Gamera

Again, I don't see how any reader could interpret this as anything but Abraham's weakwilled character, creating a mess, that God has to send an angel to fix.

Genesis 16
Hagar and Ishmael
1 Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; 2 so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her."
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. 3 So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me."
6 "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her
7 The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. 8 And he said, "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?"
"I'm running away from my mistress Sarai," she answered.
9 Then the angel of the LORD told her, "Go back to your mistress and submit to her." 10 The angel added, "I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count."

ai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

rhutchin

Tough situation. By the time parents learn how to raise their kids, the kids are usually too old to raise.

Johnny Skeptic

The most dangerous threat to children is God.

Anat

Gamera, how can you interpret the following as anything other than praise and blessing for Abraham?

"And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham a second time out of heaven, and said: 'By Myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast hearkened to My voice.'

In chapter 20 Abraham's faith was incomplete, so he tried to get himself out of a situation by his own wits, which failed. In chapter 22 his faith was complete, so he went along with the situation relying on faith alone. It was the right thing to do (according to the author) thus Abraham receives this final blessing, closing the cycle that started in chapter 12, when Abraham was first commanded and blessed by God:
"Now the LORD said unto Abram: 'Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and be thou a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.'"

Abraham's cycle of tests starts with a command to go to a place he will br shown and a promise of blessings and ends with a command to go to a place he will be shown and finally with very similar promised blessings (with the addition of military success).

Gamera

Now I recolllect -- Robert Alter, the Hebrew Professor from Berkeley, wrote in one of his books about the dysfunctionality of Abraham's family, and the schism between him and Isaac that he discerns in their apparent parting of ways after the Binding.

Gamera

The theme of the Hebrew Scriptures is that God goes forward with his plans, even when men fail. Abraham failed Plan A -- to become a beacon of the highest concept: love. So God goes to Plan B, the whole Law/Israel project, where since love has failed, a Code is imposed. Then of course the Christian scriptures reinterpret Plan B to incorporate Plan C, the failure of the Law to redeem and the need for a savior.

The point is Abraham clearly failed the test, by putting obedience before love in a manner that no normal person cannot find disturbing and ill-conceived. Nobody should obey a God that requires child sacrifice -- which is exactly what Ba'al and the other gods required.

Are you really arguing that you think Abraham did the "right thing" by trying to slit his son's throat -- not even his own throat, but another person's throat. Abraham had no authority to do that. Isaac wasn't his to give. God knew that. But Abraham, mired in patriarchal property rights and the vision of himself as a big shot, just assumed he "owned" his son and had the right to sacrifice him.

If the text shows God wanted Abraham to argue for the lives of the Sodomites, how much more would that same character want Abraham to argue for the live of his own son.

Essentially, I think all the laudatory language about the Binding is God saying, all right, we'll do it the hard way.

Anat

Au contraire - arguing for his own son would have been selfish and wrong. Isaac wasn't 'another person', he was a continuation of Abraham and the manifestation of God's promise to him. Thus Abraham could expect God to demand Isaac if that was his will. And I don't see your theme of God promoting the concept of love. He is promoting the concept of covenant which has to do with total loyalty, regardless of one's feelings. He was willing to get rid of the Israelites and continue with Moses, and was convinced not by an argument from love but by an argument from 'what would the others say'. The authors who wrote these texts canonised them before Christianity appeared on the grounds, so I don't see the relevance of Christian views to an interpretation of Genesis.

Anat

If one were to follow the theme of repeated covenants, one can say that there is a series of God-initiated covenants - with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the people of Israel at Sinai and later in Shekhem, David and Solomon. All these fail at some point, until there is a covenant initiated by the people, under Ezra, which is a huge success at the time of writing and redaction, and I guess some would say never did fail (as it became almost entirely one sided).

Anat

Regarding Abraham: in chapter 18 he showed that he understood both justice and mercy to the fullest. After all, nothing prevented him from saying - the hell with Sodom, just please get Lot out of there. But chapter 20 showed what he was still lacking: the ability to entrust his own fate and future entirely in God's hands. Thus the need for the testing in chapter 22 where Abraham is asked to sacrifice his future.

Gamera

Well we disagree as to the test (and I don't even look at these as tests but existential choices, which disclose the type of person Abraham choices to be).

In Chapter 18 Abraham indeed shows his commitment to "justice" -- not particularly to love. He flat out accuses God of making an unjust decision.

In Chapter 22, not only is God's demand unjust but unloving. It's flat out contrary to basic human bonds of love between father and son. Abraham shows in Chapter 18 that he can defend justice against God's unjust demand. But in Chapter 22 he is incapable of defending love against God's unloving demand.

By the way, notice that in Chapter 21, Abraham has already shown his "faith" (if you want to call it that) in following God's unloving command to banish Ishmael and Hagar to the wilderness with nothing but a bottle of water. Clearly, Hagar and Ishmael are being sent to their death. Even Hagar thinks so. But God tells Abraham not to worry about it, so he doesn't. He happily sends his own son out to certain death with nothing but a water bottle and God's word.

So if your looking for tests, he already passed that one: Abraham is quite willing to send his sons out to certain death if God says so. The difference with the Binding is that God asks Abraham to actually slit his son's throat, to be the instrument of death.

That's not a test, it's a crime, and Abraham should have said no.

I ask you, isn't it clear from the text that the reason he didn't say no was not so much "faith", but rather Abraham's desire to be the famous partiarch God promised he would be. Indeed, the author of Hebrews interprets Abraham's "reasoning" to be that even if he killed Isaac, God would resurrect him. Hebrews 11:19. He'd have his cake and get to eat it too -- but he'd have to slit his son's throat to get it, about as unloving an act as one can imagine. No moral person should acquiesce to that. But then the pattern of the protagonists of the Hebrew Scriptures (and Christian scriptures as far as that goes), is that people are basically selfish and even with God on their side (maybe especially so) indulge their worse instincts. The OT heroes are a roques gallery of criminals, adulterers and murderers. Abraham, God bless him, is no different. And I think that's the point.