¹ Johnson, Timothy Luke, “Imagining the World Scripture Imagines” in Jones, L. Gregory and Buckley, James (eds.), Theology and Scriptural Imagination, Oxford: Blackwell, 1998, p.4Google Scholar

² Ibid, p.4

³ Ibid, p.10

⁴ Avis, Paul, God and the Creative Imagination, New York/London: Routledge, 1999, p.3Google Scholar

⁵ Ibid, p.3

⁶ Paul's image is that of tending of olive trees but it fits within a wider imagery of the OT which uses images drawn from husbandry relating to viticulture. Isaiah 5, for instance, likens the people to a vine which fails to produce good fruit. God is the vinedresser who has spent much energy on his work only to have it fail. Paul imagines Israel as a tree whose fruits will be enhanced by having a new stock integrated into it. In his image divine purpose is achieved as opposed to the vineyard imagery which is generally negative; he does, however, consider the original tree to be resistant to having new stock attached to it. For an exploration of Pauline uses in Galatians see, Trible, Phyllis and Russell, Letty (eds.) Hagar, Sarah and Their Children. Jewish, Christian and Muslim Perspectives, Louisville: WJK, 2006, chapter 3Google Scholar.

⁷ Avis, Creative Imagination, p.65. Here he uses the work of biblical scholar J.L. Gibson as a resource for an exploration of the biblical foundations for Christian theology.

⁸ Pauline exegesis set the tone for most later Christian interpretation of Abraham and Hagar. For a study of Abraham as a ‘man of faith’ see Kuschel, Karl-Joseph, Abraham. A Symbol of Hope for Jews, Christians and Muslims, London: SCM Press, 1995Google Scholar. Hagar is presented by Paul as base, a view followed by early Christian tradition, but at odds with more modern interpretation which focuses on an empathetic link between Hagar and the experience of Afro-American slaves. Cf. here Trible and Russell (eds.) Hagar, 129, which treats of the imagery of Sarah as Church and Hagar as Synagogue. The same work treats a range of broad questions such as the function of partiality and exclusivity in the narrative (pp.24–25), as well as exploring the theme of God accompanying the slave (chapter 7). It can be noted that 16^th century exegetes held a nuanced attitude to Hagar, in which Hagar did sin but equally her plight is extreme. See here John Thompson “Hagar, Victim and Villain” in CBQ 59/2.

⁹ This is the line picked up by Berquist, J., Controlling Corporeality. The Body and the Household in Ancient Israel, New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2002.Google Scholar The argument here is that the whole nation of Israel can be traced back to it roots in human procreation (p.53). See here Trible and Russell (eds.) Hagar, pp.34–5, which highlights the way in which barrenness operates as a social threat.

¹⁰ ‘Actant’ is the term used in semiotics to denote characters as stereotypes whose function is to fulfil the plot. See Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film, Ithaca; New York: Cornell University Press, 1980, pp.113–4, where Chatman quotes Todorov's definition of the two categories of characterisation, plot-centred and character-centred. The later approach involves a psychological aspect which Chatman develops in discussing how characters in sophisticated narratives remain open constructs, just as people in the real world remain mysterious, even to those who know them well.

¹¹ See here Mieke Bal, Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987, pp.107–8, where Bal debates whether characters exist beyond the narrative or are semiotically defined. She asks whether a character as fully-formed exists from the start of the narrative or only by the end.

¹² Kathryn Tanner, “Scripture as Popular Text” in Jones and Buckley (eds.), Scriptural Imagination, p.126.

¹³ Ibid, p.124

¹⁴ Sternberg, Meir, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative. Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985Google Scholar. Chapter 10 of this work moves from narrative ambiguities to how these create sophisticated character patterns in Hebrew Bible narratives.

¹⁵ Ibid, p.247

¹⁶ Ibid, p.349ff

¹⁷ Cf. Ibid, p.348, where Sternberg argues that just as readers begin to generalise characters, OT narratives overturn their suppositions.

