The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene

About a year ago I read a movie review of Mary Magdalene, directed by Garth Davis (Lion). I was busy that weekend but thought I’d check it out the following weekend. After a one-week run at theaters in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, the closest theater still showing it was in San Antonio. A five-hour road trip was not in cards, so I resolved to catch it on cable and finally had that opportunity when it recently appeared on Showtime.

My impressions were that it is an amazingly quiet movie, hushed tones, very understated. As would be expected of a movie focused on a female character, it is a feminist movie in that Mary defies cultural rules imposed on women and is treated as an equal to the male disciples. The movie is a little revisionist because Mary is not presented as a reformed prostitute (how she is typically portrayed in popular media) or the wife of Jesus (a major theme of Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code). But mostly the movie is a re-envisioning of the gospel story as seen through the eyes of one of Jesus’ female disciples.

What do we know about Mary Magdalene?

The NT sources don’t tell us a whole lot about Mary Magdalene:

• Had seven demons driven from her (Lk 8:2)
• Among the women who travelled with Jesus and financially supported his ministry (Lk 8:1-3)
• Among the women who witnessed the crucifixion (Mt 27:55f; Mk 15:40f; Jn 19:25)
• Went to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body and found the tomb empty (Mt 28:1-8; Mk 16:1-8; Lk 24:1-11; Jn 20:1-3)
• Witnessed the risen Jesus and told the apostles about it (Mt 28:9-10; Jn 20:14-18) 

Obviously, filling out a 2-hour movie will require some creative license.

While implied in her name, the NT does not explicitly state Mary comes from the city of Magdala in Galilee. This was a fairly large city of some 40,000 people, most of them Gentile, and was a main fishing and export center in the region.

Also, you will note that nowhere in the gospels is Mary referred to as a prostitute. That was a later invention of Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604), conflating stories of the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears (Lk 7:36-50) and Mary of Bethany who anointed his feet with perfume (Jn 12:1-8).

Outside the NT, Mary appears prominently in some Gnostic gospels. In these, she symbolizes the Gnostic church and is opposed by Peter who represents the apostolic church. As one whom Jesus loved more than any other, she was given secret knowledge directly by Jesus that was not handed down through the apostles.

Poster from the 2018 UK release of Mary Magdalene

The portrait of Mary in Mary Magdalene

The movie begins with Mary (Rooney Mara) working hard in the family’s fishing business and unhappy with the idea of an arranged marriage to a local widower. Her strong opposition to the union convinces her family she has a demon. After traditional exorcisms almost kill her, one of her brothers calls in Jesus (Joaquin Phoenix), who happens to be passing through town, to heal her. After a brief chat with Mary, Jesus declares, “There are no demons here.”

Mary is captivated by Jesus’ preaching and healings. She abandons her family to be baptized by him and becomes his first female disciple. When she tells Jesus that the women of Magdala were too afraid to be baptized by the male disciples, Jesus begins to preach to women as well and Mary baptizes the women who come forward to follow Jesus.

When Mary hears Jesus speak of the kingdom of God, she instinctively understands it is something we bring about through our actions while the male disciples believe that Jesus will overthrow Roman domination in order to bring about a new world. Jesus pairs up Mary with Simon Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and sends them out to preach. They arrive in a village in Samaria where the Romans have massacred most of the populace. Peter is ready to leave the starving survivors to their fate but Mary cares for them in their dying moments and Peter realizes the power of mercy.

After Jesus initiates a riot in the Temple, all the male disciples expect Jesus will inaugurate a revolt against the Romans. But when Jesus fails to carry forward the expected revolution, Judas (Tahar Rahm) tries to force his hand with disastrous consequences.

Mary holds a lonely vigil outside Jesus’ tomb and, in the morning speaks to the risen Jesus. She tells the male disciples that Jesus appeared to her and told her the kingdom they all worked for is here already, within us. While Peter believes she had an experience of the risen Lord, he sees it as a sign that Jesus will return some day, bringing the true kingdom. Peter cannot accept that Jesus chose her as the recipient of a “special message” when all the men were chosen to build the one church, with one message. Rejected by the men, Mary will not remain and stay silent, so she goes off on her own.

How does the movie compare to what we know about Mary?

