In #28 we saw that the book of Genesis actually contains two once separate accounts of the Abrahamic covenant, and we noted their main differences and contradiction. In this post and the 2 that follow we will look at other contradictory expressions of the Abrahamic covenant between the writings of the Yahwist, Priestly source, the Deuteronomist, and lastly Paul.
The promise of possessing the land of Canaan to Abraham and his descendants is a prevalent and significant theme throughout the Yahwist narrative in Genesis. It is presented as an unconditional, divinely ordained, promise which the Yahwist has placed variously upon the lips of Yahweh:
“to your offspring I will give this land” (12:7)
“for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever” (13:15)
“to give you this land to posses” (15:7)
“to your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river of Euphrates”1 (15:18)
“I’ll give all these lands to you and your descendants, and I’ll uphold the oath that I swore to Abraham your father” (26:3).
In all these examples, Yahweh’s promise of the land is freely given to Abraham and through him to Isaac, Jacob, and finally Jacob’s children. In other words, there are no conditions attached to this divine promise in J.
This whole tradition, however, is negated by the Deuteronomist, Priestly writer, and later exilic authors—those who had witnessed first hand the loss of their land: both the land of the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 BC and the land of the southern kingdom of Judah in 587 BC. When these authors sat down to rewrite Israel’s “history” they did so in order to explain their current plight—captivity, exile, loss of land. This manifested itself by having Yahweh now express the land promise as a conditional one.
In fact, the book of Ezekiel explicitly disputes the unconditional land promise tradition. Written after the complete annihilation of Jerusalem, its people, land, and temple by the Babylonians in 587 BC, Ezekiel, through the mouthpiece of his god, strongly questions the claim of an unconditional promise of the land to the now currently landless descendants of Abraham in exile:
The word of Yahweh came to me: “Son of man, the inhabitants of these waste places in the land of Israel keep saying, ‘Abraham was only one man, yet he got possession of the land; but we are many; the land is surely given us to possess.’ Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the lord Yahweh: You eat flesh with the blood, and lift up your eyes to your idols, and shed blood; shall you then possess the land? You depend on your swords, you commit abominations, and each of you defiles his neighbor’s wife; shall you then possess the land?” (Ezek 33:23-26)
Keeping or returning to the land, according to Ezekiel’s Yahweh, is conditioned on keeping the ordinances and cultic laws. This is the same theological conviction we find in the Deuteronomic literature, and although the Deuteronomist did not witness the total destruction of the land of Judah as Ezekiel did, he nevertheless did know of the total destruction of the land of northern Israel in the late 8th century BC. Like Ezekiel, the Deuteronomist was also moved to alter the tradition and punctuate the conditionality of the promise that Yahweh made to Abraham and his descendants.
And now O Israel, listen to the laws and the judgments that I am teaching you to do, so that you’ll live and you’ll come and take possession of the land that Yahweh your father’s god is giving you (Deut 4:1).
And you shall be watchful to do as Yahweh your god has commanded you. You shall not turn right or left. You shall go in all the way that Yahweh your god has commanded you, so that you’ll live, and it will be good for you, and you’ll extend days in the land that you’ll possess (Deut 5:29-30).
And it will be because you’ll listen to these judgments and observe and do them that Yahweh your god will keep the covenant and kindness for you that he swore to your fathers (Deut 7:12).
These are merely a few examples of the Deuteronomist’s conditional land theology. It is the core theological tenet of the book of Deuteronomy. In fact, it is so central that the Deuteronomist apparently went back to the earlier traditions which expressed the unconditional giving and keeping of the land now preserved in the book of Genesis and inserted clauses that expressed the Deuteronomist’s claim of conditionality.2 So for example, Genesis 18:19 stipulates through the mouthpiece of Yahweh:
“For I have chosen him [Abraham] that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of Yahweh by doing righteousness and justice, so that Yahweh may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”
Genesis 26:4-5 expresses this same conditionality in more explicit terms:
“because Abraham listened to my voice and kept my watch, my commandments, my laws, and my instructions.”
