Abraham & Yahweh

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This article will offend some readers. It will jar many more. Why then are we publishing it? Because it makes us think. If we reject the author’s textual analysis, we should know why. In this way, it has the capacity to take us to a deeper level of meaning—our own meaning.

The author has a doctorate from Oxford, he is an established biblical scholar, and the article began as a well-received paper at a conference of biblical scholars. It is nothing if not provocative. Our aim is not to shield our readers, but to present them with a variety of scholarly approaches to the Bible, even those they may disagree with. The author’s interpretation may be rejected by our readers, but it is based on a careful, insightful reading of the text.

Besides, some readers may even find it convincing—not necessarily as the only way to understand the biblical narrative, but as another way to interpret it. One of the beauties of the Bible is that it can be interpreted in many ways, ways that are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

In this spirit we offer this article to our readers. We have no doubt, however, that this is only the beginning of the discussion, not the end. Indeed, in the next issue, we will publish another article on the Abraham cycle by a Baptist minister who looks at the same events from a very different perspective.—Ed.

For centuries Abraham has been regarded as a paradigm of how a good Jew or Christian should behave—although moving house all the time (Genesis 12:4, 10; 13:1, 18; 20:1; etc.), pimping off your wife (Genesis 12:10–16) and agreeing to slaughter your child (Genesis 22) are not usually highlighted as examples to be followed. Could 025Abraham be a hero of the “Christian coalition”? Alas, family values are not his strong point. But he does make a lot of money, and he has a private army. And he certainly believes in sacrifice—so long as it’s an animal or someone else being sacrificed.

As this suggests, my reading of the story of Abraham is somewhat different from the conventionally pious reading. What we have in Genesis 11–25, I believe, is a story of male bonding, the story of a relationship between two males, Abraham and his God Yahweh (we’ll call them Abraham^a and Yahweh,^b although they both change their names during the story), who, from beginning to end, try to bluff each other. Neither is entirely successful; each is too clever to be taken in by the other; but they both keep trying anyway, because that is the way males behave.

This kind of male bonding has become a cliché to anyone who regularly goes to the movies. Honesty and belief are feigned on both sides, obedience and agreement are often overtly expressed, but in fact the relationship is based on wary mistrust, reinforced by a certain liking and mutual respect and cemented by a series of implicit bargains and compromises.

As we shall see, the story of Abraham is a delightful anatomy of a certain kind of male twosome, two macho characters who come together for their own purposes and go along with each other because of mutual interest, a liking for each other’s bluffing and a certain sneaky regard for each other’s deviousness. (If I were casting the leads, I would go for Michael Douglas as Yahweh and Kurt Russell as Abraham.)

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Most readers of the Bible understand the story of Abraham to start at the beginning of chapter 12 with the summons from Yahweh—the so-called “call” of Abraham: “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you’” (Genesis 12:1). But the story really begins in chapter 11, which deals with the Tower of Babel as an explanation of why humans were scattered across the face of the earth. Toward the end of chapter 11, we learn that Abraham was apparently born in Ur of a father named Terah. Ur is not explicitly identified here as Abraham’s birthplace, but later (Genesis 15:7) Yahweh says he called Abraham from Ur, so he must have been born there. (Actually, Yahweh didn’t call him out of Ur, but let’s pass on that for the moment.) By the time of the “call” (in chapter 12), Terah has already moved with his family to Haran. This move (described in chapter 11) is apparently part of Yahweh’s strategy of scattering people across the face of the earth instead of concentrating them in lower Mesopotamia.¹ But Yahweh’s later statement that he called Abraham from Ur is really Yahweh ‘fessing up that the move from Ur to Haran was part of his overall strategy. We are also told that when Terah left Ur with his family, he was heading for the land of Canaan. So the stop in Haran is a change of plan. This change is not Yahweh’s doing, but Terah’s.

At this point, with Terah and his family in Haran, Yahweh gives up on Terah; the paterfamilias is too old to move again. Terah named the city where he stopped Haran—after his dead son^c (Genesis 11:28), Abraham’s brother—so indicating that he is full of sentiment for his current abode. Yahweh simply decides to skip a generation (just as he will do with the “wilderness generation” [Numbers 14:26–31] and with Moses, leaving him on Mt. Nebo without taking him to the Promised Land [Numbers 27:13–15]; apparently this is a habit with this God): Instead of proceeding with Terah, Yahweh approaches Terah’s sprightly 75-year-old son Abraham to attend to the unfinished business.

