In the first books of the bible, Genesis and Exodus, Jacob and Isaac are two of the important figures. Isaac is the bridge between Abraham, his father, and Jacob, his son. Isaac is not given the attention the other two are accorded. He rather appears as the intended victim of Abraham, who believes he must sacrifice his son to satisfy God, or as the father of Isaac and so as the man who is tricked by his younger son into giving away the elder son's birthright. Jacob is the third of the patriarchs whose story is told in Genesis. He is also called Israel and is thus regarded as the founder of the people. This is made apparent as well by the fact that the founding fathers of the twelve tribes are called the sons of Jacob. Yet, Jacob achieves his status through trickery and deceit and by the betrayal of his brother. Many of the stories in the early books of the bible involve family issues and questions of succession, with a distortion of the process of succession being a sin. The origin of the tension is in fact not always clear--why Cain's offering is scorned is not clear, nor is the sin of Ham--but many later stories carry through the sin of Cain in some way, as is seen in the story of Esau and Jacob. What is clear is that tensions in the family group lead to the dispersion of the family members, and each son becomes the leader of another faction and another tribe. These tensions developed because the traditional family relationships are distorted, ignored, or challenged, whether by a child who does not accept the normal lines of succession or because the father favors one child over the others, and that child out of the proper order of succession. If there were no such tension, there would instead by an orderly transition to the firstborn, which would not have the same effect as dispersing the sons to spread people through more of the world as God has commanded. These stories also serve to explain other factors, such as th...