Genesis 12 and the Abraham‐Paradigm Concerning the Promised Land

Abstract

Genesis 12 as well as other texts on Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, and Ketura are closely connected to the “Promised Land” theme that plays a fatal role in the context of the conflict in Israel and Palestine. The land where Abraham arrives and wanders from north to south is named as “Canaan” (Gen. 12:7) – but Abraham leaves it very soon (Gen 12:10) because it is far from being a homeland that can nourish his household. Genesis 12:1-7 is the first promise of a land given to Abraham and his offspring, but it is not the only one within the stories. Furthermore, we can ask if the land is really the main promise? Most of the themes in the stories focus on missing heirs, not on the problem of gaining land. Furthermore, there are many other promises along the same line; and in terms of theological setting, pentateuchical sources, and redactions, they are very different. Therefore, in examining the topic of land as a promise to Abraham we must not only consider Genesis 12, but all the texts related to Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ketura, and their sons. The topic of the heirs of Abraham unfolds up to Genesis 25, in which the sons of Abraham and Ketura spread out over the region east of Jordan. Also, Genesis 12 is not the beginning of the story of Abraham and Sarah. The story starts in Gen 11:27 with Sarah as the main figure – and this fact challenges traditional biblical interpretations of Genesis 12. Dealing with biblical texts in the context of historical or political questions is very tricky. One has to be aware that biblical texts were thought to be presenting not a history but a story.2 It was only Europe of the 19th century that started to identify the truth of biblical texts as being (modern understood) historically accurate. The methods of biblical historical criticism that identified the various “sources” of the biblical text3 were sometimes seen to be undermining the basis of belief. When archaeology was extended as a new science, certain famous archaeologists began to dig up sites in Palestine in order to find proof that the Bible true in a modern historical sense.4 What had been known as textual story up to that date was now reconstructed as real history. The dissertation of Markus Kirchhoff points to this process in “Text zu Land” (text becomes land)5 and situates it not only with the Zionists, but also in the context of British Christianity. The identification of the biblical promise of land with Zionist settling in modern Palestine is only part – not the source – of the reason that Jewish immigration into Palestine was and is legitimized in relation to the Torah. The Zionist movement and the first waves of immigration into Palestine were not motivated religiously. The motivations were mainly European anti-Semitism, the pogroms in Russia at the end of the 19th century, and the insight that assimilation of Jews in Europe would not work. The concept of nationalism fostered the idea of a nation for the Jewish people – Jewishness now was thought as ethnic identity. And European/British colonialism was the premise to realize a forced immigration into Palestine. In fact, in the beginning the idea of a Jewish state was not much applauded by the European Jewish community. But the pogroms in Europe, the growing anti-Semitism in Western Europe culminating in the Shoah, and the reality of an ongoing immigration to Palestine transformed the political idea to a real process of gaining not only land but a state in Palestine on all levels.6 The reference to the Torah and Abraham's promise of a land for his offspring were used to support the political process. The declaration of the state of Israel 1948 cited the Torah. But the decisive step of using the religious promise of land to Abraham and his offspring in a nationalistic way did not take place until after the Six-Day-War of June 1967. The texts of Abraham as well as other texts on the conquering of the land became relevant for the political conflict. They are now widely used to justify not only the founding of the state of Israel, but far more the conquering and enduring occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. The stories of the forefathers and foremothers are located mostly in the region of the West Bank – therefore the nationalistic-religious movement insists on especially this part of the land. The divine promise of the land to Abraham and his offspring is seen as the right of the Jewish people, who envisage themselves as the offspring of Abraham, to come to Palestine, possess it, and live in it. It is understood that now, in a time where this was and is politically possible, the divine promise is fulfilled. The question arises as to why this religious argumentation strengthened after 1967 rather than 1948. My thesis is that the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 was legitimized through the international community (UN-Resolution 181). Even with the resistance of the Arab countries and the Palestinian population, there was a backing by the UN. By contrast, the war of 1967 and the extension of the occupied regions were delegitimized through the UN (see UN-resolution 242) until today. To cling to the occupied West Bank and Gaza, especially the decision to stay in the land and extend the process of settlements to the West Bank, needed broader argumentation. Religious arguments became prominent – and for a certain time Western Christian communities were hindered in any protest. Not long after the Shoah who would dare to argue against a Jewish religious belief? Furthermore, being in a process of reconsidering the anti-Judaistic traditions of Christian theology after the