But Yahweh doesn’t say, “It’s time to finish off the journey you were supposed to make.” He says instead, “Leave your country, relations and household, to go to somewhere I’ll show you” (Genesis 12:1). Yahweh doesn’t even tell Abraham where he is supposed to go. Tantalizingly, he just calls it a place that “I will show you.”

This directive is backed up with an inducement: If you do this, I’ll make you, literally, a household name, and you will be the ancestor of a great nation (Genesis 12:2). A promise is what theologians call this, but let’s call it an inducement. It’s a bit short on detail for a promise.

Saying nothing, Abraham simply gets up “to go to the land of Canaan” (Genesis 12:5). So Abraham knows what this unnamed land is and which way to walk. He doesn’t ask the way because he knows perfectly well, but he doesn’t let on to Yahweh that he knows. He goes along for his own reasons. Why, after all, live in your father’s city, which is named after your elder brother, when you can have your own place and your own tribe named after you? Abraham appears simply to obey, but this is far from true. Don’t forget, he takes with him not only his wife but also his nephew Lot (Haran’s son). And he takes them despite having been told to leave his relatives behind (Genesis 12:1). (We worry about whether Sarah counts as a relative; this might depend on whether we really believe she was Abraham’s sister, as he later claims.)

For Yahweh’s part, so far he has only offered to show Abraham this land. Perhaps he intends to suggest more (will he give it to him?), perhaps not. In any event, Yahweh’s offer turns out to be just the beginning of a protracted period of bargaining of the kind familiar to anyone who has tried to purchase a carpet in Jerusalem’s Old City. Indeed, Yahweh’s offer soon begins to look suspicious, for no sooner does Abraham reach Canaan than we learn that “the Canaanites are in the land” (Genesis 12:6). Well, you might say, who else would be in the land of Canaan but the Canaanites? Ah, but these distant lands were supposed to be unoccupied, like Haran was before Terah got there. These crafty Canaanites must have started, like everyone else, from the plain of Shinar after the Tower of Babel incident. But they must have overtaken Terah and his family when they holed up in Haran. If this is the land Abraham is supposed to live in, he seems to be too late.

After reaching Canaan and finding it already occupied, perhaps Abraham asks himself whether he should turn back. At least it is logical to suppose that Yahweh thinks this is what Abraham might be thinking. Yahweh needs to say something quickly to keep Abraham on the hook: So Yahweh now undertakes not simply to “show” Abraham the land (Genesis 12:1)027 but to “give” the land to his descendants (Genesis 12:7). Not to Abraham, mind you, and certainly not to the Canaanites, but to Abraham’s descendants! Pretty clever of Yahweh: He doesn’t give the land to the people who happen to be around. Better not to involve anyone who is there at the time.

It’s not difficult to imagine what Abraham must be wondering at this point: How and why did Yahweh let these Canaanites, my new neighbors, get the land? Did he promise it to them as well? Do they know it won’t be theirs for long?

And another thing: Yahweh had told Abraham at the time of the call that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through Abraham (Genesis 12:3). It no doubt occurred to Abraham, when he arrived in Canaan and found the Canaanites there, to ask himself: “How are these nations going to be blessed through me, as Yahweh said they would? By losing their land to my descendants? Surely that is not going to count.”

Abraham’s response to Yahweh’s new offer is rather minimal. He doesn’t say “Oh Lord, you shouldn’t! I don’t deserve this! Just what I always wanted” or even “How much land exactly will my descendants get?” He doesn’t even ask where all of this leaves him. What is he supposed to do while waiting for his descendants to be given this unspecified amount of land at an unspecified time and by unspecified means?

You would expect Abraham, if he thinks Yahweh is serious, simply to settle down where he is and begin to produce some descendants who will take over the place. But no. Instead, Abraham builds an altar, presumably offers a sacrifice and promptly moves on to Bethel, where he builds another altar, presumably makes another sacrifice and then moves further south (Genesis 12:7–9).