¹⁸ For a radical critique of the view that Abraham is a one-dimensional character see Davies, Philip, Whose Bible is it Anyway, Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 1995Google Scholar, chapter 5. Davies points out how often Abraham takes independent action to secure his interests and how this acts as a challenge to the divine promises which still await fulfilment. See also Mills, Mary, Biblical Morality. Moral Perspectives in OT Narratives, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2001, chapter 2.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Abraham uses his human discretion, but is later shamed by Pharaoh's reproach of dishonesty, before which he stands silent; yet Abraham is still the victor in the narrative frame, becoming a wealthy man. See also McKinley, Judith, Reframing Her. Biblical Women in Postcolonial Focus, Sheffield: Phoenix Press, 2004, p.8Google Scholar, where she addresses the issue of irony in that such prosperity can come from a barren woman.

²⁰ Cf. Good, Edwin, Irony in the Old Testament, London: SPCK, 1965, p.95Google Scholar. Good notes the irony in Abraham's remark that he asked Sarah to describe him as brother ‘out of loyalty’. But the loyalty in question is really that of a wife to a husband. See also William Whedbee, The Bible and the Comic Vision, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp.68–9, where he suggests that the entire section Genesis 12–50 can be usefully read through the motif of ironic reversal. See also Sternberg, Poetics, pp.386–7.

²¹ Good, Irony, p.92

²² Robert Sacks, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Queenstown: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990, p.156, where Sacks reflects on the wordplay concerning laughter words in Genesis 20. He notes the derisive nature of Sarah's laughter; she is afraid that people will laugh at her.

²³ Ibid, p.155, where Sacks discusses the close sound resemblance of the Hebrew words for playing and laughter.

²⁴ Whedbee, Comic Vision, entitles the whole section of Genesis ‘domestic comedy’ since it involves household narratives with a happy-enough ending.

²⁵ Ibid, pp.68–9

²⁶ Ibid, p.76

²⁷ Ibid, p.84. See also Trible and Russell (eds.) Hagar, p.53 which notes the seriousness of the situation in which a father poses a threat to each of his two sons.

²⁸ Cf Good, Irony, p.92, where he suggests that the birth of Ishmael and its vexation for Sarah provide ironic suspense to the promise of descendants. Hagar's arrogance in Genesis 16 lends irony to Ishmael's stance and expulsion in Genesis 21.

²⁹ See here Sawyer, Deborah, God, Gender and the Bible, New York/London: Routledge, 2002, p.54Google Scholar, where she points out that Abraham is a ‘victim’ too, since he is childless through divine act. When Sarah conceives through divine intervention God usurps Abraham's male role.

³⁰ This is clearly a topic of major theological interest for Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Jewish re-usage of the suffering theme embedded in this story has been wide-ranging. For an examination of new lines of interpretation see Feldman, Yael, “Isaac or Oedipus? Jewish Tradition and the Israeli Aqedah” in Exum, Cheryl and Moore, Stephen (eds.), Biblical Studies, Cultural Studies, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998, pp.159–189Google Scholar. In particular Feldman discusses the tension between heroic images of Isaac and that of Isaac as victim, in the context of Israel's wars in the Middle East in the 20^th century.

³¹ Cf. Whedbee, Comic Vision, pp.82–4. He contrasts Hagar's concerns over Ishmael as a tragic event with the greater horror of Abraham's assault on Isaac.

³² At the end of the destruction of Sodom narrative there are no men to be husbands and Lot's line is threatened so his daughters seduce him into incest. This may be a smear on the genealogy of a people neighbouring on Israel, but it also serves a practical purpose in that what matters above all is the survival of the clan. This scene fits Berquist's definition of sexual excess.

³³ Cf. Claus Westermann, Genesis 12–36. A Commentary, translated John Scullion, London: SPCK, 1986, pp.238–9. He argues that what happens to Abraham, Sarah and Hagar not only draws all three into one relationship but also embraces their relationship with God. Sarah's demand is based on God's negative action to her; in patriarchal anthropology a woman has life only as a member of a family where she is fertile for her husband. Trible and Russell, Hagar, p.39, discusses the manner in which Sarah and Hagar are caught in a patriarchal bind.

³⁴ See White, Hugh, Narration and Discourse in the Book of Genesis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991, p.112Google Scholar. He comments that Abraham is called to surrender his future to the Divine Word and is thus called into primary inter-subjective relation to that Word. This speech event marks the start of a new story in Genesis.

