Why Did Abraham Lie about Sarah Twice?

When I was growing up, my family liked to watch some of the old B Westerns. These movies–usually from the thirties and forties, starring John Wayne or Gene Autry or Roy Rodgers or others, were simple in both production and plot. Special effects were minimal. Good always trumped evil. Tropes abounded. Sometimes these movies even borrowed their plots from other B Westerns.

Once, we watched a Gene Autry movie in which a couple women from the east moved near Gene’s ranch and started herding sheep, which Gene was afraid were going to destroy the range. So he and his friends put goop on the sheep to convince the women that the sheep had hoof and mouth disease. Later, we watched a Roy Rogers movie in which a couple women from the east moved near Roy’s ranch and started herding sheep, which Roy was afraid were going to destroy their range. So what do you think they did? Roy and his friends put goop on the sheep to convince the women that the sheep had hoof and mouth disease!

When my family saw how similar these two movies, we automatically assumed that one of them had stolen the plot from the other. Like when two students submit very similar papers, we could assume plagiarism somewhere! But what do we do when two or more Bible stories are very similar? Did one plagiarize the other? What would this mean for Scripture’s inspiration and inerrancy?

Two such stories that seem very similar are the so called “wife-sister tales” from Abraham’s life. Both times, Abraham is sojourning in foreign countries and In Genesis 12:10–20, Abram has his wife Sarai tell Pharaoh that she is his sister. In Genesis 20, Abraham tells Abimelech that Sarah is his sister. It’s not uncommon to read commentaries or articles that would describe these stories as being developments of a single original folktale. Whereas I cannot give a final word on this issue, my aim today is to show the plausibility of reading the two stories as separate historical events recorded by God in Scripture for distinct purposes.

Type Scenes

I have enjoyed listening to a series of audiobooks by Rick Atkinson on World War II. In his descriptions of battle scenes, there are always a number of similarities as he describes the opening shots, the bodies falling, the casualties, etc. The way he describes these actual scenes that really happened sound very similar. Listening to his description to the first moments of the Torch landings in Morocco, I could have believe he was describing the first moments of the Husky landings in Sicily. Characters too–George Patton, Terry Allen, Teddy Roosevelt, George Montgomery, Albert Kesselring, Bill Darby–appear in many of these different battles. Also the Germans always seemed to launch multiple successful counter-attacks. But I never assume that Atkinson’s descriptions of battles all evolved from a single folktale of a single World War II battle. History has a way of repeating itself, and the human mind likes to highlight the similar. This explains the similarity of Atkinson’s descriptions of different battles.

The same authors are going to describe similar events quite similarly most of the time. This doesn’t give us trouble when we know that the events are historical. The reason the similarity of the wife-sister tales raises questions is because so many people assume the Hebrew Bible is a fundamentally human work, a chronicle of the religious evolution of the Hebrew people, collecting their folk tales and etiological explanations of their religious beliefs and practices. But evangelical Christians do not make this exception; believing the Bible to be historical, we do not make the assumptions that would lead us to believe that the events in Abraham’s life are unhistorical. But this isn’t necessarily true; it is plausible to argue the events are historical.

The first key to our argument is what scholars call a type scene. The idea is that a basic form for a section for a story is understood as a convention for how to communicate certain narratives. The battle scenes in Atkinson’s World War II books would be an excellent example: Atkinson should describe the plans for the battle, the initial events and the reactions to them, the initial casualties and experiences of front line soldiers, the continued fighting, etc., all in a rather predictable order. Similarly, certain B Westerns could be giant type scenes. Good cowboys who are generally down on their financial luck or about to lose their ranch start getting trouble from evil rustlers or bumbling ignoramuses from the city, but either good violently triumphs over evil and justice is served, or some impetus comes along to teach the city slickers to listen to the wisdom of the cow pokes. In history and literature, the similarities of the type scene allow the reader or audience to follow the plot while enjoying each detail in a predictable way.

Whereas the similarities between the two wife sister tales in Abraham’s life aren’t that strong, there are a couple that could be used to argue Genesis 12:10–20 and Genesis 20 are two instances of a single type scene. Since type scenes are used to describe similar historical events–like World War II battles–it is plausible the wife-sister incidents in Abraham’s life were historical.

