An Audacious Request: Abraham's Dialogue with God in Genesis 18

Genesis 18.17–33, Abraham's dialogue with Yahweh over the number of righteous people in Sodom, is a difficulty in exegesis and interpretation. At a literary level, there has been no agreement on the nature of Abraham's language. It is common to interpret Abraham as bargaining with God in s...

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書目詳細資料
主要作者: Bridge, Edward J. (Author)
格式: 電子 Article
語言:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
出版: 2016
In: Journal for the study of the Old Testament
Year: 2016, 卷: 40, 發布: 3, Pages: 281-296
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Bibel. Genesis 18,17-33 / 有禮貌
Further subjects:B Abraham
B request
B Sodom
B Politeness
B 錘球
B Genesis 18.17–33
在線閱讀: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Parallel Edition:Non-electronic
實物特徵
總結:Genesis 18.17–33, Abraham's dialogue with Yahweh over the number of righteous people in Sodom, is a difficulty in exegesis and interpretation. At a literary level, there has been no agreement on the nature of Abraham's language. It is common to interpret Abraham as bargaining with God in similar fashion to haggling over the price of goods in a bazaar; but proposals have been made that Abraham uses legal-like language, ‘socratic dialogue’ and midrash. There is also no agreement on the purpose of Abraham's dialogue. An analysis of Gen. 18.17–33 using politeness theory proposes that Abraham, as portrayed in the narrative, wants to reduce the number of people as the basis for God's forgiveness of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is an audacious request and so considerable forms of polite language are used to assist the request. However, it is argued that this request is not Abraham's real intention. Rather, his intention is to have Lot spared from Yahweh's destruction of the cities. This request is ‘off-record’, the politest strategy that could be used.
ISSN:1476-6728
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal for the study of the Old Testament
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/0309089216637143