GENESIS 37, or, "Here Comes That Dreamer!"

Wherein the Bible gets the Broadway treatment

You can't be a Biblical patriarch without favoring one son over your others and thus instigate a violent and ruinous sibling rivalry. You just can't.

To wit. Jacob singles out his favorite son Joseph by giving him a swanky coat (of the "amazing technocolor dream" variety). His other sons get jealous. Then Joseph has two dreams in which he is being bowed down to. This doesn't help the situation. Joseph is kind of a spoiled blabber mouth to tell you the truth.

In reaction, his brothers plan to kill him. One of them, Ruben, asks that they simply throw Joseph down a water tank and leave him alive. This sounds good enough to the other brothers, so this is what they do.

For Joseph though, things turn from bad to worse when the brothers see a caravan approaching and they decide to sell off their smug sibling to the merchants ("Hey, at least we didn't kill him!" is their logic).

They then take Joseph's robe (coat, or whatever), dip it in goats blood and show it to their father Jacob to trick him into thinking that his favored son was mauled by some wild animal.

Genesis in Pop Culture: Joseph's story is plot to the musical, "Joseph and the Amazing Technocolor Dream Coat". I've never seen it, but it looks pretty incredible. Here's a track list of the songs:

* Overture (not on the recording)
* Prologue
* Any Dream Will Do
* Jacob and Sons
* Joseph's Coat
* Joseph's Dreams
* Poor, Poor Joseph
* One More Angel in Heaven
* The Journey to Egypt (Bill Kenwright Touring Version Only)
* Potiphar
* Close Every Door
* Go, Go, Go Joseph
* Entr'acte (not on the recording)
* Pharaoh's Story
* Poor, Poor Pharaoh
* Song of the King (Seven Fat Cows)
* Pharaoh's Dreams Explained
* Stone the Crows
* King of My Heart (2007 London staging and subsequent UK tour only)
* Those Canaan Days
* The Brothers Come To Egypt
* Grovel, Grovel
* Who's the Thief?
* Benjamin Calypso
* Joseph All the Time
* Jacob in Egypt
* Finale: Any Dream Will Do / Give Me My Coloured Coat
* Joseph Megamix (for curtain call in some big productions)

And here's a clip from a recent TV production starring Donnie "A Little Bit Rock 'n Roll" Osmond.

GENESIS 36, or, "So-and-so begat so-and-so"

You know the drill by now

This is another chapter where we learn the names of the descendants of an important figure in the Bible. This time, it's Esau.

Interesting things to note here: We are told that "Esau took his wives from the women of Canaan". Canaan, remember, is the land of the descendants of Ham, Noah's cursed son and believed by some to be the father of the African people. This reinforces Genesis' theme of "Good Brother/Bad Brother". There is the chosen lineage that God favors, and then there are the others. Without a doubt, Esau falls into the "other" category, where Ham also fell.

I've noticed that sometimes the Bible will throw in funny little asides while laying out these lineages. Like here, in GEN 36:24, we have "The sons of Zibeon: Aiah and Anah. This is the Anah who discovered the hot springs in the desert while he was grazing the donkeys of his father Zibeon"

I like imagining someone from the olden times reading that and going, "Oh... that Anah"

BONUS: Today, I'll leave you with a miniaturized version of a gigantic diagram that outlines the genealogy of the Old Testament. See the full resolution diagram HERE on the University of Minnesota Duluth website (Go bulldogs!).

Genesis 35, or, "Everybody Dies"

Okay, not "everybody," but quite a few.

Namely, Rachel, Isaac, and a bunch of innocent townsfolk.

With Jacob's sons having just slaughtered every man in a nearby ruling tribe, God decides that it's time for him and his family to get the heck out of Dodge. God tells Jacob to flee to Bethel, the site where the stairway to Heaven was revealed to him (See Genesis 28). Jacob packs his family up and they hightail it out of there.

Just to make sure nobody follows them, God then kills everybody in the nearby towns.

Okay, to be fair, this is my interpretation of this passage. The actual verse reads: "the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them." I suppose you could take this as meaning that God spared their lives, yet paralyzed them with fear. Kind of like Gotham City at the end of Batman Begins. If God were Scarecrow, the villain.

Anyway.

