Today's reading is Exodus 7-9 (read it in the KJV or NIV)
Today's passage covers Moses and Aaron's meeting with Pharaoh and the first seven plagues (blood, frogs, lice, flies, cattle, boils, and hail).
You knew it was coming. Sooner or later, I was bound to do an essay about the Bible's take on free will vs. determinism. And, given the substance of today's readings, this seems like an ideal time for it. A brief caveat before I start, however: far wiser people than I have been discussing free will vs. determinism for thousands of years and have yet to arrive at a universal answer. I will not reach any conclusions today. Instead, I hope to expose some features of the text and their consequences.
The first thing we need to do in discussing this topic is to define our terms. For my readers not familiar with this debate, "free will" means that people have free choice in their actions, to choose one decision over another. "Determinism," on the other hand, means that our choices and actions are predetermined and we have no real choice in anything, no matter how it seems at the time.
Based on these definitions, today's passage strays firmly into the camp of determinism.
We must note, first of all, that God tells Moses beforehand that He will harden Pharaoh's heart to prevent the Israelites from leaving. (Ex. 4:21, 7:2-3) Pharaoh may truly want to allow the Israelites to leave, but God assures Moses that this will not happen. God intends to have an audience for his miracles and wonders, and the only way He can ensure this is by keeping the Israelites where they are. (Ex. 7:1-5) If Pharaoh gave in to his desires to let the Israelites leave, God would have no reason to perform the ten plagues.
Initially, Pharaoh wasn't too worried about the plagues. After all, his magicians were able to do many of the same things Aaron and Moses did: they turned their staves into snakes (Ex. 7:11-12), they turned water into blood (Ex. 7:22), and they brought forth frogs. (Ex. 8:7) It is only with the plague of lice, the third plague, that they are not able to replicate the miracle and declare that the plague is the work of God. (Ex. 8:18-19) The next time we hear from the magicians, they are as smitten as anyone else by the plague of boils and can no longer face Moses. (Ex. 9:11)
Beginning with the second plague, Pharaoh starts entreating Moses and Aaron to pray for him and his people, promising them that if they remove the plague, he will let them go pray in the desert. He does it during the plague of frogs (Ex. 8:8-10), during the plague of flies (Ex. 8:25-28), and during the plague of hail (Ex. 9:27-28). Each of these three times, Pharaoh promises that if the Moses and Aaron pray for him, he will allow the Israelites to leave to perform their sacrifice in the desert.
You know how this turns out, don't you? Every time Moses prays to God and stops the plague, Pharaoh changes his mind and refuses to let the Israelites leave. In fact, for every plague, Pharaoh's heart was hardened. What is interesting, however, is who hardened Pharaoh's heart. For most plagues, the text states either that Pharaoh's heart was hard, without saying who hardened it (Ex. 7:13, 7:22, 8:19), or else it says that Pharaoh hardened his heart (Ex. 8:15, 8:32, 9:34). However, with the plague of boils, the text tells us "The LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh." (Ex. 9:12, KJV) Here we read specifically that it was not Pharaoh's choice to prevent the people from leaving, but God's. In a very direct way, God took an active part in Pharaoh's mind and made him stubborn.
But what about free will? What about Adam and Eve's choice to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? What about Abraham's bargaining with God? What about the choices people have made throughout the Bible? We don't read that God had any hand in those choices, only in this particular decision of Pharaoh's. Pharaoh seems sincere enough when he makes the bargains with Moses and Aaron during the plagues; it is only afterwards that he renegs.
We must conclude, therefore, that God had a particularly special purpose in circumventing man's free will in this occasion. The text tells us, indeed, that this was so. It tells us this in two places, first in Ex. 7:3-5, and later in Ex. 9:16. The second passage reads as follows: "But I have raised you [Pharaoh and the Egyptians] up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." (Ex. 9:16, NIV) To recap: God has done this so that people will know that He is God. This is self-aggrandizing at its most obvious. By saying that God hardened Pharaoh's heart, he implies that he could have softened Pharaoh's heart just as easily. But if he had done this, he would not have had the chance to perform miracles and have the Egyptians worship him. So he sets up the situation to prove how mighty he is.
Usually this sort of behaviour is reserved for particularly whiney CEOs, and is hardly the sort of thing we'd expect to see in the greatest deity in the world. So, free will or determinism? The answer seems to be, "free will, unless God wants a chance to show off."
