The Bible TI251 Fall 2020

I have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the different perspectives and views on creation in class. Being raised going to church, I always just accepted the Adam and Eve creation story in the Bible and never really wondered how other groups of people might view creation. Out of curiosity, I looked into some of the other ways people think the world was created, and while a majority of the creation stories involve some sort of supreme being beyond worldly comprehension, there are some discrepancies. One example of this are the “diver-myths,” a belief that the earth was once covered with water and then brought to the surface. It was so interesting to me how many different perspectives there actually are, and we probably don’t even know about all of the possibilities.

I do still believe the Genesis story, however, this class has caused my to expand my view. We discuss this often in class, that the Bible should not always be taken literally, and almost everything is up to interpretation. Whether a man was actually created from next to nothing and a woman was made with the sole rib bone of a man or not, we all have the freedom to question and believe what we want from these stories.

Reading the story of Abraham, Genesis 12-23, was very interesting to me. I have never read it before, and taking a look at it for the first time kind of shocked me with the amount of themes of rape, abuse, and slavery. The story of Hagar was obviously painful, with her having child of Abraham because of Sarah’s inability to have children, and the disrespect she incurred because of it. While in class we mainly touched on this particular story, and also the flood stories, there were some other parts of the reading that I was confused about.

Genesis 19 tells the story of Lot and two angels that came into the city. Lot has them to eat with him and stay the night at his house. Then later in the night, a group of men come and demand that Lot releases the two angels to them so they can have sex with them. Then Lot is basically like, no, take my virgin daughters instead. The angels strike all the men with blindness and then destroy the city. This part was very uncomfortable for me, especially because Lot was so willing to let his daughters be raped. I was wondering if the group of men were punished because of homosexuality, or because of their desire to rape. Or maybe both? Which is worse in God’s eyes? This was definitely the second most uncomfortable part of Genesis 12-23, with the first being Lot’s daughters getting him drunk and sleeping with him to become pregnant. Anyways, I’m curious how we will see these disturbing themes in other stories in the Bible.

Today in class we had talked about a wide variety of things. These being rape, abuse, slavery, infertility and the relations with the  stories of Abraham, and conception of time.  In class we had talked about the stories of Abraham. The one we spend the most time on was Genesis 11 the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar. This story covers the rape, abuse, infertility, and slavery aspect we spent the majority of class on.  The briefest of summaries is, Abraham’s wife Sarah was infernal, so she made her slave Sarah conceive a baby with Abraham. This caused many things to occur. Because of these circumstances Hagar and Sarah were constantly angry with one another. However she had only begun to hate Sarah only once she was pregnant with Abrahams baby. As we discussed this may have allowed Hagar to feel more entitled as she was now baring Sarah’s husbands child. This is very similar to the show the Handmaids Tale which we had also talked talked about in class. However until now I had not realized or put all the dots together. In this case I have begun to see that the story of Abraham is what the entire show is essentially based upon and grown off of with a futuristic twist.  Seeing this really made me appreciate the writers more and I can only image the amount of people who do not realize the correlation like I had previously.

I found the discussion of Hagar to be a lot less uncomfortable than I expected. Of course, the idea of being enslaved, raped, and cast out into the wilderness is scarring, to say the least, but the other parts of this story give Hagar’s life a more positive meaning than those who mistreated her. Even though her baby’s conception was likely traumatic for her, she did mother a central figure of three religions. She is credited with being a powerful mother, one who finally got to form an identity besides being Sarah’s slave. Her life wasn’t perfect or even bearable at times, but she is a very important part of the rest of history, and in a spiritual sense, faith in the way we see it today. Without her role in the Bible, whether a fable or extension of true fact, the Ishmaelites and the subsequent commentary about them wouldn’t exist in the same way. 

Some other interesting ideas presented in the discussion made me think about gender in the early days of the Bible. Hagar was obviously treated with disrespect, including abuse and rape that men would have been protected from in the Hebrew texts, but the fact that Sarah owned her made me think. It is Sarah, not Abraham, that owns her. This is different from the patriarchal perspective I expected the early families to have. Women still faced many obstacles in Genesis and subsequent books, but this was an intriguing anomaly to me. 

Overall, the Hagar, Abraham, and Sarah story raises important dichotomies between religions, societal expectations, and how God uses his Chosen People. 

Growing up, the Bible’s creation story is the only one I read. It wasn’t until this class that I really explored more than just Genesis. And turns out, in a sense, I wasn’t really missing much–Mesopotamia has plenty of similar stories. This was such an interesting realization to me, considering that I hadn’t thought much about other stories or how geography affected them. Sometimes I forget that the Bible was likely told orally until written down, and that they developed and travelled around just like the epic poetry and legends of Old English. 

During our discussion, I have been really indecisive in how I view the Genesis story. It’s extremely unlikely that the author(s) were there, so there’s no way of really knowing what happened. Considering that this was probably an epic or mythologically-influenced story makes me think–what is considered true? A beautiful story about light emerging from darkness and man being formed from dust is not without value, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be an exact recounting of events in order to be meaningful. Even if it is some outlandish legend passed down, it’s still tradition and it’s still inspiring. 

