Joel Baden and Tisa Wenger discuss the construction of stories, Christian supersessionism, and the legacy of Christian storytelling in relation to Genesis 22:1-18. The text is appointed for the Easter Vigil, in Year C of the Revised Common Lectionary.
The Big Story (Easter Vigil)
Voiceover Voice:
How might we, as storytellers, be aware of that gap between intention and effect?
Helena Martin:
Welcome to our final Holy Week episode (at least, this year) of Chapter, Verse, and Season: a lectionary podcast from Yale Bible Study. I’m Helena Martin.
In this episode, we’re getting ready for Easter Vigil. So, we welcome back Joel Baden, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Director of the Center for Continuing Education, and Tisa Wenger, Associate Professor of American Religious History.
They’re discussing Genesis 22:1-18, read for you by student Eric Holland. The texts are appointed for Easter Vigil in Year C.
Eric Holland:
Genesis 22:1-18.
After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.
When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”
The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.”
Joel Baden:
The readings for Easter cover quite a range of texts, all of which combine to tell “the big story.” The big story ranging from the promise to Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22, all the way into the New Testament and to Jesus. And really what we’re given here is this sweep of Israel’s history, from its origins in Abraham to—at least in the lectionary sense—its culmination, in Jesus.
Tisa Wenger:
It’s presented from a Christian perspective as the Christian salvation story, right? And the Christian story is the fulfillment of the Hebrew Bible.
Joel Baden:
Right. Which, for lectionary readings, makes plenty of sense.
Tisa Wenger:
Makes total sense.
Joel Baden:
It gives us an opportunity to think, not about any one of these particular episodes individually in this case, but to think about the way that the big story is constructed. And what it means to run a story that really comes in in two halves. And it comes in two halves in our readings also, right? We have Old Testament readings, and we have New Testament readings. And we’ve made one through-story out of the whole thing, which the New Testament itself does, and Christianity obviously has done forever.
But here we are, two scholars, one of whom happens not to be Christian, with an opportunity to think about: what does it mean to take the story of the Hebrew Bible and say, “We’re just going to keep going.” Right? That story doesn’t end where the community responsible for its creation and transmission and continual study and adherence today, where that community says, “That’s the end of the story.” And the Christian story keeps going.
Tisa Wenger:
Right. Well, and of course, that Christian supersessionism towards Jews and Judaism has been a continual problem, a longstanding problem. Particularly since, although Christians see themselves as kind of succeeding the story of the Israelites and there’s a new story now, but in fact the Jews never stop having their own history and their own being.
Joel Baden:
Right. It branched, rather than simply morphed from one thing into another.
I wonder whether there are good non-biblical, non-stories-of-Jews-and-Christians counterparts to that taking up of a story that already exists and continuing it in a new direction that the original storytellers, as it were, are not part of?
Tisa Wenger:
Yeah, I think we can see that kind of supersessionism going on all over the place, and certainly in American history with indigenous people.
I mean, I think of the American southwest and Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon. Anybody who’s been to those places—which are now national parks, national landmarks—the ancient cliff dwellings of the ancestral Pueblo people, are claimed by the National Park Service.
And the narrative gets placed on them really starting from the late 19th century as: This is part of American history. This is part of what makes America great, parallel to the beautiful landscapes of places like Yellowstone and Yosemite, right? This is a grand American history to counter and compete with the grand histories and the grand cathedrals of Europe. Even as the indigenous people of those places were being actively expelled from those places. Right?
So it’s like their histories and their landmarks and the landscapes that they had created are claimed and appropriated by the United States to create a sense of history for itself.
Joel Baden:
Right. When we look at those places in those peoples, and we tell those stories—when we tell those stories, those stories continue only up until we contemporary white Americans show up on the scene. And then their story just blends right into our narrative as if they did, too.
Tisa Wenger:
As if they did, too. When, in fact, we know that those people continue to exist and are actively reclaiming those stories for themselves.