Portrayed as a poor fisher woman, Mary is not a woman of means capable of providing for Jesus and his disciples out of her own resources. Wealthy women did exist in that time. For an example of this, I think of Paul’s first known Christian convert in Europe, Lydia of Thyatira (Acts 16:11-15), a financially independent woman with a business, house, servants, and so on. A large cosmopolitan city like Magdala would have provided more opportunities for a Jewish businesswoman than the small village depicted in the film.

The movie gives short shrift to Mary’s role in Jesus’ crucifixion and burial. Knocked out at Jesus’ arrest, she arrives in time to see him carrying his cross, but is too overwhelmed with grief to follow. She eventually makes it to the foot of the cross as Jesus breathes his last and helps with the burial. Given these are the moments when Mary first appears in the gospels, this choice of the writers or director here is rather surprising. Perhaps they felt this was well-trod ground quite sufficiently covered in other movies about Jesus?

There is a Gnostic flavor to Mary’s claim to the male disciples that she received a special revelation from the risen Jesus, but the message she presents in the movie is a completely orthodox one. We, the audience, should know that in time Peter and the others will receive their own vision of the risen Lord and will eventually come around to understand the gospel as Mary presents it to them. But for the less biblically literate among us, the movie’s presentation could be seen as elevating Mary at the expense of the male disciples.

The movie ends with a postscript stating that in 2016, the Vatican formally identified Mary of Magdala as “apostle of the apostles”. This is a reference to a proclamation that elevated her July 22 memorial day to that of feast day, the same as the other apostles in the Church calendar.

In closing, I offer the opening prayer for the Feast Day of St. Mary Magdalene:

In the garden He appeared to Mary Magdalene, who loved him in life, who witnessed his death on the cross, who sought him as he lay in the tomb, who was the first to adore him when he rose from the dead, and whose apostolic duty was honored by the apostles so that the good news of life might reach the ends of the earth.

Abraham Unbound

In the Jewish tradition, Genesis 22:1-19 is referred to as the Akedah (ah-kay-DAH), or “binding” of Isaac. Christians will usually refer to it as the sacrifice of Isaac or even the testing of Abraham.

In this powerful story, God orders Abraham to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac as a burnt offering. Along with servants, they travel three days from Beersheba to the land of Moriah, the place of sacrifice. At the moment Abraham is ready to plunge a knife into Isaac, an angel calls out to him to stay his hand and a ram caught by its horns in a nearby thicket is substituted for Isaac. Jews remember this story on Rosh Hashanah when the ram’s horn (shofar) is blown. The shofar represents the ram substituted for Isaac and reminds God of his promise to bestow blessings upon Abraham and his descendants.

Christians view the story as a foreshadowing of the Passion narratives. Isaac is a precursor to Christ, the beloved Son offered as a sacrifice by the Father. The story was allegorized: Isaac carried the wood for the sacrifice just as Jesus carried his cross, the journey to Moriah took three days and Jesus spent three days in the tomb, etc. In this accounting, Jesus was the perfect sacrifice because he actually suffered and died, whereas Isaac was released and a ram substituted.

The Land or Hill of Moriah?

Where is the place of sacrifice, “the land of Moriah”? Moriah is only mentioned in one other place in the Bible. In 2 Chr 3:1, Solomon built the Temple on “Mount Moriah”. The same verse identifies Mount Moriah as the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite (called Araunah the Jebusite in 2 Sam 24). Connecting these two references to “Moriah”, Jewish tradition saw the sacrifice of Isaac as a precursor of all the sacrifices to come later once the Temple was built.

Scholars are dubious that the two references to “Moriah” identify the same place. Gen 22 refers to a general area – the “land of Moriah” – but Chronicles refers to a specific hill called “Mount Moriah” which became known as the Temple Mount. Furthermore, Jerusalem is in a wooded area and it would have been unnecessary to load firewood on Isaac’s back since it could be acquired on-site.

There are two theories to explain the mismatch. The first theory is that the reference to the land of Moriah in Gen 22 was original and the Chronicler appropriated the name to associate the Temple Mount with the site of Isaac’s aborted sacrifice. But if this were the case, one suspects that the Chronicler would have made the connection more obvious. The second theory is that the Temple Mount was originally called Mount Moriah and the actual location in Gen 22 was suppressed and replaced with the name Moriah to link Abraham with the future site of the temple. This theory appears more likely to me.