Thus, among the Yahwist’s assertions of an unconditional promise of land and prosperity to Abraham’s descendants, these Deuteronomic interpretive inserts express this promise as a condition. Furthermore, the wording of these verses— “keep the way of Yahweh” and “keep my watch, my commandments, and my laws”—makes it clear that keeping the land is conditioned on keeping Torah obligations, just as we saw in the Deuteronomic citations above. What is curious about these passages from Genesis, however, is that the giving of Yahweh’s laws and commandments has not yet happened! These verses mention Torah ordinances before the giving of the Torah! As commentators have noticed, they are later Deuteronomic insertions that attempted to reshape these earlier traditions. Like the Ezekiel passage above, these Genesis passages fasten ethical and cultic obligations to the promise of the land.3
We saw in #28 that the Priestly writer also expressed the possession of the land in terms of a covenantal obligation: circumcision (see the forthcoming #30).
We now start to see how later interpretive traditions feed off of these contradictory traditions now inherent in the Bible’s composite text. For instance, Paul in his letter to the Galatians argues that the promise of the inheritance of Jerusalem is unconditional (see #31). We can see the passages that would support Paul’s assertion. Nonetheless, Paul’s Jewish brethren argue that the inheritance is conditioned on obeying Mosaic Torah stipulations. We can likewise see the Old Testament passages that would be used to support this interpretive claim.
This same dispute is reproduced in Luther’s debate with the church. Luther uses the unconditional promise given to Abraham in 12:1-3, 7 to legitimate his theology of divine unearned grace. The Catholic church, however, drew on Genesis 26:3-5, 18:19, etc. to legitimate the position that such grace was conditioned on obedience. Such interpretive differences are purely the result of the Bible’s combination of these convergent theological traditions which once existed as separate texts, and which were written to reflect the ideas, concerns, and social dynamics of distinct groups in distinct historical settings.
- This was the territory allegedly held under the Davidic dynasty. The “river of Egypt” is not the Nile but rather a reference to the Wadi Eschol; likewise the Euphrates envisioned here is a tributary of the Euphrates which flows through Syria. Interestingly, these borders were actually assigned by the Egyptians when this land was an Egyptian province in the 15th-12th c. BC.↵
- Carr, Reading the Fractures of Genesis, 160.↵
- Cf. Gen 22:16-17, an E text, where the promise of the possession of the land is also stipulated on conditional terms connected specifically to Abraham’s obedience: “because you [Abraham] did this thing and did not withhold your son, that I’ll bless you and multiply your seed like the stars of the heavens and like the sand on the shore, and your seed will possess its enemies gates.” The thing that Abraham has done here, is obey god’s command to sacrifice his son Isaac.↵
“These verses mention Torah ordinances before the giving of the Torah!”
I’m not entirely sure what this means. These verses describe the time of Abraham, and from what I remember the Torah is traditionally said to have been written by Moses…? Which is a later period. Is that right?
Paul,
This is a good question and I ran through the material hastily. The phrases “keep the way of Yahweh” (Gen 18:19) and “keep my watch, my commandments, and my laws” (Gen 26:4) are expressions found frequently in the book of Deuteronomy. They are part and parcel to the Deuteronomist’s vocabulary and representation of the covenantal promise of the land as conditioned on observing Yahweh’s laws. This and other factors have led scholars to conclude that these phrases are from the author of Deuteronomy and that he inserted them into these earlier passages to bring them in line with his own theological and ideological program.
At any event, the phrases imply that there were laws—my “torah ordinances”—to follow for Abraham and his descendants in order to possess and keep the land. Narratively speaking, as you point out, the law however had not been given yet. So here in the narrative we have a decree to follow “Yahweh’s laws and commandments” which have not occurred yet in the narrative.
In fact, it’s an anachronism. The author of these passages knew the Torah, and most likely put these phrases in Yahweh’s mouth not to communicate with the character Abraham but his own 7th century BC audience. In fact, many scholars have concluded that the author, the Deuteronomist, had created this tradition! In other words, the Torah, although traditionally accredited to Moses in some archaic past event at Sinai, was actually the creation of 7th century BC Deuteronomic scribes! We will revisit this when we get to the book of Deuteronomy (Fall 2013 ?).
Go to my post How the Bible was discovered to be a collection of contradictory texts and scroll down to theses 2 sections: Nineteenth century scholarship: post-Mosaic by centuries and The Pentateuch: a product of the late monarchal and (post-)exilic periods. They should clarify this a bit more than I have here. And they will explain why scholars have concluded that the Torah was a product of the 7th – 6th centuries BC. Mosaic authorship in some remote past functions to authorize and to lend authority to the Deuteronomist’s own literary creation!
Your illustration makes the Bible so much more interesting to a non-believer, like myself. The contradictions you highlight more than prove the Bible to be hardly any supernatural invocation. This God has a bad memory for past convictions.
