Getting Ready for March 25th - Genesis 37 through 50

Here are some questions that you might think about as you read through the last thirteen chapters of Genesis. The last part deals with the story of Joseph and his brothers and the movement of the clan down to Egypt during a time of famine in the region.

Genesis 37 -  What are the reasons Joseph has such poor relations with his brothers? Note the way that both Reuben and Judah are presented in the story, beginning here but continuing on. What do they finally do with Joseph?

Genesis 38 - Some interesting stuff here – what seems interesting or important to you?

Genesis 39 -  What are the key parts of Joseph’s story in Egypt?

·         Genesis 40 -  Dreams are important in Joseph’s story from the beginning – just notice.

·         Genesis 41 - What are the key parts of the story told here?

·         Genesis 42 - What brings about the reunion of Joseph with his brothers – how does he deal with his anger towards them?

·         Genesis 43 - In the Yahwist source, Judah is the key brother in bringing about reconciliation. What does he do here?

·     Genesis 44 -  Joseph manages to take one last revenge on his brothers. What does he do? Which brother plays the most important role?

·         Genesis 45 - How does Joseph see the story of what happened to him? Why does Jacob go to Egypt? Genesis 46 - Jacob has a vision at Beer-sheba. What is its importance?

·         Genesis 47 - Where do Joseph’s brothers settle in Egypt? Any significance to the location? What does Jacob make his son Joseph promise him?

·         Genesis 48 - How is God’s promise to Jacob passed on to Joseph? What similarities are there in this story and the story of Jacob and Esau as young men?   I love the blessing Jacob/Israel gives to Joseph – just notice it.

·         Genesis 49 -  Jacob prophesies over his sons at his end. Which are interesting? Who else is buried where he asks his sons to bury him?

Genesis 50 - Why do the brothers again begin to fear that Joseph might treat them harshly? How do they deal with this fear? This whole story that began with Abraham centered around a promise God made to him. Remember what that promise was – what land do they own in the “promised land”?

What I think is most important is what the story says to you and what premises it sets for the biblical narrative. It is the start of a very long story. Looking at it as literature, we need to ask about the story elements: the setting, the characters (also called "figures" or "types" by later readers), the fundamental "conflict" that makes the plot engaging as we go along. Next month, we will do Exodus.

There were four of us at yesterday's Bible Study. Sorry about thinking it was actually a 4th Sunday. It was the 5th Sunday in January.  We took up from where we left off in Genesis, and we talked about trying to follow a more personal daily reading schedule, so when we got together again - hopefully sometime a little different in February - we would be able to cover a little more territory. I think there was a sense that we would try it, though it is clearly difficult to find time daily to read scripture.  Anyway, here is a shortened version of what we read and discussed:

Genesis 31 - Interesting to note is Jacob’s position here at the start — he is caught between two VERY angry men - at least he feels he is.  On the one side is his brother Esau, angry about the deception Jacob practiced on him to get the blessing.  On the other is Laban, angry because of the deception Jacob is alleged to have perpetrated against him. 

Jacob realizes he MUST leave Laban’s lands and go back to his own lands, where he fears his brother Esau will be waiting to kill him for having “stolen” their father Isaac’s blessing years earlier.  When they leave, Rachel takes the household idols and hides them in her things.  Laban catches up with Jacob and tries to make him feel guilty, telling him he would have sent him off royally, had he only known they were leaving; but his anger is tapped over the household idols, which they do not find; compare later the story of Benjamin being caught with the silver goblet (44:2) that Joseph plants in his bag. 

We talked about the rather confusing state of the monotheism Abraham sought to introduce here. Jacob clearly is not upset by the fact that one of his wives still gives some "weight" to the household gods worshipped in Haran and environs. We also spent some time talking about the rather good outcome there is for all the anger in Jacob and Laban and Esau, especially Esau.

Genesis 32 - On the way home, Jacob’s anxiety grows greater and greater.  He camps in a place called Mahanaim (meaning Double-Camp according to Schocken) where he sends messengers ahead and learns that his brother Esau is coming to meet him with 400 men.  He is afraid for his children, especially for his favorite child and wife, so he divides his family and his possessions into two.

