Was Sarai innocent or was she willing?

[seekeroftruth]

Genesis 12:10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. 11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. 12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live. 13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”​

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14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. 15 And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. 16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.​

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17 But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. 18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? 19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” 20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.​

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Here's the link to the commentary I use. That's where I found this....

A Jewish legend says when Abram went into Egypt, he tried to hide Sarai in a box. When Egyptian customs officials asked what he had in the box, he said, “barley.” “No,” they said, “it contains wheat.” “Very well,” answered Abram. “I’ll pay the custom on wheat.” Then the officers said it contained pepper. Abram said he would pay the custom charges on pepper. Then the officers said it contained gold. Abram said he would pay the custom charges on gold. Then the officers said it contained precious stones. Abram said he would pay the custom charges on precious stones. By this time, the officers insisted on opening the box. When they did, all of Egypt shined with the beauty of Sarai. These same legends say that in comparison to Sarai, all other women looked like monkeys. She was even more beautiful than Eve (cited in Ginzburg).​

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Please say you are my sister: This was in fact a half-truth. Sarai was Abram’s half-sister (Genesis 20:12). Yet this half-truth was a whole lie. Abram’s intent here was clearly to deceive, and he trusted in his deception to protect him instead of trusting in the LORD.​

Wow.... Sarai must have been a knockout. Hollywood will have a real hard time finding a woman to fit her part, without finding a super qualified beautician to add the perfection, right?

Wow... they had "Customs" back then? I wonder... did they print their passports too? Come on... this is back before Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot's still with them. So... the idea of popping Sarai in a box is just absurd, right?

Abram used Sarai!!!! The first few times I read this I came away with the "what a pig" feeling. This time I get the "Abram sold Sarai for his own welfare" feeling.

"Sarai went along with it" some would retort. Yeah... I can see her running around the room trying not to get caught so she wouldn't have to tell Pharaoh who she really was. I don't think she went right to him.

On top of that.... It says that Abram acquired flocks and slaves. Sarai had to avoid Pharaoh for a while to allow for the time in verse 16.

But wait... there was no birth control in those days. Pharaoh couldn't just lay with any woman he wanted. A woman could already be pregnant and go to Pharoah claiming to be virgin... to trick Pharoah into making her baby the child of Pharoah "by birth". In the Book of Esther we learned that kings would have women held for several months to confirm they were not carrying a baby already.

So.... Abram was avoiding famine... while getting rich.... all because.... Sarai was a knockout!

Because of Sarai's beauty and Abram's sleaziness.... Abram made out like a bandit.

Abram made out because of Sarai.... I wonder... Was she really innocent or was she willing?

Sarai was a knockout! Did Sarai know how gorgeous she really was, and use it to benefit her, and her husband, during a horrible famine?

Was Sarai innocent or was she willing?

 

[vraiblonde]

So basically Abram pimped his wife out to save his own skin.

If I were Sarai I'd dump a husband like that too. Probably why she pawned him off on Hagar.

It's interesting to me that God/Jesus lays down all these laws as to how we should behave, yet biblical founding fathers are so perverted and degenerate that civilized people wouldn't want anything to do with them. Sarah and Abraham are like a Mexican soap opera with all their duplicity and drama. Their whole family is about as dysfunctional as it gets. "I'm going to kill my son - burn him to death! - because I hear voices...."



This is why I reject the notion of a God-capital-G that supposedly created everything. God doesn't come across as a benevolent creator, He comes across as a deranged sociopath who lives to destroy. "Oh, God sent an angel to protect me!" Yeah, butt out, God - you screw up everything you touch.

See me resisting the urge to relate this to modern humanity and politics?

 

[seekeroftruth]

So basically Abram pimped his wife out to save his own skin.

If I were Sarai I'd dump a husband like that too. Probably why she pawned him off on Hagar.

It's interesting to me that God/Jesus lays down all these laws as to how we should behave, yet biblical founding fathers are so perverted and degenerate that civilized people wouldn't want anything to do with them. Sarah and Abraham are like a Mexican soap opera with all their duplicity and drama. Their whole family is about as dysfunctional as it gets. "I'm going to kill my son - burn him to death! - because I hear voices...."



This is why I reject the notion of a God-capital-G that supposedly created everything. God doesn't come across as a benevolent creator, He comes across as a deranged sociopath who lives to destroy. "Oh, God sent an angel to protect me!" Yeah, butt out, God - you screw up everything you touch.

See me resisting the urge to relate this to modern humanity and politics?