³⁵ Cf. page 3 above, where Sternberg's treatment of old age was noted. See also Good, Irony, 97. Here he argues that Abraham's story is a tightly structured whole, carrying its double theme of a promised heir and a promised land by the nuancing of promise with ironic actuality.

³⁶ See Berquist, Corporeality, p.67 where there is a discussion of the ideas of Mary Douglas, especially her commentary on the way in which household purity is linked to the idea of woman as a vessel filled with male fluid. This fluid should be that of male members of the household and not that of men from another household.

³⁷ Cf. Rulon-Miller, Nina, “Hagar. A Woman with an Attitude” in Davies, Philip and Clines, David (eds.), The World of Genesis. Persons, Places and Perspectives, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998, p.75Google Scholar. Here she points out that Hagar has experience of seven typical bible-scenes as defined by Robert Alter – annunciation/encounter at a well/epiphany in a field/initiatory trial/danger in the desert/testimony of ‘dying’ hero. Hagar's versions of these types are all related in the narrative to her flight/expulsion to the wilderness.

³⁸ See note 8 for bibliographical details. Berquist offers a complete study of sociological issues with regard to images and perspectives on embodiment which are present in the OT. See also Brett, Mark, Genesis. Procreation and the Politics of Identity, New York/London: Routledge, 2000Google Scholar. This volume addresses the setting of Genesis 12–24 with regard to its exclusivist and inclusivist tendencies, as a message for a community living within the Achmaenid Empire of the 5^th century BCE.

³⁹ Ibid, p.53

⁴⁰ Ibid, p.57

⁴¹ Ibid, pp.64–5

⁴² Ibid, p.78

⁴³ The biblical phrase here is ‘building up’, which offers a wordplay on the two terms, ‘son’ and ‘build’ which have a similar shape. The stress is on the advantage of surrogacy for Sarah herself, rather than for a son for his own sake. Trible, Phyllis, Texts of Terror, London: SCM Press, 2002, p.7Google Scholar, stresses the fact that Hagar is a silent instrument. Alter, Robert, Genesis, New York: Norton Publishing, 1996, p.67Google Scholar, reflects on the verbal message of the play on son and build.

⁴⁴ Fewell, Donna and Gunn, David, Gender, Power and Promise. The Subjects of the Bible's First Story, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993, p.45Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Ibid, p.45

⁴⁶ Ibid, p.46

⁴⁷ Ibid, p.47

⁴⁸ Ibid, pp.48–9

⁴⁹ McKinley, Reframing, pp.126–7

⁵⁰ Gellman, Jerome, Abraham! Abraham! Kierkegaard and the Hasidim on the Binding of Isaac, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003, p.94Google Scholar. Gellman makes a study of the possible inter-connections between the commentary of moral philosophy and that of theology with regard to this story of father and son.

⁵¹ Trible, Phyllis, “The Sacrifice of Sarah” in Bach, Alice (ed.), Women in the Hebrew Bible. A Reader, New York/London: Routledge, 1999, p.286Google Scholar. Whereas Isaac lives on in the narrative, Sarah is now written out.

⁵² Ibid, pp.28–7, where Trible argues that midrashim on Isaac allow him to be a willing victim but Sarah is given no chance to rectify her last acrimonious attack on Ishmael and dies without opportunity for atonement. Her death at a distance from the main story events underlines this sense of separation.

⁵³ Gellman, Abraham, p.97. Gellman points out that Jewish rabbinic commentary kept a place for both Abraham and Sarah, who have parallel roles: Abraham as Law and Sarah as Spirit.

⁵⁴ Ibid, p.103

⁵⁵ Cf. McKinley, Reframing, p.130, notes how the narrator sets Sarah and Hagar in binary opposition to each other. See here Trible and Russell (eds.) Hagar, p.59, p.116.

⁵⁶ ‘look’ is what the text actually says. Cf. Westermann, Genesis, p.240. Hagar's attitude underlines the importance of the theme of motherhood for social status and identity, since it reverses the legal hierarchy of mistress and servant.

