A savory dish of the kind your father likes

Brief rumination* on Adam: The Garden of Eden story still puzzles me. Adam and Eve were naked, and they were innocent. In that state supposedly they were pure, in paradise, devoid of evil. Then they eat from the tree of knowledge, and what happens? They realize they are naked and that it is bad. Which means it always was bad. I just can't grasp the meaning of this story. If I understand it right, the Garden of Eden was a den of unapologetic sin. People walking around naked shamelessly, not caring in the least about the lascivious nature of their behavior. And this is how God liked them. When A&E ate from the apple, they realized what they were doing, and they covered themselves. And God was angry because it ended his free show! I defy you to find another meaning to this story. They were always sinful, the only difference before the apple was they didn't realize they were sinful.

The notes of my NEB say several times that one of the major themes of Genesis is man rebelling against God--trying to exert their free will--Eden, Babel, Sodom. God at all times is the antagonist of the old testament. And that is a fantastically more satisfying rendition of our relationship with God than the Christian one. That is a story that makes sense--it fits with our general understanding of how things and people work. I love the idea that we humans are all in this together, siblings plotting against an overbearing and abusive parent. That is the true love of this world. It is when Christians start saying that we must love God that it all falls apart. This idea that God created us, and is constantly frustrated by us because we keep reaching beyond the bounds of what he intended, that's a cool story! It is kind of brilliant on God's part that the way he finally wins, in the new testament, is not to force us into submission, but to trick us into believing this absurd whiny story about how he sacrificed his only begotten son, and we should feel sorry for him and appreciate what he's gone through. "I worked my fingers to the bone! And this is the thanks I get?": guilt trips have been an effective parenting technique for centuries.

* "rumination" is a great word. "Remunerate" is a word I always have trouble with, so I wanted to be sure I had rumination right. It means literally to "chew the cud." Ruminate is what cows do when they stand their chewing and thinking for hours on end. Cows are a kind of animal called a "ruminant", which is an animal that ruminates. A ruminant is: "an even-toed ungulate mammal that chews the cud regurgitated from its rumen." If that doesn't describe me, I don't know what does! "The ruminants comprise the cattle, sheep, . . . and their relatives." Hey, it's the Christians!

"A savory dish of the kind your father likes." --Gen. 27:9

Old Testament
Book 1: Genesis
Abraham and Isaac** (cont'd)
Chapter 25: Jacob and Esau are born
Chapter 26: Isaac gives his wife to Abimelech

Jacob and Esau
Chapter 27: Jacob and Rebecca trick Isaac
Chapter 28: Jacob's Ladder

** One thing I do like about my NEB is that it has these headings for the sections of each book. I will start adding these; they come from the NEB, not me.

Here begins the next great story in the bible, the story of Jacob and Esau. I must say, first, I have always felt sorry for Isaac. He is the original miracle baby--which is more miraculous, to impregnate a fertile virgin? or to impregnate a 90-year-0ld barren old woman?--and yet he has almost no role in the bible. He is the prototype for Jesus, but his only story is as the original victim of child abuse. (In this way is he not also a prototype for Jesus?) He is only seen as a victim, never given his own voice.

One of my favorite images in the bible is that of two twins fighting in the womb. It happens twice in Genesis, here is the first one. Esau and Jacob struggle in Rebecca's womb. (Interestingly, the NEB spells her name the normal American way. This isn't Devine Respelling like Sarai to Sarah, it's just a change.) God tells Rebecca that her first-born will be servant to her second born. Esau is born red and hairy--I imagine David Caruso would play him in the movie. Then here is a brilliant image: as Esau comes out, Jacob grabs hold of Esau's heel. Even as they were born Jacob was struggling to the last. (It's also interesting to me how explicit the bible is. It would be impossible to make a movie out of this story without showing a close-up of Rebecca's vulva with a baby arm sticking out of it--get that past the MPAA. You know that website that rates Hollywood movies for their heathen content? This is another obvious observation (but one that the believers never seem to grasp!), but they never seem to turn that chaste eye toward their own work, huh?)

Anyway, Jacob must be a son of God, because he's a real a-hole, just like Abraham. Esau comes in from work one day exhausted and asks Jacob for a drink (this is Gen. 25:29-34). Jacob refuses to give him a drink until Esau signs over his birthright to him. Esau is dying, and so agrees. Well, by this time you should be able to figure out all that's wrong with that "contract." It was signed under duress, and so is no contract at all. The writer herself at this point is actually very harsh--she says this story shows how little Esau cared about his birthright! The real point is what a jerk Jacob is, and how so far every step of the way the covenant God made with Abraham has been achieved through cheating, lying, oppression and abuse.

Chapter 27 is the beginning of the really great story between Jacob and Esau, when Rebecca helps Jacob dress like Esau by putting fur on his hands (how great is that?) so Isaac will promise the birthright of the first-born to him instead of Esau. But I'm unfortunately again out of time. I'll put it in Future Topics.

