Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Genesis

[Newbie]

What would you do if God told you to kill your own child, such as this woman:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressiv ... f-abraham/

[jimwalton]

I wouldn't do it. The command to Abraham was a test of God's covenant faithfullnes and Abraham's understanding of it, not a test case for casuistic ethics. The test for Abraham was not in the command to sacrifice or to break a moral law, but whether Abraham would trust God's covenant promises. But even on that level, we shouldn't be as interested in Abraham as we are in understanding the nature of God in being faithful to the covenant he himself gave, and the credibility of his purposes on earth.

Whenever God asked people to do something for him (violence), it was accompanied by miraculous signs to verify that it wasn't just a stray thought or a misunderstood dream or something. Otherwise, anybody could say ANYTHING about "God told me to do this," and who could object? Anybody can say anything they want. But that was NEVER the way it was. In the Bible, when God asked such things, they were validated by supernatural miraculous events to verify the revelation, so it couldn't be brushed off as subjective.

You'll also notice in Gen. 22.5 that Abe told his servants that both he and his son would be returning. The woman in the news article was clearly disturbed, and it's not a parallel situation (there IS no parallel situation) to what was going on in Genesis 22.

[Darth]

So God would never tell someone to do something immoral as he did Abraham to test them? How do you know this?

[jimwalton]

How do I know this?

1. James 1.13: "When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone."
2. God is good. He asks only good and right things. Rom. 8.28; 2 Sam. 7.28.
3. God helps us discern good from evil. We don't switch the two. Isa. 5.20.
4. God does good and asks good. (Ps. 25.8; Amos 5.14)

[Darth]

1. As much as my children would annoy me at times, I wouldn't call God telling me to kill them a "temptation.
2. If God is good and asking me to kill my children is bad, then who asked Abraham to murder Issac?
3. Read 2.
4. Read 2.

[jimwalton]

First of all, God wouldn't tell you to tell them.

Second, you're right that God telling you to kill your children isn't a temptation, it would be an evil. God doesn't do evil.

Third, God didn't ask Abraham to murder Isaac.

You need to spend more time actually studying and analyzing the story instead of making false assumptions. Let's discuss it for real.

[Generic]

Thinking about the story of Abraham and God's test... Abraham failed the test right? I mean, intending to murder an innocent child is an automatic failure, right?

[jimwalton]

Absolutely not. The intent was never to murder Isaac. You've missed the entire point of the story. Abraham passed the test because he showed his faith in God.

How do we know the intent was never to murder Isaac?

1. The chapter is an important step in the development of the covenant. It's all about the covenant. To view it as a chapter about child sacrifice misses the point entirely. That's not what it's about. Child sacrifice is neither its context nor its intent.

2. Abraham has come from a background of religious practice we call "The Great Symbiosis": we give to the gods and they give to us; we need them and they need us. So far in Abraham's life nothing has challenged his Great Symbiosis thinking. (Abraham would conceivably have been "taking care" of YHWH through religious rituals, and YHWH would have been acting as Abraham's "personal" (family) God. But with Gn. 22, this situation changes irreversibly. God is bringing Abe to a new understanding of who He is, and it has to do with faith and obedience, not with child sacrifice. Normally children were sacrificed as newborns, but the covenant relationship of God with Abraham makes this request unlike anything that has to do with child sacrifice. Abraham is primarily being asked to sacrifice all of the covenant benefits—a serious departure from the Great Symbiosis. Until that time, everything Abraham did came with a benefit along with some loss, but this would be all loss. This request by God was to move Abraham beyond the Great Symbiosis. Abraham could no longer consider his relationship with God to be based on mutual benefit and reciprocity. He was being taught to remain loyal to YHWH even if there were no benefit. He was being taught to have faith even if all benefits were lost. He has to see the covenant as a relationship with God regardless of gain. That's what this chapter is about, not child sacrifice. It signals a shift in Abraham's thinking.

