The Character of God in the Book of Genesis: A Narrative Appraisal

286 Pages·2001·18.44 MB·English

by  W. Lee Humphreys

THE
CI-IARACTER
OF
GOD
I
I
IN T H ~E_ _B_ _O __ _O _K_ 0 F G ENE S I~_l
I
I
A NARRATIVE APPRAISAL
The Character of God
in the Book of Genesis
A Narrative Appraisal
W. Lee Humphreys
Westminster John Knox Press
LOUISVILLE
LONDON 'LEIDEN
© 2001 W Lee Humphreys
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
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ISBN 0-664-22360-5
Thus it must be, because one served a God whose nature was not repose
and abiding comfort, but a God of designs for the future, in whose will
inscrutable, great, far-reaching things were in pmcess ofb ecoming, who
with his brooding will and his world-planning, was himselfo nly in process
of becoming, and this was a God of unrest, a God of cares, who must be
sought for, for whom one must at all times keep oneselff ree, mobile, and
in readiness.
-Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers
Preface
I wish to express my gratitude to Carey C. Newman at Westminster John
Knox Press for his confidence and support and to my colleagues in the
Department of Religious Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I
am particularly grateful to the many students at the University of Tennessee
who in my several courses over the last few years have been willing to reflect
with me on the character God as we engage him in various parts of the Bible.
My deepest gratitude is to my wife, Dr. Mary Kay Kramp, for her constant
support, encouragement, and several most helpful readings and rereadings of
this work as it took shape. To her I dedicate this book.
VII
Contents
Introduction: God as Character
1 Reading God as a Character in Genesis 7
Narrative Means for Characterization-Textual Indicators 8
Readers, Narrators, and Characters-The Reading Process 14
A God of Many Names 20
2 God in the Story of the First Humans 23
God as Sovereign Designer: Genesis 1: 1-2 :4a 23
Yahweh God the Struggling Parent: Genesis 2:4b-3:24 33
Yahweh the Disciplining Father: Genesis 4 53
3 God in the Story of the First Human Communities 63
God the Destroyer and Sustainer: Genesis 5-9 64
The Jealous God: Genesis 10-11 73
4 God in the Story of Abraham 81
Yahweh Becomes Abram's Sovereign Patron: Genesis 12-14 81
Yahweh as Patron Challenged: Genesis 15 92
Yahweh Confronts Abram's Initiative: Genesis 16-17 99
5 God in the Story of Abraham and Sarah 115
Yahweh as Judge of All the Earth: Genesis 18-19 115
Yahweh Delivers a Son: Genesis 20-21 127
A Savage God: Genesis 22 138
Abraham Secures His Future: Genesis 23-24 145
6 God in the Story of Isaac and Rebekah 155
Yahweh Delivers Two Sons: Genesis 25:19-34 155
Yahweh as Isaac's Sovereign Patron: Genesis 26 158
Yahweh's Chosen Family in Conflict: Genesis 27 162
7 God in the Story ofJacob and Leah and Rachel 169
Yahweh as Jacob's Sovereign Patron: Genesis 28:1-30:24 169
ix
x Contents
God Constructed as Patron and Judge: Genesis 30:25-32:1 178
God as Jacob's Opponent and Patron: Genesis 32-36 187
8 God in the Story ofJ oseph and His Family 20S
God as Joseph's Silent Patron: Genesis 37-41 205
God Constructed as Providential Designer: Genesis 42-50 216
9 Perspectives on the Character God in the Book of Genesis 237
What Modes of Characterization Are Used to Depict God? 238
What Type of Character Is God? 241
What Kind of Character Is God? 243
Notes 257
Bibliography 273
1. Character in Literary Theory and Method 273
2. Literary Studies of Biblical Narrative 274
3. Studies in the Book of Genesis 275
4. Works Cited 277
Introduction
God as Character
In the introduction to the book that grew out of his extended "living conver
sation" about Genesis for Public Television, Bill Moyers cites Abraham Joshua
Hesche1.'
History, for these storytellers, was the unfolding of divine action and
human reaction-"God in search of man," in Rabbi Abraham J.
Heschel's famous description. The realness of God was never an issue
in these stories, and the task, said Rabbi Heschel, was "how to live in
a way compatible with His presence.'"
Surrounding this statement, Moyers speaks of the remarkable and compelling
human characters and events depicted in the stories in the book of Genesis.
Adam, Eve, and the Snake; Cain and Abel; Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael,
and Isaac; Isaac, Rebekah, Esau and Jacob; Jacob, Leah, Rachel, and their sons
and daughter; Joseph and his extensive family-"How imperfect were the
instruments God has chosen."l Moyers and the other participants in the con
versations-biblical scholars, theologians, clergy of various stripes, an artist, a
writer, a psychologist, and others-engage these human characters as they dis
cover their "own life's adventures in these stories.,,4 They are clearly captured
by the characters in Genesis as they construct their modern and evolving
explorations or midrash. In this respect they mirror much popular and schol
arly engagement with the book of Genesis. The human figures we meet in this
extended narrative are engaging and demand that we engage them. They are
men and women made of words, words that shape powerful stories, and in
engaging them we are drawn back to our own ongoing stories as we are
reminded that we too are men and women made of words.5
However, in the course of their conversations Moyers and his colleagues are
again and again drawn to still another character, another figure also made of
words. Sometimes for just a moment, but on occasion for more sustained
reflection, they find themselves drawn to God as a focal character in the
2 Introduction
extended narrative that is the book of Genesis. This move seems natural, yet
