The Importance of Outmarriage

Isaac has found the one person in Genesis, dumber than he is. Avamelech concludes a treatier friendship and sends Isaac packing with booty galore. If that sounds familiar, it is because Abraham did exactly the same thing six chapters earlier. Such duplicated stories were the clues that the earliest biblical critics seized upon as evidence that the Torah was composed by several authors. The story then relegates Isaac to the background, to make way for the drama of his two sons, Esau and Jacob.