Some animals mark their territory by dropping feces or urine; maybe patriarchs did it by building altars. But Abraham does not circumscribe a territory. Instead, he moves in a straight line to Egypt, out of the land he has just been promised, or nearly promised, in Genesis 12:10. Why? Because this promised land now has no food. Famines are, in the biblical worldview, caused by gods, so we must wonder why Yahweh brings a famine that forces his protégé out of the land. Maybe so Yahweh can reassure himself that he is in control of Abraham, appearing to dictate what the patriarch-to-be decides of his own accord to do anyway. (This is a ploy Yahweh resorts to several times with Abraham.) So Abraham enters Egypt.

But before crossing the border, he asks his wife (who we are told is very good looking) to pose as his sister so he won’t be killed (Genesis 12:11–13). Some commentators, anxious to defend everything Abraham does, suggest that he did not anticipate the outcome of this ruse. That is nonsense. Abraham’s life is in danger, he says, because his wife is so desirable he might be killed for her. It follows that her masquerading as an available woman will inevitably lead to the consequences that do in fact ensue. Abraham can see perfectly well what is going to happen, and for the first time he openly instigates a chain of events entirely for his personal benefit. He shows no interest in either offspring or land. He has left the land and now disposes of his wife. It is true that she is barren (Genesis 11:30), but Abraham does nothing to find another woman by whom to beget offspring.

Soon enough we find out what Abraham does 028want, and it isn’t anything he was promised. He wants to be rich. Business beats blessings any day.

Pharaoh takes Abraham’s wife “into his house”—a nice euphemism—thinking that she is Abraham’s sister—and Pharaoh treats Abraham quite nicely, thank you, “for her sake” (Genesis 12:15–16). As the patron of his “sister,” Abraham receives the bride-price in return for her: “For her sake he dealt well with Abraham” says the story, giving him herds of animals and servants.

Understandably, Abraham likes this particular deception so much that he tries it again on another occasion (in chapter 20, he passes his wife off as his sister to Abimelech, king of Gerar—and it works again; Abraham gets sheep, oxen, servants and a thousand pieces of silver). He even passes the idea on to his son Isaac (who passes off his wife Rebecca as his sister to the same king [Genesis 26:7]).

Abraham is beginning to look like an unscrupulous entrepreneur, a get-rich-quick merchant, to whom long-term land possession and descendants are unimportant. No matter what Yahweh wants for him, he, Abraham, continues to pursue his own goals. The Egyptian episode shows that Abraham’s and Yahweh’s interests are not commensurate. This will be a key thread of the story: In effect, the rest of the story shows how each of them does his own thing, although they stick together for their mutual benefit.

Abraham, after all, seems happy with the arrangement. And maybe Sarah is too. Exchanging a wandering, selfish and uncaring husband for an appreciative and very rich sugar-pharaoh is not a bad deal. Pharaoh, too, seems happy with the new addition to his harem. He certainly pays Abraham plenty for it.

So who isn’t happy? Well, Yahweh isn’t. He believes he is writing the script, not Abraham. So he intervenes to restore his plot. Not, as pious readers suppose, to save anyone or anything. From what or whom is anyone to be saved? For Sarah’s virtue, it’s too late, even if she wanted it to be saved. Abraham can only be saved from the terrible fate of getting richer every day without having to work. Yahweh can only save his own face. He wants Abraham to be in the land of Canaan thinking about descendants.

How can Yahweh get Abraham back there? He can’t bribe or otherwise persuade Abraham to leave Egypt. And he can’t fool him into it either. So he brings about Abraham’s departure by other means. It’s the old plague routine, which Yahweh seems to favor for changing the minds of pharaohs. Yahweh brings a plague on Pharaoh and his house (Genesis 12:17). Pharaoh knows that Abraham is the cause, so he sends Sarah, Abraham “and all that he had” away (Genesis 12:17–20). Abraham and Sarah are thus banished from Egypt.

What’s the score at this point? Yahweh wants Abraham in the land of Canaan, but Abraham wants to be rich. A compromise is reached: Abraham will be rich in Canaan—“Abram went up out of Egypt…and Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold” (Genesis 13:1–2). Our two males are now ready for the next round.

