My list of the top ten themes of Genesis, then, is as follows: migration, name games, sibling rivalry, God's covenants, deception, neighbourly relations, sterility and continuity, dreams, not messing with the locals and God's names. Some of these may seem closely related, and undoubtedly they are, but in the discussion below I shall try to establish a definition of each "theme" that is clearcut enough to warrant treating these as separate items. I actually found more than these ten themes, so I will add some further ones at the end, calling them secondary themes: all that means is that they are not brought up quite so often, but still often enough to be noticed. The five runner-up themes I have identified are name changes, crimes, sin-and-destruction stories, sins against God generally and tests.
The method followed is the same as that which produced last week's list of the ten most recurrent "topics", except that subjectively I perceive the ideas included this week as themes rather than topics (the difference was explained last week). That is to say, having first divided the whole text of Genesis into 76 passages on the basis of my intuitions about narrative and thematic units, and having listed an inventory of the different themes (and topics) that seem to keep cropping up in the book, I went through the book again and attached keywords to each passage identifying the topics and themes mentioned in each. Then I went back and found out, for each topic or theme, how many passages bring it up, in how many different contexts, in which parts of the book, etc. Potential themes which turned out not to be that widely covered in the full perspective of the book as a whole were demoted from the "major theme" category, and so what I am going to do now is review the distribution of those themes which came through and were confirmed by this procedure to be pretty much all over the place in Genesis. Reviewing all these themes turns out to be too much for one day, so I will start here and carry on with it in future posts.
Before turning to these major themes, though, let me mention two subjects which I thought might be themes of Genesis, but didn't quite make it into the classification. One not-quite-a-theme of Genesis turned out to be that of God as creator. I included this in my preliminary inventory on the strength of what are widely known to scholars as the two creation accounts with which Genesis commences. The interesting point is that they are two different accounts which tell the story in different ways, in distinct styles, emphasising different aspects and couched in rather different language; source criticism insists that they must have come from different authors and traditions. My division of the text into passages suggests a somewhat different perspective, since the second passage seems to me to present the creation of the world and the experience of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden (basically, chapters 2 and 3) as one story. Therefore, this is not just a story about the creation of the world, it is a story which begins with the world being created but goes on to talk about something else, which we might describe as the first human experiences and the first interactions between God and people. Whereas the "first creation account" (ch. 1) is just that, an account of God creating the heaven and the earth in six days and resting on the seventh. To compare these two is therefore to compare a clementine and an orange. And to compare the first creation account (ch. 1) just with the part about the creation embedded in the Adam and Eve story (ch. 2) is to compare a clementine with half an orange. When we do this we seem to be coming to it with the preconception that the whole point of the text is to explain how God created everything, and of course on that level the two passages contradict each other. That is because they are not the same story. In my opinion, they're not even two stories about the same thing! While it is true nonetheless that both of these accounts present God as creator of all things, this is not a subject that the book returns to once we progress past the first two chapters (i.e. there is nothing about it in the other forty-eight chapters), and of course the first two chapters happen to be about the beginning of everything since chronology is after all an organising principle of Genesis. That is not enough, in my opinion, to warrant calling God as creator a "major theme" of Genesis as a whole in literary perspective.
The other "also-ran", which I thought might be a theme of Genesis but turned out not to be really, is circumcision. My first impression was that this was a bigger theme in Genesis than it turned out to be when I recounted its actual presence. In God's second declaration of a covenant with Abraham (ch. 17), he insists that part of the deal is that all the males in Abraham's house must be circumcised. Like many other things that, in later parts of the Torah, God will require of his people, this is important because of its value as a sign; the whole point of circumcision, certainly in the literary context at least, is that God wants Abraham to do as he says and Abraham (and his descendants) obey in order to show that they value the covenant with God. The real subject is the covenant, and circumcision is the expression of a man's adherence to it. He sacrifices a minimal part of his person, not on account of any intrinsic functional value but as a symbol of participation in the pact. Perhaps it might be compared, within the perspective of ancient Israel, with animal sacrifices which were expressions of a person's desire to please God. This covenant is given as the allegorical origin of the practice of circumcision, and later in the same chapter, after God and Abraham have discussed some other matters (pertaining to Abraham's future son Isaac and his existing son Ishmael), Abraham proceeds to carry out the circumcision of every male, including Ishmael. That alone doesn't make circumcision a major theme of the book, and there is only one other part of it where circumcision is important, and there its function in the story is actually very different: the story of Jacob's daughter Dina (ch. 34).