December 31, 2006
December 30, 2006
Breadcrumb: Uncircumcised lips
A number of times, Moses repeats the he is "slow of speech" (Ex. 4:10) or has "uncircumcised lips." (Ex. 6:12 and 6:30, KJV; "faltering lips" in NIV) The Jewish midrash, or story, surrounding this goes as follows: as a young child, Moses tried to grab Pharaoh's crown. Pharaoh's advisors claimed this was a sign, and that he should kill the child. However, one of them asked that Pharaoh place before baby Moses two plates, one of burning coals and one of gold and precious jewels. If Moses reached for the jewels, it would mean he knew what he was doing in grasping for the crown and should be killed. If he reached for the coals, it would mean he was just a foolish child and could be permitted to live. Though Moses wanted to reach for the jewels, at the last moment God intervened and caused him to grasp the coals instead. As he burnt his hand, he put his fingers in his mouth and burnt his tongue as well. Ever since, he was slow of speech and tongue.
Though the general outline is the same, details of the story differ. Here are a few links to variations:
- Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends
- JewishGates.com
- Chabad.org
- Chabad.org (a more condensed version)
- AskMoses.com
Though the general outline is the same, details of the story differ. Here are a few links to variations:
- Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends
- JewishGates.com
- Chabad.org
- Chabad.org (a more condensed version)
- AskMoses.com
December 29, 2006
Breadcrumb: A strange episode
Ex. 4:24-26 presents an extremely strange episode, unconnected to anything else in the text: as Moses returns to Egypt, before he meets Aaron, God meets him and nearly kills him. He is only saved by his wife, Zipporah, immediately circumcising her son and putting the foreskin at Moses' feet. Because of this, God leaves Moses alone. Keep in mind that this episode takes place after the burning bush, after God has told Moses to free the Israelites. Would God have really killed Moses? What would He have done if He did? Would the Israelites ever be freed from bondage? The answers, of course, are unknowable. It is strange that this episode is almost never mentioned outside the most in-depth Bible courses.
December 28, 2006
Exodus 4-6: To believe, or not to believe
Today's reading is Exodus 4-6 (read it in the KJV or NIV)
Today's passage covers the end of the burning bush story; Moses' and Aaron's first encounter with the Israelites; their first encounter with Pharaoh; Pharaoh's command that the Israelites shall not receive straw for bricks; the Israelites' rejection of Moses and Aaron; and a genealogy of the houses of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi.
In today's readings, we begin Moses' and Aaron's actual dealings with the children of Israel. And, in a pattern that will repeat itself many times throughout Exodus and Numbers, the Israelites vary between extremes of trust and rejection. It might be beneficial, therefore, to take a few hundred words to consider their attitudes and how they might relate to us.
We read in Ex. 4:29-31 that Moses and Aaron meet the elders of the Israelites. He does not meet all the Israelites: they are far too numerous and, as we recall, enslaved. The elders presumably took the words and deeds performed by Aaron and Moses and related them to the rest of the Hebrews. We read in verse 31, "the people believed." This refers to all the Israelites, not merely the elders.
What did Moses and Aaron do to convince the people? They did exactly as God told Moses, almost verbatim. In Ex. 4:1-9, God gives Moses three signs to perform for the Israelites: he could transform his rod into a serpent and back again, he could turn his hand leprous and back, and he could spill water from the Nile onto the land and have it turn into blood. These feats are miracles. It is important to note, however, that later in Exodus we learn that Pharaoh's magicians could do the same feats. (Ex. 7:10-12) It is not merely the miracles that convinced them, therefore. It was also the words Moses spoke, that the God of their ancestors had heard their suffering and came to save them from their bondage.
This assertion, that God had returned to save them, was extremely comforting to the Israelites. It is likely that they wanted to believe Moses' message. They wanted to hear that they would be saved, and soon. We read in Ex. 4:31 that the people "bowed their heads and worshipped." Of course they would. Here was a glimmer of hope that they would soon be on the way to living a better life, free of servitude. I can imagine that Moses and Aaron didn't need to do much convincing, as the Israelites wanted to believe them.
Of course, good things cannot last. When Moses and Aaron speak to Pharaoh, they ask him to allow the Israelites to go to the desert for three days to perform a sacrifice to God. (Ex. 5:1-3) Pharaoh refuses. Moreover, he commands that the Israelites must continue to make the same amount of bricks as previously, but they will not be given the straw to do so. (Ex. 5:5-9) This greatly increases the work of the already-overworked Israelites, and they complain to Pharaoh. But, yet again, Pharaoh refuses to diminish the work. (Ex. 5:15-19)
Now the people turn away from Moses and Aaron. They say, "May the Lord look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us." (Ex. 5:21, NIV) Even after Moses brings their complaints to God and reasserts his promise that he will free them from bondage, the people don't listen to him. (Ex. 6:9)
How fickle, we might say. How fair-weathered is the Israelites' trust in Moses and Aaron. Didn't they know that Moses and Aaron were sent to save them? Didn't they understand that God would reduce their suffering?
