What Is the Image of God?

GENESIS 1:26-27

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

So what is the image of God?  This question has been debated since...well,... before you were born.  Probably before the big bang.  I believe that the image of God within us is what separates us from the animals so I will repose the question: What seperates us from the animals?

There are several ideas that are thrown around, but I want to focus only the context of Genesis.

First of all, we are not made in a physical likeness of God.  I have heard Christians say that we are created in God's physical likeness, but this is an absurd idea.  Any mention of God's anatomy such as God's hand, or the arm of the Lord are metaphors; and those who suggest that God, who is a spirit, made us in his physical image are full of stuff you don't want to step in.

Some have suggested that God's attributes are what make us in His image.  In other words, as God is kind, so are we; as God is forgiving, so are we; as God is One who takes revenge, so do we.  In this theory, humans were created in God's image, but sin distorted all that was God-like.  So the final result is this:  Every human has God's image printed within them, but sin has twisted it.  Becoming Christian helps us to become more God-like by bringing out the image of God within. 

This poses some theological problems in that the Bible elsewhere states that there is nothing good in us.  But the same verse further qualifies that within our flesh there is nothing good (Romans 7:18). 

Jesus also called us evil who know how to give good things to our children (Matthew 7:11).
So what is the likeness of God?  Looking only to the book of Genesis, I would say that the image of God is the gift of ruling over two areas. 

Let me explain.  God told Adam and Eve to rule over, to dominate, and to care for the earth and its inhabitants.  This is the first of the two areas we are to rule, and this topic is taken up elsewhere.

The second area over which we are to rule is our own selves - our own passions, desires, emotions, and will.  We are to rule our selves.  When Cain (Genesis 4) was angry at God and at his brother Abel, because God liked Abel's offering better, Cain got very angry.  Seeing how angry Cain was, God told him that sin was very close, and Cain needed to control / rule over sin.  We know from James 1 that sin is intimately tied down into our desires and not separated from what we want, so when Cain was asked to rule over sin, he was being asked to rule over his emotions.

Cain did not rule over his emotions, but rather he gave into them and killed his brother.  Here are some other cases in Genesis where people did not control their anger:
1.  When God flooded the world, it was filled with violence.
2.  Sarah sent her servant into the desert, homeless and very likely to die.
3.  Reuben slept with his step mother because he was angry with his dad.
4.  Simeon and Levi slaughtered a village of men because the prince date raped or had consentual sex with their sister.
5.  Several of the brothers planned to slaughter Joseph, but resolved to sell him into slavery instead.

All of these lost control over their anger.  There were also some in Genesis who lost control over their sexual urges:

1.  Potipher's wife.
2.  Perhaps Judah's affair with Tamar.  The story is more about Tamar than Judah, so it doesn't focus on him; but Tamar did know that he was given to prostitution and used that for her benefit.

CONCLUSION

When God gave us his image, He gave us the ability to rule.  So now we can rule over nature (don't forget chapter two emphasized take care of and protect more than dominate), and we can rule over our selves.

The First Blessing - Was God a Conservative or Liberal?

There are two creation stories in the first two chapters of Genesis.  I have already pointed this out in other blogs.  The first chapter spells out how God created everything in six days and then rests on the seventh.  The second chapter starts over with a different version of creation.  Some say its a closer look than chapter one, and others say that they are simply two completely unrelated versions of creation. 

In both stories, God gave certain responsibilities to Adam and Eve, and through them, to all of humanity.  These responsibilities came in the form of blessings.

FIRST CREATION STORY

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground (Genesis 1:28)."

The original language for most of the Old Testament is Hebrew, and in this verse the Hebrew has five commands that God gave to humanity.

1.  Be fruitful.

2.  Increase in number.

3.  Fill the earth.

4.  Subdue the earth.

5.  Rule over.

While the English divides these into two couplets and one command that stands alone (1&2, 3&4 with 5 alone), the Hebrew connects them all equally to each other.  In other words, "Be fruitful, increase in number, fill the earth, subdue it and rule over the living things God created."

Some of these are so similar in defintion, that we could say for the use of poetry the author is being redundant.  For example, "Be fruitful and increase in number" are basically the same thing.  And "fill the earth" is the result of "being fruitful and increasing in number."

However, Subduing and ruling are commands that are pulling us into new territory.

Subdue the Earth

From Strong's Concordance, the Hebrew word 'kabash' means:

1) to bring into bondage, make subservient

2) to subdue, force, violate

3) to subdue, dominate, tread down

But as the word kabash is used in the Old Testament it seems that it means bringing under control.  In other areas of the bible, violence is sometimes a part of the process of subduing. 