Migration
The patriarchs never stay in the same place for long, they are constantly on the move. Their story begins with an important migration (of Abraham's forefathers from Mesopotamia, ch. 11, and Abraham himself from Haran to Canaan, ch. 12) and concludes with the whole of Jacob's family moving to Goshen in Egypt (ch. 47). The opening words of the first parasha after the prologue, lekh l'kha 'Go!', are symbolic and prophetic (12:1-3, NBIE [= "Ne Bibliaj Tik Nawat" rendered in English]):The subsequent history of the Jewish people has frequently borne out the theme of "on the move"!—Go far from the land where you were bornleave your father's houseand go wanderingto the land I will show youI will turn you into a great peopleI will bless youyour name I will make greatso it becomes a blessingI will blesswhoever blesses youand whoever speaks badly of youI will curseand through you will be blessedall the communities of the world
Well, what portion of the Bible are you studying this week in the synagogue? Vaikro? The first portion of Leviticus? I am on a different portion entirely - on Lech-lecho or Get thee out. I have been told, "Get thee out - get a move on you, Tevye - out of thy country - leave your own land - and from thy father's house - the village where you were born and spent all the years of your life - to the land which I will show thee - wherever your two eyes lead you." That's the lesson I am on now. (I. Howe & R.R. Wisse (eds.), The best of Sholom Aleichem, Jason Aronson, 1979/1989, p. 180)Notice how the theme of migration frames the main narrative of Genesis (chapters 12-50, sections/parashot 3-12), the story of the patriarchs, which begins and ends with the two most important migratory moments in the story:
- Abraham and his family move to Canaan
- Canaan is their main "base" for the duration of the story
- Jacob and his family move to Egypt at the end of the story
This conclusion, while providing a "good ending" which resolves all the immediate difficulties facing The Family, nonetheless leaves us with a new set of issues whose solution remains pending: what will be the future of the children of Israel in Egypt? But above all, perhaps, is the problem that we are in a sense back where we started: the Israelites are not where they need to be! And we know that Canaan is where they "need to be" because that was the deal, the covenant, God had made with Abraham: I will give this land to you and your children, who will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on a beach. This land wasn't Goshen any more than it was Haran. And so Genesis ends with To be continued writ large across the screen, but the way we know that is primarily because of the migratory aspect which pervades this whole story, with its pendular swings between Canaan and the two directions that were apparent to the patriarchs and the Israelites: back towards Mesopotamia from whence they had come, and forward towards Egypt towards which they often seem to be going.
So anyway, back to Canaan and God's message to Abram: וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-אַבְרָם, לֶךְ-לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ "Our Lord spoke to Abram: —Go far from the land where you were born, leave your father's house and go wandering to the land I will show you."
Abram went as Our Lord had told him and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abram took Sarai his wife, Lot his brother's son and all his wealth and all their people from Haran, and they went off wandering as far as the land of Canaan, and they got to Canaan. Abram crossed into the land and reached a place called Shechem by the great tree of Moreh, in the time when the Canaanites were in the land. (12:4-6, NBIE)That is how the great adventure begins. From Shechem (sh'khem) the group moved southwards to the hills east of Bethel (beyt el), and progressed from there towards the Negeb. Now famines in Canaan were a common occurrence, and on account of one such, we are told that Abram and his wife Sarai moved temporarily to Egypt (ch. 12-13). It was after their return to Canaan that Abram and Lot decide to go different ways, Lot choosing to reside in the Jordan plain to the east while Abram "remained in Canaan" (ch. 13). Following this, God instructs Abram to travel the length and breadth of the land [of Canaan]. Eventually Abram establishes his dwelling at Hebron (xevron).