Jacob and his family vamoose. On their way to Bethel, Rachel dies while giving birth to one last son, Benjamin. And then, when the family reaches Bethel, Isaac dies as well.

---

FYI: Rachel's tomb is still in existence and is the third holiest site in Judaism. You can visit a website about it HERE. There, you can learn more about the tomb, buy a pizza for an Israeli soldier, or, if your name happens to be Rachel, sign up for their project to collect the names of every Rachel in the world. Mazel tov!

Genesis 34, or, "The Bible Suddenly Turns Into a Frank Miller Comic"

Jacob's sons go vigilante

One day, Jacob's daughter Dinah walked off into the area around their home to mingle with the other women of the land. While out, she caught the eye of the local ruler Shechem, who took her and "violated" her. He took a shine to her (he's a big romantic, evidently), and not quite understanding that this isn't the proper way to court a woman, he and his father Hamor go to see Jacob about a possible marriage between the couple.

By the time Shechem and Hamor arrive, Jacob and his sons have already learned of what happened to Dinah. Shechem is willing to offer them anything in exchange for a marriage with Dinah. Jacob's sons tell him that if he and all the males of his family get circumcised (again, a sign of one's pact with the God of Abraham), then they will give their sister over to him. Shechem accepts their terms and wasting no time he goes off and circumcises himself and the men of his family.

I imagine that recovery from a modern circumcision must be painful, so I can't even begin to think of what it must have been like back in the Biblical days (no anesthetic!). While the guys are all nursing their manhoods back to health, Jacob's sons seize the opportunity to invade Shechem's home, kill all the men in his family and ransack all their stuff.

There ain't no turning the other cheek about it. This is blood-thirsty revenge.

Pop Cultural References to Genesis 34: The Red Tent, by Anita Diamont. A book based (loosely) on the story of Dinah.

GENESIS 33, or, "Brotherly Love"

JACOB: "Dude, my bad."
ESAU: "No dude, seriously, totally my bad."

After worrying and worrying about how his brother will accept him, Jacob finally meets with Esau. To Jacob's surprise, Esau greets him with a warm embrace, and the two brothers are moved to tears by their reconciliation. All past transgressions between them are forgotten.

That's about the long and the short of this chapter. I've mentioned before how warring brothers is emerging as a theme in Genesis, and here with Jacob and Esau we have the first time that a pair of siblings have resolved their rivalry amiably. We'll have to see what happens with Jacob's son Joseph to discover if this is Genesis' last word on fraternal relations.

BONUS: Celebrate Jacob and Esau's reunion with this nifty online coloring book!

GENESIS 32, or, "Wrestlemania"

Jacob heads back home, brawls with the All-Mighty

You may remember from Genesis 27 that Jacob had to flee his home because his brother, Esau, was threatening to kill him. Well, now that Jacob is going home again he thinks things might still be a little awkward between him and his sibling. Jacob sends people ahead of him to shower Esau with gifts to butter him up and hopefully hedge that murderous rage that's been building up for the last several decades.

When Jacob is left alone a man comes and wrestles with him. They fight until the dawn, when Jacob finally pins the man down and demands a blessing. The man turns out to be an angel of God (or perhaps even God himself), so the man/angel/God blesses Jacob and gives him a new name.

As I have written before, there are several interpretations to this passage, but the one I like most is that the chapter is urging us to question and "wrestle" with the ideas of the Bible. It's a story about the importance of struggling toward meaning.

Are You Ready to Rumble?: Come to fisticuffs with God like Jacob did in this nifty flash game! Watch your hip!

Link: PlayMyGame

GENESIS 31, or, "Fun with Flickr!"

I gave myself three rules for this post:

1) Take the seventh word from each verse of Genesis 31
2) Use Flickr Commons to search for the top picture relating to that word
3) If Fickr Commons doesn't come up with anything, use Google Image search

Here is the result:



Genesis 31 Recap: Jacob flees his uncle's home with Rachel and Leah, Laban chases after them, but with a little deception, Rachel gets him to leave them alone.

GENESIS 30, or, "Babies!"

Jacob gets it on, then gets a lot of sheep

Juicier than an issue of US Weekly, Genesis 30 gives us all the intimate details of Jacob's love life. As you may recall in the previous installment, Jacob's first wife Leah has already given him four sons.