Rule Over...Every Living Creature

'Radah'

1) to rule, have dominion, dominate, tread down

   a) to have dominion, rule, subjugate

This word is used both for violent power over others but can also be used for ruling over in a good way.  It is a word used to say pretty much the same thing as "subduing the earth".  When God created Adam (as male and female), before he gave them commands, God gave them this same authority, not as a commandment, but as the purpose of creating Adam.

COMMANDMENT AS A BLESSING

When God gave the commands to rule over and to subdue, He gave them in the form of a blessing.  The text states that "God blessed them" when He told them to rule over, subdue, be fruitful, fill the earth, and multiply. 

Blessings in Genesis were considered far more powerful than what we do today.  We don't give much weight to a blessing, but in the ancient world, words held far more clout than they do today.  My first thought is that this was because people of the ancient days were far more focused on the spoken word  than the printed word.  Being focused on the spoken word, the people would give more weight to certain forms of speech like blessings and curses, vows and so on, than over regular speech.

In Genesis 1, when God blessed humankind, He placed purpose and responsibility into Adam and Eve.

Before I introduce the responsibilities of chapter two of Genesis, I would like to point out that the day before God made Adam and Eve, he likewise blessed the animals, birds, and fish with "being fruitful, multipying, and filling the earth.  However, he did not give them the blessing of ruling over other created things.

THE SECOND RESPONSIBILITY

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it (literally: to serve it) and take care of it (Genesis 2:15).

In Genesis 2, we have a much more earth friendly God-given responsibility.  Whereas in chapter one God told Adam and Eve to dominate and control, in chapter two, God told Adam to serve, to care for, and to protect the garden.  When Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden, they were given the responsibility to serve the ground.

These God-given purposes did not come in the form of blessings, as chapter one's responsibilities.  Rather, they were statements of fact.  People were created to serve and protect the earth.

WAS GOD A CONSERVATIVE OR A LIBERAL?

In chapter one God seems far more the Conservative (as we view it in the U.S.) in that He wants us to take control and dominate the planet (some Conservative Christians even go so far as to say that Christians are told in Genesis to take control and dominate the political realm as well).  But in Chapter 2, God is far more the Liberal who wants us to take care of the planet. 

Putting both of these together tells us (Genesis speaks to all of humanity - not just Christians) to rule and to control the planet while protecting and caring for it.

Back to the question, though.  In the beginning of creation, God shares a balance of the best qualities of both conservative and liberal. Maybe we need to be able to borrow the best from both sides.

Themes in Genesis: How Covenants Began

Imagine living in a world where very few people read or write.  How do you make contracts?
You and your neighbor fought for years over who gets the well that's in the middle of your property lines.  Eventually, you agree to share it somehow.  20 years later, that same neighbor says he never agreed to share anything, so you are back at square one.

Today, we settle things in court with written records of any deals we make.  But in that other world, there were no such documents between a man and his neighbor, because in most cases neither one of them could read or write, and neither could anyone else in town.

In that time, there needed to be a way to make deals that both parties could look back and say, "We remember!"  Thus a covenant was born.

You and your neighbor sit down together after you have made an agreement.  Together you will take an animal (perhaps a goat or a sheep), and you will cut it in half, with both of you walking through the middle of the animal and saying, "May I also be cut in half if I break our agreement."  In this way, you have "cut a covenant", and 20 years later when your neighbor wants to take the well for his own, you and he both remember the covenant.  He does not want to bring judgment down on himself, and you have a ritual that you can use to say, "Do you remember our covenant?"  Neither one of you will ever forget.

Today laws are made to respond to issues that surface.  It was no different in ancient days.  I believe that covenants arose as a resonse to issues such as the one I spoke about.

By the time of Abraham, covenants were common, binding agreements between two parties.

What Is the Blessing of Melkizedek

Melkizedek king of Salem blessed Abraham after Abraham saved Lot and several cities from the pillage of a small army.  Although Genesis says very little about him, he was used a lot in Psalm 110 and in the Book of Hebrews.

Psalm 110 is a Royal Psalm possibly quoted during the coronations of kings in Israel.  Psalm 110 serves as a type of blessing placed upon the new king, bestowing the promise or hope of stregnth and power, conquering and devotion from the king's people.

In Psalm 110, the royal scribe told his new king that "he is a priest for ever, in the order of Melkizedek." 

The whole reason Melkizedek was mentioned was because Abraham tithed to this priest who was not a priest of Israel (IE: who came from Abraham's grandson, Levi).  Any king in Israel came from the tribe of Judah, so could not be a priest according to the Law of Moses.  Only Levites could be priests.  So in a poetic way the scribe maneuvred around the rules and found a loop hole.  The king could be a priest who was not from the tribe of Levi, if he was like Melkizedek who was outside of the tribe of Levi.  After all, one could argue that Melkizedek was just as legitimate as a Levite, because even Abraham tithed to him, and he did bless Abraham.

