Day 2, Genesis 16- 26

Day two of reading takes us deeper into Genesis, and man, things are really getting saucy. If you thought yesterday's reading was scandalous, nothing can adequately prepare you for today. The raunchiness of these accounts are enough to make anyone consider the conversion to Christianity or Judaism!

 I will attempt to provide a brief summary of the reading, interlaced with my observations. At the end of yesterday's section, Abram makes a covenant with God and is promised to have many prosperous descendants. However, ten years go by without any realization of this promise and so Sarai asks Abram to procreate with one of his slaves, a woman named Hagar -- this is apparently the standard tract for a man to take when his wife is barren, during biblical times. At 86 years of age, Abram sires his first son, Ishmael.

But these happy times do not last! At least not for Hagar. In the very next chapter Abram forges another covenant with God. It's actually basically the same as the first covenant, except that in this instance God gives Abram and Sarai new names -- Abraham and Sarah -- and makes a more explicit promise about this supposed multitude of offspring that is coming their way, guaranteeing that within a year Sarah will bear a child, and instructing her to name him Isaac. Sarah is completely incredulous about this because she is nearing 100 years in age. Apparently age is a big stinking deal now, even though every other biblical figure thus far has been able to give birth at 800 or older! By all prior accounts, Sarah seems pretty spry to me. She is also still hot shit, a phenomenon we will address later, in chapter 20.

Also of interest in the new covenant is the ritual of circumcision. God requests that all of Abraham's future offspring be circumcised at 8 days of age, and there is a big hooplah where everyone in the house undergoes the ritual. Abraham and Ishmael, who are 99 years old and 13 years old respectively, are circumcised on the same day! How cute.

At this point the narrative makes a shift, and our focus turns from Abraham's attempts at babymaking to a situation that has arisen in two nearby cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. Apparently they are rife with sin and decadence, and God wants to destroy them. Abraham bargains with him, and they come up with an agreement that if ten righteous people can be found in the city, God will spare it. This is significant because -- according to the footnotes in my bible -- it marks a shift in religious development. Previously it was believed that a few "wicked" people would invariably corrupt any good people they encountered, but here the reverse is applied and the ten "innocents" would be able to save the city from destruction.

Alas, these ten good people cannot be found. It seems the only righteous man in Sodom is Lot, Abraham's nephew. Two angels arrive, presumably to search the city for any "innocents" , and in a typical display of biblical friendliness Lot invites them inside for dinner. Almost immediately the house is surrounded by men, "both young and old" (Gen 19:4), who raucously appeal to him: "Where are they men who came to you tonight? Bring them out so that we may have intercourse with them." (Gen 19:5). Lot is a good man, however, and instead offers up his two virginal daughters to the hordes outside. They are unimpressed.

Because he is so darn friendly to his guests, and protects them from being gang-raped, the two angels allow Lot and his family to escape from the town before its destruction. He flees with his two daughters and wife into the hills, but his wife looks back at the burning city -- although she is vaguely instructed not to -- and is
transformed into a pillar of salt. This is a lasting image from the bible, and one that has always struck me as eerie and intriguing.

After Lot's wife's transformation into salthood, things get really fucked up. Lot and his daughters hide in a cave, where they -- get this!!! -- take it in turns to dine and date him. I am not joking. Here is the passage where the elder daughter relates her Freudian plan to her sister: "Come now, let us ply our father with wine and then lie with him and in this way preserve the family through our father" (Gen 19:32). Both bear children by their father, who grow up to lead enemy tribes of Israel, the Moabites and the Ammonites. I guess this is God's way of telling children not to seduce their parents.

Wow! This is quite the saga! We still have six chapters to cover! I will forge on bravely. I hope you are not growing bored.

Our story returns to Abraham and Sarah, who have moved to a place called Gerar. Again Abraham pulls what I will henceforth refer to as the "sister card." He has not learned that it's an asshole move. In spite of being nearly a century old, Sarah is still hot stuff, and the king of the region, Abimelech, is tricked into sin by Abraham's stupid lie. When confronted, he reveals that Sarah actually is his half sister, she just happens to be his wife too. God forgives Abimelech of his transgression presumably because at this point, it could happen to anyone.

In chapter 21, Isaac is finally born, and Sarah reveals herself to be as much of an asshole as her liar of a husband. Jealous of Ishmael and Hagar, and not at all keen to share her son's inheritance with Abraham's slave offspring, she demands that her husband set them both free. In spite of the fact that Ishmael was previously noted to be at least thirteen years of age, he reverts to baby form and is taken by his mother to wander around in the desert. At a certain point the pair seem doomed to die, but God intervenes and guarantees Hagar that Ishmael will grow up to be a great man and father princes and so on and so forth. He grows up in the wilderness, becomes an archer, and marries and Egyptian woman.

The next few chapters follow Isaac's progress. When the boy is older, Abraham is famously tested by God -- he is asked to sacrifice his son at the top of a mountain. Like any good, God-fearing man, Abraham obeys and is rewarded for his loyalty when God interjects at the last moment, sparing Isaac. The following chapters detail Isaac's courtship (I guess you could call it that) of Rebecca, which interested me less than these previous chapters because they lacked the scandalous sex I have since grown accustomed to. One item of note: when Abraham sends a servant to find a wife for his son, the servant "put[s] his hand under his master Abraham's thigh and [swears] that oath" (Gen 24:9). According to the footnotes, the "thigh" is a euphemism for testicles! This was standard in the day!

Isaac marries a nice young Jewish girl named Rebecca, and they have twin sons named Esau and Jacob. Esau is a studly, hairy kind of guy, favored by his father, and Jacob is a quieter, smarter fellow favored by his mother. Although Esau is technically the older one, he trades his birthright for a bowl of soup. What can we say? I guess he likes soup. I like soup a lot too.

The happy family settles in Gerar, where they are once again aliens. Do I even need to tell you what Isaac tells everyone about Rebecca? Why don't you guess?

HE SAYS SHE'S HIS SISTER!

Like father, like son.

The Philistine king eventually catches on and asks Isaac what's up. "Why have you treated us like this? One of the people might easily have lain with your wife, and then you would have made us incur guilt" (Gen 26:9-10). In other words, "GET OUT OF MY COUNTRY, ASSHOLE FREAK!"

Tomorrow will take us all the way to chapter 36 of Genesis. Get excited... I know I am! Feel free to leave me comments as well, they are always delightful.