Ancestors of Israel: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph - Focus on Purity & God's Election - Pr, Study notes of World Religions

Download Ancestors of Israel: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph - Focus on Purity & God's Election - Pr and more Study notes World Religions in PDF only on Docsity! REL 101 Lecture 19 1 Hello. Welcome again. This is Religious Studies 101, Literature and World of the Hebrew Bible. Again, my name is John Strong. This is session 19 and today we’re gonna be talking about the stories of Israel’s ancestors. These are the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. It covers chapters in Genesis 12 through the end of the book, chapter 50. We’re really gonna break it into two different parts, two different pieces, because there are two different groups of material out there. There’s chapters 12 through 36 and then there are chapters 37 through 50. Chapters 12 through 36 deal with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and chapters 27 through 50 focus on Joseph and his brothers. Chapters 37 through 50 seems to be later material coming from a different date. It seems to have had its own sort of existence on its own. People talk about it as the Joseph novella, a short little novel that was incorporated into the priests’ story of Israel’s history as they came into the land. Well, let’s start by looking at how the priests set this material up. They set it up by looking at Genesis 12, 1 to 3. We talked about 12, 1 to 3, in the last session. It’s worth talking about again. It reads, “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’” And it’s worth noting that my text — and I think a lot of biblical texts have a little footnote there because there’s some debate over how to translate the Hebrew. Does it mean all the nations of the earth or the families of the earth will be blessed through Israel or will bless themselves? In other words, is it that as Israel goes, so goes the rest of the world? Or if the rest of the world treats Israel okay, then they’ll be okay too? That’s part of the debate. I just want to clue you in to that debate and I don’t think we’re gonna settle it today. REL 101 Lecture 19 2 Nevertheless, where we are in the priests’ story — when we get to these stories of Israel’s ancestors — is they are talking about and focusing in on Israel and Abraham’s descendants as the image of God. And how this image had been selected and what some of the early history of this image before it was separated out from the rest of the nations, before it was separated out to be and carved into be that image. There are some issues to note in regard to these ancestral stories. There are issues that the priests are always sort of dealing with, talking about, and that underlie these stories. Number one, these stories are about promises and a future yet to come. The patriarchs, the ancestors of Israel — not just the males but the females as well — their activity — it’s all happening in the land but they don’t own the land. They don’t possess the land, they don’t control the land. That is yet to come. It’s a promise of a future. It’s not a present reality. Another thing that’s important to remember, the story of Israel’s ancestors is — one of the themes that’s important is purity. You see the ancestors going back for wives to a particular family back in Mesopotamia, in the home country, and this is — and both Rebecca and Rachel, the two wives, come from this home country, from this one particular family. There’s a story about a slave, Abraham’s slave, who goes back to the home country to select a wife for Isaac from this area and he prays to Yahweh and Yahweh answers his prayer. In essence, it’s Yahweh who’s selecting the wife to be — selecting a woman to be the wife for Isaac. It is a picture of how Yahweh is electing not just Abraham, but the wife’s family and it’s an issue of the purity of the line. Then there’s also an issue of continuity and there’s danger and intrigue in this. Sarah is at first barren. So is Rebecca. And so there’s an issue of purity — not purity, but continuity. How will this line — how will Abraham become a great nation if he doesn’t have any heirs? The other thing to notice is that Abraham and then also Rebecca and Rachel, the REL 101 Lecture 19 5 They had their own life. And so you see at times in certain stories interests that are sort of independent of the broader outline that the priests are putting together and the priests thought that was fine and they didn’t really disturb that. And so you can see interests that are sort of independent and sort of out there. How in the world did this well get outside the city gate in Beersheba? That’s kind of a funny sort of thing, isn’t it? Why in the world are there salt pits and salt pillars all over the Dead Sea region? That’s kind of a funny looking geological phenomenon. How’d that get there? And so you have them asking questions like that and these stories grew up around some of those things, and they had their independent life. And again, the priests are collecting these things, preserving them, but also ordering and editing them in such a way that it’s continuing on these stories, that it continues to get across the message that the priests wanted to get across in their particular historical point in time. Let’s just look at a few of these stories briefly. And again, we’re gonna be talking at this point about Genesis 12 through 36. These are the stories that focus on Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We’re not gonna go through all of these, of course, but I’m just picking out a few selected ones to take kind of an interesting little look. We’ve talked about this in an earlier class period but it’s worth picking it up again. There are a couple of stories — actually, three of them — dealing with Sarah, Abraham’s wife, and also then Rebecca, Isaac’s wife. In chapter 12 of Genesis Abraham — he goes into Egypt and he says, “Gee whiz. Sarah is a beautiful woman. Someone might kill me in order to take her as my wife. I want to kind of protect myself.” Again, Abraham is not behaving especially noble here. He’s not being a strong, powerful protector of his wife. Instead he kind of leaves her hanging out there to dry. And sure enough, Sarah is taken into the Pharaoh’s harem. The Pharaoh then is cursed, just like Genesis 1 through 3 says will happen, and he calls in Abraham. He REL 101 Lecture 19 6 says, “Well, why in the world did you lie to me like this?” And he pays off Abraham. Abraham is blessed, despite how he acted. And Abraham and Sarah are restored, the line is restored. And again, when you get back to some of these themes, it’s — this story talks about the purity of the line, the continuity of the line, and also blessings due to election, not because Abraham is a good guy. You have another story out there very similar, has been altered in ways, about Isaac. This time he’s not in Egypt. Again, he tells people that Rebecca is his sister. But then he’s observed fondling Rebecca and they say, “Well, that’s not his sister. That’s his wife. This guy lied. It could’ve been that he would’ve brought all these curses.” And so they separate themselves out and again it is another story about the continuity of the line, the purity of the line, dangers that might come to the line. Nevertheless, it’s a picture of blessings because of election, not because Isaac acted in any sort of a noble or honest way. And again, you have a picture that addresses some of the concerns of the priests. We want to distinguish ourselves from the other nations. We want to be that strong testimony. We’ve been selected to be the image of God and we need to fulfil that role by keeping ourselves pure, and that sort of thing. Genesis, chapters 15 through 18 are important chapters. Because these chapters talk about the covenant between Yahweh and Abraham or God and Abraham and they talk about God promising Abraham to give him a nation and many children. In chapter 15 we have the promise made to Abraham but Abraham says, “Hey, look. The only person in my household that is going to inherit what I have is my slave, Eliezer of Damascus.” And that is a problem. Because from the priests’ point of view it endangers the continuity of the line, the purity of the line, those sorts of issues. And so it says in verse 1 of 15, “After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. ‘Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’ But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the REL 101 Lecture 19 7 heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’ And Abram said, ‘You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.’” Now, this is common in the ancient Near East and it is a way for childless couples to have an heir and to continue their line. This is a practice that was known to the readers, ancient readers of this text, and there we recovered laws from Mari and elsewhere that represent this kind of a law and this sort of practice. And so this is common but it’s not good enough. It still endangers the purity of the line and so this becomes an issue. Well, in 13 and 14, then, the text says, “Then the Lord said to Abram, ‘Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there’” — he’s talking about Egypt — “‘and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.’” And so the promise is made. But this is all in the future. Again, the priests are looking at and are convincing the people that they’re dealing with there they’ve come from Persia, they’ve moved back into the land, and they’re convincing these people to follow us, do things our way. Be submissive to our authority and there’s the promise that things are gonna work out in the future. Chapter 16, there’s the issue of the purity of the line. Sarah looks around and says, “Look, I’m not getting any younger. I’m not having kids and it’s time to do something about it.” So another way in the ancient Near East for childless couples to have children is that the wife would give — and it was perfectly legitimate — a maid servant, a female slave, to the husband and they would have children through this female slave. You know, today we have adoption. Today we have surrogate motherhood. Today we have in vitro fertilization. We have all sorts of technological REL 101 Lecture 19 10 back, you’ll be turned into a pillar of salt.” Lot’s wife turns around, looks back, and in 1926 it says she turned around and she turned into a pillar of salt. In the middle eastern geography, there is an area south of the Dead Sea and the Dead Sea has all these minerals in it. These salt flats and salt pillars and things are created throughout that. And there are stories and traditions about ancient Sodom that was a destroyed, ruined city back in that era. And so what seems to have been happening is that the Israelites told stories. How did — what’s this city over here that’s in ruins? And how did these pillars of salt come about? And they told stories about this. And so