Shoah and trying to set up a Christian–Jewish dialogue, there was nothing to say against the claiming of the biblical stories for the Jewish and Israeli community.7 Similar arguments were used by some Christian groups in proving the truth of the Bible. For the Christian Zionist movement or messianic Christians, the state of Israel was seen as the fulfilment of the heavenly promise and even as the beginning of the messianic time. Protests of Palestinian Christians and any problems they had with justifying the occupation on the basis of the Bible were not recognized.8 Palestinian Christians only began to be part of the theological and religious leadership of the Christian Churches in Palestine.9 The Palestinian contextual theology was developed from the 1980s onward. The longer the occupation dragged on, the more developed became a nationalistic-religious Jewish settler movement and their nationalistic use of the biblical text and the stories of Abraham. Hebron, the grave (and therefore centre) of the forefathers and foremothers, is home to the fiercest settlers and the centre of a veneration of the murderous settler Baruch Goldstein as a martyr.10 In combination with the texts of Exodus, the Palestinians as well as the neighbouring people are seen as “Amalek” (see Deut. 25:17-19) who has to be destroyed or driven out of Palestine. These arguments are not only used by nationalistic Israeli groups, especially by the settler's movement11; they are also spread by Christian Zionists or messianic groups politically supporting the settlers for their own purposes. This support, especially for the settlements, is not only given through finances and political influence, but also in building up and nourishing the biblical (fundamentalist) arguments in order to secure the settlement process. As an outcome of this attitude, these people use the Bible to support the building of illegal settlements with all well-known consequences of violence. According to this Christian approach, criticizing the settlements and occupation of the Palestinian regions is akin to criticizing the Bible itself and God's will to fully put the land in the hands of the Israeli state, his own people, as he promised in Genesis 12. There are several possible reactions toward this theo-political attitude. One is to insist that the Bible is not a handbook for political decisions and that the Bible is not accepted as a common basis for life. In fact, any political organization has to insist on a sound political basis and laws, including human rights standards, international laws, and treaties. The settlements are based on an occupier's law12 that ignores the IV Geneva Convention (1949), and the settlers are allowed to act even against Israeli law. Nevertheless, if responsible politicians are influenced by a literal understanding of the Bible, it will influence their political stand, as can be seen clearly in the last few years of American policy. Therefore, one of the most urgent duties for the World Council of Churches (WCC) is to react to these challenges on various levels. Such an attitude cannot be tackled only by separating theology and politics on a theoretical level or by setting up projects on a practical level. It has to be attacked through a differentiated theological stand and the will to challenge this deadly theology. The project of WCC on a practical level, the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), seems to be very helpful in documenting and partly supporting Palestinians in conflicts with settlers and military forces of Israel. But another important task is to react to the theological support and grounding of the occupation. We must challenge two sides of Christian theology: (i) The theological tradition of Jewish-Christian dialogue that claims to be on the side of Israel unconditionally in order to take the responsibility for the Shoah and Christian anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism13; and (ii) the theological tradition of Christian fundamentalism that claims the everlasting promise to Abraham to be fulfilled in fully conquering the West Bank to be part of Israel. These different tasks are taken up in the various activities and theological debates of WCC and other Christian institutions. This paper will only discuss the biblical arguments of Abraham's promise of the land as being fulfilled through the state of Israel. What can be said from the perspective of biblical theology and exegesis to this biblical approach? In the remarks that follow, I want to give a hermeneutical clue to what we can learn from working with the paradigm of Abraham and what has to be stressed in a theological debate about biblical justification of Israel's use of land. Whoever talks about Genesis 12 and the Abraham paradigm relating to the “Promised Land” has to clarify the level they are talking about. A similar name is not a guarantee for similar semantics. The gap between biblical times and terminology and modern times and terminology is not easily to bridge. One of the dangers is a continuous use of “Israel” that does not differentiate between Israel in the biblical terminology (which is used in very different ways even within the Bible, requiring a differentiated use even in biblical terms!) and the modern state of Israel or the Israelis as people, or Israel used for the Jewish people as a whole. The same can be said about the terms “land” or “Abraham.” With regard to the many problematic uses of Promised Land, it is less the biblical text than the exegesis of these texts that contributes to a theological legitimization of violent oppression or even expulsion of Palestinians in order to gain land for the state of Israel. There is an urgent need for very meticulous terminology in