Timothy our brother (Acts 16)

Acts chapter 16 opens with a vingette that seems to contradict the previous chapter, and the SAB takes it that way. Is circumcision required? This was really answered in chapter 15, which oddly enough isn't linked to on this page, but I suppose there's no specific verse to link to there. The answer is no for Christians, yes for Jews. (If the question is required for salvation, it's a straight across the board "no".) The Old Testament passages are all for Jews (as well as the Luke passage, because Jesus was Jewish), and most of the New Testament passages are addressed to Gentile Christians. Timothy, whose mother was a Jew and father was a Greek, is a believer, and wants to go with Paul, but for some reason, Paul decides Timothy needs to be circumcised. It's not made particularly clear why Paul decides this, especially so soon after the Jerusalem council; it may be because what with Timothy's mother being Jewish Paul felt a need for Timothy to have some Jewish cred, so to speak. (Paul notes in Galatians that he didn't compel Titus to be circumcised because he was Greek.)

I already responded to whether the Gospel should be preached to everyone in Acts chapter one, where I pointed out, as I will again, that Phrygia and Galatia are in Asia, so it's not even very clear what verse six is trying to say! Paul has a dream about a man in Macedonia asking for help, so Paul goes there. The SAB, always with an attention to detail, notes that the narrative switches to first-person, and wonders why. The standard Christian explanation is that Luke (the author of Acts) must have joined Paul around this time. Anyway, shortly after they get to Macedonia, they meet Lydia, and convert her. The SAB's suggestion that Lydia might be a lesbian because she sold purple (I assume purple clothes rather than the actual dye) seems a bit of a stretch, as purple is more likely associated with nobility; it is interesting that she does appear to be an independent woman, which may have been more common in Europe. (Note I'm not saying Lydia definitely wasn't a lesbian, I just don't think the evidence is compelling enough.)

Paul's encounter with the demon possessed woman is actually pretty absurd, I have to agree. She's demon possessed, but follows Paul around hyping him up. Apparently there's something annoying or otherwise distracting about it, and she is demon possessed, so Paul casts the demon out of her. Her owners are pissed off, because they were making money off of her, so they bring Paul and Silas to the rulers of the town where they are beaten and thrown into prison. That night, while they're sitting in prison in chains, they are singing praise songs, and a miraculous earthquake happens, that opens the doors of the prison and loosens everyone's chains. The warden wakes up, and seeing the doors open, makes to commit suicide, as apparently he's going to be in trouble. Paul calls out to him, letting him know they are still there, and not to kill himself. He comes in to Paul and Silas and asks how he can be saved. Paul gives him a curious answer, saying if he believes in Jesus, he and his whole family will be saved! There are actually Christians who believe that if the husband is saved, that covers the whole household. I actually used to know a witch online who said she had a husband who was a pastor, and as far as he was concerned, she was saved because he was. So the SAB has to ask, Is salvation by faith alone? I'm sure I've answered this question elsewhere at least in part, but as the page doesn't have a link, I'll address it here in full. The answer is yes, but it's complicated. There are a few things that need to be said that may address the "no" verses. First of all, despite the fact that a person is "saved" doesn't mean they won't be judged; there seems to be both a judgment concerning salvation and a judgment concerning rewards and punishment that is separate. Also, many of the Old Testament passages are talking about judgment here on earth, the idea that God rewards good people and punishes bad people. Also, there is another important teaching that is especially accentuated in the book of James: that faith, if it is genuine, should result in good works, and if the good works are not present in a person's life, you should question their faith. Oh, and said works also include one's words that one speaks. So, for those passages not covered by these issues... The Matthew five verse I explained in Matthew five, basically saying that Jesus is using hyperbole to say that you can't get in to Heaven on righteousness. Matthew 19 in the broader context is illustrating that most rich people are violating the first Commandment by having money as their god. The Romans two passage is, I think, being taken wrong, as the broader context of the entire book is salvation by faith; perhaps Paul is saying, as Jesus sometimes did, that nobody is capable of keeping the whole of the law, because in the end, we are all sinners. The Philippians two verse is not at all clear in and of itself, and certainly could be saying to keep the faith. Revelation 22 is a tricky one, but I think it can certainly be said that Jesus had Commandments (the SAB has them all tracked, in fact), which were mainly about faith. If a husband believes, is his wife saved also? I think it's arguable that the point of all of these verses is that the faith of one spouse has a great influence on the other, although as I said above, some people believe the answer is a simple "yes".

