First Glance

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Innocent or guilty? What verdict does modern Bible scholarship pronounce on Jacob, who tricked his older brother Esau out of an inheritance? Was Jacob guilty? Or was the blame his mother Rebekah’s? In the cycle of deceptions that follows Jacob’s in the Bible—entwining Laban, Jacob, Rachel and more—where does the lying end?

In this issue of Bible Review, marking our first anniversary, we present the perspectives of five outstanding authors on narratives in the Jacob cycle, Genesis 25–50.

Richard Elliott Friedman, associate professor of Bible and comparative literature at the University of California at San Diego, opens the discussion with “Deception for Deception.” With a little humor (“Go try and raise a family,” Friedman sighs) and a great mastery of literary detail, he shows that every act of deception is recompensed later in the story—until Joseph breaks the chain by not repaying his brothers for the harm they had done him in his youth.

Author of The Exile and Biblical Narrative, Friedman was visiting scholar at Oxford University in England last fall.

Jacob, vividly portrayed by Friedman as an artful deceiver, is for Carl Evans, morally upright. In “The Patriarch Jacob—An Innocent Man,” Evans looks at the narrative from Jacob’s perspective and points a finger at Esau for his cavalier attitude toward his birthright and at Rebekah for her insistence that Jacob play his part in a scene that she directs.

An ordained elder of the United Methodist Church, Evans served as a pastor in his home state of Kansas for several years before joining academia. Now associate professor of religious studies at the University of South Carolina, Evans has published widely in scholarly journals and is an active worker in Christian and Jewish interfaith organizations.

“The Mothers of Israel,” by J. Cheryl Exum, confirms Evans’s interpretation of Rebekah’s dominance of the Genesis 27 drama. In this narrative of Rebekah, Jacob and Esau, as in other episodes involving Sarah, Rachel and Leah, women play pivotal roles, says Exum: they assure that the “right” son continues to fulfill the covenant between God and Israel.

Exum’s busy schedule includes teaching Old Testament at Boston College, editing the Catholic Biblical Quarterly and serving on the translation committee for updating the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

“Jacob Takes His Bride,” an excerpt from Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers, evokes Jacob’s anticipation of his wedding night, and his anguish the next morning, with a sensitivity and power unequaled in literature.

But there are always many sides to one story, as the poem, “Leah,” poignantly reminds us. Poet Eva Avi-Yonah is the widow of one of Israel’s greatest archaeologists and historical geographers, Michael Avi-Yonah.

Maurice Samuel’s view of Joseph disagrees with Mann’s and with Friedman’s. Joseph is no forgiving hero, says Samuel, responding to Joseph and His Brothers. In an adaptation from Certain People of the Book, “Joseph—The Brilliant Failure,” Joseph is shown to be a charismatic manipulator who exacts payment from his brothers in psychological torment—he jails them, forces them to abandon Simeon, to take Benjamin from their father, and finally sets them up as thieves.

A brilliant author and orator, the late Maurice Samuel wrote Harvest in the Desert and The World of Shalom Aleichem, among many works of fiction and nonfiction.

A new feature appears in this issue, Books for Bible Study. Prepared by two scholars, David Noel Freedman and George Howard, the list includes suggested reading for both new students and the more advanced.

Our popular Bible Quiz, lets you test your biblical knowledge against that of the young winner of Israel’s annual Bible contest.

Innocent or guilty? What verdict does modern Bible scholarship pronounce on Jacob, who tricked his older brother Esau out of an inheritance? Was Jacob guilty? Or was the blame his mother Rebekah’s? In the cycle of deceptions that follows Jacob’s in the Bible—entwining Laban, Jacob, Rachel and more—where does the lying end?