Jots & Tittles

020

Pulling the Goat Hair Over Isaac’s Eyes

The story of Jacob’s deception of Isaac (Genesis 27) is among the most beloved in the Bible. Children enjoy Jacob’s sneakiness; adults appreciate the sensitivity with which the author handles moral ambiguity.

As the episode begins, Isaac, blind and generally decrepit, summons his eldest son, Esau, into his bedchamber. A hunter and a “man’s man,” Esau is his father’s favorite. Isaac dispatches him to catch and prepare tasty game animals, so that the old man may gather strength to bless his heir before giving up the ghost. Esau rushes off—a dutiful, if self-interested, son.

Rebecca, Isaac’s wife, has overheard all this. She wants her own favorite—docile Jacob, who had already obtained his brother’s monetary inheritance in exchange for a bowl of soup (Genesis 25:29–34)—to receive the deathbed blessing as well. “Go to the flock, and fetch me two good kids, that I may prepare from them savory food for your father…and you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.” When Jacob timidly questions whether the old man can be fooled so easily—Isaac’s nonvisual senses remain keen, and Jacob is smooth-skinned, unlike his hairy brother—his mother clothes him in Esau’s garments and covers his neck and arms with goatskins.

Jacob enters and gets Isaac’s attention: “My father.” Isaac responds, “Who are you, my son?” Jacob glibly but pointedly answers, “I am Esau your firstborn…Now sit up and eat of my game, that you may bless me.” When Isaac asks how his son could possibly have returned so quickly, Jacob has an outrageously pious lie in hand: “Because the Lord your God granted me success.” Unconvinced, Isaac gropes and sniffs the youth, marveling, “The voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are Esau’s hands.” Whether he is truly duped we cannot know, but Isaac bestows his blessing upon Jacob, who then absconds just as Esau returns. What ensues is a scene of utmost pathos: “Esau…cried out with an exceedingly great and bitter cry…‘Bless me, even me also, O my father!’” As a consolation, Esau does receive a blessing, but one less opulent than Jacob’s.

My first observation pertains to Isaac’s question, “Who are you, my son?” In context, this seems to mean, “Which son are you?” and so Jacob takes it: “I am Esau your firstborn.” But I am not certain this is the “correct” response to Isaac’s question, even as a lie.

We encounter a comparable scene in Ruth 3. Like the aged Isaac with his son, the aged Naomi sends her daughter-in-law Ruth on a quest—not for food, but for a husband. Ruth creeps into the bed of Boaz, a worthy but dead-drunk relative of her late husband. Upon awakening, he dazedly asks, “Who are you?” and Ruth identifies herself. Boaz promises to marry her if it can be arranged. Upon Ruth’s return, Naomi asks, “Who are you, my daughter?” This cannot be meant literally; Naomi knows very well who Ruth is. The translations usually offer something like “How did you fare, my daughter?” Ruth answers, not by identifying herself, but by reporting the happy outcome of her nocturnal adventure.

Applying this to Genesis 27, we find that Isaac’s question “Who are you, my son?” should mean “How did it go?”—if Isaac assumes he is addressing Esau. Had he been there, Esau would have responded with a report of his hunting. But Jacob, guiltily aware that his father does not realize to whom he is speaking, answers literally and nearly gives himself away. Only after Isaac persists does Jacob describe his happy hunting. But Isaac’s suspicions are aroused, hence the ordeal of touch and scent.

That Isaac must feel and smell his son, despite the testimony of his ears, is natural for a blind man. But there is another aspect that is lost upon the modern urban reader. As I first heard on a National Public Radio story about New Zealand, and as I confirmed with an animal breeder, a ewe will nurse no lamb but her own. In the event a suckling lamb is orphaned, the shepherd will pair it with a ewe whose own lamb has died. But the shepherd must flay the dead lamb and dress the orphaned lamb in the dead lamb’s skin. Only then will the ewe accept the substitute. Rebecca’s inspiration, in short, is a trick well known to livestock breeders.

Raymond E. Brown, 1928–1998

With the untimely death of Raymond E. Brown on August 8, 1998, the international community of biblical scholarship has lost one of its premier exegetes, and the ecumenical and interfaith movements have lost one of their strongest and most sympathetic advocates.