⁵⁷ McKinley, Reframing, p.122

⁵⁸ Rulon-Miller, Hagar, p.60

⁵⁹ Trible, Terror, p.5

⁶⁰ McKinley, Reframing, p.120, picks up on the theme of slavery and ethnic origin. Gender studies show how women carry in their bodies the collective honour of a nation. See here Trible and Russell (eds.) Hagar, p.44, pp.118–9, where the issue of slavery is discussed: also p.120 with regard to the application of the women's hostility to current Israeli-Palestinian relations.

⁶¹ Rulon-Miller, Hagar, pp.62–3. Egypt is the place of slavery for Israel but also a refuge. This can be seen from the story of Jacob/Joseph and in later prophetic references in the book of Jeremiah, where chapter 43 discusses the possible aid to be found for Judah against Mesopotamian powers.

⁶² Rulon-Miller, Hagar, p.76

⁶³ Trible, Terror, p.13. Hagar calls the Name, which is a power not given to anyone else in the OT. Trible and Russell (eds.) Hagar, p.40, deals with the issue of the kindly nurture which the wilderness provides for Hagar.

⁶⁴ Trible, Terror, p.9, p.16. Trible points out that Hagar flees from Sarah just as Israel will flee from Egypt. Sarah harasses her slave woman just as the Pharaoh will do to the Hebrews, so Hagar prefigures Israel while Sarah prefigures Egypt, here. See also, Trible and Russell (eds.) Hagar, p.47.

⁶⁵ Ibid, p.13

⁶⁶ Ibid, p.23

⁶⁷ This is a reference to the twin approaches to Hagar, as noted by John Thompson. For bibliographical detail of his paper see note 7 above.

⁶⁸ It is worth noting here how the same story can be appropriated by different groups. If Isaac is the victim and heir in Jewish and Christian interpretation, this role is taken by Ishmael in Islam. Rather than this drawing religious groups together it can underscore their rivalry. Kuschel, Abraham, chapter 6, wants to use the Abraham story to unite rather than to divide, religions and societies. For a Muslim woman's reading of the story see Trible and Russell (eds.) Hagar, chapter 6.

⁶⁹ This is to pick up Bal's use of Freudian theory in her study, Lethal Love, where she suggests that patriarchal misogyny is linked with Freudian views on fear/desire. Biblical narratives which deal with the female body and its capacity for motherhood scare readers by publicly dealing with sexual issues. In this setting motherhood explores human identity under the sign of difference. See also McKinley, Reframing, pp.9–10: male fears are projected onto Sarah.

⁷⁰ Cf. Bal, Lethal Love, p.33 – woman is to be feared, as noted by Fokkelman on the subject of David and the death of Uriah. The concepts of death, woman, wall, battle, shame and folly are interwoven in that particular narrative.

⁷¹ McKinley, Reframing, p.10. She discusses Abraham's fantasy concerning other men having sex with his wife, which adds to the view that woman is now discovered to be a serious risk. Also Fewell and Gunn, Gender, p.42. Sarah's beauty is her guilt. She will cause her husband harm by this quality.

⁷² Cf. Ibid, p.42. Abraham has base fears but the foreigners are in fact ‘men of honour’ so the illusory nature of the threat is revealed. Could the foreigners be more honourable human beings than the local hero? See also McKinley, Reframing, p.9. If Sarah is a focus she is also a pawn.

⁷³ McKinley, Reframing, p.11. This scene can be read as a prototype of Israel in Egypt. Sarah as mother of Israel had experienced all that her ‘sons’ would later suffer in the way of exploitation.

⁷⁴ Fewell and Gunn, Gender, p.43

⁷⁵ White, Narration, p.185

⁷⁶ McKinley, Reframing, pp.9–10

⁷⁷ White, Narrative, p.174

⁷⁸ Westermann, Genesis, p.163

⁷⁸ It has been pointed out that the two stories in which Abraham gives his wife away can be viewed as examples of a generic folk tale motif: the ‘ancestress in danger’. This theme heightens attention on the part of readers who are exploring their ancestral roots. For a discussion of this motif see, for instance, David Clines, “The Ancestor in Danger: But not the Same Danger” in What Does Eve Do to Help? And Other Readerly Questions in the OT, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991. See also references to this motif as part of the wider OT deception theme in Williams, Michael, Deception in Genesis. An Investigation into the Morality of a Unique Biblical Phenomenon, New York: Peter Lang, 2001.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Fewell and Gunn, Gender, p.43. The comment is also made that Sarah has the silence of a survivor and thus God recognises her need.

