“Based on a True Story”
God heard the lad crying; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? Do not fear, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Genesis 21:17 NASB
Crying– I’m reading a book by Julia Blum. It purports to be an examination of the story of Abraham and his two sons. The author goes to great lengths to explain the “plain” meaning of the text (Pashat). Writers like David Stern praise her work as “another deeply spiritual theological book.” But I’m afraid I must disagree. Blum’s recounting of the story is much more fiction than exegesis. It brims with “I sincerely believe” comments as if sincerity has anything to do with truth. The characterizations of Sarah, Hagar, and Ishmael read like developments of Hollywood screen writers, laced with physical and emotional presumptions. Nearly every page leads the reader toward conclusions that are not supported by the text itself. If Blum wanted to write a romance novel “based on a true story” then she has succeeded, but don’t tell me that this is pashat. It isn’t even close.
As an example, let’s take her analysis of Genesis 21:17. According to Blum, Ishmael became “a dark and gloomy teenager” when he discovered that he was not the son of the promise. He ridiculed his mother, Hagar, about (according to Blum) her deep, personal faith in the Lord. But God rescued Ishmael anyway when the two of them were expelled from the family. Blum’s “exegesis” claims that Ishmael “prayed and asked Him to save them”[1] and that the angel’s response (“God has heard the voice of the lad where he is”) means that God dealt with the “bitterness, anger and hurt” of Ishmael’s heart and “cooled down his inflamed emotions and shielded Ishmael from the merciless heat tormenting not only his body, but his soul as well.”[2] In other words, “where he is” becomes a psychological idiom for Ishmael’s mental state. According to Blum’s analysis, Ishmael “called upon the Lord.” But nothing in the text suggests this. The actual text says only that God heard the boy crying and that the angel reports that God heard the sound (Hebrew qol—“noise, sound, voice” with about a dozen different translations) of the boy. There is nothing here to support the claim that Ishmael prayed or called upon YHVH—except in Blum’s imagination. Unfortunately, Blum takes this amplified, personal, emotional approach to virtually all of the story.
Why spend any time critiquing Blum’s work? Why not just let it be fiction? The answer is simple: Blum claims that this is exegesis—expanded exegesis. Readers who are unfamiliar with the Hebrew text might believe that her story is what the Bible really says. Furthermore, Blum is a Jewish Messianic believer in Israel so what she says has impact on two important groups. If what she says isn’t in the Bible, but she claims it is, then how do you suppose Jews and Messianic believers will react?
If we want to read fictional accounts of biblical stories in order to feel closer to the characters, then let’s not try to paint our work as exegesis. It’s not. If it makes you feel better about Sarah to read that “Sarah’s faith was born” in Egypt, or that “from that time in Egypt, [Sarah] knew that she could trust God completely,”[3] then read Blum. If it makes you feel warm and fuzzy to think that Hagar returned to her mistress as a dutiful, “quiet, obedient, and respectful” servant who “immediately did everything Sarah asked” because she had experienced an epiphany with God that gave her confidence in a personal savior, then curl up in bed and read Blum. But don’t think you’re reading what the Bible says. Exegesis is not creating a story that makes a good novel. And, quite frankly, if your exegesis leads to making sense of all the texts, it’s probably closer to fiction than reality.
Topical Index: Julia Blum, Ishmael, Hagar, Sarah, exegesis, Genesis 21:17
What is going on? Why have you wasted your time on this?
Perhaps you didn’t understand the issue. Since Ms. Blum is a Messianic Jew in Israel, and a recognized writer for that community, what she says carries weight (as noted by David Stern). Therefore, she needs to be careful with exegetical material because both Jews and Messianics will read what she says. If her exegesis is really fiction, then both groups should reject it, and that would mean a loss of credibility affecting both sides. That is the reason for this critique. We don’t need MORE division over the text. We need authors who attempt to bridge the gap by being faithful to the text. Of course, Blum’s book reads better because it incorporates all the presumed emotional and spiritual motives and actions, but that isn’t the same as exegesis, is it?
Hello folks usually I don’t keep up to speed with most of you. Maybe I shouldn’t try. this is an article which exposes the truth to what I call opinion preaching. It’s only the truth that sets Men free ! Many people are leaving the organized Church,, looking for the truth, but they don’t know how to look for it. And wouldn’t see it if it was in front of them. we need people like Skip !
Hi Skip, Thanks for your clinical forensic post mortem on this book that I asked if you had read. Your fully explained reasoning is precisely why I love to read you every day. Thanks for such a complete analysis of both the book in particular and the larger issue it touches on. This really helps a rookie like me.
Happy house hunting. Ciao.