Well, this angers Rachel, Jacob's barren second wife, so she makes Jacob sleep with her maidservant. Because for some reason Jacob having children with her maidservant is somehow like him having children through Rachel herself. I don't know, Old Testament logic is hard to follow sometimes.

Jacob has two sons with Rachel's maidservant. Not to be out done by her sister, Leah makes Jacob sleep with her maidservant, giving Jacob two more sons. Then Leah pops out two more sons and a daughter, and finally God allows Rachel to give birth to her own son, Joseph.

The second half of Genesis 30 concerns itself with how Jacob acquires his flock. Jacob asks his deadbeat uncle Laban for some payment for all the work he's been doing for the last several years. Jacob makes him agree to what appears to be a modest compensation: Every goat or sheep of Laban's that has a spotted coat will go to Jacob. Since not many of Laban's flock have this kind of coat, he agrees.

Shortly after, Jacob pulls some kind of magical scheme where he is able to speckle Laban's unspeckled flock by putting branches from poplar trees into their drinking water. Don't ask me, I've tried to do some research to figure out how this works but have come up with nothing. Anyway, the point is, Jacob scams Laban out of more goats and sheep than he had bargained for. The upshot is that Jacob becomes a rich man.

---

FYI: "Jacob sheep" is a kind of sheep that still exists today, and is distinguished by its spotted coat.

GENESIS 29, or, "I Would Do Anything For Love"

Jacob travels to Haran, meets his uncle Laban, and finds that he gets his sheistiness from his mother's side of the family.

Jacob is shaping up to be the most interesting hero of the Old Testament so far. Unlike the previous stewards of God's blessing who were more or less virtuous through and through, Jacob starts off as a scoundrel and gradually becomes a decent person.

When Jacob arrives in Haran, he sees a beautiful woman named Rachel, whom he is told is the daughter of his uncle Laban (brother of Rebekah).

Jacob helps Rachel water her sheep (this is actually a more impressive feat than it sounds, as it required the movement of a large stone off of a well, something that would normally take several men to do). Jacob then meets Laban, who offers his nephew work and tells him that he can name his wage. Jacob is not interested in money however; he has his eyes set on Rachel. Laban tells Jacob that if he will work for him for seven years, he can take Rachel as his bride.

Because Jacob is so in love with Rachel, to him the seven years go by like days. The time comes for Laban to hand over his daughter.

**

A feast is thrown, Jacob (I assume, though the Bible doesn't say this) gets drunk, and the next morning he rolls over to find that the person lying next to him in bed is not Rachel, but Leah, Rachel's plain-Jane older sister.



According to Laban, the custom in these here parts is to marry off the older daughter of the family before the younger daughter. And since Jacob already did the deed with Leah, they're as good as hitched. Jacob, who has swindled both his father and brother, is here swindled himself by his uncle.

Laban tells Jacob that he can still marry Rachel - if he agrees to work another seven years.

Jacob marries Rachel and starts his seven years of indentured servitude. Only, as Jacob later finds out, Rachel is barren.

Leah on the other hand, gives birth to four sons.

The Bible Two-Step: This is a new reoccurring feature I'll be posting. Sometimes the Bible will very explicitly depict its heroes partaking in behaviors or activities that in today's age are considered to be immoral. I get a real kick out of reading Bible literalists who are forced to come up with complicated arguments to justify, or "dance around", these questionable instances.

First up: polygamy.



Unless you're Mormon, polygamy is seen as immoral among most people. Yet here in Genesis 29, Jacob clearly marries two wives. Let the dance begin!

From www.gotanswers.org:

"Why did God allow polygamy in the Old Testament? The Bible does not specifically say why God allowed polygamy. The best anyone can do is “informed” speculation. There are a few key factors to consider. First, there has always been more women in the world than men. Current statistics show that approximately 50.5% of the world population are women, with men being 49.5%. Assuming the same percentages in ancient times, and multiplied by millions of people, there would be tens of thousands more women than men. Second, warfare in ancient times was especially brutal, with an incredibly high rate of fatalities. This would have resulted in an even greater percentage of women to men. Third, due to the patriarchal societies, it was nearly impossible for an unmarried woman to provide for herself. Women were often uneducated and untrained. Women relied on their fathers, brothers, and husbands for provision and protection. Unmarried women were often subjected to prostitution and slavery. Fourth, the significant difference between the number of women and men would have left many, many women in an undesirable (to say the least) situation.