At Yabbok Crossing (on the east side of the Jordan) he wrestles with “some man.”  Jacob recognizes the match as having been with God; Peniel, the name he gives to the place where the encounter occurred means “face of God."  He carries a wound away—a hip socket that is injured.  He wakes with a more humble attitude.  He says he is “too small . . .for all the faithfulness and trust you [God] have shown your servant."  He sends on part of his wealth as a peace offering to Esau.

Genesis 33 - Jacob divides his family in a protective way for Rachel, putting her last in the line of migrants approaching the feared brother, Esau.  But in the end he finds Esau not angry but forgiving.  Esau tries to refuse the gifts sent ahead, and it is interesting what Jacob says to him: “please accept this gift . . .since to come into your presence is for me like coming into the presence of God, now that you have received me so kindly.”   What he intended as gifts to assuage Esau’s wrath, he desires now to give as gifts of thanksgiving.  Esau’s face is like the face of God because it is the face of love and forgiveness.

Jacob passes back over into Canaan and buys land in Shechem from the children of Hamor.

Genesis 34 - The first story we have after this tale of love and forgiveness is a story of violence and sexual depravity—the land of Canaan is always associated with these vices. Dinah is raped by a man named Schechem, son of the chief of the region called Shechem—Hamor.  Hamor tries to rectify the situation by arranging for the marriage of the offending son to Dinah, but Jacob’s children—especially Simeon and Levi (the angry ones) plan revenge and not only revenge but revenge taken in the process of Hamor’s men accepting the rite of circumcision.  Jacob reacts weakly, but the act is really bad in his mind.

Genesis 35 - Jacob is led by God to go to Bethel to build and altar and get rid of household idols he has permitted to be carried by his family.  Bethel is south in Shechem (half way to Jerusalem)—the place where Jacob had his dream on his way to Haran.   Earrings worn as amulets associated with the worship of these idols are also gotten rid of. On the way to Ephrath (Bethlehem), Rachel dies in giving birth to Benjamin.  There is some confusion in places here because Rachel’s tomb is in Ramah, just north of Jerusalem and Ephrath is to the south.

Reuben offends his father by sleeping with Rachel’s maid (mother of Reuben’s half brothers Dan and Naphtali).  They end up in Kiriath-arba (Hebron-Mamre) where Jacob grew up.  Jacob dies at 180.

We noticed that most of the next two chapters seemed to be genealogical, so we skipped over it. We will pick up next time with the Joseph narrative beginning at chapter 37 - note to me. Hopefully, if we keep to the reading schedule, we should be able to discuss and read what we loved through Chapter 46. 

