Fear and Family Ties: Examining the Exotic Cultural Origins of Judeo-Christian Thought

Some say that blood is thicker than water.  It's also scarier than water for a lot of people.  In the story of Isaac and Rebekah and their sons, Jacob and Esau, we find that Judeo-Christian ethics emerge from a culture that is very foreign and very familiar at the same time.  It is the very insular and fearful culture of one family that forms the basis for biblical spirituality.  This, again, refers to passages in Genesis chapters 24 through 34.

Fear is a natural human emotion, and certain circumstances and relationships can foster fear more than others.  In Isaac's case, a certain amount of fear is learned from his father, Abraham, and he responds to it as Abraham did.  When Isaac is living in Abimilech's land, his fear of the other men there leads him to tell the same lie Abraham had told about his wife on more than one occasion.  Isaac identifies Rebekah as his sister.  When Abimilech sees Isaac and Rebekah being affectionate with each other, he realizes the truth and chastises Isaac.


Abraham's insistence on purity of the bloodline is also handed down to Isaac.  When Esau (technically the eldest son) marries local Hittite women, his parents Isaac and Rebekah are not pleased.  But Esau was responding to a dynamic that his parents created.  Even though Esau was the elder son, his brother Jacob was the one that mommy loved best.  In fact, Rebekah encouraged Jacob to steal a final blessing from dad while Esau was out hunting.  If the story is to be believed, when the two brothers were younger, Jacob had demanded his older brother's birthright in exchange for food.  When their father was about to die, mom apparently wanted to make sure the deal was sealed.  So, in a feat of trickery that seems unbelievable, Jacob tricks Isaac into believing that he is Esau and Isaac blesses him.

Here is the weird bit: When Esau returns, Isaac oddly declares that he only had one blessing to give and now he's out.  Even understanding that words have power and such, this seems like a strange claim to make.  "I have two sons, but only one of you can receive my favor."  How does that not equal atrocious parenting?  To make matters worse, when Esau challenges Isaac on the "only one blessing" claim, Isaac basically curses him with a prophecy of a challenging and violent life.  No wonder Esau gets back at mom and dad by marrying a few Canaanites.

As has been mentioned, it's a simple thing to write prophecies back into stories after the fact.  If the history of these two brothers and the legacy they leave behind are the main themes of the story, then prophetic words from the mouth of their father make for good storytelling.  This is essentially the way that an oral tradition works.  One has to keep the listener interested in the story if they are to remember it and pass it down to their descendents, and foreshadowing is a very effective tool for maintaining interest.  Still, the impression of Isaac as a father comes across as less than model parenting.  And while it may still be the way some mothers behave, the intensity of Rebekah's favoritism (which leads her to encourage deceitfulness between her children) isn't much closer to an idealized picture of what a mother should be.

In any case, according to the story, Rebekah and Isaac are not happy with the idea of Jacob also marrying some local trash, and Rebekah is afraid that Esau may be angry enough to kill Jacob.  Thus, Jacob is sent off to find a wife among his family's people and live with his uncle, Laban (Rebekah's brother).  He finds two wives, as a matter of fact, and they are sisters.  Rachel and Leah are actually Laban's daughters, and as the story goes, they are the first women Jacob sees.  Since they are Rebekah's nieces, that makes them Jacob's first cousins.  Since they are also Isaac's cousins twice removed, the two sisters are also Jacob's second cousins twice removed.

Laban doesn't make Jacob's courtship easy, either.  Jacob wants to marry Rachel, and Laban demands seven years of labor in exchange.  At the end of the seven years, Laban pulls a fast one and sends Leah instead of Rachel.  (Laban and his sister must have learned from the same teacher.)  But Jacob wants Rachel, so he works for another seven years and earns her hand as well.  Their story has lessons of its own, but the basic theme in all of this can be seen in the best light as maintaining purity and in the worst light as insular and xenophobic.  After all, holiness in its most basic definition means to be set apart.

