Juststeve

Rusty:

Depending on which Jew you speak to their idea of Genesis could range from literal fact beyond dispute to pure allegory. I came out of a Reform tradition where we tended to view all of the Hebrew Bible as a teaching instrument primarily with regard to ethical teaching. Although I am now completely secular I continue to read Torah and Talmud for its ethical content. I confess that I like the idea that God hates oppression of the weak by the strong even if God doesn't exist.

Steve

semiopen

I'm not sure about any ethical content, especially in Genesis.

Marc Zvi Breitler has remarked that nowhere in the bible are we told to emulate the patriarchs.

Jacob was an amazing kvetcher, constantly bitching about how hard he had it, never once showing any empathy for other people.

Genesis 47:7-9
Genesis 30 - Shechem
I just don't see any clear moral messages. Even the Akeida is far from clear.

Juststeve

Semiopen:

I’ll offer you a gloss on the Akeida, ie. the binding of Isaac that I received from my Rabbi when I was a boy. It is by no means a mainstream take on the story, but it is one that I think has significant ethical meaning.

Ordinarily when the story is told it is assumed that God was testing Abraham and that Abraham passed the test by obeying God. The text does not say however that Abraham passed the test, that is an assumption, one made quite explicitly by Christians who get a lot wrong with regard to Judaism. Lets consider for a moment that this may be a story about Abraham failing God’s test.

Torah makes it clear that human sacrifice is an abomination to God, yet God seems to demand that Abraham do what is abominable. Why would he do this? What did he expect from Abraham? What he may have expected is for Abraham to resist, to act has he had done in the case of Sodom and pled for the innocent, in one case the innocent residents of Sodom, in the instant case for Isaac. He may have wanted Abraham to refuse the commend on the grounds that God himself had said that human sacrifice is an abomination.

Under this view the proof that Abraham failed the test is seen in the changed relationship between God and Abraham. Never again does God deal directly with Abraham. Never again can it be said that Abraham walked with God. Even in the matter of the calling off of the sacrifice God deals with Abraham not directly but through a messenger. Understood in this way the story is a profound condemnation of Human Sacrifice, never, under no circumstances, no matter who commands it.

To understand this approach you must understand that when a Jew reads Torah he does not ask whether that event really occurred that way? He asks why is the story written that way? What is there to learn. The answer often is that there is much to learn but that you need to go through a lot of layers to get it all. And you are right that it is often far from clear.

Steve

Iskander

I have enjoyed reading your post. It is indeed as you say.

semiopen

There is some exegisis on why he made the plea for Sodom and not for Isaac.

Seems to me, God wanted to stick it to Sarah. But the typical attitude about her is she was wonderful.

Speaking of sticking it to someone, the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife is also misunderstood (it seems to me). God wanted Joseph to do it with her

http://litthe.oxfordjournals.org/con...2/145.abstract

Abstract
The author goes on to point out that the trope in the Torah where Joseph says "No" is only seen a few times - four notes or whatever long.

Joseph was a queen.

I was going to mention this before but had the good sense not to, but as long as we're on the subject of sex - a woman posted in another forum that Esther was a virgin, I think she (the woman who posted) is a Christian. Christians are hopeless at interpreting the bible.

buster

Richard Friedman makes a good case that originally Abraham did carry out the sacrifice.

His argument, in brief:

a) just as Abraham takes up the knife, the narrator starts using a different title for God
b) then at v. 16 it reads "because you did this thing and didn't withhold your son, your only one" - strange, isn't that?
c) and the story ends with "Abraham went back to his boys" - no mention of Isaac, even though v. 5 has "I and the boy: we'll go over there, and we'll bow, and we'll come back to you."

Friedman believes the redactor of JE is responsible for changing the story to cohere with later attitudes.

Jimmy Higgins

Interesting interpretation, except the term seems to be "servants" not "boys". It is very interesting, indeed, however, that Genesis 22:19 says Abraham returned, nothing about Issac. But ultimately, while there may be hints that Issac did die, the context of Genesis 22 does seem to indicate Issac was not killed. Gen 22:12-14 is pretty darn clear.

It does appear to be two stories though... which would be odd seeing that Issac is a decent size player in Genesis, being one of the Patriarchs, though not at the level of Abraham and Jacob/Israel. It would seem odd for him to be killed off.

Gen 22

buster

The quotes are from Friedman's own translation. I don't know if his translation is controversial among scholars. It does seem to be quite literal, however.

According to Friedman, 22:11-15 are interpolated by the redactor of JE. Apparently, Isaac never again is mentioned by the Elohist.

semiopen

I haven't seen this written anywhere, but I seldom have original opinions.

If you sacrifice something, you're supposed to drain the blood first. If Abraham drained the blood, Isaac would be dead when he was tied on the altar. It's hard to believe that Abraham would have made Isaac an unkosher sacrifice.

Therefore the multiple authors, etc is consistent. The Talmud also discusses the possibility that Isaac died. In any case, he seems to have been a vegetable for the rest of his life.

Regarding boys, the word is naar, male youths. Isaac is also called naar even though he was in his mid thirties.

Jimmy Higgins

I'll need to consult my von Rad and Gunkel.