Steven Carr

Paul writes in Galatians 4

'5 Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.'

Could Paul have concieved of a city that was not made of stone?

Is the Jerusalem that is above, a spiritual city? Did Paul think of a spiritual thing (like the Jerusalem above) as being a material thing under the influence of the Holy Spirit?

As a side-note, how can Hagar 'stand' for Mount Sinai and correspond to a city of Jerusalem?

Surely Galatians 4 is little more than the ravings of a lunatic.

In all seriousness, these wild jumps and bizarre associations are symptomatic of psychosis.

For example, Paul quotes Genesis 21:10 'Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman's son'


In context, that was an exposure of an infant in an attempt to kill him, yet Paul thinks a command to attempt infanticide is something he can quote to show that he is right.

Surely no sane person can quote orders to kill as justification for their beliefs...?

andrewcriddle

I don't think it is quite accurate to regard the expulsion of a child and his mother as attempted infanticide.

(It obviously involved a real risk to the child and Abraham refused Sarah's command until God reassures him of Ishmael's future prospects. See Genesis 21:12-13) In the later narrative Ishmael and his mother run out of water and nearly die but God is true to his promise to Abraham and has them guided safely to a well.

Andrew Criddle

Steven Carr

Why does the fact that somebody finds Paul's quoted suggestion distasteful improve the situation?

Genesis 21 15 When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went off and sat down nearby, about a bowshot away, for she thought, "I cannot watch the boy die." And as she sat there nearby, she began to sob.

Why is this not attempted infanticide?

And why does God wait until he has seen Hagar suffering before telling her not to carry through with what Abraham told her to do?

andrewcriddle

I think you're misreading the text.

a/ Abraham reluctantly expels Hagar and Ishmael because he accepts God's assurance that Ishmael will survive and more or less prosper.

b/ Hagar runs out of water, presumably not deliberately or inevitably but because she gets lost in the wilderness. (If her expulsion was intended as a death sentence she wouldn't have been given supplies of food and water) With both mother and child facing death she abandons the child rather than watch it die knowing her turn is next.

c/ God as he has previously promised protects Ishmael and Hagar guiding them to a well.

Andrew Criddle

Steven Carr

Turning a woman and her child into the wilderness is not a death sentence, if you give them some food and water? Casting out of the community was a recognised form of capital punishment in the Bible, if I remember rightly.

Of course, God had not promised Ishmael and Hagar anything, and waited until Hagar had suffered awfully before intervening.

I would be curious to know whether Paul thought of the Jerusalem above us in Galatians 4 as a spiritual Jerusalem.

andrewcriddle

Being 'cut off from the people' or extirpation, probably is a threat of death by divine action without human intervention
IMHO neither the Jerusalem above nor the present Jerusalem is primarily intended to be a physical material city. (The word 'city' is not in the Greek text) The present Jerusalem represents the religious system of the majority Judaism of Paul's day centred around the Torah, the Jerusalem temple and its sacrifices. The Jerusalem above is the new order of things brought in by Christ based on Grace not Law which Paul expects will replace the present religious system.

(On Galatians 4:24-25 there is a textual problem. The best external evidence is probably for '.....One is from mount Sinai bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. Now Sinai is a Mountain in Arabia. She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.' However this is very hard to make sense out of.

Some have suggested that the original was '.....One is from mount Sinai bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. She corresponds to the present Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.' but very early a marginal gloss 'Now Sinai is a mountain in Arabia' crept into the text. It was then corrected in most later manuscripts into the claim that Hagar represents Mount Sinai.)

Andrew Criddle

Anat

For the sake of picking nits, the final expulsion of Hagar happened after Isaac's birth, so Ishmael must have been in his early teens. Not that it would make sending him and his mother out with insufficient supplies OK.

Notsri

Ishmael probably would've been close to if not yet 15 when he and his mother were expelled, certainly not less than 14. He was circumcised when he was 13 and Abraham was 99 (Gen 17:25), and if we assume the expulsion took place shortly after Isaac's birth, Ishmael would then have been 14 as Abraham was now 100 (Gen 21:5).

As Andrew has already pointed out, what the narrative depicts is Abraham's reluctant manumission of his slave-wife and son. "The matter was exceedingly bad in Abraham's eyes because of his son...Abraham started early in the morning, he took some bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, placing them upon her shoulder, together with her child and sent her away" (Gen 21:11, 14). Abraham does not intend to kill them.

Incidentally, on the face of it, there's nothing historically implausible about the act as, according to some perhaps relevant legislation, it was legal (indicating it was known to occur), and would ultimately have effected Sarah's desire of excluding Ishmael from the inheritance (Gen 21:10). The Lipit-Ishtar Lawcode (ca. 19th c BCE), sec. 25, legislates: "If a man married a wife and she bore him children and those children are living, and a slave also bore children for her master but the father granted freedom to the slave and her children, the children of the slave shall not divide the estate with the children of their former master" (from Pritchard's Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd ed., p. 160). (On the other hand, legislation from certain of the Nuzu tablets apparently forbids the act, though it nevertheless attests to the custom.)

Regards,
Notsri

Chili

Isn't that exactly what happened at Calvary where the son of the slave woman called Jesus the Jew was crucified to set the son of man free [under the name of Bar-abbas]? Remember here that Jesus had two identities of which one had the be killed to set the other free, and this freedom gained was the New Jerusalem obtained . . . which was, after all, the city of god whence Mary came.

Paul was no lunatic.