--bibletoenail


Future Topics:
Jacob and Rebecca trick Isaac. Gen. ch.27
Jacob's Ladder. (Jacob's dream.) Gen. ch. 28
Conditional promises: Jacob's vows are brilliant--they too are never enforceable. His are always conditional. If God does this and that, then I will do this. Gen. ch. 28


Textual Notes:
- Gen. 25:6 --Abraham had children with concubines. It's easy for bible apologists to say it was a different time, but this cannot be nearly so easily dismissed as that. The ten commandments say no adultery. Christian fundamentalists say that humanity would have no morality without God, and that the laws of this country are derived from the ten commandments. Whether this is the morality that God created for us, or it existed before God (see my previous posts on Adam and Eve) is unclear, but either way, God has murdered millions of people, committed global genocide in the name of protecting those morals. And yet one of the three or four most important figures in the bible, the father of Israel, hence the father of all Christianity, had concubines, had children with those concubines, married twice, slept with his wife's slave girl. This was the man chosen by God to be the patriarch of the chosen people. How can we explain this? Again, whether God exists or not is an irrelevant question--the bible is so contradictory, and God so untrustworthy and capricious, to follow him if he does exist would be folly. Having "faith in God" has two meanings--it means one, having faith that he exists. Let's grant that. It is impossible for a rational person to have faith in God, faith in his love, faith in his justice, the way, say, you have faith that your mother will always be there for you, or faith that your best friend has your back.

An aside, Angela Carter wrote a book called The Bloody Chamber where she rewrote fairy tales from the point of view of the women involved, taking the stories serious, just how nightmarish some of the things that happened in those stories were. A similar study of the bible would be very interesting. Hagar would be a definite hero (she's Sarah's slave, that gave birth to Ishmael--"where are you going, where have you been").

- Gen. 25:33n --The notes say the point of this story is to explain why the Israelites (Jacob) prospered while the Edomites (Esau) did not. The Edomites were later subdued by David (2 Sam. 8:13-14). The note says they were apparently securely established in their area before Israel.

- Gen. 26:7 --Oh, I was wrong above when I said Isaac had no further stories in the bible. He did have one. Any guess what it was? That's right, he goes with his wife to Abimelech and tells her she's his sister so he can have sex with her without killing him. The patriarchs of the chosen people really had a thing for wife-swapping, didn't they?

But I really like Abimelech in the bible. He didn't fall for it this time either. He is a good person in this story. Again he finds out before anyone actually has sex with her, and reprimands Isaac for it.

- Gen. 26:33 --The bible is full of annoying little details like this that really break the willing suspension of disbelief. Isaac makes a treaty with some guys, then his slaves come and say they found a well. Isaac calls the well "Shibah," which means "Oath." The bible says, "That is why the city is called Beersheba to this day." "Beersheba" means Well of an Oath. That's all fine. The only problem is, in the beginning of this passage, Gen. 26:23, "Isaac went up country from there to Beersheba." The town was already called Beersheba! In a freshman writing workshop, that would be seen as simply sloppy writing or editing. For a book that was written by committee and gone over time and again for decades or centuries, such a mistake is bizarre, unexcusable, and unexplainable. But for God to have written this passage?! Well, come on. How would that even be possible? Is he an idiot? Certainly not omniscient? Or does he in fact exist at all? Which is it?

- Gen. 27: By the way, here's another kind of voidable contract due to defect in the bargaining process. The last one was voidable due to fraud (when Jacob would not give Esau water until he promised his birthright). This time it was fraud. It is interesting, isn't it, that modern common law would not enforce any of these contracts (by modern, I mean in the last couple hundred years), but these ancient traditions would? Our understanding of contract formation seems to be much more sophisticated than that in the bible, doesn't it? Yet the bible is God's law. Is our contract law BETTER than God's? How can that be? If it is not better, then what are we doing? Just so you know, every time you go into court to void a contract because the other party tricked you (say, for instance, false advertising), you are going against God's wishes. Whose law are you going to follow--God's, or ours? Biblical law is the antithesis of modern law, not its foundation.

- Gen 27:40n --During the Solomonic period (1 Kgs. 11:14-25), Edom revolted against Israelite domination. (See the note on Edom and Israel above.)

- Gen. 28:2 --Third generation of inbreeding. Isaac tells Jacob to go marry one of Rebecca's nieces--his first cousin.

- Gen. 28:9 --Not to be outdone, Esau goes to Ishmael and marries Mahalath, Ishmael's daughter. Remember Ishmael is Isaac's brother, so Mahalath, Isaac's niece, is also Esau's first cousin. (And Esau had other wives as well.)


Quotables:
"The first came out red, hairy all over like a hair-cloak." --Gen. 25:25
"His brother [Jacob] was born with his hand grasping Esau's heel." --Gen. 25:26
"Make me a savory dish of the kind I like." --Gen. 27:4
"[Isaac said,] 'Bring me some venison and make it into a savory dish." --Gen. 27:7
"I will make them into a savory dish for your father, of the kind he likes." --Gen. 27:9
"[Rebecca] made them into a savory dish of the kind that his father liked." --Gen. 27:14
"She handed her son the savory dish." --Gen. 27:17
"[Esau] too made a savory dish." --Gen. 27:31
"Ah! The smell of my son!" --Gen. 27:27
"A curse upon those who curse you; a blessing upon those who bless you!" --Gen. 27:29
"By your sword shall you live, and you shall serve your brother; but the time will come when you grow restive and break off his yoke from your neck." --Gen. 27:40