Calls,Decisions and Conflicts Shaping the Human Pilgrimage: The Narrative of Abraham

Abstract

This article explores how resilience and conflict resolution figure in the narratives common to all monotheistic religions, such as the call and the transformative journey of Abraham. The text focuses on the dynamics of Abraham’s inward relationship with God, and getting on with other people in a world divided by wars into which Abraham is thrown, and out of which he emerges with a different vision of life. It explores the evolution of the divine promise shaping his and Sarah’s journey, the experience of conflicts and sacrifices that his double fatherhood puts into motion, his balancing between engagement and surrender, and in these processes, relations between human greatness, human fragility and hope. Iconic-contemplative, socio-political and psychological readings of the texts are brought into conversation. Each approach sheds a different light on the nature of Abraham’s pilgrimage, on the choices he makes in a war situation in which his relatives are taken hostage, and on what options are available to him as he attempts to understand what sounds like an impossible promise and offensive call to sacrifice his offspring. The article shows how Abraham’s outer and inner conflicts participate in his growth, and, revealing different forms of fragility and resilience, make Abraham an iconic father of the multitude of nations.

Introduction

The figure of Abraham has been interpreted in many different ways both with regards to the three monotheistic religions, ¹ and within each of them by scholars from different disciplines. Biblical scholars, for example, have focused on the linguistic details of the texts, on archaeological findings and the ancient cultural contexts, on the place of the story in the canon, on the history of interpretations, or they have applied different hermeneutical methods to uncover still deeper meanings of the texts. ² Philosophical or fundamental theological approaches have offered different ways of how to think about the details uncovered by the texts and their reception. Religious studies scholars have added an analysis of the meaning of monotheism as well as of the phenomena occurring within lived practices of different religions, related to the symbols nourished by the Abrahamic texts, such as understandings of righteousness and faithfulness to the covenant. ³ Systematic theologians, for their part, have analysed symbols such as belief in one God, covenant, hospitality or sacrifice in relation to the doctrinal traditions, as well as the problems and possibilities that the symbols and texts have caused and opened in these traditions. They do not offer a history of interpretation of each text, but a particular angle of interpretation that has had a theological significance. Additionally, teachers of Jewish, Christian or Islamic spirituality have examined the transformative potential of the experiences attested in the Abrahamic texts, their interpretation, their insights into the dynamics of the life with God, within the community of faith, and in relation to all other living creatures. ⁴

My own contribution stands on the boundary of systematic theology and spirituality, ⁵ and when needed, draws on expertise from other fields to form what can be called a socio-political and psychological reading and iconic-contemplative reading of the Abrahamic texts. The first type of reading examines the complex relations with regard to familial, social and political interactions, existential threats, living within conflicts and divisions, and the liberative processes in the narrative. The second type explores the interior life of Abraham, the notions of perfection applied to him, his closeness and faithfulness to God, and his hospitality towards others. These two readings in their open dialectic focus on the illuminating details in the transformative journey of Abraham, in the resilience of his faith, and on possibilities of conflict resolution present in the narrative, something that is of importance in our times of polarisation and the escalation of global political conflicts in which religious claims are implicated.

The opening part of the article goes back to Abram’s ⁶ call to become a pilgrim travelling to the promised land, and metaphorically to memories of the beginning, when what God says and what people do in response seem seductively clear (Gen 12:1–9). It then explores how the fundamental decisions that Abraham has to take are formed in a situation of war, in which difficult decisions need to be taken (see Gen 14). These decisions frequently revolve around questions of power and powerlessness and how it is used especially towards those who are in unequal positions. These questions will play an essential role in the article. Experiences of Abraham’s use or even abuse of power concern characters such as the slave Hagar (see Gen 16:1–15; 21:1–21), the child Isaac (see Gen 22), or even his nephew Lot with his family (see Gen 13:1–13; 14:13–16; 18:16–19:29). It also includes the people who inhabit the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah which face destruction (see Gen 18:16–33). Abraham’s position of superiority in these strands of the narrative is mirrored by his position at the other end of the power dynamics, where he is dominated either by fear or by faith in a God who claims superiority over Abraham. This is expressed by the promise (see Gen 12:2–3; 15:1–21; 17:1–22; 18:10), by the change of Abram and Sarai’s names (see Gen 17:5.15), by circumcision (see Gen 17:10–14), and by teaching Abraham that he cannot be the ultimate owner and carer even of the life of his most precious son (see Gen 22).

These themes are addressed as part of the process by which Abraham becomes the ancestor of the nations, and as part of its Christian allegorical and typological interpretations. Two themes are given special attention – that of hospitality and of reaching ‘beyond the peak of sacrifice’ ⁷ to the type of relationship with God and with the world in which the most central self-interest had to die. The article, however, also points out the dangers present in treating sacrifice as a straightforward exemplary attitude that should be followed. It shows that Abraham’s iconicity is dynamic. To remember Abraham is, at the same time, to remember a journey towards a greater human integrity. That includes a variety of transformative processes, personal and communal, including critical re-evaluations of Abraham’s own steps all along the way. ⁸ The article concludes with the recognition of the uneasy ways in which the ancestor Abraham prefigures what struggling to become a blessing for the land and for posterity might mean. It looks at how it includes working through one’s own failures, as well as getting through situations which remain resistant to ‘good’ explanations, like the horrors of war, social and political systems that allow for the exploitation of female slaves, or the possibility of imagining a God who wishes for human blood. And in that recognition the journey towards a new life becomes also a journey of embracing counter-possibilities to what seems given.

