Eve was enchanted by the serpent’s lies and ate the forbidden fruit, which she shared with Adam. Both were banished from the garden and all its comforts. “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground,” God said to Adam, “for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
(The serpent, i.e., Satan, was up to his old tricks again in the New Testament when he tempted Jesus in the desert, but, unlike with Adam and Eve, his lies had no effect.)
2. Jacob and Rebecca (Genesis 27:1-29)
Isaac, son of Abraham, had grown old and his eyesight dimmed. As he prepared himself for death, he called his son Esau and instructed him, “Now then, take your weapons . . . and go out to the field, and hunt game for me, and prepare for me savory food, such as I love, and bring it to me that I may eat; that I may bless you before I die.”
Isaac’s wife, Rebecca, overheard the conversation. She wanted her son Jacob to have his blind father’s blessing, not Esau, and told Jacob to fetch two goats so she could make a stew for him to present to his father and receive his blessing instead. But Jacob was reluctant. “Behold,” he said to his mother, “my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him, and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.” Rebecca reassured Jacob, however, and dressed him in Esau’s best garment. She also attached the skins of the goats she had used in the stew to Jacob’s arms and neck, and told him to bring the food she had prepared to his father.
“How is it that you have found it so quickly, my son?” Isaac asked Jacob when, posing as Esau, he presented the stew.
“Because the Lord your God granted me success,” Jacob responded.
But Isaac was not satisfied. “Come near,” he ordered, “that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not.” Jacob then knelt before his father, who felt his hands. “The voice is Jacob’s voice,” Isaac said, “but the hands are the hands of Esau.” He then asked, “Are you really my son Esau?” And Jacob answered, “I am.” Isaac then bestowed his blessing on the son he had been made to believe was Esau.
3. Jacob’s Sons (Genesis 37:1-36)
Just as Jacob had tricked his father, he was deceived in turn by his own sons. They were jealous of their brother Joseph for the favor Jacob had shown him—demonstrated by Jacob’s gift to Joseph of a luxurious coat—and hated him even more when he told them of dreams he had in which they bowed down before him. One day Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers, who were tending their father’s flock. When they saw Joseph approach from a distance, the brothers said to one another, “Here comes this dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; then we shall say that a wild beast has devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams.” But one brother, Reuben, counseled against killing Joseph. “Shed no blood,” he said; “cast him into this pit here in the wilderness, but lay no hand upon him.” When Joseph came to his brothers, they seized him and stripped him of the coat their father had given him, tossed him into the pit, and sat down to eat.
Soon a caravan of Ishmaelites approached bound for Egypt. Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hands be upon him for he is our brother, our flesh.” Joseph was taken away, after which his brothers killed a goat and dipped his rich coat in it. Then they took the bloody garment to their father and said, “This we have found; see now whether it is your son’s robe or not.” Jacob recognized the coat, and was overcome. “It is my son’s robe,” he cried; “a wild beast has devoured him; Joseph is without a doubt torn to pieces.”
4. The Gibeahites (Joshua 9:1-27)
After many years wandering in the desert after the escape from Egypt, the Israelites were finally given permission by God to conquer the Promised Land and crush its inhabitants. Joshua subsequently destroyed the cities of Jericho and Ai. The people of Gibeah knew they would suffer the same fate because they lived in the land God had set aside for Israel. So they devised a ruse to trick Joshua into making peace with them. They pretended to live far away in another country, not right in the midst of the Promised Land, where God had forbidden the Israelites to make peace with any of its inhabitants.
The Gibeahites came before Joshua and the men of Israel. “We have come from a far country,” they announced, “so now make a covenant with us.” The men of Israel were suspicious, however. “Perhaps you live among us,” they said, “then how can we make a covenant with you?” The Gibeahites had anticipated such skepticism and were prepared with props that suggested they had been on a long, arduous journey. “Here is our bread,” they said, “it was still warm when we took it from our houses as our food for the journey, on the day we set forth to come to you, but now, behold, it is dry and moldy; these wineskins were new when we filled them, and behold, they are burst; and these garments and shoes of ours are worn out from the very long journey.”
Joshua and the men of Israel were convinced, and made a sacred pact with the Gibeahites that could not be broken, even after they discovered they had been deceived. The Gibeahites were spared from slaughter, although they were reduced to servitude.
5. Ehud (Judges 3:15-30)
The people of Israel had long been subdued by Eglon, the king of Moab, and cried out to the Lord for deliverance. Ehud, the son of Gera the Benjaminite, was raised up for that purpose. Under the guise of presenting tribute to Eglon, Ehud went to the king with a sword hidden under his clothes. When the tribute had been presented, Ehud dismissed the men who had carried it. He approached the king and pretended to have a secret message for him. “Silence!” the king ordered, and sent away all his attendants. Ehud was now alone with Eglon. “I have a message from God for you,” he said. As the king rose to receive it, Ehud suddenly drew his sword and thrust it into Eglon’s enormous belly.
