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Ok dtango and Whoppers, both. I can see that we are all trying to find out what is behind the writing of the Genesis stories, and we have various approaches. Whoppers is looking for signs of the layering of the varius redactions of the OT and I am looking for the polemic agenda
Whopps has found Hagar depicted as an arabian in behaviour - which would be surprising in someone brought from Egypt as a maidservant. On the other hand she might simply have been trying to return to Egypt.
My take is of course that for the needs of the political agenda of the story, Hagar has to be an Egyptian slave but since the writers at their post - Assyrian date did not know anything about Egyptian slaves and their behaviours, they depicted her in the way a non Jew (but not a Greek of course) would behave.
The story about God telling her to go back to Sarah's kind ministrations tells me that it is all made up as if the naming of various offspring for the descendents of tribes or states did not suggest that (1). I was examining the apparent contradictions around Hagar's descendents rather than Esau's and there seem to be a couple of slips in that Rebekah was a half -niece to Laban rather than a sister.
That might support Whopper's evidence for layering of writers and it might support my theory of a made up story that had slipped a bit. What it does not support is that the story is in any way reliable as true historically.
Just as in the creation, the Flood, Exodus and the prophecies of Tyre and Babylon, we find evidence of a later story in no way historically accurate, let alone eyewitness or written by Moses, and thus for me, at least, the miracles, divine messages and the entire body of god- claims of the OT collapse as comprehensively as do the Jesus - claims of the gospels, under scrutiny.
It only remains for the individual to decide whether the evidence of fakery adds up to a big picture, of an unbelievable Bible or whether they opt for the 'other' big picture - faith in the Bible as true and all the evidence of fakery explained away (to their satisfaction, at least) dismissed as the work of those with some sort of anti - god bias or just ignored.
What is surely utterly irrelevant (as well as nonsensical, I am obliged to say) to this or any other bit of genesis is any story about real gods having created men 50,000 years ago.
(1) Whopps posted "Originally these persons were the tribes themselves. This method of expression is still entirely current later int he pathetic poetry of the prophets: Edom builds his nest on high, Moab dies to the sound of trumpets, Asshur falls upon Israel like a lion upon his prey, Jerusalem and Samaria are two unchaste sisters, Edom has treated his brother Israel with enmity, etc. Such personifications must have been very familiar to the earliest ages. But as the world became more prosaic and these expressions were no longer understood in the simple narrative, the questions were asked, who these persons, Jacob, Judah, Simeon, really were, and the answer given that they were the patriarchs and the later races and tribes their sons...
We are not putting a new meaning into the legends which treat of such race-indiiduals, when we regard their heros, Ishmael, Jacob, Esau, and others, as tribes and try to interpret the stories about them as tribal events; we are simply getting at their meaning as it was understood in primitive times in Israel.
(Gunkel, The Legends of Genesis, pp. 18-19)"
'Who am I to judge..' writes dtango. Someone who is an ordinary bod but who just with one day's reading up on this story came up with the same conclusion as Mr Gunkel here, though he prefers to see it as just being a poetic method of expression which I think rather misses the point.
Naming supposed ancestors of tribes and states is not the same as poetic images of wolves falling on prey. It is polemic and political - a way of inventing a past unknown or forgotten (I am being charitable here) to fit in with the views of the writers of that time (post exilic, for sure, as the reference to Assyria must prove) about Judea and its place in near east and what they supposed was God's plan for it. The political relations with Edom are, I am suggesting, behind the particular focus on the story of the relations between Jacob/Israel and Esau (Edom).
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 06-24-2012 at 01:06 AM..
We are not putting a new meaning into the legends which treat of such race-indiiduals, when we regard their heros, Ishmael, Jacob, Esau, and others, as tribes and try to interpret the stories about them as tribal events; we are simply getting at their meaning as it was understood in primitive times in Israel.
(Gunkel, The Legends of Genesis, pp. 18-19)"
'Who am I to judge..' writes dtango. Someone who is an ordinary bod but who just with one day's reading up on this story came up with the same conclusion as Mr Gunkel here, though he prefers to see it as just being a poetic method of expression which I think rather misses the point.
You need not read more that one day to come to the same conclusion as Mr. Gunkel.
I’d like very much to hear Gunkel’s opinion on the fact (cause it is a fact) that the writer of Numbers 13:32 regarded the Canaanites as not normal human creatures. As not human inhabitants of the land.
Were they regarded as wild-donkey-men same as Ishmael or hairy bears like Esau? And why is it that the mating of an Israelite with a foreign girl produces the wild-donkey-man? Most probably Hagar was a wild-donkey-girl?
I don't know what Mr Gunkel thinks but you know what I think - that the wild donkey -man applied to both Laban and Esau (perhaps signifying a textual slip in that Esau was perhaps first intended to be Hagar's son rather than Rebekah's) because it was necessary to depict as a wild violent barbarian the eponymous founder of the State of Edom in order to justify his exclusion from hid 'birthright'.