Another conflict arises almost immediately. Everything Abraham does suggests that he is very fond of his nephew Lot, from bringing him from Haran (contrary to divine instructions [Genesis 12:1]) to bringing him to Egypt and back. Abraham’s general attitude makes the most sense if he believes Lot is his heir.² In any event, Abraham soon realizes that he and Lot have become so rich (Genesis 13:2, 5) that the land is too small to support both of them (Genesis 13:6). And there is another factor to consider. The other inhabitants of the land are also growing: The place now has not only Canaanites but “Canaanites and Perizzites” (Genesis 13:7). Abraham proposes that he and Lot split the land, allowing Lot the choice of portion. Lot chooses the better half, including, however, a place with wicked people—“great sinners against Yahweh” (Genesis 13:13). Wait a minute: Are these inhabitants supposed to know Yahweh? Their wickedness, however, is Yahweh’s pretext for disliking Lot. There is a hint of Lot’s exclusion from Yahweh’s plans in the statement that “Abraham dwelt in the land of Canaan” (Genesis 13:12), which implies that Lot did not live there.

As long as Lot is around, Abraham does not worry about the promise of descendants. This obviously weakens Yahweh’s bargaining position, so Yahweh must deprive Abraham of Lot. Accordingly, he undertakes a series of maneuvers intended to do just that. First, the land Lot chooses is blitzed (Genesis 14:11), and Lot himself is kidnapped (Genesis 14:12). When God destroys Sodom, Lot narrowly escapes with his life, but he loses his wife. (Well, he loses a wife and gains a pillar of salt, but that’s not a great deal.) Lot ends up living in a cave with his two daughters, all he has left (Genesis 19:30). It is hard not to see Yahweh behind this chain of misfortunes. But Yahweh’s aims are frustrated, foiled by members of Lot’s family: Abraham rescues Lot; and Lot’s daughters rescue his posterity.

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Still, Yahweh makes it clear to Abraham that he will give him, Abraham, and his descendants the land as far as he can see (Genesis 13:15). Not Lot or his descendants. This is actually the first time Abraham himself has been promised the land. The attentive reader must observe that each divine promise differs from the previous one: If you’re a deity you are only as good as your last promise. But that hardly explains why virtually every chapter opens with another promise, or a new version of the previous one. Yahweh must be a compulsive promise-maker, a neurotic covenant-maker. Making offers, finding out what motivates people, is part of his personality. In fact, that is actually his main tactic for controlling humans. Some people (ancient and modern) are fooled into believing he has kept his promises, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

But this constant promising has little effect with Abraham. Abraham was not born yesterday. He is told to wander through the length and breadth of the land now promised to him personally. So how does he react? Not unreasonably, he is unimpressed. The non-Abrahamic population is growing, and since Lot’s departure Abraham has no descendants living in the land. In any case, he has been promised land only “as far as he can see” (Genesis 13:15). This is not really very much land for a man with immense flocks and herds and silver. You can’t actually see all that far from Bethel. And so, when Yahweh invites him to take a tour of the most recently promised territory (Genesis 13:17), he declines and moves instead from Bethel to Hebron, some 30 miles south, which you certainly can’t see from Bethel (Genesis 13:18). He builds an altar there (of course) and decides to stay put. We observe again that Abraham is a man following his own agenda, and all of his sacrifices cannot disguise his basic disregard for Yahweh’s plans.

Yahweh must realize by this time what a difficult partner he has in Abraham. Not only was his ploy to remove Lot foiled, but Abraham also ended up with even greater wealth. Abraham not only rescued Lot from the aggressors, but he also brought back all the loot that they had taken from Sodom and Gomorrah; indeed, this is mentioned before Lot is brought back: And Abraham “brought 031back all the goods, and also brought back his kinsman Lot” (Genesis 14:16). Abraham gives his ally Melchizedek, the king of Salem, a tenth of the goods, even though Melchizedek says he should keep them. Abraham does not need the spoils of his allies; he takes only what his own men acquired. Here is a seriously rich man who does not need the small change offered to him by Melchizedek. Abraham’s generosity is the generosity of the extremely affluent. And he made it himself—he’s a self-made rich man.

