Abraham & Sarah, Half-Sibling-Spouses? (Genesis 20)
The Bible is not a 21 st century American novel. It is an ancient text dating back some 2,000 years. For it’s time, it was sometimes progressive. But often it merely reflected the human culture from which it was created. That said, the literariness of the text is rather remarkable. Genesis 20 is a great example. Up to now, we’ve been assuming the newly named Sarah and Abraham are a childless married couple that God chose to birth a nation. In Genesis 11, we’re given Abraham’s genealogy. Sarah is mentioned (as Sarai), but simply as the wife of Abraham who happens to be childless. She’s also mentioned as the daughter-in-law of Terah, Abraham’s father (11:31). In the next chapter, Genesis 12, we read the story of Abraham and Sarah entering Egypt where Abraham states Sarah is his sister, not his wife, to save his hide. He fears that because Sarah is so beautiful, desirous Egyptian men will get rid of him to take Sarah for themselves. Sarah declared as merely sister, a desirous Egypt