The answer is, of course, "no." We in the twenty-first century have the benefit of a fully completed text before us, that informs us exactly what happens later in the story. It is incredibly difficult to look at the beginning of the story without thought to its ending, how Moses brings about the plagues upon the Egyptians, parts the Red Sea, calls down manna from the sky, and brings the Hebrews to Mount Sinai and then to Caanan. Because we know the ending, it is hard for us to look objectively at the beginning and understand how the Israelites were feeling as today's passage unfolds.
The children of Israel had absolutely no idea that Moses and Aaron were genuine. Yes, they spoke comforting words. Yes, they performed wondrous signs. But signs and words are not the same as concrete deeds. Moses and Aaron were not the only people performing signs and speaking words. Pharaoh's magicians could perform similar signs to Moses'. Furthermore, Moses and Aaron may not have been the first people to claim that they had been sent by God to free the Hebrews. False prophets abound later in the Bible, and it is certainly possible that self-proclaimed saviours existed, unrecorded, in the four hundred years before Aaron and Moses appeared on the scene. As far as the Israelites were concerned, these were just another two self-aggrandizing men bent on making a name for themselves.
Yet, at the first hint of true action, their first encounter with Pharaoh, Moses and Aaron fail to bring about any positive changes. Not only that, they actually make matters worse for the Israelites. Far from being the saviours they promised, Moses and Aaron hardened their lives. We can imagine the Israelites thinking, "you know, we thought you were on to something. We thought you were sincere. But you're not God's prophets, are you? If you were, we'd be free, not further enslaved!"
Yes, three thousand years after the fact, we can chide the Israelites for this behaviour. But they did not know the future, nor did they know the will of God. They did what was reasonable in the circumstances. It is a rare person who can believe without proof. Today, we call such believers either deeply spiritual or crazy. There is a fine line between the two. The Israelites, enslaved and grounded, were neither. Imagine yourself in their situation, and you may find yourself acting the exact same way.
Today's passage covers the end of the burning bush story; Moses' and Aaron's first encounter with the Israelites; their first encounter with Pharaoh; Pharaoh's command that the Israelites shall not receive straw for bricks; the Israelites' rejection of Moses and Aaron; and a genealogy of the houses of Reuben, Simeon, and Levi.
In today's readings, we begin Moses' and Aaron's actual dealings with the children of Israel. And, in a pattern that will repeat itself many times throughout Exodus and Numbers, the Israelites vary between extremes of trust and rejection. It might be beneficial, therefore, to take a few hundred words to consider their attitudes and how they might relate to us.
We read in Ex. 4:29-31 that Moses and Aaron meet the elders of the Israelites. He does not meet all the Israelites: they are far too numerous and, as we recall, enslaved. The elders presumably took the words and deeds performed by Aaron and Moses and related them to the rest of the Hebrews. We read in verse 31, "the people believed." This refers to all the Israelites, not merely the elders.
What did Moses and Aaron do to convince the people? They did exactly as God told Moses, almost verbatim. In Ex. 4:1-9, God gives Moses three signs to perform for the Israelites: he could transform his rod into a serpent and back again, he could turn his hand leprous and back, and he could spill water from the Nile onto the land and have it turn into blood. These feats are miracles. It is important to note, however, that later in Exodus we learn that Pharaoh's magicians could do the same feats. (Ex. 7:10-12) It is not merely the miracles that convinced them, therefore. It was also the words Moses spoke, that the God of their ancestors had heard their suffering and came to save them from their bondage.
This assertion, that God had returned to save them, was extremely comforting to the Israelites. It is likely that they wanted to believe Moses' message. They wanted to hear that they would be saved, and soon. We read in Ex. 4:31 that the people "bowed their heads and worshipped." Of course they would. Here was a glimmer of hope that they would soon be on the way to living a better life, free of servitude. I can imagine that Moses and Aaron didn't need to do much convincing, as the Israelites wanted to believe them.
