(Reading: Genesis 16:1-17:27; 21:8-20) This week and next we’ll address what might be called “Abraham and the Child Problem.” We’ll see the human solution … and the divine one.

When Abraham and Sarah came to Egypt, Pharaoh abducted his wife (12:15); His war against the four kings with only 318 of his students (14:13-16); Circumcising himself at ninety-nine years old (17:24); ...

It is said of Abraham in Genesis 15:6: “And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.” Abraham was a far from perfect man. He didn’t always lean on God’s wisdom.

Based upon scant textual evidence in Genesis 15, the rabbinic tradition imagined a wild backstory to the life of Abraham our founder, in which he was forced to undergo an ordeal of fire because of ...