Sunday November 27th - Gen. 23-26

Continuing with the narrative of Isaac and Rebecca, we noticed the important place the women in the story have - more important than we're sometimes led to believe the Bible could reflect. Sarah who played a critical role in the birth of Ishmael and the eventual promise God makes to Hagar and the becomes the one anchor the Hebrews have in the Promised Land. Her small tomb is Isaac's only possession there at the time of his death. Similarly Jacob's wife will play a critical role in the evolving family tale that will follow.
Gen. 23 - Sarah dies at age 127 and is buried at Machpelah (Hebron). The owner of the site tries hard to give it to Abraham, but he finally tells Abraham that it is worth 400 shekels and Abraham pays that amount. The spot is the first land Abraham takes possession of in “the promised land.” It is interesting to me that the promise - the promised heir and the first land right - comes concretely through Sarah — despite the fact that she is depicted as far from perfect in her relationship to God. The faithfulness comes from Abraham.
Gen. 24 - The matter of finding a wife for Isaac occupies this chapter. Abraham sends his steward back to his family’s kinsmen at Haran in Upper Mesopotamia. He finds Abraham’s nephew’s daughter, Rebecca (Rivka) at the well there. Finding that she is indeed of the family of Abraham – she is the daughter of Bethuel who is a son of Abraham’s brother Nahor and his wife Milcah [1st cousin once removed of Isaac]. They show the servant of Abraham great hospitality and the family agrees to the marriage of Rebecca to Isaac; they only ask that she remain with them for ten days. At the end of the ten days, she goes with a “nurse” back to Abraham’s territory with the steward. Rebecca’s brother, who is introduced to us here as well, is named Laban (Lavan).
Gen. 25 - Abraham marries again (Keturah) and has another 6 sons – a strange ending to the story of this man who is said to be 100 when son Isaac was born. He must be nearly 120 at this point. All of the progeny of this period are sent to the east. Abraham dies at 175 and is buried with Sarah. Isaac makes his home near the well of Lahai-roi (well of the Living One who sees me).
Ishmael’s 12 sons are listed in verses 11-18 (northern Arabian tribes), and then the story returns to Rebecca and Isaac. Rebecca is barren. Her pregnancy comes as a result of Isaac’s prayer—the twins struggle even within her—Esau, the hunter and Jacob, the quiet one, his mother’s favorite. They are who they are but they also represent two rival nations—Israel and Edom (the land south of Moab, a land marked by the prominence of a reddish sandstone). Esau is more like his father’s half-brother—Ishmael. He is like Ishmael the first-born, but he is not the promise bearer. Jacob, the quiet man, his mother’s favorite is that. Yaakov also means “heel-holder” or even “heel-sneak” according to the Schocken Bible. The name he will get in the future (Israel-Yisrael) means “God-fighter.”
Gen. 26 - We find another echo-story to the Abraham/Sarah story in Egypt. Here it is Isaac and Rebecca, though, who go into the kingdom of Abimelech in Gerar (see chapter 20). Here in 26, the Lord renews the promise to Isaac, and Isaac and Abimelech “cut a covenant” together too. The NAB says this is the Yahwist version of the story the Elohist writer told in 20.

Genesis 20 Through 22 - Abraham's Son is Born

We looked at a few of the most important stories in the Old Testament - the birth of Abraham's son, Isaac and the later offering of that son up in sacrifice, a sacrifice that God interrupts by providing an alternative sacrifice:

Gen. 20 - A doublet of 12:10, but involving not the king of Egypt but the King of Gerar, a kingdom south of Gaza, Abimelech. Abraham, now age 100 approximately - he will be 100 at the birth of his son Isaac in the next chapter - goes with Sarah to Abimelech's kingdom and presents Sarah as his sister. We are also told here that Sarah is indeed Abraham's half-sister (same father, different mother), so Abraham wasn't lying completely. After Abimelech sends for Sarah and "had [her] taken" God comes to Abimelech and tells him he must die because Sarah was Abraham's wife. Abimelech confronts Abraham over the deception and they a peace is arranged between them.

We talked about a couple of things in connection with this story: 1) the obvious repetition of this little anecdote and why it carried such importance, 2) the really blatant non-realism of the story [their extreme age and unlikelihood of Sarah being any kind of a temptation to the king]. Eileen pointed out that the extreme ages of Old Testament figures might have to do with uncertainties regarding their ages, discrepancies in the various sources, etc. But we also discussed the fact that unrealistic details in the story could be seen as a way of forcing the reader to "see" the reality of the story on a spiritual level rather than a strictly factual level. St. Augustine reminds us in one of his homilies that we should "not go looking with your eyes for what can only be observed with the mind" (Homily 13 of John's gospel).

Gen. 21 - Abraham, now 100, finally has his son Isaac (meaning ‘God smiled,’ or laughed). Sarah is also very old. Ishmael who, by Chapter 16 reckoning would be 15 years old here is pictured as still a child (14)—on his mother’s shoulder. At Sarah’s request, they are banished (again?). God promises Abraham to look after them and make a nation of Ishmael as well. This is a kind of an echo or shadow of the promise to Abraham. In the desert Hagar is reassured personally by an angel. They go to the wilderness of Paran (on the Sinai Peninsula south of the Negev,) and there Hagar gets a wife for her son from Egypt -- remember Hagar might be Egyptian as well.
Abimelech and Abraham make a covenant and settle a dispute over a well at Beersheba, just east of Gerar.

