Abraham’s Sons by Keturah and the Death of Abraham – Held on Sunday, February 17, 2013

Personal Note on Posting Timeline

I will be posting by Friday of each week the session from the previous Sunday through Good Friday.  Then we will take a week break so there will not be a post on the week following Easter Sunday, March 31st.

Gen. 25: 01 – 06: Abraham’s Sons by Keturah and Gen. 25: 07 – 11: The Death of Abraham

Background

Most of the first half hour of our session was devoted to introductions and updating two new members who joined us for the first time, Jean and Joan.  We devoted the next forty five minutes to our first passage dealing with the Abraham’s sons born by Keturah and the final 15 minutes on the Death of Abraham.

I will bring out some of the background to the passages as part of the discussion which frankly went all over the place; from Adam and Eve to the Palestinian Conflict.  If anything, the conversation revealed how very difficult it is to stay focused on the passage at hand; a discipline I strongly urge of any reading.

Before we read the passage though I continue to offer Our Questions and My Refrain.  If these two points are quite familiar to you, skip to the reading itself.

Our Questions

For the sake of completeness I will include in our blog the basic questions that guide us in hearing the passages we study each week.

1. First who are the characters and what role does each play? To the extent that we can identify

• what the characters say and do, or
• don’t say and do but we would expect them to do so, and
• finally when they enter into the passage and leave it

We can more easily and more accurately know what their role is from the point of view of the author and / or the editor of the passage.

2. The “when” question is quite complicated and again for the sake of completeness; there is

• The “when” within the story / passage itself,
• The “when” of the editor, and most importantly,
• The “when” of our life at the time we are actually reading / studying the passage.

3. What is the plot, the point of the passage?
4. Finally, because each passage is at one and the same time the word of human beings and the Word of God, there is revealed the values that are part and parcel of the human beings in their time and place and there is the values revealed by God for the believer.  Our final question is to discern which values in the passage are attractive to us, we are drawn to and which are we repulsed by, inclined to reject?  The more difficult task, if we do identify these two responses in us of the values revealed, which are of God and we are being challenged to embrace and which are not of God and we are being challenged to correct and develop.

My Refrain

Before we read though, let’s quiet ourselves, remember whatever we can from the background, our questions and, most importantly, pay attention to what happens inside of us as we read.

Reading of the passage http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis/25

Discussion Gen. 25: 01 – 06:  Abraham’s Sons by Keturah.

Carol began our discussion with a very astute observation.  She noticed that in verse 3 the author addresses the third generation of children not as individuals but as a group or tribe.  This she concluded to because the author prefaces each of their names with the indefinite article “the.”  Carol’s observation is clear evidence that our author was not thinking of individual children; his was a larger picture to be conveyed.  Further the simple “the” raises a question inside of us and it is that question, almost as much as the answer that is important.  I will leave the reader, you, to wonder what the question, not the answer, but the question means?

Rosemarie wondered what “Grants” in verse 6, also translated “gifts” meant.  Obviously our author doesn’t give us any details to help us identify what the “grants” or “gifts” were.  We can guess though, maybe camels, tents, basic necessities for life at that time.  But we don’t know and the bible doesn’t tell us.

Jean pointed out in verse 5 we learn that Abraham gave “everything” to Isaac and in verse 6 he sent all of his “other sons” eastward.  Of course, in our logical Western mind we might think well he didn’t give “everything” to Isaac since he did give the other sons something.  Again it is obvious that our author simply doesn’t think like we do.  But Isaac matters in this passage.  Not only does Abraham give him “everything” but by the end of the passage we learn that Abraham in sending the other sons eastward is intending to keep them away from Isaac.  What is the author telling us about Abraham’s concern for Isaac?

For myself the concubine, Keturah, came out of the blue.  We might think, given the sequence in the story that Abraham married Keturah after Sarah had died.  But we really don’t know that.  Further, it’s not clear whether the author thinks of Keturah as a wife [see verse 1 “took her as his wife”], or as a concubine [see verse 6 “To the sons of his concubines (note the plural)].

Noting Abraham’s concubines led us to recall the story of Hagar and Ishmael and Sarah’s relationship with Hagar and Abraham’s relationship with Ishmael.  This prompted Joan to share her understanding of this conflict and its impact on the Muslims today, their treatment of women, and the modern day Palestinian conflict.  Joan’s thoughts allowed us to focus on the disparate historical times that these observations blur.  We have the time of the story, perhaps the 13^th century BC; the time of the editor of the passage, perhaps 6^th century BC; the birth of Islam in the 7^th century AD; and, of course the birth of the modern Palestinian conflict in the 20^th century.  Give or take 33oo years.  We can hold all of that in our mind but we have to be clear that is what we are doing.  To make connections between the enormous time differences requires a great deal of research and would probably result in quite varied accounts of those connections.  It is easy to assume that bible tells us something that, at least in this one passage, simply isn’t there.

Jean reminded us that the bible is inspired by THE Holy Spirit.  Heber remarked that all of the leaders [males] seemed to have more than one wife, concubine.  These two somewhat disparate remarks allowed me to raise a question concerning inspiration.  Inspiration is a complex concept.  Yes we do believe that scriptures are inspired by the Holy Spirit.  But what does that mean?  When the authors tell us the various males having more than one wife, what is inspired about that?  We can believe that the bible is inspired, be correct, but not know exactly what that belief means.

I pointed out how far ranging our conversation had taken us and wanted to bring us back to the passage at hand.  What is the purpose of this passage?  I summarized a few points that had come out in our conversation:

• By the third generation we learned that the “children’s” names were not of individuals but of groups, or tribes.
• We learned that Abraham had a special concern for Isaac giving him everything and sending the other sons eastward away from Isaac.
• We couldn’t clearly know if Keturah was a wife or a concubine; nor could we determine the order of her “marriage” to Abraham.
• Finally we realized that our conversations had roamed far and wide, that much of it had come out of our understanding of the storehouse of Catholic faith.

We went on to read the second passage dealing with the death of Abraham which prompted another fifteen minutes or so of discussion.  I leave the details of that for your wonderment.

Your comments, observations, questions are welcomed.  See “comment” link below