*the story of Adam and Eve was dramatized slightly by FlemGem.

"Obi, on Jacob and Esau, we should put things into context. If you will allow me let's start with Cain and Able, move on to Issac and Ishmael, then to Jacob and Esau and, finally, Joseph and his brothers. A little like thinking of the destruction of Sodom in the latter context of Nineveh."

"First, the Bible was written by men who were divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, not by teletype autobots taking dictation. Of course their own personalities, languages, worldviews, etc. show through. Paul even writes that one particular instruction is his own advice only. More later... on my way to church. :-)"

Neither of those address my point:

The passages given to represent Esau do not represent or even contain Esau in most of its verses, Esau is referenced in the minority of those verses, is relevant in the minority of those lines, speaks in about four or five tops, and repeats himself in those lines, so that murderous anger over a lost birthright is topic covered over those five verses, so there is neither diversity in its tone nor its literary devices...

The same way "The Comedy of Errors" wouldn't get a second glance and no one would reprint it today or ascribe it any meaning if it hadn't been written by a certain young Billy Shakespeare...

This story would NOT warrant the deep thematic and personal sort of relevance that you ascribe to it if it wasn't ascribed to a book that's been considered Holy for 2,000 years.

If this were written by an ancient tribe in Tibet, you wouldn't give it a second thought, maybe shrug it off as an example of an ancient parable (and one with questionable morals) but that's all.



The literary value of text is not intrinsic here, it's entirely based on your subjective expectation of it being good or being holy; without that presupposed brilliance and divinity, there is no structural or textual support ITSELF to support your lofty claims for the text, and it collapses when viewed objectively.

" If you've ever been the parent of small children you know this is the truest story in the world, even if it's only a myth."

Granted we're allowing genocide and baby-killing if God allows it...

But I'm so sick of the argument that you must allow your child to touch a hot stove, or they'll never learn.

The point of their learning is to improve upon it and not do it again...NOT so that they--and not only they, but ALL THEIR DESCENDENTS--can be permanently scarred by the event.

If your child was about to touch a flame that would irrevocably burn away their entire hand, I WOULD HOPE *EVERYONE* would intervene, like a decent parent, and stop their damn kid.



A parent--OR God--that does not is negligent, cruel, or both, and a court of law would never allow them to keep their children, and rightfully so.

"If you think this story is sexist then you haven't read the plain text and you're interpreting the Bible like a fundamentalist from the 1800's which should embarass you so stop it."

Adam is made in God's image...Eve is taken out of Adam.
Eve is the one tempted.
Eve gets the blame for the Apple.
Eve bears the pain of child bearing.

Doesn't take a genius to figure out that this isn't exactly being even-handed in its treatment of men and women...again, to say NOTHING of how condoning the sale of your daughter into prostitution and/or servitude is not only completely OK, but treated in the same passage as is the treatment of oxen.

(And if we're tired of picking in the OT, the NT is no bundle of feminism, either--claim what you want, but textually, what are the two most prominent women--both named Mary, you'd think they'd have more creativity, if we're treating these as literary texts--but a woman who's great accomplishment is giving birth to a male savior and being a virgin, and another who's great accomplishment is sinning so that male savior can pardon her sins as her tears wash his feat, so to speak.

Compared to all the male heroes of the OT, and the 12 male Disciples and Jesus...not very feminist-friendly, you have the odd woman here or there with a decent role in the OT, but far and few between, and nearly always as the assistant to or mother of a male hero that dwarfs her in space taken up in the story as well as overall emphasis and importance.)

@ obi

You're ranting again :-)

Again, you are taking these stories and refusing to look at them within the context of a world with an afterlife that actually is the whole purpose. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. For argument's sake, either assume that the fundamentals of Christian theology are right (ergo God exists and so does Heaven, so His priority is to get as many people thereas possible), or assume that neither is and show a good reason for believe that to be true. This God exists but He's a jerk for all the misery in this, the one and only, world seems a bit of a desperate attempt to lash out at Christianity.

I'll say it one more time and then shake my head at the willful refusal to listen to any reasonable opposition. God is working with people who are able to choose right from wrong. He offers guidance from where they are (not necessarily where you are) thus when He gives guidance to a Bronze Age people He's moving them to the next phase of their morality. You can sit back an gripe all you want, but it's still the lastest group of humans thinking they are the penultimate of religion, all the while ignoring the people who came before them upon whose experiences and teachngs modern morality is based. One thousand years from now people will think you are barbaric and backward. Yet still, being human will be essentially the same and the same stories that affect people now within the Bible will most likely be affecting them then.

