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Online Summer Bible Study, 2004
Week 3 (June 20-26): Genesis 25-36

Hello all,

[Genesis 25
8 Then Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man and full of years; and he was gathered to his people. 9 His sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah near Mamre, in the field of Ephron son of Zohar the Hittite,
http://www.biblegateway.com/cgi-bin/bible?language=english&passage=Genesis+25%3A8-9&version=NIV]

For your consideration, I offer this commentary by Walter Brueggemann in his book "Genesis" (John Knox Press, 1982), which is part of the "Interpretation" series:

"This note also expresses a solidarity among the brothers (cf. Ps. 133). There is no doubt that the story is tilted towards Isaac. And yet it does not deny Ishmael or his claims...Even in this Isaac tradition, Ishmael is not a man without a story and a future...Perhaps this notation is useful for those who will ask about election to promise. Why does the choice happen in what seems to be arbitrary ways? What about the others? The answer is not equitable and may not satisfy. But it permits the surmise that the house of this father has more than one room (cf. John 14:1-2)." (p.203)

It seemed like a good lead-in to the stories of Jacob and his brother, wives, and children--stories of conflict, rivalries, blessings, and burdens.

Peace,
Mark Kille
John P. Webster Library

Hi all,

More Walter Brueggemann, this time on the story of Jacob, from his book "Genesis" (John Knox Press, 1982), which is part of the "Interpretation" series:

"The narrative about Jacob portrays Israel in its earthiest and most scandalous appearance in Genesis. The narrative is not edifying in any conventional religious or moral sense. Indeed, if one comes to the narrative with such an agenda, the narrative is offensive. But for that very reason, the Jacob narrative is most lifelike. It presents Jacob in his crude mixture of motives...The narrative offers two general affirmations which provide the tension that holds our interest. First, God has *chosen and destined* this man Jacob in a special way...In an earthy way, this is a statement about justification by grace. God has taken one who is 'lowly and despised' and has overturned conventional power arrangements. But it is also this designation by God that begins the *trouble*...that is to mark Jacob's entire life...Apparently, it is the commitment of God to this troubled man which causes the conflict. In the end, it is this same commitment from God which resolves the conflicts in his favor." (pp. 204-205)

Brueggemann's first observation ("the narrative is not edifying in any conventional religious or moral sense") is in line with what David Madden has so ably pointed out about the earlier Genesis stories we read--that it is hard to develop a defensible moral code by observing the recorded behavior of God's chosen people.

Brueggemann's second observation ("for that very reason, the Jacob narrative is most lifelike") is a call out of complacency and into gratitude. After all, contemporary Christians are often quick to claim God's blessing in our lives, but would an objective record of our behavior lead future readers to develop a defensible moral code? Yet we affirm that God has "chosen and destined" us.

Brueggemann's third observation ("this is a statement about justification by grace. God has taken one who is 'lowly and despised' and has overturned conventional power arrangements") refers both to how Jacob gets Esau's birthright and Isaac's blessing (a blessing that carries with it God's covenantal promise to Abraham) which is meant for Esau, and to how Jacob doesn't justify God's choice through superior ethical choices.

Brueggemann's fourth observation ("it is also this designation by God that begins the trouble") is perhaps the most unsettling. Jacob was "a quiet man, living in tents" (Gen 25:27 NRSV). Without God's hand upon him, would he have continued his quiet ways? Would he have lived peaceably with Esau, taking his proper place in the family and the community? Why was it necessary for God to work through a situation of discord?

(Interestingly, today I opened my email to find this as the daily scripture passage from Mennonite Media: "Am I now seeking human approval, or God's approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ" Gal 1:10 NIV).

Perhaps the root question is: if God's vision for God's people is a community of wholeness and peace, then why should God encourage brokenness and discord? One answer is that God does no such thing: from the perspective of the "lowly and despised," brokenness and discord already exist, and confronting these realities is very different from creating them.

Which leads us to Brueggemann's final observation: "it is this same commitment from God which resolves the conflicts in his favor." In essence, this is the gospel message. Being faithful in an unfaithful world inevitably brings trials and forces us to go "against the grain" more than we might prefer...but being faithful will ultimately bring us into God's presence, where there will be no trials, and we will be in harmony with the the created order and its Creator.

Peace,
Mark Kille
John P. Webster Library

Hi Mark:

We seem to have skipped over Gen;22:1-18. God's test of Abraham. For many this foreshadows the sacrifice of Jesus, the son of God. God is asking as a test of his faith, that Abraham sacrifice his only son, Isaac, who was the only legitimate descendent. God calls Jesus his only son. The absolute acceptance and obedience of Abraham is without protest. "Thy will be done, not mine", says Jesus, also. The laying of wood on Isaac's back can be paralleled to Jesus carrying the cross to his death. The last minute reprieve, though, never comes for Jesus.

An interesting sidelight is that in Heb:11:17 -19 the author says 'By faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac...He considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead; hence, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back."