So, the warden puts his faith in Jesus, and is baptized, along with his family. Just because it doesn't say what the rest of his family thought about all of this doesn't automatically imply that they were baptized against their will; it's entirely possible that the whole family made confessions of faith as well. Lack of information doesn't imply that something didn't happen, but it's certainly true that it leaves us wondering. In the morning, the order is given to let Paul and Silas go. Paul is apparently offended that they arrested them publicly, but want to release him privately. The people in charge hear about this, and the fact that Paul and Silas are Roman citizens, which is serious business, since there are special rules about how you treat citizens, and they haven't been treated properly. The rulers release them and ask them to leave the city. After visiting with Lydia one more time, they depart.

But if ye will not hearken unto us, to be circumcised (Acts 15)

Acts chapter 15 is where the Jewish Christians say, hey, isn't it time we talked about circumcision? Because, as some Jewish believers contend, how can you possibly get into Heaven without cutting off the tip of your penis? So Paul and Barnabas decide to travel to Jerusalem and get this sorted out. (I already answered whether the gospel should be preached to everyone in Acts chapter one.) When they arrive, the Christians get together and debate over circumcision and whether it's required of believers in Christ. Finally, Peter stands up and says that since God has already shown that Gentiles are welcome in the kingdom of God, why should Jewish Christians require them to follow the Mosaic Law? (I answered whether God can be tempted in Exodus chapter 17.) After Peter, Paul and Barnabas talk about all the missionary work that they have done among the Gentiles. Finally, James speaks, and quotes the prophet Amos, and suggests that they should just tell Gentiles to abstain from idols, fornication, strangled things, and blood. This is a fascinating thing that I think I mentioned before a couple times: that Christianity actually does have dietary restrictions, and here they are. I answered whether it's okay to eat blood in John chapter six. I answered whether it's okay to have sex outside of marriage in Exodus chapter 20. Is it OK to eat meat sacrificed to other gods? Finally, a new question! The answer to this one is pretty much a "depends"; note that most of these verses come not just from the same book, but from the same chapter! 1Corinthians 10 is just a place where Paul is taking time to examine this in detail, and the message is clearly not a contradiction when he has two things to say immediately following one another.

1Corinthians 10:27 If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no question for conscience sake. 28 But if any man say unto you, This is offered in sacrifice unto idols, eat not for his sake that shewed it, and for conscience sake: for the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof:

The guidelines Paul gives for this is that if you don't know whether the meat set before you had been a sacrifice, don't worry about it, but if you do know it was, don't eat it in that case. He's saying it's really a matter of conscience pretty clearly.

So with everyone in agreement, they write a letter to send to the churches so the Gentiles will know about this. They send Paul and Barnabas, since they know all these churches, and Judas Barsabas and Silas, since they're apparently prophets. And the Gentiles were very glad they didn't have to cut off the tips of their penises. After a while, Paul wants to go back and visit all the churches one more time, but Barnabas wants to take John Mark, who (as I mentioned a few chapters back) Paul is angry at for abandoning them on their first journey. So they split up, Barnabas taking John Mark to Cyprus, and Paul taking Silas to Syria.

A righteous man hateth lying (John 7)

There's an important thing to say about the opening verse of John chapter seven that's related to antisemitism which I may have already noted elsewhere. When the Bible says Jesus is avoiding "the Jews" it's important to understand that generally with that definite article, the Bible is referring to the Sanhedrin, the council of Jewish leaders who were located in Jerusalem. It's definitely not talking about Jews in general, because Galilee was an area primarily populated by Jews as well. It's actually rather unfortunate that many of the writers of the New Testament used this shorthand because I imagine it has been used historically as an excuse for antisemitism among Christians.