People have been predicting the downfall of Christianity for well over 600 years and the population of Christians is still growing faster than the population of the world. That is we're still growing. You're not the first one to ever look at a story in the Bible and go "Huh, what's going on there". You just seem to be utterly closed to the idea that this is a collection of books that look unflenchingly at the human soul and show us up to be what have been and are.

If you are proud of your grandfather (and you should be) then you are treating the early Israelites with a disgusting double standard. Your grandfather fought alongside men who killed many more women and children in one bombing run than the Israelites could possibly have slain in an entire war. God works with flawed people to whom He has given free will. Morality is an ideal toward which He guides us. If modern secular morality is so superior How can you not be ashamed of the very relatives who fought in WWII (and I would not countenance anyone to be) due to their being sent off by their secular states to wage total war on the entire populace of cities. It's an attempt to use emotional appeal because there is no real other way to back it up without going to Theodicy which is itself hoplessly flawed in its refusal to accept the entirety of the worldview it's attempting ot call into question.

There is nothing to fear from a populaton who acknowledges they are capable of barbarous acts. They (the Christians whose responses you claimed scared you) being aware that you are capable of them beforehand is the first step in preventing them. I'm more afraid of the folks who stand in judgement of others and think that they are above barbarity (as you seem to). There is nothing scary about honesty, it's that self-delusion (among Christians and atheists) that says "we're better than that" that scares the Hell out of me. Those are your candidates for the next atrocity. I read the story of the Amalekites and see absolutely no endorsement of genocide. If there is a time to go Old Testament on somebody I'd imagine that the murder of your child would be that time. I can certainly, as a father, relate to the need to protect my children and family. If there had been a group picking off my family memebrs for generations every time that they got the chance, I can definitely see the need to put an end to that. This was no mere war it was a blood feud in which the Amalekites had waged total war upon the Hebrews. They finally responded. They has a right to save their babies. War itself is horrible and something to be avoided, but appeasement has its dangers and horrors too. There is the clear signal that this is a departure and not to be the norm, as I've shown with the text. God okayed a final show down with the Amalekites who were murdering their people. It was a small tribe, not an entire culture. They were the sons of Esau (an Israelite) so your worry about their language and culture becoming extinct was invalid. It absolutely sickens me that anyone should die in a war and I resent the implication that I am condoning genocide. I just seem to have a more realistic view of the world than you. I would expect that God does too. Show me in this text where God rejoices over this. I have shown you through textual evidence the opposite, that He has given an order that He deems necessary, but absolutely forbids the men from rejoicing or profiting from this. The kIng is reprimanded, not as you suppose for not being bloody enough, but for taking spoils. God wasn't ticked about letting women and children go (since there were still Amalekites later we must assume some escaped) that isn't mentioned as the reason Saul is punished. He was punished for keeping the king alive as a slave and for taking spoils. It is not the story you imagine.

**penultimate of morality**

You do know penultimate means second place, right?

"without that presupposed brilliance and divinity, there is no structural or textual support ITSELF to support your lofty claims for the text, and it collapses when viewed objectively. "

I actually did an entire paper on those same five verses for a class in World Lit. at GSU. Dr. Schmidt gave me an A on and seemed to like the analysis. Anything that can yeild a good five page paper's worth of analysis on just five lines probably has a claim to being good literature. Especially sense it was in the anthology of the World Lit class in the first place. It isn't as if they didn't have enough other stories from the Holy Bible to include in college class textbook.

Before I read that--in all fun, CA...

*I'm* ranting?

Your post is longer and blockier! :)

Lol, guess I meant Pinnacle.

And probably more emotionally charged, lol. The accusation of ranting is that you seem to be making the same claim repeatedly, that God is condoning genocide. Yet not moving forward with any textual evidence to support the claim, while not really addressing the idea that there are definitely subtler tones here that signal it isn't something antbody was proud of, but still they thought it was necessary. They are neither whitewashing it in their own history (an admirable thing I think), nor are they hanging their head in inordinant shame. It is presented as merely a point in there history in which they had to take action that they don't seem to be overly proud of. They also show God as leading the way in refusing them the right to benefit from this act.