So, it seems that God allowed polygamy to protect and provide for the women who could not find a husband otherwise. A man would take multiple wives and serve as the provider and protector of all of them. While definitely not ideal, living in a polygamist household was far better than the alternatives: prostitution, slavery, starvation, etc. In addition to the protection / provision factor, polygamy enabled a much faster expansion of humanity, fulfilling God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth” (Genesis 9:7). Men are capable of impregnating multiple women in the same time period…causing humanity to grow much faster than if each man was only able to produce one child each year."

You heard it here first folks: If you want to have a second wife, just make sure you're saving her from a life of prostitution!

**Lego pictures are from www.thebricktestament.com. Please go visit the site - it's wonderful!

GENESIS 28, or, "What exactly is a 'bustle in your hedgerow'?"

Jacob flees Canaan, falls asleep in the desert and has a trippy dream

Knowing that Esau is planning to kill Jacob, their mother Rebekah convinces Isaac that Canaanite women are not good enough for Jacob to marry. She wants her favorite son to marry a woman from her old home turf of Paddan Aram. Isaac obligingly sends Jacob on his way.

It seems that Isaac has had some time to cool off from the fiasco of the previous chapter. He tells Jacob to go forth, find a wife, multiply, and pass along Abraham's blessing to his descendants (the blessing, remember, that Jacob swindled from his brother).

All this fuss about Jacob not marrying a local Canaanite woman makes Esau think that maybe he shouldn't either. After Jacob leaves town, Esau goes out and marries a daughter of Ishmael.

Meanwhile, while Jacob is out traveling in the middle of nowhere, he tires and falls asleep. He has a dream where he sees a ladder (or stairway) connecting Earth to Heaven, with angels ascending and descending the ladder (or stairway). God is at the top of the ladder (or, you get the drill) up in Heaven where he speaks to Jacob, giving him the same basic spiel he gave Abraham - I am your God, you will be blessed through me, the number of your descendants will be like the dust of the Earth, yada yada yada.

In the morning, Jacob awakes with a new perspective and sense of purpose. Jacob realizes that the place around him is the house of God and a gate to Heaven, and so names it "Bethel", meaning "House of God". By the way, you can still visit this place; nowadays the city is called Beitin, and it's in the West Bank.

Jacob also declares the Lord to be his God, this being the first time we see him openly accept God.

---

Now, I'd appreciate it if you'll indulge me a tangent that addresses something that's been on my mind recently, which I hope to circle back and dovetail into the story of Jacob I've just summarized.

I just finished reading a book by Kurt Vonnegut called "Breakfast of Champions", where he wrote: "Her name was Cynthia Anne, and she certainly didn't live very long until she was made dead again."

After reading this line, I paused. There was something about the phrasing of that last part: "dead again". The "again" of course being the artistry of the line, the bit that anyone except Vonnegut would have left out. Here, Vonnegut is implying that one can be "dead before", or "dead previously". And I found myself immensely relieved by that thought. That one doesn't just "die". One "dies again".

Because, I don't know about you, but to me death is truly scary. Probably the scariest thing there is because it is completely unknowable to the living, and honestly, I'm sure that that feeling of uncertain dread is in part what is driving this blog.

But I have to remind myself that I haven't always been here, on Earth, in my body. I came from nothing (or, I suppose if you believe in God, something) and am just passing through on my way back to nothing (or something). Is this making sense? Whatever death is, we've been there before.

Maybe death is like being taken to a house from your childhood that you don't remember living in. You wouldn't be able to recall the color of the paint on the inside walls, or whether it had a fireplace, or a pool, or if the grass were green or brown. The only thing you would know, and in effect, the only thing you could really take comfort in, is the fact that you've been there before. It's where you came from.

So, maybe this feeling I had of connection with the great beyond is a little like what Jacob was feeling while he was in that dream, seeing this tangible thing that tied Heaven to Earth. Jacob's ladder is a reminder that death is the thing that will bridge us from this world to the next.

