arthra

You know I think it's interesting that Ishmael is viewed in such negative terms because the verses in scripture actually accord Ishmael a high station...

How many personages in the Bible were named by the Angel of the Lord?

See Genesis 16:11

"You shall call him Ishmael... " Ishmael means "God has heard".

The part of the verse that talks about Ishmael as a "wildass of a man" could also be translated that he was a swift runner... and that he was a helper to his fellows and not as translated his hand is against others..

Follow the possible meanings of the Hebrew words in common lexicons such as Strongs and you will see variations in the meaning of the actual words used.."Yad" for hand can mean "against him" but can also mean "My hand is with someone"...so the text doesn't really support a negative connotation.


Also how many persons did God Himself promise to prosper...note that when Abraham asked God to remember Ishmael, God promised He would make Him a mighty nation... Genesis 17:21

Yes I think it's true that the descent of prophets came through Isaac for Israel..but God also made a Covenant with Abraham and His descendents. See Genesis 17:11 and that would include His sons from Keturah His third wife.

The Ishmaelites were releted to the Midianites that Moses united with... after His exile from Egypt. So Jethro his father-in-law was more a helper to Moses than any kind of hindrance.


Also read what George Townshend wrote of Ishmael:

"God foretold to Abraham that the Prophetic succession was to run through Him and be
fulfilled not only in Isaac but in Ishmael. In Genesis xii 1-2 it is written "Now the
Lord had said unto Abram, . . . I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless
thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:" And again in Genesis xvii
20 "And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold I have blessed him, . . . and will
multiple him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I wit make him a treat
nation." The narrative continues (Gen. xxi 20-21) "God was with the lad; and he grew,
. . . and he dwelt in the wilderness of Paran: and . . . took him a wife out of the land
of Egypt."

He became the progenitor of the people of Arabia and the twelve Princes which he
begot are interpreted as the twelve Imams who followed Muhammad."

Moses confirmed this promise when He Prophesied (Dent. xviii 15) to the Israelites
that "the Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy
brethren, like unto me." This refers not only to the
coming of Jesus Christ, as is usually thought, but more especially to Muhammad. Moses
would have used the word "seed" if He had meant to refer to an Israelite, whereas the
word "brethren" indicates that He alludes to Isaac's brother Ishmael.

He connects Mount
Paran explicitly with the Prophetic line when, in His final blessing before His death,
He describes the Prophets who will follow Him: "The Lord came from Sinai" (meaning
Himself, and rose up from Seir . . . (meaning Jesus Christ); he shined forth from mount
Paran (meaning Muhammad), and he came with ten thousands of saints (meaning
Bahá'u'lláh)." Deut. xxxiii 2.

~ George Townshend, Christ and Baha'u'llah, p. 31

EternalStudent

Very interesting

arthra

Thanks for your post eternal student!

Yes I think Ishmael is a pivotal character and some malign him but I think there are reasons to believe he has been given a "bum rap" ...

EternalStudent

Yes. I always wondered about that. I mean, in the Bible it seems God is blessing Ishmael, but today everyone loves to blame all the terrorism on the world on 'Ishmael' (the Muslims). It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Iconodule

God blessed Ishmael for a certain time, not throughout all history, thats not in scripture. But I think the world is quite justified in blaming islam for the attrocities it has done in the actual teaching of the quran, the hadith and example of Muhammad and his followers (who both sought domination of the world).

arthra

I agree... I was going to post some additional material so here goes!

The Bible takes the story of Ishamel further:

Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full [of years]; and was gathered to his people.


Gen 25:9 And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which [is] before Mamre;

(This implies that Ishamel and Isaac were together and on cordial terms when they buried their Father Abraham)


Gen 25:10 The field which Abraham purchased of the sons of Heth: there was Abraham buried, and Sarah his wife.


Gen 25:11 And it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that God blessed his son Isaac; and Isaac dwelt by the well Lahairoi.


Gen 25:12 ¶ Now these [are] the generations of Ishmael, Abraham's son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah's handmaid, bare unto Abraham:


Gen 25:13 And these [are] the names of the sons of Ishmael, by their names, according to their generations: the firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth; and Kedar, and Adbeel, and Mibsam,


Gen 25:14 And Mishma, and Dumah, and Massa,


Gen 25:15 Hadar, and Tema, Jetur, Naphish, and Kedemah:


Gen 25:16 These [are] the sons of Ishmael, and these [are] their names, by their towns, and by their castles; twelve princes according to their nations.

