An Atheist Explores the Bible Part Five: Abraham's Guide to (Terrible) Parenting (Genesis 21-25)

Genesis 21-25

Abraham's Guide to (Terrible) Parenting

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 21

“Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac.”

This chapter covers three events in the life of Abraham. First, Sarah gives birth to Isaac despite being in her nineties at this point. And, of course, now she becomes jealous of Hagar and Abraham’s other son, Ishmael, and persuades Abraham to cast them out. God tells him that it will work out fine, and so Hagar and Ishmael are sent off  They are given some rations, these run out, Hagar weeps because her child is going to die but luckily an angel appears and points her to a “well” (perhaps KJB speak for an oasis?), and so Ishmael survives to become an archer.

Meanwhile, Abraham does a bit of politicking with Abimelech concerning ownership of a well (a theme for this chapter), and come to an amicable agreement.  That’s kind of it for this chapter. I think we all knew that the whole Hagar/Ishmael thing was going to cause trouble, but I’m pleasantly surprised that Abraham comes across as rather upset about the exile.

Genesis 22

“And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.”

This is probably the most well-known of the stories about Abraham, where God decides to conduct a little test of faith by telling him to sacrifice his son Isaac, and then at the last minute essentially jumps out from behind a bush and telling him to stop. It was all just a test, and Abraham passes it. Again we get a repeat of God’s promise that Abraham will be father to a great nation. But since this has already been mentioned several times already it seems kind of mean to set a test like this. And I wonder what Isaac made of it all; this isn’t addressed. Strangely I don’t have much else to say about this little scenario. It’s kind of a dick move, but not as bad as poor old Job gets later on. Oh, and the land of Moriah? Maybe Abraham came back with some mithril silver?

The chapter then ends with a genealogy of Abrahams brother’s descendants, including the marvellously named Huz and Buz, who if they aren’t a pair of cartoon bees really ought to be.

Genesis 23

“And Sarah died in Kirjatharba; the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan: and Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her. “

Sarah dies aged 127 years old (so a big drop from the antediluvians), and the rest of the chapter basically follows Abraham trying to get her a burial plot, which he does, eventually. Ephron the Hittite offers him an area of land with a cave, for free, but Abraham insists on buying it for 400 shekels of silver. And that’s about it. I think part of the point of this is to reinforce land claims, since if the area in question (Mamre, in Hebron) has been bought from a legitimate ruler then that gives the claim legitimacy. This is another fairly straightforward chapter, although Abraham’s grief over Sarah comes across as quite touching after all their adventures together.

Genesis 24

“But thou shalt go unto my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac.”

This is quite a lengthy chapter, but can be summarised quite easily. Abraham, now a very old man, sends his oldest servant off to find a wife for his son, and for reasons that I must have missed she needs to come from the lands of Abraham’s origin (Nahor in Mesopotamia). There’s a strange little cultural note where the servant swears an oath by placing his hand under Abraham’s thigh, particularly as the way it’s written it sounds at first as if Abraham is just asking for some physical contact.

Still, the servant heads off to find a suitable wife, and he rests at an oasis, and Rebekah arrives and is kind and courteous to the servant, and eventually invites him to the house of her family. Turns out she’s a cousin of Isaac, and her brother Laban is open to the idea of sending her off to be a bride. Now, one of the reasons this chapter is so long is that the servant repeats basically the first part to Rebekah’s family and so we get the whole thing twice. But an interesting little point here, is that although the menfolk essentially make the deal to marry her, it is still ultimately up to Rebekah whether she goes or not. Which, fortunately, she does, and meets Isaac, and they fall in love and get married.

Not only is this chapter quite well written, I was also surprised at how much agency the character of Rebekah has, especially as I was expecting more patriarchal douchery from the OT.

Genesis 25

“And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.”

Some more genealogy here for a lot of this chapter. Abraham takes another wife and manages to have another six sons before he dies, aged 147. Ishmael produces twelve sons, “twelve princes”. Isaac and Rebekah, on the other hand, have some fertility issues but eventually Rebekah gives birth to twins, Esau (red and hairy) and Jacob (who comes out clutching his brother’s heel).  This has potential fratricide written all over it.

And ominously enough, Esau is a great hunter and brings his father venison, but one day when he’s hungry he asks his brother for some lentil stew. And Jacob behaves reprehensibly and refuses his starving brother any food until Esau swears over his birthright to him. What a git!

There’s not much else to say for this chapter, so I think this is a good point to look back on the life of Abraham, who has been with us for quite a few chapters now and is a figure that looms large in three major world religions. And yet, he doesn’t really do a lot in the OT, for all that God keeps promising him land and a prosperous people, especially compared to other OT figures. He’s not a poet-king like David, nor a wise judge like Solomon, a lawgiver like Moses or a prophet or any of these things. His main role, really, seems to be as a small seed that establishes greater things in future – he gains some land, he fathers some children, he builds an altar, but none of these things become great in his lifetime. As for the covenant with God, as far as the OT goes this seems to only be to do with circumcision, but I would hope that there was more to it than that, and that the circumcision is merely an outward symbol that other rules and guidelines are being followed. An oddly sketchy picture of the man, in other words. I wonder if there is more in the Jewish tradition.