Call to Become a Pilgrim

Pilgrimage is a special kind of journey, combining the physical and the spiritual. The word comes from Latin peregrīnus foreign, from pereger, being abroad, in turn derived from per, through, and ager, land: that is, the one who is beyond one’s own land. Pilgrimages are, however, common practices in different world religions, and have longer roots than the Latin concept. In the Hebrew Bible the verb ch-g-g signified celebrating a feast or memorial by pilgrim procession for which the substantive chag was used (see Ex 5:1; 12:4; 23:14.39.41; Nu 29:12; Dt 16:15; 1S 30:16; Ps 42:4; Nah 1:15; Zech 14:16–18). There were three pilgrimage festivals: Passover, the feast of unleavened bread, Shavuot, the feast of weeks, and Sukkot, the feast of booths, where all men, capable of the journey, were expected to ‘appear before the Lord [their] . . . God at the place which he will choose’ (Dt 16:16). In the early Hebrew history pilgrimages were made to Shiloh, Dan, and Bethel, and then later to Jerusalem. ⁹ This was part of the religious life of Mary and Joseph in the gospels, and also part of the life of Jesus himself (see, for example, Lk 2:22–39; 2:41–51. J 5:1; 7:2–52; 10:22–39), including, of course, that recounted in the Passion narratives. In Genesis, however, the notion of a pilgrimage needs to be understood in a broader way. Pilgrimage is not understood primarily as a religious ritual but as a transformative physical and spiritual journey that makes the protagonists who they are. And as we will see, one narrative flows into another, building up awareness that even the decisive new beginnings often start in the middle of processes that precede them and prepare their way.

Abraham’s journey rises out of another journey, namely that of his father Terah (see Gen 11:24–32). Abram, to use his original name, his wife Sarai, and his nephew Lot are taken by Terah from Chaldean Ur towards the land of Canaan. Terah, however, does not complete this journey, dying in Haran, where Abram receives his call: ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you’ (Gen 12:1). ¹⁰

The absence of a clear-cut beginning is deepened by three absent answers: Terah’s motivation to set out on the journey, the origins of Abram’s faith in one God, and the reasons why Terah settled in Haran instead of going all the way to Canaan. The discrepancy between Joshua 24:2–4, where Terah is depicted as an idol worshipper, and the narrative of Genesis, according to which Terah’s entire family seems to know the Lord (see Gen 24:31, 50–51; 31:53), gave rise to different exegetical decisions. Ancient Jewish apocryphal and pseudepigraphic texts, such as The Book of Jubilees and The Apocalypse of Abraham, speak of Abram’s fight against the idols, including fierce debates with his father and brothers. In these texts Terah leaves Ur with the rest of the family after Abram’s brother Haran and his house are consumed by fire – or even Terah himself is consumed by the fire together with his family gods. ¹¹ Abraham’s faith in one God, the Creator of all, arises here both from these disputes over idols and from his observation of nature. ¹²

These Second-Temple-period and rabbinic texts adduce violent elements to the beginnings of Abram’s journey of faith as they fill the missing answers with experiences which make sense in their own settings. The last question regarding Terah’s incomplete journey remains puzzling in these texts as well as in the biblical canon. Later commentaries move between relating Terah’s death to his idolatry and appreciating that there is a partial transformation of Terah taking place already, a transformation that will be completed in the life of Abram. ¹³

Abraham’s pilgrimage, in contrast to that of Terah, emerges also in the Acts of the Apostles, when Stephen speaks in front of the council, saying that God appeared to Abraham already when he lived in the land of Chaldeans and called him to leave it. Abram did so, and settled in Haran. When his father died, God asked Abram to go further towards the land promised to his descendants, even if at that time he had no children. ¹⁴ In Hebrews, Abraham obeyed his call, but did not take possession of the land. It was promised to his offspring. He ‘looked forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God’ (Heb 11:10). While the Christian authors were not so much interested in the human origins of Abraham’s faith, ¹⁵ both Jewish and Christian sources link Abram’s call to a physical gap in his life: unlike Terah, Abram in this part of the narrative does not have offspring, and thus has no one to whom to pass the land. This emphasis is further strengthened by Ari Berman, who points out that, among the representatives of the generations in the structure of Genesis, Abraham’s place is empty. There is Terah and then there is Isaac. ¹⁶

The call of Abram to go to the promised land and to become Abraham, the father of the multitude of nations, ¹⁷ includes what for him is an imagined empty – that is, contentless – place as a kind of a required absence that has both a physical and spiritual meaning. ¹⁸ The physical meaning plays a very important role in Jewish interpretation, as does the identification of the land of God with Canaan, seen as spiritually significant even prior to the time of Abraham. It is this understanding with which Rabbinic literature works. ¹⁹

In Christian patristic interpretation, both the land and the journey are referential images for a new state of being, a new quality of relationships. Church Fathers drew on exegetical methods already developed by Hellenistic Jews, especially on allegory. ²⁰ This enabled them to develop a spiritual interpretation of the call of Abraham and of the promise given to him. Thus, they evolved a reading that replaced the literal meaning of the text with more hidden ones that had an impact beyond the Jewish offspring line of descent and tradition.

Abraham’s pilgrimage could, then, be interpreted by St Ambrose as a journey of non-possession that makes not only faith, but also the one who believes, come alive:

Pilgrims live in hope of finding a temporary lodging, but inhabitants seem to place every hope and every use of their goods where they believe they are living by right. Thus one who is a pilgrim on earth is an inhabitant of heaven, but an inhabitant of earth is an owner of death. ²¹

St Ambrose differentiates between the temporary lodgers who do not have a permanent place except in heaven, and inhabitants who assume that their share comes naturally, by right. He thus proposed a kind of eschatological reversal, in which those who had nothing become the inhabitants of heaven and those who owned the earth become owners of death. His spiritual interpretation came to dominate over the emphasis on hope that divine promises could be fulfilled within human history.