After he had killed the king, Ehud left his chamber and locked the doors behind him. When he had gone, the king’s servants returned and found the door bolted. “He is only relieving himself in the closet of the cool chamber,” they thought. But when Eglon failed to emerge after a reasonable time, they unlocked the chamber and found him dead on the floor. Ehud, meanwhile, had plenty of time to escape and rally the people of Israel. The Moabs were crushed in a single day.
6. Gideon (Judges 7:15-23)
Gideon used an illusion to trick the Midianites into believing his tiny force was much larger. (See Part III, Chapter 4.)
7. Delilah (Judges 16:4-30)
Samson had long been a bane to the Philistines, and they were eager to learn the secret of the tremendous physical power he used to repeatedly defeat them. They approached Delilah, the woman Samson loved. “Entice him,” the lords of the Philistines said to her, “and see wherein his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind and subdue him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”
So Delilah went to Samson and asked him to tell her the secret of how he might be bound and subdued. He told her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried would make him weak. The Philistine leaders brought the bowstrings to Delilah, and she bound Samson with them as several men lay hidden in wait. “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” she shouted, and Samson easily snapped the bowstrings. “Behold,” Delilah said, “you have mocked me and told me lies; please tell me how you might be bound.”
Twice more Samson fabricated the secret to make him weak, and twice more Delilah unsuccessfully tested it. At last she said to him, “How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me wherein your great strength lies.”
Samson finally told Delilah the truth: he would lose all his strength if his hair was ever cut. She then lulled Samson to sleep on her lap, after which the Philistines shaved his head. When he awoke, his strength was gone, and the Philistines seized him, gouged o
ut his eyes, and took him away. It was only when his hair grew back that Samson was able to exact his revenge and bring down the temple upon his enemies—and himself.
8. Amnon (2 Samuel 13:1-14)
King David’s son Amnon lusted after his half sister Tamar, but he believed she was unobtainable. When he told his friend Jonadab how tormented he was by desire, Jonadab, a very crafty man, said to him, “Lie down on your bed, and pretend to be ill; and when your father comes to see you, say to him, ‘Let my sister Tamar come and give me bread to eat, and prepare the food in my sight, that I may see it, and eat it from her hand.’ ”
Amnon did as Jonadab had instructed. He feigned illness and his father sent Tamar to him. After she prepared the food, Amnon sent everyone in the house away, and said to her, “Bring the food into the chamber, that I may eat it from your hand.” Tamar did as she was told, but when she approached Amnon, he grabbed her and said, “Come, lie with me, my sister.” Tamar protested, but Amnon was stronger and took her by force.
9. Solomon (1 Kings 3:16-28)
King Solomon, in his great wisdom, used a trick to elicit the truth in a dispute between two women. “Oh, my lord,” the first woman said to the king, “this woman and I dwell in the same house; and I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. Then on the third day after I was delivered, this woman also gave birth; and we were alone; there was no one else with us in the house. . . . And this woman’s son died in the night, because she lay on it. And she arose at midnight, and took my son from beside me, while our maidservant slept, and laid it in her bosom, and laid her dead son in my bosom.” The second woman claimed the opposite; that the living child was hers.
Solomon listened, then said, “Bring me a sword.” A sword was brought forth, and the king said, “Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other.” The first woman was distressed by the judgment. “Oh, my lord,” she cried, “give her the living child, and by no means slay it.” But the other woman said, “It shall be neither mine nor yours; divide it.” The king knew the true mother of the living child would rather have lost it than to see it slaughtered. “Give the living child to the first woman,” he commanded, “and by no means slay it; she is its mother.”
10. Jezebel (1 Kings 21:1-16)
Ahab, king of Samaria, coveted the vineyard next to his palace that belonged to Naboth the Jezreelite. He said to Naboth, “Give me your vineyard, that I may have it for a vegetable garden, because it is near my house; and I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.” But Naboth refused the offer because legal and religious custom required that ancestral land remain in the family. “The Lord forbid that I should give you the land of my fathers,” Naboth said.
The king, depressed by Naboth’s refusal, took to his bed, turned away his face, and refused to eat. His wife Jezebel came to him. “Why is your spirit so vexed that you eat no food?” she asked. When the king told her, Jezebel replied, “Do you now govern Israel? Arise, and eat bread, and let your heart be cheerful; I will give you that vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.” She then proceeded to write letters in King Ahab’s name to the elders and nobles of Jezreel. “Proclaim a fast,” she instructed, “and set Naboth on high among the people; and set two base fellows opposite him, and let them bring a charge against him, saying ‘You have cursed God and the king.’ Then take him out and stone him to death.” Jezebel then sealed the letters with the king’s seal and sent them off.
The elders and nobles did as they were instructed, and Naboth was denounced and killed. When Jezebel received the news, she said to Ahab, “Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give you for money; for Naboth is not alive, but dead.”