Gen. 22 - God puts Abraham to the test at Moriah (said to be where Jerusalem would later be built). Told to offer up his son, his only son, as a sacrifice, Abraham obeys. He has Isaac carry the wood on which he will be offered up - so many "types" and "figures" here that early Christian writers will see as shadows of Christ's crucifixion. On the way, Abraham says “God himself will provide the lamb. . .” (a prophecy of Christ?), and of course he does—not only ultimately but here proximately. God is looking only for Abraham’s willingness to obey and his recognition that the son he has is also a gift, something that the Lord has provided, not anything really belonging to him. What strikes me here is that having been asked to renounce the past (his ancient clan, the traditions and lands of his father in Ur), he is now asked to renounce the future (or at least any personal goal he might have for the future). He is to live in the relationship of faith only, not in any notion of what faith may get him.
Verse 20 traces the genealogy of Abraham’s brother Nahor to trace the relationship of Rebecca to Isaac. One of Nahor’s sons, Bethuel is Rebecca’s father, so Isaac and Rebecca will be cousins. The offspring of Nahor’s relationship with a concubine—Reumah—are also introduced.

October 23 Bible Study

Eileen Cass, Finn Mauritzen, Bill McCarthy and Herb and Rene Lape were present and we read through Genesis 17 through 20. The following is pretty much the bare bones of what we read and we were amazed at the "R" rated content.

Gen. 17 -When Abram is ninety-nine, the Lord appears to him again and restates his promises to him a third time: 17:2 – You will be the father of many nations, the covenant will be perpetual and is sealed by the act of circumcision. The first two are in 12:2 “I will make you a great nation, your name a blessing” and 15:18: “your descendants shall be countless, you will receive the land from Egypt to the Euphrates.” Perhaps what we have here is simply another version of the original covenant God makes with Abram, but the repetition of it highlights the fact that God’s promises and God’s intervention is on its own timetable, not ours. Nothing Abram or Sarai do will hurry the process. God changes Abram’s name here to Abraham and institutes the practice of circumcision. Thus, God says, the covenant “shall be in your flesh as an everlasting pact” (17:13). Sarai’s name is modified to Sarah and the birth of their son is foretold. The pact with Ishmael is confirmed as well. He shall be the father of twelve chieftains and will become a great nation. The chapter ends with Abraham and Ishmael being circumcised even while it is clarified that Ishmael is not to be the heir God has been promising all along.

Gen. 18 - This chapter shows us Abraham sitting at the entrance to his tent near a small tree called a Terebinth at Mamre. It is just getting to the hot part of the day, when three strangers appear. Abraham runs over to them and begs them to accept hospitality from him. He enlists Sarah’s help and arranges for meat and cheese to be offered. While they are eating, they ask where his wife is and one of them says “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son” (18:10). Sarah, inside the tent laughs to herself for she is well beyond child-bearing age and knows it. But the speaker, now identified as “the Lord” repeats to Abraham what she has only said to herself. Sarah tries to deny she laughed, but of course we all know that Sarah is having trouble really believing that this promise will ever be brought to pass—that is why she resorted to the scheme with Hagar.

The three men then set out from there and Abraham goes with them a ways toward Sodom. The voice changes back and forth from that of the men (or one of the men) to that of YHWH himself (18:9 and 13) and later again at verses 16 and 17. It is clear that they are to be seen as His voice. He does tell him he plans to destroy Sodom. This is an interesting passage both for its content and the point of view it pretends to speak from. Here the writer presents to us the inner workings of the Lord’s mind concerning not only Abraham, but the whole plan of the future he has initiated through Abraham. The conferring of the redemption promises on Abraham bring him into relationship with God in such a way that God feels he has a right or need to know how God will deal with men, to understand God’s justice and even to mediate mankind’s needs to God. That this spurs Abraham to intercede for Sodom flows naturally from God’s including him in the divine reflection, which ultimately effects the action God takes. There is an inter-action between the divine intention and man’s response to that intention which ultimately shapes what happens, what God puts into effect. Also interesting is the point that God is going to punish Sodom because he is responding to an outcry against their wickedness. In all this, the inter-involvement and interplay between God and man, not simply God’s omniscience and omnipotence, seem to be that which shapes events.

