2 Genesis, Chapter 22 - "Is this a dagger that I see before me?"
This chapter is the story of a test.
Organized religion will insist that it's a test of Abraham's faith. I maintain it is a test of Abraham's character and of his god's psychological soundness, a test which both fail.
Assuming we're to believe the Bible verbatim (and who wouldn't?), let's summarize Abe's accomplishments thus far:
And the final indignation, of making the ten-year old boy carry the very wood Abe intended using to burn his young body, makes it quite clear that Abe's own comfort and convenience is far more important to him than anyone else's, even his only son's, in the last hours of his young life. (Suppose Abe hoped his god would "smell the sweet savour"? - if you've ever smelled burning human flesh, you know there's nothing sweet about it.) Don't you know that the writers of the New Testament jumped on the symbolism of an "only son," carrying the wood on his back that would ultimately be involved in his own destruction? With both feet!
Abe is now 110, yet when he "lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off," why would he leave the donkey and walk the rest of the way, when the donkey could well have carried either Abe, or both the wood and the boy? Dramatic effect?
I'm thinking this may well be very much like the way it actually went --
Organized religion will insist that it's a test of Abraham's faith. I maintain it is a test of Abraham's character and of his god's psychological soundness, a test which both fail.
Assuming we're to believe the Bible verbatim (and who wouldn't?), let's summarize Abe's accomplishments thus far:
- Married his half-sister, Sarai.
- Told an unnamed Pharaoh, Sarai was his sister, and to secure his own life, allowed her to be taken to Pharaoh's harem.
- Accepted a fortune in gifts and livestock from Pharaoh, for the lend-lease of his wife.
- Used his female slave as a baby-factory to preserve his seed, which, as far as the world was concerned, might better have been confined to his bedsheets.
- Allowed his wife to beat his female slave, mother of his child, because of his wife's persecution complex.
- Abandoned his female slave and his own child to certain death by exposure in the wilderness, once his 90-year old wife bore a child.
- Expressed no interest in the welfare of his nephew, Lot, after personally witnessing the total destruction of the city in which Lot lived.
- Pulled his lend-lease scam once again, this time on King Abimelech, by telling him Sarah was his sister, claiming his own life was at risk.
- Accepted a fortune in gifts and livestock and unlimited grazing rights from Abimelech as reward for his deception.
22:1 "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he (Abe) said, Behold, here I am."Matthew 4:7, we will learn, has Jesus saying, "It is written...Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." Shouldn't that work both ways? Oh, and Jesus? - FYI, as we're learning here, just because it's written, doesn't make it true; it's entirely possible, if you ever actually existed, that you never figured that out until the last minute, when you said: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"
22:2 "And he (god) said, Take now thy son, thine only son Issac, whom thou lovest, and get thee unto the land of Moriah (named for the Ammorites); and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.I hope you can see where he's going with this - he wanted no one to see what he was doing, who could possibly stop him. Who knows what kind of story he had concocted to explain the fact that he came back alone, but he had three days, bouncing on the back of a burro, to think up one. You realize that in present times, they lock people away who claim to hear voices that tell them to kill.
22:3 "And Abraham rose up early in the morning (What'd I tell you in Genesis, 21:14 - this is Abe's practice when he wants to pull off something underhanded before anyone else wakes up and interferes. Where does it say he discussed this with Sarah? - "Hey Hon, guess what Ike and I are gonna do today?"), and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Issac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him.
22:4 "Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off.
22:5 "And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.
22:6 "And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Issac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together."
And the final indignation, of making the ten-year old boy carry the very wood Abe intended using to burn his young body, makes it quite clear that Abe's own comfort and convenience is far more important to him than anyone else's, even his only son's, in the last hours of his young life. (Suppose Abe hoped his god would "smell the sweet savour"? - if you've ever smelled burning human flesh, you know there's nothing sweet about it.) Don't you know that the writers of the New Testament jumped on the symbolism of an "only son," carrying the wood on his back that would ultimately be involved in his own destruction? With both feet!
Abe is now 110, yet when he "lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off," why would he leave the donkey and walk the rest of the way, when the donkey could well have carried either Abe, or both the wood and the boy? Dramatic effect?
I'm thinking this may well be very much like the way it actually went --
That must have been quite the memorable stroll to add to little Issac Abrahamson's treasure trove of childhood memories.
"Step away from the boy!"
