The Other Side: Hitherto Unpublished Letters by Biblical Heroes

By Georg Retzlaff

From Sunday School days on we are often asked to take sides in order to shape our moral universe: we learn about right and wrong, good and evil, saints and sinners, villains and heroes. Especially the Old Testament offers a wide range of easily identifiable and categorizable characters: Cain and Lamech and Pharaoh and Goliath belong in one box; Abel, David, and Job in another.
The world view which emerges after such simplified reading is clear, fixed, almost dogmatic.
But life isn't that simple at all. We know that the story of our own lives requires more than one version; that looking at any given issue from different angles is not only a matter of necessity but also of justice.
This book should be used as a study guide to those stories which are so well known that they rarely yield a new insight, let alone a deeper, Christian perspective.
Young people, men, women in their various church groupings will look at the letters, the corresponding scriptures, and begin the conversation about the Good News hiding in Old Stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9781467844208

Georg Retzlaff

Georg Retzlaff has been a priest and teacher in the church for almost forty years. Educated in Europe, he earned a doctorate in Church History from the University of Bern, Switzerland, taught at colleges, universities, and seminaries in the USA, Liberia, and Tanzania. His previous books, articles for journals and weekly newspapers were published in Germany and Switzerland. Retzlaff has a passion for teaching on all levels, academic as well as congregational. He is presently serving as rector of an Episcopal Church in South Carolina.

Book preview

Contents

Foreword

My dear Adam,

My dear brother,

Ham, my father,

My dear Isaac,

Hagar, my love,

Dear Leah,

Dear Jacob,

Dear Joseph,

O Joseph, my Joseph,

Worthy Moses,

My dear child,

My dear Moses,

Dear Moses,

Dear Moses,

Sweet, unforgettable Rahab,

Dear Joshua,

My dear wife,

Dearest Dad,

Dear Father,

My dear Sister,

Dear Mom,

My dear Diary,

My dear David,

Dear Medium,

Your Majesty,

Dear Bathsheba,

Uriah – dear son-in-law,

Fare-well, may family and friends,

Dear Solomon,

Dear Master,

Dear Ezra,

Dear Job,

To Whom It May Concern, or God –

Biblical References

About the Author

Foreword 

The ancient Romans had a proverbial saying, audiatur et altera pars (let the other side be heard also). There are two (if not more) sides to every story. One problem in reading well-known Bible stories is, well, that they are too well-known, their meaning seems clear, enforced by years of learning, listening to sermons, attending Bible studies. While this official version may be theologically accurate or historically true, there is often a rush to judgment because of the deeply rooted notions we inherited.

Stories can reveal a deeper meaning when they are told with a certain "Verfremdungseffekt (Berthold Brecht’s famous alienation" method), i.e. from the perspective of the lesser party, the loser, so to speak.

It was attempted here to give voice to The Other Side, to allow the scoundrel, villain, sinner to express his or her ideas in the Court of God. The literary genre of the letter commended itself as a good tool to produce a wholly fictitious, of course, view of some of the Bible’s great archetypal conflicts. The aim was not to demolish the received version but to „bring out of (t)his treasure what is new and what is old" (Matthew 13:52).

May this booklet help some to become scribes trained for the kingdom of heaven and to see the truth from The Other Side, just for a change.

Georg Retzlaff

The Nativity of Our Lord 2008

Dearest Eve,

For once I’m happy in my life, I think I found my call, a destiny so long obscured by strictures not of your or my own making. It won’t take long before I come to bring you here, a place so vastly different from the Eden you and I have known. How we did freeze upon the stern pronouncements of the Father! The threat of sweat and arid land, of rocky soil, incessant labor, meager crumbs…But I can’t help it, I begin to thrive on all this challenge, and what was seen as curse turns out to be so much in tune with what I always wanted from my life. The land out here will be a garden of my making, not quite as beautiful and opulent as Paradise but it will be our own, created, tilled, and sown with all that zest our Father’s blessed us with.

I should be home before the year ends, don’t worry, I am fine. I think of you; my son; and, in these crucial days, of our second child: be safe in your delivery!

I am so glad you told me what the serpent meant and what associations it awakened in this amazing mind of yours that always raced ahead of mine, anticipating, hoping for what I, forever lagging, could not see. Not for one moment do I feel regret for what you introduced me to. The time was right, don’t you agree? We waited long enough and owe the Father gratitude for warning us: Don’t rush those things! You’ve been a revelation in my life for now I know what’s right and wrong and how it’s done. No matter what they’ll say in years to come about the danger and temptation, I have to thank you for my first awakening.

All the thistles, thorns, and the sweat of my face are nothing when compared with never-ending love: my chest still hurts, I miss you so. My bond to you is strong and genuine. What did our Father called it? Cleave! I cleave to you, I know now what that means. Indeed, life after Eden is reality, and I look forward to more cleaving in the years to come.

Kiss Cain from me and tell him how he’s missed. I pray he likes our newborn child and brings himself to go a little easy on his usual fits. He is so much like me and needs to learn relationships which comes not easily to either him or me as you well know.

Watch where you step, the snakes are everywhere. I’ll do some burning ‘round the house when I get back, I promise!

I wish sincerely that our Father could get over it and pay a visit. It’s been so long that he has shown his face. I understand him and, deep down, suspect that this is mutual. He must have known what we, his children, would be up to, and after all, new life: that is his thing and always will be if I understand him right.

With all the love of earth,

Adam, your man

My dear Adam, 

How good it is to hear that you are well! I miss you so and worry that you are so busy staking out a claim for us, for our race. I’m counting now the weeks and days before you come to get us, me, our darling Cain, and, yes, you guessed it, our newborn child. Congratulations, it’s another son, and, goodness, how so much like you he is. I mean the other you, the tender, caring, passionate man that’s all too often hiding within the hard shell of my pioneer! Your second son was not that easy to deliver. I went through some excruciating pain and wonder whether what you call so flippantly a curse on labor was Father’s verdict on my kind, and not yours. How much I wanted you here at my side, your hand to hold, your strength to feel the way it was when all this happened for the first time, with our Cain. Alas, through this one I was meant to go alone. I named him Abel, as we agreed before, and he’s a boy who makes no trouble, sleeps through the night and is so patient when it comes to feed him. Cain, to be sure, is jealous, as was to be expected, he sees already more than just a brother whom he should love but rather a competitor to be concerned about. I wonder sometimes if true love is only possible between your kind and mine. We were a match, in heaven made, no search was needed for a fitting partner. But when the two grow up where will they go to find themselves companionship the like experienced by you and me? I hope that where you are our Father’s made provisions and planted others of my kind for our boys to choose from.

Good news: our Dad came over, all’s forgiven, that’s Him. I knew it! He’s so like us. Awkward as it may have been initially, we got to talk so freely, full of love and understanding. He didn’t want us to grow up too fast, He said, that’s why He told us to stay clear of that tree. He told me that we, too, would do the same, and parents through all generations would warn their children, out of love, they’d say, but deep down they remember what they went through and how it was, in hindsight, way to early for them, too.

But, to be sure, those intimidating sentries are still posted at the entry of our Father’s land, no way for us to bypass or sneak back into the Paradise we lost. That’s fine with me, though, and here I agree with you. We, well, I at least, did know what we were doing, and I don’t mind to pay the price, do you?

Now, don’t get scared: a snake today came close enough to bruise my heel but I get skilled, more, day by day, in stepping on them, crushing their heads when they’re too close, although this is with