The SAB says it's absurd that Jesus's brothers didn't believe in him, but I'm not sure why. I imagine having grown up with Jesus as a brother made him seem too mundane to possibly be the Messiah.

Now, the SAB brings up the meaty question Is it OK to lie? Now I thought I would have covered this in Exodus chapter one, but apparently I didn't; I've no idea why. The reason it's particularly meaty here is that it appears in verse eight of our chapter that Jesus lies! While I can certainly point out that Jesus says, "I go not up yet unto this feast," making it technically not a lie, one can't deny that Jesus is making a statement with the intent to deceive. So what is the Bible's stance on lying, and is there a contradiction here? My position on this matter has always been that while lying in general is bad, there is such a thing as situational ethics; you should tell the truth unless telling the truth will cause something terrible to happen. In most of the examples given of people lying in the Bible and being right to do so, there's a matter of life or death. The Egyptian midwives are lying to save the lives of Jewish babies; Rahab is lying to save the lives of the Israelite spies; David is lying to save his own life; and that may be the reason Jesus says what he does here, because letting his disciples know that he's going to the feast might in some way endanger him. (Perhaps the reason Elisha lies to the king of Syria is so that events unfold as they do in the next few verses, and that serves to save lives in some way? I don't know.)

So Jesus goes to the feast eventually, and we see there's a lot of controversy about him. Some people like him, while others--perhaps the Sanhedrin in particular, or various others who are listening to the Sanhedrin--think he's a charlatan. Eventually, Jesus appears at the Temple to preach, and a lot of people are impressed with what he has to say. When Jesus says that there are people trying to kill him, some people accuse him of being possessed which, as the SAB rightly notes, is apparently a common thing (either in actuality, or simply the culture assumed anyone with mental problems must be possessed). Jesus brings up the issue that is between him and the Sanhedrin: the sabbath. Whether you should keep the sabbath was addressed in John chapter five, but Jesus brings up something that I meant to bring up there, but no matter, because the discussion is here in the text: circumcision. As Jesus points out here, a male child is circumcised on his eighth day, and if that day happens to be the sabbath, they don't postpone the procedure to the ninth day. It's arguably a breaking of the sabbath, but Jews do it all the time! As I said about situational ethics in the last post about lying, so it applies to the sabbath; it's a rule...unless something more important comes up. If circumcision is important enough, surely healing a paraplegic should be acceptable.

To judge or not to judge? The SAB brings up this question, which is actually one of the more common questions non-Christians have, or at least they know Matthew 7:1, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." While there does appear to be a contradiction here, the real distinction is that there are different kinds of judgment. It's just a natural fact that humans judge each other, and there's nothing wrong with most kinds of judgment. The places where the Bible warns us not to judge are referring to the kind of judgment where you condemn another person, whether you fully think, "That person is going to Hell," or maybe even just, "That person is really evil." In a few of these verses, it's said that when you judge, you make yourself answerable to the same standards of judgment, and you probably wouldn't want that.

Jesus makes another reference to "scripture" in this speech that, as the SAB notes, is not really at all clear as to what scripture he's referring to. There are a few references to "living water" in the Old Testament, but none of them are anything like what Jesus is saying here, so it's a mystery.

When was the Holy Ghost given? I'm sure I covered this one before, but I'll answer it again rather than hunt it down. In addition to the New Testament verses given here, there are a few Old Testament references to "the Spirit of God" that probably fit here. The thing of it is, there was a specific event at Pentecost when the Holy Ghost was given en masse to all of the believers, and thereafter, upon conversion to Christianity, to all other Christians. The Holy Ghost was always there (from Genesis 1:2!), but the "giving of the Holy Ghost" is referring to the time from Pentecost onwards.

The foolishness of God is wiser than men (Joshua 5)

Oh, I gotta tell you, I've actually been looking forward to this one a great deal. The SAB marks Joshua 5 in two places with the "Absurd" icon, and indeed, this chapter is full of weirdness. This is as excellent a place as any to put forward my personal theory on God's modus operandi when it comes to the Jewish people: God wants the Jews to be "weird" so that other nations will notice them, and thus notice God.

