The Bible - The Old Testament

One of my favorite authors, if not my favorite author, Meir Shalev, wrote a book whose title I could translate from Hebrew into "Firsts" but will apparently appear as In the Beginning: Firsts in the Bible. It is all about firsts mentioned in Genesis. The first love, first kiss, first hate, first murder, first war, first king, first laugh, first dream, first cry, first spy, first prophet, first wise man... A book of firsts which is interesting, especially for anyone who enjoys the Bible, and even more so, for anyone who enjoys literary and/or biblical interpretation. 

For those who know the Old Testament, there are always at least three levels of interpretation for each word, let alone each story. Shalev adds another level of interpretation by implicitly suggesting that each first that appears in the first book about "in the beginning" (the literal translation of Genesis from the Hebrew) has additional importance by the mere fact of it being a first.

An interesting example is that the first love that is mentioned in Genesis is not what you would expect and not when you would expect it. Love appears relatively late in the narrative as it waits for Abraham. And the first love is not what you would expect either. It is not love for God, it is not love for his wife Sarah, it is not love for Agar the servant with whom he had his first son Ismael, it is not for his first born Ismael... The first love that is mentioned is the love of Isaac, his son from Sarah his wife, and it is only mentioned by God when he instructs Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.

Chapter 22 of Genesis:

And it came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham, and said unto him: 'Abraham'; and he said: 'Here am I.' And He said: 'Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.'

So it is interesting to consider, and Shalev invites us to do so, that no love was mentioned between Adam and Eve, that it wasn't lover's love or a mother's love, but that of a father for his son. And it was neither the son nor the father that mentions it, but rather God. It almost seems like an adjective used to describe Isaac, rather than an appreciation of the love of a father for his son, but there it is nonetheless.

As an aside to this story, and something I had never realized before, but Shalev points out that this event, the very grim pseudo sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, created a significant before-after rift. One of the gifts of the Biblical author(s) is subtlety. In a very subtle manner it is possible to understand without it being said explicitly that Abraham does not go back to Sarah after this and that Abraham and Isaac never live together again.

The rest of the story is also fascinating, with Abraham later sending a servant to help find a wife, Rebecca, for Isaac. But that you will have to read on your own (Genesis chapters 26 and onwards).

With some humor, Shalev announces another first: the first dream. He declares with some sadness that the first dream is not what we would guess either. It is not Jacob's Ladder, in which Angels ascend and descend from Heaven but the dream of a foreign King who dreams of Abraham (then Avram) wife Sarah (then Sarai) who the king wanted to take as a concubine as he was told that she was Avram's sister (Avram was afraid that he would be killed by the king because Sarai was so beautiful)...

The book is full of stories and interesting personal interpretation on Shalev's part. It is a wonderful book, but it is also a wonderful way to rediscover the Old Testament. So many wonderful and rich stories. While the book is wonderful it is even better if you keep a copy of the Old Testament next to your bedside table so as to be able to revisit the original in parallel.

Great literature and inspiration to go back and discover-rediscover Genesis. A wonderful book no matter what belief system you bring with you.

PS Shalev wrote another book on the Old Testament, Bible Now, already in 1985, with personal interpretations of biblical stories.
PS2 Another great book of Meir Shalev's, recently translated into English, About a Pigeon and a Boy, . Wonderful literature. Highly recommended!

[Thoughts on] The Bible

While on vacation I came across the French "Philosophie" magazine's special summer issue on the Bible, i.e. the Old Testament. The wonderful and not always comprehensible stories of the Garden of Eden, Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel, Abraham's fatherhood at 100, Abraham's apparent inhumanity in the face of the banishment of Ishmael, Abraham's apparent inhumanity in the sacrifice of Isaac, the story of Joseph and his brothers, are all commented by philosophers living or dead, with more or less pertinence, understanding and wisdom...

Those stories and others like the story of Jacob and Rachel, which inspired Thomas Mann to 'fill out' the biblical author's tendency to concision and obfuscation of insight (we are told what happens but rarely why or what thinking led to specific actions), are very intriguing - both in literary and spiritual terms.

For example, how can one understand the notion of human sacrifice? Abraham for example, was willing to sacrifice both of his children, his only children. He sends off his firt-born, Ishmael, into the desert with Agar with nothing more than some bread and water... no sheep, no donkey, no nothin'. Then, soon after, he is  willing to sacrifice the son he had at 100 with Sarah (who was 94 at the time) who, for all he knows will be his only son (it turns out he will have other children, and sons, with future wives - and there was no viagra at the time...).

What is funny is that the conversation between Abraham and God used to sound surreal, or not how normal "people" speak. With modern times, it now, funnily enough, sounds more or less like a cell phone conversation... "Abraham?" "Here I am."... (As usual, the biblical author doesn't say where the conversation takes place or how, there is basically just a transcript.)

What is incredible is that Genesis is practically not much more than a short story - in my English version it is about 68 pages long, it is even less in my Hebrew version. And within those pages, how many stories! how much subtext! how much possible commentary! It is teeming with history, geneology, creation, destruction, incredible love stories, treachery, murder, birth, death, new beginnings, vices of all sorts, angels, nation-building, leaving home, homecomings, deception, generosity, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Garden of Eden, kings and paupers, fidelity and adultery, the many faces of man, the many facets of God... 68 pages. Rich, dense, intriguing, fascinating... Just for a little perspective, Thomas Mann wrote over 1300 pages in Joseph and His Brothers 'filling out' just a few pages from Genesis.

Well friends, it looks like it is time, for me, to reread it. First in English and then I will try again in Hebrew. I hope I gave you the desire to read it again too...