(Cont.)
Then, thirteen years later, at Abram’s 99th birthday celebration, Yahweh showed up and said to him: “I am Almighty God; walk in my ways, and be perfect.” And Abram said: “We have met. You promised me a son – the Anointed One – and he arrived by way of my second wife: he is now a young adult. Shall I fetch him? I think he’s out in the field . . .”
And God said: “Not one child: many. No longer shall your name be Abram, with just two syllables, but now everyone shall call you Abraham, with three syllables, for that means ‘father of many nations,’ which is what I shall make of you. You think that this single child Ishmael is the end of my promise: but no, I intend to make multitudes rise from your loins, and you shall be the sire of kings. I am currently drawing up a contract that shall be everlasting, between you and me. And it shall be legally binding even for your seed: including those who have not yet been born. But this is what you will need to do, to uphold your end of the deal: You, and every man child among you, must be circumcised: you shall cut off the flesh of your foreskin – that shall be a token of our agreement. And any uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people: he has broken my covenant. Tell that to Moses, when you see him: I will slay his firstborn personally, if he is not circumcised, just the way that I slew Pharaoh’s firstborn in Egypt. I don’t play favorites, when it comes to blood rites. I want all the foreskins: every last one.”
Abram nodded as if he understood. And God continued, saying:
“As for Sarah your wife, her name shall now be Sarai. I’m changing everybody’s names, from this point forward. Hagar gave me the new name Elroy, and I realized that I should do that for everyone else: rechristen them all, and capture everybody’s foreskin.”
Abram nodded again. And God continued, saying:
“And I will bless her, your wife, and give you a child through her womb: yes, I swear it: I shall bless her – I have figured out a way – and she shall become a mother of nations, just like you: kings shall proceed out from her loins.”
Then Abram fell on his face and laughed, and said within his heart: “Shall a son be born unto a man who is one hundred years old!? And shall Sarah, who has long been barren, conceive and bring forth new life!?” Then Abram said aloud to God: “O that Ishmael might be your priority: Why not first make him a king, as you promised; and then we can move onward to the mission of fathering all your additional multitudes? I say this with the utmost respect, of course.”
Then God said, “Sarah your wife shall bear you a child indeed; and I shall christen the babe with a name of my choosing. Mark your calendar: On this day of next year, the babe shall be born. And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve patriarchs shall he beget, and I will make him the greatest nation.”
Then he left off talking with Abram, and Yahweh God went up from him.
Now, as soon as Yahweh was gone, Saint Paul the Apostle from the Epistle to the Galatians visited Abram, and he shouted: “Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing!” [5:2] But Abram turned, and said unto Paul, “Get thee behind me, Satan: for, laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men.” [Matt. 16:23, Mark 7:8] Then Paul yelled as he left: “Fine, do your circumcision. While you’re at it, go all the way and castrate yourself!” [Gal. 5:12]
Thus, Abram, on his ninety-ninth birthday, took a sharp stone, and cut off the flesh of his own foreskin. And that same day, he gathered all the men of his household, and all those who were in his employ, and every other male that he could find, and he sequestered them in a cave and circumcised them all as well. And he piled their foreskins before the feet of Yahweh God; and, as the ritual required, he touched each foreskin to the loins of the LORD.
§
Later, Yahweh appeared unto Abram in the plains outside the Trinity Site in New Mexico. Yahweh was with his two compeers, the god Jesus and the goddess Asherah; and they were all incognito, dressed as regular businesspeople, or office professionals of some sort; with Asherah additionally disguising her sex: for all three wore masculine garb.
Abram was sitting in his tent door in the heat of the day; and he lifted his eyes and looked, and, lo: three men stood before him. Once he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door; and he bowed himself to the ground and said: “Dear Sirs, if I might find favor in your sight, do not pass by without stopping at my tabernacle: I pray you, let my servants fix you a drink, and bathe you; then rest yourselves in the shade here, under this tree. I will fetch bread and cheese. Stay, and comfort your hearts. After that, you can pass on.”
And they bowed and replied: “So do, as you have said.”
Thus Abram hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said: “Quick! Tell the kitchen staff to get ready three measures of fine meal, so as to make cakes. For we have visitors.” Then Abram ran unto the herd, and selected a calf tender and good, and gave it unto his slaughterer, and the young man butchered it, and hasted to dress and season the meat. And Abram took butter, and milk, and the calf which he had prepared, and set the large banqueting tray before the businessmen. And he stood by them under the shade of the tree, while they dined.
