Two Worlds Juxtaposed, Part 1

Having just completed the lecture portion of a class on Gen 12-23, it was not without irony that I stepped off the plane into a practically patriarchal environment, much closer to the biblical world than our own. One situation was particularly poignant. A national lady we met was not able to have children, which for her was a devastating blow to her already reduced status. Adding insult to injury, her husband took another wife, feeling the need to establish his family lest his status be jeopardized. Wife #2 conceived immediately, further displacing the first and filling the home with conflict. To the Western mind unfamiliar with such heartaches, stories like this add an incredible dimension to the stories of Sarah/Hagar, Hannah, or Elizabeth. These are not mere stories to them: they are living these stories.