A Skeptic Reads the Bible 15: Jacob Ends Genesis by Settling Old Scores

Follow along in the New International Version, Genesis 48, 49, and 50.

The Book of Genesis is at last coming to an end (it's one of the longest books in the Bible, incidentally). Jacob is on his deathbed and arranges his children to deliver his traditional dying blessings. Presumably he's an expert in this sort of affair because, as you may recall, he cheated Esau out of the blessing from their father Isaac. These blessings are a mysterious matter. They're not like a traditional will and testament, and they're not meaningless pap like "God bless you," either.

Instead, the Hebrew authors of Genesis seem to have really believed that the blessings delivered by the ancient patriarchs had some sort of mystical, cosmic influence. Certainly some of them are very vague: Naphtali, for example, is said to be "a doe set free that bears beautiful fawns." And others are actually prophecies of the distant future: the descendants of Zebulun, for instance, "will live by the seashore and become a haven for ships."

But they're also part judgement. Reuben is criticized for sleeping with one of Jacob's female servants (this presumably doesn't count as adultery because she wasn't his wife, but it's still a breach of etiquette). Simeon and Levi will be "scattered," Jacob predicts, though he doesn't explain why. Issachar, he goes on in the same vein, will even be driven into "forced labour."

Joseph's two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, are welcomed as sons in their own right (you'd think this would be a privilege reserved for the children of the eldest, Reuben, rather than of Joseph, who is the youngest). And Jacob, of course, is still up to his old tricks. With his father Isaac, he had to steal the blessing that rightfully belonged to his older brother, Esau. Now, he just hands the blessing to the youngest anyways, not needing any subterfuge since he's the one in charge now: he begins by blessing the elder Ephraim rather than the younger Manasseh, and when Joseph hastily steps in to correct the faux pas, Jacob snaps that he knows exactly what he is doing.

I'm not really sure what the purpose of this extended set of prophecies/blessings/judgements is. It's more than just Jacob settling old scores, but there's definitely an element of that. Possibly the author of Genesis just wants to tie up all the loose ends, and to reassure the reader that there was some justice being done after all, at least to the extent that the worst offenders get their father's finger wagged at them.

I've devoted several tens of thousands of words to this mad escapade of mine now, and it's time to say goodbye to Genesis, at an unfortunately lacklustre moment. (It might have been much better to end with Joseph's tearing-up of the Egyptian social contract and market economy.) Still, I suppose a few final thoughts are in order.

I'm not sure that the author of the book really intended it this way (I suspect, in fact, that he or they did not), but you could probably read the book of Genesis as the history of one failure after another by both God and human authority. I specify both there, because both clearly fail in this book. That is of course at odds with Christian theology, which holds that God is perfect. Nevertheless, I read what I read.

Consider. God creates a garden for the humans to live in, and is either intelligent enough (and cruel enough) to set them up with his "tree of knowledge," or is foolish enough (and naive enough) not to realize that they're going to eat from it anyways. In his fear and frustration at his creation, he hastily and a bit regretfully sends them away.

They don't do very well on their own, mind you. Adam and Eve's sons invent murder. The next generations pretty much invent every sexual sin imaginable -- incest and rape in many variations -- as well as continuing the legacy of murder. And, if you count Sodom, throwing in attempted assault of angels, to boot. Joseph is the only man in the entire book to even once resist a woman coming on to him (notice that, no matter how violent the situation is, the rather sexist author of Genesis always seems to find a way of blaming the woman for what happens) -- and he's a pretty much devious and power-hungry creature himself.

You could take all that out, and the picture the Bible paints of early humanity would still be pretty miserable. People are constantly plotting against one another, even within the family. Indeed, ironically, in some ways it's the least holy people who seem to make the most progress towards learning how to live with each other peacefully and cooperatively: it's Cain's line that builds the first cities, it's the sinful men of Shinar who build the Tower of Babel (and thus scare God into inventing languages and scattering the human race across the face of the Earth). Dinah has to go to the Hivites to find love with Shechem - and Shechem is murdered for his decency.

And Egypt? It seems like a more or less decent place. Implausible as it seems, the Bible implies that there is no major tax on the peasants and poor in Egypt until Joseph comes along. In the name of security and national emergency (sound familiar?), he and the Pharaoh plot to destroy free markets and private ownership, and enslave the people to the government.

I feel a little odd saying that, mind you, because I'm both an anarchist and a pacifist at heart. Capitalism and private property doesn't really appeal to me. On the other hand, the story is what it is. I'll take the free market over Genesis-style totalitarianism any day.

And speaking of anarchism, there's another way to look at this story. So far, every attempted structure of authority has failed: God couldn't keep control of the humans in the Garden, Adam and Eve couldn't control their sons (and neither could any of their descendants, for that matter), and now what was supposedly a fairly calm Egyptian society has been thrown into turmoil by Joseph's big-government "reforms." In Exodus God will attempt to build a new structure of authority through Moses. Will he succeed?

Read more of the "A Skeptic Reads the Bible" series, published on AssociatedContent.com:

"Abraham (Nearly) Murders Isaac in a Human Sacrifice" (Genesis 21-22)

"The Israelite Massacre at Shechem" (Genesis 34)

"Judah, The First John" (Genesis 38)

"Chairman Joseph Socializes Egypt" (Genesis 37-50)

Check out the index to all published "A Skeptic Reads the Bible" commentaries.