Abraham and Isaac

Genesis 22

Regardless of whether you believe in the Bible as inerrant truth, or a compilation of stories and folklore, Genesis 22 is a moving chapter. It is also disturbing.

Genesis 22:6-7, NIV As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father, Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

The request of God to murder his son Issac, equates to child sacrifice, and is highly immoral by today’s standards. If this were a true story, imagine the traumatic stress that both Abraham and Isaac would have felt. It brings the question, was child sacrifice a traditional religious practice in ancient Israel? Where did this originate? Most scholars today seem to believe that there was a cult of child sacrifice in ancient Israel,a nd that the practice may have been Canaanite in origin.

There are many different reasons given for why God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son:

-       Christian Apologetics: God told Abraham to kill his son Isaac because their actions are pointing ahead to the person of Christ in a typology of the true sacrifice. Both Isaac and Jesus are called the only begotten son.

http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/genesis-deuteronomy/why-did-god-tell-abraham-kill-his-son-isaac

-       God wanted to test Abraham’s loyalty

-       Abraham’s test was meant to demonstrate that the purpose of life’s trials is not to weed out the disloyal, but to establish the fully developed identity of the individual (one Jewish perspective).

On the other hand, Muslims believe that Ishmael was the child offered up by Abraham. They believe the declaration that Abraham offered up his only son applied to Ishmael, since he was Abraham’s only son for over 13 years, before the birth of Isaac.

For Abraham’s willingness to obey God’s command, he became the model of faith, and the foundation of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. His devotion is revered. It is the backbone of Jewish and Christian doctrine, and is also extremely important in the Islamic faith. Abraham’s story has shaped three religions, their values and ethics, and attitudes exemplified in the story. It has given credence to the idea that the only true way to demonstrate absolute, unswerving faith is to showcase a willingness to sacrifice what you most love in the world. To a be a true believer, you must be willing to give up everything if asked.

What bothers me the most is a very simple question: why is it continually assumed that Isaac his Abraham’s alone to sacrifice? Sarah is ignored in this sequence of events. My answer to this is explained by culture, with the conclusion that the story of Abraham should be seen as a cultural text, not a religious one.