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.

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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.

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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.