Coat of Many Colors

A Geek and the Bible

Keturah and Abraham’s Other Children

His story being told, God grants Abraham something of a retirement for a job well done: roughly 35 years where he can settle down with a new wife, have six more children, and generally just stay out of the way. Isaac and his descendants will take the stage in a moment, but before that happens let’s take a brief look at Keturah, his new wife, and what the bible says about his new children. It’s not much, but anything the bible can do to flesh out the final days of the first great patriarch is welcome.

A mysterious new wife (that may have been an old wife)? New children who will lead great nations? Read on! Read More…

My Son Is Born!

My son, Abram, was born this week– very premature, but doing well and his mother and I are thrilled to discover our new little person. For now, we have some walls separating us as he works very hard to finish being ready for the world, but I look forward to the day that he can come home.

In Buddhism, there is a story about the birth of the baby Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. His parents were of a highborn Hindu family and because of a prophecy, his mother was traveling to his father’s kingdom late into the pregnancy. While they had stopped so that she could admire a garden, the baby Buddah was suddenly born! He walked a few steps, announced to the world that this would be the reincarnation where he would reach enlightenment, and then promptly settled back down into being a baby.

I bring this up because in the delivery room, none of the doctors or nurses mentioned our child suddenly getting up and talking, so he’s probably not going to be a reincarnation of the Buddha. Which is good, because since neither his mother or I are Buddhist and it would be terribly difficult to explain to our rabbi, or to my Christian side of the family.

For now, I plan to keep posting when I can. Writing and studying is calming, even as I sit with my wife as she recovers.

019.The_Meeting_of_Isaac_and_RebekahAfter coming down from Mount Sinai and the death of his mother, Sarah, Isaac was in a bit of a funk. He may not have been on speaking terms with his father and had gone off with his mother’s tent to live near Beer-lahai-roi, in the south of Israel. Abraham knew that the future of his line, of God’s promise, rested in the unsteady hands of his second son. But Abraham had a plan to set things right: he would find a bride for Isaac, someone that could take his mind away from his troubles. It was time for some matchmaking!

Although this is Isaac’s second story as an adult, this is really the story of Abraham’s final victory. This is the moment when he makes his inheritance secure and could go off and be happy on his own. In the process, we also get to meet one of the strong-willed wives of the patriarchs, Rebekah. What are you waiting for? Read on!

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deborah-detailWhere we left off in our story, Deborah and Barak– with an assist from a housewife and a tent spike– had succeeded in conquering Jabin, one of the kings of the Canaanite kingdoms, and his 900 iron-fortified chariots. This post will revisit a lot of that material, so see my previous entry if you want a refresher.

What did they do when they won this peace? Like any great Broadway musical, they sang a song about it. I will leave you to imagine the choreography, but it probably didn’t involve dancing girls. The Song of Deborah offers a second look at the events of Judges 4, but also depicts how Deborah wanted the story to be remembered. This song, far from being just an epilogue, depicts a woman that was both an expert at statecraft and perhaps a little bit of propaganda. Read on for the end of the story about this amazing woman.

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Who was Deborah, the Mother of Israel?

Today’s post was inspired by my wife. And whidevorahle I say “inspired”, I mean something else entirely. When I come home from work, if she beats me home, our conversations start off something like this:

Me: Hello! How was your day?

Wife: Have your written that post about my Hebrew name yet? (*)

And you know, I was going to get around to it… in a few years… when I made it to the Book of Judges. My wife’s Hebrew name is “Dvora”, better known in English as Deborah, the so-called “mother of Israel” and the only female Judge mentioned in the Bible. And while I thought I could hold off, in truth Deborah is a fascinating biblical figure and worthy of a deeper look. She’s also one that I had only the vaguest recollection of before I started working on this blog.

But what made the story of Deborah so special? Not one, but two powerful and influential women and a fantastic bit of false foreshadowing that reads like something out of the Lord of the Rings. Read on for more.

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Where Are We? Where Are We Going?

I did proDeadSeaScrolls_Amman_Museummise a few moments of navel gazing, but I swear it will be over quickly. Let’s be blunt: if you’re reading this, it’s not because you cherish regular updates in a blog. Or, if you do, you have the patience of an elephant. We’re nearly 1000 days old with 83 posts– and while once every two weeks sounds pretty good on paper, it’s really just been fits and starts with periods of lots of progress followed by long periods of inactivity. I apologize for that.

