In the broadest sense this thread does not belong in Great Debates, because I do not really intend to argue a position myself. I’m interested in hearing what believers make of this story, so in truth IMHO is more appropriate,. But the question obviously involves religion*, and if the thread gets any legs a debate** is sure to break out, so what the hell.
In case it’s not obvious, I am referring to the Binding of Isaac. In case anyone’s puzzled, I phrased the thread question as I did because the Quran has Ishmael as this intended sacrificial victim rather than his younger half-brother. I specified observant Jews because one can be ethnically Jewish without adhering to the faith in word or deed.
Okay, housekeeping’s done. I’ll reiterate the thread question:
What is the meaning of the story related in Genesis 22:1-24 (or the relevant portions of the Quran if you’re Muslim? Why does God make this command?
Answering the question as a spiritually complex fellow,*** I can best imagine the story as a mechanism to explain the Hebrew community’s renunciation of human sacrifice; the story means that God is officially stating that he will never ask for such an offering.
*Well, I think it’s as mythical as the story of Iphigenia, but that’s just me.
**Or possibly knife-fight.
***Technical agnostic, practical atheist who still goes to church for coffee and fellowship and to help out in good deeds.
Genesis was likely compiled at a time after the first Exile, and one of the things that is emphasized is Abraham’s unquestioning obedience to the Lord; he was the model that the newly-repatriated Jews were to fashion themselves after.
(Ooops. Not really an observant/believer but this is my major. Glaring errors I blame on lack of coffee.)
The Jews never had issues with human sacrifice, as far as I know. They had issues with break-away cults of polytheism and idol worship, so it makes sense for specific stories warning people away from such, but why would they bother to write a story warning against human sacrifice, when the Jews never made such sacrifices?
I think the story is meant to reinforce the idea of surrendering to God’s will, even when it conflicts with your own. God had to be sure Abraham was a hundred percent on board, completely surrendered to Him, before he could trust him with the “Supreme Patriarch” title. The gist is that if you do what God says, and trust in Him with all your heart without questioning, you’ll be blessed and get to nail a bunch of broads and go down in history as the biggest pimp ever.
I’m with you. The surrounding societies would to some varying degrees practice child sacrifice. Here, God says to Abraham & all humanity- “If you hear a voice telling you to sacrifice your kid, it ain’t Me!”
Also included in the story are the ideas of ransom or vicarious sacrifice, of God accepting an animal sacrifice in place of a human. The Law of Moses develops this further. And as a Christian, I do believe this is a foreshadowing of God giving Jesus for humanity.
I’ve always liked that interpretation - it was a little pantomime designed to illustrate how human sacrifices were wrong: “See what you almost did there, Abraham? Don’t do that.”
Another interpretation I’ve considered:
Abraham was testing God. In a way, they were playing a game of chicken, and God blinked first.
And my favorite:
Abraham failed. By agreeing to kill his son, Abraham failed to display the moral character and free will required to father a nation. That’s why we’re called the Children of Israel, not the Children of Abraham - after Israel, AKA Jacob, who once went mano-a-mano with an angel.
These are close to, but not quite, what I mean. I didn’t phrase my thoughts well.
I read the story as an instance of Yahweh choosing to limit himself. That is, he first establishes his sovereignty; he enters a note into the record that he has the authority as well as the power to compel such a sacrifice. But then he also enters into the record a renuciation of that bit of authority, which is an implicit concession that even he is subject to moral limits; there are some things which are wrong even if God does them.
I will grant that it is emotionally satisfying to think that the correct answer to the request was, “You know something, God? Go screw yourself. Take your cattle and gold and promise that I’ll be the father of nations, and smush them up, and screw yourself.”
I’m not observant at all or anything, but it’s interesting that this story happens after, first, Abraham pleads with God to spare Sodom, and then immediately after he sends Hagar and Ishmael into the wilderness.
So, Abraham’s willing to argue with God to try to save strangers, but not to save his own son. He’s also willing to drive out his other son.
There’s a midrash that Satan (the Jewish one has a different role in stories than the Christian version) took the form of a man, went to Abraham on the mountain path and said, “Hey, don’t be stupid, God would never tell you to do anything like that! It must have been Satan, and tomorrow God is going to be really angry at you for doing this!”
I love Alessan’s reading that Abraham failed the test, but I don’t think it stands up textually (unfortunately, as I’d like to keep it!). Abraham is reaching out to kill Isaac when the angel swings in and shouts at him to stop; once they’ve reached the altar, there’s no point at which Abraham hesitates.
FWIW, the Quran is silent if its Ishmael or Isaac, just says son. The traditional interpretation has always been Ishmael, buts it not a theological one.
I’m not Jewish but I always thought that Abraham passed God’s test by doing God’s will, not that of his heart. Teaching us to follow God and not our hearts and to be subbordinate to him in everything.
Abraham did not end up having to sacrifice his son but he was “willing” to. Thy will be done not mine. This was more about doing “God’s will” then child sacrifice.
In scripture, what people loved the most God tested them by seeing if they would give that away to God. We can see this in Matt 19:21 where the rich man was told to give all he had to the poor (this man was not ready to give everything to God), Jesus Himself endured this with giving up life and disconnecting from His people and from the Father by pre-surrendering it “Father, not My, but Thy will be done”, Jesus knew what was coming and allowed the Fathers plan. The contest is the same in Job, where Job was taking on sins not his own, Job was trying to be Jesus. It took everything being removed from him for him to give that to God, and at the end his friends did atone for their own sins, and God restored all that was taken.