Abraham pleads with God not to destroy the innocent with the guilty. Noah didn’t do this (presuming that there were other innocent destroyed in the flood), but Abraham, like Moses and Jesus after him will take the part of man at least to a point and intercede for us. In a sense this makes Abraham God’s first “prophet.” The Lord finally does agree to spare Sodom if ten righteous men can be found there, and perhaps would have gone further, but Abraham does not presume to push Him beyond ten.

Gen. 19 - Two angel messengers are entertained by Lot whose hospitality is implicitly praised. The men of the town beat at his door demanding that he turn them over to them so they can “abuse” them –“be intimate with them” [Tanakh, 5]. There is virtually no discussion or follow up on the particular evil implied. The whole focus is on the fact that destruction will come, but the virtuous Lot and those he loves are given a path to follow to avoid the destruction.

Lot’s daughters seem to be affected by the sexual decadence of the times in their own plot to sleep with their father. The older daughter gives birth to Moah, the younger one to Ben-ammi (the Ammonites). The note suggests it is a gibe at Israel’s enemies to link them in this way with such conduct.

Gen. 20 - A doublet of 12:10, but involving not the king of Egypt but the King of Gerar, a kingdom south of Gaza, Abimelech. Abimelech has a dream from God revealing the truth of what Abraham is doing and he confronts Abraham. The idea of God’s prophets being favored and being people who can intercede with God for us is reinforced here (20:7). Abraham learns that there is fear and respect for God outside his own people, so at Abraham’s intercession, God does lift the sanction he had imposed on them for their inadvertent violation of his will.

October 2nd Bible Study

There were just three of us at this morning's meeting, and we had no key to the Meeting House Center, so we had to sit out in the glorious sunshine God blessed us with. We read through Genesis 12 through 16 and had a wonderful discussion. First here is the narrative in brief form:

Gen. 12 - God addresses Abram and tells him to leave Haran, the home of his father’s clan, to go to “a land that I will show you” (12:1). And then come the great promises – God promises to make of him a great nation, and God tells him He will make Abram’s name great and him a blessing to “all the communities of the earth” (12:2-3). Abram is 75 when they leave.

When they get to Shechem, the Lord appears to Abram and tells him that this is the land he is promising him. Abram builds an altar there and invokes the Lord’s name. Then we are told that they go into Egypt to escape famine. Abram worries about Sarai’s beauty being a source of conflict, so they agree to say she is his sister. The Pharaoh indeed does send for her, and we are not told what transpires there, if anything did. But Abram benefits from the Pharaoh’s favoritism; the Lord, however, is very displeased and strikes Egypt with severe plagues. There are a number of “foreshadowing details” here in this story that will be repeated at several points in the later narrative—a move to Egypt forced by famine, a position of honor accorded the wandering man of God from Canaan; God’s infliction of a series of plagues; and sending of God’s favored one away from Pharaoh’s kingdom to bring peace back to the kingdom. Even the wealth Abram obtains there (see 12:16), he gets to take with them. Surely this is a “type” of the later exodus.

Abraham is the first of the three key players in the redemption story—he will be followed by Moses and Jesus—who will in a sense “come up out of Egypt” to begin their ministries. The story of his sojourn in Egypt (one of a triplet of like stories in the Old Testament) establishes his prosperity, even if it comes as a result of deceit, and Sarah’s value and importance. Like his people he comes out of Egypt loaded with goods, so much he must separate from Lot (13:5-11).

