By Nissim Bellahsen and Shmuli Phillips
In recent years, this group has featured a number of critiques and discussions of biblical criticism, contrasting the approaches taken by traditional and academic scholars to explaining apparent idiosyncrasies within the Torah’s text. On some occasions, however, we take a step back and gasp at how this academic field is able to produce such a steady supply of far-fetched theories based on shoddy scholarship and speculative assessments. More often than not, these posts are to be found on a particular website which promotes “Torah and Biblical Scholarship”.
Working back from this conclusion, Frankel utilises several tools in order to distinguish what he believes to be the “early traditions of Genesis 26” from the Torah as we have it today. Wielding the critics’ notorious scalpel Frankel highlights the fact that, once we conveniently cut out all of the repeated references to Avraham and God, Genesis 26 now represents an independent account of Yitzchak’s life stories. In support of his theory, he notes that the Yitzchak narrative of Genesis 26 can still be read as a cohesive narrative once these inconvenient verses have been excised. Such an argument however is demonstrably flawed.
Tolkien enthusiasts will recall the curious character of Tom Bombadil, whose narrative is so tangential to the primary theme that it was omitted from radio and cinema reproductions of The Lord of the Rings. While Bombadil makes an occasional appearance in earlier Tolkien writings and the Lord of the Rings plot indeed reads quite fluently without him, what would we make of a literary critic who suggested on this basis that his was a later story implanted into Tolkien’s trilogy by a later independent redactor?
Additional evidence is presented by Frankel in support of his theory that the Yitzchak passage was originally an older, independent source. He notes a series of apparently unexpected similarities between Yitzchak’s experience in Gerar and that of Avraham in parashat Vayeira – arguing that it is illogical for Avimelech to have ignored his prior encounter with Avraham when engaging subsequently with Yitzchak.
Such an argument, however, reveals an alarming methodological flaw which undercuts many of the conclusions that Frankel then seeks to propose. While it is true that “in the context of Genesis” Avraham’s adventures in Gerar appear “only a few chapters earlier”, a simple calculation based on the text itself shows that over 70 years separate these events from Yitzchak’s later travels (Yitzchak was not yet born when Avraham visited Gerar but was over 70 years old when he journeyed there himself). Viewed in this chronological context, it appears unlikely – as Radak points out – that Avimelech is the same Philistine king who interacted with Avraham 75 years earlier. Rather Avimelech is a title used to refer to all Philistine kings (see e.g. Tehillim 34:1), much like Pharaoh was a general title borne by all ancient Egyptian monarchs. Furthermore, as Radak also points out, Yitzchak had not been seen in these parts during the intervening 75 years having seemingly divided his time between Chevron and the mysterious Be’er Lacha’i Ro’i. It is thus far from obvious from a plain reading of the text that Avimelech’s successor and his fellow Gerarites would have automatically associated the reclusive Yitzchak with his well-known, missionising father.
Returning to the somewhat similar challenges which Avraham and Yitzchak encounter on their travels, we are entitled to ask how unexpected some of these phenomena really are. If we can transport ourselves back to the lawless ancient world of Canaan and Egypt, where the kings enjoyed absolute power and “there was no fear of God”, should we be surprised that unprotected beautiful female travellers should attract unwelcome attention from local rulers? Even a millennia later, Achashverosh is considered within his rights to hoover up all the beautiful girls of the kingdom for his own purposes, while the Torah attempts to limit such behaviour by commanding that Israelite kings “do not amass an excess of wives”. In places of depravity and corruption such as Sodom men too could be in danger, as well as those like Lot who sought to protect strangers from harm. The dangers faced by vulnerable travellers in the Ancient Near East are graphically depicted in the appalling episode of Pilegesh Begiveah in the book of Shofetim. We can speculate therefore that our forefathers’ requests to conceal the true nature of their marital relationships may have been no more remarkable than a modern-day middle eastern traveller requesting that his wife lie about carrying gifts for others in order to avoid unwanted scrutiny at the ELAL security check.
Far more serious flaws, however, plague some of the basic premises upon which Frankel’s theory is constructed. Frankel is quick to pronounce Yitzchak’s involvement in the book of Bereishit as unimportant to the overall narrative and therefore a likely later addition. He is of course entitled to his own assessments, but other readers of Bereishit may note not only that Yitzchak’s birth and early years are central to the narrative of Avraham, but also the important role Yitzchak appears to play as a pivot between the extrovert Avraham and the more measured and complex figure of Ya’akov.
Frankel’s proposals also bear significant ramifications for references to God’s covenant with Yitzchak in other areas of the Torah. In his eagerness to demonstrate that Yitzchak’s story can be disentangled from the story of Bereishit, does Frankel stop to consider the implications of hastily excising God’s promises to Yitzchak from the authentic text of the Torah? Once all mention of such revelations have been summarily deleted from Genesis 26, readers are likely to be confused by later passages (Shemot 32:13, 33:1; Devarim 9:5, 34:4) which claim that the land of Israel was promised to Yitzchak as well as broader explicit references to a prior covenant with Yitzchak (Vayikra 26:42, Devarim 29:12).
Are we to assume that all of these verses were also silently devised and seamlessly implanted within the biblical text by our heavily-overworked redactor? Must they now also fall victim to Frankel’s voracious scalpel? We leave our readers to judge whether Frankel’s theory represents a superior and more convincing rendering of the biblical narrative than what can be achieved from simply taking the Torah’s text at face value.
Frankel's article here.
First posted to Facebook 30 November 2022, here.