After the narrative of the destruction of Sodom (s'dom) and Gomorrah (‛amora), which was the area where Lot had been residing, Abraham once again is seen on the move. He stays in Gerar (g'rar) (ch. 20), which was a town northwest of Beersheba, closer to the coast, said to be inhabited by Philistines, another people originating from outside the area who in ancient times settled in parts of what would one day come to be called, after them, "Palestine" (these are variants of the same word, p'lishtim in Hebrew).
These moves and migrations do not only affect Abraham. We have already seen that Lot moves away from his uncle Abraham, and later he is forced to move again after the destruction of Sodom where he had chosen to live (ch. 18-19). Then there is the case of Hagar, the mother of Abraham's first son Ishmael: she was an Egyptian woman who had evidently come to Canaan, but after domestic frictions emerge between her and Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael are sent away "into the wilderness" (ch. 21).
Abraham doesn't want Isaac to marry a local Canaanite woman so he sends his servant to visit his grand-nephew Laban in Padan-Aram. This results in Rebecca emigrating from Padan-Aram to Canaan to marry Isaac (ch. 24). But in the next generation, there is a temporary move in the opposite direction (ironic in view of Abraham's injunction to the servant not to take Isaac there on any account!) when Isaac's son Jacob moves back to Padan-Aram to get away from his angry brother, on Rebecca's advice (ch. 27-9). Jacob remains there for twenty years but eventually returns to Canaan with the family he has acquired (ch. 30-31). There he meets his brother Esau, and we learn that Esau went south to Edom whereas Jacob turned north and stayed at Shechem (ch. 33).
Jacob settles down in Canaan after that, but his son Joseph ends up going to Egypt in very different circumstances (ch. 37). Years later, when there is another famine and Joseph's brothers meet Joseph in Egypt, they are reconciled and Joseph suggests the whole family should move to Egypt, which they do (ch. 45-7), leading to the book's finale.
When Jacob is on his way down to Egypt (throughout Genesis, Egypt is always called down and Canaan is up), he stops by at Beersheba, and God appears to him there at night and tells Jacob:
God called to Israel in a vision by night: "Jacob! Jacob!" He answered, "Here." And He said, "I am God, the God of your father. Fear not to go down to Egypt, for I will make you there into a great nation. I Myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I Myself will also bring you back; and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes." (46:2-4, JPS)
Name games
By "name games" I mean the almost constant play (for want of a better way to describe it) around the idea that the name of a place or a person tells us something about its, her or his past, future or intrinsic nature (cf. Leaves from the author's notebook: character sketches). It is significant as a component of the text since it involves connections between the form of the (Hebrew) name and parts of the narrative content (in Hebrew).Example: an angel says that Sarah will have a child, Sarah giggles when she hears it (because she is too old to have children), the prediction comes true and the child is called yitzxaq (transcribed traditionally as Isaac), which in Hebrew suggests 'laughter' (ch. 18).
If the story surrounding the origin of the name were true or plausible in scientific (historical, linguistic, even literary) terms, we might call these etymological notes, but most of the etymologies are undoubtedly false. Rather than talk of false etymologies, I prefer to think of it as punning and playfulness, hence my term "name games". This is after all a game some of us still like to play today, so culturally it is not such a very difficult concept to embrace. Whether the original audience understood these puns as good for a laugh or with deadly seriousness is something I honestly don't know. Maybe they really did believe that Beersheba means "well of the oath", even if we are also told in the same breath that it means "well of seven", since the roots meaning 'oath' and 'seven' both have the form sh-b-' . Maybe they're both right??