So the scribe or generation of scribes who first developed Psalm 110, saw in Melkizedek a priesthood that was just as legitimate as Levi. 

I believe that the reference to Melkizedek was more poetic than literal.  I don't think people saw the king as a priest over all the other priests, but there may have been some limited authority over the priesthood that was implied in Psalm 110. 

In Hebrews 7, the writer (who is unknown to us) borrows from Genesis and from Psalm 110 to claim that Jesus is a priest according to the order of Melkizedek.  For the writer of Hebrews, Psalm 110 provides justification to say that Jesus who was not a Levite was more than a poetic priest, but was in fact a real priest greater than the Levitical priests.  As a legitimate priest, Jesus offered the sacrifice that all other sacrifices pointed to.  Jesus went into the true tabernacle that was not a mere copy of the real (Moses' tabernacle was only a copy of the real tabernacle in heaven).  As the true priest (who is superior to the Levites), Jesus brought his own blood (which is superior to the blood of animals) into the true tabernacle (which is superior to Moses' tabernacle) before the presence of God.

Here is what Hebrews says about Melkizedek:

1.  He is the king of Salem, which means peace, so he is the king of peace.
2.  There is no mention of Melkizedek's geneology, so he is eternal.
3.  Melkizedek blessed Abraham, meaning he was greater than Abraham.
4.  Levi was Abraham's grandson, so he (and his descendents - the priesthood of Israel) was in Abraham when Abraham gave 10% of the spoils to Melkizedek.  So Levi, who received tithes from the rest of Israel, tithed to Melkizedek, thus Melkizedek is greater than Levi.
5.  Melkizadek is like Jesus.

Most of the arguments used in Hebrews concerning Melkizedek would not be the type of arguments we would use today, but in Jewish writings of the first Century, these would be legitimate arguments explaining the superiority of Melkizedek and Jesus over the priesthood of Levi.

Without the explanation in the book of Psalm 110 and Hebrews, we are left with a lot of questions about Melkizedek.   With the Psalm and with Hebrews, we see that Melkizedek was an unknown figure used to justify giving kings and Jesus a priesthood.  Melkizadek was the case a lawyer could use to get around the law that says that only a Levite could be a priest.

Themes in Genesis: Sibling Jealousy and Hatred

There is a lot of hating going on in Genesis, and the hating is mostly toward close relatives.  While women competed to win the men in their lives by having the most babies, men sought to remove their competition by murdering them.

1.  Cain killed Abel.
2.  Esau sought to kill Jacob, so Jacob ran away to live with Leban.
3.  Leban wanted to kill Jacob when he ran away from him without letting him know about it.
4.  10 brothers wanted to kill Joseph.

Abraham's Blessing

Abraham's blessing is set in the context of the Tower of Babel failure.  As I have mentioned in another blog, the people who wanted to build the Tower were looking for the very same things that God gave to Abraham: a name, a connection with heaven, and something to bring them together.  In Abraham's blessing, God gave Abraham a name (a good reputation) that would be timeless and a connection with heaven (Babel tried to reach up, but failed; God reached down with Abraham).  Although Babel was an attempt to unite people, it ended up dividing them; but with Abraham, God sent him to an unknown land, and through going God promised to bring all the nations to him.

There was one other dynamic in Abraham's covenant that was not contrasted to the Tower of Babel.  Abraham received a blessing from God, and that blessing is set in contrast to curses made.
1.  Abraham
"I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing (Genesis 12:2)."

God blessed Abraham with with three blessings:
a.  Abraham would become a nation.
b.  Abraham's name would be made great.
c.  Abraham would become a blessing to others.  The next verse reveals how God would help Abraham to be a blessing to others.

"I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:3)."

God promised Abraham that any curses that come his way would not only be deflected, but return back to the one cursing.  This is big for those who believe that curses and blessings have power to harm or to bring good.

Blessings Given Before Abraham

Genesis is filled with curses and blessings, and those curses and blessings carried weight that we in the Western culture know little about today.  As much as curses held power in the world of Genesis, blessings were every bit as powerful.

In Genesis there are 64 times the word "blessing" (barak) is used.

BLESSINGS IN CREATION

God set the standard for blessings when he created the world, blessing birds and sea creatures on the fifth day of creation, with this blessing (Genesis 1:22):
God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.”
On the surface it looks like a command, but on closer examination, we can see that it is called a blessing.  The verse does not say, "God commanded and spoke," the verse says, "God blessed them...."