The Christian patristic tradition also works with allegorical interpretations, in which the transformation takes place this side of the eschaton. St Anthony the Great interprets the Abrahamic narrative as a call to attain virtues and thus make the heart ‘ready to be guided by the Spirit of God’. ²² Caesarius of Arles sees in the story a way out of ‘those vices and sins that are in part born with us in some way and are increased and nourished after infancy by our bad acts’. ²³ Elsewhere Caesarius integrates what we may call today both the allegorical and typological interpretations as he explains the leaving of Abram’s country Christologically and ecclesiologically: ‘Our country, that is, our body, was the land of the dying before baptism, but through baptism it has become the land of the living.’ ²⁴ Abram’s setting out on the journey to become Abraham, the father of the nations, is here treated as a ‘type’ of Christian baptism. The Christian is, then, the ‘antitype’ of this journey, or we could say its Christological fulfilment. ²⁵ There is a similarity and a difference. A baptized person is also setting out on a journey of becoming, of transformation into a new life. However, in this case, it is not directly a life of parenthood to all the nations, but rather the life of a disciple of Christ, where relations to others within and outside the Christian community are to be mediated by this foundational relationship to Christ. As it is Christ who is seen as re-establishing the land of the living, this mode of interpretation introduced a specifically Christian agenda into the scope of the meaning of the text.

The issue of the historical reality of the divine revelation narratives, however, still played an important role, leading to controversies regarding how what was seen as historia – that is, the first and grounding level of meaning of the texts – should be treated. Here the rhetorical as well as exegetical practices of Graeco-Roman schools played an important role. ²⁶ They helped to preserve the coherence of the deeper spiritual meanings of the text and the literal meaning of theôria and historia. This coherence gave the contemplative readings their iconic quality, ²⁷ but for Christians only underlined the question of the specific grounds of such coherence for them. John Breck points out that in the Patristic period a differentiation of what the Holy Scriptures are for Christians and what they are assumed to be for Jews took place. And the very title ‘Old Testament’ prevented Christians from thinking that they could read and understand ‘Tanakh’ as Jews did, independently of the New Testament. The frequently assumed relation between promise (in the Old Testament) and Christological fulfilment (in the New Testament) ²⁸ had as its purpose to include the Christian audience into the flow of divine relationship with the created world and with the people of God emerging in it. Early Christian exegetes stressed the need to become immersed in the events testified by both Testaments, and to be transformed by the reality celebrated in their liturgies, and about which they heard or read.

The living memory of the scriptural people and events was thus to be continuously transformed by the encounter with Christ, and by what they experienced as life in the Spirit. What they understood as the eschatological orientation attested by the people and events, impacted on their moral and spiritual life. And the coherence sought between these levels of meaning prevented their exegetical approaches from losing their iconic quality. ²⁹ Their stress on an attitude of inner catharsis and a transformed praxis, however, did not always include a positive understanding of the first people of God, the Jews. This is also exemplified by Christological interpretations of the call of Abraham.

St John Chrysostom replaces the great nations coming out of Abraham by the followers of Christ, and ridicules the ongoing Jewish interpretation of the text in the following way:

Hence the Jews too found in the patriarch grounds for self-importance and endeavoured to establish their kinship with him in the words ‘We are the children of Abraham’ [John 8:33]. For you to learn, however, that on the basis of their evil ways they are in fact unworthy of such kinship, Christ says to them: ‘If you were children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham.’ [John 8:39] . . . ‘Bear fruit that benefits repentance, and don’t presume to say, ‘We have Abraham for our father.’ I tell you, after all, that God can raise up children to Abraham even from these stones. [Mt 3:7–9] ³⁰

He compares the incomparable; namely, what he denigrates as the corrupted Jewish authorities in the time of Jesus, and an idealised image of the Church. Such comparisons had very negative consequences in history, as they grounded a Christian anti-Judaism and were used as justifications for pogroms. A Christian inclusion to the story, however, could be achieved with more respect to the older tradition, recognizing, as the apostle Paul already did, that ‘the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable’ (Rom 11:29).

Abram seen as a type, ³¹ or an icon, of anyone who embarks on a spiritual journey presents an inclusive way of interpretation. When the journey is given Christocentric parameters, it is necessary to guard the interpretation from exclusivism. In a Christian interpretation, the centrality of the Christomorphic journey means that the one who undertakes the journey is called by Christ and grows towards being a disciple of Christ, and an image of God that bears the likeness of Christ. Progress on the way is seen as an interaction with the Holy Spirit. A number of Church Fathers and later ascetic writers understood progress, and at times regression, on the spiritual journey as part of the process of deification which is at the same time the process of humanisation. ³²

The imagery employed for deification was controversial, not only with regards to Judaism, where it was seen as forsaking monotheism, but also within Christianity, as it was known that the concept of participation in God had previously been used for deifying animals or heavenly bodies, worshipping rulers and heroes, or one’s dead relatives. Taking the Abrahamic journey as a figure for this would be blasphemous. But there was a transition in the very meaning of the concept of deification when used by Christian authors to signify radical communion with God and within creation. ³³ And, paradoxically, in this controversial tool of interpretation there was an openness preserved that could provide an alternative against replacement theology (also known as supersessionism) – the Church instead of Israel.

Faced with Two Life Options

Now, let us consider the process of transformation Abram and his fellow travellers underwent on the way, focusing on the shifts in which new decisions needed to be made, on the repetition of the promises, and the deepening of how they were embodied.

Abram, his wife Sarai, Lot, and their households, including their slaves, travel from their home to a new promised land, the land of Canaan. But the land is inhabited by other people, the Canaanites. Abram finds in that land a holy place ‘the oak of Moreh’ (Gen 12:6), where the Lord appears to him, and he builds an altar and worships the Lord (vv. 7–8). The promise is repeated, but what follows elucidates the meaning of living and walking with a promise rather than with something like a right of possession. ³⁴ Abram needs to grow into understanding the promise as promise, ³⁵ which includes experiencing hunger, fear, and facing the fruits of his own dishonesty and willingness to prostitute his wife, which leads to his being expelled from Egypt where he stayed as a guest. ³⁶ He parts ways with Lot (Gen 13:1–14) and is then confronted with two fundamentally different ways of life. Genesis 14 offers us an account of a multi-layered conflict, in which two fundamental options are placed in front of Abram. One – living like other rulers, even, perhaps, mightier, and thus being able to enjoy the materiality of the divine promise; and the other – transforming the results of God’s blessing into saving the lives of others, even if it this would cost him earthly goods.