Two factors in particular shaped the style and character of Raymond Brown’s scholarship and vocation: his sense of the Church and his doctoral studies in Semitic languages under William F. Albright. The first gave him direction, purpose, context and focus, as well as an intuitive sense about the things that really mattered. As a result, he was never interested in scholarship simply for the sake of scholarship, but was first and foremost an exegete of and for the Church, broadly and ecumenically understood. Although Father Brown was very much a Roman Catholic, he was never narrowly Catholic, as reflected in his work on the national Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue (1965–1974), his 25 years of service as a member of the World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission, his co-authoring of two pioneering ecumenical studies, Peter in the New Testament (1973) and Mary in the New Testament (1978), and his two decades of teaching at New York’s Union Theological Seminary, where he was the 021first tenured Roman Catholic on the faculty of that Protestant seminary.

The second, his studies in Semitic languages and his time in Jerusalem, allowed Brown to place the New Testament within its broader biblical and Jewish context. As a result, he was always suspicious of all “ahistorical” readings and explanations of the biblical text, a perspective evidenced in his influential two-volume The Death of the Messiah (1994). While recognizing that the Gospels are products of a believing Church, Brown argued that they are nevertheless essentially trustworthy.

In his last major publication, An Introduction to the New Testament (1998), Brown was intent on showing the beginning student where the consensus of New Testament scholarship can be found on any given issue, rejecting as tendentious the many trendy and radical theses that are more calculated to draw media attention than to foster rigorous, exacting historical scholarship. Just as his first major work, The Gospel According to John (1966), was a landmark study, so too is this last magnus opum. From beginning to end, Brown’s work is marked by demanding and painstaking research, and characterized by sensitivity and balance in the discussion of complex themes and issues.

In an age in which the genre of Festschrift has become commonplace, Father Brown consistently refused to allow any attempts to honor him in such a way. Despite this personal modesty and humility, his colleagues in biblical studies and in the humanities honored him in perhaps more significant ways: electing him, at different times, president of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, the Catholic Biblical Association and the Society of Biblical Literature, and granting him membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition, he was awarded some 25 honorary degrees, and the Roman Catholic Church recognized Brown’s interpretative and theological skills with two appointments to the Pontifical Biblical Commission (1972 to 1978 and again from 1996 until his death).

Professor Brown possessed profound ability and enormous range. His books will continue to influence both the academy and the clergy, in whose homilies Ray Brown’s interpretation of the New Testament will surely be heard. What will be sorely missed, however, is the person of Ray—the gifted communicator, the master lecturer, the one who spoke with such remarkable clarity, the one who opened up to so many clergy and laity worldwide the wisdom of the New Testament in a way that was grounded in scholarship and refreshingly insightful yet authentically Christian. For those of us who have been privileged to know him as a friend, his enduring legacy will be his gentleness, his faithfulness, his unusual kindness to all whom he encountered, his refusal to call attention to himself and, above all, a uniqueness of spirit that allowed him to reveal the God of Scripture with an understanding that empowered and enriched the lives of virtually all whom he touched.

Religion Notes from All Over

The Bible is good for the soul—and the heart. A study tracking the health of 2,000 older people in North Carolina found that those who attended a religious service at least once a week and prayed or studied the Bible daily were more likely to have a diastolic blood pressure of less than 90. That is the level at which there is an elevated risk of heart attacks and strokes. The study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, was published in the International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine.

No sooner had we learned of this study than we realized that we would have to add a caveat: Religion might be good for your health in general, but perhaps not in Kentucky. That’s because the Bluegrass State recently passed a law allowing ministers to carry concealed weapons. Proponents said the measure was needed because clergy were increasingly becoming targets of attackers who were after the church offerings. Whether the new law will prove a deterrent to would-be robbers we do not know, but we suspect Kentucky churchgoers will be a little more careful about dozing off during next Sunday’s sermon. Oh, Lord, make my day.

And speaking of snoozing in church: A report by the Uniting Church in Victoria, Australia, found that 26 percent of parishioners thought their clergy was unable “to communicate inspirationally.” “Boring people in God’s name is blasphemy,” said the report’s author, the Reverend John Bodycomb. He added that ministers need to learn from popular after-dinner speakers. “The church today is just one stallholder in a competitive marketplace of ideas,” Bodycomb said.

And we cannot conclude without an obligatory story about the Internet. This month’s cyberspace report focuses on the Vatican’s announcement that all the Pope’s public religious celebrations will be available online via live video. The address is www.vatican.va. Until now, viewers in the United States could see the Pope on television only on Easter and Christmas. “This will give Catholics in the U.S. the opportunity to see the holy father live at least weekly, if not twice a week,” David Early, a spokesman for the U.S. Catholic Conference, told the Associated Press. Earlier this year more than 50 Catholic cardinals and bishops met to discuss the social and moral implications of the Internet. The meeting was spurred by the Pope’s comment earlier this year that church leaders needed to become more knowledgeable about new technologies.

Pulling the Goat Hair Over Isaac’s Eyes