On the sixth day, God again gave a blessing; only this time it was to humanity (Genesis 1:28):
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Again, what looks like a command is actually a blessing.  This verse is repeated in Genesis 5:1-2.

Finally, God blessed the seventh day in Genesis 2:3:
And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.


GOD'S BLESSINGS BEFORE ABRAHAM

As Noah left the ark, he was blessed very much like the fish and birds were in creation in Genesis 9:1&7:
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. ...As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it."


Between the blessings in verses 1&7, which are quoted here, there were two rules God gave to humanity through Noah.  In the first rule, God gave humans permission to kill animals and to eat their meat (for the first time), with the qualification that the animal must be drained of its blood first.  The second rule forbade killing humans, at the cost of capital punishment.  Both of these emphasize the importance of blood and life.

In the middle of this blessing, related to attacking and killing animals, God placed the fear of humans in the animals.  In other words, because they were to be hunted, they began to fear us for their own protection.

THE FIRST BLESSING A HUMAN SPOKE

Noah was the first human to speak a blessing.  He had been passed out drunk the night before, but was aware enough to remember (or somehow else concluded) what his second born son did during his inebriation.  Ham (the father of Canaan) saw his father drunk and naked in his tent and went out to tell his brothers.  On the surface one would wonder why Noah got so upset, but this will be better explained in the section about the curses in Genesis.  For now, let's just leave it with this:  For some reason, Noah felt violated by what Ham did.

After being violated by Ham, Noah blessed his other two sons because they respected him by covering up his nudity and protecting him from his own shame.  While cursing Ham and his descendants to servitude, he blessed the other two and their descendants with blessings that foretold prosperity.

Themes in Genesis: Curses in Genesis

I have seen a few horror movies wherein someone (usually a black woman from Haiti or from the deep South where voodoo is popular) curses her tormenters and their offspring.  For the rest of the movie the tormented and their children suffer scary results of the curse placed upon them.

Curses were not all that different in the book of Genesis.  People believed in curses and the effects those curses held on others.  Curses that people made were every bit as nasty as they are in horror movies and curses held their power for generations, if not all time.

These are the curses mentioned in the book of Genesis:

WHEN GOD CURSED

1.  As a result of the first sin, God cursed the serpent to crawling on the ground, and He cursed the ground so that it would not yield its full potential in growing crops.  As a result, humanity would have to work hard and suffer for a living.

When Noah was born, he was named Noah, which means "rest," because his family had hopes that he would be able to help work the fields, and thus bring some rest from all the hard work that was a result of the curse.

2.  Because Cain killed his brother, God cursed him to a nomadic life.  The wandering God cursed him to was a result of a curse that God put on Cain's crops.  No matter how hard he worked the ground, it would  not be enough for him to live on, so he had to wander in search for good soil. 

Furthermore, because he had to wander, Cain was also removed from God's presence.  AS in many places in the Old Testament, people believed that God inhabited a certain area and was distant from other areas.  Jonah tried to flee from the presence of God.  One grand revelation he got on a ship was that God was there too.

3.  When He made a covenant (binding agreement) with Abraham in chapter 12, God told Abraham that He would bless those who blessed him and curse anyone who cursed Israel.  This was illustrated when the King of Moab tried to curse Israel through Balaam.  Sent to curse Israel, all Balaam could do is bless Israel and say, "There is no sorcery against Jacob, no divination against Israel. It will now be said of Jacob and of Israel, 'See what God has done (Numbers 23:23)!' "

Furthermore, after blessing Israel, Balaam repeated what God said to Abraham:  Like a lion they crouch and lie down, like a lioness—who dares to rouse them? "May those who bless you be blessed and those who curse you be cursed (Numbers 24:9)!"

After blessing Israel and repeating what God promised Abraham, he cursed Moab and other nations surrounding Israel, claiming that God would cause Israel to become great and that Israel would rule over and even destroy the others (Numbers 24:15-25).  Thus God's word to Abraham was fulfilled, "Those who curse you will be cursed."

WHEN PEOPLE CURSED

God was not the only one who cursed.

1.  Noah cursed his second born son's descendants, for something Ham (the second born - although he may be third) did when Noah was drunk.  In order to understand what Ham did, one needs to understand that languages often have things called idioms, which literally do not mean what they say to a culture.  For example, let's say that archeologists 4,000 years from now find the remains of 21st Century New York City, and find a book wherein they read that someone "had to take a leak."  Unless there is context, that archeologist will have no clue as to what taking a leak means.  The archeologist will try to read it very literally and get confused as to its meaning, possibly coming up with wild conjectures as to what it means to "take a leak." 

