I’m going to take a highly speculative look at a Biblical story that puzzles me, in part because I see so little scholarly interest in it despite its obvious (to me, at least) importance: Abraham’s pleading to God on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah in the name of the hypothetical innocent residents that might be found there. Other than Moses, I think Abraham is the only biblical figure who argues with God and, unlike Moses, who appeals to God’s mercy and uses moral blackmail (if you blot the Israelites out of your book I don’t want to be in it either), Abraham we can see getting the better of a reasonable argument—he wins his argument with God insofar as God tacitly concedes that He should not utterly destroy the sinful cities if there are people in them free of sin. This seems to be an origin story of moral progress, from collective to individual punishment, from the honor system or routine genocide in the course of war to the juridical. And, more specifically, in terms of the biblical narrative, it helps us to see why God has chosen Abraham to receive the covenant, blessing and land. Part of my puzzlement involved the question of when and how such a story became possible—if mass culture is taking the side of the perpetrator and high culture the side of the victim, this story is about as high cultural as you can get, as the story is completely set up to lead us to agree that the cities have it coming and yet we are expected to adopt Abraham’s perspective.
Questioning God
Questioning God
Questioning God
I’m going to take a highly speculative look at a Biblical story that puzzles me, in part because I see so little scholarly interest in it despite its obvious (to me, at least) importance: Abraham’s pleading to God on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah in the name of the hypothetical innocent residents that might be found there. Other than Moses, I think Abraham is the only biblical figure who argues with God and, unlike Moses, who appeals to God’s mercy and uses moral blackmail (if you blot the Israelites out of your book I don’t want to be in it either), Abraham we can see getting the better of a reasonable argument—he wins his argument with God insofar as God tacitly concedes that He should not utterly destroy the sinful cities if there are people in them free of sin. This seems to be an origin story of moral progress, from collective to individual punishment, from the honor system or routine genocide in the course of war to the juridical. And, more specifically, in terms of the biblical narrative, it helps us to see why God has chosen Abraham to receive the covenant, blessing and land. Part of my puzzlement involved the question of when and how such a story became possible—if mass culture is taking the side of the perpetrator and high culture the side of the victim, this story is about as high cultural as you can get, as the story is completely set up to lead us to agree that the cities have it coming and yet we are expected to adopt Abraham’s perspective.