The patriarchal family of the entire biblical narrative creates a belief system out of a fearful, insular culture in which deceit is practiced even within the closest familial relationships.  All of the mandates and "shalt nots" in the scriptures can be traced back to this behavioral tradition.  While we sometimes hear arguments that the culture of biblical times was different from modern-day culture, we rarely stop to think just how different it was.  This family preferred marrying multiple cousins in order to maintain a purity apart from the influence of the rest of the world.  Does that level of paranoia seem healthy on any level?  Why do we accept rules and axioms based on fear and deception?  Why is it impossible to conceive of a scenario in which brothers are encouraged to coexist peacefully and relatives don't deceive one another just to get their way?  Aren't people capable of more than this?

That's a rhetorical question, of course.  Some people don't believe people are capable of anything more than this.  Some people believe that we are indeed deceitful, conniving, and scared at our very core, just like Abraham's family.  The only person in the bloodline who seems to have any sense is Esau, who sees the relationships around him and decides he wants nothing to do with it.  Although even he goes a bit overboard with marrying four Canaanite women just to spite his parents.  Children of all ages are influenced by their parents' dramas, and the patriarchal line of Genesis is no different.  Everyone has choices, though.  We are only bound by the fears and beliefs of our parents as far as we want.  We have the option to claim an identity based on trust and hope rather than fear and deception.  And we don't have to go overboard like Esau in order to do it.

The desire for separateness brings up another issue for modern American society, however.  If those who wish to honor biblical standards of behavior also were content to keep themselves apart from mainstream society, there are few people who would challenge them.  Like Abimilech, leaders would most likely say what they could to make believers feel safe and let them do as they wished provided it didn't infringe upon the livelihood and well-being of others.  However, some believers want to hold everyone to their standard.  They want the whole of the population to be compelled to adhere to a standard that has more to do with fearfulness than it does with right and wrong.  And many of them are quite willing to practice deception in order to get their way.  While we can see a biblical precedent for this kind of behavior, this is not keeping oneself apart.  This is not maintaining holiness.  This is bullying, plain and simple.  Frankly, I believe we are capable of better than that.

Relying on Signs from God and the Abdication of Personal Responsibility

Much of the book of Genesis is about cultural history: where places are located and the origins of their names, the lines of successions of various places’ rulers, and the lineage of the forefathers of the Jewish people. Then there are stories about those forefathers, some of which seem like they could have been written by a sensationalist modern-day screen writer. Although some people see only encouraging spiritual lessons in these stories, the tales contain some rather disturbing content as well. Taking things in bite-sized chronological chunks doesn’t necessarily give a complete picture of what’s going on with these people, so the next few segments will dwell on a span of chapters from Genesis 24–36.

After Sarah dies, Abraham takes on another wife, Keturah (presumably a local Canaanite girl), and she is young enough to bear him six more children. The descendants of these children became the Letushites, Leummites, and the Midianites. Although the Letushites and the Leummites are not mentioned again, the Midanites thrive as nomadic, polytheistic shepherds until Moses raises up an army to destroy them. The atrocities of that hostility are not enough to put the Midianites down, though, because they return later on to be a thorn in Israel’s side during Gideon’s time.

Abraham apparently did not have the same kind of close or instructive relationship with the sons of Keturah as he did with his son Isaac. Still, before he died, Abraham gave considerable gifts to the children of his concubines (plural) and sent them away, leaving Isaac with whatever was left. But Abraham didn’t think a Canaanite girl would be good enough for his son, so he sent his right-hand man back to the land of Abraham’s people to get a wife for Isaac. The servant set out for Nahor, the town founded by Abraham’s brother, where he met Rebekah, the grand-daughter of Nahor (which means she’s Abraham’s grand-neice, and Isaac’s first cousin, once removed).

When the servant sees Rebekah, he knows that this is the woman for Isaac. He claims that this is because he prayed to God and defined the precise signs by which he wanted God to guide him. The precise signs were the first girl who offered him water to drink and water for his camels, and to make it easy on God, the servant stood next to a spring. This level of hospitality was not uncommon for the region and the time, so the servant was basically making it easy on himself. When he saw Rebekah, he also rushed to intercept her, doing his part to help things along.

