In the Come Follow Me reading for this week there are two parts that stand out because they are kind of strange. Rather than avoid them, I decided to to further research about them and I discovered some great information and insights. Both my insights came from videos by Tim Mackie. The first was his one on the Pentateuch that I watched several weeks ago, and the other from his video about covenants.
Sarai's Sacrifice
The first strange story is the one found in Genesis 12:11-20 when Abram and Sarai were coming to Egypt because there was a famine in Canaan. Abram is worried that, because Sarai is so beautiful, Pharaoh will kill Abram and take Sarai to be his wife. He therefore asks Sarai to tell the Egyptians that she is Abram's sister. She agrees, and is taken by Pharaoh's agents into his harem, in preparation for her becoming Pharaoh's wife. While she is in the harem, Pharaoh's house is hit with a plague, and Pharaoh figures out it is because of Sarai, and that she is really Abram's wife. He returns Sarai to Abram and asks him to leave Egypt, sweetening the deal by letting Abram keep the bride price he had been paid when Sarai was given to Pharaoh. So what is up with this story? A lot of people don't like it because Abram, the archetypal prophet, appears to be willing to sacrifice his wife to protect himself.
To understand this story you have to remember that the Pentateuch was probably assembled and edited during the Babylonian Captivity as a way for the Jews to maintain their cultural identity. While Adam and then Noah are portrayed as the founders of the whole human race, Abram is the founder of the house of Israel. The name, Abram, even means "great father." As the founder, he becomes the example of how faithful members of the House of Israel are supposed to act. Likewise, Sarai, whose name means "my princess" is the archetype of the ideal wife and faithful daughter of Israel. The quality that the stories of these original parents emphasize is their obedience. Abram shows his obedience by leaving his homeland, traveling wherever God leads him, and ultimately being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac just because God asked him to. Sarai also shows amazing acts of obedience. She is, in this story, willing to sacrifice herself and her marriage to Abram to save her husband's life. Later she offers her handmaiden to Abram in order that he might have children, since she was barren. There are similarities between her sacrifice in becoming engaged to Pharaoh, and Abram's sacrifice of Isaac. In both cases they are being asked to do something that is normally considered to be against the commandments--Abraham, infanticide, Sarai, adultery. Their sacrifices seemed to go contrary to the receiving the blessings that God had promised Abram, i.e. that he would have a large posterity. Sarai couldn't help Abram have descendants if she were married to Pharaoh, and Abram wouldn't have posterity as the stars in the sky if he killed Isaac before Isaac had any children. Both Sarai and Abram made their sacrifices willingly, and in both cases the Lord intervened to save them from the fate they feared. The LORD sent a plague to stop Pharaoh from marrying Sarai, and he sent an angel to stop Abraham from sacrificing Isaac. Because both were willing to sacrifice in these ways they were seen as fitting founders and examples for the House of Israel.
The halving of the sacrificial animals
The other strange passage in Genesis 15: 8-18. Abram asks for assurance that he will inherit the land of Canaan as the Lord promised. The LORD then tells him to take several different kinds of animals and cut them in half. He was then to take the two halves and lay them apart from each other in a line, to make a pathway down the middle. Abram does as he is asked and goes into a dream trance. While he is dreaming, the LORD shows him what will befall his posterity and then causes a magical lamp to pass between the pieces of animals. Afterward, it says that the LORD made a covenant with Abram. So, what is up with the butchered animals? Out in the desert it would have been vile to have dead carcasses bloody and laying out where flies would have swarmed them. Why would that give Abram any kind of assurance that God would fulfill his promises?
Well, it turns out that this was a recognized ritual signifying a binding covenant. There is a reference to it in Jeremiah 34: 18-20. Two people who wanted to make a very serious binding would slaughter animals, split them in half, and lay the halves in rows to make a path. Then those who were making the covenant would walk between the carcasses and swear that if they ever broke the covenant, they would be allow themselves to suffere the same fate as the dead animals on either side. It must have been a very impactful kind of ceremony. Tim Mackie said that this kind of covenant has even been found in other ancient texts.
The interesting thing is that the covenant was with Abram and his descendants, but Abram did not walk between the carcasses as one would expect. Instead the LORD sent "a smoking furnace and a burning lamp" between the carcasses instead. It is as if the LORD was suggesting that he knew Abram's descendants would not keep up their end of the bargain, but that God would send something or someone to be sacrificed in Abram's place, represented by either the furnace or the lamp (I don't know which). But who would be the one to be sacrificed when Abram's descendants failed to keep the covenant? I don't know how Jews answer that question, but for a Christian, it has a very significant answer. Of course, Jesus did sacrifice himself because of the sins of the House of Israel, and all of us.
So the two most strange parts of this week's reading have really cool meanings if you can find them.
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