As I said before, there was already a certain amount of fame that preceded the Israelites into Canaan. The people of the land heard about the plagues on Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and a handful of battles that had been fought while they were wandering in the desert. Imagine an inhabitant of Canaan hearing about all this.

So those Israelites? The ones who came up out of Egypt few years back? They're headed this way! What's more, the trick they did with the Red Sea? They did it again with the Jordan River! The river just stopped, and they walked across on dry land! And then get this: they set up camp and all the men gathered together and cut the tips of their penises off! I'm telling you, those guys serve a God who is powerful, and apparently friggin' batshit insane!

Seriously, these guys are being watched, I have no doubt, by people from all over the region who want to see what craziness they will do next. These are a people who, along with their God, mean some serious business, and everybody knows it.

This is an important prelude to the whole issue of Holy war, which we are about to start into, and get up to our necks in throughout this book. This bizarre behavior, this series of miraculous events, it's all a way to send a message to the people of Canaan. It's a message that unfortunately very few of them understood, like Rahab did. Time's up for you people, and you now have to choose from three options: repent, evacuate, or die. While it is not my intention at this time to yet delve into the morality of the book as a whole, I think one thing that should be noted is that those nations which came to be destroyed were all forewarned, and as we later see in the case of Nineveh, God spares those who repent.

With all the miraculous happenings that center around the Israelites, however, one might wonder at the sort of "anti-miracle" that occurred to them. Indeed, it took them 40 years to complete a journey that conceivably could have been done in ten days. Now there are various aspects to consider like the fact that with such a large group of people, travel is difficult; everyone is forced to go the speed of the slowest member of the group. Furthermore, one must remember that they had to make a pit stop to pick up the Law, which must have taken some time to write down. That's hardly enough to slow them by a year, much less forty.

I don't like to say things that will come across as insulting to Steve Wells, who strikes me as a very intelligent and dedicated individual for all the work he's done with the SAB, which as I have said, is really quite an impressive body of work that I actually admire. It's no secret that there are a lot of Christians who haven't put half the time into studying the Bible that he has. Still, there are occasional points in the SAB where I wonder what Wells is thinking. Why do the Israelites wander in the desert for forty years? Because God made them do it as a punishment. It's a pivotal moment in the story of the Exodus that you could hardly miss, (and Wells doesn't miss it, but puts the same note on that passage) and it seems it would be difficult to miss the meaning, either. It's neither absurd nor technically flawed that this should have happened; if any of the SAB's icons really should go there, it might be "Cruelty", but there are certainly worse punishments than having to walk around aimlessly for several years.

Another "anti-miracle" that happens in this chapter is that right after the crossing and circumcising, they celebrate the first Passover in Canaan, at which point God ceases to bring them manna, telling them that they have now moved in, and they will eat off of the land as inhabitants.

Take the Levites from among the children of Israel (Exod 6)

Sheesh, Blogger's acting up a bit for me today, and after getting sidetracked by yesterday's topic which started out as a look at chapter six, but ended up being...well, whatever it was. Hopefully this will post today.

Well, here we are at Exodus chapter 6, and the first point that we get to is "Did Abraham know God's name?" I thought to myself, "Ah, I must have answered this back in Genesis. Looking back, I found that I specifically did not answer it in this post. Poop. Well, there is only one explanation that I can think of, but I have to admit, it's a tenuous one, especially in light of the verse the SAB uses to point it out, and, in my opinion, a possible contrast with Exodus 3:14. Well, here it is: As I touched on sort of tangentially in this really old post, and a bit more directly here, Moses wrote the book of Genesis, but was not there when the events took place. Since he wasn't there, I'm not sure one can rightly assume that any dialogue can be considered a direct quotation. If Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob ever mentions YHWH, it may be the case that Moses is inserting the name editorially, so to speak. In case the above problems I admitted are not clear, I'll spell them out. If Abraham actually named a place after YHWH, then one would think he knew the name, and an actual place-name seems more permanent rather than a bit of spoken dialogue. Secondly, if Moses telling the Israelites that "I AM" spoke to him was supposed to be significant, then one would think that name was already known.

