What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. -Koheleth, Ecclesiastes (About 300 BCE)
Maybe not under his sun. Under ours, new arrives with ferocious velocity -- tomorrow's breakthroughs are yesterday's news. It is exhilarating, sexy, and dizzying, and maybe there is a moment here and there when it's all just a bit much, when a touch of solace is needed from things that don't change. If that's you, then take heart, because under both the ancient sun of Ecclesiastes and ours can be found the unchanging human technologies of deceit, corruption, small-mindedness, toxic sibling rivalry, dysfunctional families, infidelity, betrayal, and stupidity. Which, given Koheleth's iPodless, iPhoneless, iPadless age, was more to his point, I think. See for yourself -- pick up most any translation from the last sixty years and start reading the book of Genesis. But see it for what it is. Read it not as history, or as a "religious" book about "religious" people (it isn't, and they weren't, not in any modern sense of the word) but an ancient text written in the language of myth and metaphor. That said, I'll add that when Sunday school teachers talked of how we should emulate the biblical characters, it occurred to me, as it may have occurred to you, that some of what they did could draw some serious jail time, or worse.
Jacob, for instance. Even if you've not touched a Bible since grade school, you know him better than you think, given the likelihood that in the last few years, some of the current iterations of Jacob's early character have, with the élan of the best high society grifters, slipped a great deal of your money into their pockets without so much as a pause to ponder the ethics of their behavior.
His name -- Ya 'akov, "heel-holder" -- refers to his grasp on his twin brother's heel as they slid from the womb. This sounds sweet until you get to know Jacob and that fantastic obsession with being first, and start to question whether the image is less about brotherly love than about trying to pull his brother back in. Jacob was the smart one: conniving, ambitious, the obvious and best choice to assume his father's place as patriarch of the clan. But Tradition had another idea. Order of birth, it said, trumped brains and competence. Their father's blessing, therefore, with all the inherited perks -- supremacy in the clan, control of its property and wealth -- would pass to Esau, older by seconds, a doofus that Jacob, would be obliged to address as Lord. That is, unless he could outmaneuver his brother, which he'd already done once without breaking a sweat.
Getting around his father could prove another matter, though not insurmountable. While Tradition could be a cornerstone with which to build an orderly life for all, or a rock against which an upstart would smash in his willfulness, it could also become, in the hands of one clever enough, soft as sculptor's clay, remolded into little more than suggestions. Not unlike, say, the ethical responsibilities of banks and brokerage houses to their clients, and to the societies which give them leave to conduct their affairs. Jacob's wanting more is hardly an ambition that we in the 21st century could condemn with a straight face. Where it gets both morally murky and strikingly familiar is that the path he chooses for acquiring more is to steal from his brother by defrauding his father.
In broad outline, the story goes like this: When the time comes for the passing of the blessing, Jacob must fool his father into thinking he is Esau. First, his mother, Rebekah, determined that he would get the blessing, tells Jacob to slaughter two lambs so that she can get the jump on making the stew that Isaac has requested from Esau. But Jacob folds. Two reasons: One, Jacob is what's called "a man of the tent" -- think Late Bronze Age metrosexual -- while Esau is a far rougher sort, "a man of the field," meaning not just the physical, outdoor type, but a hunter, a guy used to blood-letting. Two, his brother is hairy, he is not, and their voices are hardly the same. Isaac might be old and nearly blind, but he's not stupid. Were he to catch on, it could mean banishment, even death. Saying she'll take the blame, Rebekah dresses Jacob in Esau's best clothes, wraps his hands and neck with the lambskins, gives Jacob the stew, and pushes him into his father's tent. After a moment's hesitation, Isaac lays his hands on Jacob and says the words of the blessing. Jacob is in, Esau is out. The future that was to have been Esau's evaporates.
Periodic plundering by high-level grifters is an American tradition. However, measured by lives ruined and the near collapse of the world economy, the current gaggle has pretty much put its predecessors in the shade. They and the generations of thieves before them knew what the young Jacob knew: that with brains, ambition, a plan for maximizing results while minimizing personal risk and, finally, being possessed of that certain amphibian sensibility that relieves one of giving a damn about collateral damage, one can get what one wants.
So, three thousand years later, is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new!"? Well, sure -- iPods, iPhones, iPads, organ transplants, nukes, computers computing at the speed of light, the internet. The other stuff, the human stuff, it was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.