In the English language, there are over 7,000 idioms such as "bend over backwards," "smell a rat," "something's fishy," and "bite the dust."  The people in the Bible times also used idioms such as:
Uncover the feet = Expose the genitals
Seed = Descendants
Possess Gates = Take a city
The way of a woman or her sickness = menstruation
Cover his feet = relieve himself

So when Ham went into the tent and "saw his father's nakedness," he told his brothers, and for that, he was cursed a horrible curse.  At first glance, this episode looks like Noah was way overexagerating his response to a son who did nothing more than tell his brothers about their drunk dad, but there is more here than meets the eye.  When the Hebrew language says that Ham "saw his father's nakedness," we are dealing with a Hebrew idiom.  This passage carries several possibilities due to its idiom or possible idioms:

a.  He did something sexual to his father.  The story of Noah parallels Lot in many ways.  Both were delivered from cataclysmic destruction and both got outrageously drunk afterwards.  In Lot's case, his daughters committed incest with him and became pregnant.  It only fits the pattern to say that Ham had some kind of sexual encounter with his dad. 

b.  He had sex with his mother.  This could be the case if we have two idioms going on in the verse.  In the Law of Moses, when dealing with incest, exposing a man's nakedness meant having sex with that man's wife.  So if one had sex with his step mom, he was exposing his father's nakedness, or if a person had sex with his aunt, he was exposing the nakedness of his uncle, and so on.

There is an interesting side to this story.  Noah did not curse Ham who did whatever evil that was done; He cursed Ham's son Canaan and his descendants.  I think this had to do more with the Canaanites than with Ham, but that's a whole other story.

2.  When Isaac blessed Jacob, he passed on the same blessing and curse that God gave to Abraham.

Genesis 27:29

May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you. May those who curse you be cursed and those who bless you be blessed."

3.  Simeon and Levi were Jacob's 2nd and 3rd eldest sons.  Simeon should have received the blessing from his father when his father was dying.  Reuben who was the oldest ruined his possibilities of receiving the blessing, because in his anger he slept with one of his father's wives when he was much younger. 

When Jacob passed out the blessings, he skipped Reuben and skipped Simeon and Levi because when they were younger, they had slaughtered an entire town of men, to revenge the deflowering of their sister.

Rather than receiving a blessing, the two boys were cursed by their father:   Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel! I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel (Genesis 49:7).

The curse that the two boys received were very much like the curse God placed on Cain for killing his brother.  Cain was doomed to wander because he killed his brother; Jacob's two boys were doomed to be scattered throughout the land because they killed their neighborhood city.

4.  Even though Jacob did not pronounce a curse on his wife Rachel, he did pronounce a very solemn word of death to whoever stole one of his father-in-law's idols.  In reality, Rachel had stolen one of her father's idols and had hidden it away, and Laban accused Jacob of stealing it.  Jacob didn't know that Rachel had stolen it, so he answered his father-in-law with harsh words condemning to death anyone who stole it.

But if you find anyone who has your gods, he shall not live. In the presence of our relatives, see for yourself whether there is anything of yours here with me; and if so, take it." Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods (Genesis 31:32).

A little later, when Jacob entered into the promised land, he asked all of his household to deliver over all the idols they had to be buried.  It is not said here, but it is very possible that when everybody delivered the idols to be buried, he saw that Rachel had taken the idol from her dad.  Rachel died very shortly afterward.

QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION

Are curses really that powerful?
Is there a proper time to curse?
Does the New Testament encourage us to forgive so that we should not curse others?

Themes in Genesis: Marriage Ceremony Custom in Genesis

The Ceremony

 Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her.” So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and gave (brought) her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her (Genesis 29:21-23).

This is the closest we can get to what a marriage ceremony was like in the time of Genesis.

1. There was a dowry paid.  In Jacob's case the dowry is 7 years of work, because Jacob had nothing else to pay, his uncle bargained with Jacob for 7 years of his life (which turned out to be 14).

2. There was celebration in the form of a feast. There was probably a lot of wine involved in this celebration.  There is no mention specifically about who or how many were invited, but from the fact that Leban "gathered together" the people of the place, I would venture to say that the people worked for, or were servants to, Leban.  Leban would not gather the locals, but rather, he would invite them.

When Isaac was married, his bride was given a party before she was sent to get married.  So it looks like partying was a big part of getting married, as it is today.

3. The Father walked the new bride to the honeymoon tent.  This may or may not have been a common ritual.  Leban was trying to deceive his new son-in-law into marrying the wrong daughter, so he may have created his own ritual that night, in order to bring the bride to her husband's tent.  By bringing her to him, Jacob (the groom) would already be in the dark waiting for his bride.  Jacob's father-in-law could easily sneak in the bride's sister instead of the bride.  On the other hand, this march to the tent of consumation may easily have been a common practice.