Abram is told from the beginning that he is only the first of many, that through him a faithful people will be formed, and that this people will have an impact far beyond the borders of the nation they will form—that blessing will come through him and his seed to all mankind. There will be much hardship along the way—exile, slavery and oppression and who knows what else in the distant, distant, future that will come before “all the nations of the earth” will “bless themselves by his descendants.
The process begins with Abram hearing God’s voice and obeying it.

Gen. 13 - In response to God’s call, Abram goes to the Negeb and on to Bethel, to the place where he builds an altar. Abram and his extended family have so much property that he suggests to his nephew Lot that he go off and find himself a separate place to settle. Lot chooses the Jordan plain. Abram stays in Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain, near Sodom. The first thing we hear about Sodom is that in inhabitants were very wicked (13:13). The chapter ends with the Lord recapitulating the promises he made to Abram: “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that is one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you” (13:14-17).

Gen. 14 - There is a war in the region between the two main alliances of kings. When Lot gets taken by the winning alliance, Abram goes and with 318 of his retainers, he recaptures Lot and his possessions and brings them back. When he returns, not only does the king of Sodom greet him, but a King by the name of Melchizedek, King of Salem (Jerusalem), greets him as well. Melchizedek is a priest of “the Most High God,” (our God, the God of Abram) and he gives Abram offerings of bread and wine (14:18-20). In turn Abram givens him a tenth of all he has.

Gen. 15 – God’s word comes to him again and takes him out to see the stars of the sky. And God promises in words similar to those later given to Moses—“I am YHWH who brought you out of [Ur] to give you this land.. .” (15:7) and I will make [your] Abram’s descendants as many as the stars. That Abram has faith (or trusts) in God’s promises is “credited . . .to him as an act of righteousness” (15:6). Then God repeats the covenant, and solemnizes the occasion by having Abram offer a heifer, a she-goat, a ram (all age 3), a turtle dove and a pigeon. Each of the first three is split in two and Abram guards them all day. In the evening, Abraham falls into a trance and “a deep, terrifying darkness envelope[s] him” (15:12). God reveals to Abram that his descendants shall suffer a period of slavery before God delivers them. When it is dark, a “smoking brazier and a flaming torch” pass between the severed pieces of animal and the covenant is concluded with respect to the lands God intends to confer on Abram’s line.

Gen. 16 - Discouraged that NO CHILD has come from all the promises thus far, Sarai, discouraged with her own infertility and not quite as ready as Abram is simply to trust in the word of God they have received becomes impatient and comes up with her own plan to make the promise of God come to pass. She offers Abram her maidservant Hagar with the idea that perhaps any children that result might be considered hers. Hagar is an Egyptian woman. She does become pregnant, but the success of Sarai’s scheme only creates problems. Hagar now thinks she is better than Sarai. Sarai is jealous and blames Abram for her problems. Abram allows Sarai to decide what shall happen with Hagar (16:6) and the child, and Sarai has no pity now. She “abuses” Hagar so much that she finally runs away. The tragedy of human machinations here will require deep and on-going redemptive intervention by God—an intervention that is not yet at an end in our day.

The Lord’s messenger finds Hagar by a spring in the wilderness and asks her where she is going. Then he advises Hagar to return and submit to the mistreatment, and in return she will be given a promise parallel to the one given to Abram. She is the first woman with whom a covenant is contracted with the Lord. Soon after her return, Ishmael is born. Abram is 86.

We found the story is interesting for many reasons. First there is the great patience Abram shows in his faith. He is not young when God makes all these promises to him. And yet he does not complain or ever become impatient with his God. And we talked about the fact that no land in the promised region comes into Abram's hands at all. WE, living in the 21st century can see that the faith he shows in his God will eventually draw the interest of many nations and many people; but the patience and faithfulness of Abram must have had more subtle and interior rewards.

