Exegetical Paper - Introduction to New Testament - Spring 2021

 

The Allegory of Hagar and Sarah

21 Tell me, you who desire to be subject to the law, will you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by an enslaved woman and the other by a free woman. 23 One, the child of the enslaved woman, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child of the free woman, was born through the promise. 24 Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia[a] and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written,

“Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children,

    burst into song and shout, you who endure no birth pangs,

for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous

    than the children of the one who is married.”

28 Now you,[b] my brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, like Isaac. 29 But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. 30 But what does the scripture say? “Drive out the enslaved woman and her child, for the child of the enslaved woman will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.” 31 So then, brothers and sisters, we are children, not of an enslaved woman but of the free woman.

This text from Paul’s letter to the Galatians has been used repeatedly in order to justify some of the worst behaviors that humans engage in as a society, behaviors such as slavery, racism, sexism, anti-semitism and a whole host of other “isms”. It has also been used to stir up anti-semitic and anti-muslim sentiments amongst various Chrisitan groups, and even in its more progressive readings, still serves as a text used for the purpose of divisiveness and separation. It is not difficult to see how this occurs when one reads the text and realizes that it is written in oppositional phrases. In it we see the “slave woman” vs. the “free woman”, the “flesh” vs. “the promise”, two mountains that represent oppositional factions in the time period, the “childless woman” vs “the woman who gives birth”, the “desolate woman” vs the “married woman”, “children of the promise” vs. “children of the flesh” (NRSV), it’s no wonder that this text has been used in the ways that it has. In “traditional readings” it has often been used to justify the vilification of people who are deemed the descendants of Hagar - often Jewish or Muslim people, and also by those who like to read the text “literally” African Americans who were enslaved and their offspring. More progressive readings, including womanist readings attempt to redeem the text by invoking Hagar as a role model for the resilience of women of color, which is indeed an admirable and necessary reading of this text. 

Interpreting this text in ways that have the two women deadlocked in continual conflict, does have the effect of pitting women of color (Hagar) against white women (Sarah). While it is a good thing to engage in this kind of discourse, and be honest about the ways that white women’s feminism often misses the mark in being inclusive,  I think that ultimately the oppositional nature of the text and these kinds of readings in general serve to divide women who might otherwise be able to engage is allyship. I often feel that textual lenses that divide oppressed/marginalized groups into the “more oppressed” and “less oppressed” can be used in ways that support socially dominant groups, and in particular white male patriarchy benefits the most from dividing women against one another. It is always important to remember, that the original story in Genesis, as well as the allegorical text in Galatians were both written by men. Women were not writing their own stories during this time period and so both texts arise from male dominance and patriarchy.  I do think that there is another possible reading of this text, and that while I do not intend to rescue Paul from the problematic way he wrote this, that might be helpful, and serve to form a more unified front amongst women readers than an oppositional one, and so that will be my goal in this paper. Additionally, it is impossible to examine the text from Galatians without also referring back to the story from Genesis, however all attempts will be made to stick as closely to the Galatians text as possible. 

It is important to understand whom it is Paul is talking to in this text, and the social conditions under which it was written, because contrary to popular opinion, Paul was not writing this letter to modern people, he was writing it to a specific group of Gentiles, in a specific social location, and the law in question was that of requirements for circumcision (Oxford Study Bible). The setting for this passage is that there are a group of people in Galatia who had convinced certain people(including Peter) to cut off table fellowship for Gentiles who did not follow Jewish laws and customs regarding circumcision. Paul has already reminded Peter at this point that he also no longer follows these laws. In this pericope, Sarah and Hagar were also being used allegorically, and so attempting to say anything about real women, or even individuals or groups of people in any specificity outside of those it was originally written for is fraught with problems. There is also a high likelihood that the text that we are reading went through more than a few iterations of midrash, even before more modern translations and interpretations clouded the situation further. I think that the very first criticism that I would make of this text is that it is just so masculine and patriarchal to use women as allegorical characters in extremely problematic ways, and that Paul was being a typically sexist male of his time by drawing upon and using Hagar and Sarah in this way. 