Did the Patriarchs actually receive the land promised to them? Look at the Letter to the Hebrews 11:8-13 in the New Testament and see. “By faith Abraham…sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs of the same promise…These all died in faith, not having received the promises.” Hebrews 11:39 says “And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise.” God failed to keep his promises, if indeed any were ever made!
I think there Paul was making a more abstract theological point. Note verse 10 where he says Abraham was “awaiting the city having real foundations”, and in verse 16 “now they are reaching out for a better place”. Paul is retroactively assigning a heavenly hope to the patriarchs as part of his larger “this is not the real life” message. He’s asserting that the Israelites never really thought of their Promised Land as the real deal, but only as a temporary holdover until they could enter heaven. This theme of the “real life” is laid down in 11:1.
By assuming that Paul wrote Hebrews and trying to retrofit belief of a heaven is reaching for something that is simply not there. Let’s face it, the same promise was made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the author of Hebrews didn’t mince words. He came out and clearly stated that God did not keep the promises he made. If you read the stories very carefully you will find that all the promises were made under interesting circumstances. “And the LORD appeared to Abram,”…”the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision,”…”a deep sleep fell upon Abram,”…”God came to Abimelech in a dream by night,”…”And the LORD appeared unto him [Isaac],”…Jacob “dreamed and behold a ladder,”…”And God appeared unto Jacob again,” etc. According to Strong’s Concordance the word translated “appeared” can mean “a vision.” It becomes obvious that all communications with God took place in dreams, trances, deep sleep, appearances, or some other form of altered consciousness. Remember, these stories took place in a time when people couldn’t tell the difference between dreams and conscious reality, so they believed there were real visits from Gods and angels.
Read on a little further and you find the whole family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob amounted to 70 or 75 people who went into Egypt. That is a pretty small congregation for El Elyon don’t you think? Not only that but the whole family of Jacob, or Israel, stayed in Egypt for 215 years, and then on Exodus in the wilderness for an additional 40 years. I find that good evidence that they did not own the Land of Canaan. The whole story is nothing more than a fabrication.
The concept of a heaven would have been foreign to the Hebrews until about the time of the Babylonian Exile, or shortly after. Trying to put it into the old stories of the ancient Hebrews is an exercise in futility.
I don’t disagree with much of what you say; perhaps I didn’t make my point clearly. First, I stand corrected on saying that Paul wrote Hebrews; I didn’t know, or forgot, that its authorship is contested. But just to clarify, I’m saying that the author of Hebrews was not contradicting the OT when he said that there was an unfulfilled promise given to the patriarchs. In order for there to be a contradiction, he would need to be saying that the promises from the original stories, e.g. to multiply Abraham’s seed and grant Canaan to the Jews, did not come true.
The author of Hebrews is only saying that there is a *greater* promise that they didn’t see fulfilled, which was the heavenly hope. So the contradiction is really to do with beliefs about the afterlife (which Dr. DiMattei has addressed in #6: http://contradictionsinthebible.com/does-man-return-to-the-dust-whence-he-was-made-or-is-he-resurrected/). I’m sure that Hebrews’ author would say that the promises stated in the OT were indeed fulfilled (how could he deny it?).
You are right. I got off the subject of the contradiction under discussion. The fact remains however, the Christian writers were trying to make the Hebrew Scriptures a book about Jesus and heaven. The fact that they call it the “Old Testament” is derogatory. Read the Sermon on the mount and you will see that Jesus was not interested in a new religion like Christianity, he simply wanted to improve the religion of the Jews, and have all of the Jews keep the whole Law. After all, Jesus was born, raised, and died a Jew. Jesus was not a Christian.
My comment is in response to:
“makes it clear that keeping the land is conditioned on keeping Torah obligations, just as we saw in the Deuteronomic citations above. What is curious about these passages from Genesis, however, is that the giving of Yahweh’s laws and commandments has not yet happened! ”
I noticed in my own studies that the first and only occurrence of H8451 (torah) in the Book of Genesis is in Gen 26:5. Supposedly the Torah had not yet been given until later in Exodus and Deuteronomy, right? So this led me to wonder whether this was a later insertion into Genesis by a later writer or redactor. How could the Hebrew word ‘torah’ have been in Genesis?
I have taken careful notes on all of these conditional and unconditional passages of promises/covenants and this website has been helpful sorting out some ideas as to how and why there are these contradictory conditions vs unconditional