An Atheist Explores the Bible Part Four: Surrogate mothers, genital mutilation and a Gay Zombie Apocalypse! (Genesis 16-20)

Genesis 16-20

Surrogate mothers, genital mutilation and a Gay Zombie Apocalypse!

Welcome to another instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts (Bible version).

In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the King James Bible, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as literature and mythology.
For more detail, see the introductory post http://bit.ly/2F8f9JT
For the online KJV I use, see here http://bit.ly/2m0zVUP

And now:

Genesis 16

“Now Sarai Abram's wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar”

Hmm, a somewhat creepy little story about surrogacy. Sarai is barren and so she gives her handmaid to Abram, who makes her pregnant (or, as the text says, “went in unto Hagar”). There’s a bit of pronoun ambiguity next, where the text reads “and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress was despised in her eye.”. “She” would seem to refer to Hagar from the context, but does “despised in her eye” in KJB English mean that Sarai despises Hagar (which seems understandable, given that a) she’s just had sex with her husband and b) done what Sarai couldn’t and conceived. Or does it mean Hagar despises Sarai? From what follows it would seem the first, as the Abram gives Sarai permission, essentially, beat Hagar and send her away. But an angel tells Hagar to go back to Sarai, and also that her child will be a son, Ishmael, who sounds like he’s going to be a troubled young man. And that’s about it. Interesting that this is the first instance of an angel acting as a messenger – before this God has intervened directly. I wonder this is indicative of a growing separation between God and humanity, or perhaps Hagar was deemed not requiring a full divine intervention. 

Genesis 17

“This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.”

Yes, the bulk of this chapter is all about genital mutilation, and a lovely read it is too. God appears to Abram, who is now 99 years old, and reiterates the whole deal about granting Canaan to his descendants, which I thought we’d already done, but never mind. He also changes Abram and Sarai’s names to Abraham and Sarah. He also promises a son to Abraham and Sarah, to be named Isaac. Really, I can’t see that causing any trouble with Ishmael, can you? 

And to seal the deal, Abraham has to chop off his foreskin. And that of all of his male relatives and, an interesting point, those of all that “is bought with thy money”. So he’s a slave owner? Or perhaps we can more charitably assume this to mean someone who works for him. Even so, bit of a rough deal for them, is it not? 

I have to say, I’m at a loss to understand why a god would demand this of his followers. It is a bit redolent of the followers of Cybele who would voluntarily castrate themselves in her service, although this, though gruesome, at least has some element of meaning that they eschew fathering children in the name of the goddess. Circumcision? Not so much. Besides, didn't God create foreskins in the first place?  

Genesis 18

“Then Sarah denied, saying, I laughed not; for she was afraid. And he said, Nay; but thou didst laugh.”

This is another linking chapter, really. Abraham is sitting in his tent when three strangers turn up, whereupon he goes through some hospitality, offering them food and drink, in a nicely detailed little scene that suggests the ancient Hebrew guest rites. It’s not exactly clear if these are messengers of God, or God is one of them, or is hanging about also, because suddenly God starts talking to Abraham and Sarah and once again says that Sarah will have a child. Since she’s almost 100 years old and, as the text quaintly puts it “it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women” (whisper: menopause), she laughs, and then there’s an almost comedic exchange between her and God about whether she did or not.

But the three strangers and God are only passing through for now – their real business lies with Sodom and Gomorrah. God’s heard some bad things about the place and he’s going to check out the rumours (you’d think he’d know already, being omnipotent and all, but never mind). There’s another almost comedic little vignette with Abraham haggling with God over how many righteous men it would take to save a city. Abraham barters God down from fifty righteous to ten, so if the three strangers can find ten righteous men in Sodom, God ain’t gonna smite it.  

Genesis 19

“And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them”

Crikey! It’s no wonder some religious people have a problem with homosexuals if this is where they get their ideas from. Okay, so from the top, the three strangers arrive in Sodom where they meet Abraham’s nephew Lot, who invites them in. They say that they will stay on the streets instead and Lot insists that this is a really bad idea, so they relent. And a good thing too, the men of the city rise up, beating on Lot’s doors because they want to give his visitors a good bumming (we assume – the KJB uses the euphemism “know” to mean sex, but perhaps in this case they are just interested in meeting them? I guess not). But really. Is this what religious homophobes think? That there’s some kind of gay zombie apocalypse waiting to happen? (Spoiler alert: there’s not). 

But worse than that, Lot says to the encroaching Sodomites you can’t have these strangers to bugger, but I’ve got two virgin daughters, have them instead. What a bastard! I don’t think anyone’s coming out of this story very well. But the three strangers, who are really angels (surprise!) help Lot and his family escape from Sodom. They tell him to escape to the mountains and not look back, but he rather pathetically argues that he would rather go to a nearby small city “Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one: Oh, let me escape thither, (is it not a little one?) and my soul shall live”. There’s something almost AA Milne about that verse. Yes, Lot, yes, it is a little one.

Fire and brimstone rain down on Sodom and Gomorrah (yay, fire and brimstone). I’ve always wondered what the Gomorrah...ians did, seeing as the Sodomites gave their name to a sexual act, but there’s nothing named after the Gomorrah…ites. Oh, and Lot’s wife breaks The Rules and is turned into a pillar of salt, but despite how famous this image is, it's glossed over quickly. And soon Lot leaves his little city (is it little?) and goes to live in the mountains anyway. Maybe it was just too little.

And then, as if this chapter hasn’t been weird enough, Lots two daughters say “Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve seed of our father” because there are no other men around, despite the fact that verse 14 Lot plainly has sons-in-law. Mind you, they mock him, so maybe they decide to stay behind and get buggered whilst the brimstone falls. It’s that or the drunken incest fest that awaits. Gah! The upshot of all this unedifiying activity is that the two daughters have children that form the line of the Moabites and the Ammonites, so whether or not this is just meant as a slur to those people I don’t know.

And no mention of whether the three strangers even attempted to find the ten righteous men or not that Abraham bargained for in the last chapter. Really, this is a terrible, terrible chapter despite the potential for great visual imagery. So there you go, dear reader. Apparently incest is better than homosexuality. It Is Written.

Genesis 20

“And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah”

In this chapter, Abraham pulls the same con job that he did back in Ch. 12, only this time in greater detail. I can only assume that it’s the same tale retold and embellished as often happens in myth and folk tales, although, since after this and at the end of Ch. 12 Abraham ends up getting loads of wealth as compensation, perhaps the two of them go around pulling this scam on all the local rulers.

So once again Abraham pretends that Sarah is his sister so that the local king, in this case Abimelech, King of Gerar, will not try to marry her. Predictably he does, is then cursed by God, but also, oddly, God says, yeah I knew you’d do this, so I made you not do it. Syntax Error, Does Not Parse.

And, er, yeah. Abimelech finds Abraham and basically says “why did you do this, what have I ever done to you?” whereupon Abraham gives him some nonsense answer which, well, I’ll reproduce it in full:

 “And Abraham said, Because I thought, Surely the fear of God is not in this place; and they will slay me for my wife's sake. And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife. And it came to pass, when God caused me to wander from my father's house, that I said unto her, This is thy kindness which thou shalt shew unto me; at every place whither we shall come, say of me, He is my brother.”

Um… okay….

So Abraham and Sarah are given some hush money, and also restore fertility to the local women folk who had had their wombs “fast closed” by God until the whole sorry mess was sorted out. Really, this was a silly story the first time around, I don’t think we needed it twice.