Rebekah’s brother, Laban (who will show his true colors when Isaac’s son Jacob comes a-courting), and her mother, Bethuel, approve of the marriage and send Rebekah off to join Isaac in Canaan. The story suggests that they approve because of the servant’s tale about praying to God and then seeing Rebekah, and her display of hospitality in offering water to him and his camels. While it is impossible to know what goes on in the mind of every modern-day believer, it seems suspect to dictate exactly how a god should reveal the right decision. If I want to go out looking for a wife, I could say, “God, send me a sign by having the woman you want me to marry smile back when I smile at her.” I could then go out and smile at any attractive woman I encounter, and voila! God has spoken.

On the other hand, if I am enjoying bachelor life, I could say, “God, send me a sign by having the woman you want me to marry ride up on a grizzly bear, juggling artichokes and singing Mack the Knife.” I could then sit in my house all day and determine that God doesn’t want me to marry anyone. I might make such demands based on my level of interest in the result, or as a way of acting out a self-destructive drama. Either way, the decisions I make determine the likelihood that I will get what I want out of the situation. Attributing things to God serves the twofold purpose of getting human beings off the hook and making the decision indisputable.

The response to a prayer of Isaac shows a different side of the perceived external divine, however. Rebekah was childless, so Isaac prayed to God that she would have children. His prayer was answered. Rebekah got pregnant, but she had a feeling that something was wrong. God told her that the twins she was carrying would establish nations which would be at odds with each other, and that the older would serve the younger. Some kind of cosmic practical joke? “I will answer your prayer for children by cursing you with children who have problems getting along with each other.”

Well, these kinds of prophecies are easy to make after the fact. There are many women in the world who get pregnant without praying for it, and there are many women in the world who don’t get pregnant despite fervent prayer. Just as prayer doesn’t make the right bride appear, prayer doesn’t make conception occur. If it did, that would be like magic. And while it’s convenient to blame a divine prophecy for the behavior of siblings, the story reveals plenty of reasons why Rebekah’s twins, Jacob and Esau, would have a difficult time getting along with each other, not the least of which was parental favoritism which led to bullying and deception. We surely can’t lay all of that on the shoulders of an external divine being.

It’s convenient to place control of all that is good or bad in the hands of an external, all-powerful being. When we like something that has happened to us, the external divine can serve as an object for our gratitude. When we don’t like what has happened to us, we can blame an external divine instead of our own choices, and if we are fearful enough of that external divine being, we will accept the consequences without too much complaining. After all, “everything is just as God wants it to be.”

The problem, of course (as has been stated before), is that people make decisions and choices that impact their lives and the lives of people around them. Sometimes, it would be easier just to be honest with ourselves about what we want. After a long journey, if you are willing to ask the first attractive girl you see to marry your master’s son, just be honest about it. Gut reactions and personal desires are going to determine those things anyway. Just be honest with yourself. If you want to go out and get a job, make the decision to go out and do everything within your power to get it. If you just think that you should be working, out of a sense of obligation, be honest that your heart isn’t really in the search. Figure out what is standing in your way, and be honest about what you want. The results of being blatantly honest with oneself can be profound and life-altering. Attributing every outcome to something outside of oneself is a form of victimhood, and it can lead to seeing oneself as weak and incapable. Most people are strong enough and capable enough to be honest and take responsibility for their own actions.

Accepting a realistic level of personal responsibility for our circumstances is healthy, as is recognizing what aspects of our lives are simply out of our control. Just because something is out of our spectrum of control, however, doesn’t mean that it is meant to be or willed by an omniscient being. Sometimes, things just are. There’s no divine purpose behind a bad relationship, or a toxic work environment, or problems with the construction of a house, or the death of a family member in a car wreck. One can potentially reap spiritual benefits from any circumstance, but that again comes down to personal choice.