Monday 17 September 2018

Genesis 1:1

Every book has a beginning (with a few notable exceptions).  Genesis 1 is the beginning of the Hebrew Bible with this famous line:
בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ
The only problem is figuring out what it means.  According to the Mishna (M Chagigah 2.1) and the Talmud (BT Chagiga 11b-12a), it is even forbidden to teach what it means:
אין דורשין בעריות בשלושה, ולא במעשה בראשית בשניים; ולא במרכבה ביחיד, אלא אם כן היה חכם ומבין מדעתו.  וכל המסתכל בארבעה דברים, רתוי לו כאילו לא בא לעולם–מה למעלן, מה למטן, מה לפנים, מה לאחור.  וכל שלא חס על כבוד קונו, רתוי לו כאילו לא בא לעולם
One may not expound the laws of forbidden sexual relations before three people, nor the account of Creation before two, nor the Divine Chariot before one, unless he is wise and understanding from his own knowledge. Anyone who looks into four things would be better off if he had not come into this world: what is above, what is below, what is before, and what is after. And anyone who has no consideration for the honor of his Maker would be better off if he had not come into the world.
The prohibition against explicating the creation must be one of the most ignored of all religious laws.
How to translate Genesis 1:1?  Jon Levenson summarizes two approaches in the JSB14:
A tradition over two millennia old sees 1:1 as a complete sentence:  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  In the 11th century, the great Jewish commentator Rashi made a case that the verse functions as a temporal clause.  This is, in fact, how some ancient Near Eastern creation stories begin – including the one that starts at [Genesis] 2:4b.  Hence the translation:  “When God began to create heaven and earth.”
I prefer to see the Hebrew text as having both meanings – meanings that have been assigned to it by careful readers.  I see no reason to argue over the meaning – anymore than we can ever hope to resolvewhether Hamlet’s flesh (that he wish would melt) is too too sullied or too too solid.  And we can assign more meanings to the text as well.
According to Daniel Matt, the mystical text Zohar reads the verse differently, “not as “In the beginning God created”… but rather: ‘With beginning, [the Unnamable One] created God.’ This sounds shocking or heretical. But the point is that our usual understanding of God is pretty childish. What we think of as God is only one limited aspect of the infinite divine reality, which transcends and explodes all names.”  (You can watch a brief video of Matt lecturing here)




The Final Reckoning Was Ishma'el the illegitimate son of Abraham or was Jesus the illegitimate son?


by Ibn Anwar






This is a particularly teasing problem for Jews and Christians. They uphold that the true heir of Abraham was Isaac and for Christians that proposition bears an even greater significance as they trace the lineage of Jesus through Isaac in order to make legitimate their claim that Jesus is the true heir of Abraham and the fulfillment of God's promise in Genesis 17. The only problem with that is the fact that Isaac was not the firstborn of Abraham. Rather, it was another son named Ishmael who was Abraham's firstborn. And it is understood in Judaism and recognised in Christianity that a double portion of a father's inheritance is given to his firstborn. The firstborn is typically designated the heir to the father's household. This understanding is stipulated in Deuteronomy 21:17. The significance of Ishma'el's status as the firstborn of Abraham is confirmed in the Deuteronomic passage:

"Suppose a man has two wives, but he loves one and not the other, and both have given him sons. And suppose the firstborn son is the son of the wife he does not love. When the man divides his inheritance, he may not give the larger inheritance to his younger son, the son of the wife he loves, as if he were the firstborn son.He must recognize the rights of his oldest son, the son of the wife he does not love, by giving him a double portion. He is the first son of his father’s virility, and the rights of the firstborn belong to him." (Deuteronomy 21:15-17)

Commenting on the passage, the Stone Edition of the Chumash describes the right of the firstborn as "inviolable" even if the produce comes from the spouse that is disliked or hated:

"15-17. The firstborn's inviolable right. The Torah teaches that a firstborn son may not be deprived of his rightful share in his father's inheritance. By implication, this passage shows that parents must beware not to permit rights and relationships to be disrupted by the rivalries and even animosities that are not uncommon in family life. Or HaChaim infers from the last phrase of verse 15 that the firstborn son will be born to the hated wife. This, he comments, is an instance of God's compassion, for when he sees the plight of the neglected wife, He will give her the first offspring, just as Leah had children before her more favored sister Rachel. God supports the brokenhearted." [1]

