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Today, I'll write about a couple of items in Thomas Thompson's Origin Tradition in Ancient Israel. On pages 35 and 204-205, Thompson talks about the diversity of the character of Abraham in the Book of Genesis.
On page 35, Thompson argues against the view that Abraham and the other patriarchs were half-nomads. (Nomadism comes up a lot in discussions about the patriarchs and ancient Israel. For example: Was there a migration of nomadic people-groups from the North into Palestine, showing that there's historicity to Abraham traveling from the North to the Promised Land?) Thompson states the following:
"I fail to see a sufficient basis in the patriarchal narratives for describing the lives of patriarchs as half-nomads, or indeed as belonging to any specific socio-economic class. Lot lives in a tent (Gen. 13), but also in a city (Gen. 19); Ishmael is described in a manner reflective of a nomad (Gen. 21.20f.), and Esau of a hunter (Gen. 25.27). Abraham and Jacob are shepherds in some stories (Gen. 13; 27.9), and at times they live in tents (Gen. 18.1; 25.27), but Abraham and Isaac are guests of royalty in cities (Gen. 12; 20; 26). In one story Abraham has an army, but in another he is helpless and lone and afraid for his life (contrast Gen. 14 with Gen. 12). Isaac and his family live in a house (Gen. 27.15), as does Jacob in Harran (Gen. 28). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are, in fact, strangers in the land; they travel from place to place and from story to story. Their wandering is a literary motif and a literary device, not a socio-economic Grundzug. That the ancestors of Israel are often viewed as shepherds (by no means the same as nomads) is also found in the Joseph narratives, and in the story of Israel's entrance into Egypt."
Thompson's point here may be that the stories about the patriarchs are not historical, for they contradict themselves on the patriarchs' socio-economic class. The above observations also coincide with Thompson's view that there were independent patriarchal stories that were combined into a larger narrative. In my opinion, there are indeed some tensions within the larger patriarchal story: Lot wants room for his flocks and herds, and he ends up settling in the city of Sodom. What did he do with all his flocks and herds? But some of the other things make a degree of sense within the narrative, rather than necessarily being contradictory: Abraham could have gained an army between Genesis 12 and Genesis 14, for Genesis 12 was where Abraham got his wealth. The patriarchs could both live in a tent and also pasture animals in the open countryside. Could they live in a house and do so? That depends on what constituted a house.
On pages 204-205, Thompson contrasts Abraham in Genesis 14 with Abraham in the other stories. In Genesis 14, Abraham, with an army, delivers his nephew Lot and a group of cities from aggressive kings. Thompson thinks that Genesis 14 and Genesis 13 were placed next to each other because both present Abraham as selfless and generous. And yet, Thompson notes differences between Genesis 14 and other tales about Abraham:
"This is not the fatherly Abraham of Genesis 13, careful to avoid even the occasion for conflict, anymore than Abraham is here the bunco-artist of Genesis 12, who could sell his wife to get rich at the expense of the Egyptians. Nor is Abraham in Genesis 14 the holy prophet of Genesis 20, whose cowardice has to be excused by the narrator, on the plea that Sara was, after all, his half-sister. Nor is Abraham in Genesis 14 the stoic, obedient servant of Genesis 22---that horrifying saint---ready to kill his own son if God should demand it. And Abraham of Genesis 14 is certainly not the doddering old man, waiting by the oaks of Mamre, whose heart was full of hospitality for the stranger. It is very difficult to see him as identical to the husband of Genesis 21, so helplessly torn by the conflicts of his wives as to accept the abandonment of his first-born son---even if it was on God's instructions! No, here in Genesis 14, we have a military hero, of the like of D'Artagnan or Robin Hood---ever careful of and ever generous for his friends and his men, but careless for himself."
But could Abraham demonstrate different characteristics in different situations? I think of Elijah, who one minute was boldly killing the prophet of Baal, and the next moment ran a long way from Jezebel. I haven't watched many of the episodes of Ally McBeal (which stars Calista Flockhart, who is now on Brothers and Sisters), but one part that stood out to me was when a female lawyer felt strong after winning a case, and that gave her the strength to make certain decisions that she was previously timid about making. I identify with that, for I myself am inconsistent. Many people probably are.
