A visual Journey into the Bible The Book of Genesis

A Visual Journey into the Bible Page: 6
camels were used and tents were their homes. The nomads sometimes split: Abraham
and Lot started off together but go their own ways by common agreement when the
land could not sustain them all. Towns were avoided. The nomad groups looked at
cities with suspicion. Towns were places of corruption and of sin. The destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah is a tale of the evil that was considered to be in the towns.
Nowhere have the writers or the ancient storytellers of the Book of Genesis sympathy
for the towns. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob avoided them and lived in tents, though they
lived near them and sometimes near the most mentioned large town of Shechem. In
every story of the patriarchs do we read how often the groups changed camps. They
were nervous, eager to travel. They were fertile however, grew rapidly in numbers
and they were prosperous. They were indeed nomads that went from well to well and
for which the cattle that accompanied them was small and sturdy. Genesis tells often
of sheep and goats and occasionally of camels, not of oxen or of horses. The cities
waged war on each other but Abraham, his children and grandchildren only
intervened to save one of theirs or their honour. Abraham fought the kings that
conquered Sodom because they had taken prisoner his nephew and companion Lot
and Jacob’s sons killed the people of Shechem because their sister Dinah had been
raped. The nomads travelled and when they settled they were always the foreigners in
the land that needed to ask permission to stay. There are numerous tales of pacts and
treaties with the people of the land, increasingly also treaties among the groups
themselves. Melchizedek blessed Abraham, Abimelech and Phicol swore a covenant
with Abraham, Isaac made an alliance with Abimelech; Jacob concluded a treaty with
Laban.
Yahweh was the God of the nomad tribes. Other Gods existed, but repeatedly Yahweh
asked to throw away the other Gods. And in each generation, more than once,
Yahweh promised Canaan to the true descendants of Terah. The most remarkable
episode is the wrestling of Jacob with Yahweh. Jacob does not let go all through the
night and only stops when a blessing is promised. Yahweh gives Jacob the name
Israel, for Jacob has shown his strength to God and to men and he has prevailed. Israel
will henceforth be the eternal struggling nation, struggling within, struggling with
God and with other nations. But the covenant stays valid, God promised it; he protects
Israel and makes it prevail.
The artists that took to themes of the Book of Genesis looked at the characters of the
Bible. But more than in the figures they were interested in the land. They made
pictures of paradise and of the countries that the nomads travelled in. Few painters
had actually been to Canaan. Particularly in the seventeenth century, the high century
of Old Testament pictures, Canaan was a stronghold of the Muslims and practically
inaccessible for Westerners. The painters hence used their imagination. Sometimes a
few details gave an impression of orientalism. For northern painters Italy and its
romantic landscapes were enough to create the sense of distance that separated the
Northern Countries from the Bible. Also the pastoral narratives of the wandering
shepherds reached the imagination of the artists. Hence numerous paintings showed
scenes of groups of cattle, sheep and goats that accompanied the Bible stories. But
next to the arcadian, lovely surroundings also particular tales were taken up. The
tower of Babel and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah thus were often used
themes, but these were still views of landscapes in which the people were small. This
was the general tenure that artists found in the Bible. The story of Genesis was a story
of towering figures, of figures that lived thousands of years before our era, at the
Copyright ©: René Dewil Date: October, 24 2000