Genesis 37 - 41

The Bible takes care to give the genealogy of both Ishmael and Esau (father of the Edomites).  Interestingly, one of Esau's wives, Bashemath, is Ishmael's daughter.  The Ishmaelites are noted as being people who drive camel caravans into and out of Egypt to trade spices and fragrance, much as the latter-day Arabs.

Motherhood in Genesis.  Rebecca's conniving and trickery for her favorite, Jacob's benefit is not seem as being wrong.   Leah sees her bearing of sons as a way to win her husband's heart, but it doesn't work.  Rachel experiences infertility early on and, desperate for children, tells Jacob to give them to her "lest I die".  She finally does have two sons, but dies giving birth to the second, Joseph.

Joseph's brothers, other than Reuben and Benjamin, appear to be jealous, vindictive, murderous scumbags.  (Genesis 37)

Genesis 38 - Judah marries a Canaanite woman and has Onan, who doesn't want to ejaculate in his dead brother's wife as suggested by his Dad.  Yahweh didn't like this so he killed Onan.  Supposedly the brother, Er, was wicked and so Yahweh killed him.  Er's wife, Tamar, was promised a third son as husband, but it didn't happen, so she dressed up as a prostitute and got her father-in-law, Judah, to screw her for a young goat so that she could get pregnant!  Judah didn't recognize her and gave her his signet and rod as surety for the goat but when he went to deliver the goat, she had disappeared.  Later, when it was revealed that Tamar the widow, his daughter-in-law, was pregnant, he called for her to be burned!  I assume this is the earliest mention of a proposed honor killing in the Bible.  When she brought out his signet, cord and staff, he realized that he was wrong not to marry her off to the third son as promised.  Honor killing averted!  She gave birth to his progeny.  Tamar's tribal affiliation is not mentioned, but maybe this is a way around having Judah's progeny descended from Canaanites.

Joseph seems to be the only really decent person so far in the Bible.  He works hard, refuses to screw Potiphar's wife out of loyalty to his boss, helps his fellow prisoners, has a creative, practical mind, and makes wise decisions on saving grain for a rainy day.

Angels, Honor and One God

Who are the angels of God?  They're around since the very beginning since they point the way out of the Garden of Eden.  These are minions of Yahweh?  The Sodomites wanted to rape them.  They must be beautiful. 

Jacob is quite the strategist.   In Genesis 32 he devises an elaborate show to appease Esau upon his return with presents, but still arranges a worst-case-scenario in case it fails.  He wrestles all night with some man (a dream?) who renames his Israel in the morning, for 'he has struggled with God and men and prevailed'.   It is never stated that the man was Yahweh, but Jacob believed that he was.  The man touched his hip socket, and this is given as the reason why Jews don't eat the muscle from the hip socket in an animal.    After meeting Esau (who is a genuinely nice guy) with much self-deprecation and servility, Jacob goes to Succoth and makes booths for his animals. This must be the origin of the holiday?

Dinah and Family Honor

Leah's daughter, Dinah was seduced by Shechem.  There's no indication it was actually a rape, and the man and his father did propose marriage and invite Jacob and his people to settle in the land and intermarry with them.  Dinah's brothers Simeon and Levi told them that they would do so if all the men would get circumcised.  They did, and on the third day when then were healing, Simeon and Levi went into the town, killed all the males, took the women and children captive, and looted the place.  Jacob rebuked them saying that now all the locals would be angry with him and mistrust him.  It's interesting that the response to the perceived violation was revenge on the perpetrator, as one would find in European chivalric culture, and not on the woman herself as you find in the Arab culture of honor killing.  Also, only her full brothers felt the need to respond this violently and deceitfully to the(ir) perception that their sister had been made into a whore. 

Purification and Monotheism

In Genesis 35, Jacob is scared of the locals and needs to start anew.  He gets a call from Yahweh to go back to BethEl and he admonishes his people to

“Put away the foreign gods that are among you, purify yourselves, and change your garments.  Then let us arise and go up to Bethel; and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me in the way which I have gone.”  So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods which were in their hands, and the earrings which were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the terebinth tree which was by Shechem.

At BethEl, Yahweh talks to him directly, re-naming him Israel and renewing the promises he had made to Abraham and Isaac before him.