order to avoid confusing history and story in identifying historical and modern terminology. This should be underlined for the sake of the Christian God-talk as well as for the sake of the Palestinians and Israelis. Constructing other peoples’ identity (for Palestinians or Israelis or Jews) – as is done by a Christian Zionist theology or even a Protestant dogmatic theology – is paternalistic and unacceptable. Even if one insists on using biblical terms directly as a political basis, there are some problems with Abraham and the concept of land in Abraham's paradigm. The Bible itself does not back this interpretation. The stories of Abraham are theological texts, but they use the form of a historical narrative. They are by no means “historical” in the modern sense of telling what (more or less) really happened at the time of narration. The interest to write “history” in a modern sense only started in modern Europe in the era of historism. For the Ancient Near East, the normative time was the past and any changes had to be found in the past or the beginning of creation. This is clearly visible in the setting of the ideal time: It is paradise at the beginning of creation. Texts of the Ancient Near East as well as biblical texts have a very different agenda concerning “history.” These are literary stories dealing with problems of their time in the form of stories of the past. In fact, these stories are either new or taken up and retold and reworked through a redactor – and sometimes retold and reworked several times. After the redaction of the Torah was finalized (likely at the beginning of the 4th century), this process was transformed in re-telling the biblical stories within the early Judaistic literature. Texts like the Book of Jubilees, the Testamentum of Abraham, and other texts of early Judaism can be described as re-written Bible.14 This is the same process of reworking the stories of the past to promote relevant theological positions. Therefore, while the stories of Sarah and Abraham convey historical information, this is not about the narrated time of Abraham, but about the time in which they are written. They portray the forefathers and foremothers acting as models for the problems of their time – and these backgrounds can be reconstructed. Abraham and Sarah, as they are narrated, are figures of a narrative. In talking about the Promised Land or “the” Abraham-paradigm,” we must identify what belongs to the “Abraham-paradigm” regarding its meaning. What characteristics or what personal qualities or what values are transported with “Abraham”? Gen 12:1-9 is often called “the “Abraham-paradigm because Gen 12:1-9 comprehensively covers the promises Abraham is given throughout the following narratives. Genesis 12:1-9 seems in a way to sum up Genesis 11:27 to Genesis 25. As any summary, it is surveying the various stories and therefore – as any overture – is written at a very late time (see next point). Genesis 12:1-9 outlines Abraham's journey to Canaan on the word of God, his travel through the country, his building of altars and worshipping of Elohim until he comes to Beersheba, the promise from God of a “land, that I will show you” (verse 7), and the promise of being a great nation. Many scholars see a break between verses 9 and 10. The endangering of Sarah through Abraham Genesis 12:10-20 and the selfish argumentation of Abraham are seen as representing the earlier traditions about Sarah and Abraham.18 Through this wandering, Abraham and Sarah represent the Egypt part of the history of the exile as well as the Babylon part through their way from Ur and Haran. Egypt is the second Diaspora of the Israelites during and after the Exile. But even if we consider Genesis 12:1-9 alone, with regard to content this summary is not sufficient to be called the “Abraham-paradigm.” The tradition of interpretation has singled out this piece of text rather than the text itself, which actually starts from Genesis 11:27 and unfolds itself up to Genesis 25. The topoi “land” and “Abraham” alone do not cover the entire story. Without an heir, there would be nobody to inherit the land. But an heir is only possible through Abraham's wife. As indicated through the introductory remarks, the patriarchal interpretation highlights this part of the text and ignores the women of Abraham who are necessary for the promise to be fulfilled. Indeed, the starting point of the story of Sarah and Abraham is found in Genesis 11:27. Abraham and Sara are part of his father's journey to Haran. But, “Sarai was barren; she had no child” (Gen. 11:30). This fact is stressed twice. To add “no child” doubles the fact of barrenness. Therefore, the main problem is underlined at the beginning of the story.19 Once the problem is highlighted, Abraham receives the call of God (Gen. 12:1) to leave the region of his childhood and go to a land that will be shown to him; a land that will be given to his offspring. This call is often interpreted as a test of Abraham's obedience. But it is not leaving home that is the real problem, it is the timing. At this point of the story, Abraham still has several chances to have sons and daughters; Sarah has none. But the call to leave exacerbates the main problem of Sarah being barren. For Abraham, leaving the family cuts down any further possibility of a second marriage within the extended family. He no longer has the chance to remarry within his clan and have children with other wives. Now the barrenness of Sarah is no longer her problem alone, but also the Abraham's. And the totality of barrenness of both creates the starting point for the suspense over how the promise to be a great nation or people in Genesis 12:7 can be realized. This masterly introduction of human hopelessness