Wow I knew I was tired but a four clause run-on sentence? Going to garde papers and go to bed. Have fun debating, back to work now.

@CA - Yeah pinacle is probably what you meant. The penultimate is the one just before or below the ultimate.

Apparently Obi isn't embarassed to read the Bible like a nineteenth century fundamentalist. Weird.
But not surprising. I've found that many non-believers read the Bible much more literally than the literalists. Not that Biblical literalism means what most people think it does, but oh well.

"Eve is the one tempted.
Eve gets the blame for the Apple.
Eve bears the pain of child bearing."

Adam is right there with Eve during the tempting, using her as a guinea pig. It's in the text.
Adam shares the blame with Eve. It's in the text.
Adam also suffers. It's in the text.

But Obi chooses to interprest this as a misogynist text - and then wants us to believe he's the feminist of the forum.

Very weird indeed.

I've found that many believers use the Bible as a moving target to midrash to mean whatever they want depending on the circumstances, or even insist that 90% of the translations of the bible aren't accurate but rather their ridiculous reading between the lines and making up stuff out of whole cloth is more accurate.

How's this for "feminism"?

As in all the churches of the saints, 34the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

First of all, anti-religious bias doesn't stand up to intellectual scrutiny. Second, as has been very ably pointed out, the story of Jacob and Esau is just one in a series of stories that lead us to some very important points. Some of the depth in this VERY short story has been mentioned, but I'm going to summarize what I see in it, and others may want to add to this. But not everyone will necessarily like all of the message. First of all, Esau devalues his birthright to the extend that he sells it for a bowl of stew, but Jacob deeply covets it, so it goes to him--and that birthright is the line of faith that started with his grandfather Abraham and leads to the Messiah, Jesus and from Jesus to the world. Second, nowhere in the story are Jacob's actions to steal the birthright condoned, so the message I see there is that this birthright that belonged to someone else can be mine and yours as well, not because any of us deserve it, but because we want it, we accept it--as a pure act of the will.

extend = extent

Lest anyone think that this birthright has been taken from the Jews, however, please consider the message in Romans 11, which anticipates the return to God of the majority of Jews:

11 Did God’s people stumble and fall beyond recovery? Of course not! They were disobedient, so God made salvation available to the Gentiles. But he wanted his own people to become jealous and claim it for themselves. 12 Now if the Gentiles were enriched because the people of Israel turned down God’s offer of salvation, think how much greater a blessing the world will share when they finally accept it.
13 I am saying all this especially for you Gentiles. God has appointed me as the apostle to the Gentiles. I stress this, 14 for I want somehow to make the people of Israel jealous of what you Gentiles have, so I might save some of them. 15 For since their rejection meant that God offered salvation to the rest of the world, their acceptance will be even more wonderful. It will be life for those who were dead! 16 And since Abraham and the other patriarchs were holy, their descendants will also be holy—just as the entire batch of dough is holy because the portion given as an offering is holy. For if the roots of the tree are holy, the branches will be, too.
17 But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree—some of the people of Israel—have been broken off. And you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God’s special olive tree. 18 But you must not brag about being grafted in to replace the branches that were broken off. You are just a branch, not the root.
19 “Well,” you may say, “those branches were broken off to make room for me.” 20 Yes, but remember—those branches were broken off because they didn’t believe in Christ, and you are there because you do believe. So don’t think highly of yourself, but fear what could happen. 21 For if God did not spare the original branches, he won’t [fn6] spare you either.
22 Notice how God is both kind and severe. He is severe toward those who disobeyed, but kind to you if you continue to trust in his kindness. But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off. 23 And if the people of Israel turn from their unbelief, they will be grafted in again, for God has the power to graft them back into the tree. 24 You, by nature, were a branch cut from a wild olive tree. So if God was willing to do something contrary to nature by grafting you into his cultivated tree, he will be far more eager to graft the original branches back into the tree where they belong.
God’s Mercy Is for Everyone
25 I want you to understand this mystery, dear brothers and sisters, [fn7] so that you will not feel proud about yourselves. Some of the people of Israel have hard hearts, but this will last only until the full number of Gentiles comes to Christ. 26 And so all Israel will be saved. As the Scriptures say,
“The one who rescues will come from Jerusalem, [fn8]
and he will turn Israel [fn9] away from ungodliness.
27 And this is my covenant with them,
that I will take away their sins.” [fn10]
28 Many of the people of Israel are now enemies of the Good News, and this benefits you Gentiles. Yet they are still the people he loves because he chose their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 29 For God’s gifts and his call can never be withdrawn. 30 Once, you Gentiles were rebels against God, but when the people of Israel rebelled against him, God was merciful to you instead. 31 Now they are the rebels, and God’s mercy has come to you so that they, too, will share [fn11] in God’s mercy. 32 For God has imprisoned everyone in disobedience so he could have mercy on everyone.
33 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!
34 For who can know the LORD’s thoughts?
Who knows enough to give him advice? [fn12]
35 And who has given him so much
that he needs to pay it back? [fn13]
36 For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/tools/printerFriendly.cfm?b=Rom&c=11&t=NLTP&x=13&y=9