- Avram: (gestures at Perchik and Mordcha) He's right, and he's right? They can't both be right.
- Tevye: You know... you are also right.
Many of the name games sprinkled around Genesis are implicit, such as the one about Isaac's name: it doesn't actually say anywhere: "so that's why he was called Isaac". It's just so obvious if you understand Hebrew. (And if you don't know Hebrew, you miss it entirely, and therefore don't know about this dimension of the story in which Sarah giggled.)
In other cases we are told pointedly: "So from then on he called that place Beersheba" or even "So from then on he called that place Beersheba because...". When you translate any such remark into English or Nawat or Zulu (e.g. "She said 'Look! A son!' So she called him Reuben"), it just doesn't make sense (but it's there in the story anyway, because what are we going to do? omit it??).
Name games are highly language-specific and cannot be translated per se. They can be footnoted. There are at least two problems with such footnotes as part of a translation: for one thing, the explanation has to be provided by the translator, so whatever it says is not actually part of the original text but an interpolation, and often open to differences of opinion or interpretation; and for another, by asking the reader to interrupt the flow of the text to read the footnote, we are spoiling their full enjoyment of the text's literary qualities or at least modifying their experience. To list every possible instance of name play in Genesis would be quite tedious as the list is almost endless, but here are some examples just to satisfy your curiosity.
Lot has two virgin daughters. After Sodom is destroyed and the three of them take refuge in a cave in a state of shock (Lot's wife having become a pillar of salt), they both have babies with their father (ch. 19). Never mind how that sounds; actually it is an allegorical recollection of the supposed origin or perceived status of two of the major neighbouring countries across the River Jordan and on the eastern side of the Dead Sea (which Sodom and Gomorrah had just turned into): Moab and Ammon. It is clearly a myth if there ever was one, but someone must have thought it was a good story. The name Moab (moav) which the older daughter gives her son just happens to have the same consonant letters, m-'-b, as the phrase me-av which means 'from father'! By yet another wild coincidence, the younger daughter names her son Ben-ammi which sounds exactly the same as ben ‛ammi which means 'son of my [own] people', and this is obviously where Moab's northern neighbour Ammon must have come from, right?
After that, Abraham goes to Gerar where he has a disagreement with the locals over a well which leads to an interview with Abimelech (avi mélekh), the Philistine king of Gerar, which ends with a pact, to seal which Abraham provides seven ewes as a sign of their oath. And that's why the place where this well is located is called b'er shéva‛ - because that means 'well of oath' (ch. 21). And it also means 'well of seven', since the root sh-v-‛ has both meanings. Take your pick. There may, however, have been a competing tradition, perhaps it was the way the story was told in another place, according to which Beersheba was named by Isaac rather than by his father Abraham. A lot of the other details coincide: Isaac goes to Gerar, he interacts with the king, who is still Abimelech, they have a bit of a falling out concerning wells, they meet at Beersheba, they swear a pact and that is the reason why the place is called b'er shéva‛ to this day (ch. 26). Both accounts end on the note about the naming of the place, as if they were leading up to it. They both must have started out as the type of story that begins "Do you know why Beersheba is called that?"
A common feature of these naming stories emerges here: the order in which they are told is consistently: here's something that happened, this is how it ended, and that's why the place/person was named so-and-so. It's a standard script. The story is told as a straightforward story about a person or a place, with no anticipation that it is going to be about how someone or somewhere got its name, so if you believe every word in Genesis is historical you start taking notes. The story leads up to the note regarding the name (and of course that's true too).
Back to Abraham. God tests him, saying (ch. 22, NBIE):
now
take your child
who
you dearly love, Yitzhak
travel
as far as the land of Mori-Ya
offer
there Yitzhak as an offering
We all know what happens, so I'll skip the details of the drama. At the story's climax, what happens?
