The OT and the Ancient Near East (ANE)

Genesis 16 relays the story of the "help" that Sarai and Abram felt they needed to give to God in order for the Abrahamic Covenant to be fulfilled in their lives. Abram and Sarai had not had any children and it seemed as though Sarai was getting impatient about having children so she hands Hagar, her maidservant, over to Abram for him to sleep with and hopefully concieve a child. This passage has always been a mystery to me. I could never fully understand why a wife would give her husband another woman to him in order to have an heir. The cultural significance of this practice come heavily into play in this passage of scripture. In the "Adoption of Shennima" it describes a situation where a wife or concubine would be given to Shennima if his wife, Gilimninu, does not bear children. An heir was of utmost importance in this culture as the family line could not continue without children...family was the "politics" of the time period. A whole civilization's way of live could end if no heir was born!
In the same story, but a different part of the story in Genesis 16, Sarai has now become pregnant and become jealous of Hagar and Ishmael. She does not want to be "bested" by her maidservant, so she goes to Abram and speaks of this to him. Abram places the fate of Hagar in the hands of Sarai and she mistreats Hagar. Hagar flees from the family and goes to the desert with Ishmael. I had always wondered why Ishmael "fell off the face of the planet" after this happened. I had the understanding that all children were heirs of their father, but those born to a concubine didn't have as much of a share. However, after reading in the "Laws of Lipit-Ishtar," the Sumerian laws (where Ur, Abram's homeland, was located)1 allowed for a man to free his slave woman and her children. The child born of the slave woman would have no rights in the estate of his father(Arnold, 108). The culture plays a role here that would be missed had I not studied it.
Finally the stark contrasts and similarities between the creation account of the Old Testament in Genesis 1-2 and the Akkadian account in Enuma Elish really suprised me. The splitting of Tiamat's corpse to create the two spheres of water and the dividing of the firmament on the second day is one of those similarities. Both split the firmament in order to create the sky and the waters. The manner in which the world was created as a whole is the most stark contrast. God spoke everything into being. There was no anger, no hurt, no selfish intent...it is about God's glory! The glory He alone deserves! In EE, Marduk creates humans from the blood of Tiamat's friend Kingu and the universe from Tiamat's corpse! Man is created for the sole purpose of freeing the gods from their work. I count it a privilege to see the different creation accounts and the fact that, in the case of EE, they are trying their best in order to answer the question of where we came from. However, this is MAN'S idea, it is not born from the mind/heart of the one, true God. This is evidenced by how the gods in EE react to their plight and their selfish and humanlike attitudes. There is really no separation between the gods and man other than their "powers" like superheroes. God is God...God spoke out of love and thus we were created....all to HIS GLORY! It's not about war or conquering, unless you are talking about the conquering of sin. That comes later...:)