".how can you claim sufficient textual evidence for the bounty of complexity you claim for the character? "

I already said he wasn't the most COMPLEX character. Nevertheless, I think you'd have to agree that the verses supported exactly the narrative claims I said they did (except for the mistake in ordering on his marriages, already noted). Therefore I'm wondering just what exactly all this "going to the text" accomplished. If you thought that a narrative that told the actions I claimed couldn't support depth, why not say so at the time?

I can't really relate to the argument you seem to be making, which is that we measure the depth of a story by its length, or its proportion as part of a longer story (though I don't think anybody on webdip is surprised to find that that's what you believe).

As I've said before, the most profound part of the Esau story is that a basically pretty cool guy got distracted from what mattered and sold his birthright for something essentially meaningless. This is both realistic and profound. It doesn't matter how many words it takes to tell it, as long as it's well told (and it is).

Esau describes exactly what pyoung men do even today. Throw away the future for the moment. Obi - Do you put 10-20% of everything you make into an IRA or 401K? You should. If you don't, then you are throwing away your "birthright".

@Draug:

...?

I'm honestly not sure what you're driving at, but then, I'm arguing Job while typing and essay and responding here, so I'm a bit distracted at the moment...

@senck/;

"Therefore I'm wondering just what exactly all this "going to the text" accomplished. If you thought that a narrative that told the actions I claimed couldn't support depth, why not say so at the time?"

Because that's just the way I'm trained to say it as an English major. :)

"Support it with the text" is the phrase of the major...you can't even begin to get off the ground in a real sense with a text if you can't use the text to support it, and my point was that I think you presuppose more depth (nearly all the depth) that you ascribe to the character, and that the text doesn't warrant it.

I honestly don't see Esau as complex, but flat, and flat because the story is essentially part-parable, and, well, parables generally DO feature flat characters.

None here would argue the Grasshopper or Ant was a complex character at all.

While obviously not being a pure one-to-one analogue, I would say that that sort of Aesop's Fables level of depth is at work here.

Why?

Both Aesop and these early stages of the Bible are taking flat, black and white characters to try and teach a simple lesson; if you have a complex character, you might be able to explore these ideas and lessons more fully, but not at all simply, and with the limited space that Esau and his story is given, that simply isn't permissible.

As such, I find it lacking in depth and not an engaging story.

"Yeah, basically, but... what answer is there? Presuming we both agree that genocide is bad, we would subsequently agree that not-genocide is to be preferred to genocide. Regardless of whether the world is good or bad - as that is indeed a question I don't think anybody can really answer in its totality - I think if we can agree that not having something in it is better than having something in it, then we can agree a world without that something is better than the world with it"

You commit at least two fallacies here.

First of all, we can't assume that the bad could be taken out of the world and the rest left the same. For example, there's the free will argument.* Perhaps the very existence of free will is such a good that it outweighs the fact that people will misuse it and commit evil (and thus, there will be evil).

Almost everybody is familiar with these tradeoffs. For example, I could say, "Surely you must admit that a justice system where guilty people are virtually always convicted is better than one where they're not." And you'd probably agree -- but if I'm arguing that therefore, we should discard the fifth amendment and all the similar procedural guarantees, then I'm committing a fallacy, because it turns out we care even more about fairness and not convicting an innocent person or turning our society into a police state than we do about convicting every guilty person. So it's illegitimate to single out a single variable, and then trumpet that changing it would be an improvement, and ignore other factors.

Which is exactly what you've done.

So we CAN'T -- in the context of possible worlds that could have been created -- necessarily agree that a world without genocide would be better than a world with it, purely because we can't know what it would entail to create a world without genocide. I'd prefer THIS world without genocide, but I certainly don't know just how that would be achieved, and I can't pretend (and neither can you) to know what trade-offs would be involved in making that decision. It's mere empty rhetoric if you pretend you can.

