Genesis 22 to 24: death, marriage and sacrifice

Chapter 22, in which Isaac nearly gets sacrificed. Given this rather unpleasant and bloody scene (at least for the Ram, and probably fairly traumatic for the kid too), it seems somewhat appropriate that at least some Jewish and Muslim traditions place the situation of the near-sacrifice as the top of Mount Moriah in Jerusalem and therefore one of the sites within the much-disputed Temple Mount. It seems a fitting start for this extraordinarily beautiful and disturbed city.
Other scholars put the site of the sacrifice at Moreh, near Nablus (Biblical Shechem), another beautiful and bloody city where the Israeli army spends a fair amount of its time executing people and stifling the economy with checkpoints, when they're not committing mass butchery in Gaza.
A brief outline of the reasons behind the various theories can be found here.
Immediately following God's intervention in the sacrifice of Issac, Sarah dies. It's not made clear if the two incidents are related... but she is buried in Hebron, at what becomes the Tomb of the Patriarchs or the Cave of the Double Tombs. This is said to be the site of the burials of Adam and Eve (although some traditions put Adam in Jerusalem, under the site of Golgotha), Abraham alongside Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah and Jacob and Leah. It is, like so mnay of the ancient sites in Palestine, Israel and surrounding countries, tremendouly sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians, and has therefore of course been the object of innumerable battles for ownership, including capture by Saladin from the Crusaders and a massacre of 67 members of the local Jewish community in 1929. The current uneasy situation is that the building is divided into two, one section each for Jews and Muslims. All visitors, including the very, very occasional tourist, have to pass through a number of security gates and checks, staffed by Israeli military.



In February 1994 the Tomb was the site of a massacre by a right-wing Zionist settler from the (frankly rabid) community which has established itself in Hebron, where local Palestinians are regularly physically attacked and have rubbish and toilet water poured onto them and their market by settlers who have occupied the upper floors of their buildings. Baruch Goldstein, an off-duty Israeli army reservist from Brooklyn, entered the mosque side of the Tomb during Friday prayers and shot dead between 29 (from Israeli accounts) and 52 Palestinians, wounding 150 more. He is now venerated by some right-wing Israeli settler groups and political parties as a hero.
In chapter 25 Abraham orders Isaac to find a wife from outside the land of Canaan; this is ringing major bells from the compulsory course on kinship I had to do as part of my social anthropology degree. This is exogamy, marriage outside the group, a practice which is attributed to many needs from the genetic (bringing new genes to maintain diversity and prevent hereditary diseases) to the political (marrying into new families, dynasties etc to form alliances which might be useful in power struggles, times of economic need and so on. Early Twentieth century anthropologists used to spend entire careers drawing complicated diagrams and classifying entire societies according to who they allowed to marry whom.



In pleasant contrast to much of Genesis so far, the resulting bride, Rebekah, is selected on the basis of her kindness and generosity, qualities notably lacking in some of the family she's marrying into. Although maybe it's only the ladies who are supposed to be nice to people. In any case, much of Chapter 25 (perhaps verses 8-32 and 43-46), though repetitive, has a serenely poetic quality, talking about the camels which the messenger of Abraham brings with him and the water which Rebekah fetches for them - a reminder of the complete necessity of water to the desert and arid-country societies amongst which the Bible is set.
Interestingly, given the alarm which Muslim veiling seems to inspire in the modern age, Rebekah's response to seeing the man she is going to marry is:

"she took a vail, and covered herself."

There is something calm and dignified in Rebekah's choice and her stately generosity that is a welcome antidote to the bloodshed and bitterness of the Flood, Cain and Abel, Lot and the destruction of the Cities of the Plain, the Tower of Babel, and Abraham and Sarah's exploitation of Hagar.

Genesis 19 to 23- Attempted gang rape, nukes, incest, wife-swapping, conspiracy to child murder.

Before we get going, an observation. I knew that this “Bible equals 'family values'” was nonsense, but the behaviour of God's favourites is just appalling.

As Roddy McDowall, playing “Benjamin Fischer” said in the The Legend of Hell House (1973)-

Ann: "What did Belasco do to make this house so evil?"
Benjamin: "Drug addiction, alcoholism, sadism, beastiality, mutilation, murder, vampirism, necrophilia, cannibalism, not to mention a gamut of sexual goodies. Shall I go on?"

As the title of this posting says- Attempted gang rape, nukes, incest, wife-swapping, conspiracy to child murder.

