Not everything biblical is true - Hagar and Sarah

Consider this story about the founder of the Abrahamic faiths.

Genesis 16:1 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.

from the Met

A couple of things we know from later on in Genesis is that Abraham outlives Sarah and takes other concubines and has children with them. The story of Hagar and Ishmael is not direct from Sarah. It's hard to believe Sarah would volunteer her slave to be raped by her husband. In fact, it's much easier to believe Abraham got frustrated waiting on Sarah and, on his own initiative, impregnated Hagar. In fact, the relationship could have even been consensual, but by writing the history so that Sarah initiated the "surrogacy" it's also Sarah who become complicit in rape instead of Abraham being guilty of having an affair/raping his wife's slave and fathering her child.

If Abraham is going to be the founder of a new faith, his story needs a little cleaning up. Hence, Sarah gets the blame for Ishmael and is made to look bad for subsequently casting out Hagar and child.

In summary, I think the story is not biography, but hagiography, and the woman, Sarak, like Eve before her, is made the scapegoat of the story because of her gender.

Down with the patriarchy.