Gamera

I think you are both right and wrong.

You're right that it is obviously blatantly immoral for God to ask Abraham to kill his son. Theologians like Calvin and Kierkagaard who try to rationalize it are simply ridiculous.

You're wrong in that you don't see the purpose of the narrative. This is a narrative it has an agenda. We are supposed to compare it with Genesis 17 where Abraham disagrees with God and calls him immoral for wanting to destroy Sodom without saving the righteous." Abraham does the right thing and argues with God. This pleased God. He actually agrees with Abraham. It's clear that's what he wanted him to do. He wants Abraham to learn to love others and NOT blindly follow divine edicts.

Genesis 21 parallels that. But Abraham makes the wrong choice. He should have done what he did in Genesis 17 -- argue with God. He should have said, "No, it's wrong to kill my son, I won't do it. His life is not mine to take. Get somebody else for your plans. I'm out of here.'

But Abraham fails to learn love here. Instead, he wants the glory of being a man of faith and becoming the father of nations, blah blah blah. He put faith before love (which Paul in 1 Cor. 13 says is wrong). And so he fails. God bails him out by producing a ram, and goes on to plan B. Abraham, like most of the protagonists of the OT (and NT) simply don't get it. They constantly fail to learn how to put love above all else.

Gamera

By the way, notice the comparison between The Binding of Isaac and the banishmen to Ishmael. In both cases Abraham tries to kill his own son, and God prevents him. Abraham sends Ishmael out to die in the desert. But God save Ismael.

Abraham seems to be mired in the indigenous religious practice of child sacrifice, about as unloving and selfish a practice as imaginable. And purpose of the narrative seems to be to teach him how odious this practice is, but he just doesn't get it. So God moves on to the Law. It's basically a melancholy story, and I think God's praise of Abraham is to be taken ironically. Kierkegaard, not to mention two millennia of theologians, have taken the praise at face value. I think the real tone is one of exasperation and sadness.

Anat

But that is not what the author of the text wants you to think, Gamera. Abraham was right to argue with God in Gen 18 and was right (from the text's POV) to blindly follow the commandment in Gen 22. This is because chapter 18 dealt with God's dealings with the world at large, whereas chapter 22 was something that was only applied to Abraham and his future (Isaac doesn't count as a person for the author, only as an extension of his father and his relationship with God). Abraham's pleading for mercy over Sodom was altruistic, him going against God wrt the Akedah would have been selfish and petty.

OK, so I don't agree with the morality expected by the text, but I'm not going to pretend the author (redactor) agreed with my morality.

Gamera

This is the conventional wisdom, but I disagree from a narrative point of view. Genesis 17 is clearly the set up to Genesis 21.

Abraham does the right thing is arguing with God about Sodom. It follows he should have done the same in a more extreme case where God clearly asks him to do something totally and completely immoral.

No person on earth can honestly say that the demand to kill Isaac is moral. Generations of theologians have tried to condone it, but it all rings inauthentic. We all react with horror. Why? Because we're supposed to. The demand is flat out wrong. And yet Abraham (whom we know for Genesis 17 has the guts to know right from wrong and tell God he's wrong) fails. Why? He wants the glory of being this big shot man of faith, this father of nations. He should have said, "Sorry God, this is wrong, get somebody else. I won't kill my son." The implication from Genesis 17 is that would have pleased God immeasurably. That's what the narrative suggests God wanted to hear.

But Abraham is basically a selfish patriarch mired in selfish values of property and glory. So God says, great, I'll save Isaac, let's move on. We've got a long ways to go before you learn to put love over self.

Anat

We do not react in horror when we learn the story young enough. Classrooms of 7-8 year olds read the story, are impressed with the happy ending, and that's it.

But if we are supposed to read it with an adult attitude and react with horror, that is only to teach us that however horrific God's demands from us are, we Must obey. Why else is Abraham praised by God himself for his act?

Anat

Also, there is nothing more for Abraham to learn after this. What else does he do afterwards? His wife dies (according to midrash - because Satan told her Isaac was sacrificed) and he buys a burial plot (ironically the only piece of land he owns, after all the promisses), he gets his servant to find a bride for his son, marries another woman, has more sons, sends them away with some property, dies. No more growth, no more tests.

4 billion

Some version of Protestant, I don't really discriminate, they are all bloody Calvinists. That is, Lutherans without the overt anti-semitism, though of course the anti-semitism is inherently there.

I am not suggesting that Abrahams child abuse is directly quoted as allowing abuse, that would leave the Church open to easy criticism. I am proposing that it creates a subliminal acceptance of child abuse. The main focus of the tale is that it shows what Abraham was prepared to do if his God asked him. It shows what their God grants them if they are prepared to do anything this God ask's. Abraham is rewarded with a bunch of stuff. These issues tend to obscure the child abuse angle. It is essentially their God that abuses the child, so if it's ok by god then it must be ok by the followers of this God, by definition. The whole "thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven" carry on.

The acceptance of child abuse by the Abrahamites is no accident. It is one of their characteristics that has made them so successful in conquering the world. The Boarding school experience is a text book example of priming children for the military, I actually thought while there "oh well, at least I can join the Army". Abused children are the people who abuse when they grow up, this helps explain the barbarity carried out by the Christian Colonial invaders. In Australia, the Christian invaders destroyed around 5 million lives, 168 languages and 100's of nations.

My family has been going to boarding schools for the last couple of generations. We also have a proud tradition of mental illness and suicides (therein is my base reason for exploration of this topic). My siblings went to boarding school, some times I wish my family could not have afforded to indulge in such bullshit, as the saying goes "money cannot buy happiness". One of the rammifications of this has been I have a peculiar relationship with my brother and sister, as we did not grow up together, therefore we have very little in the way of shared experience. I feel that I miss out that natural link siblings have and basically there nothing that can be done about it. One cannot recreate the experince of growing up in any way, so I just have to live with it.

Gamera

I think you're making my point. The story is shocking to anybody with a moral conscience. Children lack moral discernment and may not find it shocking. Any moral person does

As to God's "praise" of Abraham, I contend it's ironic, as most of the praise of the scriptures are. God is exasperated and so says fine, let's move on. It's like God calling Solomon "wise," a man preoccupied with raping concubines and getting rich. He is the opposite of wise, but the best he had to deal with. It's like Genesis praising Noah as "righteous in his time," when we learn he is an alcoholic who after saving the human race gets drunk and passes out.

It's also like this wonderful passage in Luke:

Luke 22:36 - He said to them, "But now, let him who has a purse take it, and likewise a bag. And let him who has no sword sell his mantle and buy one.

Luke 22:38 - And they said, "Look, Lord, here are two swords." And he said to them, "It is enough."

Surely you hear the exasperation and irony in Jesus response as the Apostles miss the point entirely.

Gamera

I agree. The narrative suggests that Abraham is incabable of learning more. So his saga ends and the story moves on.

Note that in the narrative Isaac never speaks to Abraham again. Can't blame him.

Toto

Gamera - are your interpretations your own or do you have any scholarly support for them? [this is a straight question, not rhetorical, no criticism implied if you do or don't have support].