Appendix II
Ten Great Liars in Literature
1. Iago, the antihero of Shakespeare’s Othello, is perhaps the most skilled and nuanced dissembler in all of literature—“the most perfect evildom,” Swinburne called him, “the most potent demi-devil.” Passed over for promotion by Othello, Iago is determined to ruin him by an intricate tapestry of lies—rich in detail, lethal in application—that suggest to Othello his devoted wife, Desdemona, is unfaithful. “He holds me well; the better shall my purpose work on him,” Iago says of Othello as he masterfully draws him into his web of deceit until Othello, crazed by jealousy, kills Desdemona and then, after he realizes Iago’s treachery, himself.
2. Claggart, the wicked sergeant at arms in Melville’s Billy Budd, is simultaneously attracted to the young hero’s good looks and repelled by his virtue. After feigning friendliness toward Billy, Claggart crushes him with a false accusation of sedition aboard the H.M.S. Bellipotent. Billy is so stunned by the charge that he is rendered speechless and thus unable to defend himself. In his fury, he attacks Claggart and accidentally kills him—a crime for which he must hang.
3. Becky Sharp, the scheming, albeit resourceful vixen of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair, lies, connives, steals, and flatters in her relentless quest for social status. And, in the process, she manages to outshine all the novel’s other duplicitous and hypocritical characters—no mean feat. At one point, Thackeray compares her to a siren: “They look pretty enough when they sit upon a rock, twanging their harps and combing their hair, and sing, and beckon you to come and hold the looking glass; but when they sink into their native element, depend on it those mermaids are about no good, and we had best not examine the fiendish marine cannibals, reveling and feasting on their wretched and pickled victims.”
4. Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain’s perfect embodiment of boyhood, deftly manipulates his pals into whitewashing his aunt’s fence—and paying for the privilege—by making the task appear to be a unique form of fun that would ordinarily be forbidden. “He had discovered a great law of human action,” Twain writes, “namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.”
5. Mephistophilis, the servant of Lucifer in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, did not tempt the play’s protagonist to sign away his soul—Faustus did that on his own accord—but was ready with a lie whenever he wavered. “When I behold the heavens, then I repent,” says Faustus, “And curse thee wicked Mephistophilis, Because thou hast deprived me of those joys.” Mephistophilis reminds him that the choice was his, and adds, “But think’st thou heaven is such a glorious thing? I tell thee, Faustus, it is not half so fair As thou, or any man that breathes on earth.”
6. Bob Ewell, the drunken bigot in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, falsely accuses Tom Robinson, a black man, of raping his daughter Mayella. Atticus Finch ably defends Robinson and discredits Ewell, but it’s for naught. Ewell’s lies resonate with the all-white jury, which is unwilling to believe a black man over a white man—even one as mean and ignorant as Ewell. “I don’t know,” answers Atticus when his son, Jem, asks him how the jury could convict against all contrary evidence, “but they did it. They’ve done it before and they did it tonight and they’ll do it again and when they do it—seems that only children weep. Good night.”
7. Uriah Heep, the unctuous clerk in Dickens’s David Copperfield, is the ultimate literary phony. He maliciously plots to undermine his boss, Mr. Wickfield, and gain control over his fortune, all the while maintaining a mask of perfect politeness and humility. Heep’s “umble” pretense is on vivid display when the novel’s hero, whom he hates, offers to teach him Latin: “Oh, indeed you must excuse me, Master Copperfield! I am greatly obliged, and I should like it of all things, I assure you; but I am far too umble. There are people enough to tread upon me in my lowly state, without my doing outrage to their feelings by possessing learning. Learning ain’t for me. A person like myself had better not aspire. If he is to get on in life, he must get on umbly, Master Copperfield!”
8. Smerdyakov, the bitter illegitimate son of Fyodor in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, kills his loathsome father, but sets up the murder in such a way as to make one
of his half brothers, Dmitri, appear to be guilty of the crime, and another, Ivan, complicit in it. “You murdered him,” Smerdyakov later says to Ivan, “you are the real murderer; I was only your instrument, your faithful servant, and it was following your words I did it.”
9. Jay Gatsby, the wealthy, worldly bootlegger desperate to win back the love of Daisy Buchanan in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, is actually a false identity constructed by James Gatz when he was a young midwestern dreamer eager to escape the monotony of his ordinary existence. “I suppose he’d had the name [Jay Gatsby] ready for a long time, even then,” relates the narrator, Nick Carraway. “His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people—his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.”
10. Pinocchio, created by Carlo Collodi and one of the best-known liars in children’s literature, suffers a terrible consequence each time he fails to tell the Fairy the truth about the gold pieces hidden in his pocket: his wooden nose grows longer. The marionette is filled with shame and despairs over the length of his nose, but “The Fairy showed no pity toward him, as she was trying to teach him a good lesson, so that he would stop telling lies, the worst habit any boy may acquire.” She finally relents, and a thousand woodpeckers fly into the window and peck Pinocchio’s nose back to normal.
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