Plot Purposes

All this has been rather academic. Why did God include two instances of Abraham lying about his wife in the Bible? I think both advance the plot of Genesis quite effectively based on their placement with respect to the other scenes of the Abraham story.

Consider the first time Abram has Sarai lie about their relationship in Genesis 12:10–20. What has just happened? Abram’s brother died, the family moved to Haran, where his father Terah died. Then God commanded Abram to go to Canaan and gave him a covenant promise (Gen 12:1–3). Abram obeyed God’s command an immediately moved his whole family and their possessions into Canaan. Abraham obeyed God; what would God do to fulfill his side of the covenant?

Once Abram got to Shechem, God then appeared to Abram and promised that his seed would receive the whole land from him. This reiterates the promises of the covenant. God promised Abram that (1) He would make Abram into a great nation, (2) he would make Abram’s name great and blessed, (3) those who blessed him would be blessed, and those who cursed him cursed, and (4) all the nations of the world would be blessed in him. How was he going to deliver on those promises to faithful Abram? Abram was 75 but still childless!

But then a famine hit Canaan, and without recorded instructions from God, Abram went to Egypt. As they got to Egypt, Abram consulted his own fears with his wife and hatched a scheme to lie to Pharaoh about their relationship so that the Egyptians wouldn’t kill him and take her. After all, Sarai, despite being 65, was very beautiful! As the narrator tells us, the Egyptians noted that Sarai was exceedingly beautiful, and word got up to Pharaoh of this beauty in his land. Sarai ends up taken to Pharaoh as a wife, as Abram received wealth from the Egyptians on behalf of Sarai his “sister.”

Think about how this situation fits with the Abrahamic covenant of Genesis 12:1–3. Abraham is now childless and wifeless. Where will his seed come from? Further, the Egyptians have unwittingly set themselves up as Abram’s enemies, treating him lightly by taking his wife. But at the same time, they are blessing Abram, giving him wealth. God has to intervene in each of these circumstances in order to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant.

God initiates a plan that addresses all the problems Abram has run into. He strikes the Egyptians with a plague. Somehow, Pharaoh learns this has to do with Sarai, and summons Abram to ask him why he lied to the Egyptians. After returning Sarai to Abram, he commands his people to leave Abram, his wife, and his (now considerably increased) possessions alone.

So in the plague, God cursed those who cursed Abram. Through their restitution and the ceasing of the plague, God blessed the Egyptians for blessing Abram, and perhaps most importantly, God made sure that Abram, who by his own schemes had lost his wife and left him without means of obtaining the promised heir, had his wife and the opportunity for his future seed.

What the first of the Abraham wife-sister tales shows, then, is that God will be faithful to the promises that he made, even when Abram and his family mess things up. Abram will have to wait about 25 years before Isaac will be born in fulfillment of God’s promise, but God has shown himself faithful and will guarantee the ultimate fulfillment of the covenant.

The second wife-sister tale plays a similar role, but has a different emphasis. Genesis 18–21 is the final section running up to the birth of Isaac. This is the culminating fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham within his lifespan! No wonder the pace of the drama slows down, with these four chapters describing a little over a year of Abraham’s life. In Genesis 18, in a theophany, God appears in some men who come to Abraham to promise that Isaac will be born in one year. Sarah laughs, and that laughter will one day become her child’s name.

But then the men turn toward Sodom to bring about God’s destruction of judgment, the city where Abraham’s brother Lot lived. Through dialogue, God reveals that he is righteous: he will not even slay one righteous man with the wicked. The drama of Genesis 19 and God’s salvation of Lot from Sodom shows God’s righteousness. The side mention of Abraham seeing the destruction of the city (Gen 19:27) shows that Abraham is watching to see what God will do. Though he may not have seen Lot for some time, the narrator tells us that God spared Lot on Abraham’s account (Gen 19:29); God remembered Abraham and was faithful to his Word to be righteous. The implication is that since God was faithful to spare Lot, he would also be faithful to give Isaac to Abraham and Sarah.

