The Patriarchal Ranking System

Somebody asked me a question which has only just sunk home. That person said, "Why do you always have to think differently? Isn't it dangerous? You might be a heretic."

I must admit I was a little shaken, in the sense that it is obviously true that if you think differently, you might be a heretic. But this was with regard to my habit of saying odd things about biblical characters. (Incidentally, I don't like that phrase – it seems to imply that the people we're talking about are factitious personae in some drama.)

So I trawled through the deep-freeze of my organic datastore and realised that there are perhaps a few things that make me say things most other people wouldn't. Here they are, in order of influence:

1. Family: My family has always been an amazing resource; my great-grandfather translated the Bible into Peranakan Malay, my grandfather did his daily bible study in Greek and Hebrew, and my father has always been able (as long as I've known him) to give the Bible chapter and verse for any quote read out to him (and vice versa).
2. Database: The natural outcome of coming from an academic family is that you tend to have huge hands-on experience with data sourcing and processing. In the days before the Internet, and even now, the man with the library-trained brain will normally beat the untrained brain given the same software and hardware.
3. Education: I was brought up as if my life would be spent teaching literature and history, but I was trained to teach chemistry and computing. The mixture of disciplines allows me to look at a given topic in many different ways.

I think the blend of these three elements makes me a little unconventional. However, any mistakes I have made are mine alone and should not be blamed on my family, my sources, or my education.

That said, I wondered how I actually put these things together. Well, perhaps this is a good time to say that I don't exactly know. However, I have a rough idea. My training in computing, which began a long time ago, makes me attempt to gather all the data I can find in a single brute force search (which is easy to do nowadays because you can find thousands of Bibles online) and then try to put them into a logical construct. The outcome of this construction process tends to be unusual. For example, doing an exhaustive search for anything to do with Jonah produces a psychological picture you won't see in Sunday School. Better still, it will be completely defensible since it is built by analysing everything in the text that has anything to do with the subject.

The best way to explain is to do it on the spot and see how it works (since I don't know what I specifically do, I should just do it and blog about it). So without further ado, let me leave you with yet another construct (or the outline of one). Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the Patriarchal Ranking System! (Please don't take this too seriously; I don't actually prepare sermons or bible studies this way.)

Let us begin by defining 'patriarch'. Essentially, we begin with node 001 (i.e. Adam, the 'son of God' – see Luke 3:38) and note that the term is used rather narrowly if defined solely by the text. Such a definition could conceivably cover Abraham (see previous post), Isaac, Jacob and his twelve approximately immediate male descendants. That gives 15 candidates. However, a slightly broader interpretation is given from an historical survey of usage, which would include the line of Adam via Seth and Noah to Abraham.

Since all the subsequent nodes are contingent on node 001, it looks as if we must rank Adam as #1. But this would mean that you would then be numbering them off in genealogical order, which is a trivial solution. Surely we can do better than that.

Aha, the Bible compares Jesus to Adam directly. Surely that trumps everything? Well, not quite. If it were so, we'd have to look at all the various people Jesus is compared to, and this would include that infamous psalmist David and a score of others. Besides, it's only Paul who is doing that comparison.

Maybe we should consider the amount of space given to them. Actually, this would mean that Abraham would win hands-down in a head-to-head fight (argh, this is why you should never mix metaphors). But this solution tends to make the Jews unhappy because it would mean that the next patriarch on the list ought to be his eldest son, Ishmael (and there goes the West Bank haha).

By this time, you can tell that it isn't easy being me. I don't really have a patriarchal ranking system, and I apologise for being a little offensive along the way – but I must say that anybody who thinks I think differently from anybody else is making a very trivial statement. After all, each of us must demonstrably think differently from each other one of us. Nobody has exactly the same neural net, right?

Abraham

These days, I have been moving through the patriarchs of old, trying to see how they conducted themselves in the face of the Almighty. In the last few days, and apparently for a few days in almost every month, I have been thinking of Abraham. On a trivial level, his name is interesting in English because it uses the symbol 'a' for three distinctly different vowel sounds. But on a non-trivial level, it is interesting to see what kinds of man he was – for he was certainly a man of many facets.

Abraham's story is taken from the Old Testament, and it spans the narrative from the end of the 11th chapter of Genesis to the beginning of the 25th chapter. According to this narrative, his story begins at the age of 75 and goes on till his 175th year. In this 100-year career, the patriarch and his wife (his half-sister Sarah) travelled the entire Fertile Crescent, from Mesopotamia up into the foothills and down into Egypt (and up again).

We tend to think of this man as a wanderer travelling light and fast, with a few good servants and a number of relatives. But the account is more specific than that. When Abraham's hapless nephew Lot is captured, Abraham raises an army of 318 trained warriors of his household and goes in pursuit, smites the ungodly, and then disdains the loot. After his Egyptian adventure, he is said to be extremely rich in gold and livestock. No, Abraham is at least a major warlord. His name must have been mentioned with fear and trembling across the entire Crescent.

Similarly, he is an opportunistic politician. Not once, but twice, does he present his wife as his sister for political gain. In both cases, the ruse is somewhat successful and brings great trouble to his opponents. His first victim is the Pharaoh of Egypt, in chapter 12; his second is Abimelech of Gerar in chapter 20. In both cases, huge embarrassment ensues, but not for Abraham.

This streak of limit-pushing is not confined to earthly sovereigns. He enters into discussion with God about how many righteous men it would take to save Sodom from destruction. He has political capital in there, having saved the King of Sodom's sorry ass in the previously mentioned military venture. Furthermore, his nephew Lot and the household thereof are living there.

Along the way, Abraham spawns a truly all-star cast of descendants. There is Isaac, who will be the father of the Israelites. There is Ishmael, who will be father of the desert tribes. There are also the Midianites, from his second listed wife. And apparently, after he was 'well stricken in age', he had many concubines and he sent them all away with gifts in the direction of his ancestral homeland!

After reading these fifteen chapters or so, I am inclined to think of Abraham not merely as some pious patriarch, but perhaps more like an ethically more-or-less correct Mafia godfather. He has the street-smarts and sense of justice, the business acumen and the foot-soldiers, the opportunism and the prolific generosity. What a role-model!