Near the end of Chapter 13, we're told that Lot parted ways with his uncle Abraham, and settled in the cities of the plain, where he "pitched his tent toward Sodom", while Abraham built an altar to the Lord in his new dominion in Hebron (now a Palestinian city in the West Bank, and one of the oldest continually occupied cities in the world). Sodom and Gomorrah are the most famous of the five "cities of the plain" (Admah, Zeboim and Bela are less well-known), which are mentioned here as situated along the banks of the river Jordan, north of where the Dead Sea is today. As well as references to Sodom and Gomorrah, we also hear of King Melchizedek of Salem and Tidal king of nations (lots of the place names mentioned in this section of the bible have ominous connotations). Later, in Chapter 14, we read of Abraham's bravery in rescuing Lot, who was taken prisoner in the various wars afflicting the region at that time.
In Chapter 15, Abraham asks God for a child, and is told (15.4) that "he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir". It's noticeable that all the newer translations of the Bible swap "bowels" for "body" – my first thought when reading the KJV translation was that Abraham was being told he would have to carry the child and give birth to him himself, but that's clearly not the case! The next passage is one of those lyrical moments that I'm starting to love most about reading the KJV Bible: "And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be."
Abraham was 86 years old (16.16) when his wife's Egyptian handmaiden Hagar bore him a son, Ishmael, described in this chapter as a future "wild man". God then changed Abraham's name (17.5) from Abram ("noble father") to Abraham ("father of many"), and later (17.17) his wife's name from Sarai ("princess") to Sarah ("mother of nations"), and together their descendants are believed to have formed the myriad peoples of the Abrahamic religions (Jews, Christians and Muslims). As part of this new covenant of fertility, God also commands (17.10-11) that every "man child" descended from them should be circumcised and tells Abraham that every future foreskin should be a "token of the covenant betwixt me and you". God also says (17.14) that the soul of any boy that is uncircumcised "shall be cut off from his people". Old Testament God is quite stern.
Chapter 18 then gives me the sense of a God who has human dimensions, and who eats with Abraham under a tree. Up until now, I'd visualised God as a mighty presence up high in the firmament, yet here he's one of three angels in human form. It's a shame that Abraham doesn't use this occasion to get to know him and his motives a bit better, rather than asking him a series of annoyingly repetitive questions about what precise number of righteous people there should be in Sodom for God to decide against destroying the city. As it transpires, God commands Lot and his family to escape Sodom and head via Zoar to the mountains, after which God "rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire" (19.24). Sadly, Lot's wife went against one of God's commandments not to look back and was turned into a "pillar of salt" (19.26) – this passage always disturbed me when I studied the Bible as a child. Chapter 19 then ends with two even more disturbing passages of incest, involving Lot and his two scheming daughters (who get their Dad drunk on wine and fool him into sleeping with them).
All the mixed up family connections and incest are starting to make me feel uncomfortable, and confused about the Bible's message. I understand that the gene pool was much smaller at that time, and it's possible that the definition of incest in today's western society is not the same as it was in that time and place, yet still later passages of the Bible clearly state that for a man to marry his father's daughter (as Abraham did) is a sin. These internal inconsistencies seem to pepper the Bible.
To at least make the biblical family tree a little easier to understand, I've pasted these diagrams from Wikipedia below, to show how we've travelled from Adam & Eve to Noah's son Shem, and then from Shem to Abraham and Sarah, both children of Terah:
In Chapter 15, Abraham asks God for a child, and is told (15.4) that "he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir". It's noticeable that all the newer translations of the Bible swap "bowels" for "body" – my first thought when reading the KJV translation was that Abraham was being told he would have to carry the child and give birth to him himself, but that's clearly not the case! The next passage is one of those lyrical moments that I'm starting to love most about reading the KJV Bible: "And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be."
Abraham was 86 years old (16.16) when his wife's Egyptian handmaiden Hagar bore him a son, Ishmael, described in this chapter as a future "wild man". God then changed Abraham's name (17.5) from Abram ("noble father") to Abraham ("father of many"), and later (17.17) his wife's name from Sarai ("princess") to Sarah ("mother of nations"), and together their descendants are believed to have formed the myriad peoples of the Abrahamic religions (Jews, Christians and Muslims). As part of this new covenant of fertility, God also commands (17.10-11) that every "man child" descended from them should be circumcised and tells Abraham that every future foreskin should be a "token of the covenant betwixt me and you". God also says (17.14) that the soul of any boy that is uncircumcised "shall be cut off from his people". Old Testament God is quite stern.
Chapter 18 then gives me the sense of a God who has human dimensions, and who eats with Abraham under a tree. Up until now, I'd visualised God as a mighty presence up high in the firmament, yet here he's one of three angels in human form. It's a shame that Abraham doesn't use this occasion to get to know him and his motives a bit better, rather than asking him a series of annoyingly repetitive questions about what precise number of righteous people there should be in Sodom for God to decide against destroying the city. As it transpires, God commands Lot and his family to escape Sodom and head via Zoar to the mountains, after which God "rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire" (19.24). Sadly, Lot's wife went against one of God's commandments not to look back and was turned into a "pillar of salt" (19.26) – this passage always disturbed me when I studied the Bible as a child. Chapter 19 then ends with two even more disturbing passages of incest, involving Lot and his two scheming daughters (who get their Dad drunk on wine and fool him into sleeping with them).
All the mixed up family connections and incest are starting to make me feel uncomfortable, and confused about the Bible's message. I understand that the gene pool was much smaller at that time, and it's possible that the definition of incest in today's western society is not the same as it was in that time and place, yet still later passages of the Bible clearly state that for a man to marry his father's daughter (as Abraham did) is a sin. These internal inconsistencies seem to pepper the Bible.
To at least make the biblical family tree a little easier to understand, I've pasted these diagrams from Wikipedia below, to show how we've travelled from Adam & Eve to Noah's son Shem, and then from Shem to Abraham and Sarah, both children of Terah:
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