This is part 2, part 1 with the story is here. Now, this angel of YHWH seems to have some real identity issues — in 4 places he gets himself and YHWH terribly mixed up. Nevertheless, I think from a literary perspective the passage is absolutely brilliant. There’s the building of tension as God rubs in the seriousness of the demand, and as Abraham and Isaac get closer to the mount. There’s Isaac’s blissful “unawareness” of what’s about to happen. There’s the stopping-just-in-the-nick-of-time which inspired the timeless painting. The writer definitely had a better sense of action than most movie directors. But what else is there that we can look at (without going into the obvious outrage of child sacrifice)?
The first point of interest I’ll just steal from Matt Dillahunty. When God gave him the order Abraham could have said: “Sorry, no can do. I know my God. My God is definitely not the kind of god that would demand I kill my child. So you’re probably some demon pretending to be God. Nice try.” If a modern liberal theist was writing this tale, that’s probably how he/she would make it end. Abraham would pass the test — but a different test, the test of saying “that’s not my kind of god”. But the writer doesn’t care for modern sensibilities. Because Abraham obeys, for him this is the kind of god God is.
This also suggested a nice little deviant reading (almost certainly false but interesting). In the text, the order to sacrifice is clearly given by God but the order to stop is given by an angel of YHWH, who seems to be impersonating YHWH quite poorly. If anything, the order to stop the sacrifice sounds like the fake one…
Ironically I remember when I was taught in school about the Holocaust, the teacher gave an example of how horrible the Nazis were in their propaganda of obedience. The SS officer would be given a puppy and would rear it for years, caring for it and developing a close bond. Then he would be ordered to shoot it for no reason as a loyalty test. This plan was supposed to plumb the very depths of deviousness.
But here’s the main point I find. I bolded a fragment in the first sentence: “after these things”. What things? asks Rashi. He answers that this indeed was a test from satan (the Jewish satan: much like in Job 1 he taunted God that Abraham is only obedient because he’s never been asked to do anything difficult, hence God should run this little scientific experiment. Satan was basically saying the love Abraham had for God was conditional, which is inferior to unconditional love. Many religions talk about unconditional love as if it’s somehow a good thing. I think not. In the human world if we are loved unconditionally we are loved arbitrarily, not for who we are but simply for being there. And even if you say it’s good to have say family ties that bind no matter what someone might have done, even that has limits. To forgive genocide can be demeaning to the very notion of humanity. We feel uncomfortable at the idea of an unconditionally-faithful dog that licks the hands of its master even after he has tortured it most cruelly. And yet this is what YHWH is asking here — and that I find a lot more troubling than even his request to Abraham.
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OK, you may be missing a little context and intent, here. At the time the major religions surrounding the Jews had human sacrifice and often required the sacrifice of the oldest son by the father. Rather than being an out-of-the-blue headscratching moment, to Abraham it looked just like what every other religion around him expected, even demanded, of all men.
The shocker is that he was stopped and an animal replaced a human. This is meant to contrast with and show the differences of Judaism from the surrounding faiths of the region at the time. While many modern readers *think* the point is “God wants you to love Him so much you would kill your kids” the actual original message is “God *doesn’t* want you to kill your kid, unlike all those other false faiths”.
With a blog titles a nadder, you know context and emphasis are important.
So according to your interpretation this is a morality play set up by God with Abraham as the experimental subject. I’m not sure how this could make it better.
Less a play than the sort of demonstrative proof that is never forgotten. Ritual and concrete action are much more important to humans than theory and discussion. I can tell my kids 5 times a day for a year ‘don’t run on the hardwood floors’ but they *will* – until they (as warned) slip, fall, and get hurt.
God made Abraham go through the steps that ALL OF HIS FELLOW RULERS were required to do by their religions (never forget – Abraham was never just ’some guy’). Then God stopped him to prove that no, YHWH is *different* in a way that Abraham, Isaac, and their descendants never COULD forget.
Never mind the preconfiguration of the suffering servant, of the Messiah, or the bondage in Egypt and their eventual rescue by the Lord.
My Tanach teachers would often make a big deal about just how bad the Canaanite tribes were in terms of child sacrifice etc. I’m sure there was some but is there any extra-biblical evidence of how prominent it was? I mean there’s plenty in the Bible that seems a polemic against the Canaanite nations as a way to justify going to war against them (eg. the story of Lot and his daughters to denigrate Moab and Ammon) — I have a feeling this story might be a similar case.
Even if effective it’s still playing with people. Also if at the point of God’s initial command, Abraham thought YHWH was just like all the other gods, why would his act still be considered as something grand (as it is at least in the Jewish tradition)? Because even if it was YHWH making a big point at how HE was different, from Abraham’s mindset he is no different to the Canaanites that supposedly sacrificed their children.
I quite like Deep Thought’s understanding of the text in context. Yes, the Binding of Isaac is certainly considered important in Judaism, but it has been reinterpreted through the eyes of those who were unfamiliar with human sacrifice.
Of course, this depends on his understanding of the context being consistent with the reality (or at least the folklore) at the time. Simon Holloway has written on child sacrifice. I’m still not sure what to make of this dual image of the firstborn as sacrifice and as priest…
I agree that this context might have been the authors’ intention but I still don’t think that matters ultimately.
But in terms of the incident being reinterpreted by those unfamiliar with sacrifice, from the rabbinic commentaries I’ve seen these would also be classified in that category.
[...] and irredeemably horrible. My main problem with the setup is it’s a repetition of the old unconditional love canard: we’re supposed to love God no matter what happens. However as the Sandra story shows [...]
The problem with the Sandra story is that while her giving you your job might have been somewhat benevolent, it is pale in comparison to what you owe the creator God. If you look at this from the perspective that God created you and everything in this earth, then you have earned nothing from God. You don’t live because you deserve to live. You don’t live because you deserve to live. It’s the same thing as you making a robot. If you made a robot, but then took the battery out of it, nobody would call you cruel. It was your invention and it belongs to you.
To get up in arms about what God lets happen to you in the way of suffering is to forget that God created us and owes us nothing. So, the options are reject the creator God exists, believe he exists and be pissed off that he lets bad things happen, or believe he exists and accept that if it weren’t for him you wouldn’t have your next breath.
Unless Sandra is keeping your lungs flowing and your heart beating, the analogy falls drastically short.
At first I thought your comment was a good Poe but on second reading I think you’re serious. I find that very frightening. The idea that creating a being means you can do anything to it including torturing it is one of the most appalling ideas I’ve ever heard, and it’s been the cause of countless oppressions and atrocities. In fact the Job story highlights this — the idea that Job owes YHWH anything at all for making his life a complete misery is truly brutal and tyrannical.
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