GENESIS 27, or, "Bless You"

With the help of his mother, Jacob cons Esau for a second time then flees for his life.

Back in the Old Testament days, blessings couldn't be wasted on sternutation - they were serious business. As we know, God blessed Abraham, who in turn blessed his son Isaac, who, now nearing death, needs to bless his own son.

Being blessed by God is like being a Highlander: There can be only one. So, being able to only pick one son to pass the blessing to, Isaac choses Esau, who has always been his favorite. Isaac tells Esau to go hunt and prepare a meal for him, and afterwards he will give him his blessing.

While Esau is out, Rebekah devises a plan so that Jacob, her favorite son, may receive the blessing. Knowing that Isaac is blind from old age, she prepares the meal herself, dresses Jacob in Esau's clothes and tells him to go into his father's tent pretending to be Esau.

Jacob complies. Though Isaac is suspicious because of the sound of Jacob's voice, the smell of his clothes convinces him that it is Esau he is talking with. Thinking Jacob is Esau, Isaac blesses him.

Things hit the fan when Esau comes back to discover that he has been swindled out of his blessing. Fearing for Jacob's life, Rebekah sends him off to live with her brother Laban in Haran.

---

All this talk about blessings got me researching their role in Judaism. Turns out there's a lot of them. In Judaism, there's a blessing for when you wake up (Modeh ani), a blessing for safe journeys (Tefilat HaDerech), a blessing for eating non-fruit produce (Ha-Etz), and a priestly blessing that requires vulcan-like hand positioning.



Random Adorableness: Bless you, panda bear!



Also,

HOW COOL IS THIS?!?!

This site blew me away today. The goal of "The Brick Testament" is to tell the story of the entire Bible using legos.

Check out the site HERE

GENESIS 26, or, "GENESIS 20, or, 'GENESIS 12'"

God tells Isaac to move to Gerar; Isaac tries to pull the wool over Abimelech's eyes; Isaac gets booted out of Gerar for being too rich; wells are dug; Esau gets hitched

So far in this little experiment of mine, I've found that the Bible tends to repeat the same kinds of stories over and over again, to the point where you have to wonder - Are these really different stories? Or did they just become different stories as the originals were passed down through the generations by word of mouth?

Case in point: Genesis 26. Isaac settles in the land of Gerar per God's instructions, only to become nervous about the excessive beauty of his wife, and the threat to his safety when the men of Gerar came to notice said excessive beauty. He has a brilliant idea: Tell the townsfolk that Rebekah is not his wife but his sister!

The plan backfires when Abimelech notices Isaac and Rebekah in the midst of some serious PDA, feeling each other up in the middle of town. Abimelech gets the truth out of Isaac and tells the townsfolk to not mess around with Rebekah. She's taken.

Sound familiar? It should, since the same thing happened in Genesis 20 and Genesis 12 with Abraham and Sarah. In fact, in Genesis 20, the story takes place in Gerar, which is still ruled by Abimelech.

Let's do a little side-by-side comparison:

When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, "She is my sister," because he was afraid to say, "She is my wife." He thought, "The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebekah, because she is beautiful." - Gen 26:7

As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, "I know what a beautiful woman you are. When the Egyptians see you, they will say, 'This is his wife.' Then they will kill me but will let you live. Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you." - Gen 12:11-13

Also, there's all this other stuff about wells and making deals with Abimelech... It smacks of Genesis 21 to me.

Meanwhile, Abimelech had come to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his personal adviser and Phicol the commander of his forces. Isaac asked them, "Why have you come to me, since you were hostile to me and sent me away?" They answered, "We saw clearly that the LORD was with you; so we said, 'There ought to be a sworn agreement between us'-between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you that you will do us no harm, just as we did not molest you but always treated you well and sent you away in peace. And now you are blessed by the LORD." - Gen 26:26-28

At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his forces said to Abraham, "God is with you in everything you do. Now swear to me here before God that you will not deal falsely with me or my children or my descendants. Show to me and the country where you are living as an alien the same kindness I have shown to you. - Gen 21:22-23

Am I right or what?

GENESIS 25, or, "This better be the best stew I've ever tasted"

Abraham dies, Isaac becomes the father of warring twins.

