Disgrace: the lies of the patriarch.(Critical essay)

THE HISTORIOGRAPHIC COMPLEX OF THE HEBREW BIBLE, WHICH OPENS with Genesis and the creation of the world and closes at the end of Kings with the Babylonian exile, (1) tells a sad story--notwithstanding the faint light that flickers at the end, a glimpse of hope of a better future for the exiled and perhaps even of their being granted the ability to return to the land of Israel when Jehoiachin, king of Judah, is released from prison by the king of Babylon and shown preferential treatment (2 Kings 25: 27-30). The central message of this huge complex, which reached its final form more or less during the Babylonian exile, is etiological-theological: it sets forth an explanation of God's resolve to exile Israel, his chosen people and the nation he favored, from its land, justifying the exile as punishment for the Israelites' deplorable behavior. (2) The doctrine of divine justice, of reward and punishment (mostly punishment), is the thread on which are strung all the events that, together, comprise the story of Israel's history. We find this doctrine being played out already in the complex's opening stories (Genesis 1-11), stories that tell of humankind's history before the Israelite nation stepped onto the stage of history: Adam and Eve's expulsion from Eden, the Flood, the scattering of the tower-builders of Babel--each a result of humanity's transgressions, and all recounted for the purpose of Israel learning from the bitter experiences of those early generations that sinned and were punished so as not to repeat their errors.

But the hope is in vain, and by the narrative's end the people of Israel are expelled, just as were Adam and Eve from the Garden, and just as the builders of the Tower were scattered throughout the world. Each and every figure in history's relay-race--from Abraham on, till the last of the kings--is found to be morally flawed. Israel's historiography renders no flawless figures: what can we imperfect beings learn from perfect characters? (3) It is precisely from the experiences of those who have made mistakes, who have sinned and paid for their errors, that we can we draw lessons and improve ourselves, thus avoiding a share in their sins and punishments. This must be remembered: the Bible's heroes are but the means for conveying the educational-ideological convictions of the biblical writers. The characters are not an objective in and of themselves. The Bible is not interested in promoting a personality cult; it has no interest in admiring human figures who might overwhelm the figure of their creator.

Despite this, the Bible's historiography nonetheless gives voice to two contradicting tendencies. The first aims to teach that, for every transgression that is committed, God will punish the transgressor; the other, which is in tension with the first, tries to lessen a figure's guilt by finding extenuating circumstances and, therefore, improving the reputations of the nation's heroes and leaders. In this paper, I will focus on Israel's patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who serve as national archetypes. From among the patriarchs' sins, we will examine only the most prominent, acts of lies, deception, and fraudulence, and we will consider whether the deceivers were commensurately punished and whether any effort was made to justify them.

THE LIES OF ABRAHAM AND ISAAC

The saga of the nation's forefather Abraham consists of a succession of tests with which God tries him, beginning with "Go forth from your native land and from your father's house to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1), and ending with "Take your son, your favored one, Isaac, whom you love, and go forth to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you" (22:2). (4) After Abraham proves himself worthy in the first test by leaving his father's house and arriving to the land that God shows him, a second test is put before him: famine (12:10). And what is the patriarch's response to this adversity?. Abraham decides to leave Canaan for Egypt and, knowing what a "beautiful woman" his wife is iv. 11), and fearing that the Egyptians will kill him for being her husband, he asks Sarah to tell them that "you are my sister," in order that "it may go well with me because of you, and that I may remain alive thanks to you" iv. 13).

In presenting Sarah as his sister, Abraham walks a fine line between truth and fraud. True, he means to deceive the Egyptians into believing his relationship with Sarah is not conjugal but fraternal, but should he be accused of deception he can hide behind the other meaning of the word "sister," that which is in Song of Songs: "You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride... How sweet is your love, my sister, my bride!... A garden locked is my sister, my bride" (4:9, 10, 12), that is, the woman who is the object of a man's love and desires (Sarna, 1989: 95). The use of the endearment "sister" for a beloved woman is widespread in ancient Egyptian love poetry, providing firm ground on which rests the story's assumption that the Egyptians could be fooled by the word's ambiguous meaning (Fox, 1985: 8, 12, 13).

Abraham, in any case, adds a further sin to his equivocations in his expectation of benefit that will result from Sarah's abandonment. His expectation that "it may go well with me because of you... "iv. 13) is realized when Sarah is taken into pharaoh's palace: "And it went well with Abram because of her; he acquired sheep, oxen, asses, male and female slaves, she-asses, and camels" iv. 16). In the end it is God who must intervene in order to extricate Sarah from her predicament: "And the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his household with mighty plagues on account of Sarai, the wife of Abram" (v. 17).