One thing has become increasingly clear as I’ve grown up: no one is telling the full truth. In fact, there’s rarely a complete, agreed-upon truth in any situation. Everyone is biased by the things that they’ve experienced, their own motivations, or what they think their audience wants to hear. This is what Bible translations have turned into in my head. Everyone has different experiences or research that would cause them to translate the Bible a certain way, and they often feel strongly enough to spark another denomination. As someone who always went to “nondenominational” church (it was likely watered-down Baptist), this is really my first experience with any Bible that isn’t ESV or NIV. Who knew that slight word changes could alter how we view an entire book? 

I am enjoying reading my academic NRSV bible and my NIV side by side, using whatever context clues I can to make sense of the giant book in front of me. Commentary has been extremely helpful for me, both in an academic and personal sense. So many people have tried to make sense of this work, finding value in it from all kinds of directions. To me, this adds to the overall meaning of the book in my life and in a literature sense.

Class on Tuesday begun by discussing the flood story. When you take a closer look at the flood story, you notice and question things that you don’t when you first read it. It is interesting that God doesn’t punish human beings by sending them to Hell. I feel like that is the common conception; that if you are bad, God punishes you by sending you to Hell and not allowing you to enter Heaven. Instead, he just released the floodwaters and thought they deserved to die. Hayes also mentioned in her lecture that God is not threatened by these floodwaters at all, but actually ends up being surprised/terrified of them.

Next, we discussed the story of Hagar the slave. I found it interesting that Hagar despises Sarai, but it seems as though she only starts despising Sarai once she gets pregnant. I obviously understand despising her because she is forcing her to have sex and get pregnant with her husband. However, to me, I would despise the woman from the beginning, not only until I get pregnant. Dr. McGrath made a good point that Hagar could now be jealous of Sarai since Abram is her husband. Hagar could be having feelings for Abram and want him to herself. Also, why does Sarai care that Hagar despises her? Hagar is just her slave that she forced to have sex with her husband and carry her baby. Lastly, I find it interesting that this story touches on the struggles of infertility. I feel as though infertility is actually a common struggle experienced by a multitude of people, but it is something that is not talked about much.

In the 18th chapter of Genesis, Abraham is met by three angels, the day after the institution of circumcision as an observance of the law of the covenant made with God. According to St. Ambrose of Milan, since Abraham was uncircumcised when he was called by God and on the day he  passed away, this establishes him as the “Progenitor” of all believers and not explicitly the father of the Jews. With this, God appears to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre as three men, a premonition to the Trinity, and yet in the form of those with faces like us. Knowing this, Abraham falls before them calling them “O Lord,” signifying the unity of three persons in one, singular essence. Abraham quickly makes three loaves for the angels before they make their way towards Sodom and Gomorrah.

In Gen. 18:2, Origen makes the juxtaposition of how Abraham has three men stand “before him” whereas Lot only receives two men which sit “in the street.” Origen then claims that this is a fair and just dispensation for Abraham as the Progenitor. Abraham’s hospitality acts as a symbolic representation of his understanding of the dispensation and his pious obedience to God. In the 7th pericope, Abraham fashions a calf for the three men to eat. Once finished, the Lord asks where Sarah is to bestow upon her the news that upon their return, her son will be born. Sarah asks “Am I, who am old, to bear a child?,” and denies this as a true sign from God given to her specifically. Sarah’s laughter expresses her doubt in this sign because she was afraid, this doesn’t rid herself of the sin of cowardice however when explained by Ephrem of Syria.

For this topic, I have been aware of the indifference that some men in the Bible have shown to women and how women were not really viewed as people at this time. Or how important it was to produce offspring at this time. It was just the culture that was prevalent. When Abraham was told by God that he was to be the father of many nations, he was shocked and wanted to take matters into his own hands because, at the time, Sarah and Abraham were not reproducing. It came to the point where Sarah believed that Hagar would be better suited to reproduce and fulfill the blessing that God had brought on Abraham. However, Hagar, the slave, was not consulted on this or asked her opinion about how she felt. This is an example of how the culture shaped their opinion. First, there is a part of slavery, they had people to do their work for them without pay. Then it is how they treat the slaves, basically like they aren’t even people, telling them what to do, and the slave has to follow no matter how they feel about the action they were told to do. Between Abraham and Hagar, they were able to bear a son, but soon after Sarah had a son with Abraham too. Now the question was, who is the first son of Abraham?
An interesting aspect of Reimagining Hagar is the visualization of how she looks. We know that she is the slave of Abraham and Sarah, but many people might have visualized her as black, but nowhere in any source of Biblical significance is she physically described as black. Is this a misconception of our culture, or inferred by some aspect of knowledge of slaves at this time?

Something that came up in our class discussion today was the dynamic relationship between Hagar and Sarai, Abraham’s servant (or slave) and his wife. Sarai didn’t give birth to Isaac until Abraham was said to be 100 years old in Genesis 17:17-19: long after Hagar gave birth to Ishmael. Since Hagar had a child long before Sarai, Sarai worried that Hagar would gain favor with Abraham. In Genesis 16-20, we don’t see much evidence that Abraham’s wife was treated any different than his servant, Hagar. Sarai demanded to Abraham that he send Hagar and Ishmael way, to which Abraham only did because the Lord told him to do so. When God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, Abraham plans to do so, but we have no account of him speaking or telling Sarai about this encounter with God, implying that her two-cents is of now concern on major issues. The role of women in the Genesis stories seems to be of little concern for people like Abraham. I wonder if the treatment women will be consistent in the rest of the Bible as it is in Genesis.