Remind me to post the DR and Quinch Go Straight front page one day where the judge finishes a charge sheet with the line "32 crimes so unusual and horrible they do not have names"

Is there a sin these lot haven't committed yet? Or were these things not sins until the Ten Commandments? Answers to these Theological Conundra welcome, via the comments box.

Chapter 19

Lot's tooling around at the gates of Sodom when two angelic guys turn up. First they want to cruise around the town, but he insists- as later the Romans do of Jesus- on putting them up. But the Sodomites, who infamously punt from the Cambridge end, have other ideas

Verse 4-5 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both young old and young, all the people from every quarter: And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know [translation: “fuck”] them.

Lot says nope (good hosts don't let any forced sex take place, regardless of what bits of genitalia are going where. Surely as long there is informed consent between adults it's nobody's fucking business, eh?). The whole sorry mess becomes a bit like one of those siege scenes in a zombie movie. The angels do some blinding and smiting and tell Lot to get outa Dodge...

Verse 13 “For we will destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of the LORD; and the LORD hath sent us to destroy it.

Lot legs it with his wife and two unmarried daughters, (his sons-in-law telling him to piss off.)

More zombie analogies though- there's always that scene where zombie arms burst through windows/doors and start groping the hardy band of survivors!

Verse 16 “And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters: the LORD being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city."

The angels (or the Lord?) tell Lot to literally head for the hills, but Lot demures (i.e. disobeys) and heads to a city called Zoar.

Sodom (and Gomorrah) gets nuked. Not that I am a von Danikenian, but it does sound a bit like a nuclear bomb that the angels don't know how to dismantle and they've lost the timer for. The Fourth Protocol of the Elders of Zion, maybe?

And Lot's wife ignores what the Gallaghites told her. And suffers the consequences. And you can imagine one of the daughters saying “Leave her dad, she's NaCled...”

So Lot leaves Zoar, and does go the mountains. And his daughters... gentle reader, you may not want to read it... take turns to get him drunk and shag him to get themselves knocked up.

Huh? WTF? One, if he was so drunk he didn't know what was going on, how did he stay the course? Two, Founder Effect. Three, this is grim grim grim.

Chapter 20

Back to the aged Abram/Abraham. He travels, with family to the kingdom of Abimelech, and... bloody hell, passes his wife off as his sister AGAIN and king Abimelech marries here.

They never told me in Divinity class (I got an A and endured parental teasing) that Abraham was into the wife swap thing- I mean this kind of wife swap, not the tv show. These sorts of allegations should be dogging his good name.

So God tells Abimelech in a dream to knock it off or else

Verse 3 “thou art but a dead man”

And Abimelech says Abraham never effing told him, and anyhow he didn't touch her. God takes the credit for that (so what is the point of the whole effing, or rather, non-effing story, if God already fixed it?) Abimelech is understandably pissed at Abraham for dropping him in it with the Bearded Sky Man.

And Abraham's defence? “It's OK, my wife's actually my half-sister.” Huh? WTF??

So Abimelech's family gets its fertility back.

NB This Sarah must be one hot GILF...(this kind, not this)

Chapter 21

Sarah at a mere 80-something spits out a kid, Isaac.

Hagar, the Handmaid and her son get exiled and “she wandered in the wilderness of Beer-sheba." Typical, it's the men what get the pleasure, the women who get the pain. But God bails Hagar out, and her kid by Abraham gets an Egyptian wife. So that's alright then.

Meanwhile, Abraham and Abimelech are having more carrying capacity problems.

Chapter 22

Another doozy. Abraham is tested by the Lord, sorry “LORD”, who gets him to take Isaac up a mountain in order to slit his throat.

At the last minute the LORD allows for a switch-hitter sacrifice, (there's a burning bush etc).

But how's the kid gonna feel, knowing his dad was gonna slit his throat cos the voices in his head told him to?

Joseph Heller, author of the hilarious but horrifically misogynistic “Catch-22” I think covered this in his novel “God Knows”, which I may get round to reading some day.

Oh, bugger, Chapter 18 got lost in the mix.

The LORD does a house call to Abraham and Sarah, tells her she will get up the duff, and doesn't strike her dead for disbelieving him.
Then the LORD reveals his plan to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham demures about killing the righteous along with the wicked (aka "collateral damage") and God lets himself get haggled down to Ten Righteous Men will ensure the city's salvation. Generous chap, that God.