When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she began to sob [Genesis 21:15-16, NRSV]. Some members of my Carolina Arbors Bible study classes and I have a standing chuckle. Perhaps you share it. It’s this: The story of Yahweh’s walk with Adam and Eve, with Abraham and Sarah, with Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, not to mention the later stories surrounding Saul and David, et al., are told “warts and all.” The OT doesn’t soft-pedal.…
"Dispatches to the Front" -- a collection of theological meditations by Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., M.Div.