Notice how Abe has his hand over his young son's mouth, so he won't have to listen to his pleas for his life. "For now I know that thou fearest God," - what kind of Supreme Being, worthy of worship, demands that his subjects fear him? What kind of mind so greedily clings to life, that obeisance to such tyrany is preferable to death? Patrick Henry, Abe was not.
"And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Issac, and unto Jacob, by the name of El Shaddai, but by my name, JEHOVA was I not known to them."
So why would Abraham, who had never heard of Jehova, have named his sacrifice site, "Jehovah-jireh"? Translated, the phrase means, "The Lord will see," which does nothing to resolve the issue of why Abe would use a name for god, by which, the god of Moses himself said, "by my name, JEHOVA was I not known to them." The most obvious answer, is that the words were put into Abraham's mouth by one who did know of the name, Jehovah, someone who lived much, much later.
The New American Bible differs considerably from that of the King James - for one thing, there's none of the "thee's," "thou's," and all of those words ending in "-st," which makes it a great deal easier to read. Another thing I appreciate about the book, is that in footnotes, it often goes into a great deal of explanation of what is happening and why it is significant, as well as offering direct translations from the original Hebrew of the meanings of various words and phrases. Throughout this chapter, the phrase used in the King James version is, "burnt offering," while TNAB uses the phrase, presumably directly translated from the Hebrew, "holocaust." Whichever word is used, I found it interesting to learn, when I popped over to the Book of Hosea, a biblical prophet we'll visit later, who in the verse to follow, is advising his audience as to what his god wants:
I'm going to make a statement. I believe I may have found something that I cannot find mentioned anywhere, in any of the research I've done to produce these sections on Abraham. That could easily indicate that I'm mistaken in my conclusion, but, though less likely, it could also mean that I've found something that no one else has noticed before.
After Abraham's effort to surreptitiously slip out of camp early in the morning to take Sarah's only son out to kill him and burn his body, I've found no indication that Abraham and Sarah ever lived together again.
In the next chapter, we will learn that Sarah died at the age of 127, but she was 90 when Issac was born, and would have been 100 at the time Abe took Issac to kill him, so Sarah lived for another 27 years after the event, yet we hear nothing more about the two of them being together. At the time of her death, she was living in Hebron, and Abraham had to journey there (23:2) to mourn for her.
I value my life.
Life is so short, you just get started, you struggle past the naivete of youth and really begin to learn what life, the universe and everything are all about - "light-bulb" moments come more and more often - and suddenly, the ride's over.
There's not a lot for which I would relinquish my life, I'm selfish that way. But I would toss it aside in a heartbeat to save the life of a child - it wouldn't even have to be my child. I would have no more hesitation over a stranger's child than I would one of my own. Abe was 110, he'd lived longer than most of us ever will. All he had to do, was say, "No! Do with me as you wish, god, but I will not kill my son to satisfy your tyrannical whim." But this chapter infers that it pleased god that he didn't do that. And that says a lot about them both. Or about those who invented them.
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
22:7 "And Issac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he (Abe) said, Here am I, my son. And he (Ike) said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the ram for a burnt offering?Do you think that possibly Issac was starting to figure it out yet? Let's see how that might look in living color --
22:8 "And Abraham said, My son, God will provide for himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went, both of them together.
22:9 "And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Issac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood."
"Step away from the boy!"
22:10 "And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.They say a picture's worth a thousand words - of that thousand, the first that leap to my mind as I view the painting above, is that hairstylists must be very evil people, because it's obvious, judging by that angel's hair, that if there were any hairdressers in heaven, no self-respecting god would let such an angel out looking as that one does.
22:11 "And the angel of the Lord called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he (Abe) said, Here am I.
22:12 "And he (the angel) said, lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not witheld thy son, thine only son from me."
Notice how Abe has his hand over his young son's mouth, so he won't have to listen to his pleas for his life. "For now I know that thou fearest God," - what kind of Supreme Being, worthy of worship, demands that his subjects fear him? What kind of mind so greedily clings to life, that obeisance to such tyrany is preferable to death? Patrick Henry, Abe was not.
22:13 "And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son." (One story I read, said the ram had stood there from the beginning of time, waiting to be used as Abe's sacrifice - amazing what Human imagination can concoct once it gets started.)Remember how I told you in Genesis, Chapter 20 that the bible's god, when speaking to Moses, informed Moses that he had been the god of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, but when pressed by Moses for his name, replied in Exodus 6:3:
22:14 "And Abraham called the name of that place, Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord shall it be seen."
