The woman who named God : Abraham's dilemma and the birth of three faiths

416 Pages·2008·2.22 MB·English

by  Charlotte Gordon

T H E
WOM A N
W HO
NA M E D
G OD
These are uncorrected advance proofs bound for your reviewing
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T H E
W O M A N
W H O
N A M E D
G O D
ABRAHAM’S DILEMMA AND
THE BIRTH OF THREE FAITHS
CHARLOTTE GORDON
Little, Brown and Company
new york boston london
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Copyright © 2009 by Charlotte Gordon
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in
any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com
First Edition: July 2009
Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of
Hachette Book Group, Inc.
[Permissions TK]
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gordon, Charlotte.
The woman who named God : Abraham’s dilemma and the birth of
three faiths / Charlotte Gordon. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-316-11474-5
1. Bible. O.T. Genesis — Criticism, Narrative. 2. Narration in the Bible.
3. Abraham (Biblical patriarch) 4. Sarah (Biblical matriarch) 5. Hagar
(Biblical fi gure) I. Title.
BS1235.52.G67 2009
222'.110922 — dc22 2009010539
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
RRD-IN
Printed in the United States of America
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For Paul
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“I am half-inclined to think we are all ghosts. … It is not only what we
have inherited from our fathers and mothers that exists again in us,
but all sorts of dead ideas and all kinds of old dead beliefs and things
of that kind. . . . Whenever I take up a newspaper and read it, I fancy I
see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the
world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands.”
–Ibsen, Ghosts
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Contents
Introduction 00
1 Beginnings 00
2 Lekh Lekha 00
3 Hebrews 00
4 Sacrifi ces 00
5 Beautiful Woman 00
6 Rape in the Palace 00
7 War 00
8 Dinner with Jesus 00
9 Silences 00
10 Trembling before God 00
11 Covenant of the Parts 00
12 Sarai’s Proposition 00
13 Do with Her as You Will 00
14 Hagar and the Wilderness 00
15 The Well 00
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Contents
16 A Second Concubine 00
17 Naming God 00
18 Ishmael 00
19 El Shaddai 00
20 Sarah and God 00
21 God the Father 00
22 Circumcision 00
23 The Debate 00
24 Gerar and a Cave 00
25 Incest 00
26 Laughter 00
27 Exile 00
28 Mount Moriah 00
29 The Beloved Son 00
30 The Death of Sarah 00
31 Burial and Mission 00
32 Coming Home 00
33 Hinneni 00
Acknowledgments 00
Some Defi nitions 00
Notes 00
Bibliography 00
Index 00
x
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