in this they move beyond what has been characteristic of readings of Genesis
until quite recently. In spite ofa certain reluctance to engage him as such, God is, I
assert, the most compelling charaLter in the book. He is, in fact, the one figure
whose presence ties it together from beginning to end. From creation to the
settlement of Joseph's family in Egypt, God in one way or another is central
as he interacts with other characters. This character God gives, as we will see,
a coherence and structure to the extended narrative of Genesis that is often
otherwise experienced as quite episodic. God is again and again focal in the
sequence of events that comprise the narrative and in the lives of the other
characters who appear for more limited spans of text. Indeed, if Genesis is a
story about men and women exploring ways of living in the presence of a God
"in search of" them, then it would seem paramount that we attend to this
searching God as the most central character in Genesis.
To claim that Genesis is about God should occasion no surprise. To claim
that the way it is about God is to present him as one character interacting with
other characters in a story-world, as a character created by readers who engage
this extended narrative, calls for more attention. Others speak of God in Gen
esis, but generally with a degree of abstractness and distance that belies the
particularities of his appearances again and again in the text. They see him
often as a presence, more a force above the story-world in which the other fig
ures move and into which we as readers enter than a character in that world.
True, there are points where God appears to be just such a removed force in
the world of the other characters, and so they speak of him. Joseph, for exam
ple, at the end of Genesis can say to his brothers in what is often read as a cen
tral thematic theological statement about God:
You designed it for evil against me,
but God designed it for good;
in order to act as he is doing this day
to preserve alive many people.
(Gen. 50:20)
In Joseph's construction God is an invisible force, shaping events in partic
ular directions, even in spite of perverse human designs. God can make use for
his purposes even of this most dysfunctional of families! As readers we here
meet God once removed, in Joseph's words that construct his own reading of
the story of his family, as he seeks in the end both to make it meaningful and
to reassure his brothers. As we shall see, our assessment as readers of what
Joseph says about God will hinge on our assessment of Joseph and his own
designs. Moreover, even in Joseph's construction of his family's story, God is
Introduction 3
an active participant, designing and acting with particular motives and intents,
even if they are only apparent by looking back from the end with all the advan
tage hindsight brings.
Often-in fact, most of the time-elsewhere God is directly and immedi
ately present in the text, just like Joseph and all the other characters. Rather
than an unseen force behind or above the immediate story-world of events and
other characters, he appears and talks, acts and reacts, as other characters do.
God is a character made of words-a "fictus," to use Baruch Hochman's term."
Most of the various means of characterization used to depict the human figures
in the book of Genesis are used to depict God as well. As the one character to
appear from beginning to end, he is indeed the central character in Genesis.
There has, however, been in the past, and there remains, a certain reluc
tance to engage God as a character in Genesis. A recent popular study of Gen
esis by Naomi H. Rosenblatt and Joshua Horwitz, with its psychological angle
of vision, its interest in "what Genesis teaches us about our spiritual identity,
sexuality, and personal relationships," seems uniquely poised to engage the
characters in Genesis that emerge as readers engage the narrative. This is so
for all but one. The human figures emerging from their readings are complex,
multifaceted, conflicted, and capable of remarkable change and develop
ment-but God is not. Of him they say early on: "God in Genesis is without
form, gender, or other explicit human attributes."; Yet in the pages that imme
diately surround this statement they speak of God as leading men and women
"like a wise parent,"" forgiving yet holding humans accountable, as proceed
ing by trial and error, wavering between disappointtnent and acceptance, fail
ing to establish a working partnership, and reaching out to a new Adam and
Eve. While not perhaps assigning specific form and gender to God, their lan
guage about him is grounded in actions and attributes we experience as very
human. To call these ways of speaking "anthropomorphic," as is commonly
done, is to fail to do literary justice to their particularity and prevalence
throughout most of Genesis. In fact, any figure who is all Rosenblatt and Hor
witz say he is, and so much more, should be very engaging, especially for read
ers with a psychological slant.
Their work, along with the readings of others, leads me to wonder: What
might we learn if we undertake a reading of Genesis that centers on the ways
God appears, making use of the resources that literary study provides us for
engaging and reflecting on characters in narratives? I propose a reading ill wbich
we center our attention on the character God as he emerges fr01n our engagement with
the text ofG enesis. For reasons I believe will become apparent, God in this read
ing is "he," and not "she" or "slhe" or "it." This is not simply due to the fact
that grammatically masculine forms of verbs, pronouns, and such are used
throughout for God in the Hebrew text of Genesis. The grammatical gender