Wilda Gafney, whose work I often draw upon actually posted an excerpt from a sermon on facebook recently where she said the following: “A sermon snippet: The gender-based hierarchies of the cultural habitus of the text endure as though they were the words of life and not the rough setting of the jewel of the gospel”. That term habitus is the real clue here, if we are to understand it as defined by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu “habitus refers to “a subjective but not individual system of internalized structures, schemes of perception, conception, and action common to all members of the same group or class” (p.86), and These “internalized structures” and “schemes of perception” structure the subject’s (shared) world-view and their “apperception” of the world in which they suppose they exist (p.86)” (Bordieu, 1977). 

It is telling to think that when we look at these texts that we don’t even think about or perceive how the very use of women in these stories, both in the original text, and in the allegorical text is permeated with the male dominated habitus, and how we ourselves are also so steeped in patriarchy, that we may miss the jewel that might be in the text, hidden in plain sight, while we focus on the drama played out by  “two women”. Continuing to read the text without acknowledging the deep, under the current habitus that presents as the “normal and natural way” that stories and texts written by men are taken literally, and even allegorically, even by feminists like Phyllis Triblel, who in “Texts of Terror” states  the following: “ Abraham obeys Sarah and God to become the active agent in the suffering of Hagar (cf. 16:3, 6). The husband expells his slave wife and the father his son, although, in reporting these events, the narrator rator omits the relational ties”. Thus setting up the story of animosity between Hagar and Sarah, and making Abraham somehow seem powerless to stop what is happening. And we all just kind of say “Yeah! Sarah is such a bitch, she’s the oppressor!” Even though we all know that women in that time period didn’t have that much power. Additionally we know  that relations between house servants/slaves/concubines were not exactly the same as relationships that have occured in new world chattel slavery, which was actually much more brutal and dehumanizing than the systems in place in biblical times (Andersen, 2003), but we still like to equate the two in our minds because that system is also part of our habitus.

So that being said, what might the real jewel be in this text that our habitus prevents us from excavating? What might a feminist reading this text who wanted to ignore the ways that the text once again uses women as literary devices for cattiness, impetousness, jealousy, and territorialism over men and money, and look for what in this text might prove unifying. This is not an attempt to “rescue the text” and especially not an attempt to rescue Paul, but perhaps a way to uncover where the Holy Spirit makes its appearance, with a message of good news. If we are to believe that the text might still hold relevance for us today, then we should understand that the nugget of truth that is in it, may not have much to do with whatever Paul was arguing, as we aren’t really arguing amongst ourselves about following laws of circumcision as Christians anymore (this has become a medical/secular battle now for most of us). I think that the key is to be found in verses 30 and 31:

 “ 30 But what does the scripture say? “Drive out the enslaved woman and her child, for the child of the enslaved woman will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.” 31 So then, brothers and sisters, we are children, not of an enslaved woman but of the free woman”.

 And we can ask ourselves, what is it that Paul wants to drive out in earnest? If we resist the temptation to create oppositional “others” who need to be punished, diven out, we might be able to get to the heart of it. Because as Bridgette Kahl states :” In a devastating way, this has made the allegory of Hagar and Sarah a most versatile blueprint not only for Christian Anti-Judaism, but also for supersessionist interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures, and of Paul himself”. And that “Judaism was not the only “other”stigmatized and outmaneuvered by Paul’s fierce rejection of “Hagar”...”(Kahl 2014), it has also been used to justify the othering (often with violence) of one group of Christians by another, Muslim peoples, peasants, and all kinds of other rebellious groups. Spending some time reflecting upon this, I think we can unearth some core wisdom here, in that the thing that we should be driving out may not be an “other” but may be within ourselves, and something we most urgently need to drive out. It may be that what we really need to eliminate is that part of ourselves, that habitus that is buried deeply in our core, that we were inculcated with as very small children, that seems the normal and natural way of the world. We can read this text, as women and reject the desire to pit any woman against another woman, and perhaps even resist the desire to  pit ourselves against men. If we can expunge ourselves of that desire to create others, then we might actually arrive at the place where we are all one in Christ Jesus. 

References: 

Andersen, Nathan. "Slave Systems of the Old Testament and the American South: A Study in Contrasts." Studia Antiqua 3, no. 1 (2003). https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/studiaantiqua/vol3/iss1/6

Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice.

Kahl, Bridgette. (2014). Hagar’s Babylonian Captivity: A Roman Re-imagination of Galatians 4:21-31. 

Phyllis Trible. Texts of Terror:  Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives  (Overtures to Biblical Theology) (Kindle Locations 318-319). Kindle Edition.