At least I did answer the other issue, that of God being seen by someone or not, right here. Phew.

In verse 12, the phrase "uncircumcised lips" is marked as absurd. Really, I'm not sure what to say to this, as I myself have always found it sounding a bit absurd as well. Culturally, circumcision was a big deal to the Israelites, and while circumcision is literally something done to the foreskin of the penis, the Bible speaks of uncircumcised ears, hearts and nations, and it seems to metaphorically refer to not being dedicated to God as is proper.

Later in the chapter, as we get a genealogy of Moses, the lifespans of several forefathers are called absurd. As I mused in a previous post, I'm not sure what the specific threshold is for ridiculously long lifespans, but it seems to be somewhere between 127 and 133, and I don't know why. Something that the SAB fails to mention here, although I'm surprised because it's pretty glaring, is that despite the fact that 400-odd years have passed since the last mention of Levi in the book of Genesis, Moses is only Levi's great-grandson. Something weird is definitely going on here, either these long-lived people are having children in their old age, or the genealogy is telescoped in some manner. There's no clear-cut contradiction even if you take it literally, it just seems very odd, that's all.

The last point the SAB brings up in this chapter is another one I have already addressed. Moses' parents were siblings, and thus their relationship was incestuous. But didn't God condemn incest? Yes, He did, but not yet. I discussed this issue when Abraham mentioned that Sarah was his wife.

There are no more points to address as given presently, but there is something that I'd never noticed before this morning that the SAB might want to point out as absurd just because it's a little bit funny, I think. Is it a sign that Moses may not be a very good writer? In verse 14, we read "These be the heads of their fathers' houses..." This seems to be an introduction to a list of the sub-families of the twelve tribes, listed in order of the birth of the sons of Jacob. One problem, though; it goes Reuben, Simeon, Levi--Oh! That's Moses' tribe! Let's talk about Moses' ancestry and family, shall we? Okay, but what about the other nine tribes? We don't get back to this list until Numbers 26, nearly 90 chapters later! Something that's an issue to consider in some places in the Bible is that few of the Biblical authors were professional writers, and none of them had word processors.

What profit is there of circumcision? (Exod 4:13-31)

After more than a bit of hemming and hawing, Moses finally agrees to his task, so long as God sends his brother Aaron to help him. After settling the matter, Moses returns to his father-in-law (whose naming inconsistencies I discussed a few posts back) and tells him he's going back to Egypt.

On his way to Egypt, God warns Moses that Pharaoh is going to be stubborn about the whole thing, and refuse to let the Israelites leave. This leads to one of the stranger issues of the Exodus story: Did God make Pharaoh's heart hard, and if so, why? The SAB points out both an apparent contradiction and an injustice here, but I think that it's the two put together that really explain what's going on. The thing is, it's actually a larger theme throughout the Bible that whatever a person wants to be, God will enable them to be that way. Pharaoh was the one who was stubborn, and since he was stubborn, God not only allowed him to stay stubborn, but gave further supernatural firmness to his resolve not to let the Israelites go. Was Pharaoh the one who hardened his heart, or did God do it? Both. Was this unfair? Maybe. It was what Pharaoh wanted anyway, so perhaps not unfair to him personally, but in the grander scheme of things, the question may still be up in the air.

Case in point, just a couple verses down we see that the end result is that Pharaoh's son will die. In fact later on, every firstborn male child of the Egyptians will die. Is this fair? Fair is a subjective thing in this world, and it makes it hard to answer the SAB's claims of injustice. (Somewhere back in the archives, I know there's a post where Steve Wells has many comments on the matter. Maybe I was thinking of this one?) A couple things come to mind in this case, however. First of all, Pharaoh is given plenty of warning that judgment is coming; probably more than any other individual in the Bible. "Hey Pharaoh, let us go or else your son will die. Just in case you think I'm kidding, here's nine plagues to help you mull it over." Second of all, remember that about eighty years back, the Egyptians had perpetrated acts of Genocide against the Israelites. Pharaoh killed all the sons of God's people, so God decides to kill a portion of their sons in retribution. Perhaps this is justice?