Rabbi Isaac Abarbanel says concerning Deuteronomy 21:15:
"“All firsts are beloved by G‑d.” Just as there is the mitzvah that the first fruits are brought as an offering to G‑d (bikkurim), as is the first of the flock (bechor beheimah), so does G‑d have a special love for the firstborns, and they are given a double portion." [2]

So how is it that Isaac is regarded as the rightful heir to Abraham when he was not even the firstborn? The traditional Jewish or Christian way of wriggling out of this particular conundrum is by accusing Ishmael of being the illegitimate son of Abraham while designating Isaac as his one and only legitimate son. The argument behind this accusation lies in the fact that Abraham's first wife was Sarah while the mother of Ishma'el, Abraham's second wife, was a bondwoman. Christians argue that Hagar was not even Abraham's wife but was, in fact, just his mistress or concubine. Firstly, nowhere does the Bible designate Ishma'el the illegitimate son of Abraham. Rather, in the Biblical perspective, Ishma'el was rightly the son of Abraham. The Bible explicitly repudiates the claim that Hagar was not the legitimate wife of Abraham in Genesis 16:3 where it specifically says that Hagar was given to Abraham to be his 'wife'. The following are several major translations of the Bible in which Genesis 16:3 clearly defines Hagar as Abraham's wife:

New American Standard Bible
After Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Abram’s wife Sarai took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband Abram as his wife.

King James Bible
And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

American King James Version
And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelled ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

American Standard Version
And Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife.

Douay-Rheims Bible
She took Agar the Egyptian her handmaid, ten years after they first dwelt in the land of Chanaan, and gave her to her husband to wife.

Darby Bible Translation
And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar, the Egyptian, her maidservant, at the end of ten years that Abram had dwelt in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram, as his wife.

English Revised Version
And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife.

Webster’s Bible Translation
And Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.

World English Bible
Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to Abram her husband to be his wife.

Young’s Literal Translation
And Sarai, Abram’s wife, taketh Hagar the Egyptian, her handmaid, at the end of the tenth year of Abram’s dwelling in the land of Canaan, and giveth her to Abram her husband, to him for a wife,

But how do we square the above with Genesis 22:2 which says that Isaac is the את־בנך את־יחידך (only son) of Abraham? This text must be treated with caution because at no point in time was Isaac ever the "only son" of Abraham. As we know by now, Isaac was the second son of Abraham while Ishma'el was the legitimate first son of Abraham, the elder brother of Isaac. Only Ishma'el could have been described as the "only son" of Abraham as he was, in fact, for several years before the birth of Isaac, the only son of Abraham. The description given to Isaac in Genesis 22:2 as the one "whom you (Abraham) love" is completely irrelevant in light of Deuteronomy 21:15-17. As we have demonstrated earlier, even if the offspring, that is literally the firstborn, is produced by the less favoured (or even hated) spouse, that is no justified cause to deny the son his right as firstborn and heir to the father.

The key clue to Ishma'el's rightful claim as Abraham's legitimate firstborn and heir to his household is in the name 'Ishma'el'! The name 'Ishma'el' in Hebrew means 'God heard' or 'God answered'. What exactly did God answer in the person of Ishma'el? Genesis 15:2-3 informs us that Abraham was petitioning God to for an heir and complaining to God that should he not have his own offspring to inherit then Elie'zer of Damascus would be his heir:
"But Abram replied, “O Lord GOD, what can You give me, since I remain childless, and the heir of my house is Elie'zer of Damascus?” Abram continued, “Behold, You have given me no offspring, so a servant in my household will be my heir."