and divine promise sets the story in motion. In the end, Abraham has no land on its own (except the cave for Sarah in Genesis 23).20 He lives in a convivium with other people, which is not seen as a bad situation. But what is fulfilled is the promise of heirs. Three wives and eight sons stand at the very end (Gen. 25:1-6) and they are spread over the whole region. They also are depicted as part of the Abrahamic “nation building,” and the brothers are set in a complex relation to each other. Ishmael is part of the covenant (Gen. 17); he also is promised being the father of a blessed great nation (Gen 25).21 Abraham as father has to be shared with Arabs of the whole region in the east and south who called themselves Ishmaelites since the 4th century B.C.22 Yes, the problem of the barrenness at the beginning of the story is solved in the end! And his offspring lives in the land and its surrounding regions, as promised in Genesis 12. But what does this mean in terms of property, ownership, or possession? The issue of what “land” will mean to Abraham and Sarah unfolds in meaning throughout the whole story. It explicates what people think about land, people, and promise, and how these issues are set into reality. Most of the texts were written during the exile and post-exile period (after 586 B.C.) after the land was lost. The texts discuss this problem through the use of remembered narratives, and in doing so they construct their history as well as their future. This process is necessary in building up a new identity: An identity of how Israel is able to live in Juda/Jerusalem under Babylonian and later Persian rule, how the Diaspora-communities of Babylon and Egypt can relate to the people in Juda, and how the people of Juda are related to the wider region and its inhabitants. How this is constructed depends on the context. The concepts also differ according to social levels, class, gender, and even ethnic affiliation. Not every voice is represented equally; some voices have to be reconstructed; and some voices may have been lost. Very different answers emerge in the texts about “Abraham” and the “promised land,” as there may have been shared answers about how to cope with living in exile and later in the Diaspora in Babylonia/Egypt, and also how to live in the land under foreign rulers. Therefore, the Abraham-Sarah-texts discuss problems such as how to live in a land under foreign rule; how to worship God without temple; how to settle in an unknown, even possibly hostile, land; how to rely on God's promise for a better future without results at hand; and what this “promise” means after the historical catastrophe of the loss of Jerusalem? Abraham and Sarah's life is like a mirror-image of the life of the people in exile. Just as Ur (= Babylonia) was the origin of Abraham and Sarah, they went up to a land unknown to them and landed in Canaan. The exiled population went back to the roots of Abraham and Sarah, into Babylonia, a place unknown to them. Abraham went at the call of God, but the exiled people had to go at the call of the Babylonian rulers, seen as a punishment of God. Abraham and Sarah managed to live there their whole lives only on the hope for the fulfilment of the promise of God, even without a sign of this fulfilment. Abraham and Sarah also managed to live in a land with foreign people and foreign rulers, and Abraham worshiped God without a temple in calling his name and in direct contact with God. At a later time, the narrative about Abraham and Sarah may also have functioned as encouragement for those in the Diaspora: Palestine or Juda may be a forlorn and poor place compared with the living conditions in the Diaspora.23 The narrative could be understood as a call to overcome the hesitations, to come back to the forefathers and foremothers in order to occupy the land, as Abraham and Sarah did. Occupying is understood in a total different sense than in Deuteronomy. If there is a process like “Text zu Land,” the problem is how to deal with the conflicting concepts of Land. Among the different concepts that are interwoven within the stories about Abraham, Sarah and Hagar and their sons the concepts of “promised land” are also very different. Land is understood as a place for the more important people, who will be Abraham and Sarah's offspring and live on the land (Gen. 12); Land will be such a place in the future, after 400 years of exile in Egypt (Gen. 15, late, Pentateuchal redaction).24 It is possible to live on the land without possessing it (Gen. 23). Land is conceived of with different, other people to live with (Gen. 14; 20); as well as a place that is not sufficient (i.e., Abraham has to leave the land because of hunger Gen. 12; 20). But it is also land that can be shared, because it has enough for all (Abraham-Lot). Land is also defined through very different borders (Gen. 13:14; 15; 25). Abraham never possesses the land, never kills or expels people from the land in order to take it as a living. He can share the space with Lot and he leaves without hesitation when there is not enough to live on. Abraham's problem is not the land but, again, his failing offspring. As I noted at the beginning: the same word often is not identical with the same meaning or semantics. What it means to possess land has to be exemplified through stories. It is not possible to combine these stories into one single concept, seen through the example of the borders of the Promised Land. Borders are a main issue within the present conflict. Anyone attempting to justify any borders on texts related to Abraham is confronted with the contradicting concepts of the extension of “land.” Only three concepts may illustrate the problem. The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.” So Abram moved his tent, and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the Lord.