The Abraham Story Part 1: Abraham and Sarah in the Biblical Imagination
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Bible Project Genesis 12-50 Overview
https://youtu.be/F4isSyennFo
Abraham and Sarah in the Biblical Imagination
Abraham and Sarah in the Biblical Imagination
Abraham and Sarah Key Figures in the Bible. Abraham is mentioned in nearly every part of the Bible, and the story of his journey from Babylon to Canaan, the tales of his failures and his faith, and the covenant promises that God makes to him are all foundational in the biblical story and in both Jewish and Christian traditions.
And if you look at your Bible the story takes up roughly 12-15 pages depending on your translation and format of your Bible.
Hebrew: אַבְרָם/אַבְרָהָם, Avram/Avraham; שָׂרַי/שָׂרָה Sarai/Sarah
Greek: Ἀβρααμ, Abraam; Σαρρας, Sarras
Abraham and Sarah, the pronunciation. It's certainly not how anyone would've ever said Abraham's name to himself.
In our modern translations, English translations, because that's my first language and most of yours too, the phrase "Abraham," or the pronunciation "Abraham," actually comes from the old Greek translation of that, which in Greek was "Abraam."
But in Hebrew, his name was "Avram," like with a V instead of a B. And then when he gets his name change, it's "Avraham."
Whenever we talk about family history, we're really also talking about ourselves and about our sense of who we are in the world, what our family is and what the meaning of its story is in the world. And so stories about our ancestors are always also stories about our own sense of ourselves. And that is very, very much the case in the story of Avraham and Sarah.
This is ancient Israelite literature, all of these texts that Christians call the Old Testament. This is an account of the ancient Israelite people later known as Jews to their Greek and Roman neighbors. It's their account of who they are in the world. And the reason why they think that matters is because of the God to whom they give their allegiance and worship.
The God who reveals himself to Abraham in a really remarkable way.
To be a follower of Jesus is to attempt to model one's life and give one's allegiance and loyalty to Jesus of Nazareth because he's amazing and beautiful. And he loved me before I ever knew he existed. And he constantly appealed to the Hebrew Scriptures to talk about who he was, what he was all about, why he was doing and saying the things that he was doing. And the stories of Avraham and Sarah were important to Jesus. He mentions Avraham on multiple occasions in his stories and his parables and his teachings.
He's a really key figure in the storyline of the whole Hebrew Bible. When people think of Old Testament characters, they might think of Moses.
Like, many, many books of the Old Testament connected to Moses. People think of David. Many books in terms of, like, airtime. If you just look at page length and airtime, moments on the stage, Abraham is actually-Abraham, Avraham. Avraham and Sarah are on the stage pretty briefly.
This is a good example of when you're reading through the stories of the Bible, just because there's more of something isn't the only indicator of what is most important.
These stories are crucial for the whole plotline of the whole Bible. And for me as a non-Israelite follower of Jesus, actually the story of Avraham and Sarah are crucial for me to understand who I am as a non-Israelite following an Israelite messiah and becoming a part of the covenant people of God.
As we read and reflect on these stories, we are gaining a sense of our own identity as a family, as the family of God, the people of Jesus.
These are stories where God's people of all generations have continued to come back and to find their story in our ancestors' story.
If you search for how many times Avraham or Avraham and Sarah are mentioned after the book of Genesis. So Avraham and Sarah both die almost right at the middle. Avraham dies in Genesis 25, halfway through the book. So I'm not even counting all the times that he's mentioned in the rest of Genesis, though he's mentioned quite a bit. So let's just take out Genesis as a whole. How many times is Avraham brought up again? Over 115 times!!
So whatever is happening in these stories, they're of pivotal, pivotal significance
so in the same way, the whole story of the Bible that leads to Jesus flows out of these narratives
So I just wanna show you some, we'll just kinda look at some examples. And you'll see pretty quickly how later biblical authors or characters in the Bible, when they think back to the stories of Avraham and Sarah, here's what comes to their mind.
The following is just a sample of how later biblical authors recall the story of Avraham and Sarai.
God’s Covenant Promise to Avraham
24 God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.
42 then I will remember my covenant with Jacob. I will also remember my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land.
11 ‘Because they did not remain loyal to me, none of the men twenty years old or more who came up from Egypt will see the land I swore to give Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—
8 See, I have set the land before you. Enter and take possession of the land the Lord swore to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their future descendants.’