I also am currently reading a book that interprets Gen. from an ancient near eastern mythological perspective. The author is careful to explain when she is going into a midrash to illustrate her points. But she presupposes that her idiomatic and cultural interpretations are accurate representations of the text. I’m not Sharing the book because it is so far outside our box that I would likely be tared and feathered. But I’m understanding some things more clearly for having read the book. In the other places that we used to worship, I would be slammed from the pulpit for even considering reading something like this. At one point I thought that to be stupid but I can see why now as I look at all the people I’ve watched forsake Messiah after joining the Messianic movement.
why don’t you send me the title privately
As a scholar Skip has invested his life into learning and teaching us the correct exegesis of Scripture. Therefore I can understand his passionate post regarding Ms. Blum’s book and exposing it as…less than scholarly. Without wanting to sound sexist ( warning: I probably will) there is genre of literature that is written primarily by women that appeals mainly to women and to their fleshly desires. Romance novels, pulp fiction, ‘chicklit’ targets a female audience who has a historical proclivity of vicariously identifying with the hero or heroine in the storyline of a novel. No problem if you like to escape into a good book, temporarily take on another life, a different role as long as you understand it is story and not reality. The danger is that this vicarious experience can be so meaningful that you integrate it into your life without it having substance. Not good. When this illusory transference happens in the “spirtual realm” as a result of reading a “spirtual” book and we “identify” with the hero or protagonist it poses a bigger danger. When we believe something to be true about ourselves simply because we identify with a character in a novel or wish it to be true we deceive ourselves. Certainly we want to avoid deception, especially self deception, at all cost-male or female. Even to suppose we are like Yeshua just because we read stories of Him, and we love him and somehow identify with Him can be a problem if we are not doing the things He did or commanded us to do. It is best if we leave the realm of fleshy fantasy and our vicarious immaginations to the genre of fiction and apply textual critism and scholarly exegesis to the Scriptures. To conflate them is Trouble with a capital T, as we now realize (and hopefully Ms Blum will realize) thanks to Skip’s reminder… or rebuke.
The reformation was birthed in a period of time when the average person was illiterate. The careful scholarship happened because the upper class was educated in a classic high standard for accuracy in basically everything they did. The average man didn’t dispute their scholarship because they were utterly dependent on the upper class to educate them. One of the most wonderful things that came out of the reformation was education for the lower classes. The reformers worked tirelessly to teach the general population of the American colonys to read the bible which was the standard text book for our school system at the time.
The problem today is that we are, for all practical purposes, in the same predicament. The general population is illiterate but they don’t know it because they have spent decades in school learning nonsense while believing they are getting an education. A person must first come to the realization that they’ve been duped before the can begin the road back to the crossroad that sent them on a rabbit trail.. Of course their carefully schooled and cultivated ego can’t even imagine that possibility. How does one come against that?
The biggest problem that I saw as a university professor was the lack of academic acumen in students. Most of them couldn’t write a decent sentence let alone know how to formulate an argument. Frankly, most of them should never have been there. But the system pushes education without actually educating anyone. “Just get a better job” is usually the reason. Scholarship is a lost art these days.
You’re both right of course, but because we are proud Americans we believe we have the RIGHT to speak (and write) what we want and because we are Christians we have the NEED to speak (and write) what we think God wants. Even if both suppostions were valid it does not mean that we have the capacity to communicate it either intelligently, succinctly, humorously or the resources to present it to a receptive, sympathetic, solicitous audience. I hope that at this forum I have at least one of these elements present when I post “MY God given opinion”…which one is up to the reader to decide!
Agreed. It is a system designed to perpetuate itself at ever higher cost and less value. Homeschool if you have young ones. It will the be the best education YOU (the parent) will ever get!
Skip we were blessed beyond knowing when we first came into the Torah community. There was no internet and our introductory educators were Joe Good and Frank Seekins. Not the most charismatic teachers but their research skills are old school. I am not well educated. I quit school in the tenth grade and entered the work force at age 16. I don’t have what it takes to research things to the standard I would call satisfactory. But I know who does and I glean from them. Scholarship is not an entirely lost art these days. Ron and I appreciate you and are so glad we were introduced to you and a few others. You help us discern how to take the Scripture that we do know quite well and apply it in our daily walk. We don’t all have to be rocket surgeons. We’re content to learn what we need to know as we need to know it in order to be fruitful in the work He gives us. Abba is good at not over feeding us.
You hit a very painful nail on the head for me, Pam. I found the same thing when I homeschooled my kids. Back then, we had just the library, basically. One good thing was, it forced us to build from scratch. The kids happily raced way ahead of me on that! Life intervened so much that a few of them chose to jump into formal education with a whole lot of ‘gaps’. What they found was that, because they had not learned bad thinking habits (wonder where those get taught?) they could pick up from anywhere. I think the reason is that education these days is not about teaching kids to think or giving them real info to memorize, but are propaganda machines designed to turn out a certain kind of consumer/worker (aka Kant, Rousseau, Dewey, et al). Well, they are doing that!
It’s a hard pill to swallow indeed Laurita. I hurts my tummy to see my grandchildren on this path.
The Bible speaks for itself.
It tells us to be “workmen” as we study it,
so we can “correctly handle the word of truth”.
As we all know, it’s a lifetime of work.
Thank you Skip!
I appreciate Skip’s opinion very much and glad he shared it even though I have never heard of her and probably wouldn’t be interested in reading the book. It’s easy to be deceived when you don’t know very much on a subject. There are times when we can learn something even when there are mistakes in understanding or when something is being written by someone who isn’t even a believer but has the ability to really examine the subject. David Fohrman for example. He is one person I enjoy listening to. With that being said, it wouldn’t be wise to put anyone on a pedestal, even Skip! He has learned the hard way as I think most of us have but that doesn’t mean he has learned all there is to learn or that he is always right. There are things I disagree with at times. It has taken me years and years to figure things out and I keep figuring things out. Maybe that’s God’s way of being merciful. He knows why we are the way we are.