(Gen. 13:14-18) Ernst Axel Knauf identified the hill geologically as “height Nr. 913” and asked: “What would Abraham have seen?” And he reconstructs that the biblical notion of what Abrahams would have seen is far from being a fictional landscape. Indeed, he would see from Beth El in the North to Beth Zur in the South, which is a well-known territory. It was the province “Jehud” during the neo-Babylonian and Persian time.25 Genesis 13 is directed to the people who live in the province Jehud at that time. They receive the affirmation that indeed this province is the land that was promised to Abraham. It is at the same time an attempt to stop any dreams of a land much bigger than Jehud, of reconquering the north or of a revolt against the Babylonian or Persian rule. This promise strengthens those who stayed back in Jehud. They indeed can claim that they are the offspring of Abraham and that the land is given to them. This is a clear position against the theology of those who are still in Babylon or even those who came back from Babylon and tried to overtake the rule in Jehud. The struggle over the leading positions between those from the exile and those who stayed in the country can be sensed in Nehemiah. The persons coming back from the exile were claiming that the “people of the land” are the ones who caused the catastrophe and are not the ones to lead the country. Genesis 13 is comfort and reinforcement for Judeans on one side, and a challenge on the other side. Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” When the sun had gone down and it was dark, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.” (Gen. 15:13-21) Genesis 15 is one of the latest texts and belongs to the redaction of the Torah. It connects Exodus and Genesis through implementing the Exodus-story to the Abraham traditions (especially Gen. 15:14-16). It includes the Diaspora of Egypt and Babylon, naming the Nile and the Euphrates, and enumerating different peoples within these borders. The names of the peoples are mostly fictive or did not exist any longer at that time – and some never existed.26 Genesis 15 is the most far-reaching description of “land” and its borders. At that time, the Persians were rulers over a vast empire and Jehud wasa very small province within, with no possibility at all political self-determination. But the communities had a kind of civil and religious autonomy. Having this context as background, the concept bears an eschatological note and reclaims any landscape with Judeans in it as the inheritance of Abraham. Perhaps the eschatological note conforms to Jes. 19:23-25, as Knauf suggests.27 But it also can be understood as reflecting the Diaspora. Living there can be interpreted as the beginning of the fulfilment of the divine promise, if the borders of the rivers are not depicted as political borders for an independent country. If the rivers are borders of the spreading Jewish communities, the promise is fulfilled through the Diaspora, where Judeans – beginning to become the Jewish communities – could live all in all an acceptable life. Genesis 25 belongs to the priestly code and holds a different view of “land.” It leaves out Egypt and the Euphrates, but it depicts as “land” the region of Syria, Palestine, and northern Arabia, where all eight sons of Abraham are living. It extends from the south (with Ishmael) to the west (Isaac) and the east (the six sons of Ketura), and covers the wider region of Jordan including the desert regions in the south and north Arabia. Again, there are no concrete borders in a political sense, but a region with people thought of belonging together. Genesis 25 (as well as Genesis 17) builds up a regional identity within the Persian empire. It unites and connects people as belonging together live in between empires, here with Persia as the ruler of the land. It is more a concept of space than of “land,” a concept of people within the space who belong together through circumcision, the common father, a covenant with God, and the promise to be a great nation. Genesis 25 binds the people together without possessing a land with borders. It is the same possibility as in Genesis 12: living on the land without ruling or possessing it. This is according to the promise of Genesis 12:1-2. Abraham is called to a land where he will be a great nation and has a great name. Nothing is said about ruling it. But Genesis discusses the relation to other peoples. Genesis 12 names the land to where Abraham is sent as “Canaan”: he wanders through it from north to south and then further to Egypt because of hunger (Gen. 12:10-20). Canaan was the name the Egyptians used for Palestine; Abraham is mainly bound to places where he builds an altar or stays. He seems to stay only a short time, then he leaves the land and wanders further south to Egypt. There are not only different concepts of “land” but also different concepts of Egypt, the Pharaoh, and his people. Egypt is depicted as hostile country of oppression in Genesis 15; but Genesis 12 differs strongly in this respect. In the beginning, Abraham fears that the Egyptians are brutal. He has to learn that Egypt is a friendly and nourishing place and that the Egyptians respect the law even for foreigners. Abraham is the one who is full of prejudices and hostility (Gen. 12:10-20). He has to learn through Sarah's fate that this prejudice and hostility will fall back on him and Sarah in a destructive and endangering way. God has to interfere in order to save Sarah and his own promise of heirs. The same line is followed in Genesis 20 with regard to the kings of the south, where Abraham is described as ger, a foreigner. Again,