The chapter begins with a battle of four kings, who represent brutal, self-centred violent power. They ‘leave the Valley of Siddim . . . full of bitumen pits’ (Gen 14:10), subsequently plundering the lands of Sodom and Gomorrah, even taking Abram’s nephew Lot, his family, and all his household and property, including his slaves, as part of the spoils (Gen 14:11–12). On hearing this, Abram sets out to liberate Lot. It is interesting that patristic writers often interpret this move as an expression of God’s power and Abram’s virtue. ³⁷ But in a socio-political reading, one needs also to raise questions about interpretations which praise power and virtue, and ask what such power and virtue do to other people.

This question leads to a key discernment in the following text which has an impact on whether we see the power of God and the expression of virtue as associated with, for example, a Holy War. Abram goes to fight and returns victorious from battle (Gen 14:14–16). Does this text, which Martin Prudký says ‘uses elements of the “holy war” genre here’, ³⁸ provide a justification for holy war? Yet, if we read carefully, the whole narrative is set as a counter-model of how God desires to impart the blessing and how God’s people should live from that blessing. In fact, it offers different ‘prototypical figures’ than the kings, the lords of the land who express their power by robbing and slaughtering, and whose ‘“royal power” threatens the freedom and life of others’. ³⁹ Abram returns victorious, and yet the use of violence leaves a mark. It opens up for him the possibility of being like those whom he fought. If he rejects that way of life, he needs to re-imagine what it would be like if the people of God lived without the support of the type of power that is devoid of God’s likeness, and as such brings destruction to others. ⁴⁰

Abram is an ancestor to whom a promise of continuity was given – offspring and land. The promise, however, also stipulated that those who would bless him would be blessed, and those who would curse him would be cursed. In this sense, an understanding of the blessing creates a strange kind of autonomy for the one who is finally promised to be the blessing. ⁴¹ And this is why the iconicity and, thus also referentiality of the figure of Abram to who God is, and how God acts can also have dangerous consequences. The interpretation of what the blessing is and how it can be lived has an impact. Its impact is on the legitimacy of using violence, not only in defence, as was the case when bringing Lot home, but also in obtaining what one regards as God-promised, and here in particular, on how the holy land might be obtained. Is the land promised, and therefore holy through the people who live under the reign of a different power – a power transmitting life to all – or can it become the property of those who would claim its promise by violence of any sort? ⁴²

The narrative treads a very narrow path between liberating hostages and becoming equal with those who ransack and divide the spoils. As Abram returns, he meets with two kings, who represent the two different options, the king of Sodom and the king of Salem. Only the latter has a name here, Melchizedek. He is both a king and a ‘priest of God Most High’ (14:18). He brings bread and wine, and blessing to Abram, and Abram gives him one tenth of the property he has gained. ⁴³ The king of Sodom is a strange figure. At the beginning of the story, he has a name, Bera (14:2), which translates either as ‘[the one who is] evil’ or ‘[the one who acts through] evil’. ⁴⁴ In verse 10, he meets his death at the bottom of a pit in the Valley of Siddim, and then reappears, as if coming from the land of the dead in verse 17, when he no longer has a name. He is mentioned by his role, and as one of the two kings who stood on Abram’s side, and in verse 21 he wants the people whom Abram had taken, leaving him the property.

There are two possibilities of mimesis in this text. ⁴⁵ Abram could imitate either the priestly king who brings blessing or the king coming from the realm of the dead, who wants to take away lives. In a way, he has already imitated those who kidnapped Lot and plundered the land; those who gained the spoils. His victory, however, can also be read as a deconstruction of such a possibility of victory. The priestly king Melchizedek, ⁴⁶ who even praises God for delivering Abram’s enemies into his hands (Gen 14:20), enacts for him a different possibility: a hospitable fellowship instead of rivalry. This is a possibility true to the new name Abram is about to receive, and which would mediate to him that he is to be ‘the father of a multitude of nations’ (Gen 17:5). The new orientation, that Abraham should be a blessing for the land, ⁴⁷ is confirmed by the covenant signified by circumcision (see Gen 17:10–14). In the succeeding parts of the narrative, there is no reversal regarding this foundational decision – who Abram wishes to imitate and which path to take. Yet, what it means to become a father of more than one line of offspring and a blessing for the land is more complex.

Abram’s victory in the battle, as well as his inner victory related to the form of life he chooses to live, give Abram and his wife Sarai a new strength and a new confidence. In this context, Sarai decides to act, and as she herself cannot get pregnant, she offers Abram her slave Hagar (Gen 16:1–2). The plan of making Hagar a submissive surrogate mother, however, does not work, as there is also her personality and her life to be taken into account (see Gen 16:1–16). Though what we would call today organised rape ⁴⁸ might have been socially and culturally acceptable in the context in which the narrative is placed, the text, at least to some degree, includes also the perspective of the impossibility of Hagar’s situation. There is her protest against not being treated as mother of her child, and her plea to God to let them live. There are also the ways in which God interacts with her, speaks to her directly during her flight from Sarai, and later, when Sarah insists on Abraham’s sending her away, and when she and Ishmael are in danger of dying in the desert (see Gen 16:7–14; 21:9–21). We could say that Sarai and Abram created her ongoing impossible situation, while God included her in the life of promise, and let Sarah and Abraham learn to cope with the need to expand what they saw as theirs.

The contextual, socio-political and psychological readings of Abraham’s narrative focus on the movement of praxis in which the transformations need to take place. Here it is both the praxis of Abraham as he seeks what it means to live from God’s promise, and the related praxis of readers in the different personal, social and political realities in which they live. The analysis of Abram’s complex relationships and of the dynamics through which different characters gradually become who they are, make space for a ‘a third presence’ to emerge between a personal or collective ‘myself and my subject’. ⁴⁹ The language employed in the narrative both ‘constitutes the human being’ and ‘represents a loss’ of the ‘pre-human “total knowledge”’. ⁵⁰ Growing into the understanding of the life of promise includes transformation of Abram’s humanity through intercession on behalf of others, and then through still deeper confrontation with the dark possibilities of sacrifice.

