In this scripture "father" refers to Jacob/Israel...it is interesting to me that in one short section of scripture you have one person referred to in three ways...is it an amalgamation of texts or was there a purpose behind this?
One of the more profound things I have discovered lately is that a name is one of the most and least important things. We associate our very being with a name and in that context a name is one of the most subjectively important truths in our lives.
Then there is God whose name is either many, unknown or not to be spoken. He is the remotest of truths, the least scrutable of beings we may come to know, yet His name is also vital. There is in this a tension at once the most subtle and the most powerful. It is as if in our name our very being balances precipitously on a knife's edge between complete salvation and utter despair. This is the power of a single word, a name. A sacred handle which people can grasp to uplift you or to cast you down.
Abram/Abraham has a name transition in his experience with God and Genesis relays this transition consistently. But Jacob/Israel's name transition is "confused" and this particular scripture goes back and forth as if the author has forgotten it. Why is this?
You viewing it correctly. But what did Jesus say of those "fathers"?
John:
This is that
bread which came down from heaven: not as your
fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this
bread shall live for ever.
31 Our
fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.
32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
Jesus uses the word "bread" as knowledge (of truth). The same way he did when tempted by the devil in the desert.
John 8:
38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.
John 8 explains the difference. The Jews never knew the Father, but followed a false father. This is what Jesus came to show and died by the hands of this father. This is the gospel mystery Jesus and Paul spoke of. Two gods. One of flesh, one of spirit.
I dropped the OT a decade or so ago. It is not needed since it is darkness trying to infect the light (which Jesus is).
All gospels (canon and non canon) and Paul explains this. Marcion and Valentinus saw it. The emerging catholic (church fathers) did not.
Orthodoxy has a strong hold, unless you become "free" of it, with the spiritual knowledge the Spirit of truth reveals. Remember, it was given after Christ arose. The OT fathers never had it.