I am convinced now that above all else Genesis is about sibling rivalry, though this theme is often overshadowed by stories like that of creation or the binding of Isaac. First there was Cain and Abel, then Isaac and Ishmael, and now Jacob and Esau.

In a "circle of life" type fashion, the chapter where we learn about Abraham's death is the same one where we learn about Isaac fathering two sons - Jacob and Esau. Esau grows up to be a hunter, while Jacob is more of an introverted recluse. For some reason I kind of picture him as the goth kid you knew in high school who stayed in his room all day pumping music into his skull through over-sized headphones.

The major event in this chapter is when Esau, the older brother and chief inheritor to his father's fortune, is duped by Jacob. Esau comes back from hunting one day, starving, and he sells his entire inheritance to Jacob for a bowl of stew. "Look, I am about to die," Esau says, "What good is the birthright to me?"

N.B. Jacob, who will go on to be a major figure in the next several chapters of Genesis and will father the nation of Israel, gains all his money and power through swindling his own brother. I sort of appreciate how the heroes of the Bible are deeply flawed characters.

Genesis 24, or "Your Oath is Invading my Personal Space"

Isaac gets a wife; I race through this post so I can get some sleep

I'm going to keep this post short, as my bed is calling to me.

Abraham wants a wife for his son Isaac, but not just any wife, a wife who comes from the land and clan of his relatives. Abraham's servant swears to go out and accomplish this task. As we learn through the servant's actions, back in the Biblical days oaths were sworn by putting your hand underneath the thigh of the person you were swearing to. Thankfully this gesture eventually evolved into the hand shake, then the high five, and finally, the fist pump.

The servant arrives at Nahor (Abraham's hood from back in the day). He stands near a spring and asks the Lord to help him find the right girl. The servant prays that when he asks a girl to give him water, if she answers yes and offers to water his camels as well, she'll be the one he takes back to Isaac. A beautiful girl named Rebekah comes out and passes the test. The servant explains to her and her family the situation, she agrees to go back with him.

They return to Canaan where Rebekah and Isaac are married at once.

---

In a strange coincidence, while researching this Bible chapter I stumbled across a series of books called "Women of Genesis" written by Orson Scott Card. One book is devoted entirely to Rebekah. The coincidence is that I just finished reading Ender's Game for the first time and am now reading Speaker of the Dead.

Card is a Mormon, which explains his motivation to write about the Bible. Maybe I should give these books a shot when I'm done with Speaker.

GENESIS 23, or, "The World is a Messed Up Place and I Have No Right to Complain About Anything"

Sarah dies, Abraham looks to give her a proper burial. I decide that I, like many Americans, have no real problems

Usually I try to lighten my posts up with a healthy dose of snarkiness, but it's hard to find anything funny about a grieving old man who is trying to find a final resting place for his wife.

Sarah lived a good long life of 127 years. She died in Canaan where she and Abraham were strangers among the Hittites that lived there. Abraham appealed to the Hittites to sell him a plot of land that he can make into a burial site. They were very accommodating; a man named Ephron offered to give Abraham the land for free, but Abraham insisted on paying a fair price.

The land was bought, and Sarah was put to rest.

The tomb where Sarah - and eventually Abraham - were buried still exists today and is called the "Cave of the Patriarchs". It is also said to be the burial place for three other Biblical couples: Adam and Eve, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Leah. I find the Adam and Eve bit hard to believe since there's no specific mention of their burial place in the actual Bible.

Not surprisingly, the tomb has great significance to the three Abrahamic religions, and of course has been the source of much conflict for thousands of years. It has switched between Jewish and Muslim possession several times, most recently being captured by the Israelis after the Six Day War in 1967.

In one particularly gruesome episode, in 1994 an Israeli physician named Baruch Goldstein entered the tomb with a sub machine gun and opened fired on a group of Muslims who were at prayer there, killing twenty-nine and injuring a hundred and twenty-five more before he himself was killed by the survivors. Amazingly, Baruch is revered by some as a hero, his grave reading, "To the holy Baruch Goldstein, who gave his life for the Jewish people, the Torah and the nation of Israel".

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Can't make it out to Hebron this year? Take a virtual tour of the Cave of the Patriarchs at its official website.