Sacrifice of Isaac (1635) by Rembrandt (1606-1669) captures the dramatic moment when an angel stays Abraham’s hand. Note how Abraham’s left hand covers Isaac’s face and the look of amazement on Abraham’s face bordering on madness.

Would God Order the Sacrifice of Isaac?

The traditional understanding of the Akedah is that God never intended for Abraham to slaughter Isaac but was testing his faith. By trusting in God and not withholding his son, Abraham demonstrated his fear of God. Abraham is praised for being prepared to do whatever God asks, even at great personal cost. Some interpreters take it further and claim the story is a polemic against child sacrifice: God is demonstrating to Abraham that he will never ask a parent to murder their own child as an offering.

I don’t agree that the narrative is intended as a condemnation of the idea of child sacrifice. Even if God never intended for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, when asked to do it Abraham didn’t argue with God over the justice of killing an innocent the way he did when told about the impending destruction of Sodom. Any interpretation of Abraham’s actions needs to begin with the understanding that a deity’s demand for a child sacrifice was not an absurd or unusual request in ancient times. It is not surprising that Abraham accepted God’s command without question.

Certainly, from our vantage point, it seems unusually cruel for God to put Abraham through the mental anguish of preparing to sacrifice his own son, only to stop him at the last moment. But the biblical authors didn’t think in those terms. If they weren’t bothered by physical torture (see the instruction to Hagar to return to beatings at the hand of Sarah), the idea of psychological torture certainly wouldn’t have crossed their minds.

Divine Intervention?

Some commentators have suggested that, in the original telling of the story, Abraham completed his sacrifice of Isaac. They point to v. 19 which reads that Abraham – and not Abraham and Isaac – returned to his servants and they then journeyed home to Beersheba. Could this be a clue to how the original story went? According to this theory, later editors subsequently covered this up by the introduction of the angelic messenger who stayed Abraham’s hand in vv. 11-12. Evidence these verses might be a later addition is how they refer to “the angel of YHWH” while the rest of the narrative (except for v. 14 which might be another addition) uses God (= Elohim) as the name of the deity. The ram caught in the thicket in v. 13 would also have been invented as a replacement for Isaac’s aborted sacrifice.

The main problem I have with this theory is that Isaac would then be dead. What happens to the promise then? As we have seen, up to this point the promise of land and descendants to inherit the land are major running themes in the Abraham cycle. Praising Abraham for sacrificing his son while promising to make his offspring as numerous as the stars would really be rubbing salt in the wound. Killing off Isaac would necessitate the introduction of a new heir to fulfill the promise.

A third interpretation keeps the ram as part of the original story but rejects the idea Abraham completed the sacrifice. Following the logic above, YHWH’s messenger in vv. 11-12 is still considered a later interpolation. The text would then have flowed from v. 10 to v. 13: “Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son, but then he looked up and saw a ram…and offered it up instead of his son.” If this preserves the original narrative, then Abraham would have considered the trapped ram a sign that God wanted him to sacrifice it instead of his son. Later redactors, possibly bothered by the idea that Abraham would disobey a divine order, introduced YHWH’s messenger to provide divine sanction for the substitution.

Troubling Questions for Today

What difference does it make how we understand the Akedah? I’ll answer that with a question: If Abraham had completed the sacrifice of Isaac, would he still be considered the exemplar of a righteous man, the father of faith? After all, he was just following orders. Orders from God, in this case. Aren’t we supposed to follow the divine will, not our own?

This train of thought is not assuaged by the intervention of YHWH’s messenger because that still implies Abraham was ready to kill Isaac following God’s mandate until he was stopped in the act. Yes, God stayed his hand once Abraham had proved that he was prepared to go through with the sacrifice. But is Abraham a righteous man simply because he was stopped a moment before slaughtering his own innocent son? 

It is only in the scenario where there was no divine messenger do we have some glimmer that maybe Abraham was looking for a way out of his predicament, that he wasn’t really fully prepared to slaughter his son. In this scenario, we could consider Abraham to be a human being with parental affections similar to our own and not a mindless robot carrying out divine instructions. A man who, in the final analysis, chose the life of his son over blindly following the dictates of what he perceived to be God’s will is someone we might find worthy of emulating today.

