In this installment we get to experience a bit of déjà vu when Abraham once again becomes worried about his super-hot nineteen-year-old ninety-year-old wife, we find another big fat anachronism, we see once again how possession (of a woman) is nine-tenths of the law unless Elohim threatens to smite you, and we get to see just how much of a physically underdeveloped little man-child Ishmael must've been at seventeen.
Genesis 20:1-17
Abraham
lives as a temporary resident in Gerar, a Philistine city that current archeology tells us wouldn’t be
inhabited until 1200 BC at the earliest and not as anything more than a small village until about 800 BC, putting it hundreds of years after the time when the Patriarchs lived or when Moses supposedly wrote this account (Finkelstein and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, pp. 37-38). While there, not-so-honest Abe has his
ninety-year-old sister/wife once again trick the locals into thinking that they aren’t
married. Exactly as happened in chapter 12 during the first of the three "Dude, she's just my sister" patriarchal narratives, the ruler sees the nubile nonagenarian and takes her as a
wife. In chapter 12 it’s Yahweh that threatens Egypt. Here in Gerar it’s Elohim.
Later in 26:6-11 when Isaac pulls the same thing one more time on Abimelech, no specific
deity will be named directly.
A few days ago I was (virtually) introduced to fellow ex-Christian blogger Neil over at Godless in Dixie. Our backgrounds share a bit of similarity and I liked his blog so much I've added it to my list of "Some Sites I Like" in the column over to the right. That should be worth at least two or three extra hits a quarter for him, based on the traffic I experience here. Admittedly, I've found myself getting miffed at a couple of things he's written because, quite frankly, I wish I had written them.