You're listening to Tim Bulkeley's
5 minute Bible Is Paul abusing Genesis?
there'll probably always be discussion
about the use the New Testament writers make of the Old
I dealt with someof the issues in my podcasts on
Jesus fulfilling the Old Testament, at church we're working through the book
Galatians and the example of Paul's use of Genesis
at the end of chapter 4 struck me quite forcibly, it reads like this:
"For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman.
One, the child of the slave was born according to the flesh
the other, the child of the free woman was born through the promise
now this is an allegory; these women are 2 covenants
One woman, in fact, is Hagar from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery
Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem..."
You see what it's like? It's to modern ears
thoroughly confusing stuff! All that talk of
allegory puts us off for a start, interestingly it's a word it's only used once
in the New Testament so perhaps we shouldn't
take it for granted that it means we think it does, maybe
it means that these two women
a picture or an analogy or in some way represent
the two covenants, and all that stuff anout
Hagar being Mount Sinai in Arabia
who is also the present Jerusalem, is a clear indication
that Paul is not talking literally, Hagar was an Egyptian slave girl
nothing to do with either Arabia or Jerusalem and it gets wierder
"But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above
she is free, and she is our mother, for it is written:
'Rejoice you childless one' (quoting from Isaiah)
'who bear no children, burst into song and shout, you who endure no birth pangs
for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than the children of the
one who is married.'"
Sarah only had one child!
"Now, you, my friends are children of the promise like Isaac
but just at that time the child who was born according
to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now
also
but what does Scripture say? "Drive out the
slave and her child, for the child of the slave will not share the inheritance of the
child in the free woman."
Which seems to be a quote from memory from
Genesis 21:10 though it's interesting to notice the little changes
that Paul makes as he goes along
In the NRSV it read: "Cast out this slave woman with her son for the son of this slave woman
shall not inherit with my son Isaac."
It is not so much the Bible as Sarahthat Paul is quoting with approval
He goes on and concludes the passage: "So then, friends we are children
not of the slave but of the free woman."
Crikey! Now that is strange Bible interpretation!
and if your pastor was to preach it to you on Sunday you'd have serious doubts
about him or her
but let's look at the passage in Genesis 16
"Now Sarai, Abram's wife bore him no children
She had an Egyptian slave girl whose name was Hagar, and Sarai said to Abram
'You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children
go into my slave girl, it may be that I shall obtain children by her.'
And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai."
Now, this is all thoroughly culturally appropriate stuff
in the ancient Near East that was what you did
if your wife was childless and she was willing you slept with her bond servant
and the children counted for you thus preserving the wife from childlessness
Except notice how Sarah puts it
"You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children."
she acknowledges that her lack children is Yahweh's doing
and then she tries by human response
to fix what God has not fixed: "Go into my slave girl!"
Abraham's story, we've been told time and again through Scripture
but in Genesis as well, is about faith and promise.
what we have here is an example of a rejection of the promise
and of the grace of God and an attempt to
secure the desired child by human means
so you see, Paul's interpretation of it isn't
quite as strange as it first seemed, because what Paul
is on about in Galatians and especially in Chapter 4 is
this great gulf between human attempts to
sort things out (by obedience to law)
and the grace of God. It's just that
as we read him, Paul seems to be putting down Hagar and elevating Sarah
but the point he's making is a good one. In this story
we have a conflict between mercy and grace on the one side
and human striving on the other.
Paul's point is good, and it fits with the point that
the author of Genesis was making, but to get there
he sides with Sarah, and puts down Hagar
in a way that a non-Jewish reader
less attached to the ancestress is less likely to favor
Like I said, a really interesting example
of New Testament exegesis of the Old
and one which raises lots of questions
even after the most obvious surface questions have been dealt with
bye for now