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.

On the Eve of Destruction

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah symbolize wickedness throughout the Bible. But I would bet if you asked most people what sin the Sodomites were guilty of, they would say “homosexuality”. After all, the tale of Sodom in Gen 19 is the origin for the term “sodomy”. However the Bible rarely spells out the great sin that made Sodom and Gomorrah so deserving of their destruction.

Prophets from Moses to Ezekiel used Sodom and Gomorrah as a cautionary tale for the fate that awaits their contemporaries if they continue their sinful ways. The prophets weren’t always very specific as to what kinds of sin though. Ezekiel (16:49-50) is one of the few to identify the sins of arrogance and lack of charity. The gospels (Matt 10:9-15; Lk 10:8-12) suggest lack of hospitality was the primary sin.

Chapter 19 of Genesis breaks down into three parts: (1) the reception of the two messengers by Lot and the people of Sodom (vv. 1-11), (2) the rescue of Lot’s family and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (vv. 12-29), and (3) Lot and his daughters (vv. 30-38).

A Tale of Two Cities

Only the first unit provides an example of why the citizens of Sodom were considered the epitome of wickedness. Two messengers (usually translated as “angels”) arrive and are greeted with hospitality by Lot. After sunset the locals surround the house and demand Lot release the strangers so they can be gang-raped. Lot offers the mob his virgin daughters as a substitute and is rejected. Before Lot’s house is stormed, the messengers strike the crowd blind and thus ends the unit.

A modern reader must wonder if the Bible truly considered Lot the only righteous man in Sodom. Knowing that the law of hospitality requires a host to put his guests before his own self-interest explains things somewhat but the thought that a father could treat his daughters as pieces of property offends our conscience.

The narrative sounds suspiciously similar to that found in Judges 19 (especially vv. 16-26). A certain Levite from the hill country of Ephraim had an argument with his concubine, who then ran away to her father in Bethlehem. After sweet-talking his wife into returning with him, the Levite and concubine are on their way home when they stop at Gibeah and plan to spend the night in the town square.

An old man returning from his work in the fields chats them up and, like the Levite, he is originally from Ephraim. He won’t hear of the visitors spending the night in the town square and invites them to his home. The men of the city surround the house, asking for the Levite in order to gang-rape him. The old man offers both his virgin daughter and the Levite’s concubine and the townsfolk reject the offer.

So far, this is almost exactly like Lot’s story. But there are no angels here. The Levite grabs his concubine and tosses her outside where the men of Gibeah proceed to rape and abuse her all night long. She collapses at the threshold to the old man’s house.

In the morning, the Levite leaves the house and almost trips on his concubine lying on the threshold. He puts her on his donkey and sets out for home. Upon his arrival he chops up her body into twelve pieces and sends them out via servants to the twelve tribes of Israel as a call to battle. (Saul later does the same with a yoke of oxen in 1 Sam 11:7.)

Scripture scholars believe the Gibeah story was patterned on the Sodom narrative. References to Bethlehem (home of David) and Gibeah (home of Saul) and logical inconsistencies in the narrative strongly suggest the incident was created or exaggerated as anti-Saul polemic.

Comparing the tales of Sodom and Gibeah, the great sin in both cases is an unbelievable violation of the law of hospitality. The purpose of hospitality as practiced in the ANE is to take a potential threat posed by a stranger and at least temporarily neutralize that threat. In neither case did a citizen of the town offer hospitality, but it fell to a resident alien (Lot and the old man from Ephraim) even if it wasn’t his place to do so. Outraged that a resident alien is harboring other aliens, the town’s citizens demand the newcomer in order to assert their dominance.

The sexual orientation of its citizens was no more the great sin of Sodom than it was the great sin of Gibeah. No one would argue that what the mob did to the Levite’s concubine was consensual. It was rape. Rape is about power and control over another person, not sex.

Rescue and Destruction

The story moves along quite briskly now. The messengers inform Lot that the city will be destroyed and tell him to leave with his family. Lot’s virgin daughters were apparently betrothed, meaning they were married but had not yet come to live with their husbands. Lot goes to the houses of his sons-in-law but is unable to convince them of the danger.

