Father Abraham

What would Israel learn from telling and retelling the story of Abraham, the father of their nation? For one thing, they would be receiving a far different discipleship and pedagogy than nations whose fathers were phallic gods.

David Leeming notes that “All Australian male ancestor gods of myth time are creative fertility father figures, indicated by the fact that their genitals are exaggerated to the point of comedy, as in the case of the Yolugu Djanggawul, who fathers elements of creation with his sisters, and the Kakadu Wuraka, whose giant penis must be dragged along the ground and who uses that penis to impregnate the mother of the world. These Australian myths have numerous analogies in the ancient world.

By contrast, father Abraham had no children, fertile though he was. And as if that weren’t bad enough, instead of parading his potent phallus, he cut it short in circumcision. Father Abraham – the anti-ancestor.