Of course, good things cannot last. When Moses and Aaron speak to Pharaoh, they ask him to allow the Israelites to go to the desert for three days to perform a sacrifice to God. (Ex. 5:1-3) Pharaoh refuses. Moreover, he commands that the Israelites must continue to make the same amount of bricks as previously, but they will not be given the straw to do so. (Ex. 5:5-9) This greatly increases the work of the already-overworked Israelites, and they complain to Pharaoh. But, yet again, Pharaoh refuses to diminish the work. (Ex. 5:15-19)
Now the people turn away from Moses and Aaron. They say, "May the Lord look upon you and judge you! You have made us a stench to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us." (Ex. 5:21, NIV) Even after Moses brings their complaints to God and reasserts his promise that he will free them from bondage, the people don't listen to him. (Ex. 6:9)
How fickle, we might say. How fair-weathered is the Israelites' trust in Moses and Aaron. Didn't they know that Moses and Aaron were sent to save them? Didn't they understand that God would reduce their suffering?
The answer is, of course, "no." We in the twenty-first century have the benefit of a fully completed text before us, that informs us exactly what happens later in the story. It is incredibly difficult to look at the beginning of the story without thought to its ending, how Moses brings about the plagues upon the Egyptians, parts the Red Sea, calls down manna from the sky, and brings the Hebrews to Mount Sinai and then to Caanan. Because we know the ending, it is hard for us to look objectively at the beginning and understand how the Israelites were feeling as today's passage unfolds.
The children of Israel had absolutely no idea that Moses and Aaron were genuine. Yes, they spoke comforting words. Yes, they performed wondrous signs. But signs and words are not the same as concrete deeds. Moses and Aaron were not the only people performing signs and speaking words. Pharaoh's magicians could perform similar signs to Moses'. Furthermore, Moses and Aaron may not have been the first people to claim that they had been sent by God to free the Hebrews. False prophets abound later in the Bible, and it is certainly possible that self-proclaimed saviours existed, unrecorded, in the four hundred years before Aaron and Moses appeared on the scene. As far as the Israelites were concerned, these were just another two self-aggrandizing men bent on making a name for themselves.
Yet, at the first hint of true action, their first encounter with Pharaoh, Moses and Aaron fail to bring about any positive changes. Not only that, they actually make matters worse for the Israelites. Far from being the saviours they promised, Moses and Aaron hardened their lives. We can imagine the Israelites thinking, "you know, we thought you were on to something. We thought you were sincere. But you're not God's prophets, are you? If you were, we'd be free, not further enslaved!"
Yes, three thousand years after the fact, we can chide the Israelites for this behaviour. But they did not know the future, nor did they know the will of God. They did what was reasonable in the circumstances. It is a rare person who can believe without proof. Today, we call such believers either deeply spiritual or crazy. There is a fine line between the two. The Israelites, enslaved and grounded, were neither. Imagine yourself in their situation, and you may find yourself acting the exact same way.
December 26, 2006
Breadcrumb: What's that name?
In Ex. 3:14, God states that his name is "I am that I am." (KJV; "I am who I am" in the NIV) The Hebrew is "ahaya asher ahaya." (Apologies for not using a Hebrew script -- if someone knows where I can find one to use, please let me know.) Keeping in mind that this is an era when religions were traditionally polytheistic, with many named gods, this strikes us as an odd name. The Hebrew's religion is the only monotheistic one in the area, and the name of their god reflects that. He seems to be saying, "any name short of the one I have given you diminishes me, and I will be not diminished." Nevertheless, it would be a hard sell for Moses to convince the Hebrews that they should follow this apparently-nameless god.
December 25, 2006
Breadcrumb: Why the male children?
In Ex. 1:16, Pharaoh commands the Hebrew midwives to kill all the male children of the Hebrews, but to allow the female ones to live. This seems odd, given that Pharaoh's motivation is that the Hebrews are too numerous and too powerful. After all, if one man is allowed to slip through, he could impregnate many of the Hebrew women, but the opposite is not true. If Pharaoh wanted to decrease the numbers of the Hebrews, he would have been better off killing the women. On the other hand, women aren't as good at lifting heavy bricks to build cities like Pithom and Raamses (Ex. 1:11) and presumably don't fight in armies. So Pharaoh dealt with his immediate problem (Hebrew warriors rising up against him) at the expense of the long-term one (too many Hebrews).
December 24, 2006
Exodus 1-3: Don't blink or you'll miss it
Today's reading is Exodus 1-3 (read it in the KJV or NIV)
Today's passage covers the circumstances of the Hebrews when Moses is born; Pharaoh's command to kill the male Hebrews and the valiant efforts of the midwives; Moses' childhood; Moses' killing of an Eyptian and his flight to Midian; Moses' marriage to Zipporah and birth of his son Gershom; and the beginning of the Burning Bush episode.
