The Evil One

God's words in the context of the story of the binding of Isaac say Isaac was Abe's only son, and that's what I'm working from. Since I don't believe in the historicity of these accounts, or their unitary origin, I'm not excessively troubled by the fact that other parts of the text give Abe another son. If you want to lean on the "he had another son" point, then you'll have to explain how God (or his angel) managed to miscount.

I assume that when God gives a command he expects it to be carried out. This is a default assumption based on the nature of communication - people who give orders generally do so because they anticipate that others will follow them. The fact that God blesses Abe with great blessing when he shows willingness to carry out said orders confirms that this is the correct view.

I don't see how this makes the story incoherent. It seems perfectly internally coherent to me. God sets test; Abe passes test; Abe is praised by God. Nothing internally incoherent there. What it doesn't cohere with is your preferred conception of God's moral character. This is a problem for you, not a problem for the text.

Yet another ridiculous retrojection of 21st century sensibilities onto an ancient culture. Of course Isaac was his to give, as far as anyone in that culture was concerned. In the kind of patriarchal society depicted throughout the OT, children are literally chattels of their father. Have you ever read the book of Job? Or any of the rape laws in the Torah?

He put obedience to god above love, which seems eminently praiseworthy to the average theist through the ages.

Again, it would be easy of you to prove me wrong. I'm still waiting for the evidence that the standard reaction to Abraham through the ages has been one of disgust and condemnation. Every reference by theists (except you) to Abe that I have encountered considers him wholly praiseworthy.

Any normal modern person. Not any normal person in the context of the OT texts. Again you are retrojecting. Obedience to God was (and in many quarters is) prized above everything.

Please cite me a single instance of any OT author saying that Abraham's action in particular was anathema. Or words to that effect.

But you can't. Because it wasn't. Because the standard mindset of the theist through the ages is that if God commands it, then it's the right thing to do. Even if it's something that they would normally disapprove of.

Your only argument against this is that this leads to a view of God that is morally odious to you. Well, I'm sorry, but the OT does not come with a money-back guarantee that it will comply with your own personal moral worldview.

Alternatively, if you can't give examples of condemnations of Abe, perhaps you could explain why God blesses Abe with great blessing, if he's so disappointed with Abe's failure. You say "God is going along with Abraham's delusion about himself ". But is there anything in the text, other than your strained and entirely unique moral anachronisms, to suggest that is the case?

God blesses Abe with great blessing. That doesn't sound like disapproval to me.

4 billion

Well, let me give you a similar story, X the priest feels up a child, says his God told him to do it, how many interpretations of this story?

Anat

Love for its own sake is not a value promoted by the God of the Hebrew Bible, so I don't see what your problem is. When love towards humans is promoted, it is conditional on its being recognised as a commandment from God. You disagree with the values of the Hebrew Bible. So do I. But within that value system Abraham was an exemplery success. He wasn't tested by you but by his God. (And what is the morality of deliberately putting anyone in such a test in the first place?)

I can understand people being brought up in such a value system agreeing Abraham succeeded and passed the test with flying colors. It is possible to disagree with a value system while being able to understand that people who operate within it would think and feel differently than you.

I'm not sure why the opinion of the author of Hebrews should interest me. At the time Genesis was written, AFAIK there was no belief in resurrection.

I am more interested in the midrash that explains the need to tell Abraham not only not to lay his hands on Isaac, but not to do anything to him at all. It tells you what the experience of a person in that situation was like: He was so caught up in the act of sacrifice that when that was taken away from him he still wanted to inflict some kind of injury on his son.

IOW your God isn't Abraham's God.

Abraham's behavior in chapter 18 is not in contradiction to his behavior in chapter 22. The situations have got nothing to do with one another. The contradiction would have been if Abraham had been commanded to destroy Sodom himself and refused.

But not his heir, not the one through which God's promises are supposed to becarried out. The whole storyline has Abraham considering several candidates for an heir (Lot, Eliezer, Ishmael) and God insisting that the true legtimate heir would be someone else, which turns out to be Isaac.

4 billion

There seems to be a schizophrenic relationship between Judaism and Christianity that pisses me off. It seems to me that the Christians, to give themselves legitamacy, have stolen the Torah, the Jewish story in general and then tack on some pap that is easy to sell about love. Which they don't really believe any way:
2the1:8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

The idea that Christians love humanity is utter brainwashing pap, they only 'love' other Christians, every one else will be destroyed, according to them.

Their schizophrenia is demonstrated by their man who almost made their prayers come true in the Holocaust.

WishboneDawn

So you're not aware that Christianity has its roots in Judaism then? The Herbrew Scriptures are part of our tradition and past and it's right that we give them value and keep them as part of our bible. What's wrong is when certain christians forget who wrote the OT and interpret it as a christian document. THEN we get into the stealing.

Gamera

[QUOTE=Anat;3960485]Sorry, I don't see this anywhere in the Hebrew scriptures. In contrast I see the Psalms stating over and over again that compassion toward the poor is a good in itself, and exploitation of them is bad. There is no specific command on this. It appears to be what the God of the Hebrew scriptures is trying (mightily and unsuccessfully) to teach.

