Sarah dissembled

"Because she was afraid, Sarah dissembled, saying, 'I didn't laugh.'" --Gen. 18:15

Old Testament
Book 1: Genesis
Chapter 17: Abram and Sarai change their names (and circumcise the family)
Chapter 18: Abraham argues with God
Chapter 19: Lot and his daughters
Chapter 20: Abraham again gives away his wife

Wow, I just discovered the most important word I'll ever know. Gen. 18:15. One of the themes of the bible, and one of the themes of my life, and one of the themes of humanity is that no one can take responsibility for their actions or their feelings. People constantly lie about their feelings and motives, in small ways and large. Everything from "I don't care where we eat" or "I'm not mad" to blaming other people for anger or resentment. It is the thing that makes it so hard for us to get along with each other. It's been going on at least since the beginning of time, when Adam and Eve denied responsibility for eating from the apple. (I must say, that for all of God's faults, that is one thing that he has not done so far, is lie about his feelings.) So anyway, here God shows up at Abraham's tent as three men (God was showing up in human form all the time already in the old testament--it's really not a big deal when he came down as Jesus.) One of the men tells Abraham that Sarah will have a baby by next year. She's listening behind the tent, and laughs when she hears it. God asked Abraham, why did Sarah laugh? I can do anything--I'm God.

Here's the word, and this is the truest thing that the bible has said to this point: "Because she was afraid, Sarah dissembled, saying 'I didn't laugh.' But God said, 'yes you did.'"

I have never heard that word before. It means: "to conceal one's true feelings, motives, or beliefs." There it is! I'm so excited to finally have a shorthand to point out when someone does this. I always say "you're lying." I know that is too strong. I know they aren't doing it to deceive, they are doing it, just as Sarah does here, to protect themselves. Of course to accuse someone of lying always puts them even more on the defensive--my relationships often devolve quickly--and the conversation turns into the argument of whether they are "lying" rather than why they are hiding their feelings. Anger at being falsely accused is always easier to defend against than talking about your real feelings, and I hand it to them on a plate. Not that my accusation is wrong, but it's not the best way to say it. I've struggled for years to find a way to try to get people to be more honest with their feelings without making them more defensive. I think I have finally found it: the word "dissemble." I am not joking when I say I will be using that word 20 times a day for the rest of my life.

This passage is also surprisingly insightful, isn't it? In just a few words there, "Because she was afraid, she dissembled," it captured the point of an entire lifetime of writings by Freud. I'm very impressed. If the rest of the bible turns out to be as sensitive to human behavior as this passage is, I will be impressed indeed.

I've been listening to Bjork a lot lately. Her song "Human Behavior" talks about the same thing. Here it is on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOepheinkCM. She says, "there's definitely definitely definitely no logic to human behavior. They're terribly terribly terribly moody, then all of a sudden turn happy." But Bjork is wrong about this; it is logical. That is the thing we must always keep in mind, no matter how infuriatingly a person behaves, how random and irrational it seems on the surface, it is not illogical--they have a reason, it is just not the reason they are presenting to you. They can't present it to you, because that reason is exactly the thing they are trying to hide.

Unfortunately this chapter is also the beginning of one of the best stories in the whole bible, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. I will have to save them for another time, but not too long, because I love this story.

--bibletoenail

Future topics:
Abraham's argument with God --Gen. ch. 18
My fundraising drive
Lot giving his virgin daughters to the mob --Gen. ch. 19
Again Abraham gives his wife away to other men to have sex with --Gen. ch. 20
Mens rea--Abimalech didn't know Sarah was married, and God takes credit --Gen. ch. 20



Textual notes:
- Gen. 17:4 --God makes another unenforceable covenant. Maybe that's what Christians and Jews alike get wrong in their belief. These covenants are not enforceable because they are empty promises. No one ever bothered to actually sue God about his breach of promise, so it's just gone unnoticed until this very second.

- Gen. 17:5 --This was always one of my favorite moments in the bible when I was young. God randomly changes Abram's name to Abraham. There's no explanation for it. I have found out since then that the names in the bible have meaning, so the change from Abram to Abraham means something (in fact, there's a foot note about it here that we'll get to).

