Dear davidf,

Thank you for your response. I was aware of the J and P documents in Genesis but not of E.

Firstly my apologies for not being clear in my post. It was not I accusing you of believing that “a docking of an appendage is painless” rather the sheep were. Humour can be in the eye of the beholder. Sorry.

If we are intent on seeking the origins of the flood narrative I would have to stick my hand up for the Sumartrian text of Gilgamesh which predates any Jewish writing. I am re-reading it at the moment and the cognitive ‘starbursts’ are going off in even the first few pages. Of his creation it says “Two thirds they made him God and one third man” Wow! That’s the father, son, and the Holy Ghost right there. And the part about not leaving the “virgin to her lover” immediately forces the mind to Mary, but I digress.

I am pretty keen on taking Genesis as it is delivered as I have a confidence in the author that what he/she has included has been distilled through oral and written sources into a tightly scripted piece including the obvious repetitions.

That the words have been as evocative and powerful for so many generations stand as testament to their crafting. Would you feel it is necessary to research Scottish kings before reading and appreciating MacBeth?

I don’t want to argue about your assessment “God was the Supreme Fascist, and Abraham was the Supreme Order Follower” because it mirrored a view I held up until my latest reading of Genesis. But Job has reset my buttons (missed you on that thread btw) and I find myself far more expansive in seeking meaning relevant to me in the bible read as literature.

So when you write “you wrote assuming that Abraham had knowledge of the legend of the Flood” my response is to say well the author certainly did because he wrote the book!

Possibly the hold it has over each of us is that different as to be incomprehensible to the other.

Dear csteele,

We really can only speculate about the origin of the flood narrative. There may not have been an actual flood. The parables of Jesus in the New Testament make moral points and are not put forth as actual happenings. The story of the flood, as well as other stories, may simply be similar parables.

“God was the Supreme Fascist, and Abraham was the Supreme Order Follower” in the story of the binding of Isaac. God was not a Supreme Fascist in the Jonah story. My belief is that God is a human invention inconsistent in behaviour from one story to another.

I don't understand your sentence, "So when you write “you wrote assuming that Abraham had knowledge of the legend of the Flood” my response is to say well the author certainly did because he wrote the book!" The fact that an account of the flood is in Genesis does not mean Abraham knew the story. Stories seem to have been pieced together from different sources.

Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." is incompatible with Genesis 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; 2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

Man and woman are created together in one story, and woman from man in the other story.

I regard the Bible as a document that should be taken seriously as a book that has had a great deal to do with forming our society, contains moral insights along with the prejudices of its times, contains magnificent literature along with boilerplate. It has justified both good and evil. From the Bible slaveholders have justified slavery and Abolitionists have justified freeing slaves.

I don't regard it as a scientific text, a history or a reliable moral guide, but it has a hold on me.

Dear davidf,

Maybe we are not that far apart after all.

Could I reiterate the point that the oral traditions that honed these stories/myths over generations must have been sympathetic to the human condition and resonated with their audiences or else they would not have survived.

I have just purchased and am really enjoying Bill Moyers’ book Genesis - A Living Conversation which details a series of discussions held between collections of people about the book. Although none of the contributors mirror my take on Genesis, neither do they mirror each others, even when coming from the same faith.

I like English Professor Charles Johnson’s description that the “stories of Genesis are very much part of our global inheritance. They are very much like coins, two thousand yeas old. They have been passed around so many cultures, and they have the sweat and palm oil of so many individuals on them that if we open them up, we discover something of our own humanity, something of the possibilities of what we are as a species. There are so many interpretations of these stories and so much is laid upon them and they have been used so often to organise human experience that the problem is not a lack of meaning in these stories - it’s too much meaning. There’s a surplus of meaning because you are talking about two thousand years of human effort to make sense out of civilization.”

What has struck me are the differences in the Qur’an’s account of the Genesis story and how it has been remodelled with subtractions and additions. It is a startling example of how these myths are reworked with time and circumstance. A small example it tells of Abraham as a child saying “”I believe in the one true God” while those around him worshipped idols but it doesn’t detail whether it was Isaac or Ishmael whom Abraham was prepared to sacrifice.

You ask if Abraham could possibly have had knowledge of the flood.

Cont..

Cont..

Although I find it a little strange justifying a character in what we seem to agree is a myth I will do my best. I suppose I am defending the integrity of the story rather than the facts.

