The Bible in the News: Twins
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These days, so the statisticians inform us, one in thirty births (or 3.3 percent) results in twins. It is likely that in Biblical times the birth of twins (to say nothing of triplets, etc.) was a rarer event. Therefore, we should probably not be surprised by the relative paucity of references to twins (identical or fraternal) in the Bible.
As I recall, only two sets of twins are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25ff) and Peretz and Zerah (Genesis 38:27–30). Both sets—since they involve brothers—can be called fraternal, although that’s not the way the term is used these days.
For the Biblical authors, as for modern mass culture writers, far more attention is paid to Jacob and Esau than to Peretz and Zerah.
In a first group of references, Jacob and Esau, often in tandem with other sets of siblings (twins or not), are presented as bywords of battling boys. So this London Times review of Scott Turow’s Identical: This book “is a tale of twins … Drawing on Greek mythology (Castor and Pollux) and with shades of scripture (Jacob and Esau), Identical is packed with hairpin turns, a rich array of memorable characters and some nail-biting courtroom moments.”
A correspondent for The Telegraph casts her rhetorical net even wider in search of analogues. “Think,” she writes, “of Romulus and Remus … And then there’s Jacob and Esau, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Ronnie and Reggie Kray … the list of battling twins is endless.” From founders of Rome to British gangsters, from the Bible to Lewis Carroll—this columnist keeps her readers on their literary toes!
After all of this, we are perhaps prepared to see one more appearance of Jacob and Esau as Exhibit A in the context of a New York Times report, titled “When Boomers Inherit, Complications May Follow,” on the estimated $8.4 trillion that members of this age cohort will ultimately receive: “Heirs have been struggling with the impact of inheritance at least since Jacob bought the right to be recognized as firstborn from Esau in the Book of Genesis.”
In another group of popular press accounts, Jacob’s voice is contrasted with Esau’s hands—which is firmly rooted in the Biblical account (see Isaac’s declaration in Genesis 27:22). This contrast is especially popular in African newspapers, such as Lagos’s This Day: A businessman is mentioned, whose “every move … ubiquitous rumour-mongers … scrutinize … and ascribe his every success to the hands of Esau or the voice of Jacob.” Confounding “his vociferous and acerbic critics,” this individual demonstrates that he’s “the modern day King Midas.”
The contrast also resonates beyond Africa—to be specific in Ireland. Here, The Irish Times reports that a political party exhibits “the stale air of amateurism” in opposition to another, “whose bright young men have the rough political voice of Esau and the smooth media-caressing hands of Jacob.” In the ancient world, Jacob’s PR consultants surely out-maneuvered and overwhelmed the comparatively puny efforts made by Esau and his partisans!
I do want to let readers know that my new-found interest in twins, in the modern world as well as in the Bible, is not the result of whim or serendipity. Rather, it springs from the announcement by our older daughter, Gallit, and her husband, Elan, that they will soon be the proud parents of twins—meaning that Ellie and I will be the even prouder (if that’s possible) grandparents of twins.
We don’t know what Abraham and Sarah, to say nothing of Jacob and Leah, thought about their bouncing baby grandsons. For sure, I will not be as reticent with my emotions as they apparently were with theirs! Stay tuned.
These days, so the statisticians inform us, one in thirty births (or 3.3 percent) results in twins. It is likely that in Biblical times the birth of twins (to say nothing of triplets, etc.) was a rarer event. Therefore, we should probably not be surprised by the relative paucity of references to twins (identical or fraternal) in the Bible. As I recall, only two sets of twins are mentioned in the Hebrew Bible: Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25ff) and Peretz and Zerah (Genesis 38:27–30). Both sets—since they involve brothers—can be called fraternal, although that’s not the way the term […]
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