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Stories of the Patriarchs
column: The Wesleyan Way
by Carl F. Phillips (Carl's bio)
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Every culture treasures a mythological tale concerning its beginnings. The ancient ancestors of people around the world today felt a need to trace their roots back to the beginnings of mankind, and the stories they passed from generation to generation were remarkably similar.
The same fascination for knowledge about beginnings carries through with an interest in the history of mankind since creation. Every nation keeps, as a vital part of its cultural heritage, some sort of record of its beginnings, no matter how rudimentary the story may be.
Chapters 12 through 50 of Genesis contain the stories of the patriarchs, the people considered to be the founders of the nations Israel and Judah. These stories, and similar stories from the cultures of other people living in the region, express concern over the identities of the rightful male heirs of dying fathers.
The story of Jacob's flight from Canaan to escape Esau's wrath, after Jacob had stolen Esau's birthrights and paternal blessings, is a story told in cultures everywhere. In Egypt the story of Sinuhe, for example, tells of a young man fleeing to another country, where he stays for an extended period of time, marries into a wealthy family, and prospers in his new surroundings before he returns to his native land.
It has been said that there are no new stories, only new characters and new ways of telling the same old stories. Nowhere is this idea better demonstrated than in the Biblical stories of the patriarchs. The reason these stories fascinate us is that they are eternal. They depict conflicts we still experience in our lives today.
Even the story of Moses has similarities to the other patriarch stories told around the world. Moses fled Egypt for Midian, and married into a family there. Moses, however, was not blessed with any of his father-in-law's riches - over the next forty years he remained a common sheepherder.
Moses' story does resemble the story of Sinuhe in that his flight was political rather than familial.
Another resemblance the Israeli patriarchal stories bear to those from other cultures is in the importance placed on divine revelations in dreams. In Assyria a book, named the "Assyrian Dream Book", was published that shows a very similar pattern of dreams and interpretation to those in our Old Testament.
Joseph, sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers, became an important figure in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh, largely because of his ability to interpret dreams. In fact, an Egyptian story tells of two brothers that roughly parallel Joseph's rise from prison to palace power, including an incident similar to the one involving Potiphar's wife that landed Joseph in prison in the first place. As we noted earlier, great stories seem to live forever.
Still, even with all the smaller stories included in the cultural history of Israel, stories that match similar stories in other cultures, the Israeli story taken as a whole, from beginning to end, is unique. No other culture seems to have an overall story of its history to compare with that of Israel.
We mentioned Moses earlier. While it is true that his story does have a similar counterpoint, the story of his birth resembles yet another Egyptian story. The Akkadian birth story of Sargon the Great is strikingly similar to the Exodus account of Moses' birth. Both stories tell of a baby boy who, for one reason or another cannot be kept by his parents. In each story the baby boy is placed in a reed basket and left in the water along the edge of a river. Eventually the baby is discovered by someone else who raises the child as his or her own.
As events of the past week have unfolded we have learned once again that the only thing that separates us from our ancestors is our technology. Underneath it all, underneath our veneer of civilization, we are still barbarians, some of us capable of atrocities the extent of which an average person going about his daily business cannot imagine.
If I had been the sole individual responsible for the security of the United States last week, I could never have imagined the scenario that unfolded before our eyes on our television screen. It would never have occurred to me that an airliner filled with fuel would become a bomb in the hands of a suicidal terrorist. And I certainly would never have foreseen the possibility that four different airplanes would be taken over at the same time.
Raised in a civilized society, educated by people whose own ideals were high, such possibilities never had any place in my darkest nightmares.
I was aware that the United States, as a nation, consumed more resources than any other nation in the world - even more than nations whose population exceeds our own. I knew that even a poor person in this country is wealthier than middle class citizens of some other less developed nations. I even knew that many people around the world are jealous of our success.
We give people freedoms, and do our best to keep the government restrained from interfering with those freedoms. We pride ourselves on our justice and our personal liberties. We easily see how unfettered individuals, working for both themselves and common causes, have provided for us in ways almost unparalleled in the history of the world.
We have watched empires rise and fall, and we have known all along we are not ourselves invincible, that the way of life so precious to us is a delicate thing, a carpet that could be yanked from beneath our feet at any moment.
Our feet are still firmly planted on the carpet. But it got yanked, and our kneecaps got kicked, and we are in pain.
No longer can we ignore the have-nots of the world.
They lie in ambush, waiting for the next opportunity to lash out at us, to try their desperate best to take from us something we hold dear.
They cannot see that the most precious things we own in this world are our freedoms and our liberties, that those freedoms and liberties arise directly out of God's law, and that we will not submit to bandits, thugs, and terrorists.
God hates the shedding of innocent blood, and God most certainly hates what those insane murderers did at the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
Copyright 2001, Carl F. Phillips. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.
| About Carl F. Phillips: Born March 1933 and raised in the mountains of western North Carolina, near Asheville. Attended college at Warren Wilson in Swannanoa. Enlisted in the Navy, earned a commission in the Marines, flew jet reconnaissance photography. Married, divorced, and remarried, I have four children -- two boys and two girls. Lived in Port Isabel, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, for more than 20 years. Received a heart transplant July 31, 1991. Direct the choir in my church, lead congregational singing, and teach adult Bible study. Also occasionally fill the pulpit in the preacher's absence. E-mail Carl |
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