My understanding is that Ruth was written in response to a particularly racist part of Jewish history when unless one could prove your racial purity back 10 generations you were not permitted to reside in Jerusalem. The powerful message in the book, kept until the very last, was that Ruth, a Moabite, was part of the linage of King David thus he too would have been banished from the city. Therefore if linage could survive over this time span why should there be a problem with history doing the same.

My second contention is that the flood tale must have made its way though Abraham’s generation and on to the writers of Genesis. Would it not be probable that they touched him in some form?

However my point still holds that the author responsible for sustaining the flood narrative by penning Genesis would have had the tragedy forcing the Abraham narrative as well.

I am relaxed about Genesis 1:27 being an overview and 2:22 being specific and I’m tickled (no more than that) by the fact that the Genesis account roughly mirrors, in mythic form, how the earth and life formed. The fact that a creation event occurred called the Big Bang is only a recent scientific discovery replacing a steady state eternal universe model that until then had held sway in physics circles.

That being said I am firmly convinced that those who hold the Genesis story to be factual lose much of that power of the myth and that their attempts to push that view on others sees many turned from a rich source of contemplation and meaning.

Finally davidf, I am struggling with the thought of Abraham ‘pimping’ Sarah. I realise it must be important to the narrative because the author has him do it on two occasions. Are you able to offer any light?

Dear csteele,

I don't think it matters if we are far apart or close together in understanding as long as we have a civil dialogue. IMHO it is partially a matter of chance which stories survive. Once they have been canonized or established as traditional they will continue to survive even though they no longer resonate.

In such matters as the Big Bang or steady state universe I think Genesis is completely irrelevant to what actually happened. I think the creation stories that all or most tribal people generate are simply a function of the way their society regards time. Although at one stage of my life I was a physicist I have not gone into the physics enough to understand the evidence for the Big Bang.

I have the same understanding of Ruth as you have.

The Soncino issue of the Pentateuch with commentary by Rabbi J. H. Hertz, Late Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, has this to say about the pimping:

"Once or twice Abram falls a prey to fear and plays with the truth in order to preserve his life. Though merely an episode with him, natural enough in an ordinary man, it is quite unworthy of his majestic soul. It is the glory of the Bible that it shows no partiality towards its heroes; they are not superhuman sinless beings. And when they err – for ‘there is no man who doeth good always and sinneth never’ – Scripture does not gloss over their faults. The great Jewish commentator Nachmanides refers to Abram’s action as ‘a great sin’.

The above commentary that really does not explain Abram’s actions points out a difference between Judaism and Christianity. There are no saints in Judaism.

I am reading Karen Armstrong’s “The Bible” which tells how the book has been interpreted by different people in various societies. I am too far removed from the stories to look at them as essentially different from the Iliad, Odyssey or Rainbow Serpent.

Dear davidf,

I would agree with the good Rabbi. While intrigued with Abraham’s treatment of Sarah his actions certainly elevate him into the more interesting of the biblical characters.

The pharaoh appears as a far more moral character than Abraham who lacks so much trust not only about the treatment he imagines he will receive in the hands of the Egyptians but also about the strength of the commitment to him from God, who is certainly displeased with his actions.

Is there a possibility we are being taught a lesson about condemning the world’s oldest profession?

I believe in both the Islamic and Jewish midrashic traditions Sarah was never touched by the Pharaoh, the first because his hand froze when he reached for her and in the latter because the plague that was sent by God was impotence.

But of course this devalues the power of the story and is an easy out.

We might put the position that Abraham was looking after his life so the promise of God could be fulfilled but the words “so it might go well for me” smack of self interest.

A further case might be made that Sarah gains power or due through her sacrifices for Abraham and when she orders the banishment of his firstborn he complies.

Or might we be judging too harshly a frightened herdsman forced well out of his comfort and into a foreign civilization under the direction of an almighty God?

Theologian Lewis Smedes reflects that “The point of the story is to have this conversation” which I thank you for.

I have read about one of the great Talmudists a Professor Lieberman asking a student, "Who was the most tragic character in the bible?" After several unsatisfactory answers the Lieberman says “No, the most tragic character in the Bible is God.”.

Karen Armstrong states “instead of seeing God as just an adult, you can also see God as a child”

I’m wondering do you have any sympathy for his or her position?