Course Update

 

 

Items to Remember: 
 
 

ABRAM/ABRAHAM

AMAN

AMPHICTYONY

ANGEL

ANDROGYNOUS

CIRCUMCISION

COVENANT

ELIEZAR

ESAU

EDOMITES

GOLGOTHA

HAGAR

INTELLECTUAL FAITH

ISAAC

ISHMAEL

ISRAEL

JEWISH MIDRASH

LAW OF HOSPITALITY

LISTER,  JOSEPH

MT MORIAH

PASCHAL,  BLAISE

PASCHAL'S WAGER

PROSCRIPTIVE

PRIMARY VS SECONDARY WILL

REBEKAH

SHECHEM

SYNAGOGUE

SARAH/SARAI

TEREBINTH
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

INTRODUCTORY BACKGROUND:  "God Writes Straight with Crooked Lines"

God indeed found a man whose faith and humility begins the process of "recreating" the creation which evil had so far undone or "decreated."  With Abram, the man of faith, begins the story of "recreation" or "salvation." With him, we leave the protohistorical stories behind and a great deal of their symbolism to enter the "patriarchal" period of the history of our salvation. In fact,  the whole remarkable history of  Judeo-Christian revelation truly begins with Abram, a semi nomad from Ur of the Chaldeans. 

In the first period of biblical literature (Protohistory) we are met with both fact and symbol. The historical fact of creation, the  first sin, nomadic blood vengeance, a  flood and a ruined ziggurat were taken up as symbols to communicate moral and spiritual truths.  With Abram, we walk out of the literature of historical metaphors and into a more historical kind of literature- one that can find its counterpart in the archaeology and the real customs of the ancient world of about 2,000 BC. 

All cultures seem to have their "folk" history,  stories told of the founding personalities who helped shape a great destiny.  This is the type of literature we find about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob- the "Patriarchs" of Israel. Women  play an indispensable and positive role in this folk history.  Just as there are the ancient, founding fathers (Patriarchs) so are there ancient, founding mothers (Matriarchs).  Revelation begins with all them.

SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

There are some points of order before we begin, lest we be led into all kinds of misguided conclusions. 

First and foremost, when the Bible speaks of Abram's "faith," it is not talking about an intellectual assent to the idea that God exists.  The modern  idea of faith is often reduced to a "belief" or a creed, a kind of intellectual "assent "or agreement to certain ideas and principles. We think that someone who believes in God  is a person of faith, but that is not the biblical idea of faith.   In the language of both the "Old" and the New Testaments, the word for faith is also the word for trust.  There is no room in the language of the Bible for the kind of modern "faith" in which a person believes certain things, but acts as if he doesn't believe it or trust it. One could not go to church on Sunday and then act as if God doesn't exist the rest of the week by taking on the anti-God values of our culture.   The hebrew word ( 'Aman) means faith and trust.  Abram became "Abraham"  not simply because he believed in God, but because he trusted God - even if it meant sacrificing his only son, whom he loved.  "Trust" in God becomes an important theme through the whole of the Old Testament literature.

Secondly, we have to understand that "revelation" (to pull back the veil) is a gradual process.   It is a unveiling process which takes thousands of years of  historical interaction with God and painfully honest reflection.  The metaphor I like to use with respect to this is the historical example of Helen Keller.  A disease robbed her of her hearing and sight early in life.  Cut off from the world of her loving parents, she regressed to an almost animalistic state,  until Anne Sullivan came into her life and began revealing the reality of an outside world.    With the help of her teacher, Helen Keller, a deaf mute, went on to become a college graduate and famous writer.  This is similar to humanity's situation after the fall.  Cut off from God, the memory of an orderly, peaceful existence and the reality of a connection with a loving God  disappeared and gave way to a chaotic, violent,  animalistic existence.  God began breaking through all of this with Abram and Sarah, covenanting them and their descendants. But this process is gradual.  As Catholics this process begins with Abraham and ends with the death of the last apostle. Jesus is the final and best revelation of God, because he is God in the flesh. But, we cannot expect Abraham to act as if he knows what you and I know of God.  We have the benefit of over 2,000 years of revealed truth and 2,000 more years of reflection upon that truth by great thinkers.    In contrast to this,  Abraham lived at least 600 years before the Ten Commandments!    We do not see perfect people in the Bible.   Abraham tells half-truths, sleeps with Hagar, believes that God would ask him to sacrifice Isaac;  he lives in a world without commandments - a semi nomadic world in which the law of hospitality and the law of blood vengeance are upper most. 

Thirdly, much of the Bible is descriptive and not proscriptive.  The behavior of the people  of the Bible are neither condemned nor recommended (proscriptive).  Abraham, for example,  sleeps with Hagar, marries his half sister, Sarah,  and deceives pharaoh.  The Biblical writer simply reports this without comment.  It is important that we don't think that because "it happened in the Bible" that it is O.K..  What we CAN gain from this is that God's plan will be worked out, even though the people he works with are from perfect. Because of their trust, God will find a way to make things work out.  He is able to "write straight with crooked lines." Ishmael (God-has-heard) is born of Hagar and expelled because of rivalry, but  God uses this crooked line to make him  the father of the Arab peoples. 

Finally,  Often the Biblical writer does not distinguish between God's primary will ( what God directly wants) and his secondary will (what he allows).  We will see this particularly in  the  story of Moses and the Exodus.  God, it will say, "hardens" pharaoh's heart, but what is actually being said is that although pharaoh was stubborn, God was ultimately in control because He allowed it to be so.

As we journey with the patriarchs, we must keep all of this in mind, or we will be left in the dust of their donkeys scratching our heads, "What was THAT about?"
 

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