The Hospitality of Abraham

The theme of the hospitality of Abraham is deeply linked to his fatherhood. The Jewish apocryphal and pseudepigraphic texts showed the faith of Abram’s early life, before he himself became a father, as zealous to the degree that his polemics against idol worshippers contributed to the deaths of others. As we have already noted, in The Book of Jubilees Abram lit a fire to burn the idols of his father, and his brother Haran dies in it. ⁵¹ In The Apocalypse of Abraham, Terah dies in the fire together with his family gods. ⁵² In canonical Scripture these incidents are not recorded. Terah, however, does not go all the way to Canaan – he stops halfway and dies (Gen 11:31–32). The passages we are going to explore now show how the shift from Abram the iconoclast son to Abraham the father of nations impacts on the part of the pilgrimage that Terah did not, and perhaps could not make.

There is a parallel between Abram’s meeting of Melchizedek in Genesis 14:17–24 and Abraham and Sarah’s encounter with the three ‘men’ under the Oaks of Mamre in Genesis 18:1–15. Both narratives deal with the theme of hospitality. ⁵³ The second narrative has a prelude: a change of names. Abram receives a new name signifying who he is to become, Abraham, father of many nations (Gen 17:5 NJB). ⁵⁴ His wife Sarai, who is included in the repetition of the promise and into the blessing, will be called Sarah. But unlike with Abraham, there is no elaboration of the name, and its meaning – a princess or a noble lady – is not given here because it is self-evident (see Gen 17:15).

The divine visitation opens with a puzzle: the Lord appears to Abraham – and Abraham sees three men standing near him. He prostrates himself, worshipping the Lord and at the same time offers service: washing of the feet, food and drink (see Gen 18:1–5). The intangible and the tangible are thus interwoven. There were several ways in which this event of epiphany was interpreted by the Church Fathers, most of them drawing on the Rabbinic interpretation while transposing it to a different key. Some differentiated between the intangible theophany and the tangible seeing of the three men to whom hospitality needed to be shown; others assumed that the tangible was the allegorical figure for the intangible, that is, the three ‘men’ were an allegorical figure for three angels. These two ways were not entirely separated from each other. ⁵⁵ Both worked with a distinction between the theophany in Gen 18:1: ‘The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day’ and a test of faithfulness to the law of hospitality, whether towards people or towards angels, following from Gen 18:2a: ‘He looked up and saw three men standing near him.’

Abraham’s prostration in verses 2b and 3 is seen as a response to the theophany, and the hospitality as entering into communion with other pilgrims, human or angelic, something which is a necessary precondition to a communication and communion with God. ⁵⁶ At the same time, there is an emphasis on the movement from the side of God that makes such communication and communion possible, and that grounds what is seen as the unshakable goodness of Abraham. ⁵⁷

In others texts, attention was given to identifying the three angels as Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, and specifying their distinct missions: Michael came to bring the good news about the birth of Isaac; Raphael either to heal Abraham or to rescue Lot; Gabriel to carry out the judgment over Sodom. ⁵⁸ Meanwhile, still others transposed the Rabbinic idea that there was God and two angels ⁵⁹ into the divine Logos and two angels. ⁶⁰ For them this was a helpful way of reading the Old Testament through the event of Christ, as they had already seen done in some New Testament texts, especially John 8:56–58. ⁶¹

Early Christian writers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Eusebius of Caesarea and later even John Chrysostom, differentiated between the impossibility of seeing the Father directly and the possibility of encountering the divine Logos. They insisted that the Father was absolutely other, intangible, transcendent. The Logos, however, could be there at Mamre with two angels, according to their reading of Genesis 18:1–2 through the prism of John 8:56–58, where Jesus claims that God revealed himself to Abraham. Thus, the tangibility–intangibility differentiated unity is delegated to the Logos, who is said to have appeared to the Old Testament righteous. ⁶²

Finally, especially from the fourth century onwards, the Fathers interpreted the three angels as the figure of the Holy Trinity. ⁶³ This interpretation most strongly influenced Christian iconography and was influenced by the Trinitarian controversies. ⁶⁴ The relationship between the tangible and the intangible in the whole web of the divine-human, intra-human and inter-creaturely relations was then most powerfully addressed by St Maximus the Confessor:

Great Abraham . . . was made worthy to see God as man . . ., and to receive Him, since he lived naturally in accordance with the perfect natural logos through love for humankind. He was led up to this, having relinquished the individuality of what divides and is divided, no longer leading another human being different from himself, but knowing all as one and one as all. ⁶⁵

The iconic-contemplative interpretation, however, does not focus only on ‘who’ Abraham saw, but also on ‘why’ Abraham was capable of such experience. In this regard, the vision at Mamre was linked to the promise in the Beatitudes: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God’ (Mt 5:8). ⁶⁶ This purity of heart is then also expressed as the capability of the type of hospitality, where the dividing line between the other and the I is blurred by love. This was interpreted in relation to the distinguishing features of those who belong among the blessed ones by the Father: ‘for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me’ (Mt 25:35), ⁶⁷ or as the Greek text says, synēgagete me, which could be also translated as ‘you included me in’, ‘you put me together with you’. When we take on board St Maximus’s explanation of how the divine and human energies become unified in the process of deification, which we can observe in God’s righteous ones and the saints, the emphasis on participation falls into place. ⁶⁸ At the same time, he interprets hospitality as the overcoming of the separation between others and Abraham. According to St Maximus, seeing God was possible, because Abraham ‘lived naturally in accordance with the perfect natural logos through love for humankind. He was led up to this, having relinquished the individuality of what divides and is divided, no longer leading another human being different from himself, but knowing all as one and one as all.’ ⁶⁹

Grigory Benevich writes that Abraham becomes for St Maximus ‘a model or an archetype of a person who has overcome all divisions in humanity’, someone ‘who is perfect in love’, and ‘“Abraham’s seed” are all those who are similar to him in that respect’. ⁷⁰ He refers to Maximus’s Centuries on Love, saying that Abraham attained the stage of detachment where he knew ‘no difference between “mine and thine” . . . having risen above the tyranny of the passions and looking on the nature, one in all men, he considers all equally and is disposed equally to all’. ⁷¹ While stressing the importance of mediation, St Maximus recognized the value of difference, not seeking to create a kind of meta-level, a synthesis that would replace all particularity.

