Heroes? Villains?

When I first walked into Biblical Literature at the beginning of the semester I was extremely excited to revisit the Bible stories and characters of my Sunday school past. I was looking forward to brushing up on my knowledge and possibly learning more about my biblical heroes and heroines. However, as I started to actually read the stories rather than listen to the watered down Spark notes version of them told by my preachers and Sunday school teachers, I realized these “heroes” were anything but heroic. The only comfort I took was the fact that I wasn’t the only one who noticed this. While reading “The Good Book” David Plotz was also discouraged to learn his heroes were more then lacking.
What was most upsetting to me while reading the Bible was the corruption of four major biblical figures, Job, Rebekah, Sarah and Jacob. Before physically reading their stories I saw these characters as people to idolize and aspire to emulate, yet as I read their stories I became ashamed of them.
In Sunday school Job was seen as the model for patience and virtue, he was the person who we all aspired to be. Take away the distracting felt boards and dissect the actually story and the true character of Job is revealed. Not only is he completely impatient but also he questions God’s will continuously. Yet his fall from my good graces was only a mere stumble compared to others.
The images of Rebekah and Sarah were also shattered as I continued on through their stories. These were presumably great biblical heroines of the Bible yet they turned out to be jealous-angry-women who intentionally hurt others, including their own children. Rebekah helps her son Jacob trick his brother Esau, also her son, out of his birthright for a bowl of soup. Plotz calls her the “original lady Macbeth” with a “cunning icy hear.” Plotz also has quit a bit to say about the faithful-honorable Sarah as well. Sarah, who miraculously gives birth to Abraham’s son Isaac, is just as tricky and manipulative. Her impossible-divinely-assisted-pregnancy overshadows her vindictive character so much so that no one even notices that she has no “conscience.” Only when I read this story for myself without the preachers ever-present-hovering did I realize what a “bitch” Sarah was. Once she gives birth to her son she “vindictively, and savagely, has her servant Hagar and Hagar’s son, Ishmael exiled into the desert.” What a jealous female! Is she that insecure? Yet even learning the shocking true characteristics of these women was forgivable and less then life altering.
The most shocking transformation of a single biblical character, which prompted this entire paper, was the story of Esau. Frye calls Esau a “quasi-tragic” figure that many people have come to gain a feeling of sympathy for, which is exactly how I began to see him. In The Slave, Jacob makes multiple references to Esau in a negative light, yet the more I read of Esau in the Bible the less I understood where this hatred was stemming from. Plotz says the only flaw Esau has is that he’s dumb and thinks with his stomach. Is this any reason to be hated by hundreds? It was then that I recalled a verse from the Bible that I had heard multiple times without truly acknowledging its meaning. Romans 9:13 “Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.” I never fully understood why God hated Esau, I merely assumed Esau had done some horrendous crime that caused God to hate him, that Esau deserved this hatred. I naively trusted my elders and didn’t once think to learn why. Imagine the shock I received when I read Esau was a poor victim of his brother’s greed.
This was horribly unjust! Esau was given a bad reputation by doing nothing wrong. I decided to dive deeper into Romans 9:13 and truly understand where this hate was coming from. I did some research and found and interesting term call selective salvation. Selective salvation suggests that God has certain people he chooses to ascend into heaven and certain people he essentially dooms to hell and this verse is commonly used as an example of this belief. Romans 9:11 also mentions how even those unborn “neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth” Does this mean no mater what we do there are those who will never receive God’s forgiveness and was this the fate the befell Esau? I refused to believe this and surrender him to the flames of hell, so I continued my quest to clear his bad reputation.
My frantic searching eventually led me to Malachi Ch1. Vs2 “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? Saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob and I hated Esau.” This was looking pretty grim for Esau, being hated in the Bible twice is pretty strong. It was then I turned the page and found a spark of hope. What I finally found, what I hope, is Esau’s “salvation.” The benefit I believe in reading a study Bible is the multiple footnotes found amongst the scripture. This tiny footnote cleared the fog and lifted the veil. It said:
“Love and hate are not matters of emotion; they are matters of the Father’s will. In the papyri (ancient and secular writings dating to biblical time), the expressions ‘loved’ and ‘hated’ are used of a man who could afford to adopt only one of two twin-orphaned boys. He was said to have ‘loved’ the one he adopted and ‘hated’ the one he did not adopt. Here all that is signified is that Jacob was blessed and Esau was not”
This tiny footnote was able to clear up a lifetime of confusion. God didn’t hate Esau; he just didn’t choose him to be the father of his nation. By understanding the context I was able to understand everything. This footnote then sent me back to Genesis to reread the story of Esau returning to the reunion between Jacob and Esau. This reunion doesn’t end with a cursed Esau but an Esau departing with Jacob and God’s blessing as a wealthy and peaceful man.
What I learned from my struggle with Esau’s reputation was to never blindly believe what I am told, no matter who tells me. That just because hundreds of people assume something, it is up to me to make my own decision and unless we read the Bible for ourselves we can never clearly see the truth.