Abraham looked up
and
look! a ram
caught
in the bushes by the horn!
Abraham
went and fetched the sheep
and
offered it to God
instead
of his child
Thank goodness! But it just goes to show you, because the faithful Abraham had indeed said this would happen:
Yitzhak said to Abraham his father
he
said: father; he said:
here I
am, my son
he
said: here are the fire and the wood, but
where
is the sheep
we’re
to offer?
Abraham said:
God
will provide
the
sheep to be offered
my son
and
the two
walked
on together
(my emphasis). So back to the end of the story, when Abraham raises his eyes, and lo and behold, a ram! And now, wait for it:
Abraham named the place where he was: "Our Lord Provides."
The King James bible puts it this other way: "And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh." Which means 'YHWH provides', only not in English. Whoever decided that this was the most fitting climax to one of the most moving and memorable stories in Genesis presumably would disagree with Shakespeare's Juliet when she says: "What's in a name?" In Genesis, a lot is in a name.
This same Isaac is no longer a boy. Now he is an old man who feels his time may have come and wants to give his blessing to his favourite son, Esau, but is duped by Esau's brother Jacob, and so now Jacob heads towards Padan-Aram to escape Esau's fury (ch. 28). On his northbound journey through Canaan, he stops to sleep at the place which we know as Bethel. In a dream, God speaks to Jacob and makes him a promise. When Jacob wakes up he is overawed by the idea that the place he has chosen to sleep at is none other than God's house!! Isaac named the place beyt el 'El's house', i.e. Bethel. Until that time it had been called Luz. His grandfather had sojourned near Bethel when he first arrived in Canaan (ch. 12) and that Abraham built an altar to the Lord there, which could also have been why it was called beyt el, but let's not split hairs. Because if we do... it does also say that, twenty years later, following Jacob's return to Canaan and his reconciliation at last with Esau, Jacob goes back to Luz (ch. 35), builds an altar there to "God who answered me when I was in distress", God appears to Jacob again, blesses him...
and Jacob named that site Bethel.
When Jacob's thirteen children are born, their names are all explained (ch. 29-30) and their meanings are: Reuben (r'uven) 'Look, a son!', Simeon (shim‛on) 'God heard that I was distressed', Levi (l'wi) 'my husband will become attached to me', Judah (y'huda) 'Thank God', Dan (dan) 'God has judged', Naphtali (naftali) 'I'm victorious', Gad (gad) 'How propitious!', Asher (asher) 'How fortunate!', Issachar (yissakhar) is either 'I paid for you' or 'God has rewarded me', Zebulun (z'vulun) either 'God has given me a precious gift' or 'My husband will bring me presents', Dina (the only daughter; no meaning given), Joseph (yosef) either 'God has removed my disgrace' or 'YHWH has added another son for me'. When Benjamin is born (ch. 35), the dying Rachel wants to call him ben oni 'son of misfortune', but Jacob prefers ben yamin 'son of my right hand', not, no doubt, because Jacob blatantly overlooked Rachel's dying request, but because there existed two competing folk traditions regarding the origin of that name and they both needed to be included in the book.
Such explanations may have some sort of symbolic meaning, certainly, or again they may be a bit of innocent fun of a kind that ordinary people seem to really enjoy, and besides, they are useful as mnemonics, especially for people who are not personally literate. Whatever else they are, they are not serious philology, they don't really represent the origins of those names. These explanations or stories about particular names are part of folk lore; they belong to a tradition. To the compilers who inserted these stories or remarks in Genesis, I would imagine it didn't make the slightest bit of difference whether they were rigorously historical; they don't appear to have been too worried by features of the text which might be used to challenge their veracity if anybody was thinking straight (such as multiple, even mutually contradictory "origins" of the same name). When all is said and done, it's a tradition.
Next week we will continue the survey of major themes of Genesis. Next up is sibling rivalry. Don't miss it!
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