The impossibility of a meta-level of mediation comes across in the following narrative, where Abraham wants to follow the holy messengers further on their way. Because of his closeness to the Lord, he is told about their mission to destroy the sinful Sodom and Gomorrah. In a daring conversation about God’s plan, Abraham attempts to present a counter-possibility of forgiving these places on account of the small minority of just people living in them. This is a very different approach to that of Abram the iconoclast. But, while God accepts this mediating role of Abraham, without tangible evidence of the justice of at least some people in Sodom and Gomorah, however few, Abraham’s desire remains unfulfilled, apart from being given a way out for Lot’s family, provided that they do not turn back. ⁷² In this process, however, Abraham has grown into the role of a father. He has shown another form of hospitality as he pleaded for the lives of others, even when he was aware of their malice. As he did not lose hope in God’s mercy, he could embody the mediating role between sinful people and God. Using the language of St Maximus, he could be one with both, and thus plead for overcoming their division. Thus, he has become unshakable in goodness, ⁷³ as a love stronger than judgment, a love towards all people, has grown in him. ⁷⁴

Blessing Life that Includes Conflicts and Sacrifices

The iconic interpretation of the divine visitation and of Abraham’s archetypal integrity lacks, however, the dynamism that the socio-political interpretation stood for. True, the heavenly visitation takes place after Abram’s conversion and his firm decision about the direction of his life. But that direction is not free of further challenges and complicated options. In the Hebrew and Christian Bible, Isaac is presented as the child of the promise, through whom the main line of the blessing continues. Ishmael, however, is not excluded from the narrative. When Sarai’s name is changed into Sarah, and a promise is given to Abraham that she will become the mother of the nations, that she will bear him a son, who would inherit the promise and the covenant, Abraham prays for Ishmael: ‘O that Ishmael might live in your sight!’ (Gen 17:18). And, according to the narrative, he is also blessed: ‘As for Ishmael, I have heard you; I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year’ (Gen 17:20–21). Ishmael is circumcised the same day as Abraham (Gen 17:26), and he is even present when Abraham dies and buries Abraham together with Isaac (Gen 25:9). ⁷⁵ But before the reader gets to that point, there are two important events that could be understood as reversals which threaten the very possibility of the promise Abraham received regarding the offspring and the land.

First, Abraham’s physical fatherhood is caught in the conflict between two desires, two fidelities/infidelities, two women and two sons. And as we will see, this conflict is not resolved by opting only for one and letting the other go away. When Sarah insists that Hagar and Ishmael are sent away, because she and her only son Isaac feel threatened by them, Abraham is deeply troubled. On the basis of the divine assurance regarding a good future for both of his sons, he sends Ishmael away. He lets him go with Hagar to the desert where they nearly die (Gen 21:9–21). But their death, as we learn, would not offer a conflict resolution. Avivah Zornberg contrasts Sarah’s ‘analytical vision’ with Abraham’s much less tidy entanglement ‘in the world, linked by love with all who enter his many doors’. She says that at the level of pure thought Sarah is often right. But her being right is static. She is incapable of reversals and of adaptations of her attitudes, of integrating other life-possibilities, especially in her later life. She does not permit the truth she has discovered to live and breathe and change. Her insistence that Abraham send Ishmael and Hagar away leaves her ‘in the Nothingness in which even questions become absurd’. Zornberg quotes Carl Jung’s saying that for Sarah: ‘What was true in the morning will at evening have become a lie.’ ⁷⁶

The second test is said to come from God. Zornberg opposes such simple identification. She mentions that the Talmud draws a parallel between Genesis 22, speaking about the sacrifice of Isaac, and Job 1:6–12, where the test comes from Satan. Rashi introduces the figure of Satan and not God, as the prime author of the test also in the case of Abraham. ⁷⁷ The narrative of Job has thus more in common with the claim on Abraham to give up his own son. Whilst at a rational level the source of the test, either directly or indirectly, may be understood as God, for both Job and Abraham, at the human experiential level, it is much less clear. Indeed, it may come from the enemy of humankind. There are also parallels in the explanatory lines of the narratives of testing: in Abraham’s case, whether he will be willing to sacrifice Isaac, and in Job’s case whether suffering will make him curse God. Finally, there is a similarity in how God enters the scene when their fidelity is proved. God accepts the situation, but not passively. God interacts with the suffering Job and Abraham, and uses the test as an opportunity for deepening and enhancing the nature of his communication with his faithful servants. ⁷⁸

Another possibility is to read God’s call for the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22:1–18 as a continuity and radicalisation of Genesis 21:9–20, Sarah’s call for the exclusion of Ishmael. In that case, the abyss of ‘Nothingness in which even questions become absurd’ ⁷⁹ is delegated back to Abraham and to God who, according to the narratives, are both involved when Ishmael nearly dies of thirst in the wilderness of Beer-sheba (Gen 21:15–16), and later when Isaac is nearly killed by Abraham as a burnt offering on the mountain in the land of Moriah (Gen 22:2, 9–10). In both cases, God seems to be implicated as, if not initiating, at least allowing the test to happen (Gen 21:12; 22:2). And in both cases Abraham’s faith, hope and love are tested, as faith in God seems to be pitted against love of his children, as Abraham is close to losing the blessing he hoped for.