You also committed another fallacy. You say we can't answer whether the world is good or bad. But that (in any case) is all God would be required to do -- make a world that is net good. If this world is good but there's one you'd consider better -- well, it's still good, so it would still be a good to make it. Why might he choose this one over that one? Who knows? Maybe because that one entailed no free will. Maybe because He loved the people in this one better and wanted them to exist. It's not up to us to know.

But let's be quite clear: if you feel sure that, net, this world is an evil, and making it and allowing people to be born to it is wrong, then we have it in our means now to end that ourselves (either through nuclear Armageddon or, less dramatically, forced universal sterilization), and are therefore just as culpable as He if we don't. If you don't think that would be justified, then perhaps the world IS good, withal, and allowing this is not an evil.

"If I misread then do correct me - but what bad rewards might these be? ...genocide, perhaps?"

No, the bad rewards I spoke of are precisely MY proclivity to sin.

Genocide -- if it is committed upon me -- is the sin of another, for which he is responsible. Yes, needless to say, the sins of others often have terrible consequences for people. This is part of why they're sins. That sin will have to be payed for. Which doesn't make me alive again, of course -- which is part of why the sin is so horrifyingly severe and important. Its consequences cannot be undone.

"And however many millions or billions of victims of genocide have existed since mankind arose would all consequently be suffering two things: unjust slaughter at the hands of evil actors, and punishment for something their ancestors did. Neither of these is the mark of a just world."

They're suffering for what the people committing the genocide did, not what their ancestors did. Yes, there is a causal link between the two, but the latter suffices. And yes, certainly it is not just for the people that they are being killed. But "just world" would have to be defined. This is not a world in which murder is impossible, but it is one where it will be finally and severely punished, so there is indeed justice in that sense. Whether it is a GOOD world -- well, see above.

"Do I, though [know God's law]? I can read the Bible, sure, but I don't necessarily know that the Bible conveys God's law."

Certainly you do. But my point wasn't that you know it's God's law (though on some level you do -- but that wasn't my point and would take us far afield). What I meant is that some part of the content of God's law is acknowledged by your mind, to yourself anyway, as right and wrong, and you still sometimes violate it. You do things to other people that you call wrong when they do them to you. My point was merely about culpability. There is enough to condemn somebody based just on what they knew was wrong and did, even without reference to what they should have known and did not.

*I have some technical problems with the free will argument, but they're unrelated and it's simpler than the analogous arguments I'd use, so I'm going with it for this example.

"and my point was that I think you presuppose more depth (nearly all the depth) that you ascribe to the character, and that the text doesn't warrant it."

The text expects you to consider him a real person, and infer his characteristics from his actions. Like every text.

I fear I must continue to see considering Esau flat as a failure of imagination, but there's probably little more to say.

Obi, if you have been WELL trained as an English major, then you know that bald-faced assertions must be supported. But, without any support whatsoever, you asserted that the story of Jacob and Esau is "flat because the story is essentially part-parable, and, well, parables generally DO feature flat characters." So by declaring this story a parable, you have ipso facto consigned Esau and the other characters in the story to automatic flatness. But for a short story, an amazing amount of information is conveyed on several levels, and I don't find that flat at all. Jacob's name is eventually changed to Israel, after all, and so this story has ramifications that extend to the present day. Esau is not the main character, and yet is fairly well described, and certainly enough that we get the picture of who he is and what he has done. Flat?? Sheesh.

The assertion that the Jacob/Esau story is a parable also needs to be supported. It is certainly unlike most/all other Biblical stories known as parables. Perhaps "folktale" would be more appropriate if one rejects the story's historicity, and such rejection would also require support. There aren't even many elements of the supernatural for a naturalist to reject a priori.

Best part about the story is even after the stew incident, Jacob still needs to steal the blessing from a blind isaac, and later on when Jacob wrestles an "Angel." Put that in context and tell me if its really an angel. Its Essau.

Again a crackpot torah theory

It's God, as witness when he touches him on the hip. Have you ever wrestled with God, Santa, and if not, why?

Yes, when he challenged me to a lumberjack match to determine the number one contender for the intercontinental championship

I would have won if Buddha hadn't interfered and clocked me over the head with the ring bell.