"Deceit" in Abrahamic Wife-Sister Narratives

 Introduction

Does the Bible prohibit lying? According to Revelation 21:8, “as for… all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”[1] This stern New Testament condemnation clearly takes a firm stance against lying. Other Christian texts yield similar warnings, but is that stance also employed in the Hebrew Bible?[2] There are two narratives in Genesis 12 and 20 in which the patriarch tells his wife to lie to a foreign ruler and claim she is his sister.[3] This paper will examine "biblical deceit" through these Abrahamic Wife-Sister narratives, in dialogue with Augustine of Hippo and Shira Weiss’ ethical views. I will argue that though it preserved Abraham’s sense of security, the lie was unethical because it dishonored Sarah and left her at risk for potential exploitation and harm.  

Abrahamic Wife-Sister Narratives

In the first narrative, Abram and his wife Sarai move to Egypt during a famine, and he tells her to say she is only his sister.[4] He fears his death because of her beauty, and asks her to lie “so that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared on your account” (12:13). Sarai’s physical well-being is not considered, only Abram’s fear-driven sense of security. When God sends plagues on the Egyptians, Pharaoh asks Abram why he lied, provides from them and sends them away. In the second narrative, the couple move to Gerar, where they repeat the lie. God appears to the king Abimelech in a dream and shares that Sarah is Abraham’s wife. God did not allow him to touch her, and commends the king for his integrity of heart (20:6). When Abimelech demands an explanation, Abraham repeats the reasoning he gave to Pharaoh, and adds that Sarah is truthfully his half-sister (20:12), but also his wife.[5] They are then provided for and settle in the land.

Ancient and Modern Views of Deception

What are we to make of these narratives of "biblical deceit?" One theologian who commented on the narratives was Augustine of Hippo (c.354-430 CE). He defines a liar as someone “who has one thing in his mind and utters another in words.”[6] That is, lies are uttered words. Did Abraham and Sarah lie by what was not said? Augustine believes that one must tell the truth, but not necessarily the whole truth. When Abraham says Sarah is his sister, but doesn’t reveal that she is his wife, he is not technically lying. She is his half-sister, but she is also his wife. In Augustine’s eyes, telling a half-truth or partial truth is not a lie because he did not say “she is not my wife.” Augustine thus pardons the patriarch’s lie, and shows no concern for Sarah’s well being.

In her 2017 article, “The Ethics of Deception in Biblical Narrative”, Shira Weiss asks if Abraham acts ethically when identifying Sarah as his sister.[7] She examines the story through several philosophical and ethical lenses, and notes that through the lie, Abraham sacrificed Sarah’s honor.[8] Weiss adds that Abraham’s “lack of explicit moral concern about [Sarah] being taken by another man… implies that the foreign kings have greater moral concern than [Abraham]”.[9] In fact his lie shows a lack of faith in divine protection, and also exhibits “his fear and greed, as it permitted his wife’s philandering in order to save his own life.”[10] Weiss thus takes the position that Abraham’s lie was unethical for many reasons, including the total disregard for his wife’s honor and safety.

Conclusion

Was Abraham morally wrong in lying? Augustine would argue that he did not lie through his uttered words, but one would counter that there was still a deceptive intent. Weiss would add that it was unethical as it dishonored Sarah, and also showed the foreign rulers to have the moral high ground. Indeed, Abraham’s fear may have been without merit. While one cannot know whether the Pharaoh or Abimelech would have killed him or tried to exploit her of their own will, Abraham’s lack of concern for his wife’s honor and dignity is unethical. Though the dignity of women may not always have been held in high regard during Genesis’ proposed compositional history, if one is to apply modern ethical concepts to the text, concerns about Sarah’s bodily, emotional, and psychological well-being are important and not to be dismissed.

Each case of "biblical deceit" should be considered on its own terms, as the Hebrew Bible arguably does not depict a universal view of lying. Was Rahab morally justified in lying to hide the Israelites? Was Esther acting ethically to protect her people? Did Tamar act justly in her seduction of Judah? Do the ends justify the means? These are broader questions that go beyond the purview of this paper, and questions of deceit in biblical literature, as well as definitional and ethical questions, are open to discussion and often dependent on one’s theological and philosophical perspective. Was it wrong for Abraham to protect himself with a lie? Perhaps self-protection on its own is not unethical, but when that lie’s consequences could have threatened Sarah, it became wrong. One can conclude that while lies are permissible in some circumstances, they are ethically wrong in others, as in the Wife-Sister narratives.

Endnotes

[1] All biblical references from The Harper Collins Study Bible New Revised Standard Version with the Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books. Ed. Wayne A. Meeks. HarperCollinsPublishers. 1993.
[2] This is not to say that lies do not appear in the New Testament as well. It has fewer narrative deceits but more literary deceits, namely the Pseudo-Pauline epistles.
[3] There is a third Wife-Sister narrative of deceit in Gen. 26:1-33 with Isaac and his wife Rebekah.
[4] Abram and Sarai are later known as Abraham and Sarah, but have not yet been renamed by God in this first narrative.
[5] It is also possible that this claim is a later literary insertion by one of the compilers to justify or to make Abraham seem less unethical in his deceit.
[6] Augustine, “On Lying” 3, trans. Rev. H. Browne in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 3, ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887), 458.
[7] Shira Weiss, "The Ethics of Deception in Biblical Narrative" (Journal of Jewish Ethics 3, no. 1, 2017): 1.
[8] Ibid., 10.
[9] Ibid., 9.
[10] Ibid.

Bibliography

Augustine, “On Lying”, trans. Rev. H. Browne in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 3. Ed. Philip Schaff. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887.

Shira Weiss. "The Ethics of Deception in Biblical Narrative." Journal of Jewish Ethics 3, no. 1 (2017): 1-27.

The Harper Collins Study Bible New Revised Standard Version with the Apocryphal / Deuterocanonical Books. Ed. Wayne A. Meeks. HarperCollinsPublishers. 1993.