My Two-and-a-half Minute Talk: Abram's Biggest Mistake

[Captain_Curmudgeon]

My last two-and-a-half minute talk was a disaster. I had the bright idea of relying on inspiration and two and half minutes before the talk, it hadn't struck. So, I opened my Bible at random and found some passage from Paul which was lumping fornicators with adulterers. Paul was against all of them. Well, I was nine or so and I could lump them together as well because I didn't know what fornicators were.

I got up there and did the best I could. Some of my audience were in the dark for the same reason I was and the rest of them were embarrassed. Huge silence while I was going back to my seat, I can tell you.

If I ever have to do that again (pretty slim chance), I'm going to be prepared. Here's something I wrote just now. I'm going to see if I can get it tattooed on my arm.

Only a White Lie

I'm working on a novel about Isaac and in it, Abram tells Isaac that pretending to be Sarai's brother in Egypt was the biggest mistake of his life. Well, superficially it looks like a good thing. He isn't murdered, the Pharaoh gives him "sheep and he asses and menservants and maidservants and she asses and camels" and gold and silver.

This isn't generosity. Pharaoh "entreated Abram well for her sake." He thought he was buying a wife or a concubine. And "Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold."

Isn't that good?

Well, Abram is very rich in cattle. Too rich. He has so many cattle that there isn't enough browse for all of them "and there was a strife between the herdsmen of Abram's cattle and the herdsmen of Lot's cattle."

Too much of a good thing is too much.

So someone is going to have to leave the range and it's Lot. If he hadn't had to leave, he would have stayed with Abram and lived a long and prosperous life as a cattle baron, as Abram did. Instead he goes to live in Sodom. Soon, he has the misfortune to be taken captive, although Abram rescues him. But he winds up offering his virgin daughters to an unruly crowd, having his wife turn into a pillar of salt, and then having sex with those same daughters.

And that's because he had to go live in Sodom and leave the range because there were too many cattle because Pharaoh gave so many to Abram because he thought he was buying Sarai because he thought she was Abram's sister.

One of those maidservants was Hagar and because she was an Egyptian and a servant, Sarai thought she could bear Abram's child without Abram becoming emotionally attached to the mother. He didn't but Sarai thought he might and blamed him for the whole idea. He had to try to referee a long struggle between Sarai and Hagar and then had to send Hagar and Ishmael, whom he loved dearly ("Oh, that Ishmael might live!"), to what seemed certain death.

Murdering his only son and its mother because Sarai couldn't get along with Hagar because Hagar had a child because Sarai thought Abram wouldn't be attached because she was Egyptian because Pharaoh had given her to Abram because he thought he was buying Sarai because he thought she was Abram's sister.

One lie that seems to have only a good effect but which turns out to lead both Lot and Abram to heinous crimes, crimes against their own children.