GENESIS 22, or, "In a Bind"

God puts Abraham through the ultimate test by commanding him to sacrifice his own son. Plus: Genealogy!



I assume most of you know this story, but just in case, here's a recap: God had been making a big deal about the birth of Isaac for a long time, and finally, in the last chapter, he delivered the goods. Abraham and Sarah, even though they are both in old age, had their son; not just any son, a son who would go on to father God's great nation.

After all that fanfare, Abraham finds himself here, in chapter 22, being asked by God to take Isaac up to a mountain and sacrifice him. Unquestioningly, Abraham does as God commands. He ties Isaac up and just as he is about to thrust a knife into him, an angel tells him to stop, explaining that God now knows for certain that Abraham is a true believer, and that Isaac doesn't need to be harmed.

Then, somewhat incongruously, we learn about the lineage of Abraham's cousins.

What does this story mean? Obviously, there's the lesson of faith - that your belief in God should be so strong that you should be willing to kill your own offspring for him. Barbaric, yes, but we should also keep in mind that God doesn't actually allow Abraham to kill Isaac. One illustrious Jewish scholar, Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz, Britain's Chief Rabbi of the early 20th century, wrote about how in that time, child sacrifice was actually quite common and that "in that age, it was astounding that Abraham's God should have interposed to prevent the sacrifice, not that He should have asked for it... Unlike the cruel heathen deities, it was the spiritual surrender alone that God required." Thus proving God superior and more compassionate to other gods.

Also of note is how some have drawn parallels between the binding of Isaac and the crucifixion of Christ, which was particularly interesting for me to learn after I observed in the previous entry that the story of Jesus' birth and Isaac's birth had some telling similarities. I'll let Wikipedia take it away:

"The majority of Christian Biblical commentators hold this whole episode to be an archetype of the way that God works; this event is seen as foreshadowing God's plan to have his own Son, Jesus, die on the cross as a substitute for humanity, much like the ram God provided for Abraham. And Abraham's willingness to give up his own son Isaac is seen, in this view, as foreshadowing the willingness of God the Father to sacrifice his Son; also contrasted is Isaac's submission in the whole ordeal with Christ's, the two choosing to lay down their own lives in order for the will of God to be accomplished, as no struggle is mentioned in the Genesis account. Indeed, both stories portray the participants carrying the wood for their own sacrifice up a mountain."

Since we've weighed in on the Jews and Christians, it's only fair to get the Muslim interpretation of this chapter as well. Many Muslim traditions hold that God doesn't tell Abraham to sacrifice Isaac at all, but Ismael. Ishmael, you'll remember, is Abraham's other son through his maidservant Hagar. He is also the figure Muslims trace their heritage back to. Though the Biblical text specifically uses the name "Isaac", God does also say, "your only son". Muslims use this phrase to interpret the text as saying that these events occurred before the birth of Isaac, back when Ismael was Abraham's "only son", and somewhere along the way the name "Ishmael" in the Biblical text started to be replaced by the name "Isaac".

There have been many interesting interpretations of Genesis 22, and I urge anyone reading this to check out this transcript of an interview with author Bruce Feiler by Krista Tippett on her radio show "Speaking of Faith". He offers many excellent insights into how Genesis 22 has been read throughout the centuries by different people of different faiths.

Pop Culture References to Gen 22: The first verse of Bob Dylan's song "Highway 61 Revisited" deals with the Binding of Isaac.

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God says, "Out on Highway 61."

GENESIS 21, or, "Who you laughing at?"

Abraham's son Isaac is born, Hagar and Ishamel are sent away, there's some kind of contention over a well

After chapters and chapters of GPAASASBAASWSBTWTOTBC, Sarah finally gives birth to hers and Abraham's son Isaac; the name "Isaac" coming about because it means "to laugh" and Sarah laughed at God when He told her that she was going to have a son at such an old age. She laughs some more after giving birth, still incredulous about the whole thing. She was a jolly old gal.

You know, Mary wasn't this skeptical when she was told she was going to have a baby even though she were a virgin. Sarah was no Mary, I'll tell you that. And now that I think about it, that's an interesting point: the major event in both the Old and the New Testament is a miraculous, prophesized birth. AND in the Old Testament, the miracle of the birth is that the woman is too old, and in the New Testament, the miracle is that the woman is a virgin, which is a little like saying she was too young. Am I stretching this out too much? It's interesting nonetheless.