You'll notice the many different stories that appear in the previous paragraph. In fact, everything but the burning bush episode happens in Exo. 1-2. The pace is, to say the least, quick. Some might even call it rushed. So let us take a moment to slow down and consider what all this rushed narrative means for us, the reader.
The first thing that appears in Exodus (1:1-5) is a brief recap of the sons of Jacob. We found this list, in far more detailed form, several times already in Genesis: Gen. 29-30 names the sons as they are born, Gen. 35:23-26 lists them again by mother; Gen. 46:8-27 gives an extended list of his sons and grandsons, and Gen. 49:1-27 lists the sons again as they receive their blessing. So anyone who has read the book of Genesis should be familiar with Jacob's sons already. Nevertheless, Exodus begins with their names, as a bridge between the two books.
But then things begin to speed up. Ex. 1:6-8 reads as follows in the KJV:
Though it is not listed in this particular passage, we learn later that the Israelites were in Egypt for 430 years. (Ex. 12:40-41) Even giving Moses a generous life-span, we're still dealing with over three hundred years that pass in the span of three verses. Hundreds of years! Given the excessive care Genesis took to record all the details of the first four generations of Hebrews (Abraham to Joseph), it is highly surprising that we don't read anything about the intervening time between Joseph and Moses. What have the Israelites been doing all this time? Who has led them?
We do know a few things. We know that they were very powerful, very rich, and very numerous. In fact, it is this precise reason that the new Pharaoh comes down so hard on the Hebrews when he decides to persecute them. Note his reasons: "the people of the children of Israel are more and mighter than we." (Ex. 1:9) He actually decides to enslave them because he doesn't want them to side with his enemies and turn the tide of fighting. (Ex. 1:10) In other words, all the wealth and good land that Joseph had originally given to his brothers in Genesis has paid off: after a few centuries, the Israelites are rich and powerful. Far from being a harsh taskmaster, Pharaoh seems more like an insecure tyrant who can't control the subjects living in his own land. He is not cruel for its own sake, but to protect his rule.
Of course, I do not mean to say that the Israelites' lives were easy after they were forced into slavery. Of course they lived a hard life. On the other hand, they lived quite well for several hundred years before that. It is only at the end of their time in Egypt that they were enslaved.
The beginning of Moses' story (Ex. 2) is also quick-paced. Moses is born, hidden, placed in a basket on the Nile, saved by Pharaoh's daughter, nursed, and raised. He grows up, slays and Egyptian, runs away to Midian, marries, and has a son. Moreover, all this occurs within the span of a single chapter.
Let us compare this chapter to another, Gen. 24. In that chapter, Abraham's servant is sent to find a wife for Isaac. The breakdown of the chapter looks something like this:
verses 1-9: Abraham charges his servant with fining a wife for Isaac
verses 10-14: the servant heads out and prays to God to show him, by a certain scenario, which woman should be the wife for Isaac
verses 15-27: the scenario happens (with Rebekah)
verses 28-49: the servant meets Rebekah's father and tells him everything that has happened since the beginning of the chapter, in great detail
verses 50-67: Rachel leaves with the servant and reaches Isaac, who marries her
Note: 67 verses for a single story. Not only that, but the narrative is actually repeated twice and sometimes even three times: the servant prays for the situation to happen, the situation happens, and the servant relates the situation to Laban. Each time the situation is explained in great detail.
Contrarily, Moses is born, grows up, marries, and has a son, all in the span of a single chapter, Exodus 2. Admittedly, the story does slow down in Ex. 3, with the beginning of the burning bush story. So what are we to make of the rapid pace through the beginning of Moses' life? Perhaps the text's pace implies that these events are not important, merely build-up and scene-setting for the main event, Moses' position as the liberator of the Hebrews. In the same way we don't need to hear about a hero's life-story in modern movies, the ancient Jews reading Exodus did not care about Moses' history beyond some of the pertinent details. Rather, they wanted to know about how he saved them from slavery in Egypt.
Apparently, unlike Sigmund Freud and his ilk, some people did not consider childhood to be particularly important.
Today's passage covers the circumstances of the Hebrews when Moses is born; Pharaoh's command to kill the male Hebrews and the valiant efforts of the midwives; Moses' childhood; Moses' killing of an Eyptian and his flight to Midian; Moses' marriage to Zipporah and birth of his son Gershom; and the beginning of the Burning Bush episode.