Again, you're engaging in semantic slippage. If the value system is, it's OK to kill one's children to sacrifice to Baal, certainly it isn't much of a test to do so for Yaweh. I note that the word "test" used in the first verse of Chapter 22 has been translated as "tempted", but I know so little Hebrew that I can't opine on that. Certainly if the semantic field includes "tempted" then the meaning of the story looks more like the one I'm proposing.

Well, the author of Hebrews was apparently a practising Jew of the 1st century, so his veiw of the Abraham narrative should interest you. He's closer in time to it than modern Jews, and presumably was aware of an interpretive tradition that may no longer exist.

That supports my reading.

Nobody owns the text, and that's were Abraham's God appears.

Morality is not based on obedience, though obedience can be a moral thing to do. Presumably, if Abraham thought it was wrong for God to destroy Sodom, he would have thought it was wrong for God to order Abraham to destroy Sodom. And the same arguments he made applied.

That's what so disturbing about the Binding -- Abraham doesn't make a peep. He doesn't even protest. He at least owed it to his son to argue for his life, and if he lost the argument, if he thought obedience trumped morality, then slit his throat. He protested on behalf of the Sodomites, but not on behalf of his own son.

This is simply incoherent. Abraham had another son, period. God doesn't say Isaac was his only hier, but his only son. It makes no sense, unless God is "going along" with Abraham at this time, since the man can learn no more.

Gamera

The text is either read as a whole or not. It seems reductive for you to ignore a prior chapter as if it isn't part of the story. Using this reductive method, I can reduce the Binding even further, ignoring the command part and just focussing on God stopping Abraham, the meaning being that God must stop violent men from killing their sons.

Like I say, you're reading is hopeless reductive. Abraham had another son. Period. The fact that God, after the Binding, says he only has one son, must have meaning. I've provided mine. You're at a loss.

As God's blessing, the text indicates that Abraham and Isaac never spoke again. Some blessing.

Anat

Gamera, your problem is that you want Abraham's God to be your God. And you expect that God to follow your morality. You also expect texts written over centuries to express a single value system. I can't see how the latter can be possible. Human perception of what is moral changes over time. See slavery, see racism, see rights of women, rights of children, the concept of war crime.

See Leviticus 19:18. Where else does YHWH command love to humans anyway? The Psalms are not attributed to YHWH in any case, so they cannot be viewed as divine commandments (though I'd be interested in references, to see what you mean). When the Torah commands to give to the poor it commands specific actions, not emotions. It does not matter one bit if one gives out of compassion or out of obedience to a law, as long as one ends up giving. Show me where else YHWH tells people how to feel towards one another.

Depends on what one hopes to get in return. Typically sacrifices are made in order to get something in return - better crops, success at a project (see 1Kings 16:34 "In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho; with Abiram his first-born he laid the foundation thereof, and with his youngest son Segub he set up the gates thereof; according to the word of the LORD, which He spoke by the hand of Joshua the son of Nun."), victory at wartime (as in Mesha's sacrifice of his son). Abraham was going to sacrifice his son in contrast with his perception that this was his heir through which all divine promises to him are to be materialised. He wasn't hoping to get anything, he was giving up on hope.

OTOH 1st century Judaism included theological elements such as resurrection and reward in the afterlife that we know not to have existed several centuries previously. We also know more about how close early Israelite beliefs were to other beliefs in the area.

Again, you are assuming YHWH supports your value system. This is a god that gives detailed commands on which atrocities to commit and how. His followers are not free to follow moral rules while they are commanded otherwise - see Numbers 31 or 1Samuel 15. Only when they are not bound by a specific commandments are they free to exercise their own sense of morality. In Genesis 18 Abraham wasn't being commanded to do anything thus he was free to apply his own morality.

Ahem. YHWH calls Isaac Abraham's only son *before* even telling Abraham what he is being required to do, so I don't see how your interpretation follows.

From your response to The Evil One:
Well, the text doesn't have them talking to one another before chapter 22 either, so I don't see your interpretation as meaningful. I don't think anyone seriously thought the two of them only exchanged words once in their lifetime.
OTOH, see Genesis 24:62 "And Isaac came from the way of Beer-lahai-roi; for he dwelt in the land of the South."
What was Isaac doing at Beer-lahai-roi? Some say he went there to bring Hagar to Abraham after Sarah's death. How many sons care for their father's companionship in their old age like that?

4 billion

I am well aware of the roots of the Bible. What strikes me as ludicrous is that Christianity rails against Judaism, one only read Martin Luthers book 'the Jews and their lies' to gain confirmation of this. This represents a schizophrenic quality to the ideology of Christianity, it cannot accept the Jews but it is inherently Jewish, as they believe in the Jewish God.
This sets the stage for a whole people who are psychologically unhinged, which goes a long way to explaining the Genocide carried out by the Christians in the Americas, Africa, Australia etc.

Anat

Looks like the Christians inherited a God they did not like, but are stuck with him because they have no other justification for their Messiah. So either their god has a split personality or he spent half his lifetime lying.