The most important part of the wedding was the consumating the relationsip in a tent.  Not only did Jacob mention this in particular to his father-in-law, but when Isaac married Rebeka, the only thing we know about the wedding is that "he brought her into his mother's tent".   Isaac was very much a mother's boy, and the fact that he went into her tent does not mean that it was a practice of the day.  I am guessing that Isaac never left his mother's tent.

4. Finally, there was the consumation of the relationship.  More than any part of his wedding, Jacob looked forward to this part.  He was very bold telling Leban, his father-in-law, that it was time for him to have sex with his daughter.  Very few people would dare to speak like this to their father-in-law in our society (U.S.A.), but remember, this was a culture where children were raised in a sex filled atmoshere (among the cattle).  It was a part of life that carried no shame or hiding in discussion.

What's Missing?

1.  There is no mention of any veil or of whatever clothes the bride wore.  I assume that the bride would dress in her best clothes.

2.  There is no ceremony as we know it.  Because Jacob unknowingly had sex with his bride's older sister, he was bound in marriage to her and not to the one celebrated in the party; so I conclude that there was no ceremony in the celebration.  What did bind them in this case were two things - Father walking his daughter to the tent and the couple having sex.  In the end I would say that the march to the tent was a ritual.

The Summary:

1.  The bridegroom waited under his covers in the tent.  He had quite a bit to drink, but not too much to put him out.
2.  While the party cheered, the father walked his daughter, the bride, to her new husband's tent.
3.  The father returned to the party, talking about the good days to come while the couple consumated their relationship inside the tent.

Themes in Genesis: Trickery - How Did Leban Trick Jacob

Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her.”
So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast.  But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her (Genesis 29:21-23).  
 
Jacob brought his daughter to Jacob.  Jacob waited in a dark tent  (I am assuming that it was dark) for his new bride to be given to him from her dad.  The NIV is one of the few that chooses the word "gave" instead of "brought".  The Hebrew better supports "brought", which better explains how Jacob would have been tricked into sleeping with the wrong daughter.
 
Jacob was duped into marrying the wrong daughter.  On the night of his marriage, his father-in-law set him up to marry the older daughter in several ways: 
 
1.  Jacob had probably had too much to drink.  The Bible doesn't say it, but they did have a feast, which in those days that meant drinking; and Genesis gives us examples of godly people getting stone cold drunk - Noah and Lot.  Wine was a way of life, and ceremonies such as this were a time to drink more than usual.  When King David wanted Uriah to go home to his own wife, David got him drunk.  It was a method in the Bible, to get people to do things.
2.  Leban brought his daughter to Jacob into Jacob's tent.  Jacob did not walk with her into his tent. 
3.  A veil would not be good enough to cover Leah's identity.  Very few men would be tricked by the one they love covering her face.  Most men can tell the difference between their wife's body and her sister's, unless they are drunk.

What Were the Direct Results of the Fall in Genesis?

As I mentioned in my last post, the most important values in Genesis were:
1.  Survival
    a.  Fruit of the belly (having children)
    b.  Fruit of the ground (having crops and/or cattle for food)
2.  Preeminence
    a.  Getting most attention from dad
    b.  Getting most attention from the husband

When Adam and Eve fell, God filled all of these with pain, hardship and suffering.

THE WOMAN

To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you (Genesis 3:16)."

I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.  There is nothing that needs to be said about this.  It is pretty obvious that giving birth is filled with pain and oftentimes death.
 
Your desire will be for your husband. 
Genesis portrays women who hungered for and fought for their husbands' attention.  They suffered for it.  Some suffered because they bore no children and some because they were not their husband's favorite.  Others were humiliated by competing with other wives for their polygamous husbands' love and respect.

He will rule over you. 
Women were made subservient to their husbands, as they ruled over them.  Women have suffered injustices in societies and in their own homes since the fall of humanity.  It is not an absolute rule, but a general rule that has permeated almost all societies and families. 

Genesis shares with us how this took place in ancient times.  Sarah was told by her husband to give herself to Pharaoh and other leaders wherever they traveled.  He did this to protect himself, because he was afraid that people would kill him and take his wife.  Granted, the Bible says that God protected her from getting raped in one case, but the Bible is silent about all other places they visited.  Her husband also had sex with a servant in order to have a child because Sarah couldn't have children.  Sure, she gave him permission and even brought up the idea, but I'm sure there was a lot of pressure put on her to do so.  There are plenty of other examples of how men ruled over their wives in Genesis, but I will leave that for now.