As Rebeka's son, and not close to Laban, though the Bible tries to make her related to him as a sister, the wild hairiness is not justified even by unscientific Biblical genetics, because his parents (Isaac and Rebekah) were both good enough Jews.
As Rebeka's son, and not close to Laban, though the Bible tries to make her related to him as a sister, the wild hairiness is not justified even by unscientific Biblical genetics, because his parents (Isaac and Rebekah) were both good enough Jews.
Hairy in the language of tradition and mythology means primitive.
The Chuckchee Eskimo myth from northeastern Siberia states that the first man was animal-like, hairy and four-legged, with great claws and teeth. He could catch any animal he hunted and he ate everything raw. The Creator feared that he would destroy all of living creation and made him less dangerous by shortening his arms and making him walk upright. He also substituted clothes for hair.(David Leeming and Margaret Leeming, “A Dictionary of Creation Myths,” pg. 54)
The Cheyenne Indians say that the Great Power had created white people, hairy people and red people. The hairy people were shy; they lived in caves, and eventually they disappeared.(ibid, pg.47)
In their legends, the Pomo Indians of California, say that the creator was Old Man Madumba. One day he decided to make the people. First he made some stubby little people out of rocks, then some beautiful long-haired people out of his hair. He made some bird people out of feathers and some hairy deer people out of his armpit hair. In fact, he made all kinds of people out of all kinds of material. Finally he made naked people like us. (ibid, pg 230)
Phan Ku was the first man on earth according to Chinese tradition. He is usually depicted as a rough and hairy giant. (ibid, pg.48)
According to the creation myth of the Ngombe people of Zaire, in the beginning the god, Akongo, lived with the people in the sky. One of the women, Mbokomu, was so irritating to Akongo and the people that Akongo dropped her, her children, and some food down to earth in a basket. The family planted and did well on earth, but Mbokomu was afraid her family would die out. She convinced her son to take his sister as a wife. He did so, unwillingly, and his sister became pregnant. The sister was walking about one day when she met a very hairy but pleasant creature whom she grew to like. His name was Ebenga, and when she shaved him he looked quite like a man.(ibid, pg 211)
For the Egyptians the progenitors of humanity were four pairs of some creatures that are depicted either as four male and four female monkeys , or as four pairs of humans with the head of a frog or a snake.
And then there is Enkidu with the shaggy hair:
[Sha]ggy with hair is his whole body, He is endowed with head hair like a woman. The locks of his hair sprout like Nisaba (Goddess of grain)
The hairy men of the Old Testament are no different but the scholars have their play thing: the Documentary Hypothesis; why bother to understand why a slave girl produces a wild-donkey-man? We only need to know which writer wrote what, like it was their fantasies they recorded in writing.
As for the Biblical genetics, they are quite scientific: we were made in the image of the creators (we prefer the E writer this time. The Elohim are plenty)
Quite so. 'Hairy' and 'ass - man' is considered to be a Biblical epithet for an uncivilized man - a barbarian. That just underlines my strong suspicion that the argument that the OT writers were trying to make in this story of Hagar and Esau and the rest was a political polemic against all the other political entities which Judea fought against and most particularly, Edom. As I said, the story seems to have slipped as there is no reason why Esau should have been born 'hairy' much less uncivilized as compared to Jacob, since the parents were perfectly non - Canaanite. And, if the idea had been to make the son of Hagar less than Jewish because she was Egyptian, or indeed Canaanite, it misses since Laban was only an uncle of Rebekah, not a brother (or even half -brother) as the Bible states.
Quite so. 'Hairy' and 'ass - man' is considered to be a Biblical epithet for an uncivilized man - a barbarian. That just underlines my strong suspicion that the argument that the OT writers were trying to make in this story of Hagar and Esau and the rest was a political polemic against all the other political entities which Judea fought against and most particularly, Edom. As I said, the story seems to have slipped as there is no reason why Esau should have been born 'hairy' much less uncivilized as compared to Jacob, since the parents were perfectly non - Canaanite. And, if the idea had been to make the son of Hagar less than Jewish because she was Egyptian, or indeed Canaanite, it misses since Laban was only an uncle of Rebekah, not a brother (or even half -brother) as the Bible states.
One tends to tell unflattering stories about one's neighbors and political rivals (especially if they are closely related) - thus the stories about Edom, Moab and Ammon.
Isaac plays such a small, unimportant role in Genesis, that one wonders if Ishmael had indeed been the true son of the Promise (he does have a theophoric name containing El). He did, after all, have 12 sons himself and became a mighty tribe. If one reads the source division of the Binding of Isaac, it's hinted at that Abraham actually went ahead with the sacrifice (even rabbinic tradition mentions this). At any rate, Isaac's role becomes minimal when one compares the 3 Patriarchal Cycles of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is barely a blip on the radar.