My plan is to get back to a regular posting schedule with a mix of “main narrative” posts as I continue to work my way through Genesis, plus interruptions as I finish up my Torah Family Tree project and all the little one-offs that I find so mesmerizing. My wife has also made a special request for a post which I hope to finish this week. This should continue over the summer, but I will be having a child in August and I have no idea how that will affect my ability to read and study. My hope is that now that I am out of school (for a while), I’ll be able to devote more time to blogging over all.

As we get to this magic 1000 days of blogging, I value  your feedback. What do you like and want to see more of? What less? You can reach me most easily on our Facebook page, or on Twitter at @coatofcolors.

Can I promise that I will be a better blog-host? Absolutely not. But darned it, I want to be and I want to share this journey with you. So please hold on, and there’s some fantastic stuff coming!

 

Is Eliezer Abraham’s Servant in Genesis 24?

Rebecca and Eliezer by Paolo Veronese, c1580 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Who was the servant that Abraham sent away to find a bride for Isaac? The bible itself does not say, but out of habit I referred to him as Eliezer when I posted about the text on Facebook. Both Jewish and Christian sources agree that Eliezer, a man otherwise mentioned only once in Genesis 15, was the servant that Abraham entrusted the future of his line to.

This post is brought to you thanks to the generous help of Jeremy from Study With Jeremy. I’ve misplaced my copy of Genesis Rabbah and he was kind enough to delve into the original Hebrew to help bring this mystery to a satisfactory conclusion.

So, who was this Eliezer fellow anyway? Sounds like a great mystery! Read on for more.

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Abraham’s Oath Upon his Thigh

Abraham's Servant Swears Upon His ThighA few months ago, I stalled on Genesis 24: it was too complex a chapter to comment on and instead of commenting, I found other things to write about until real life caught up with me. I’m determined to continue, so let’s start at the beginning.

Genesis 24 begins with a very odd oath. Abraham is too old to go off to find his son a wife on his own, so he sends his faithful servant to do it. But before he leaves, he asks his servant to “put [...] thy hand under my thigh. And I will make the swear by the Lord” (Genesis 24:2). Why does this swearing on a thigh come from and what does the bible have to say about it? Sounds like a great topic to dig into a little more! (Hint: It may involve testicles.)

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Thoughts about the tragedies in Boston and Watertown

I live in Watertown, Massachusetts and these last days have been very trying. From the moment the bombs went off on Monday, I felt fear– and even though I knew my wife was miles away from the marathon (she was meeting a friend in Cambridge), I needed to hear her voice immediately. In the end, we had to settle for a text message. Thursday night, the incident seemed to come straight to my doorstep. While I live about a mile and a half from the shooting, I was up all night as each successive update seemed to bring the bombers closer to my house. The police had closed off the roads and we couldn’t even run if we wanted to. Friday passed slowly as all we could do is listen to hours of reports where no one knew anything new. I nervously cleaned house– if the door to door searchers came here, I didn’t want there to be laundry on the floor. And when it was all over, when we felt safe again, my wife and I went down to Watertown Square to be with the crowds as they cheered on every passing police car. It felt great.

But there were things I overheard yesterday on the news, on twitter, even by my friends that made me uncomfortable. Every time I hear someone talking down– or even feeling threatened by– Islam or muslims, I can’t help but think they could be saying the same about “Jews” or “Catholics” or “Protestants”, all of whom have been the vilified outsider. When people get scared, they fear differences. I need to think on this some more, but I hope that I can find a way to help.

snow-in-jerusalemI made one huge mistake in my last trip to Jerusalem, in January: I didn’t bring a heavy enough coat. As an American, I tend to think of Israel as a hot place– and indeed it is much of the time.  Tel Aviv rarely gets below freezing and even in the winter the overnight lows tend to be in the forties. Jerusalem is in the mountains and tends to be a bit colder than Tel Aviv– as I found out– and it snows there with accumulations every few years. This January, Jerusalem was blanketed by nearly eight inches of powder! In the far north of Israel, on Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights, it even snows enough for a ski resort.

With my eyes opened to snow in the land of Israel, my second though turned to snow in the bible. I couldn’t remember even a single bible story that involved snow. Seeing this as a challenge, I set about to research everywhere that snow appears in the bible. And it does appear: twenty-seven times in the Hebrew Bible– most often in the Book of Job– and three more in the New Testament. While it factors directly in only one bible side-story, the way that it is used as an image or metaphor in different parts of the bible display a beautiful complexity.

This first part covers the very first mentions of snow in the Torah and how the metaphor of snow started as one of impurity ultimately transitioned to one of purity. Additional posts will follow. It’s exciting! Read on for more.

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