Abraham circumcises Isaac, the babe grows, and once he is weaned Abraham throws a party. At the festivities, Ishmael, Abraham's son through his maidservant Hagar starts making fun of Isaac, so Sarah wants Ishmael and Hagar sent away for good. But who could blame the kid? Obviously he's jealous that Isaac is getting all the attention.

If you remember, Sarah tried to pull this crap in Genesis 16 as well. Sarah is not a fan of Hagar and Ishmael. Abraham is conflicted, God tells him to do as Sarah says, that Ismael will be taken care of and a great nation will come of him as well as Isaac.

Hagar and Ishmael are kicked out, and God follows through on his promise, miraculously giving Ishmael water when he was about to die of thirst. After, Ishamel grew up to be an archer, and they both ended up in Egypt where Ishmael found a wife.

Back at Abraham's camp, ol' Abimelech, the ruler introduced in the previous chapter approaches Abraham. Now that Abimelech knows that God is on Abraham's side, he wants Abraham to swear that he'll deal fairly him. Abraham swears that he will, and then complains to Abimelech that a well of his was taken over by the ruler's servants. Abimelech is all like, "Why are you blaming me? Why didn't you tell me about this before?" And then Abraham is all like, "Well, I'm telling you about it now!". And then Abimelech is all, "What do you want me to do about it?", and Abraham is like, "Fine! Fine! Forget about it! I'll just dig another well!"

And he did.

By the way, the most interesting thing to note about this chapter is that Abraham is the father of both Judaism and Islam. Jews trace their ancestry back to Isaac, and Muslims trace theirs back to Ishmael. So even though the two sides are still fighting to this day, we should remember that it is essentially a sibling rivalry. Isaac and Ishmael didn't get along much, just like Israel and Palestine, but Genesis 21 teaches us that God has blessed both nations.

God on NPR: Here's a except from Krista Tippett's interview with author Bruce Feiler, who has some great insights into the story of Abraham and how it effects religion today.

BF: And Sarah says to Abraham, 'Kick Ishmael out into the desert.' And he clearly doesn't want to. Ishmael is his first son. He's been looking for a son for 90 years at that point. And what happens is God says it's okay, that he too will become a great nation. And so Ishmael is kicked out into the desert. But unlike a lot of people — figures in the Bible — he never leaves Abraham's realm of love and paternity, and he never leaves the sphere of God's blessing. And what is interesting is how the text seems to be bending over backwards to create a sort of balance.

Ishmael goes out into the desert, but his mother, Hagar, is much more elevated. Isaac gets the land, but through the malice of his mother. Hagar is the only person, male or female, in the Hebrew Bible to ever speak and name God directly. And God promises Abraham that he will have many generations — Isaac and Jacob — but He promises the same to Hagar, which means Hagar is, in effect, a female patriarch. And this balance, I think, is stunning because the split — when this story comes along, the split among the religions is still thousands of years in the future, and yet the text seems to understand that all of these people are related to one another, that there will be violence, but there also is peace.

I mean the thing that I hold onto here — one of the last things I did, as you know, is I went to Hebron, one of the bloodiest cities on the planet, the epicenter of Muslim-Jewish conflict. I drove south on this sniper road where the Israelis and Palestinians shoot at one another, before arriving at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. It's this giant building that looks like a cross between a gymnasium and a castle. The last time I had been there, there were 10,000 Jews dancing in the festival. Today, it was empty, so dangerous that four soldiers with helmets and machine guns had to escort me inside — four.

And I go to this little tiny room between Abraham and Sarah's tomb. All three faiths agree this is where they're buried. There's a ramshackle synagogue there with a chandelier hanging down with half the bulbs out, and it's there that Abraham, at 175, dies. And in one of the most haunting and overlooked passages in the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 25:9, his sons Ishmael and Isaac, rivals since before they were born, estranged since childhood, leaders of opposing nations, come, stand side by side, and bury their father. Abraham achieves in death what he could never achieve in life, this moment of reconciliation. A hopeful side-by-side flicker of possibility when they're not rivals or warriors; Jews, Christians, or Muslims. They are brothers.