Bible Review, Spring 1986
Features
The Jacob cycle, heart of the patriarchal narratives, has moved, intrigued and inspired generations throughout the millennia. The characters are as real as we ourselves—and as elusive. Seen through different prisms, they continually reveal new facets. In this issue we examine these stories and the people in them from different perspectives: Jacob, as the […]
The biblical story of Jacob is artistically an exquisite creation, psychologically an intriguing portrait, and religiously an interpretive treasurehouse—but it has always been a problem. Even Sunday school children ask why the hero Jacob, the great patriarch, withholds food from his own brother Esau to get his brother’s birthright and then lies to his […]
At the beginning of the story of Jacob and Esau, the Bible tells us that Esau was a hunter, a man of the outdoors; Jacob, by contrast, was an ’ îš tām (Genesis 25:27), (pronounced ish tam). If we were to render this expression in accordance with the Bible’s usual meaning of tām (’ […]
Published 30 years ago, the following analysis of Joseph’s character has become a classic among a small group of cognoscenti. The author, Maurice Samuel, was a Jewish literary critic and novelist whose work appeared in Saturday Review of Literature and other journals. He died in 1972. According to Samuel, Joseph was a failure—the Messiah […]
Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in to her.”
If I had a little sister, Rachel with sparkling eyes, wooed for seven years and loved by him,
When one thinks of the narratives of Genesis 12–50, one thinks of the patriarchs, of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, and of their special role as bearers of God’s promise to the chosen people. But what of the matriarchs—Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah—what place do they have in these dramatic sagas of Israel’s […]