You'll notice the many different stories that appear in the previous paragraph. In fact, everything but the burning bush episode happens in Exo. 1-2. The pace is, to say the least, quick. Some might even call it rushed. So let us take a moment to slow down and consider what all this rushed narrative means for us, the reader.
The first thing that appears in Exodus (1:1-5) is a brief recap of the sons of Jacob. We found this list, in far more detailed form, several times already in Genesis: Gen. 29-30 names the sons as they are born, Gen. 35:23-26 lists them again by mother; Gen. 46:8-27 gives an extended list of his sons and grandsons, and Gen. 49:1-27 lists the sons again as they receive their blessing. So anyone who has read the book of Genesis should be familiar with Jacob's sons already. Nevertheless, Exodus begins with their names, as a bridge between the two books.
But then things begin to speed up. Ex. 1:6-8 reads as follows in the KJV:
(6) And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation. (7) And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them. (8) Now there arose a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
Though it is not listed in this particular passage, we learn later that the Israelites were in Egypt for 430 years. (Ex. 12:40-41) Even giving Moses a generous life-span, we're still dealing with over three hundred years that pass in the span of three verses. Hundreds of years! Given the excessive care Genesis took to record all the details of the first four generations of Hebrews (Abraham to Joseph), it is highly surprising that we don't read anything about the intervening time between Joseph and Moses. What have the Israelites been doing all this time? Who has led them?
We do know a few things. We know that they were very powerful, very rich, and very numerous. In fact, it is this precise reason that the new Pharaoh comes down so hard on the Hebrews when he decides to persecute them. Note his reasons: "the people of the children of Israel are more and mighter than we." (Ex. 1:9) He actually decides to enslave them because he doesn't want them to side with his enemies and turn the tide of fighting. (Ex. 1:10) In other words, all the wealth and good land that Joseph had originally given to his brothers in Genesis has paid off: after a few centuries, the Israelites are rich and powerful. Far from being a harsh taskmaster, Pharaoh seems more like an insecure tyrant who can't control the subjects living in his own land. He is not cruel for its own sake, but to protect his rule.
Of course, I do not mean to say that the Israelites' lives were easy after they were forced into slavery. Of course they lived a hard life. On the other hand, they lived quite well for several hundred years before that. It is only at the end of their time in Egypt that they were enslaved.
The beginning of Moses' story (Ex. 2) is also quick-paced. Moses is born, hidden, placed in a basket on the Nile, saved by Pharaoh's daughter, nursed, and raised. He grows up, slays and Egyptian, runs away to Midian, marries, and has a son. Moreover, all this occurs within the span of a single chapter.
Let us compare this chapter to another, Gen. 24. In that chapter, Abraham's servant is sent to find a wife for Isaac. The breakdown of the chapter looks something like this:
verses 1-9: Abraham charges his servant with fining a wife for Isaac
verses 10-14: the servant heads out and prays to God to show him, by a certain scenario, which woman should be the wife for Isaac
verses 15-27: the scenario happens (with Rebekah)
verses 28-49: the servant meets Rebekah's father and tells him everything that has happened since the beginning of the chapter, in great detail
verses 50-67: Rachel leaves with the servant and reaches Isaac, who marries her
Note: 67 verses for a single story. Not only that, but the narrative is actually repeated twice and sometimes even three times: the servant prays for the situation to happen, the situation happens, and the servant relates the situation to Laban. Each time the situation is explained in great detail.
Contrarily, Moses is born, grows up, marries, and has a son, all in the span of a single chapter, Exodus 2. Admittedly, the story does slow down in Ex. 3, with the beginning of the burning bush story. So what are we to make of the rapid pace through the beginning of Moses' life? Perhaps the text's pace implies that these events are not important, merely build-up and scene-setting for the main event, Moses' position as the liberator of the Hebrews. In the same way we don't need to hear about a hero's life-story in modern movies, the ancient Jews reading Exodus did not care about Moses' history beyond some of the pertinent details. Rather, they wanted to know about how he saved them from slavery in Egypt.
Apparently, unlike Sigmund Freud and his ilk, some people did not consider childhood to be particularly important.
December 21, 2006
Final Reflections on Genesis
With the last essay, we have finished our reading of Genesis and prepare to begin Exodus. First, I would like to thank all my readers who have been following along and occasionally posting comments. I hope I have been providing some thought-provoking ideas that allow you to re-examine your relationship with the text, whether for better or worse.
I thought that before we delve into the next text, it might behove us to spend a few minutes reflecting on what we have learned so far in our readings.
