Week 4: Ancestral Narratives: Genesis 12-50 Flashcards
The 3 Ancestral Narratives
- Abraham (Gen 12-22)
- Jacob (Gen 25, 27-33, 35)
- Joseph (Gen 37, 39-50)
Themes in the Ancestral Narratives
Barrenness
Younger Sibling Favoured
Obedience, Testing, Transformation
Themes in the Ancestral Narratives: Barrenness
Child bearing is a gift of God. Barrenness becomes symbolic for disobedience, lack of faith, punishment.
God controls the fertility and the wombs of Israel.
This theme continues throughout Bible.
Themes in the Ancestral Narratives: Younger Sibling
Younger sibling tends to be favoured: Cain over Abel Isaac over Ishmael Jacob over Esau Joseph over everybody
These stories may have a kernel of history, since it is odd to establish history in these kind of irregularities.
These stories are Eponymous Narratives: (story of an individual, like Jacob, that functions on the level of his family, and is also a national narrative).
Themes in the Ancestral Narratives: Obedience, Testing and Transformation
Question of obedience and testing leading to transformation.
Abraham, Joseph, Jacob, Sarah, Hagar
Eponymous Narratives:
A story of an individual, like Jacob, that functions on the level of his family, and is also a national narrative.
Jacob is renamed Israel, and his brother is Esau (code for Edom). Uses ancestry to explain why things are the way they are between these two peoples politically.
Family and Social Structure in Ancient Israel
Tribes
Clan
Father’s House
Family and Social Structure in Ancient Israel: Tribes
The tribe was the primary unit of social and territorial organization in Israel.
The tribe would have been named after one of the sons or grandsons of Jacob. Traditionally there are 12 tribes. 12 is a number of wholeness (12 months, hours in a day).
Tribes would unite for mutual defence and in war time there would be a levi on each tribe, meaning each tribe would be obligated to send supplies and help (small tribes would have been more open to intertribal alliances).
Some scholars think that a coordinated worship of a kind of God/Yahweh began at the tribal level. Why? Tribes had to have something that unified them (perhaps something stronger than their patriarch, Jacob).
No intermarriages across tribes (except for alliances).
Family and Social Structure in Ancient Israel: The Clan
The tribe would contain, within itself, several clans. All of these would be named after an individual, who is related to the name of the tribe. Clans comprised a large number of households.
The clan is a unit of recognizable kinship that was more immediate to a person’s life than the Tribe.
Characteristics of the Clan:
( 1 ) Endogamous
( 2 ) Territorial Identity
( 3 ) Preliminary Justice System
Family and Social Structure in Ancient Israel:
Characteristics of the Clan
( 1 ) Endogamous
You must marry within the clan (only marry relatives) so that the land, and all of the assets and holdings, will stay in the family. The family was the social security network. Marrying within the clan helped to ensure survival.
( 2 ) Territorial Identity
People would know how to find you based on your name.
( 3 ) Preliminary Justice System
Some things had to be brought to the representatives of each clan. They were brought to the gate of the village. The gate was the liminal (threshold). The ultimate punishment was to be banished. If you were banished or sent into the wilderness, it was symbolic of a person’s death (the wilderness is very dangerous and chaotic, but in the biblical stories, wilderness is also a place for encounters with God).
Family and Social Structure in Ancient Israel: Father’s House
The most immediate level: what you are born into.
It is headed by a living patriarch. It includes the patriarch (the Father) and his wife, and their sons and daughters.
When a daughter marries outside of her family (father’s house), she would become a part of another father’s house.
When did the worship of Yahweh begin?
Some scholars think that a coordinated worship of a kind of God/Yahweh began at the tribal level.
These tribes had to have something that unified them (perhaps something stronger than their patriarch, Jacob).
Family and Social Structure in Ancient Israel:
Characteristics of this System
Patriarchal, Patrilocal, Patrilineal
( 1 ) PATRIARCHAL
Oldest living man is the head of the household. If the father were to die, the patriarch of the family would become the oldest living son.
Men were responsible for hunting and tilling the ground. Women were responsible for feeding and clothing the household.
( 2 ) PATRILOCAL
A woman leaves her household and goes to her husband’s father’s house.
( 3 ) PATRILINEAL
Descent is traced through the father’s line; ancestry is reckoned through the fathers.
Covenant (berit)
A treaty or agreement between two (or more) parties. The parties become bound by obligations and responsibilities, and there are rewards/punishments for obeying/disobeying covenant.
The ultimate guarantor between the agreement between two people were the gods. This would be signified with a pile of stones established as a “witness” to the covenant.
Covenants were ratified by blessings and insured by curses. Covenants could be solidifies (set in stone) through ritual meals and series of gestures.
Example: the curses that would come upon you if you disobeyed the covenant would be symbolized by dismembered animals, and then those in the agreement would walk between dismembered animals.
Gives rise to the expression: to cut a covenant.
3 Types of Covenants
Parity Covenant: covenant between two equals.
Grant Covenant: covenant between a superior and inferior, without needing anything in exchange from inferior (simply a grant).
Suzerainty Treaty: covenant between a suzerain (powerful person/overlord), and a vassal, with stipulations and conditions.