The last little story that needs to be addressed here is the story of verses 23-25. Frankly, it's a tough one to address. First and foremost, the SAB refers to it as absurd, and that's probably a good label for it. Moses has not circumcised his sons, for some reason this is a problem that gets him in trouble, and before you know it, foreskins are a-flyin'! What is going on here? Some scholars have suggested that Moses was unaware of the need for circumcising his kids until he met God on the mountain. After being made aware of the need for it, he didn't bother to take care of the matter, being worried that it would slow down his return to Egypt, perhaps making his sons unable to walk, or at least putting them at risk for infection. This would show a lack of faith on Moses' part, which would have to be dealt with. For some reason his wife takes care of it in the end, calling him a "bloody husband" because...?

Okay, for the most part I've been avoiding reading other people's commentaries on these matters before making my posts, but I'll admit that I read someone else's commentary on this very matter, and I liked what he said. Whatever the heck this passage means, it's pretty much incomprehensible to us today. There is something cultural going on here which was significant for Moses and Zipporah, but probably not so important to us. Maybe it meant something to the ancient Israelites as well. Probably. I'm letting this one go and moving on.

What shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for? (Gen 34)

The SAB has nothing to say about chapter 33, and I don't think I do either. It's a pretty straightforward and nice reunion story of Jacob and his brother Esau. Chapter 34, however, has a lot of scandal in it that a lot could be said about.

This chapter is the story of Dinah, Jacob's only mentioned daughter. A short time after moving back to the promised land, Dinah gets taken away by Shechem, a member of a local royal family, and he has sex with her. The story doesn't seem to make it particualrly clear whether or not it's consensual sex; he may have kidnapped and raped her, or it may have been something more like eloping. Given the fact that women weren't treated with too much respect in those days, and Dinah's brothers don't seem to be angry at her specifically, I'd venture to guess that it wasn't consensual sex. Also, the wording of verses three and four seem to me to indicate that his desire to have any sort of long-term relationship with her came after the sex.

The two families get together and try to work out the terms of whether and how the two should be married. Jacob seems to be trying his best to be quiet and calm about it, but his sons are pretty ticked off. They insist that Shechem and all of his people (the Hivites, I guess?) have to be circumcised in order to be acceptable. While indeed, as the SAB says, this may be a case of intolerance against gentiles, it may also be that they're setting demands on Shechem that they don't expect him to be able to fulfill, so that when he says "No," they can have an excuse to say, "See? He doesn't really love her! Let's kill him!" At least, the overall story seems to point to this as a strong possibility.

But they agree, and do it! It almost sounds like that very same afternoon, the whole city goes out to the gate and undergoes this rather uncomfortable procedure. Now if circumcision was what the sons of Israel really wanted, then this should have been a happy ending right here, pretty much. Instead, a couple days later, when all these men are lying around in pain, and perhaps drunk (I probably would be!), Simeon and Levi come and kill them all. They take all their possessions, livestock, and women, and go back home, taking their sister with them.

Now, this sounds like a terrible thing, and in fact, the Bible does very little to dissuade someone of that. Jacob rebukes them, and they seem to not care at all, because their sister's honor was damaged. I'm not sure why the SAB claims, "To the author of Genesis, rape is clearly a crime against the honor of men rather than against a woman." It may indeed be so that this is the case for Simeon and Levi, and for the author of Genesis, but frankly, I don't see that it's "clearly" the case. I could see this going either way.

In any case, a lot of people here have failed to make the right moral decision, and the Bible does not condone any of what happens in this chapter.

The gospel of the circumcision (Gen 17)

"Good news, Abe! I've decided you should have the tip of your penis cut off!" That wacky God; what a cut-up! (This is where I'm supposed to say, "No pun intended," with the express purpose of not caring whether you think I intended it or not, but just making sure you didn't miss it.)