Then they said unto Abram: “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said: “Behold, she is in the tent.”
And the man with the mustache said: “I will certainly return unto that woman, sometime this year; and, lo, your wife Sarah shall bear a child.”
Now Sarah heard this from within the tent’s entry flap, which was directly behind the man.
Recall that Abram was very old; and the alluring Sarah, who had never borne children to her husband, was now postmenopausal. Therefore, when she overheard the speech of the businessman, Sarah smiled incredulously and thought to herself: “This late in the game, am I finally to take pleasure, and go bounce on my old man’s lap, with him so elderly and decrepit! Far more sense would it make, if this mustachioed fellow here were to come to me in secret, for a steamy love affair, like the characters do in the movies.” And Sarah laughed within her heart.
Then Yahweh perked up and said unto Abram: “Why did Sarah laugh just now?”
And Abram was confused; he still was trying to figure out how this man knew his wife by name. He answered: “I heard nothing, sir. Perhaps it was the livestock?”
Then Yahweh gestured firmly and replied: “Yes, in mockery, just now she said: ‘Shall I of a surety bear a child, despite the fact that my husband is a debilitated old fool?’ she cannot deny this.” And the mustachioed man stood up and spoke with force, so that his words could be heard with ease inside the tent: “Is any thing too hard for Yahweh? I repeat: sometime this year, I will return unto her; and Sarah shall conceive and bear a child.”
Then Sarah stepped out from the entryway of the tent and denied everything – for she was afraid of the businessman’s temper and his strange way of speech (Yahweh was masking his usual voice, as well, for the role that he was playing) – and she said: “I did not laugh.”
And the businessman said: “Nay; but you did laugh.”
And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom: and Abram hurried after, to wait upon them, as the three strode forth.
Before Abram had caught up to them, Yahweh said to his partners: “Shall I hide from Abram the thing that we plan to do?”
But by that time, Abram appeared alongside the group. So Yahweh made a sign to his compeers, and the two men turned away, and went toward Sodom, while he himself stopped and turned to face Abram, who remained with him there.
Now Yahweh said: “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great. I have heard that the corruption of these places is unmitigated. The creditor class has financialized absolutely everything: all public goods are strapped with a rent charge, necessities have been made into toll bottlenecks, and everyone is now ensnared in some type of debt servitude. That is what the rumors tell me. I will now go down, and see for myself whether these places are truly as inhumane as has been reported.”
And Yahweh turned to go meet up with his partners; but Abram clutched the hem of his garment, and stood yet before him. Then Abram drew near to Yahweh, and said:
“Will you also destroy the righteous with the wicked? What if you go down there and find yet fifty creditors behaving with humanity: will you also destroy and not spare the city for the fifty decent creditors that are therein? Far be it from you, to act after this manner, and to slay the righteous along with the wicked. Treat not the righteous the same as the wicked: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do well?”
And Yahweh answered and said: “Words like ‘humane’ and ‘decent’ do not pair with the term ‘creditor’: the phrase ‘righteous creditor’ is an oxymoron. But, to humor you, yes, if I find in Sodom fifty compassionate souls within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”
Then Abram interjected again, saying: “Behold now, I am too lowly to speak to a man of your stature: I feel that to bother you with even one question is presumptuous, but let me venture yet another. What if you find that just five of our requisite fifty righteous are lacking: will you destroy all the city for lack of five?”
And Yehweh said: “If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.”
Then Abram spoke yet again, and said: “Now, what if you find only forty?”
And he said: “I will not do it for forty’s sake.”
Then Abram said unto Yahweh: “O Sir, don’t be angry, but I have one last question. What if you find only thirty?”
And he said: “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.”
And Abram said: “Twenty?”
“Not for twenty,” he said.
Then Abram said: “OK, now I’m serious about this being my final question. What if you find only ten?”
Yahweh answered: “What are you getting at? Are you worried about your nephew Lot, who is one of the biggest creditors in the land? Let me assure you, I will not harm your kinsman unless the man truly deserves it. I’m not unfair in my judgments. I’m not hotheaded like a volcano, always ready to blow my top. If there are ten creditors to be found there, who are genuinely decent, compassionate, and humane, then I will spare the entire place for their sake. Now, get your paws off me; I am leaving.”
And Yahweh went his way, as soon as he had stopped communing with Abram. And Abram returned unto his tent.
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