The fact that men rule over their wives is a curse that came about from the fall.  Pain in childbirth is also a result of the fall; should we seek to make childbirth as painful as possible?  Should we make sure work is more difficult than need be, because God cursed the ground?  No in these things we do what we can to turn the curse around.  We seek to alleviate pain and to repair what nature does to the work of our hands.  Who would seek to increase pain in childbirth because it is God's doing at creation?

The point I am making is this - we should not use the bible to justify abuse of or domination over women or wives.  It is a curse in Genesis, not a commandment.

THE MAN

Genesis 3:17-19
Cursed is the ground because of you;

through painful toil you will eat of it

all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,

and you will eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your brow

you will eat your food

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

and to dust you will return.”

The early chapters in Genesis are obsessed with the ground (IE: dirt).  We are created from dirt and we will return to dirt, and the ground is our most needed natural resource.  The dirt gives us life and the dirt will receive our lives. 

The ground was cursed at the fall.  Again, this does not mean that we should seek to make the ground terrible for growing crops, rather, we do what we can to help grow crops, to undo the curse placed on the ground and on the work it takes to get from the ground.

ONE LAST THOUGHT

The curse seems more directed to a settled community than a nomadic one.  The curse relates most of all to those who were growing crops, it does not seem to relate as much to raising cattle.  Granted, the cattle need vegetation to survive, but the vegetation they need is not the kind that needs cultivation.

By implication, we can say that the curse on the ground implies a curse on all of our work.  IE: that we have to struggle and work hard in life to get the fruit of any labor.

Themes in Genesis: The Cycle of Violence in Genesis

Violence began with Cain in Genesis, and never seemed to disappear.  Even with the chosen family, violence became a way of life.

Cain

Cain killed his brother in a spiritual contest.

Noah

God destroyed the earth with fire because of wickedness in general and violence in particular.

Abraham

Abraham was about to slaughter his own son before an angel of God stopped him.  Abraham also went out against an army to rescue Sodom and his brother Lot.

Sarah

Sarah dealt harshly with her servant.  In all likelihood, she beat her servant.  Beating servants was acceptable and expected in Bible days.  In the book of Tobit another Sarah (who was a godly woman) beat her servant girl, because she was childless and her servant taunted her.  There are definite similarities between the Sarah's.

Laban

Laban could have slaughtered Jacob and taken his daughters and grandchildren.  He mentioned that to Jacob, but did not follow through with his plans because God told him in a dream not to do it.

Reuben 

The oldest of Jacob's sons had sex with Jacob's wife's servant who was also Jacob's wife.  This was an act of aggression and revenge...not an act of lust.

Simeon and Levi

Simeon and Levi slaughtered an entire village of men in order to revenge their sister Dinah's honor.

The Brothers

Joseph's brothers were quite willing to kill him, but because of Reuben's own personal interests in restoring some of his honor; and because of Judah's own leadership the brothers sold him into slavery instead.

Joseph

Joseph ended the cycle of violence in the family with forgiveness.  He acknowledged their evil and openly called his brothers on it, but he forgave them, thus ending the cycle of revenge in his family.

CONCLUSION

Violence permeates Genesis.  It suggests that the human race is violent by nature.  I believe this accurately portrays humanity - we are violent, competing for territory and for dominance.  We can hide behind names such as patriotism, love of country, protection, or whatever; it still comes down to this - we are violent as individuals, and we are more violent as groups. 

Brothers rarely get along in Genesis.  It seems that the only times they do get along are when they are gathering together to kill somebody or some village of men (Joseph's brothers).  I could push this more and suggest that most brothers in the Hebrew Bible are bound to live in competition, disagreement, hatred and killing.

Genesis - The Story of a Nomadic Tribe that Lived in Fear

Abraham moved with his dad into a major city called Ur.  When his father died, God told Abraham to continue to move on to a land He would show him.  When Abraham came into the land God promised him, it was filled with people and was going through drought; in other words, it didn't look like much of a "promised land".  Because the land was going through drought, he moved on to Egypt where he passed his wife off as his sister (remember, she was his half sister), because she was beautiful and he was afraid the people there would kill him and steal his wife.  Abraham thought it was better for someone to just go ahead and have her, pay Abraham dowry and he could move on with his life.  See Genesis 20.

His fears were not unfounded.  Although her beauty attracted the most powerful in Egypt and Canaan, his judgment of the Egyptians' morality and his fear of outsiders were not based in reality.

Eventually, Abraham moved back to his promised land and wandered around the entire area, as a Nomad, which means he didn't settle down.

Nomads didn't plant because they were too much on the move to plant.  Because Abraham was a Nomad he and his group could not settle down long enough to own land and to plant in it, so they were shepherds who wandered from place to place, making a living with their flocks by trading and selling in whatever area they happened to be in. 

