I have to start saying that I think Lot's daughters are absolutely sick. Just insane. They must have been raised to think that being "fruitful and multiplying" must have been the most important thing. I believe it is because it represents power and place in history. The more heirs, the more lineage and the more power for the future generations. Or something like that, anyway. So Lot's daughters were probably resented by Lot because they were girls and maybe often complained about it. The girls, wanting their fathers love, wanted to preserve his lineage. But still, I wonder what the heck was going on in their heads when they decided to sleep with their father. I mean, they must have known that he would have thought it was wrong since they had to get him drunk. And it was their father. I feel bad for Lot's wife that turned into a pillar of salt. This gets me thinking about male power and it is so frequent in the bible. In fact, I don't think we've read yet about a woman being more powerful or controlling than a man. I feel so sorry for these girls, how they were taught that being "fruitful" is so vital, that sleeping with your own father is OK.
Again, we are presented with another odd/repulsive idea. Abraham said that Sarah was his sister. And then he got angry because Abimelech king of Gerar slept with Sarah. I don't understand what the point was. Why couldn't he have said that Sarah was his wife? I mean, would it have made a significant difference? Maybe a fight wouldn't have taken place. But then, I understood. "And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife." (Gen.20 Verse 12) So what Abraham meant, was that we are all brothers and sisters. Or that is what I understood. Here I remembered my countless times at mass when the priest exclaims, "Welcome brothers and sisters!" So maybe that is what Abraham meant when he referred to Sarah as his sister?
So Sarah could finally bear a child after all those years of suffering and gave birth to Isaac. Sadly Ishmael was completely neglected afterward. He became the other son, an illegitimate one. In this sad story, I see a little evil in Sarah. First she is very glad to let her maid sleep with her husband as she can't conceive, but when she is able to, Ishmael is completely forgotten? This reminds me again of when I was a child reading biblical stories for children. When I read this one and Ishmael was like entirely skipped and somehow we are now talking about Abraham sacrificing his only son with Sarah to God. "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest..." (Gen.22 Verse 2)I wondered, and what happened to the other son? What if Ishmael and Isaac had grown up together? Would there still be some kind of resentment as there was? Would this have changed the relationship between Abraham, Hagan, and Sarah? But again, it was society. It simply would have been wrong of Abraham to treat Ishmael as an equal when he wasn't the son of his only wife, but the son of a servant, that was the only choice Abraham had if he wanted to continue his lineage.
But still, Abraham was willing to sacrifice his "only" son for God. He was about to do it when he stopped. I really do not think this is a very good lesson for humanity. That we could sacrifice anything and everything for a superior being. If we are here, together, interacting, shouldn't we be able to be in peace with each other? If it is something as important as your only son, why sacrifice it? If it is good why leave it? It is a sacrifice, but why would God want to create suffering instead of diminishing it?
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