Abraham walks through the abyss of Nothingness, and to use Søren Kierkegaard’s language, this is how he moves from resignation to faith, resting in faith, not in speculation, not in moral duty, not in a calculation of guaranteed help, nor in anything other than the inward communication with God. ⁸⁰ His love for both of his sons is strangely balanced out, as he enters ‘the confrontation with counterpossibilities’. ⁸¹ Still, unlike Sarah, whose active role in the narrative diminishes with the sending away of those she perceives as dangerous, Abraham’s journey of spiritual, and we could also say, psychological integration, continues even after Sarah’s death (Gen 25:1–11).

Moreover, the involvement of God goes hand in hand with Abraham’s own involvement. One reacts to the other. And Abraham, the father of multiple nations, learns that on the way of blessing, there are promises but not ready-made ends. Abraham’s resilience is not depicted here as the strength with which people can give to God even human sacrifices, but as a fragility that again and again pleads for a good outcome, even when no good solution seems available (Gen 21:17–20; 22:12–14). ⁸² In this the Abrahamic narrative differs from other parts of the Hebrew Bible, where the consoling resolution does not come, the sacrifice is completed, and the sadness and horror of the whole situation cries out in the human consciousness throughout the earth, and throughout generations. ⁸³

An iconic-contemplative reading of the text on the binding of Isaac allows for taking different angles as guiding principles for making typological links between the Old Testament and the New Testament mysteries of redemption. For some, the sacrifice lies in the centre, and prefigures the sacrifice of Christ. What is depicted as ‘redemptive suffering’ thus becomes the mark of participation in God, or even, participation in God is turned into participation in suffering. ⁸⁴ For others, the sacrifice presents a stumbling block, and they need to base the iconicity on overcoming the sacrificial mentality. ⁸⁵ Luiz Carlos Susin explains that in the eschaton, whose reality is foundational for the iconic-contemplative approach: ‘All sacrifice will be abolished, for sacrifice is not the religious act par excellence’. ⁸⁶ Orthodox theologians such as Vladimir Lossky criticized the isolation of the sacrifice and of substitutive suffering often accompanying the praise of sacrifices, from the whole web of divine–human relations leading through kenōsis to theōsis. ⁸⁷ In this light, the sacrifice of Abraham was not seen as the peak of the narrative of Isaac’s binding. Instead, Abraham in his kenotic movement needed to discover not only his total human freedom for God, which included not clinging to the one who is dearest to him, but also total divine freedom. Only when both are placed together can the final transformation occur.

An illuminating detail on this process is offered here by Elder Seraphim in Jean-Yves Leloup’s account of Abraham’s inner change: ‘On the way to the mountain top he [Abraham] could not think about anything else but his son. When he was going down, he thought of nothing but God.’ ⁸⁸ After Abraham reached beyond the peak of sacrifice, he discovered that nothing is really ‘his’. All belongs to God. This way of dying to possessive relationships meant ‘a death of ego and discovering of the “Self”’. ⁸⁹ It also had a profound impact on living with the promise as promise and not as property. In this interpretation, to perceive God and the world as Abraham did means having undergone the part of the pilgrimage to the promised land that Terah – and with him those for whom family relations are the ultimate value – cannot take. Indeed, all those who have other ultimate bonds than God cannot go as far as Abraham. This type of iconoclasm is not turned against others and their practices. Rather, the purified true self opens a passage for all others, including the closest ones endangered by some parts of the liberative process, into a new depth of participation in God. ⁹⁰

It is worth noting that Sarah is absent from the scene since her plea for getting rid of Ishmael in Genesis 21:9–12. She is not mentioned in the binding of Isaac narrative. We do not know whether she is there or not. ⁹¹ The next time we hear of Sarah, in Genesis 23:1–2, she is dead. And not only that, she dies at Kiriath-arba (Hebron), while Abraham resides in Beersheba (see Gen 22:19). Abraham travels to mourn and bury her, but her beloved son Isaac is not mentioned at the funeral. ⁹² These texts make room for the possibility that Sarah, like Abraham’s father Terah, could accompany Abraham only part of the way. But then, after her death, Isaac brings his wife Rebekah to the tent of his mother Sarah, and finds comfort, and Abraham, Isaac, Rebekah and Leah are all buried in her cave (see Gen 24:67; 25:10; 49:31).

A socio-political reading of the narrative also places the text on sacrifice into broader contexts of what life marked by the divine promise means, and what it does not mean. When Abram becomes Abraham, a father rather than lord of the nations, and especially when his fatherhood is extended to the coming generations, there is an ongoing struggle for coherence. ‘Abraham’s vision of things, his essential entanglement in life’, even after both of the testing narratives, ‘do not allow him the analytical definitiveness of Sarah’, says Zornberg. ‘He has given birth to the reality of conflicting principles’, and has learned that ‘to be source of life is to generate tensions that one cannot direct or control’. Where the tensions grew beyond him, Abraham, touching his limits and aware of his fragility, learned ‘to surrender’. ⁹³ Hope, which had seemed to diminish in these times, returned reaffirmed. His becoming a blessing that reached beyond his death (Gen 25:11) included the assurance that the God who called him and accompanied him on his journey will continue to call and accompany others.

Conclusion

In this article I have investigated Abraham’s pilgrimage, hospitality and parenthood through the prism of the multi-layered process of transformation that involved a growth in understanding of his relation with God as well as the psychological, familial, social and political realities in which this relationship was lived. I have examined interpretations of the nature of call and promise. They included decisions for the type of life Abraham wanted to embrace, and also external and internal conflicts as he encountered challenges stemming from the difficult socio-political terrain he inhabited or passed through. These conflicts made him aware of his own fragility, and the way he came through them taught him to hope. While the different interpretations I have drawn on cannot be harmonised into one whole, the emphasis on the links between strength, fragility and hope run through all of them. And precisely in this link I see sources for renewed conversation today among different religious groups with often contradictory claims.