For me this is where Yahweh begins to be distinguished from the other gods of the Canaanite region and most of the tribal religions of the world. Most of these groups who lived on the edge of death from drought, flood, enemies, sickness believed that they must show their faithfulness to their chosen deity or deities to save the extinction of the tribe. The Mayans threw their maidens off their temples into pools, the Greeks offered yearly sacrifice of maidens and young men to their gods in the story of the Minotaur and most other primitive tribes offered up their captives in thanks for victory in war.

The people following Abraham sacrificed animals, but not humans. They still believed in the living sacrifice, but it is more a sacrifice of wealth as represented in flocks. Even in Christianity, a test of faithfulness is to tithe and show thankfulness by building churches and by funding social service projects. The sense of sacrifice is strong in many religions. I had a male nurse for my husband who was a Muslim from Gambia. He spent some time looking around Hartford for a lamb to sacrifice at Ramadan. He wanted a live one so he could kill it himself.

Nan

What is behind the belief that "God has 'chosen and destined' this man Jacob in a special way"? Is it simply because this story appears in the Bible and a Bible story makes a person more "special" than someone whose story is told somewhere else?

If Jacob is portrayed as "earthy" and "scandalous" then what does that tell us about God? Is God choosing Jacob to show, as Brueggemann suggests, how God "justifies by grace"? Or is there something "offensive" about a God who chooses such lying, cheating characters as Jacob to get things done? This is the same God, after all, who "hardened the heart" of Pharaoh so God could continue to show the Egyptians how powerful he could be and in the process prolonged the suffering of innocent human beings. Maybe Jehovah and Jacob deserve each other.

"In an earthy way, this is a statement about justification by grace. God has taken one who is 'lowly and despised' and has overturned conventional power arrangements."

If the way for "justifying by grace" was already in place, then what need was there for the cross centuries later?

"Perhaps the root question is: if God's vision for God's people is a community of wholeness and peace, then why should God encourage brokenness and discord? One answer is that God does no such thing..."

The other answer is that God not only encourages brokenness and discord but causes it to be. Abraham, as recorded in Genesis 22: 1-2 doesn't get the idea himself to sacrifice Isaac. He is commanded, in a cruel test, to do so by God. Can we imagine the discord this event must have brought to Isaac? He wasn't physically broken by this, but he must have been broken emotionally. He surely carried the psychological scars of this traumatic experience for the rest of his life. How can we say that a God who commands a father to cut his son's throat as a deceitful means of testing his faith is a God of wholeness and peace?

Dave: What is behind the belief that “God has ‘chosen and destined’ this man Jacob in a special way”? Is it simply because this story appears in the Bible and a Bible story makes a person more “special” than someone whose story is told somewhere else?

George: (A partial response only) I believe it has something to do with the "calling" of the younger sons--those who are not naturally expected to lead. Hence Jacob, Joseph, and David, all I believe younger brothers, and all flawed, though Joseph seemingly the least so (I haven't read ahead yet, so I'm not refreshed there. Then as Paul interprets it from a Christian perspective, faith in Christ is the second son to the elder brother, the law, and then we have the story of the prodigal son in Luke in which the younger brother apparently experiences more growth through spiritual renewal in his "born again experience of returning to the father. Though even here I don't deny the potential viability of an alternative reading in which the older brother is equally endowed with the blessing of a clear calling to radically live out a life of faith. Then Jesus' teaching, he who shall be first shall be last, he who shall be last shall be first in the kingdom of God. More fundamentally, what I believe this narrative typology is pointing to is the great reversal in the kingdom of God from prevailing human expectations. Finally, 1 Corinthians 1 (a compilation)

"For since in the wisdom of God the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe...For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence."

Then 2 Corinthians 4:7, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God, and not of us."

This I view as core interpretive grist which reflects basic teachings of both texts, though, pace Brueggemann, such readings need to be done imaginatively while breaking into our "normal" reality, which remains prevailing in many ways rather than accepted dogmatically as the unvarnished truth which needs no other proof than the word spoken in the text. At least, that is my take.

Even making these points, the kinds of critical commentary that you are making here are also essential to an ongoing empathetic, yet critical reading of the Bible as one of the core baselines to a contemporary Christian faith. My point in stressing the text is to draw out something of its countercultural power in establishing an imaginative alternative to the dominant secular, scientifically-nurtured "common-sense" reality that governs the thrust of most of our lives and that of the secular culture in which the concept of "God" is an absurd irrelevancy--a carry-over from a by-gone day that has literally no power to speak in the secular city. By contrast, the world turned upside down by a radical embrace of a Christian epistemology (essentially a world view) in deconstructing at least the alleged totalism of that secular modern/postmodern city, still shaped so much by the rational thinking of the 18th century enlightenment. Be clear, I embrace much of this enlightenment world view given its role as the lingua franca of our public culture. Where I hold back in part is in the acceptance also of a Christian counter-narrative that sometimes speaks only marginally, yet at other times more prevailingly to the realities that shape my life in which the Bible serves as a core text that at least at times can mediate the word of God to myself and others.

The younger brother is a core biblical archetype that has many resonances in both the OT & NT and in our lives beyond the text. Yet it does not stand as the unequivocal truth, but in Bruegemann's terms as counter testimony to the given prevailing reality.

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