Genesis provides us with a partial inside look into his nomadic life and his relationships with people outside of his clan.

Xenophobia (Fear of the outsider)

Abraham feared and distrusted people outside of his clan. In other words, he probably felt discomfort everywhere he went.  He built trading relationships with the people in the country, but we never see him building up any solid relationships outside of his own group or his own family.

Genesis give two examples of Abraham passing his wife off as his sister because of his fears of those with whom he came into contact.   Abraham continued with this practice even after Egyptian rulers rebuked him for his immoral behavior.  After God protected Sarah from becoming another man's wife, the leaders of Egypt scolded Abraham who responded by telling them that he was afraid of them and assumed they would treat him with violence.

This episode shows us that along with his fear of outsiders, Abraham believed that people outside of his clan (or clans related to him, such as his brother's) were immoral.  In reality, the people outside of his clan (in both Egypt and in Gerar) were more moral and rebuked Abraham and his scam, because they felt like Abraham set them up for immoral disaster.

Fear of the outsider presupposes the belief that the outsider is capable of evil far worse than the insider.  And this fear can make the insider far more evil than the outsider...all in the name of protection. 

On the side, Egyptians despised shepherds.  We learn this from Joseph's discussion with his brothers when they came to Egypt.  Joseph lived many years after Abraham, but Egypt had not changed all that much in those years.

For years Rabbis wondered why God called Abraham to become the father of many nations and the father of Israel.  Some assumed it was because of something good that was in him, a good that we could see later in his life - some good that set him apart from the rest of the world.  But this is not born out in Genesis.  Through Abraham, we learn that God chose on the basis of His own purposes, and those choices were not made because of some goodness that we have done or are capable of doing.  God chose Abraham for reasons we will never know.

Abraham's son Isaac continued the same practice that his father did with his own wife.  I am convinced that Isaac only did this to copy his father.  It was a practice that Isaac saw in his father Abraham and Isaac continued doing the same, not necessarily because of fear, but because dad did it.

Dinah Ventures Out

One example from Genesis that we do see of anyone bonding with the outside community is when Abraham's granddaughter (Dinah) hung out with girls from a local city. One of their friends was a man (a prince) from the same city. He had sex with Dinah and that didn't go well with Dinah's brothers. 

There seems to be some discussion about Dinah's relationship with this young man.  While some English Bibles tell us that Dinah was raped, the Hebrew does not tell us that it was in fact rape.  It  is very possible that Dinah willingly bonded with a man who was outside of the clan, and the brothers were outraged that someone outside of the group was making inroads into the clan.  So the brothers schemed to kill every man in that city. 

Why did they slaughter the men in that city? 

Whether she was raped or whether she willingly gave in, she was dishonored in her own group, among her brothers.  Remember, that the Law of Moses commanded that if a man raped a woman, if she was single, he must marry that woman to protect her from dishonor.  In other words, dishonor was worse than rape, and even though rape dishonored a woman, consensual sex dishonored her even more.

The brothers were left with two options.  They could have let the prince and his city blend with the clan - thus saving their sister from dishonor, or they could take vengeance.  They decided to take vengeance, leaving no inroads into the clan or for the clan to melt into the local population.  Vengeance also may have saved their sister from dishonor, because her suiter was killed.

For 3 generations, Dinah was the only one mentioned who broke out of the clan and actually made friends with outsiders.  The consequence, however, was disaster for the friends she made, and caused her father Jacob to be more afraid of the people outside of the clan.  After the slaughter, Jacob feared that the surrounding cities would take vengeance on him and on his clan.  But the opposite happened.  The outsiders feared him and his clan more.

Esau

Another example of someone who bonded with outsiders was Esau who married to local Hittite women.  After he was married, he found out that his mother didn't like his wives, and that she wanted his brother to marry a girl from another nomadic clan headed up by her brother.  Trying to please his parents, Esau married a cousin from still another clan headed up by his father's relative.  The story of Esau gives us a window into the world as seen by a nomadic tribe.

CONCLUSIONS

Abraham and his family are normal human beings with normal fears.  They were no worse than the rest of the world or any other group who act and react in fear and in the need to survive. 

Xenophobia is an interesting phenomena, because while we fear other people and other groups, judging them to be less moral, in reality, our own xenophobia creates its own violence and lack of morals that can outweigh that of the outsider.  I often think of the illustration that the most vicious animal or bird is the one protecting her family.  Self protection can be and has been an instigator of many evils.  Fear of the outsider feeds an unrealistic need to protect when there is no need. 

This nomadic tribe struggled to keep the outside from coming in and from its own group melting into the outside world.  They distrusted the outsiders they did business with and they feared the people who lived in the big cities that gave them shelter from time to time.