As daybreak approaches, the messengers tell Lot to leave with his wife and daughters but Lot dawdles. The messengers grab Lot and his family by the hand and lead them outside the city. They are told, “Head for the hills!” but Lot doesn’t think he’ll make it in time. He asks the messengers if he can take refuge in a small town nearby and is informed the town will be spared.

Once Lot and his family arrive at the little town of Zoar (= “little” in Hebrew), fire and brimstone rain down on Sodom and Gomorrah and the rest of the plain of Jordan. Unfortunately, Lot’s wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Both the Zoar diversion and the fate of Mrs. Lot appear to be etiological tales, one explaining how the town of Zoar got its name the other providing a folkloric origin story to the weird salt formations that appear in the area around the Dead Sea.

The Last Man on Earth

Lot was afraid to stay in Zoar (maybe the locals considered him a jinx?) so he and his daughters finally head for the hills and settle in a cave. His daughters despair of finding a man, so they take turns getting their father drunk so he can impregnate them. Their sons will become the ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites.

Lot and his Daughters (Pieter Jozef Verhaghen, before 1811). The tableau of Lot seduced by his two nubile daughters has inspired artists for centuries, if for nothing else than it gave them an excuse to paint nudes. This is one of the tamer selections.

The purpose of the tale is apparently to provide a disreputable origin story for rival nations to the Israelites. As it currently stands, though, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Even if Zoar wasn’t an option, Lot certainly could have found a better dwelling than a cave. Maybe Abraham would have helped him out. And why would Lot’s daughters have given up on the idea of finding new husbands?

But if the Zoar origin story was interpolated into the Sodom destruction narrative, it makes more sense. Recall the messengers had told Lot to take his family and flee to the hills. Maybe they did so in the original version of the tale and sought shelter in a cave. That would explain why, seeing the wholesale destruction of the entire plain before them, Lot’s daughters thought their father might be the last man on earth. The story of a patriarch getting drunk and naked after a major disaster resonates with that of Noah after the flood.

The necessity to get Lot drunk on consecutive nights implies that Lot would not have otherwise consented to his daughters’ plan. Therefore, the sex was not consensual for Lot. In other words, his daughters raped him. Perhaps his daughters were getting revenge on their father for offering to hand them over to be raped by the mob outside his door in Sodom.

Lot would have done well to follow the Jewish version of the Golden Rule: “Whatever is hateful and distasteful to you, do not do to your fellow man.”

Stop Me If You've Heard This Before

The Bible is repetitious at times, replaying themes, scenes, and sometimes entire sentences. For example, chapter 17 of Genesis repeats themes found elsewhere in Genesis, both in previous chapters and in chapters yet to come:

• Promises of land and numerous descendants are also made in chapters 13 and 15.
• A covenant between God and Abraham is also established in Gen 15.
• Isaac’s birth is also announced in Gen 18.
• References to laughter also appear in Gen 18 and 20.
• The renaming of Abram and Sarai is similar to renaming Jacob to Israel (Gen 32:29 and 35:10).
• El Shaddai is another name for God to go along with El Elyon (14:18-20) and El Roi (16:13).

The only originality is the establishment of circumcision as a sign of the covenant.

P Source and Exilic Themes

Gen 17 is clearly from the P source and combines the annunciation of Isaac’s birth with the establishment of circumcision as a sign of the covenant between God and Abraham’s descendants.

Scholars date the compilation of the P source to the time of the Babylonian exile, after the fall of Jerusalem. This is a time when the former inhabitants of Judah have lost their land and their temple. They face the possibility that they will also lose their identity as a people. A reminder that the land was given to Abraham and his descendants as part of an everlasting covenant would be assurance they would once again return to their home. That God had also promised Abraham his descendants would be made into a great nation would comfort those who feared that God had abandoned them.

In Gen 15, the covenant was established in a ceremony similar to one known in the last days of Judah, before the fall of Jerusalem. In Gen 17, circumcision was established as the sign of the covenant between God and Abraham’s descendants. Circumcision wasn’t unique to Israel; it was a common practice in the ANE (for example, Egyptians were circumcised). Only during the Babylonian captivity when the exiles came in contact with those who did not practice circumcision did it separate Israel from the other nations. The goal of the Priestly author in this chapter is to ground circumcision in the covenant made with Abraham, turning it into a sign that one belonged to YHWH.