Yahweh needs to reassert divine control somehow over the triumphant Abraham. And so, after Abraham has easily defeated four foreign kings with his own private A-team (Genesis 14) and made it clear how filthy rich he is, Yahweh comes with the promise, “Don’t be afraid, Abraham, I’m your shield and you will have a big reward” (Genesis 15:1). A bit tame, isn’t it?

For the first time, Abraham actually bothers to answer back. He asserts the obvious—that he doesn’t have a son (Genesis 15:2). This comment, though, is not a disguised plea: Abraham is in the driver’s seat at this point, so he can afford a rebuke, to the effect of “Let’s cut the crap; you and I know that these promises of yours are not really serious, just part of the game.” He even adds to the insult by telling Yahweh he has already decided who his heir will be—one of his own servants—Eliezer, the steward of his house (Genesis 15:2).

Up to this point, there has been no overt confrontation, no defiance. But this provocative response, this outburst of temper is unwise, because it will destroy the relationship unless it is immediately resolved. Gods can’t allow humans to say publicly that they don’t take them seriously. In the thought world of the Bible, gods need humans, but humans need gods too. So both sides must cool it, or the plot can’t move on and there will be no Israel and no Bible and no Western culture.

Yahweh makes the first move by saying that Abraham will have a son, that his seed will be as numerous as the stars (Genesis 15:4–5). Abraham needs to make a gesture, too—and he does just that: “Abraham believed this, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6). (In a modern movie of the story, Abraham would probably say something like, “OK, I believe you. I’m sorry,” and Yahweh would say, “Fine, forget it, you’re a decent guy.” The two males would then embrace.)

But it doesn’t quite work out as neatly as that, because Yahweh goes over the top: He tells Abraham that he had called him from Ur to “give” him the land (Genesis 15:7). Abraham is a bit offended: Yahweh hadn’t said anything of the kind in Haran (although, as we saw, Abraham knew the score). Yahweh had said only that he would “show” him the land (Genesis 12:1). Abraham remembers quite well what was said and that he was not originally promised the land. So Abraham is again reminded that he is dealing with a duplicitous deity who lied to him then and is lying to him now about the past. Having “believed” in Yahweh for about one verse (Genesis 15:6), Abraham now remembers whom he is really dealing with and demands a bit of proof. “How am I to know…?” he asks (Genesis 15:8).

The struggle for the upper hand is still on. Will Abraham get his proof? Certainly not! Yahweh cannot afford to lose face as well as credibility. So he reasserts his superiority by demonstrating his divine rank, impressing Abraham with a few special effects: Birds of prey come down but Abraham scares them off; at sunset he falls asleep and a great darkness descends upon him; Abraham hears that, after all, the promises of the land will not come to his immediate descendants, but four generations later, after some unpleasant adventures (Genesis 15:11–13). After a few more effects—a smoking pan and a flaming torch—Abraham hears that his descendants will be given a huge amount of land, from the Euphrates to the Egyptian border (Genesis 15:18).

This seems like the right kind of psychological pressure: Scare him a bit, put off the promise, tell him everything will be more difficult, but finally make the prize a bit bigger. But in spelling this out, Yahweh lets slip that the original single Canaanite nation (which later became two—Canaanites and Perizzites) has now become ten (Genesis 15:19–21)! Their iniquities may be piling up, but their immigration rate is too. This may be part of Yahweh’s plan, of course. He is a deity, after all; he has a lot of other things on his plate. He has other people to deal with besides Abraham.

But what Yahweh has really done, from Abraham’s point of view, is to confirm that even solemn and oft-repeated divine promises won’t necessarily be kept. There are conditions, involving other deals with other nations and specified but undisclosed amounts of iniquity. It seems that this is the reward for daring to ask a deity for proof.

We, the readers, know, as Abraham only suspects, that even these promises are false: The promised extent of the land is never given to his descendants. Indeed, no land at all is occupied within the promised timeframe.