this story represents — perhaps a story that traveled independent, that maybe was told around campfires, maybe was told to families, maybe was told in ancient Israelite cities, but it seemed to have an independent life of its own. You could read it by itself and it’s sort of a self-contained story, has its own message. The priests seem to have taken this, integrated it into their bigger picture of ancestor stories. And so this — but this story seems to have its own purpose to explain why in the world there are these ruins over there that we call Sodom and how did they get there, and what about all these pillars of salt that are over there south of the Dead Sea. You see another story about — in chapter 26. There are verses 15 to 33 about the well at Beersheba and how did that well get there. And if you go to Beersheba today, there is — and it’s sort of an unusual for a city to have a well, apparently an ancient well, right outside the city gates. Beersheba had its own water system and so that well was there, part of the city gates but it was outside. How did that get there and what’s that doing there? And so then there’s this story about the oath that was taken there by Isaac and how that got there. At any rate, these — and that story seemed also to have its own independent value, its own independent use, and worked independent. The priests found it out there, they treasured it, they brought it in, they incorporated it into their broader picture. REL 101 Lecture 19 11 These stories are called etiologies. An etiology explains a certain origin or a certain cause for a feature or why something is named or how did this get here, and it is a story that tells about the origins or explains how something got to be. It’s an etiology. And a lot of these stories in the Hebrew Bible as a whole but particularly here in Genesis 12 through 26 are etiologies and they’re explaining how things came to be. That’s a feature of Genesis that’s worth knowing because it explains to the reader — us readers, modern readers — why things sometimes look a little funny. What’s that doing there and why did they mention that? And it’s because probably that story had a pre-life before it came in and was incorporated into this priestly literature. Finally, let’s look at the brief novella of Joseph. This is Genesis 37 through 50. Most scholars would date this late — they think that it’s a later edition to the Book of Genesis. They think that this was a — that 37 through 50 had its own independent life. It was a big collection for its day, a big collection of stories about Joseph and his journeys into Egypt and how through that he rescued his brothers. But these stories also, it is worth noting, are similar to stories in Daniel. They are stories about Hebrews who are faithful in foreign lands. Why would this be important to the priests? Well, the priests are living under the power, the [inaudible] of the Persian government. The Persians have the political military power. They’ve given the priests religious control and control over the local laws, but they’re living within a broader context and under the power of a foreign king, a foreign court, a foreign government. And so one of the questions for the priest is how do we life. Well, we live and we should be faithful to our laws and we should be faithful to our ways. And what is it that the priests brought to — back from Mesopotamia to the land? They brought a law book. The brought the Pentateuch — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. That’s what they brought. And so part of their message is, “Okay. Sure, we’re a temple state, one province in the greater empire of Persia. Does that REL 101 Lecture 19 12 mean that we don’t follow Yahweh’s laws? No, it doesn’t. It means we should be faithful Hebrews even in the context of Persia.” And so there are stories in the Book of Daniel, for example. Daniel in the lion’s den. There was a command that you can’t pray. Daniel prayed in front of window because that’s what he did. There was the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. All of these stories of faithful Hebrews, faithful to the laws of Yahweh. They were testimonies to the foreign countries, foreign nations, of the order and the power of Yahweh. And the Joseph novella is doing the same thing. And the Joseph novella tells the story of Joseph. He’s sold off into slavery. He ends up in Egypt. He ends up in prison. He has success first in Potiphar’s home. Potiphar’s wife sends him into prison. He rescues — he provides help to some Egyptians who are there who eventually get him out of prison. He becomes third in command over all of Egypt. Because of his wisdom and his faithfulness, he rescues Egypt from drought. When his brothers come looking for solace and relief from the drought, they discover one another. And from the priests’ perspective it gives a picture of a faithful Hebrew in a foreign land, but it also moves this story in the sense that now Israel explains how Israel got to be in Egypt. And it sets them up for the exodus out of Egypt, and that’s the bigger outline that the priests are working with. It also is a picture of hope for the future. Because Joseph and Joseph’s brothers, the nation of Israel — again, they are looking toward the future and the future day of independence. That’ll take care of us today and I look forward — I hope you’re taking good notes on this. Keep up your review and keep up with web pages and your assignments. I look forward to seeing you next session.