Genesis contains some of the best-known stories in the Bible, second only to the Gospel accounts of Jesus. The seven days of creation, Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Noah's arc, the "sacrifice" of Isaac, and Joseph's "amazing technicolor dreamcoat" (thank you, Andrew Lloyd Weber)... all these stories appear within Genesis. Even children know these stories, at least if they were raised in Jewish or Christian households.
On the other hand, Genesis also contains stories that are rarely mentioned outside serious Bible scholarship circles. Reading through the text, we find examples of theft, deception, rape, incest, warmongering, and power politics. We find a whole dimension of the Biblical world that is rarely discussed in Sunday school. In my mind, these often-overlooked stories make the text more interesting and more real. They present to us a world that is not perfect, a world that is far closer to reality than that which is often described in sermons.
Furthermore, the people within Genesis are three-dimensional. The challenges they faced are similar to the challenges we need to face, even today. How do we deal with a rapid rise to power? How do we deal with people who have wronged us, especially if they are more powerful than we are? How should we act when we are rich? When we are afraid? Angry? The character in Genesis all needed to deal with these issues, much as we do.
We find that, in dealing with these problems, the people in Genesis were not perfect. They have goals, aspirations, and most importantly, flaws. Abraham was almost obsessive about not owing debts to anyone. He paid for his wife's burial cave, even though its owner wanted to gift it to him. He refused a share of the treasure after rescuing Lot from rival kings, even though he allowed his allies their fair share. Abraham could be timid, disguising his relationship with his wife when travelling in foreign lands. Yet, despite these character flaws, he was a rich, powerful man. He had hundreds of armed men at his command and dealt with kings as an equal.
We know much less about Isaac than we do his father or sons. In fact, he seems almost like a placeholder patriarch, rarely mentioned except in stories also containing Abraham or Jacob. And yet, even if a few short chapters, we find that he, too, followed the family tendency for deception. He imitated Abraham's attempt to convince foreign kings that his wife was his sister.
With Jacob, we come again to a sustained story. Jacob was tricky, but just as often was tricked or used as a pawn. The plot to gain Esau's blessing was not his, but his mother's. Laban extracted an extra seven years of service from him by giving him the wrong wife. Furthermore, Jacob had no problems playing favourites with his sons, to horrible results. And yet he, too, gained amazing wealth and power. He was so rich that he and Esau could not live in the same plain, because their cattle competed for grazing land.
Even Joseph, poor, poor Joseph, had a dark side. He was egocentric and vengeful, content to use his position of power to his own gain and the detriment of others. Yes, he had a hard life. But when the wheel of fortune turned in his favour, he was quick to inflict misfortune on others. He tormented his brothers and robbed his Egyptian subjects blind.
Nor were the women paragons of feminine virtue. The women in Genesis were among the most vindictive and the most sly. If there was a plot hatched, odds were good that a woman was behind it. The plots were numerous: Lot's daughters decided to get their father drunk and sleep with him; Rebekah conspired to give Esau's blessing to Joseph; to Rachel stole her father's gods; Tamar tricked her father-in-law Judah into sleeping with her; Potiphar's wife framed Joseph and had him thrown in prison... then as now, women could be crafty when they needed to be.
Though I point out all these negative features of Biblical characters, I do not mean to detract from their importance. They were the foundation of three major world faiths, and many of the positive characteristics ascribed to them in Sunday schools around the world hold true. Abraham did show great faith in God. Jacob did work hard to achieve his goals. Joseph was a skilled interpreter of dreams (with the help of God). But these qualities have been mentioned so many times before, in so many places, that I wanted to tip the scales back slightly to reality. Though they were important people, they were not perfect. They were human, and like all humans, they had bad qualities along with the good.
In my opinion, this is the most important message of Genesis. The progenitors of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions were not idealized. Nevertheless, they managed to begin some of the most important religious movements in history. To quote one of my favourite books, Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, "It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people." (32)
In Genesis, we see people being fundamentally people. I believe the text is richer for it.
I thought that before we delve into the next text, it might behove us to spend a few minutes reflecting on what we have learned so far in our readings.
Genesis contains some of the best-known stories in the Bible, second only to the Gospel accounts of Jesus. The seven days of creation, Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, Cain and Abel, Noah's arc, the "sacrifice" of Isaac, and Joseph's "amazing technicolor dreamcoat" (thank you, Andrew Lloyd Weber)... all these stories appear within Genesis. Even children know these stories, at least if they were raised in Jewish or Christian households.