Avraham’s Journey to Canaan and God’s Blessing
Exodus 32:12-13
12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘He brought them out with an evil intent to kill them in the mountains and eliminate them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger and relent concerning this disaster planned for your people. 13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel—you swore to them by yourself and declared, ‘I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky and will give your offspring all this land that I have promised, and they will inherit it forever.’ ”
2 Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods. 3 But I took your father Abraham from the region beyond the Euphrates River, led him throughout the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants. I gave him Isaac,
2 Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave birth to you. When I called him, he was only one; I blessed him and made him many.
24 “Son of man, those who live in the ruins in the land of Israel are saying, ‘Abraham was only one person, yet he received possession of the land. But we are many; surely the land has been given to us as a possession.’
Avraham’s Faith in God’s Promise
39 “Our father is Abraham,” they replied.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” Jesus told them, “you would do what Abraham did.
19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body to be already dead (since he was about a hundred years old) and also the deadness of Sarah’s womb. 20 He did not waver in unbelief at God’s promise but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,
8 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, even though he did not know where he was going.
29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise.
11 By faith even Sarah herself, when she was unable to have children, received power to conceive offspring, even though she was past the age, since she considered that the one who had promised was faithful.
21 Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works in offering Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active together with his works, and by works, faith was made complete,
What questions do we have as we come to the Abraham story?
Take time to answer Have someone write them down
As Always my focus will be on what was the message of the ones who wrote it more than what I think. What was their agenda. However I think it is important to ask these questions. What do they want me to get out of it, regardless of what questions I bring to the table.
There's some crazy stuff that happens in the lives of Avraham and Sarah.
And so we're gonna have to process some of that. Some of it's very troubling, morally troubling. Violence and sex scandals and God's involvement in all of the mess of what became their lives, but also in the beauty of what became of their lives. And so we're gonna encounter all of the main hot topics that the Bible raises for us with violence and sex and death and politics and religion and everything wrapped up in there.
It's gonna be a balancing act, bringing our questions to the table but also setting our questions aside at key moments and letting the stories' design and shapes speak to us, things that we might never think to ask or hear.
Depending on Time See Below
46 And Mary said: My soul magnifies the Lord, 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 48 because he has looked with favor on the humble condition of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed, 49 because the Mighty One has done great things for me, and his name is holy. 50 His mercy is from generation to generation on those who fear him. 51 He has done a mighty deed with his arm; he has scattered the proud because of the thoughts of their hearts; 52 he has toppled the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly. 53 He has satisfied the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. 54 He has helped his servant Israel, remembering his mercy 55 to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he spoke to our ancestors. 56 And Mary stayed with her about three months; then she returned to her home.
Let's look at a story about Jesus' mom
I think Mary is what most English speakers call her. Her name in Greek and in Hebrew is "Maryam," "Maryam." There's an M on the end that never made it into our English translations, but there we go, it's interesting.
So in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, when Gabriel, the angel Gabriel appears to her.
Famous story, you know, Christmas story. So he tells her that she's pregnant with the Son of God and that this pregnancy is going to be, well, something impossible that has become possible because the creator God is involved. She goes to meet with her relative Elizabeth, who is also impossibly pregnant as well.
And that's actually a fairly important theme in the Avraham and Sarah stories, isn't it, yep? So Jesus' mom sings a famous song that in Greek and Latin tradition came to be called the Magnificat, which is the Latin word of the first verb, which is "exalts," my soul magnifies the Lord.
But look at how she sings her song when she is really processing through what is happening, that she has in her womb the Messiah of Israel.
She talks about how God has looked upon the humble state of his bondslave or his servant. "All generations are going to count me as the blessed one." Blessing.
Think Avraham and Sarah. "The Mighty One has done great things for me. His name is holy. His mercy is upon generation after generation of those who fear him. He has done mighty deeds with his arms, scattering the proud in the thoughts of their heart." You're like, "Wow, that's a ...
I mean, I'm really happy she's pregnant.
But she's talking about, like, God's gonna scatter rulers?" Like, she sees something cosmic happening here.
"He's brought down rulers from their thrones. He's exalted the humble, filled the hungry with good things, sent the rich away empty-handed. He's giving help to Israel, his servant, in remembrance of his mercy, just as he spoke to our forefathers, to Avraham and his descendants forever."
So Mary sees her pregnancy fitting into a pattern of how God works in the world, of upsetting the value systems and the power structures of our world.
She's actually echoing and quoting from the poem that Hannah sang in 1 Samuel when she discovered that she was impossibly pregnant as well. But notice this last statement here. She sees what's happening in her life and in the life of her people and in the life of the whole world as directly connected to some things that God said to Avraham.
