Saturday 6 May 2017

Marriage in Genesis

Genesis, the account of early Hebrew ancestors, describes many curious aspects of family life.  The final Genesis editor believed in monogamy, one wife to one man ensuring clear legitimacy of offspring. However look beneath the surface and things are not so clear. It is worth saying that the children of the patriarchs represent historic tribes. The oddest story depicts the origin of the tribes of Moab and Ammon. Their distant kinship with the Hebrews is marked by their father being Abraham's nephew Lot. The destruction of Sodom led to Lot hiding in a cave with his two daughters. Believing all men to have been killed, they seduce their father through drink and become pregnant. These tribes therefore are give less than prestigious origins. Abraham seems not too concerned about the legitimacy of his children. The safety of his skin came first. He was afraid that the Egyptian Pharaoh might be attracted to Sarah, so he declared her as his sister, so Pharaoh had a relationship with her. She might have become pregnant out of wedlock. The same thing was repeated later with the Philistine king Abimelech. There is no preciousness here for legitimacy (blood kinship) or 'purity of blood'. Abraham's son Isaac did the same with Abimelech, in what may be a parallel tradition. Abraham's wife Sarah could not have children so a slave woman Hagar bore Ishmael on Sarah's behalf; but Sarah was jealous and Hagar with baby thrown out to die. They survived and Ishmael became the ancestor of Arabs. Sarah did have a son in peculiar circumstances. Three strangers (angels) appeared and announced it, and she overhearing it laughed because of her age. Isaac, the son's name, is derived from the word laugh. Even with this precious child born, Abraham set out to sacrifice him.

In terms of marriage, a wife was sought for Isaac from his distant kin. When it was fixed, the two had not met. She was Rebekah who had the twins Esau and Jacob, who were always at war with each other. The marriage of Jacob was within family, although he ended up with two sisters. Esau married women his parents disapproved of and their descendants became the Edomites (Genesis 36). Jacob, although the younger twin, tricked the birthright from his brother. In the meantime Sarah had died and Abraham had another wife, Keturah: the children of this union were more tribes Arab tribes. The narrative is careful to say that they did not inherit. So Abraham is named as the ancestor of all semitic peoples.

It is with Jacob that problems arise. His twelve sons and one known daughter were given birth to by his two sister wives Leah and Rachel and their two slave women Bilhah and Zilpah. The editor has interfered with the narrative to declare Rachel the main wife, the others simply bearing children to him (Genesis 46). This underlined the illusion of monogamy in a ludicrously polygynous text, in which it was not even the first married who was so honoured. The effect of this is to declare a simple line of legitimacy from Abraham, through Isaac, Jacob and the Rachel sons Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph had an Egyptian wife Asenath and had two sons  Ephraim and Manasseh - again the younger became the firstborn. No firstborn in the story was the oldest son, emphasising that this was not a dynasty. When Rachel died, Bilhah is termed 'concubine', (Hebrew pilages). The oldest son Reuben had sex with her, perhaps as a take-over bid, and was condemned for doing so. Incest and adultery rules perhaps did not cover concubines.

Two other stories are of relevance. Dinah was raped or seduced in the fields by a Canaanite boy named Shechem (clearly representing the city of that name). It led to a serious marriage proposal which was disrupted by a massacre led by the two sons Levi and Simeon (Genesis 34). The theology behind the story opposed intermarriage with Canaanites, as we also  find in texts like Deuteronomy.  Genesis 38 is a Judah story, Judah's oldest son was married to Tamar but died childless, so she was married to the next son - who also died childless. The type of marriage is called 'levirate', marriage to brother-in-law. The widow had a poor status, and wished if possible to become a mother, a much higher status. Judah tried to prevent Tamar marrying his third son in case he died too. Tamar countered by getting herself pregnant by Judah himself, seducing him by dressing as a cult prostitute. When the pregnancy was discovered Judah sentenced her to death, but she had take tokens from Judah proving he was the father and received her reprieve. She received theological justification also: Judah is said to comment "She is more righteous than I". She bore twins, Perez and Zerar. There is often interest in what names mean. This narrative integrates this into the story (we call this aetiology). Perez is said to mean 'broke out', and Zerah 'scarlet'. In the story, Zerah put his hand out first and had a scarlet thread attached, but Perez pulled him back and broke out first. Another case of firstborn ambiguity. Perez appears as an ancestor Ruth, and therefore of King David, and of Jesus (or more accurately Joseph) simply because his name has priority in the biblical family tree of Judah.

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