In Plato’s dialogue Protagoras, the famous sophist philosopher explains the need for heroes as follows: A student should read great works of literature because “in these are contained many admonitions, and many tales, and praises, and encomia of ancient famous men, which he is required to learn by heart, in order that he may imitate or emulate them and desire to become like them.” Protagoras is advocating, essentially, for a curriculum on heroes. Heroes are “ancient famous men” whom we should “desire to become like.” We accomplish that task of emulation by reading and memorizing their “adminitions… tales… encomia.” (The difference between “praises” and “encomia,” I admit, escapes me.)
In other words, heroes are examples of people whom we can become and should try to become. These stories provide role models for children to learn how to live their lives, to know what it means to become a successful member of society. Heroes are not so far beyond us that it is hopeless to try–we are capable of resembling them, of achieving something of what they achieved. At the same time, the stories about them contain only their praises; history has airbrushed them, rendering them more perfect and worthy of emulation. Presumably, the stories’ authors thought that including the fuller picture would detract from this heroic portrait, rendering heroes less worthy, confusing the readers and making them less eager to try to become like them.
In Jewish schools, biblical stories provide much of the curriculum, and certainly they are taught in order to offer, explicitly and implicitly, role models comparable to the ones that Protagoras’s Greek textbook was meant to provide. But do Biblical stories, containing as they do “ancient famous men (and women),” provide primarily “praises and encomia” that chart a clear path for emulation? Hardly so, and certainly in no straightforward manner.
Take, for example, Sarah: when she finally gives birth to Isaac, she orders Abraham to banish Hagar and Ishmael from the family; Abraham obeys her, reluctantly. Was Sarah right? If so, perhaps Ishmael, the older half-brother, represented a threat to Isaac’s inheritance. But if she was right, why was Abraham upset? Did he agree with her decision yet feel sorrow for his other child and wife, or did he disagree yet feel that he had to carry out her wishes?
The important point is that the story in Genesis 21 raises these troubling questions without answering them, rendering the protagonists rather unfit to serve as heroes in the way that Protagoras envisions. This story, and hundreds of others in the Bible, comes neither to praise nor bury the characters. Instead, it invites us to study them, to try to enter into their world, to explore their motives, and even to judge them. Biblical characters do serve as heroes, but in an entirely different sense than the more ordinary way that Protagoras describes. Through their stories, the reader learns that life is often rife with conflict, that decisions may be required that are painful, that family life may demand loyalty to one member at the expense of another, that families can become irreparably divided–though the possibility of repair may always exist (as when Isaac and Ishmael later rejoin to bury Abraham).
This is definitely not an encomium. Instead, these characters serve as heroes in a different way: offering us a scenario to reflect upon our own lives, our families and relationships, by engaging with the ethical quandaries that make biblical stories real and relevant to us today.