She could have said many things, but what came to her mind was, "Oh my gosh, this is what God said to Avraham. It's happening. The thing that God said to Avraham is what's happening right now."
So that's the role that the Avraham stories play in her imagination.
They point forward to something. They set a pattern of how God works in the world that she sees her own life circumstances now repeating and participating in.
1 Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord: Look to the rock from which you were cut, and to the quarry from which you were dug. 2 Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah who gave birth to you. When I called him, he was only one; I blessed him and made him many. 3 For the Lord will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places, and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and melodious song.
This is a moment in the book of Isaiah where the prophet is trying to give hope and encouragement to the survivors of the Babylonian exile and trying to encourage them that God's purposes for his people and for the world haven't been destroyed or thwarted by what seemed like a really terrible thing, which was the destruction of Jerusalem.
And so this is interesting, the prophet speaks to the exiles and says, "Hey, y'all, listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, look to the quarry from which you were dug."
So I don't know if you visit quarries very often, but you get the metaphor. There's like a quarry, a stone quarry. if you go back to the rock quarry that our family was chiseled out of, you'll learn things about who we are and who God is. That's the metaphor.
It also just so happens that the Hebrew word for rock, "eben," rhymes with the Hebrew word for child or son, which is "ben." Eben, stone. Ben, son or child. So in Hebrew it works great because he is Eben
And then look what he says. "When I say look back to the rock in the quarry, what I mean is look back to Avraham, your father, and to Sarah who gave you birth in pain. He was one when I called him. Then I blessed him and multiplied him." Do you see the themes of the Avraham story coming out?
"Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion, he will comfort her waste places. And her wilderness he will make like Eden.
And her desert he will make like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of melody."
And clearly, the poet who here is channeling the Word of God, this is first person speech of God being written through a prophetic poet. And so he tells the story about Avraham.
About how Avraham went from a state of being one to a state of being many.
And how do you get from being alone, solitary one to becoming many? Ah, that's because of God's blessing, yeah?
So that's the story. But notice, this poet isn't just reflecting on the past because, well, it's the interesting past.
The poet has two other angles. One is a story about Eden, yeah?
Which began as a desert wilderness, but it became a garden. Yeah?
But then the people that he's speaking to are the target of all of this. And we're just gonna call that the exiles or Jerusalem, the people of Jerusalem who went into exile.
And in this poet's experience, Jerusalem is right now "ruined waste places" and God is going to turn it into a new Eden.
So what we're getting is an ancient Israelite poet whom God used to speak to his people.
And when this poet thinks of the Avraham stories, they think of the story as part of a pattern of God bringing life and order and blessing and Eden out of non-life and curse and waste and desert and loneliness.
So what we're seeing here is actually this poet doing biblical theology, or what we're watching is how this poet reads and thinks about the book of Genesis, what we call the book of Genesis. This poet sees a pattern at work in Genesis, and it's a pattern that the story of Avraham is just one cycle of. Because apparently, for this poet, to really get the story of Avraham, you need to get what was going on before Avraham in Genesis, which is about God bringing order and beauty out of chaos.
And the story of Avraham and Sarah are another cycle of that pattern. And then the poet says, "But who are these stories for? Look to the ancestors." 'Cause that's where we'll discover who we are and what God is up to. And so then that's the moment of the ruins of the exile.
The Avraham story (in its final shape) is designed for the exiled people of God who are waiting for God’s new creation promises to be fulfilled. - Tim Mackie
The story of Avraham is a story that, in its final shape as we have it and in the Hebrew Bible, that is designed as a story for exiles. It's addressed to the exiled people of God who are waiting for the new creation promises of God to come to their fulfillment. And when God's people, who are waiting for the fulfillment of the promises, look back to the stories of Avraham, they see a pattern at work. That, it's a pattern of what God has been doing throughout all of history. And it seems to me this is exactly the kind of thing Mary was tuned into and why she sang the song the way that she did it.
So this is really a story about ourselves and about God's purposes here and now in the present.
It's as if the story of Avraham is linked to the story of God's deeds in the past but also lays a pattern for God's purposes and plans for the future.
The Abraham Story as a Whole
The Abraham Story as a Whole
Bibliography
Bibliography
https://bibleproject.com/classroom/abraham
Middleton, J. Richard. Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2021.
Cotter, David W. Genesis. Edited by Jerome T. Walsh, Chris Franke, and David W. Cotter. Berit Olam Studies in Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2003.
Josephus, Flavius, and William Whiston. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987.
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