# Christians, Muslims, & observant Jews: What's your take on God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 3, 2010, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-muslims-observant-jews-whats-your-take-on-god-telling-abraham-to-sacrifice-his-son/527596 "2010-02-03T22:42:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-muslims-observant-jews-whats-your-take-on-god-telling-abraham-to-sacrifice-his-son/527596/41 "2010-02-05T20:18:46Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > 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. We sure do know that Isaac didn’t know that he was supposed to be sacrificed. He asked where the animal was for the sacrifice, and Abraham lied to him, saying “God will provide one”. Abraham knew he was to sacrifice Isaac, and did not know that God would provide a substitute for Isaac, so even though it was the truth doesn’t mean it was any less a lie. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-muslims-observant-jews-whats-your-take-on-god-telling-abraham-to-sacrifice-his-son/527596/42 "2010-02-05T20:31:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Only if you except the Bible as being inerrant, which I don’t. Your interpretation requires accepting everything in Genesis 22 as being accurate except for the part that explains the motive behind the story. That doesn’t strike me as a valuable way to exegete any piece of literature. Besides, it’s not about inerrancy. It’s about taking the story in its context. If one chooses to reject the parts that don’t fit one’s interpretation, then you can interpret a passage in any manner that one sees fit. That kind of approach is typically frowned upon in literary circles. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-muslims-observant-jews-whats-your-take-on-god-telling-abraham-to-sacrifice-his-son/527596/43 "2010-02-05T20:38:17Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > None of that implies any ignorance on Yahweh’s part. Human parents frequently ask their children questions that they already know the answers to. For example, a parent might ask a child, “Why did you do that?” even though the parent knows full well what the answer is. > > The purpose is to make the child confront his own answers. I didn’t say that Yahweh was ignorant of anything. I said that He is not always conscious of everything, but can find out anything that he wants to know, with a trivial effort. Sometimes He may do so through supernatural means\*; sometimes through means that seem mundane. To extend the ridiculous Superman analogy: say that Clark is wondering, for whatever reason, what Lois had for lunch, because he wants to take her out to dinner, but was off fighting Luthor at noon. Being Superman, there’s zillions of ways for him to find out. He can x-ray her stomach; he can use super-smell to analyze her blood and breath; he can go back in time to watch her; he can use some Kryptonian super-tech to scan her memories. But he’s a lot more likely to say, “Hey, honey, what’d you have for lunch?” Our modern notions of omniscience & omnipotence are not what the authors of the Old Testament would have had. \*Well, he might, except for the whole imaginary thing. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2010, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-muslims-observant-jews-whats-your-take-on-god-telling-abraham-to-sacrifice-his-son/527596/44 "2010-02-06T07:55:07Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > 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. He drove out _seven_ other sons. When Sarah died he married a woman named [Keturah with whom he had six sons](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+25%3A1-6&version=NIV) and he sent them all away as soon as they were old enough. Genesis doesn’t specify if this was one mass send-off or a special bar mitzvah present (“Here you go son… a fountain pen and a one way ticket to Egypt!”) but unlike Ishmael the other six, quite understandably, don’t come back for his funeral. Trivia: apocryphal tradition states that Keturah was actually Hagar, who had returned to him, though Genesis leaves little room for doubt that it was another woman altogether. More trivia: it irked me when I was a kid when I watched THE TEN COMMANDMENTS and Moses’s father-in-law Jethro identifies himself as a Midianite and says “we are descendants of Abraham just like you, but by his son Ishmael”. Nooooo… they were descendants of Abraham by his son _Midian_, which is why they were called _Midian_ites. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2010, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-muslims-observant-jews-whats-your-take-on-god-telling-abraham-to-sacrifice-his-son/527596/45 "2010-02-06T16:05:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Your interpretation requires accepting everything in Genesis 22 as being accurate except for the part that explains the motive behind the story. That doesn’t strike me as a valuable way to exegete any piece of literature. > > Besides, it’s not about inerrancy. It’s about taking the story in its context. If one chooses to reject the parts that don’t fit one’s interpretation, then you can interpret a passage in any manner that one sees fit. That kind of approach is typically frowned upon in literary circles. I feel I was working within the larger context. Which is why I’m willing to dismiss some of the details that don’t fit that context. God’s supposed statement in that passage would be such a detail. I think later recorders assumed that was what God was thinking so they added a line in which he said it. If if really was a test of Abraham’s loyalty, then God would have had Abraham go through with it. That would have proven Abraham would do anything God told him to do. And then God could have brought Isaac back to life or given Abraham another son. But if the test was to see if Abraham was willing to defy God then he had failed it at the point God stepped in. Once Abraham showed he was willing to commit a sin, there was no point in having him actually commit the sin. The test results were in. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christians-muslims-observant-jews-whats-your-take-on-god-telling-abraham-to-sacrifice-his-son/527596.md?page=2)