I don't know what Mr Gunkel thinks but you know what I think - that the wild donkey -man applied to both Laban and Esau (perhaps signifying a textual slip in that Esau was perhaps first intended to be Hagar's son rather than Rebekah's) because it was necessary to depict as a wild violent barbarian the eponymous founder of the State of Edom in order to justify his exclusion from hid 'birthright'.
As Rebeka's son, and not close to Laban, though the Bible tries to make her related to him as a sister, the wild hairiness is not justified even by unscientific Biblical genetics, because his parents (Isaac and Rebekah) were both good enough Jews.
Remember - Rebekah and Laban were both Arameans from the North, technically, and both trickster figures. It's not coincidence that Abraham insists on the habit of marrying members of the Northern family up near Haran. Rebekah instigates the trickery of Isaac by Jacob, and Laban instigate the tricking of Jacob. In the Narrative flow, this can be seen as a clear case of "payback" for Jacob's own trickery (the words "it is not done this way here, to give the younger before the older" is a clear reference to Jacob's tricking of Esau - the older - by the younger). Jacob proves to be a true son of his mother, as a trickster in his own right.
Quite so. 'Hairy' and 'ass - man' is considered to be a Biblical epithet for an uncivilized man - a barbarian.
A barbarian who was the indigenous inhabitant of Canaan but who was not actually an inhabitant because he was not considered human!!
Esau’s description matches that of Enkidu but you are afraid to venture beyond historical times or you’ll have to admit that the story of Hagar as we know it is a late variation. What is more important is that you do not realize that you limit the history of the Jewish people to only six, seven or at the most ten thousand years.
Are the Israelites brainless or extremely forgetful while your own ancestors (supposing that you are of Northern European ancestry) have an history of 40,000 years (since their arrival in Northern Europe, where, according to the Germanic mythology they met, loved and killed the natural non-human inhabitants of the land as the Israelites did with the Canaanite...barbarians)?
Are the Israelites brainless or extremely forgetful while your own ancestors (supposing that you are of Northern European ancestry) have an history of 40,000 years (since their arrival in Northern Europe, where, according to the Germanic mythology they met, loved and killed the natural non-human inhabitants of the land as the Israelites did with the Canaanite...barbarians)?
Yeh, Northern Europeans and their ancestors totally sit around and talk about the good ol' days, 40,000 years ago when they fought monsters. It's actually in their history books, at the very beginning. Ah yes, I remember the scene very well:
"Mommy, tell me why George Washington was chosen as president."
"Well, little Hans, it all started 40,000 years ago when we first began invading the lands of the monsters..".
"Wha..what?"
OH WAIT - we know the difference between history and myth.
And to answer your question about Gunkel earlier, he seemed to have known it too.
A barbarian who was the indigenous inhabitant of Canaan but who was not actually an inhabitant because he was not considered human!!
Which story as I say, the Bible seems to have messed up, as his parents were NOT Canaanite but Hebrew and hardly non - human, if you read his later fraternal interaction with Jacob.
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Esau’s description matches that of Enkidu
Yes, Enkidu occurred to me - as providing an archetype that we find in Greek prejudice against barbarians (though rather oddly also regarding barbarians as being effeminate, decadents and over refined as distinct from the tought, outdoor straightforward stupid and beared soldiery that can beat them hands down. Political propaganda is effective, but does not need to be consistent.
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but you are afraid to venture beyond historical times or you’ll have to admit that the story of Hagar as we know it is a late variation.
Your cheap trick of trying to goad me into buying your theories by suggesting that I am afraid of the consequences to what you suppose are my ingrained beliefs -theories (that's the way you think - as we have seen in several posts, so understandably, you suppose i think the same way) is not going to trip up this experienced ol' skeptic. In fact I am quite inclining to the story having been worked over at some time which we why we have these odd contradictory slips. However, to leap to the conclusion that the story of Hagar is a late variation when there are several possibilities smacks of simply fitting the data into a pet theory. That may suit you but it doesn't suit me.
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What is more important is that you do not realize that you limit the history of the Jewish people to only six, seven or at the most ten thousand years.
Less than four thousand, if our assessment of the Exodux is correct and the archaeological pointers become confirmed.
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Are the Israelites brainless or extremely forgetful while your own ancestors (supposing that you are of Northern European ancestry) have an history of 40,000 years (since their arrival in Northern Europe, where, according to the Germanic mythology they met, loved and killed the natural non-human inhabitants of the land as the Israelites did with the Canaanite...barbarians)?
Let me ask you a question. Are the Romans brainless or forgetful just because their own history does not go back any further than the Etruscan and Greek times?
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