3. The Hebrew phrase of v. 1 is inverted for emphasis, and the effect is heightened by the definite article with Elohim. The idea is thus conveyed that this was no ordinary procedure (like child sacrifice), but instead that God had a particularly important objective in mind. (Speiser)

4. It specifically says it’s a test. The most profound type of testing in stories is the test of the hero’s moral or spiritual integrity. (Ryken)

5. God’s demand that Abraham offer Isaac is unlike anything in the ancient world. Child sacrifices would have been carried out soon after birth and would have been associated either with fertility rituals or foundation offerings to secure protection for the home. So this is not about child sacrifice. (Walton)

6. The prohibition of child sacrifice in the Pentateuch demonstrates that it was sometimes practiced, but none of the potential ritual contexts are pertinent to Gn. 22. Human sacrifice may have been carried out in extreme circumstances, but there are no dire conditions here. Undoubtedly in Gn. 22 Abraham would not have considered this command of God commonplace. (Walton)

7. The story is not about child sacrifice or God’s immorality. We can hardly go too far afield if we seek the significance of Abraham’s supreme trial in the very quest on which he was embarked. The involvement of Isaac tends to bear this out, since the sole heir to the spiritual heritage concerned cannot but focus attention on the future. The process that Abraham set in motion was not to be accomplished in a single generation. It sprang from a vision that would have to be tested and validated over an incalculable span of time, a vision that could be pursued only with single-mindedness of purpose and absolute faith—an ideal that could not be perpetuated unless one was ready to die for it, or had the strength to see it snuffed out. The object of the ordeal, then, was to discover how firm was the patriarch’s faith in the ultimate divine purpose. It was one thing to start out resolutely for the Promised Land, but it was a very different thing to maintain confidence in the promise when all appeared lost. The fact is that short of such unswerving faith, the biblical process could not have survived the many trials that lay ahead. (Speiser)

8. Literarily, the setting is more spiritual than physical. It’s about a spiritual state of soul. The journey is like a silent progress through the indeterminate and positively demands a symbolic interpretation. We quickly get the impression that the important thing is not the physical landscape but the spiritual landscape, and the physical journey actually marks the spiritual progress of Abraham toward an encounter with God. (Ryken)

9. God’s covenant acknowledgement is apparent: “your son, your only son, whom you love…” The divine promise to Abraham can’t be fulfilled without Isaac. There is no expectation that Isaac will cease to be alive. (Copan)

10. God sent him to the region of Moriah, which means “provision.” God provided for Abraham when he called him to a new land. God provided for Hagar when she was cast out. Even in the call to Moriah, God is promising salvation and deliverance. Abraham knew from the outset that he would not have to kill Isaac, but that a substitute would be provided (v. 5). The narrative context reveals repeated divine assurances and confirmations that Isaac as the child of promise and instrument of blessings to the nations. (Copan)

[Darth]

You are correct in that he didn't ask Abraham to, he commanded him to. So let's not be shallow and discuss this in depth.

Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."

If you read the ancient Hebrew text the term קָרְבַּן עוֹלָה, or, qorban ʿōlā is used here. That term is translated as "To burn in tribute to the Lord, something which is alive, healthy, and the best of its order." It's literal word for word to English translation is "an ascending victim"

There's no getting around the fact that Abraham (in this myth) was under the impression that he was to sacrifice his son as his god told him to.

[jimwalton]

"Sacrifice" is 'ala, as you have written. Sometimes, you probably know, 'ala is a consecration (Ex. 13.1, 15), not an execution.

As to 'ola, both John Yoder and Victor Hamilton comment that the test for Abraham lay not in the command to sacrifice one he tenderly loved, nor in the command to break the moral law, but rather in that the command put in jeopardy the promise of God that Abraham’s posterity should prosper.

> There's no getting around the fact...

Actually there are legitimate ways of understanding the text that don't involve the murder of Isaac.look in the post above for the list.

> (in this myth)

I see no particular reason to read it as a myth. All of the elements of the narrative fit into historical categories.