1. 510 class 3--Lecture Notes
2. Carry over from last time
1. Experience of divinity—
1. 1.1—Ferdinand, led by spirit and music sees magic miranda and vice versa—the moment of awe and wonder; brave new world—Prospero’s reply—it s all based on the newness and innocence/ignorance—based on love
2. 2.2—Caliban’s experience of divinity—based on drug—and based on power
3. Abraham story—the false misleading test—demand for sacrifice—take away that which is given—the son; the girl—make it more precious
2. Go to Jacob story—report
1. Emphasize romance; father-daughter-son story; emphasize brother story—younger vs. older brother
3. Go to temptation theme—testing and learning throughout Tempest; the project of instruction—teachers and students; freedom and determinism
1. False clothes--idols; the banquet; the sleeping king; Miranda
2. Noah tempted and tested--NT: Jesus in wildnerness
3. Jacob tempted and tested--to give up; to give in--testing freedom; Cain; Lot?
4. Why the apple in the Garden? The great miltonic theme
3. Jacob Story
1. Relation of parts; double plots--mosaic composition--cf. Tempest--coup in coup in coup
1. Rachel and Leah--Like Sarah and Hagar--Jacob and Esau--Cain and Abel
1. The handmaiden as surrogate wife
2. Leah gets the last word
3. The preferred and unpreferred
4. Jacob getting comeuppance for his deception of brother--Laban's deception of him
1. His passiveness vs. determination
2. God's preference and condemantion
5. Laban's bedtrick--trickster tricked--Angelo
6. Transactions and trades around fertility--humans and beasts--sons as wealth; polygamy--women as property
7. What to make of the mandrake story--why did Rachel want them--Reben gives them to Leah
2. Rachel bears the last son--Joseph; last son is the preferred; as with Jacob the last son 30.25
1. The different conditions of conception casting aspersion on the later descendants--sex, fertility, wealth and power--Sarah and the Pharaoh; Rebekah and Abimelech
2. Mandrakes--compare to the lentil story with Esau--trades and transactions; covenants
3. Vision of brotherly and sisterly relationships
3. Jacob's longing--for Rachel, for homeland--like Ferdinand
4. Laban tries to cheat him by removing the speckled goats they agree will be Jacob's wages
5. Empahsis on the details--the shoots, the drinking [cf. The well] goats mating; peeled rods; --fertility contests
6. Mechanics of the sheep breeding are obscure...text corrupt? At any rate the emphasis is on sturdy and craft and on breeding
7. Selective breeding; the principles of agriculture; several different methods;
8. Jacob the resourceful, the tricky, the go-geter
9. 31--another version of the story--this time it's God who's providing for him and an angel in a dream giving the instruction
10. tenison with the father in law leading to separation--he has to convince Rachel and Leah to join him and abandon their father--competition between father and husband--all of this as family dynamics underlying economics
11. Jacob sneaks out on Laban--just as he snuck out on Esau--"hoodwinked"--slightly predictive of leaving Egypt
12. God tells Laban not to attack him
13. Jacob denies stealing household gods of --Rachel sits on them--mocking idols--and says she's having her period--HUMOR; tricking the Daddy--e.g. Jacob and Isaac
14. Jacob tells off Laban
15. Reconciliation between Jacob and Laban--like reconcilaition between Jacob and Esau; god and Noah; god and Adam; god and Cain--border and treaty
4. Angels of God meet Jacob
1. Jacob sends to Esau conciliatory message 20 years later. Fears his response; divides camp in 2
2. God is always there providing guidance; Jacob always prays for help
3. Strategy of propitiation of brother after wronging him--dividing flock; enumerating kinds
4. Sends wife across ford of Jabbock--the crossing of a river--then he goes back 32:25--pericope
5. Wrestled with a man all night
6. Man wrenches hip socket--wound at middle; like circumcision; sign of honor and suffering
7. Jacob's persistence; wont let him go without bless--cf. Jacob and Isaac and Esau and Laban--wants blessing
8. Great line: you have striven with beings human and divine and have prevailed--Name is changed to Israel
9. Seen a divine being face to face and yet been preserved--Sun rises up; he's limping
5. Reconciliation with Esau
1. Jacob's poiint of view--looking up
2. Esau's generosity; Jacob's generosity; just the oppoiste of struggle for peanuts--please accept present
3. Esau wants to travel together back to their homeland, Jacob bows out.
6. The story of Dinah--related to Caliban and Mirandah?
1. Another dirty trick; vicious revenge--More like the Mafia than the Holy family
2. Another irresistable Jewish woman--first rape then tenderness--like Jacob and Rachel a little--but way different
3. Schechem's conciliatory approach and hsi father Hamor's
4. Circumcision meant to distinguish breeding stock--they use it as trick to weaken their neighbors--who want peace. Warlike tribal traditions.
5. They kill the men and plunder the town--Jacob is upset with them. [Does their behavior reflect his? --Guile, concern with fertility; stealing?]
6. Also reflects on Simeon and Levi
7. Ethnic cleansing; mocking idols
7. Back to Bethel where he had his first vision of God--important tie of story
1. Rachel bears Benjamin and dies--pathos--Jacob reunites with his father who also dies