ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Shi'i beliefs in the Bible Lecture 3: The Family of Abraham (as): A Social, Economic, Political and Religious Model Definitions and Goals. The study to follow is based on the story of the family of Abraham (as) as described in the Biblical passage of Genesis 12-22. It is an uncritical contemplation of the Massoretic text of the Genesis story in the Bible as it stands in the Hebrew.

The question I pose is not how the original narrator understood the matter of the family. Rather, I pose the question of how a historically significant text, one attached to several great religious traditions over more than a thousand years, can be understood in the light of the family values of one of those traditions. This purpose would be gainsaid by appealing to historical criticism, since it is the text as it stands, rather than its sources, which is of relevance to the questions posed.

Systematic investigation can be applied within those parameters, and that is the purpose of the following essay. After presenting the problem, the methodology will be simply to approach the texts using the word family to see what narrations and actions impinge on its use in the text of Genesis. To that extent analysis cannot differ from one observer to another. I have divided this into two parts. The first is a general overview of the use of the word family in the whole body of the Hebrew Bible.

The second is a more specific investigation of each passage in the story of Abraham in which the basic social elements of the family are prominent. I shall go beyond this, however, to point out similarities and parallels with Islamic values. From a scholarly point of view such parallels are either fortuitous, or merely reflect the fact that Islam shares to some extent a common geographical and cultural ethos with the Genesis record.

The family is the central subject of the two positive commands in the Decalogue (Exodus 20:1-17). The Sabbath commandment limits the authority of the parents on children, on workers, and on domestic animals. The following commandment requires children to honour their parents. These two commands, according to the Decalogue, comprise the whole positive duty of humankind. The importance of the family is thus not only central but vital.