... saying that Abraham was willing to have his wife sleep with men of power in order to protect himself. Unbelievable.
John wrote:
Here , you are clearly denying Gen 20:11. Why, I do not know. Perhaps in your zeal to criticize, you have forgotten to read the text.
Following is the passage in the NASV (because you mentioned it as your Bible version):
Genesis 20:10-13
(10) And Abimelech said to Abraham, "What have you encountered, that you have done this thing?"
(11) Abraham said, "Because I thought, surely there is no fear of God in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife.
(12) "Besides, she actually is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife;
(13) and it came about, when God caused me to wander from my father's house, that I said to her, 'This is the kindness which you will show to me: everywhere we go, say of me, "He is my brother."'"
This text says nothing about Abraham being willing to have his wife sleep with men of power in order to protect himself. What this text shows is Abraham willing to refer to his wife as his sister, and he have his wife refer to him as her brother, to prevent someone from rashly murdering him in order to make his beautiful wife available to them. Surely you understand the difference between being willing to call your wife your sister, and being willing for men to sleep with your wife. It may even be that the Lord God Himself told him to do this. Imagine if the Lord himself forsaw that they would kill Abraham, and rather than simply blocking that action, saw this way to get Abraham into Abimelech's household in order to establish Abraham as a prophet to him. There is so much that might have happened here that is not recorded. It may even be that Abraham told Abimelech not to take Sarah. He even may have said, "if you take her, you and your household will be barren." The text does not say, so I'm not going to press this idea further. I only ask you to consider that this viewpoint is as viable as your viewpoint that Abraham was willing for others to sleep with his wife. The difference between us is that you surmise evil motives from the silence of Scripture, while I am reluctant to do so.
The bottomline is that nowhere in the text do you see Abraham saying to the king or anyone else, "here, this is my sister, sleep with her all you like, just don't kill me." When the king took Sarah into his household, I have no doubt that Abraham gave himself to serious heart wrenching prayer and asked the Lord to intervene in the matter. The Lord did intervene, by prohibiting anyone from having relations with Sarah, and by closing up the wombs of Abimelech's household. Do you really think God does such things for a man who is willing for others to sleep with his wife just because he does not want to be murdered? I can assure you that Abraham was no such coward.
In the end of this event, Abraham became a light and prophet to Abimelech, to bring him and those under him to greater righteousness and the ways of the Lord. A man who would be willing for others to sleep with his wife in order to protect himself simply does not bear this kind of fruit.
Peace be with you.
David Miller.
---------- "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org
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