In answer to Abraham's fear that he would not be able to pass on his heritage to his own flesh and blood offspring, God assures him that he would, in fact, be given his own flesh and blood who will inherit from him and become his heir:

"Then the word of the LORD came to him: "This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir."" (Genesis 15:4)

God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 15:4 would make little sense if it is proposed that God did give him a son right after that promise in the person of Ishma'el but skips him as the son that was meant in the promise and looks on to the second son, Isaac, instead. Indeed, almost immediately after God made that promise to Abraham to give him his own son that he may be made his rightful heir, Ishma'el comes into the scene in the very next chapter:

"And the angel of the Lord said to her (Hagar), 'Behold, you are with child, and shall bear a son; you shall call his name Ishma'el;" (Genesis 16:11)

From Genesis 16:11, a few things should be noted: the birth of Ishma'el, Abraham's firstborn son, was so important that it had to be declared by the archangel Gabriel onto Hagar just as the birth of Jesus, important as it was, had to be declared by the same angel onto Mary, Jesus' mother. As the birth of Ishma'el was announced by the archangel Gabriel, it must therefore be seen as a divine revelation. With that in mind, how can any sound mind disdain Ishma'el's birth and uncouthly relegate it to the realm of the illegitimate? God takes the trouble to dispatch the archangel Gabriel to righteously declare the birth of an illegitimate son? And not only was Ishma'el's birth announced by the archangel that was directly sent by God to do just that, the child's very name was divinely revealed and chosen to be that of "Ishma'el". A person has to suffer some serious eyesight malfunction to not see the connection between the divinely ordained name "Ishma'el" with the petition and complaint made by Abraham to God in Genesis 15:2-3. Ishma'el, whose name means 'God heard,' is without a doubt the answer that God gave Abraham, an answer that He promised to fulfill as we saw in Genesis 15:4. The fact of the matter becomes even clearer when one brings together Genesis 15:5 with Genesis 16:10. In sealing the promise to Abraham to award him with his own flesh and blood to become his heir, God said:

"He took him outside and said, "Look up at the sky and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." (Genesis 15:5)

And the unmistakable connection is seen in Genesis 16:10 where Gabriel reiterates God's words in Genesis 15:5 to Hagar regarding her son, Abraham's firstborn:

"The angel added, "I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count."

But let us agree for a moment, just for the sake of argument, that Ishma'el was indeed a son out of wedlock-- illegitimate and therefore unfitting heir to Abraham. If that were the case, then Christians must now submit to the illegitimacy of Jesus and abandon Christianity altogether. According to Matthew 1:3, Jesus is the direct descendant of illegitimate ancestors through Perez who was conceived out of wedlock through the incestrous consummation of Judah and Tamar, a highly licentious story that we read in Genesis 38. Since the lineage of Jesus according to Matthew is marred by illegitimacy, Jesus must therefore be discarded as the rightful heir to God and to Abraham and his alleged Davidic messiahship is cancelled due to David's own illegitimate lineage back to Judah and Tamar. The biblical Jesus' illegitimacy becomes even more evident in light of Deuteronomy 23:2:

"A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord." (Apologies for the word 'bastard,' but this is exactly the word used in the King James Bible for the Hebrew ממזר in the Deuteronomy text)

No, in Islam we do not identify Jesus as illegitimate in any shape or form just as we do not do so with either Ishma'el or Isaac. All the prophets of God are legitimate in their own right. But if the Christian argumentation in disclaiming Ishma'el as heir to Abraham's throne bears any merit, then in logical implication, Jesus, coming from such a horrendously salacious lineage as per Matthean testimony in Matthew 1:3, should equally be discarded as a legitimate heir to the Abrahamic throne.

In their careless attempts to delegitimise Ishma'el as true heir to Abraham, Christians (and Jews) have inadvertently delegetimised Jesus as true heir to both Abraham and David.

Notes:

[1] Scherman, N. (2000). The Chumash: The Torah, Haftaros and Five Megillos with a Commentary Anthologized from the Rabbinic Writings. New York: Mesorah Publications, Ltd. p. 1047




[2] Shurpin, Y. (n.d.). Why (and How) Does the Firstborn Get a Double Inheritance?. Retrieved from https://www.chabad.org/…/Why-and-How-Does-the-Firstborn-Get…

Re-Examining Banu Qurayzah Incident

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