Here's a little personal anecdote my mother told me: when I was born, it was widely believed that circumcision was a very healthy thing to do, and they gave my mother a hard time getting out of the hospital with me without having me circumcised. My mother repeatedly explained to the staff that I would be circumcised, but several days later, according to Jewish custom, at my parents' synagogue. Although apparently they had no legal right to do so, they pretty much threatened not to release her until she signed a release form allowing a doctor to do it right away. Weird stuff. Anti-Semitism, or just ignorance? I don't know.

Anyway, getting to today's passage, God appears to Abram again, and makes another covenant with him. Now I've heard it discussed that this is a separate covenant than the one in chapter 15, and this one is a conditional one. I have to admit I'm not real clear on what the difference is, and while part of it is just me being tired, it's also not super clear in the text. The fact that God doesn't give the land to him in his lifetime is something I've already discussed in recent posts, but I'd say verse eight is particularly confusing as the construct "I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee" seems to be clearly specifying the giving of the land to Abraham himself. I don't know what the deal is with that.

Now Abram ("exalted father"), who is renamed Abraham ("father of a multitude") has to do something a bit more challenging than cutting up a few animals; he has to cut off his foreskin, and talk every man living in his house into doing it as well. The SAB questions whether circumcision is necessary, and while looking at some of the New Testament verses on the matter can be confusing out of context, I think there is a fairly unified message concerning it. The main N.T. texts that discuss it at length are Acts 15, in which the early church fathers meet together to discuss the matter of circumcision of gentile converts to Christianity, and a large portion of the book of Romans, particularly chapter four, in which Paul points out that Abram was called righteous over thirteen years before he was circumcised. The upshot is that if you're a Jew and you're going to follow the law of the Jews, then you have to be circumcised. If you're a non-Jew who wants to follow God, you don't have to be circumcised. I don't believe I'm mistaken in my understanding that even Jews believe this. This is the first of many commands in the Bible that are specifically for Jews (although Muslims also circumcise), a subject I'll talk about a lot if I ever make it out of Genesis. Circumcision is to be taken very seriously by the Jews, though, to the point that God says a man who is not circumcised can't be part of the Jewish community, another point I'd have to say is rather odd, since one might assume that, as a Jew, it's really his parents' fault if he's not circumcised.

Sarai's name gets changed to Sarah, which changes the meaning from "princess" to "noblewoman", not a big change. The real point of changing the names was in some way that it was significant in this case to add an "H" to each one, I seem to recall being taught when I was a kid, although I can't remember why; it was something to do with God's spirit being on them in some way. The SAB mentions here that Sarah was Abraham's half-sister, which makes the relationship between them incestuous, yes, but Biblical scholars have pointed out that God never said anything against incest until after the Israelites leave Egypt, probably because with the smaller population in the first few hundred years after the flood, incest would have been harder to avoid.

In changing Sarah's name, God also says that He's going to give Sarah a child, and since she's eighty years old and has never conceived, Abraham laughs. God tells Abraham that the child will be named Isaac, a Hebrew name meaning "he laughs" because, as explained more in the next chapter, everyone is going to laugh at the idea of an 80-year-old woman having a child. (The SAB doesn't put its laughing "absurdity" icon next to verse 16, a place where one might actually consider it respectful to do so!)

So the chapter ends with Abraham circumcising himself, his son Ishmael (Muslims circumcise at age 13, following the tradition of their forefather!), and all of his male servants. While the Bible doesn't say this all happened in one day, it probably did happen in a short time frame, and the SAB is right in painting the rather disturbing picture it does in responding to verse 23. I imagine the announcement; "Hey everyone, I'm giving you the rest of the day off, right after you do just one little thing..." Yikes.

I guess the only thing I haven't covered here is the issue of Ishmael's age, but I think that's really a matter to cover in chapter 21, if indeed it's a matter at all. I don't think it is, but I'll address it when I get there.