Oh, I agree with you.... until you got to the calling God a sociopath...

It wasn't God who pimped out his wife... it was Abram... human.

God keeps trying to be good to humans.... but they just keep being human.... and men seem to be more human.

Yes... the family of Jesus was indeed dysfunctional.... but Jesus never hurt anyone but the money changers.... and they were ripping people off... so, they deserved a good temper tantrum.

It's not God that's is warped.... humans... humans frick everything up....

I avoided the modern humanity and politics part too.... lol

 

[vraiblonde]

Oh, I agree with you.... until you got to the calling God a sociopath...

It wasn't God who pimped out his wife... it was Abram... human.

God keeps trying to be good to humans.... but they just keep being human.... and men seem to be more human.

Yes... the family of Jesus was indeed dysfunctional.... but Jesus never hurt anyone but the money changers.... and they were ripping people off... so, they deserved a good temper tantrum.

It's not God that's is warped.... humans... humans frick everything up....

I avoided the modern humanity and politics part too.... lol

So do you think God really told Abraham to kill Isaac, or Abraham just did it because he was nuts?

Because even though Abraham didn't go through with it, imagine Isaac there thinking his dad is going to burn him alive. That has to leave a mark on the psyche.

And if humans frick up everything....well, who made them that way?

God is either all-powerful or He isn't.

 

[seekeroftruth]

So do you think God really told Abraham to kill Isaac, or Abraham just did it because he was nuts?

Because even though Abraham didn't go through with it, imagine Isaac there thinking his dad is going to burn him alive. That has to leave a mark on the psyche.

And if humans frick up everything....well, who made them that way?

God is either all-powerful or He isn't.

Abraham didn't kill Isaac... he was going to... but he didn't. According to the commentaries.... God tested Abraham.... but the sacrificial ram was there the whole time. I thought Saria should have stopped him.... or send someone else to watch him. Saria knew what a sleaze he was.

If I were Isaac... I wouldn't have trusted Abraham as far as I could throw him. Surely Isaac heard what his dad did to his mom... pimping her to Pharaoh to save his own hide.

The issue with humans is... God gave us choices. The rest of the animals and birds and fish... work more on instinct.

A dog will wince long before a human hits him. A cat has nine lives for a reason. They have instinct... We have instinct but our "desires" are more dominant.

Abram [Abraham] was a typical man. He's looking out for number one. I bet Abram would have said... she wasn't hurt... I was providing for her safety too.

I wish Sarai had slapped Abram across the face it would have shattered his teeth... but instead... she let him take her only son off to who knows where to do who knows what.... Sarai should carry some of the blame... but she's "just a subservient woman".

I wish they had written "and Hagar said to Sarai 'I told you so'", in the Bible.

See, this is the type of thing that makes me angry at the preachers and priests. They all make Abram out to be a "hero". He never was a hero... he was always a sleazy man only interested in himself. If others benefited by his decisions... it was an accident... IMHO.... it was never anything heroic.

Most of the stories about humans in the Bible are there because of the ignorance of humans... bad choices.

God gave humans "choice". If He hadn't ... well, we would be arguing that Abram had "no choice". Humans have choices and they frick up the majority of them... and the preachers make it all OK.... after all,... "we're only human".

 

[vraiblonde]

They all make Abram out to be a "hero". He never was a hero...

Very few of the biblical heroes were heroes. David - yikes. "Well, you're my favorite so it's okay if you rape my daughter/your sister..." And what he did to Uriah....

These are terrible people by today's standards, and yet they are God's favorites. The prodigal son....."Yeah, I know you've been faithful all along but I prefer the son who went off raving and returned. "

 

[SamSpade]

So do you think God really told Abraham to kill Isaac, or Abraham just did it because he was nuts?

Most scholars I have heard and read usually interpret the events as an affirmation of ABRAHAM'S own faith - more like - God was saying 'now YOU know what kind of faith you have'. An eternal God always knew the outcome.

But the book of Hebrews had a different take on it - in Hebrews 11:19 it says that Abraham was so convinced that God would keep his promise to multiply his descendants - and SPECIFICALLY, through Isaac - he "reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.". He believed that God would raise him up, since he DID promise that through Isaac, his descendants would outnumber the stars.