⁸¹ White, Narration, p.185 notes that Sarah is used for the purposes of the men in the story and is not permitted to come to speech in this scene. She plays the part of an innocent victim.

⁸² Fewell and Gunn, Gender, p.44

⁸³ Paul Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, translated Kathleen Blamey, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. This work addresses issues of moral identity and links this with Ricoeur's interests in narrative form and its suitability as a tool for discussion of wider philosophical and religious matters.

⁸⁴ Ibid, pp.158–9

⁸⁵ Ibid, p.147. Also John Cottingham, The Spiritual Dimension. Religion, Philosophy and Human Value, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, p.84. He argues that emotional states such as anger and pity can have a vital role in directing our attention to life experience and shaping how we view things.

⁸⁶ Cf. Ibid, p.194. Also Cottingham, Spiritual Dimension, p.42. He argues that the phrase ‘they will be done’ does not represent basement before an alien will but the expression of objective moral realities to which we must conform to prosper. See also Trible and Russell, Hagar, p.185, for a treatment of conflict issues in the narrative.

⁸⁷ On the place of subjective reflection on what constitutes suitable action see Cottingham, Spiritual Dimension, p.43. Here he states that in making decisions we have to live in a world which ‘I’ did not create and which contains other free beings who are entitled to respect.

⁸⁸ See here the essays on Levinas in Eskenazi, Tamara, Phillips, Gary and Jobling, David (eds.), Levinas and Biblical Studies, Atlanta: Scholars/SBL, 2003Google Scholar. In her introduction (p.15) Eskenazi discusses the way in which Levinas' method emerges from his use of Hebrew Bible language for ‘in face of’– that is, before the person of another.

⁸⁹ Ibid, p.9

⁹⁰ Cf. Cottingham, Spiritual Dimension, p.164. Moral maturity cannot be achieved as a ‘private event’ but only through systematic accommodation between a person's own development and that of others whose lives are intertwined with the individual profile. See also the conclusions of Trible and Russell (eds.) Hagar, pp.187–192, where three moral topics regarding inter-relationship are identified: motherhood constrained by patriarchy, promise constrained by competition, hospitality constrained by difference.

⁹¹ Cf. Ricoeur, Oneself, p.320. An agent is one who exerts power over another by treating them as the mere object of the agent's activity. This occurs because of disesteem of the self on the part of the agent and a hatred of the other. The suffering involved in this power relationship exceeds that of physical pain and is experienced as a loss of will to exist. Mostly, such sufferings are inflicted on human beings by human beings.

⁹² The Hebrew word ‘ebed’ allows for a play on the terms servant and son since it can mean both of these relations – a possibility not found in English. Abraham is God's son insofar as he is loyal to divine service and thus made the founder of a chosen people which in Exodus becomes God's family.

⁹³ See the study by Carol Delaney, Abraham on Trial. The Social Legacy of a Biblical Myth, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1998. This work explores the issue of child sacrifice as a strand in European culture. Delaney argues that this owes a great deal to the OT material in Genesis 22 and the impact of this in Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Humanist perspectives. She ends by noting that such a myth can endorse the act of war and its slaughter of children, in which the voice of the mother is absent, except for weeping. See also Susan Shapiro, “‘And God Created Woman’ Reading the Bible Otherwise” in Eskenazi et al (eds.), Levinas, pp.159–195, 162, where she emphasises the way in which selfhood does not reside in becoming more of the ‘same’; rather a person becomes ethical by responding to the needs of the Other before considering personal desire for survival. In Genesis 22 the challenge to Abraham can be seen in this way since Isaac is his father's hope for survival through his descendants.

⁹⁴ Cf. Cottingham, Spiritual Dimension, pp.171–2. He reflects on the link between inner and outer lives and the confrontation with the mystery of existence. We are called to join with others in exploring that mystery and so to be integrated into living structures that can sustain our lives.