The interaction between the iconic-contemplative and the critical readings helped me keep the space open for a ‘third presence’, ⁹⁴ one that is constituted neither by mere idealisations of Abraham nor by reducing Abraham to being just a product of socio-political structures of his time. The ‘third presence’ works with, and goes beyond such reductions of Abraham to what can be known, and to what can be thought within each of these paradigms. ⁹⁵ The details of the narrative, revealing tensions, complexities and ambivalence, thus paradoxically strengthen the illuminating function of the figure of Abraham, who is filled with a deeply personal reality.

The question in this article is as follows: in what sense can this reality be seen as iconic, that is, lifting up those who see it ‘to the remembrance’ of the transformative events in Abraham’s journey, while desiring similar changes in their personal and communal lives? ⁹⁶ The article also examined where the iconicity of Abraham drew on his idealised image, and a rather static role, whether as a defender of monotheism ⁹⁷ or a parable foreshadowing its fulfilment in Christ. ⁹⁸

Placing the narrative of Abraham into a tradition in which the whole of the Holy Scriptures was seen as a book which spoke about Christ, and later, about the economy of the Holy Trinity, created a distance from Jewish interpretations of the Abrahamic narratives. ⁹⁹ At the same time it largely silenced questions regarding how Abraham is, and remains, a forefather of others. The iconic figure of Abraham as a kind of proto-saint, at its best, includes openness from within its own perspective. There, Abraham’s closeness with God and hospitality were to be imitated. Abraham, who cared and interceded even for people trapped in the sinful city of Sodom, needed to be seen as one of the model ways of following Christ.

Employing the iconic interpretation of Abraham brought two particularly helpful insights, when the image of Abraham was filled with the personal reality that emerges from both the narrative of his life and his impact on his offspring. These were Zornberg’s emphases on the new paths emerging through ‘the confrontation with counterpossibilities’, ¹⁰⁰ whether these were models of political power or family relations; and Berman’s comment on the presence of Abraham being complemented by his absence among the representatives of the generations in the structure of Genesis. The man of promise is not pinned down there. The empty place needs to be continually filled by others. ¹⁰¹ Both of these emphases elucidated what living by a promise meant for Abraham can mean for his children.

After having saved Lot and his family, Abram is left with the mark of the violence he used to win the people back. ¹⁰² The mark, the opening to the counter-possibility, to being like those whom he fought, forces him to re-imagine what it is like to be a blessing. His decision here needs to be clear cut. The way of life he chooses excludes rather than integrates the violent counter-possibility. Either he would go in line with Bera, the king of Sodom, or in line with Melchizedek, a king and a priest of God Most High. The text does not allow for saving and destroying lives at the same time, even if these may be lives of different people. Thus, it confronts hearers and readers from the different centuries, religions, and cultures with a question regarding what models of power always need to be left behind if one is to emerge from any form of conflict not only victorious, but also still at one with the call, the promise and the blessing that is not translatable into the materiality of gain.

Abraham can become father because he sees that the value of his life is not different to the value of the life of another human being. As St Maximus puts it, his purity of heart makes it possible to mediate life, and thus to overcome divisions in humanity. ¹⁰³ He is thus capable of hospitality to the divine visitation, and later, of asking God if it was at all possible to save Sodom and Gomorrah, even for the smallest remnant of the just people still living there.

The overcoming of the divisions with regards to others, however, still needs to be accompanied by overcoming the divisions within himself, his household and his loves. Thus, working through conflicts and facing possible sacrifices is not yet concluded. In Zornberg’s interpretation, Sarah gets stuck on the way because of her excessively singular, and excessively strong grip on the exclusivity of the promise given to her. She is not able to cope with the challenge of later life, which demands looking hospitably into counter-possibilities, and thus her inability to grow and change leaves her in the realm of nothingness, where she no longer has a voice. ¹⁰⁴

The narrative does not finish there, but the scriptural continuation leaves gaps in between Sarah’s dead end and the continuation of her role as a Matriarch of Israel, whose heart expands. ¹⁰⁵ The question, however, remains, whether it expands enough to overcome divisions in humanity, as St Maximus said, or just the conflicting experiences involving Abraham and Isaac. ¹⁰⁶

Abraham’s experience of his radical vulnerability, when he needs to become free of clinging to Isaac, goes through the need to surrender, ¹⁰⁷ to the reaffirmation of the nature of his call and of the promise given to him. This is how he becomes a blessing to others, strong enough to reach beyond his death, when his God becomes God of his various descendants. The critical readings help in understanding how this happens through the accepted responsibility for the consequences of one’s actions, the iconic-contemplative reading through bracketing the ‘I’ and its priority interest and demands.

In patristic interpretations of Abraham as a hospitable pilgrim, one that presented for Christians a vision of perfection to which they were to aspire, the virtue of hospitality coexisted with contemplation. Praxis and theōria formed two sides of one movement. Hospitality was not spiritualized, ¹⁰⁸ and contemplation was not rationalized. ¹⁰⁹ It should be noted, however, that it was not always sufficiently appreciated that Abraham’s iconic figure reached that level of perfection only after his death. ¹¹⁰ While living, he was still on a journey, physically as well as spiritually. Paraphrasing Jacques Derrida, we could say that Abraham needed his whole life to learn how to embody being a guest and a host, in order to arrive home. ¹¹¹ In this sense, Abraham mirrors the image in which humankind was created, and prefigures human becoming, growing into the likeness of God (Gen 1:26–27).

Socio-political and psychological readings of the Abrahamic narrative show the complexity of liberative processes, without which human maturation does not happen, and at the same time point out that there are some abusive forms of using power that cannot be integrated. Such interpretations make clear that questions of what can be integrated as helpful and what needs to be left behind and why, make sense not in the abstract, but as part of lived circumstances and struggles. The types of answers that Abram reaches open new spaces, new possibilities, but also new problems. The eschatological orientation of life that emerges through them does not come automatically. And at times it does not come in any other way than in the murmuring deep noise out of which neither words nor silence have yet arisen. The ancestor Abraham teaches us that against this background the narrative of human calls, conflicts and decisions goes on, and out of this background the God of Abraham communicates with his posterity struggling to choose how to be a blessing for the land.