I concluded PART III with a question: But what IF they do not mean what people have thought them to mean? WHAT IF…
What if there were another way of reading them? What if this alternative reading turned out, after close analysis, to be how they were written to be read and understood? What if the narratives of Genesis were constructed to seem to mean one thing on the surface, AND, with close attention and analysis to reveal to us a second level of meaning?
What if the Hebrew Bible (think: Old Testament for some) understood, as did Girard, as did Greek and Roman wisdom figures, that sibling rivalry is the primal form of violence? And what if, rather than endorsing it, Scripture set out to undermine it, subvert it, challenge it and even replace it with another, quite different way of understanding our relationship with God and with the Other? What if Genesis is a more profound, multi-levelled, transformative text than we have understood it to be? What if it turned out to be God’s way of saying to us what he said to Cain: that violence in a sacred cause is not holy but an act of desecration? What if God were saying, loud and clear and passionately: Not in My Name?
Now for many, and for years for me also, such suggestion sounds absurd, even contradictory, perhaps, even blasphemous. Jews, Christians and Muslims have been reading these stories for centuries. Is it possible, much less conceivable, that they do not mean what they have always been taken to mean? Yet…perhaps this is not as absurd as it sounds. Until now each tradition has been reading them from its own perspective – which on one level makes perfect sense.
Yet…the world has changed. The twenty-first century is, to put it mildly, radically different than even seventy-years ago. We are being summoned to a new reading. This new reading is asking us, is inviting us, is challenging us to seek to understand not only our own perspective but the perspectives of the Others. Indeed the world has changed.
Relationships are now, truly global. Our destinies are forever intertwined as never before in history. The world is different. Christianity and Islam no longer rule over empires. The Jews have their own State and are no longer living the myth of the Wandering Jew. For the first time in history we can, if we so choose, relate to one another as dignified equals.
‘NOW’ is a time for us to listen, in the attentive silence of the search troubled soul, to hear in the Word of God for all time, the Word of God for our time. Genesis is inviting us to read her narratives in a radically different light. We are invited to see the narratives as signposts in our time, in our world. These signposts are to be read by us as brothers without rivalries; to be read together as searchers and seekers, not as siblings rooted primarily in differences.
This invitation, this challenge requires us to search together, to seek together, to pay attention, to reflect and to learn together. In my searching and seeking I have uncovered an alternative view of the Genesis narratives – the sibling rivalry narratives. Gentle Reader, I invite you to search and seek and be open to finding the alternatives that transform sibling rivalry into sibling community. I invite you to begin your search with the story of Abraham and his two sons. And I pray you are silent enough to hear the whispers of the Spirit who will guide you in your search.