Genesis 20, then, comes in this stream. In fact, often in the Old Testament you’ll see something like “And it came to pass” or “So it was that” to introduce a new section. No such marker begins Genesis 20. Without trying to over-stress the significance of this detail, it’s worth noting that this would suggest to us a connection between Genesis 20 and the ongoing section from Genesis 18–21. Because of this connection, the second wife-sister tale–so different from the first–shows God’s faithfulness and ability to deliver on his promise to give a child to Abraham. Part of doing so involves a demonstration of God’s sovereignty. Some of the key differences from the first wife-sister tale demonstrate this emphasis.

This time, there is no plot on the road. Abraham is in the land God has told him to wander in. He arrives in Gerar, lies about Sarah, and watches as Abimelech takes her. This raises a conflict in the storyline: without Sarah, how will Abraham’s child of promise be born?

Unlike in Egypt, Abimelech is not said to have taken Sarah as a wife. Before he can consummate the relationship, God intervenes. This is important. There’s no doubt that Pharaoh could not be the father of Isaac–that happened decades before he was born. So that relationship is left ambiguous. But had Abimelech consummated the relationship in chapter 20, Isaac could have been the child of Abimelech, not Abraham. Thus the Bible clearly states that Abimelech had not come near to Sarah yet (Gen 20:4). It is at this point that God intervenes in a dream to maintain the integrity of Abraham’s seed–God is being faithful to his promise!

Unlike to Pharaoh, God reveals himself to Abimelech in a dream and threatens his death on the basis of his taking a married woman. Unlike Pharaoh, Abimelech articulates a defense. Abraham said Sarah was his sister, after all. Would God slay a people innocent of the accused sin? God’s intervention is explained as an act of his mercy; knowing Abimelech did this in “integrity of heart,” he held back Abimelech from consummating adultery. God commands Abimelech to give Sarah back and have Abraham intercede for him.

This continues several key themes of Genesis, particularly chapters 18–21. God is a righteous judge, not judging the innocent for sins they didn’t commit. He is faithful to Abraham, protecting him from harm. He curses those who curse Abraham and blesses those who bless them.

Abimelech comes across as more incensed than Pharaoh; that which is not done Abraham had done to him! So he asks Abraham why he did this thing. Abraham explains: he had an ongoing policy with Sarah. Scared that they would enter lands without the fear of God where he would be slain so that they could steal his wife, Abraham asked Sarah to use the wife-sister lie as a general practice. This alone lends a plausibility to the repetition of the tale. And truthfully, she was his sister, because of convoluted patriarchal relationships.

For some reason satisfied with this explanation, and perhaps to prove that there indeed was some fear of God in his kingdom, Abimelech blesses Abraham with riches. Abraham intercedes for him, and a key difference between the two wife-sister tales is revealed. In Egypt, God struck the Egyptians with an affliction. This emphasizes that then God was cursing those who cursed Abraham. But in Gen 20, it does not say that God struck the people of Gerar. Instead, when God heals them, it tells us the affliction: barrenness of womb. This is a very different emphasis. The emphasis is not on the affliction resulting from the sin against Abraham, but instead on God’s sovereignty over that affliction, on God’s sovereignty over the womb.

The wife-sister tale in Genesis 20 demonstrates that God is faithful to the Abrahamic covenant and sovereign over the human reproductive cycle. This guarantees that God will give Isaac on time. He has both the character and ability to fulfill that promise. Abraham has reason to trust God through the test. Just as God helped every womb in Gerar, he would cause Sarah to birth Isaac, the child of promise.

So the different plot purposes of the wife-sister tales demonstrate to us the character of the God we worship. He is perfectly faithful to his promises. Exactly what he says, he will do. His character is faithful. His power is able to deliver. He always preserves the seed line through which he will bring about salvation. Nothing can stop him from accomplishing the birth of Jesus, the redemption of the elect, and the restoration of creation from the curse. Rather than using the wife-sister tales as attacks on the historicity of Genesis or as ambiguous moral tales, Christians should use them to marvel at the wisdom and faithfulness of the God we worship, the God we trust to deliver us into final salvation in the new creation.