“How shall I know?” Abraham had asked. All he got were vultures, darkness and a slightly more detailed promise. Nevertheless, the relationship has been restored rather than destroyed. The underlying negotiating positions are clear once again: Yahweh says, “Trust me,” and Abraham says nothing (but possibly smiles). Each partner knows the other is holding something back. What keeps them together is nothing more than male bonding, the realization that they prefer to have each other than not. There is no deceit involved, either, because there is no trust to betray. There is only 032enjoyment of the game of wills and wits, and recognition of a worthy antagonist on each side.

So the game goes on. The subject now is posterity—descendants. For posterity is a prerequisite for fulfillment of the promise of the land.

Abraham was promised a son but so far he has done nothing about it, even though he knows his wife Sarah is barren. Sarah herself suggests the obvious solution—she can have a surrogate child (Genesis 16:2). Abraham goes along with this, but as soon as Sarah’s maidservant Hagar conceives, she starts putting on airs, and Sarah wants Hagar out of the house, child and all (Genesis 16:6). Sarah deals harshly with Hagar until she finally flees (Genesis 16:6). (At the risk of offending feminists here, I must say that Sarah’s petulant and inconsistent behavior almost justifies the male bonding. Women are no better than men—and here the victim of the woman is another woman!)

Why does Abraham, who happily handed Sarah over to Pharaoh, give in to her now and allow the pregnant Hagar to flee? (Or, why did Sarah, who seems quite capable of asserting herself at this point, give in to Abraham in Egypt when he turned her over to Pharaoh to enter his harem?) Obviously, having a son is not as important to Abraham as domestic harmony. That is why he gives in to her. The future “father of many nations” is actually a reluctant parent. (He’s a much better uncle, really.)

In fact, he needs practice at fathering, so Yahweh sends Hagar back to Abraham’s house to deliver her son (Genesis 16:9). And Abraham responds to the demands of fatherhood, which, Yahweh hopes, will make him more amenable to having another son, the one Yahweh wants him to have. Once Abraham has passed through all the stages of parenthood and his son is at least 13, it will be time for Yahweh to tell Abraham and Sarah about their own son.

We can pass briefly through Genesis 17, noting only that Yahweh comes back with another speech, about a covenant and lots of descendants, but this time only promising them “all the land of Canaan” (Genesis 17:8), rather less than the previous offer. No wonder Abraham falls on his face (and laughs) when he hears it (Genesis 17:17). He is waiting to hear two consecutive identical promises, and he is probably trying to conceal his laughter. Sarah laughs too when she is told she will bear a son (Genesis 18:13): She doesn’t take Yahweh any more seriously than her husband. Or maybe she finds the idea silly. Has it occurred to anyone that at 90 years of age Sarah might not want to give birth? Perhaps that is why, once she realizes that Yahweh is serious, she becomes “afraid” (Genesis 18:15).

Now that we understand the dynamics of the Yahweh-Abraham relationship, we should have no problem understanding the famous negotiation in Genesis 18. Yahweh informs Abraham of his intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham takes a very bold initiative indeed (Genesis 18:23ff.). He starts out with 50: What if there are 50 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah? he asks Yahweh. Will you destroy the righteous along with the wicked? Yahweh relents. Then Abraham progressively reduces the figure. 45? 40? 30? On down to 10. In each case Yahweh relents.

Most commentators tease from this dialogue a lesson about God’s justice and mercy. But they don’t read the whole story. The bargaining is not about justice or mercy. It is just another bout of male bargaining. Yahweh wants to destroy Sodom, he says, because the inhabitants are wicked. But why tell Abraham? And why should Abraham care? Yahweh has decided to destroy Sodom anyway (Genesis 19:12–13), and he has no intention of being talked out of this plan. But there is a reason he enjoys telling Abraham in advance: Lot, Abraham’s nephew, is in Sodom. Naturally, in the bargaining, neither Abraham nor Yahweh mentions Lot; but they both know exactly what is going on. Now that Ishmael is back in the picture and the plan for Isaac is underway, Lot has become redundant, even to Abraham. But Abraham is fond of Lot and wants to save him. Yahweh knows this and wants Abraham to wriggle. The two enjoy their little game for a while, and in the end they reach an agreement: Lot escapes and Yahweh destroys Sodom. Both are happy with this outcome.