Joel Baden:
Yeah and we can certainly see— Actually, I think a parallel, even within the Jewish and Christian tradition, again in a modern American sense: Mormonism does the same thing to Protestant Christianity as Christianity did to Judaism. And that is to say, “Yes. Yes, your story is terrific. And guess what happened next?”
Tisa Wenger:
Absolutely. That’s another example of a kind of supersessionism. And the Latter Day Saints, Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon said, you know, “Here’s a new scripture that we’ve just rediscovered that completes the salvation history. And we’re restoring the age of the prophets as well as Jesus.” I mean, it’s a kind of restoration that claims to fulfill all of it.
Joel Baden:
Which is, of course, precisely what the New Testament does to the Hebrew Bible. I think in both cases, though, at least today—when you talked about national parks and looking back on native sites and native peoples, and in the case of Mormonism also looking back on the New Testament and on the Hebrew Bible—in neither case, I don’t think, are we talking about supersessionism in a diabolical sense. It has been that. But I think the two examples we’ve used are examples where supersessionism is not intended… it’s not intended to erase. Right. It does that, but it’s a much— I think often when we use the word supersessionist, it has a very negative tone to it. But it need not in these cases be a case of negative intentionality.
Tisa Wenger:
Right. Well, it may be in some cases. But I think for most of the people who embrace those narratives aren’t conscious of that at all and see it as a positive story for themselves, not as a story of erasing somebody else.
Joel Baden:
Sure. I guess I’m trying to get at the difference between intention and effect, right. That is, with all of the best intentions, in our national parks we can put up all the signs that celebrate the heritage of the native peoples as part of our national story, and our founding myth, and our Western expansion, all of those things. And we can celebrate those parts of past with the intent of holding them up and saying, “Look at this wonderful thing.” But there’s a really negative effect to that, even well-intentioned, supersessionism.
Tisa Wenger:
Yeah, absolutely.
Joel Baden:
So as we think about this lectionary reading, which is on perhaps the most important day of the calendar and perhaps the most thorough telling of the story in the cycle: How might we as storytellers be aware of that gap between intention and effect? Is there a way to tell these stories in a way that maybe is more thoughtful, responsible…?
Tisa Wenger:
I think one way to do it is to put yourself into the story in an unexpected role. Or to think about who’s not directly and overtly assigned a role in the story. Who’s absent and erased from the story?
Joel Baden:
We talked earlier about branching rather than simply succeeding. And I think that, as we look back on the stories, it’s good to find all of the places where the story has branched. And not just the obvious ones: Mormonism branches off from Protestantism, or Christianity branches off from Judaism. But Israelites branch off from Canaan, right?
Where—if we’re talking about places, we can put ourselves in the story in an unexpected way—how about just not on the same line that we find ourselves on now? What if we went back to one of those branches and said, “What happened to those people in the story?”
Tisa Wenger:
Right. And what does this story look like from their perspective?
Joel Baden:
Yeah, I think that may be the responsible way, or at least a responsible way, to maintain the story but maintain also our awareness that not everybody in the story is on the same place that we are.
Tisa Wenger:
That’s right.
Helena Martin:
Thanks for listening to Chapter, Verse, and Season. Follow us on Twitter @BibleYale, or visit our website: YaleBibleStudy.org.
Chapter, Verse, and Season is produced by Joel Baden, Kelly Morrissey, and me, Helena Martin. Aidan Stoddart is our editorial and production assistant, and our theme music is by Calvin Linderman. Thanks, as always, to the Center for Continuing Education at Yale Divinity School. And thank you, Professors Baden and Wenger, for thinking through “the big story” with us today.
We’ll be back tomorrow with another conversation from Chapter, Verse, and Season.
Book of the Bible:
Genesis
Subjects:
Genesis
Guests
Text
New Revised Standard Version Bible
Copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Credits
Host and Executive Producer: Helena Martin
Production Manager: Kelly Morrissey
Creator and Managing Editor: Joel Baden
Assistant Producer: Aidan Stoddart
Music: Calvin Linderman
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