(The twelve sons of Ishmael have been considered to be a type of the twelve Imams which descended from Prophet Muhammad and this fulfills part of the prophecy mentioned earlier in Genesis:

And as for Ishmael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation. - Genesis 17:20


Gen 25:17 And these [are] the years of the life of Ishmael, an hundred and thirty and seven years: and he gave up the ghost and died; and was gathered unto his people.


Gen 25:18 And they dwelt from Havilah unto Shur, that [is] before Egypt, as thou goest toward Assyria: [and] he died in the presence of all his brethren.

(Ishamel was finally "gathered with his people" and "died in the presence of all his brethren." So this was not someone who antagonized or made enemies. His family was located in the areas "toward Assyria")

Notice above where it says "he died in the presence of all his brethren"...some translations such as The New International Version have it this way:

His descendants settled in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the eastern border of Egypt, as you go toward Ashur. And they lived in hostility toward [b] all the tribes related to them.

Notice the footnote "b" after the words "And they lived hostility toward" and you will find:

Or lived to the east of

So the alternate reading is "to the east of"...

The Hebrew doesn't entirely support the reading " hostility toward" as it is "Paniym" "In the face of" can also be interpreted next and following a preposition
"in front of, before, to the front of, in the presence of, in the face of, at the face or front of, from the presence of, from before, from before the face of..."

I don't think the case for the reading "and they lived hostility toward"is very strong.

When examined closely the view of Ishamel as a wild man and against everyman isn't supported very in these verses...

Iconodule

I think the view of him being a wild man is because God said he would be a wild man...

Unless God was mistakened...

arthra

Maybe some people could have been mistaken about that...

Yeshua

The Catholic Church, my religion, has some interesting views on Ishmael from a Christian perspective - Arthra - that might surprise you. We are a little "odd" within Christianity already anyway on most issues

Our view of Ishmael essentially is connected with our view of Islam, the religion whose founder traces his genetic lineage from that son of the prophet Abraham. One of our best scholars on Islam, the French priest and theologian Louis Massignon said that: "Islam is a mysterious answer of divine grace to Abraham's prayer for his son Ishmael and the Arab race". (Borrmans, 122).

Massignon, and I would say the Catholic Church, views Islam as God's fulfilment of Abraham's prayer for his son Ishmael, who was exiled with his mother Hagar and for his people, the great nation which God promised to him, the Arabs and the subsequent Islamic religion and civilisation. In the Qur’an it is written: “We have revealed to you an Arabic Qur'an that it be easy for you people to understand / use reason"(12:2). This certainly seems to suggest that the Qur'an is truly an answer of divine grace to Ishmael and the Arab peoples (and subsequent Islamic civilisation I would add too)!

To have one's son exiled is surely a painful, terrible experience for any father to go through and I have always sympathised with Ishmael. He seems to have become a bit of an outcast to the rest of his family, not of Abraham but certainly of his wife Sarah, and it does indeed appear from the bible that young Ishmael gets pushed to the sidelines. However, he was vindicated - somewhat - with the birth of the Islamic faith.

It is not well known but Pope Paul VI was a member of the circle (the Badaliya or "Islamic prayer circle") of the Islamologist Louis Massignon.

Massignon was instrumental in the theology which underpinned Vatican II's favourable, positive understanding of Islam which Catholics believe was inspired - like the rest of the Council teachings - by the Holy Spirit for this age of humanity.

In Massignon's view, Islam is a religion based on Muhammad's genuine inspiration, which made him see the oneness (tawhid) of God. This inspiration was completed by research in which Muhammad found the origins of the Arab people in the Biblical person of Ishmael. (Borrmans, 119f) He thus sees the revelation in Islam as a "mysterious answer of divine grace to Abraham's prayer for Ishmael and the Arab race". (Borrmans, 122). Given their common origin in Abraham, Christians should always approach Muslims as brothers in Abraham "united by the same spirit of faith and sacrifice", and offer up their lives for the salvation of the Muslims in mystical substitution, "giving to Jesus Christ, in the name of their brothers, the faith, adoration and love that an imperfect knowledge of the Gospel does not permit them to give." He thus wanted to integrate them into salvation given by Christ without them having to become Christians themselves; an external conversion does not seem necessary to him, he rather envisages an "internal conversion" of Muslims within Islam, through Muslims living out authentically their Islamic faith (Borrmans, 130)

To cut a long story short: Islam saw it as its original mission, according to Massignon, to spread the message of the oneness of God. It was thus God's answer to Abraham's prayer for his beloved son and his son's people.

So according to Catholic Christianity, at least, God cared enough for Ishmael to grant him thousands of years later a religion in his honour. He cared so much for Ishmael that he intervened and gave monotheism to his descendants!

EternalStudent

Yeshua, you are changing my opinion of the Catholic Church fast.