Monotheletism in the Torah

Within the Abraham-Lot cycle in Genesis, is an incident where the King of "Elam" gathers a flock of Mesopotamians and conquers Canaan. The Elam-led coalition gets as far as Sodom, whose King Bera cries for help. Abraham's family provides that help. After the victory, some "Melkizedeq (מלכי־צדק)" blesses Abraham; and then the king Bera shows up again.

I mooted a theory another year, at another blog and during another life, that this whole story is nativist (Samaritan?) propaganda against shahs Cyrus and Cambyses. These two styled themselves "king of Anshan", proposed Elamite as a national language, and conquered down to Egypt - reimposing the Jews upon a population who weren't all that keen to see them again. Since Herodotus we've been conditioned to see the Persian regime as Achaemenid, self-consciously Persian, and communicating in Aramaic. For Herodotus, writing about a series of Achaemenid attacks against his people, that's forgivable: it's what Darius wanted us to see. But Darius was a revolution and a reconquest. As Darius started over; when we look at Cyrus and Cambyses, we must start over.

Back to storyworld Neil Godfrey is relating Robert Cargill, that "Melkizedeq" is none other than Bera. Abraham was blessed by a Sodomite, and tithed to him. The scribes then changed everything, clumsily.

I'll be first to admit of much clumsiness in the Genesis. The sacrifice of Isaac is a horrid case in point: two men go up the mount of YHWH, one comes down, and in between the other one is saved (but is he?). And then there's that sordid tale of Sodom itself which is a clear plagiary of the Gibeah episode "later" under the Judges.

Against Sodom at the end, YHWH will call for fire from YHWH in heaven. I've always thought that this should read "from El" or maybe just from heaven, which a monotheist cannot allow; or that Lot had called for such celestial intercession, which goes against the negative portrayal of Lot elsewhere. Later the Christians (and Muslims) would argue for Lot's righteousness; and later still their Monothelete faction would use just that verse before the Muslims' amir when arguing against Maximus' party.

And then there's the question of how long the Torah trundled along the centuries with every sect adding its own little tweaks and harmonisations: the Samaritan Pentateuch, for instance, and several "rewritten" Bibles at Qumran.

Certainly if this part of the Genesis story started out as a nativist tract (or poem?), Sodom won't have been the enemy. But Yehud Medinata never did escape Satrap Ebernari in Achaemenid Persia. Only in Hasmonaean times did it attain autonomy. The Temple was loyal to Persia and could not have approved too much nativism against (coded) "Elam"; and under the Greeks later on, the Jews had become honestly nostalgic for their Persian messiahs. There was also a Prophetic proverb about the wickedness of Sodom, especially its inhospitality to guests - which, for returning Jews, they could re-apply to the Samaritans. To the extent the Samaritans approved Sodom, the Jews must disapprove. Eventually the Samaritans had to accept the Jewish version of the story too.

But anyway, so much for the textual integrity of Genesis 550-150 BC. What does the Melkizedeq story mean for Catholics today?

That Melkizedeq is both king and priest hints as a merger of the two functions. This is the confusion of state and church which, in the late Roman Empire, Dyotheletism arose to combat - first at Nicaea and then, more effectively, at Chalcedon.

Later, that Psalm we number #110 will cite the Melkizedeq account to support a priest-king in that psalmist's own day. This is, perhaps, early Hasmonaean. In Christianity the tractate for the Hebrews - certainly after the failure of their Temple - argues for "Christ" to be taken as priestly. After all, Genesis hardly speaks of Melkizedeq's royal מלכ; the anecdote is of his moral and priestly צדק.

Still, the whole Abraham section of Genesis remains a mess. It were better for Catholics that the whole story made more sense. Cargill might not have the answer, but we can all pray that the Torah's sources for this cycle be found.