Folk Heros and the Bible

June 4, 2009, 8:00 am by dc-agape.

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Tales of the Patriarchs (Part 6)

Unsurprisingly, when the Tractate switches to Abram, we again know nothing of his youth.  The Israelite authors of every religious text seem to have an aversion to discussing childhood.  The Tale of the Patriarchs catches up with Abram when he is 75 years old (Gen 12:4).  The 19^th column of the Tales is pretty drab stuff.  It starts off with Abram making an alter at Hebron and claiming that Hebron had not been built yet.  Oddly we know that a town existed there, prior to Abram changing the name to Hebron.  The Canaanites called it Mamre (Gen 13:18) and also Kiriath Arba (Gen 23:2). So here we have the author(s) of this tractate completely covering up that this location had been occupied by other humans prior to the arrival of Abram.  Here are more examples of making the old stories more palatable to the reader.

The Tractate moves on to the famine in Canaan.  Isn’t it odd how there are many famines in Canaan, yet Egypt always seems to have extra grains and food stocks?  In the process of heading down to Egypt, Abram has a dream.  In the dream a cedar and a date tree are combined by a single root.  People come to cut the cedar down but the date tree begs them not to.  Abram wakes and believes that this is a portent of future events in Egypt.  He warns his wife Sarai to lie to anyone about their marriage.  He tells her to tell everyone that she is his sister! 

They spend at least five years in Egypt, teaching people with great wisdom from a book called the Words of Enoch.  At this point Abram must be at least 80 years old and we know that Sarai was 10 years younger than him (Gen 17:17), making her at least 70 years old.  We also know that Sarai dies at the age of 127 (Gen 23:1), so she is not a young woman.  We can be pretty certain that life back then was pretty hard on the aging populace so Sarai could not be that beautiful by this time in her life.  She was certainly past the age of childbirth, for she even knew that she was barren (Gen 11:30).  Yet, the Pharaoh learns of Abram and his wife/sister and three of the Pharaoh’s councilors come out to meet Abram.  During this process, and due to his wisdom and his wife/sister, the Pharaoh had been giving many gifts to Abram. 

I will end this post with just the message that Hyrcanos gives to the Pharaoh about Sarai.  Hyrcanos is one of the three councilors that meet with Abram and Sarai.  This is what he tells the Pharaoh about Sarai:

1QapGen col.20 row4 How shapely is her breast, how gorgeous all her fairness!

1QapGen col.20 row6 How perfect her thighs!  Neither virgins nor brides entering the bridal chamber exceed her charms.

Now either someone likes older (very older woman) or someone is lying!  There is no way, even with supernatural help that a 70+ year old woman exposed to nomadic life could have shapely breasts, perfect thighs, and exceed virgins and brides in charm.  It is impossible.  I may be gay, and my opinion slightly skewed about women, but this is just the most unbelievable tell.  It has got to be another Tall Tale from the inerrant Word of God!  I may also be an Atheist, but at some point doesn’t everyone start to see that these stories are identical to Alfred Bulltop Stormalong or Paul Bunyan?

Posted in Dead Sea Scroll, Genesis Material, Tales of the Patriarchs, Word of God, Inerrancy - My Ass, Tall Tales, Family Values?, Readings | Print | 9 Comments »