Then there are the interesting consequences of Sarai's IMPATIENCE. She apparently simply cannot believe that God will be able to bring forth an heir for Abram from her aging body. So she must say to herself something like, "How is this promise to be realized?" Certainly God doesn’t expect them just to sit around and wait for a miracle. “God helps those who help themselves—right?” We reason like this all the time. And what we learn from this story is that God, while clearly not behind this “solution,” will eventually accept it and redeem it. There will be many times in this story that a similar thing will happen. God will promise something. We will become impatient or get some inspiration of our own how we can “make” God’s promise happen and we will get it wrong—we will grasp a way he is not behind—and he will make it work in spite of us. It will happen with Ishmael’s birth; it will happen again with the institution of the monarchy in Israel; and perhaps it happens all the time. Perhaps every redemptive “effort” that man has made will ultimately be transformed by God into real redemption by God’s deep and unrelenting love and redemptive work in us, in our lives and in our history.

The appearance of Melchizedek, "Priest of the Most High God" drew interest among us as well. He shows that while God clearly had a process being started with the Hebrew descendants of Abram, He was also part of the worship of other people. The model of Melchizedek will inspire early Jewish converts of Christ, who see that God can act outside the tradition, he can raise up priests who are not of the family of Aaron. Perhaps this gave them the freedom to lay down other aspects of the Mosaic law that were impediments to gentile converts. The balance this Abram story shows between strict terms of faith and what seems a fair amount of latitude God permits us in the exercise of our freedom and our inevitable impatience and imperfection was also something we talked about.

We will begin before Meeting on October 23, or as our forebearers would have said - First Day of 23rd day, Tenth Month, 2011 (10 o'clock). We will start at Genesis 17. If you can read on, great. Or will will read together. Hope you can make it.

Genesis 12 through 15 - Abraham

The following questions are the ones that come to my mind when I think of the Abraham stories that are contained in chapters 12 through 25. If you see other questions that should be address, please feel free to add them in comments.

Genesis 12 [Beginning of Abraham story – through 25] • What importance do you see in the story of Abraham’s journey to Egypt?
• Quakers saw Abraham as the first of three key players in the redemption story [to be followed by Moses and Jesus]. Why do you think they saw him as so important?

Genesis 13 • Who is Melchizedek and what is his importance?

Genesis 14 • What is God’s promise or covenant with Abraham? What is the irony in this promise to this point?

Genesis 16 • What do you think of Sarai’s role here, and what are the consequences of it? • What is God’s response to Sarai’s plan for making the original promise to Abram come true? • How does God deal with Hagar?

Genesis 17 • What is different in this telling of the covenant promised by God with the ones in chapters 12 and 15? • What is the significance of the circumcision of Abraham and Ishmael?

Genesis 18 • What is the nature of this visitation by the three strangers? Why does the story make it so confusing who is speaking to Abraham? • Why does Sarah laugh when she hears what they promise? • What is the importance of Abraham’s intercession for some of those who live in Sodom? Compare him a little here with Noah. • Would you describe the God of this narrative as “omniscient” or “omnipotent”?

Genesis 19 • The story in this chapter is often cited as one of those passages that prove God condemns homosexuality, and is the foundation of the term “sodomy” – what are your thoughts?

Genesis 20 • This chapter is a “doublet” or repetition of what happens in chapter 12, but it involves the King of Gerar [south of Gaza] and not the king of Egypt. What are your thoughts on what these stories teach?

Genesis 21 • The name Isaac means “God smiled” – why do you think he was named this? • There are some repetitions in this chapter as well – can you identify some inconsistencies with earlier parts of the narrative?

Genesis 22 • Moriah is said to be where the city of Jerusalem would later be built. What is the significance of this fact and of the story generally? o How could Abraham reconcile this demand from God with the promise God has made on several occasions? • The language in the story – where Abraham tells Isaac that “God himself will provide the lamb. . .” was seen by Christians as prophetic. What are your thoughts?

Genesis 23 • What is the importance of Abraham’s insistence that he pay for the burial site for Sarah?

Genesis 24 • How does Abraham find a wife for Isaac?

Genesis 25 • Well over 120, Abraham marries again, but where is he buried when he dies? • How many children does Ishmael have? • What aspects of the story about Rebecca do you find interesting and important?