Philosophical issues like the destruction of the righteous are, of course, a smoke screen, a technique of oblique negotiation. In case we can’t see the obvious, the storyteller, who is not averse to giving us occasional clues, tells us that God saved Lot for Abraham’s sake (Genesis 19:29), not because of any righteous people. Even so, Yahweh can’t resist another go at Lot. Killing him would have alienated Abraham, but he goes as far as he can and gets rid of Mrs. Lot, which should take care of any chance for male offspring (although, as the story goes on to tell us, Lot’s daughters manage to find a way round that!).

In chapter 20, Abraham tries his “sister” trick again, this time giving Sarah to Abimelech of Gerar. He knows Yahweh doesn’t like this trick, but he’s teasing him, waiting to see how Yahweh will react. But Yahweh, not about to lose face again, intervenes to prevent anything from happening. Abimelech can’t get an erection, nor can anyone else in his family (Genesis 20:6, 18). So he won’t have to give Abraham the satisfaction of witnessing his disapproval, Yahweh makes poor, innocent Abimelech into the villain, accusing him of sinning (Genesis 20:3)! Yahweh refers (surely tongue in cheek) to the wily Abraham as a prophet who prays for Abimelech (Genesis 20:7).

This is a different game of wits, and it’s Abraham’s 033move. When Abimelech confronts him, he decides to feign innocence: “Trick?” he says, “What trick? I was only worried about Sarah, and she is my sister anyway” (Genesis 20:11–13)! And, so, this time a third party, Abimelech, becomes the victim of point-scoring between these magnificent BS’ers—another stock episode in stories of male bonding.

Once Abraham has his promised son, however, it’s time for the showpiece of the entire story, the final game between the two buddies. Again, an innocent third party—this time, Isaac—is the victim. The “binding of Isaac” (Genesis 22), as is often observed, is told in a matter-of-fact way, with little apparent emotion. Yahweh simply tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. The rest of the story is told in like manner. The pathos, literary critics unanimously tell us, is all in the reticence, the foregrounding. But this story ought to be read not on its own, but in the context of the Abraham-Yahweh relationship. Abraham has reacted passively to nearly every divine scheme, often showing little interest. But recently he has become more assertive, even obnoxious: He rescued Lot, asked for proof of a promise, bargained over Sodom, and provoked Yahweh by passing off Sarah as his sister again. And Yahweh struck back. But now it’s time for a real lesson; Yahweh wants to force Abraham to admit that he cares for his son Isaac and for Yahweh’s promises of offspring. He wants Abraham to plead, or even to disobey, so that he can forgive him, play the deity and 044finally assert the authority of the divine over the human.

But Yahweh loses this bout because Abraham has a trump card: Isaac is more important to Yahweh than he is to Abraham. We realize this when Yahweh sends Abraham to “one of the hills I will tell you” (Genesis 22:2) (echoing Yahweh’s call to Abraham to go to a land that he would be shown [Genesis 12:1]). There Abraham is to sacrifice Isaac, “the son whom you love” (Genesis 22:2). Note that Yahweh asserts Abraham’s love for Isaac, not Abraham. Abraham, once again, merely complies—without a word of protest. But, as with his initial “call,” Abraham’s behavior does not indicate blind obedience. Although we have been given no reason to think that Abraham is particularly fond of Isaac, Yahweh does not think for a minute that Abraham will obey this crazy command. He expects Abraham to protest his love for Isaac and ask to be let off. Look how Abraham bargained for Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham, for his part, knows Yahweh will not let Isaac die. After all, whose idea was Isaac anyway if not Yahweh’s? Yahweh wouldn’t even let Ishmael die in the womb; he ordered the pregnant Hagar to return to Abraham’s house after Sarah had treated her harshly and she had fled.

So Abraham forces Yahweh to the brink and makes him intervene. When Isaac asks, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham replies, “God will provide for himself the lamb for the offering, my son” (Genesis 22:7–8). There is no irony here—or rather there is a double irony. Abraham says what he knows to be true; Yahweh will not let it happen. Perhaps, too, he knows Yahweh is listening, and he is teasing Yahweh. That would add to the fun and to the score.