Not an actual photograph of Abraham laughing when he hears that he will father a son at age 100. 

Who’s Laughing Now?

In both Gen 17 and 18, Abraham is told that Sarah will give birth to a son within a year’s time. Sarah is surprised to hear that she will give birth in Gen 18. Since Abraham was told the exact same thing in Gen 17, the only way she could be surprised is if Abraham never shared with her the revelation he was given. This is a good clue that these annunciations come from separate sources. Gen 18 is usually attributed to the J source.

The announcement that an elderly Sarah will bear a child in a year’s time causes a humorous reaction in both sources. In Gen 17:17, it is Abraham who fell on his face and laughed. In Gen 18:12, it is Sarah who laughed to herself. After the birth of Isaac in Gen 21, Sarah says that everyone will now laugh with her.

The Hebrew Bible loves puns and wordplay. Unfortunately, that is mostly lost in translation. In English translations, the name of Abraham’s son appears as Isaac, but the Hebrew is Yitzchak. The name derives from the verb tzachak meaning “to laugh”. The name Yitzchak, therefore, means “he laughs”.

English readers could get a better sense of the wordplay if we translate it as “chuckles”:

Then Abraham fell on his face and chuckled, and said to himself, “Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” … God said, “No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Chuckles. (Gen 17:17-19*) 

Abraham gave the name Chuckles to his son whom Sarah bore him … Now Sarah said, “God has brought chuckles for me; everyone who hears will chuckle with me.” (Gen 21:3-6*)

But we also see a pun on Isaac’s name. Yitzchak sounds very much like metzchak (= playing). It could be “playing” as in the activities of children or “playing” as in the sexual foreplay of adults. We see both examples of that.

In Gen 21:9 Sarah is angry when she sees the older Ishmael playing with her son Isaac. In Gen 26:8, King Abimelech of the Philistines knows that Isaac lied to him when he looks out his window and sees Isaac playing with Rebekah.

The Death of Innocents

There is also a parallelism between the visit of Abraham’s three guests in Gen 18:1-15 and Lot’s two guests in Gen 19:1-3, 12-13. After being served refreshments, Abraham’s three guests give him the good news that he and Sarah will have a child together while Lot’s two visitors bring him the bad news that his city of Sodom is about to be destroyed.

One of Abraham’s visitors – revealed to be YHWH – also informs Abraham of the fate of Sodom. The passage that follows (Gen 18:17-33) is usually summarized as “Abraham intervenes on behalf of Sodom” or “Abraham bargains for Sodom”. But that’s not quite right. Abraham doesn’t try to talk YHWH out of destroying Sodom, nor does he try to haggle down the number of people to be exterminated.

Instead, what Abraham does is clarify what YHWY’s justice means. YHWH confirms that if there are only ten just people in Sodom he will not destroy the city for the sake of those ten. YHWH’s justice demands that he not wipe out the good with the wicked.

YHWH’s justice here seems out of place with the rest of the OT. Certainly there were some innocent Egyptians who didn’t deserve to have their firstborn killed. And it is hard to believe that all Canaanites were wicked and thus deserving of extermination by Joshua’s armies. For much of the OT, YHWH seems unconcerned about collateral damage.

Many biblical commentators think this passage shows theological development more suited to the exilic period. Ezek 14:12-20 (dating to the Babylonian captivity) is very similar to this passage. If YHWH decides to destroy a land due to its wickedness and Noah, Daniel, and Job lived there, the destruction would still be carried out, but the three righteous men would be saved. Perhaps the experience of living through a catastrophe brought about some reflection on the question of whether it is truly just for the good to suffer alongside the bad.

In closing, I’m reminded of a Facebook conversation one of my friends had with his right-wing brother-in-law this past week. In the brother-in-law’s opinion, the United States would be entirely justified in leveling Tehran to end terrorism. My friend pointed out Tehran’s population is close to nine million and there must surely be innocents among them. The brother-in-law’s response was, “The first rule of war is innocents die.”

When my friend showed me this, my comment was that while it is an unfortunate fact that in war innocents do die, it should not be a goal. The same applies to God. “Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen 18:25)

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.