Table Of Content"Let Ishmael Live Before You!"
Finding a Place for Hagar's
Son in the Priestly Tradition
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Citation Noble, John Travis. 2013. "Let Ishmael Live Before You!" Finding a
Place for Hagar's Son in the Priestly Tradition. Doctoral dissertation,
Harvard University.
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“Let Ishmael Live Before You!”
Finding a Place for Hagar’s Son in the Priestly Tradition
A dissertation presented
by
John Travis Noble
to
The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in the subject of
Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
January, 2013
© 2013 –John T. Noble
All rights reserved.
Dissertation Advisor: Professor Jon D. Levenson
John Travis Noble
“Let Ishmael Live Before You!”
Finding a Place for Hagar’s Son in the Priestly Tradition
Abstract
Since Julius Wellhausen’s synthesis of the Documentary Hypothesis—and no
doubt owing in part to the Protestant Reformation—dominant portrayals of the Priestly
material have described a self-interested legist with little or no concern for those outside
the Levitical ranks. Though this negative characterization is recognized by some to be
reductionist and misguided, none has undertaken to examine Ishmael’s critical role in
what is better understood as a universal mode of thinking in P. Examining first the
narratives that give indication of Ishmael’s status in J and E, I have contrasted Ishmael
with the other non-chosen siblings of Genesis, concluding that he is favored in these
sources in a way that the others are not; also, that Ishmael and his mother adumbrate not
only the distress of Israel’s bondage in Egypt, but also their deliverance. With this
background from J and E, I have sought to elucidate P’s relationship to these sources
through its representation of Ishmael in the Abrahamic covenant. It appears that P has
recast the promises that Ishmael receives in J and E so that Ishmael is more explicitly
excluded from God’s covenant with Abraham, on the one hand; but P also identifies
Ishmael with the blessing of fertility, invoking the divine injunction to all humanity
through both Adam and Noah to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 17:20), on the other. P’s
emphasis on fertility also relates to Ishmael’s own participation—though he is non-
chosen—in circumcision as the sign of the covenant. Therefore P accounts for God’s
iii
universal regard for humanity through Ishmael even in his particular covenant with
Abraham.
I argue that even though Ishmael is not chosen, he nevertheless figures into P’s
larger theological outlook as one whom God favors outside the purview of the Abrahamic
covenant. A correlative argument is that this new understanding of Ishmael gives him a
more precise definition as a transitional figure between the universal covenant with Noah,
on the one hand, and the particular covenant with Abraham on the other.
iv
Table of Contents
Chapter One
1
Introduction
The problem of Hagar and Ishmael, and the question of the universal and the
particular in P
Chapter Two
18
Patterns of Exodus: Hagar, Ishmael and Patriarchal Promise
The treatment of Hagar and Ishmael in J and E
Chapter Three
59
Particularity and Ambiguity in the Priestly Abrahamic Covenant
The use and adaptation of the Ishmael traditions in P
Chapter Four
90
Covenant and Context in P
The covenantal architecture of P and Ishmael’s place therein
Chapter Five
137
Ishmael, Ishmaelites and Biblical Narrative
The Ishmaelites and their relationship to the biblical traditions of Ishmael
Chapter Six
169
Conclusion
Bibliography
176
v
Acknowledgements
A long list of people deserve my gratitude for their support and encouragement to
complete this dissertation and degree. At the top of the list, of course, is my wife, Abi,
and our three children: Grace, Henry and Eliot. Their sacrifices have not been few or
insignificant. Similarly, my parents, Jerry and Gayle Noble, have been a tremendous
support.
Gordon College, and specifically Brian Glenney, provided the accommodations
necessary for doing the research and writing. Apart from this resource—to say nothing of
Brian’s encouragement—the logistics of this work would have been much more difficult.
Suzanne Smith has been my writing tutor throughout this project, and her well-
trained eyes have been the first to peruse every chapter draft. Suzanne’s many
suggestions and encouragements have contributed enormously to the end result.
The venerable readers of my dissertation committee, Andrew Teeter and Peter
Machinist, have both supplied the kind of careful, constructive criticism that one might
expect from scholars of their caliber. Peter deserves my profound thanks, in addition, for
overseeing my degree progress and providing the backbone of my education at Harvard.
Finally, one does not find a better dissertation adviser than the eminent Jon
Levenson. I am indebted to him not only for his generous, timely, and expert guidance
throughout the process, but also for his suggestion of the subject at the outset. Most
significantly, and as a testament to his scholarship, Jon has graciously given space for my
perspective to diverge from his at certain points.
To all of these, and no doubt many others, I am deeply indebted.
vi
For Abi
הלעב בל הב חטב
vii
Chapter 1
Introduction
I. The Nature of the Problem
The intention of this study is to investigate the significance and function of
Ishmael in the patriarchal traditions of Genesis, and particularly in those traditions
reflected by the Priestly source (P). The expected conclusion is that Ishmael’s role is, for
P, much more than incidental, that he figures into P’s larger theological outlook as a
special representative of those non-elect whom God favors outside the purview of the
1
Abrahamic covenant.
The expression of P’s version of the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 17 warrants
special consideration in a study of Ishmael because of its peculiar treatment of that non-
elect son. Here, in contrast to the accounts of the Yahwist (J) or Elohist (E), there is no
expulsion scene, nor any other hostility toward Ishmael. In fact, in P Ishmael remains on
the horizon long enough to bury his father Abraham (Gen 25:9, 13–18), and has his own
genealogy. It is perhaps most intriguing, though, that Ishmael enjoys very similar
promises to those that the deity bestows on Abraham himself in the same passage (17:4–
6). God assures Abraham that he will bless the patriarch’s first offspring, that he will
make that son fruitful and very numerous, that Ishmael will father twelve “chieftains” or
“princes,” and that God will make of Ishmael, too, a great nation (v. 20). The preceding
line, verse 19, makes it clear that the divine covenant is with Isaac, yet the passage also
1
I am assuming as a tentative framework Joel Kaminsky’s three levels of election in the Hebrew
Bible: the elect, non-elect and anti-elect. One of his central points, to be tested here, is that divine
favoritism does not necessitate alienation of the non-chosen from God or exclusion from his
blessings (Yet I Loved Jacob [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007], esp. 16, 34).
1
explicitly mentions Ishmael’s participation with Abraham in the sign of the covenant,
circumcision, along with all the other males in Abraham’s household. The question of
Ishmael’s status before God is thus ambiguous, and is especially at issue in the theology
of P.
The curious relationship between Genesis 9 and 17, two P passages that describe
covenants of God with Noah and Abraham, respectively, serves as the backdrop for this
study: in the first of these two covenants, the terms are universally applied to Noah, his
sons and their descendants, and even every living creature with them (9:9–10). According
to the covenant established with Abraham, on the other hand, terms are only extended to
this one individual and his seed—out of all of the descendants of Noah—and the seed
that receives the covenant is restricted to that of the promised son, Isaac (17:19). The
reader observes here a movement from the universal to the particular as the divine
interests are narrowed or specified.
II. Previous Scholarship
Previous research relating to this thesis may be considered primarily within two
categories of inquiry: election in the Abrahamic cycle, and particularly in the Priestly
source; and interpretations of Ishmael in the tradition of Genesis 17.
On Universalism and Election in the Abrahamic Cycle and P
The issue of God’s favor for Isaac and (to some degree) Ishmael is part of a
broader discussion of Abraham’s own election, and bears also on the chosenness of
2
