6 - The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: Family History in Genesis 12–50

Summary

The central focus of Genesis 12–50 is kinship and the family: Steinberg has described it as ‘a book whose plot is genealogy’, structured around the ‘toledoth’ formula, usually translated as ‘these are the generations of’. Genealogy not only facilitates family succession and continuity but is also used to structure each family cycle: the ‘toledoth’ formula occurs at Genesis 11 (the Abraham cycle), Genesis 25 (the Jacob cycle) and Genesis 36 (the Joseph story). Within each cycle, Steinberg argues, we move from the ‘ideal stable movement’ of genealogy, to inheritance problems that threaten it, then back to the stability of genealogy. Despite the difficulties around the choice of an heir, Abraham’s family line continues, allowing the fulfilment of God’s promises of land and descendants (the ‘Abrahamic’ blessings). This is important because the patriarchs are not only Israel’s earliest ancestors, but also ‘prefigure’ the nation of Israel: Kawashima describes them as ‘narrative concepts for thinking about Israel’s identity’, which includes its relationship with non-Israelites, such as Hagar and Ishmael. Whereas Exodus shifts its focus from the family to the Israelites as a ‘people’, Genesis maintains its focus on the family throughout. Some scholars have suggested that we should think of it as ‘family literature’: Petersen, like Coats (p. 18), compares it with the Icelandic ‘family’ sagas, pointing out the prominence of family concerns, such as births, marriages, deaths, itineraries and property. Most notable is the keen interest in family strife: Steinberg comments that Genesis exemplifies ‘a highly disruptive pattern of family life’, while Petersen suggests that a central ‘family’ value in this book is the peaceful resolution of conflict between siblings. Sibling rivalry and competition play an important role, and one that is theologically inflected: Kaminsky describes these ancestral narratives as ‘a sustained meditation on the problems that arise when someone is mysteriously favoured by God’.

When we turn to the Old Norse translation of Genesis 12–50, then, we might expect some recognition of how similar these stories are to Iceland’s own ancestral narratives. It is true that the literal level of interpretation predominates in this section, although allegorical glosses continue to be present. Melchizedek, for example, is interpreted traditionally as prefiguring Christ and the sacraments, while the commentary on Jacob’s prophecies in Genesis 49 points to their ultimate fulfilment in Christ.