Everyone knows that Yahweh relents in the end, although most people don’t appreciate that Abraham faces him down. Yahweh stays Abraham’s hand as he raises the knife (Genesis 22:10–12). Later Jewish embellishment of this story was quite right to redirect the focus of attention to Isaac. He alone did behave well. Just like Abimelech, he, the one decent person in the game, suffers as the result of two males playing poker with each other.

So Yahweh backs down; Abraham has successfully called his bluff and won the contest. What can Yahweh do now? Deities aren’t supposed to lose. He can only save face by playing his favorite card: “Because you have done this, you will indeed have what I promised anyway” (Genesis 22:15–19)). Pretending that this was a test Abraham had to pass in order for the promise to be fulfilled, and that what was already promised is now a reward, is about the best Yahweh can do to relieve the situation. True, Yahweh has managed to persuade theological commentators that he really won, but victory over such a weak audience is no compensation for defeat by a real man like Abraham, who emerges from my reading much better than from the usual one: Abraham knew that he wouldn’t have to kill Isaac and that Yahweh was only bluffing.

The story is nearly over. The storyteller can’t help telling us how many children Abraham’s brother had (Genesis 22:20–24). What good is it to Abraham to know that while his one son is not being sacrificed after all, Nahor is busy siring eight sons? The very next event, in chapter 23, is the death of Sarah and her burial in her own special cave. Maybe prompted by her death, Abraham at last begins to take care of his second son: We have a long account of the search for a wife for Isaac.

Then Abraham proceeds to sire six more sons by another wife, Keturah (Genesis 25:1–2). But he sends all of them away and bequeaths everything to Isaac. Is this a final gesture of submission, acceding to the divine wish that only Isaac is to inherit? Has the old schemer at last given in? He is, after all, very old, very blessed, very rich and perhaps very tired. The only thing left for him is to die.

I hate to think of the story ending this way, mostly because of my sympathy for this Abraham character. But on reflection it does seem right that at the end of his life, Abraham voluntarily does what Yahweh wants. He has no more points to make. He realizes, 045perhaps, that he has no land except the land he bought with his own money and that he is not going to get any, promises or no. But then, he had never taken these promises for anything more than what they were, cards in a game. As in all good male-bonding stories, the partners grow old (unless one of them is a deity) and make peace. The children will have to negotiate with this same deity, and the father hopes they will have as much success as he; there is no need to stack the deck against them. It’s a satisfying ending—the human voluntarily quits while he is ahead, when there is nothing more to be won. He realizes that although he will die, his deity will not.

I find this story of male bonding convincing, clever and entertaining. But can I draw a serious moral from it, a moral comparable to the great moral “truths” found by the writers of numerous commentaries and tracts?

Why should I? A story doesn’t have to have a moral. But here is one, anyway. It’s a moral for people who think Yahweh might be real rather than a character in some ancient writings and who reckon they too have to deal with him: Learn from this story; learn from your predecessor. Don’t trust this God. He doesn’t trust you and won’t tell you the truth. He is in the business of making promises that are never fulfilled. Abraham did not achieve the ambition imposed on him—to populate the world and receive his own allotment of land. But he knew that; he recognized that the promises were a kind of running gag, no more. Deities, like politicians, try to keep us dangling in the hope of things to come, promises renewed, altered, repeated, revoked, supplied with new conditions. Be wise, like Abraham. Take everything this (or any) deity says with a pillar of salt. Your weak card is your belief and trust in him. If you really believe in what he says, you will lose. But if you call his bluff, pretend to go along with him while keeping your own counsel and taking whatever he decides to give you, you will prosper. If he wants to bless you, do not object, but let it not deter you from your own course or seduce you into groveling gratitude. Don’t be like some of Abraham’s descendants, physical and spiritual, who still believe in Abraham’s God and who still look forward to his promises being fulfilled. One of them is born every minute.

24 This article will offend some readers. It will jar many more. Why then are we publishing it? Because it makes us think. If we reject the author’s textual analysis, we should know why. In this way, it has the capacity to take us to a deeper level of meaning—our own meaning. The author has a doctorate from Oxford, he is an established biblical scholar, and the article began as a well-received paper at a conference of biblical scholars. It is nothing if not provocative. Our aim is not to shield our readers, but to present them with a […]