On the other hand, Genesis also contains stories that are rarely mentioned outside serious Bible scholarship circles. Reading through the text, we find examples of theft, deception, rape, incest, warmongering, and power politics. We find a whole dimension of the Biblical world that is rarely discussed in Sunday school. In my mind, these often-overlooked stories make the text more interesting and more real. They present to us a world that is not perfect, a world that is far closer to reality than that which is often described in sermons.
Furthermore, the people within Genesis are three-dimensional. The challenges they faced are similar to the challenges we need to face, even today. How do we deal with a rapid rise to power? How do we deal with people who have wronged us, especially if they are more powerful than we are? How should we act when we are rich? When we are afraid? Angry? The character in Genesis all needed to deal with these issues, much as we do.
We find that, in dealing with these problems, the people in Genesis were not perfect. They have goals, aspirations, and most importantly, flaws. Abraham was almost obsessive about not owing debts to anyone. He paid for his wife's burial cave, even though its owner wanted to gift it to him. He refused a share of the treasure after rescuing Lot from rival kings, even though he allowed his allies their fair share. Abraham could be timid, disguising his relationship with his wife when travelling in foreign lands. Yet, despite these character flaws, he was a rich, powerful man. He had hundreds of armed men at his command and dealt with kings as an equal.
We know much less about Isaac than we do his father or sons. In fact, he seems almost like a placeholder patriarch, rarely mentioned except in stories also containing Abraham or Jacob. And yet, even if a few short chapters, we find that he, too, followed the family tendency for deception. He imitated Abraham's attempt to convince foreign kings that his wife was his sister.
With Jacob, we come again to a sustained story. Jacob was tricky, but just as often was tricked or used as a pawn. The plot to gain Esau's blessing was not his, but his mother's. Laban extracted an extra seven years of service from him by giving him the wrong wife. Furthermore, Jacob had no problems playing favourites with his sons, to horrible results. And yet he, too, gained amazing wealth and power. He was so rich that he and Esau could not live in the same plain, because their cattle competed for grazing land.
Even Joseph, poor, poor Joseph, had a dark side. He was egocentric and vengeful, content to use his position of power to his own gain and the detriment of others. Yes, he had a hard life. But when the wheel of fortune turned in his favour, he was quick to inflict misfortune on others. He tormented his brothers and robbed his Egyptian subjects blind.
Nor were the women paragons of feminine virtue. The women in Genesis were among the most vindictive and the most sly. If there was a plot hatched, odds were good that a woman was behind it. The plots were numerous: Lot's daughters decided to get their father drunk and sleep with him; Rebekah conspired to give Esau's blessing to Joseph; to Rachel stole her father's gods; Tamar tricked her father-in-law Judah into sleeping with her; Potiphar's wife framed Joseph and had him thrown in prison... then as now, women could be crafty when they needed to be.
Though I point out all these negative features of Biblical characters, I do not mean to detract from their importance. They were the foundation of three major world faiths, and many of the positive characteristics ascribed to them in Sunday schools around the world hold true. Abraham did show great faith in God. Jacob did work hard to achieve his goals. Joseph was a skilled interpreter of dreams (with the help of God). But these qualities have been mentioned so many times before, in so many places, that I wanted to tip the scales back slightly to reality. Though they were important people, they were not perfect. They were human, and like all humans, they had bad qualities along with the good.
In my opinion, this is the most important message of Genesis. The progenitors of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions were not idealized. Nevertheless, they managed to begin some of the most important religious movements in history. To quote one of my favourite books, Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, "It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people." (32)
In Genesis, we see people being fundamentally people. I believe the text is richer for it.
December 20, 2006
Breadcrumb: The family plot
Gen. 49:29-33: On his deathbed, Jacob insisted on being buried with his family, in the cave at the field of Machpelah, which Abraham had bought from Ephron the Hittite. (Gen. 23) And, indeed, Joseph ensured it was done, bringing a huge procession of important Egyptians to accompany him to Canaan. (Gen. 50:1-14) As for Joseph himself, we see that he was too assimilated into Egyptian culture to care much about the family cave, and was instead buried in Egypt. (Gen. 50:26) This mark of assimilation began four hundred years of servitude for the Israelites, of which we hear almost nothing at all in the text.
December 19, 2006
Breadcrumb: He's at it again
Jacob was always one to prefer the younger brother over the elder. He himself was a younger son, who stole his older brother's blessing and birthright. But, in today's readings, it seems that he's not content with his own aggrandizement, but needs to pass it on to his younger grandsons as well. In Gen. 48, Jacob blesses Joseph's sons, but places the younger, Ephraim, before the elder, Manasseh. Even on his deathbed, Jacob believed in causing mischief.
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