I remember contemplating this passage, when I adopted my son, Jacob. See, I wanted a son when I was 21 - but it wasn't until I was 46 that he became my son - as it so happens, both Abraham and I waited 25 years for a son we doubted would ever come. And when I read that passage and thought about God asking me to sacrifice my son, I would angrily tell him to go straight to hell - I would never part with him. I can only guess the kind of anguish he would have, after having a miraculous birth in old age to a son. I don't think he was nuts - I see him as having faith that I couldn't have, because I would never do that.

 

[SamSpade]

David - yikes. "Well, you're my favorite so it's okay if you rape my daughter/your sister..." And what he did to Uriah....

David's life is covered a lot more than most in the Bible - and a lot more happens to him. I have noticed one thing about David - like Samuel - and Samuel's mentor, the priest Eli , he failed to impart his faith and love of God in his children - and the events you describe are of Amnon, David's son raping his half-sister Tamar - leading to his killing by Absalom, David's third son - and caused a civil war.

When I read these, I think if anything, it demonstrates their normal human frailty. David was also as God described him - a man of war - and therefore as much as he loved him, God saw him as unfit to build his temple.

I don't find them awful people - I would certainly hate to be judged for my whole life for the moments I was at my worst. I've certainly never killed anyone, but I've had moments of which I am not proud.

 

[jrt_ms1995]

So basically Abram pimped his wife out to save his own skin.

If I were Sarai I'd dump a husband like that too. Probably why she pawned him off on Hagar.

Wait a minute, maybe Sarah got around a good bit on her own, and that's where the "serious diseases" came from in Pharoah's household.

 

[seekeroftruth]

Wow.... so many terrific comments.

The Bible is the story about the Messiah, Who, in spite of being human, was a good man who did not sin.... unlike the family He came from.

These are all examples of how nasty humans can be... given the choice.

We're still only a few hundred years from the flood and already humans are behaving like pimps and whores... given the choice.

As for the diseases.... verse 17.... I wonder if they were STDs or if it was disease in general. After all, if Sarai was that beautiful, and word got out... wouldn't men [and women] come from everywhere to just lay eyes on her... bringing the human caused nasty disease with them. In the books of law in the Bible, God had to tell Moses to have the people poop outside of town to keep disease away.... So, maybe some who came to cast eyes on Saria's magnificence were from where people pooped everywhere and disease was a way of life. Kind of like the Spanish killing off so many just because the people they were visiting weren't immune to the diseases the Spanish brought with them.

God gave them the "choice" so they wouldn't just go around saying "I had no choice because God doesn't trust me". Right????

:coffee;

 

[vraiblonde]

God gave them the "choice" so they wouldn't just go around saying "I had no choice because God doesn't trust me". Right????

But God is right not to trust them to do the moral and decent thing. Which makes me wonder why He bothered in the first place. If I were going to create a world and humans to have domain over the whole thing, I'd make those humans benevolent so I could watch my happy little world unfold for eternity. Why create evil and chaos?

"Oh, I did this nice thing because I had no choice...."

 

[seekeroftruth]

But God is right not to trust them to do the moral and decent thing. Which makes me wonder why He bothered in the first place. If I were going to create a world and humans to have domain over the whole thing, I'd make those humans benevolent so I could watch my happy little world unfold for eternity. Why create evil and chaos?

"Oh, I did this nice thing because I had no choice...."

I didn't trust my kids to do the right thing until I taught them the difference between right and wrong. And then I still had to hire a babysitter to make sure they didn't do anything stupid.... oh why oh why did I trust that babysitter.... I don't have a clue.

And who's to say what is right? Look at questions of abortion or capital murder [not to get political... it will come up.... as we continue through the Bible].

Right is complicated.... I'm pretty sure God would lead humans to do what is right... if we ask... right?

 

[vraiblonde]

I didn't trust my kids to do the right thing until I taught them the difference between right and wrong. And then I still had to hire a babysitter to make sure they didn't do anything stupid.... oh why oh why did I trust that babysitter.... I don't have a clue.

And who's to say what is right? Look at questions of abortion or capital murder [not to get political... it will come up.... as we continue through the Bible].

Right is complicated.... I'm pretty sure God would lead humans to do what is right... if we ask... right?

But if God is all powerful, why not just make them right in the first place? Humans have already proven that they can't be trusted with free will. Eve proved that right off the bat.

 

[seekeroftruth]

But if God is all powerful, why not just make them right in the first place? Humans have already proven that they can't be trusted with free will. Eve proved that right off the bat.

Exactly....

Dogs obey.... people should obey.... but NOOOOO.... We gotta make our own choices and live our own truths....

What does that mean anyway....

God gave man choice and it caused man to get a big head... lol