It is my believe that when God asks us for something, it is because He wants to give us something better, one way I heard is our Father asks us to stop playing in the mud puddle in the back yard, our choice is to continue or stop, if we stop He takes us to Disneyland. It may also be that Isaac went through a baptism of sorts, dieing and being resurrected by the blood of in this case a ram, which allowed Isaac to do the work of the Lord with the Holy Spirit indwelling him.
Abraham was promised the chosen son, Isaac was Abraham’s greatest ‘possession’ God needed for Abraham to make a choice, God or what he has been given by God. I believe this had to happen, if Abraham refused on that day, the situation would have repeated over and over (as in Job), with God applying more and more pressure to Abraham till Abraham submitted his will to the Father’s will.
I’ve heard many D’vars which took the angle that Abraham failed, some expounding on that theme in terms of his future relationship with Issac and other riffs, but they always seemed to be viewing the text through lens of morality that had not existed at the time of the story’s creation. Human sacrifice had been pretty much a normative behavior up to then. Oh not all tribe’s did it, but it was not unusual. Around the time that Judaism was becoming a national faith, uniting several tribes with their own previous religious practices under its henotheistic flag, no one would have been at all surprised that a god demanded a child to be killed here and there. Same old same old. This story was an attempt to establish a basis that such is not morally normative from that point on, and to distinguish the national faith from those around them and before it. To view it from a perspective that only exists after the story’s creation always seemed odd to me.
I’d always taken it as the ultimate demonstration of God’s sovereignty. Abraham thinks he’s got it made in the shade. God promised, didn’t he? Then God says, “No, you have to sacrifice this gift I’ve given you.” I’ve heard it phrased as the question: Does God do something because it is good, or is something good because God does it." This story seems to take the side of the latter - God defines morality, not the other way around.
It’s also forcing Abraham to trust that God will fulfill the promise he made, even though it seems impossible once Isaac is sacrificed.
The part that has always confused and disappointed me is that God stays Abraham’s hand at the end. That seems to weaken the overall point.
I think this is problematic if we are to hold Abraham up as a biblical hero. It’s a huge act of faith to sacrifice your son, who you believe holds the promise that you are to be the father of tons and tons of people. It’s less of a sacrifice if he really believed that he was making an upgrade.
To put it in your terms. I’m not really an obedient child if I stop playing in the mud puddle only because I think Dad is going to take me to Disneyland. I’m an obedient child if I stop playing in the puddle because Dad says so.
That’s an interesting interpretation. Do you have any sources that interpret the story this way?
The upgrade is taken on faith, God does not reveal what the upgrade is, just do as I command and trust me that it will work out.
Again taken as the above, it’s not Daddy saying stop playing in that mud puddle and I’ll take you to disneyland, but Daddy saying to stop and you do not knowing the reward or if there is a reward, just your belief that following God is the right choice, no matter how not fun it may seem.
This just came to me as I replied to this thread, it is somewhat problematic on the surface as Isaac did not voluntarily submit as far as we know. However the sacrificial substitution of one life for another is common in scripture.
Re-reading it, we don’t know Isaac’s viewpoint, nor do we know if there was a struggle between father and son, or once revealed Isaac submitted to the will of God through Abraham, which would at least open the door for Isaac’s baptism by dieing to self and being raised again by God.
Are there any serious scholars who interpret the God in the Bible as being evil? Things certainly make more sense that way. In the case of Abraham you have God asking for blind obedience, and doing it in a way that is perverse and cruel.
The stories of Adam and Eve makes more sense form a God is evil standpoint. Today, when ever you have someone trying to stop the spread of knowledge it is for a nefarious reason. And even if Adam and Eve were wrong, what sort of entity would decide that all of their descendants should be burdened by original sin. Just think, a new born baby is considered as being sinful.
The Great Flood is another example of indiscriminate punishment on a grand scale. Surely there were others in the world that were worth preserving besides Noah and his family. New born babies? An occasional do-gooder here and there? A new couple just falling in love?
I’m not trying to rant. I don’t believe in any religion, but in the case of the Bible it seems to make more sense from the standpoint that it was written to enslave and torture man than if it was to help him.
The premise is you are evil by nature, you will suffer even more after death than you do now, blind obedience and belief in me is the only way that you will be spared. How is that different than Mao or Stalin? Even the slightly nicer Jesus makes it clear that belief in him is the way to salvation rather than acting in a moral manner.
If you look at the US, those parts that are more religious have more poverty, higher crime, lower educational achievement, and are less tolerant of homosexuals and others that are different. Again, this is more consistent with the God descried in the Bible as being evil.
What if there were a good God, and the evil God got angry when Adam and Eve learned of the good God’s existence and then inspired the Bible to hide knowledge of good God? Isn’t that a much better explanation of the state of the world?
Yes:
Before:
*Job 1:2 He had seven sons and three daughters,
*
After: Job 42:11a All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house.
Bold mine, ‘all’ would include the ones who were reported dead, everyone who known him before would include all the children, wife, and servants killed
*Job 42:43 And he also had seven sons and three daughters.
*
Yeah, I don’t think the text itself supports the idea that Abraham was wrong to go along with what God commanded.
When we look at the story through modern eyes, we think, “Well of course sacrificing your kid is wrong,” but would someone living in Abraham’s time have thought that way?