- Gen. 17:10 --Whoops, I was wrong, this covenant is a contract. You cut off the end of your penises, and I will give you Canaan.

- Gen. 17:15 --He also changes Sarai's name to Sarah. Ah, Sarah.

- Gen. 17:17 --Abraham laughs at God when he tells him he will have a baby. He is 99 years old, and Sarah is 90. "Isaac" means something like, "he laughed."

- Gen. 17:25 --Ah! Ishmael was 13 when he was circumcised. I wonder if there is a connection there with Bar Mitzvahs being when a boy turns 13? But boys are supposed to be 8 days old when they are circumcised.

- Gen. 17:5 n. 2 --"Abram" and "Abraham" both mean "the father is exalted." "Sarai" and "Sarah" both mean "princess."

- Gen. 18:20 n. 6 --This is interesting. In this story, the reason for God destroying Sodom and Gomorrah is that the men in the cities would prefer to have sex with God than with Lot's hot teenage daughter. (By the way, another thing just occurred to me. The conventional wisdom regarding this story is that it deals with homosexuality because the men of the cities wanted to have sex with the visitors. But as we just discovered, they are not men. They are God and his messengers. God should be flattered, and can he really blame the men of S & G, dressing the way he does? It's almost like he's asking for it.)

Anyway, in other places in the bible the destruction of S & G are attributed to other problems. In Isa. 1:9-10, 3:9, it was lack of social justice. In Ezk. 16:46-51 it was a disregard for the poor, and in Jer. 23:14, it was general immorality.

- Gen. 19:8 --It seems like this would be a good way to keep your daughters in line if you have them. You know how parents say things like behave or the bogeyman will get you, or whatever? This seems like an effective threat: "Behave, or I'll throw you outside to get gang-raped by all the men of the city like Lot did!"

- Gen. 19:13 --"For the outcry reaching the Lord against those in the city is so great." I'm not sure I understand this. According to the story, everyone in the city is evil. So who is there to complain about it? It does say the outcry is against those in the city, so it must be outsiders, visitors with sore bottoms who are complaining? This passage seems to imply two things. One, God is nothing like omniscient--he only realizes something bad is going on when someone complains to him about it. Which leads to two, we can do anything we want as long as we keep it from him. We can have a whole city full of the most lascivious, sinful behavior imaginable. As long as we act respectable when someone comes to visit, no one will know! Are you listening, San Francisco? Just don't wear your ass-less chaps in the tourist areas, and we'll be fine! San Francisco needs gates like Sodom had, so we could just shut out all the outsiders when we wanted to.

- Gen. 19:14: --This story is so great. Step by step it is being set up for the climax. The sons-in-law don't believe Lot, and stay behind. Mom gets turned into a pillar of salt. Well, daughters, it's just you and me.

- Gen. 19:20 --I really like how these people are constantly arguing with God. That's something fundamentalist Christians wouldn't abide at all. (I'll try to talk later about Nietzsche's "Anti-Christ.")
- Gen. 19:30-38 --If God really did write this book, he is more perverted than even I have ever been. This story is so fantastically perverted. It never ends! The older daughter is so proud of herself she names the baby "from my father"! And what about the enormous left turn the story made! It started with the men of Sodom wanting to have sex with God, and ended with Lot having sex with his daughters.

Quotables:
"Bring them out to us that we may have intimacies with them." --Gen. 19:5
"I have two daughters who have never had intercourse with men. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please." --Gen. 19:8
"[Lot] lived with his two daughters in a cave." --Gen. 19:30
"Come, let us ply our father with wine and then lie with him, that we may have offspring by our father." --Gen. 19:32
"Last night it was I who lay with my father. Tonight you [sister] go in and lie with him, that we may both have offspring by our father." --Gen. 19:34
"Thus both of Lot's daughters became pregnant by their father." --Gen. 19:36
"The older [daughter] gave birth to a son whom she named Moab, saying, 'From my father.'" --Gen. 19:37
"The younger [dauther] gave birth to a son, and she named him Ammon, saying, "The son of my kin." --Gen. 19:38
"For God had tightly closed every womb." --Gen. 20:18