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What did you think about Abraham's response to God's little test reported in Genesis 22?
God told Abraham to kill his son and offer him up as a burnt offering. He was testing Abraham and Abraham failed miserably. He dutifully gathered up firewood and he and Isaac headed up the mountain. When Isaac asked where was the lamb, Abraham did not exactly lie, but he didn’t tell the whole truth when he responded, “God will provide.” He laid Isaac on the unlit pyre, raised a knife to kill him and God intervened, and blessed Abraham for his obedience.
What a failure! Abraham should have said, “No, Lord, I am not going to do this, are you going to make me burn in hell for all eternity? Evidently my moral code is more stringent than yours, because I will not kill my innocent son and what kind of god are you to ask me to do this thing?

Either way, God must have gotten the message because he later wrote in Deuteronomy 18:10,12 There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as his offering,…for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord;

The moral of the story is that one doesn’t need religion to formulate a moral code.

The person God should have blessed was Isaac for not throwing his father on the pyre. I wonder what their trip down the mountain was like – do you think God thought about what his little test would do to the father-son relationship?

SandBKnox 4 Apr 9
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It’s an allegory

There was no Abraham, there was no Isaac.

They are metaphors.

The tale is Bronze Age oral tradition. It’s only because we have become literalists over the last 25 centuries that we miss it’s instructive nature

It has no more realism than the ‘Troll under the bridge’’ type cautionary tales,.

Unfortunately, fundamentalist today do not see it as allegory. But, even as allegory, what about the father-son relationship? It sets a terrible example for God's subjects.

@SandBKnox The metaphor would have been a part of the oral tradition for centuries before being co-opted by Judaism.

We can’t put on a revisionist C21st head and expect to understand the times that gave birth to these tales.

It was a brutish time where law was an approximation of what got you over the line, depending on your culture. The Iliad and Odyssey give us a snapshot.

As an allegory, it sucks. God should not tell his underlings to kill innocent people, allegory or not!

@SandBKnox God didn’t!

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well one possible explanation

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I'm sure you're employing satiric sarcasm to mock the Jews of that time period, not actually asking a serious question.
But okay, the rabbis and political leaders wanted unquestioned obedience from their people. And this obedience would be rewarded. After all, 'god' stopped him, right, and then presumably showered him with prosperity and a long life?
Let's hope so!

I AM asking a serious question. Would YOU kill your son if God ordered you to? I hope I would not.

@SandBKnox No, of course not.
Aside from the fact there is no Abrahamic-style god in the first place, if there WAS, 'he' wouldn't ask such a barbaric thing.
You know this, so ergo your question amounts to a legitimate mockery. The story is ridiculous and SHOULD be ridiculed.
It's existence points to an obvious ploy by religious and/or political leaders to manipulate their gullible tribe into obeying them no matter what they command, however inane, foolish or murderous.

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