The Israelites’ capricious destroyer god turned from the universal flood and the tower of Babel, to focus on one couple, appearing to Avram seven times and making of him a few incredible asks. Catholics are programmed to see Avram/Abraham as a model and example of faith and trust—despite his cowardice, acting out, doubts, lies, and his intent to murder his own son. In this episode, Father Jayme shifts attention to the saintliness of Sarai/Sarah, who suffered her husband’s antics, visions, and seeming psychotic breaks. He concludes: “She put up with a lot more from her husband than many of us would ever tolerate!” Father Jayme shares the saga of Avram’s/Abraham’s seven theophanies, through the apocryphal stories of Sarah’s death and burial. He draws parallels to older Ugaritic tales of the child born to the elderly Danil and his barren wife, Kirta, and he addresses Søren Kierkegaard’s work, Fear & Trembling, which explored the ethical implications of Abraham’s actions. Father Jayme cites the many etiological explanations found in the saga of Sarah and Abraham, noting how these patriarchal legends bolstered the Davidic kingdom’s desire to expand its territory outside the tribes of Israel, to the tribes that purportedly descended from Isaac’s seven stepbrothers. This episode concludes with apocryphal stories concerning the idolatry of Avram’s father, Terach, and Father Daniel Helminiak’s unpacking of the “sin of Sodom.”

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