Chasting Sarah

One of my favorite bloggers is Luke Ford. Mainly I admire his honesty and originality. Maybe there's also a part of me that thrives on being shocked. Last week he discussed and linked to Hillel Halkin (someone else whose work I admire) and his discussion/suggestion that Sarah slept with Pharaoh and Avimelekh. Actually that's a gross understatement; he actually believes that she'd been sleeping around. So Avimelekh's and Pharaoh's "punishment" was gonorrhea. In line with this theory, Avimelekh fathered Isaac (midrashim point to this suspicion) and so Abraham was tempted to kill Isaac. Hence the aqedah.



This gets points for shock value. Of course, the text outright contradicts much of this. However, here we turn to conspiracy theories and their appeal. Of course, they also win points for shock value. And that is part of their appeal. It even helps their credibility: If you don't buy it, it's probably because you can't handle the truth. But there's something else , which my stepfather one pointed out. These can never be tested because any evidence that contradicts it point to the strength of the conspiracy.



But anyway let's review where the text contradicts. First, it clearly says Avimelekh did not touch her. Second, he and his harem get a punishment where they are unable to give birth. As much as the midrashim are a stretch in saying it means all their orifices were closed, it actually fits better than the idea that it means gonorrhea. When he returns Sarah (because God told him to), Abraham prays and they recover. How did they recover? Is the "recovery" also a lie? The other contradictions are explicit, such as that it says Avimelekh didn't sleep with Sarah.



Also the Torah tells us Isaac was Abraham's. One also wonders if Abraham's initial decision to kill Isaac indicates hatred considering that in his society child sacrifice was commonplace.



I know; this is all part of the cover-up. I can't prove it's not. But I can question such a methodology. How does one know which evidence to take into account and which to ignore? When we select what to believe, we read what we want to. For example, rather than seeing Abraham as aafraid for his life, Halkin argues that since we know Abraham to be brave, this could not be true. What about the Documentary Hypothesis? Maybe this was a different Abraham? No. Now we're too frum to accept that. Why didn't Abraham have gonnorhea? How did Avimelekh recover? Or did he not and that's another lie?



But I will admit that when I looked at the story again I realized it is ambiguous regarding Pharaoh. It only says he took her for a wife and returned her. It does not say when he returned her, or what happened in between. So it's possible something happened. Yet all the mefarshim I checked (including Rashi, Rashbam, B'khor Shor, Ramban, Ibn Ezra, and Ralbag) take great pains to say of course nothing happened. Why? Perhaps a clue is in Luke Ford's pointing out how Artscroll discusses how the malakh prevented him, "thus assuring her chastity". Judgy, isn't it? Clearly she had no choice here. If something had happened, would she have been rendered unchaste? The implication is clear and probably in line with medieval sensibilities: A woman who is raped is something to be ashamed of. Sarah is a hero to us, a paragon of virtue. So she could not have been raped.

It may even be possible to suggest that this is precisely the rationale for the ambiguity in the Bible. If something did happen with Pharaoh, even though she is blameless, Sarah would have been lessened in the eyes of the Biblical generations. But really we should not be ashamed of her if that happened. We should be open to this reading.