"And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Issac, and unto Jacob, by the name of El Shaddai, but by my name, JEHOVA was I not known to them."
So why would Abraham, who had never heard of Jehova, have named his sacrifice site, "Jehovah-jireh"? Translated, the phrase means, "The Lord will see," which does nothing to resolve the issue of why Abe would use a name for god, by which, the god of Moses himself said, "by my name, JEHOVA was I not known to them." The most obvious answer, is that the words were put into Abraham's mouth by one who did know of the name, Jehovah, someone who lived much, much later.
The New American Bible differs considerably from that of the King James - for one thing, there's none of the "thee's," "thou's," and all of those words ending in "-st," which makes it a great deal easier to read. Another thing I appreciate about the book, is that in footnotes, it often goes into a great deal of explanation of what is happening and why it is significant, as well as offering direct translations from the original Hebrew of the meanings of various words and phrases. Throughout this chapter, the phrase used in the King James version is, "burnt offering," while TNAB uses the phrase, presumably directly translated from the Hebrew, "holocaust." Whichever word is used, I found it interesting to learn, when I popped over to the Book of Hosea, a biblical prophet we'll visit later, who in the verse to follow, is advising his audience as to what his god wants:
Hosea 6:6 "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings."If Abraham had first read Hosea, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble. Of course if Abe's god had been omniscient, he would have foreseen that Hosea would one day write those words and have modified his behavior to Abe accordingly. Or far more likely, the person who wrote Hosea had no knowledge of this chapter of Genesis, and had quite possibly not heard of Genesis at all. That's the problem when a book is written by committee.
22:15 "And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time,By now, even Abe should be getting tired of hearing the same old rhetoric. But can you imagine the kind of control a religious organization could have over a people, if it could convince them that this kind of complete and total submission of individual will is what their god wants, and then convince them that they (the organization members) are the only ones authorized to relay to them the orders of their god? What a crew of little robots they'd have - it boggles the mind.
22:16 "And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld your son, your only son:
22:17 "That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.
22:18 "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice."
22:19 "So Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose up and went to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelt at Beersheba."Don't you wonder what Abe and little Ike might have found to talk about on their hike back to camp?
22:20 "And it came to pass after these things, that it was told Abraham, saying, Behold, Milcah, she hath also born children unto thy brother Nahor;Don't bother to jot any of these down, they will never be heard from again. The entire five verses of the "news from back home" segment was for the express literary purpose in introducing Rebekkah, in 22:23 above. All the rest is packing for the main parcel.
22:21 "Huz, his firstborn, and Buz, his brother (OK, "Huz" and "Buz"? - but I'm not going to ridicule, I've heard worse - any idea how much it hurts when you bite your tongue?), and Kem-u-el, the father of Aram,
22:22 "And Chesed, and Hazo, and Pildash, and Jidlaph, and Beth-u-el.
22:23 "And Beth-u-el ('well of god') begat Rebekkah: these eight Milcah did bear to Nahor, Abraham's brother.
22:24 "And his concubine, whose name was Reumah, she bare him also Tebah, and Gaham, and Thahash, and Maachah."
I'm going to make a statement. I believe I may have found something that I cannot find mentioned anywhere, in any of the research I've done to produce these sections on Abraham. That could easily indicate that I'm mistaken in my conclusion, but, though less likely, it could also mean that I've found something that no one else has noticed before.
After Abraham's effort to surreptitiously slip out of camp early in the morning to take Sarah's only son out to kill him and burn his body, I've found no indication that Abraham and Sarah ever lived together again.
In the next chapter, we will learn that Sarah died at the age of 127, but she was 90 when Issac was born, and would have been 100 at the time Abe took Issac to kill him, so Sarah lived for another 27 years after the event, yet we hear nothing more about the two of them being together. At the time of her death, she was living in Hebron, and Abraham had to journey there (23:2) to mourn for her.
I value my life.
Life is so short, you just get started, you struggle past the naivete of youth and really begin to learn what life, the universe and everything are all about - "light-bulb" moments come more and more often - and suddenly, the ride's over.
There's not a lot for which I would relinquish my life, I'm selfish that way. But I would toss it aside in a heartbeat to save the life of a child - it wouldn't even have to be my child. I would have no more hesitation over a stranger's child than I would one of my own. Abe was 110, he'd lived longer than most of us ever will. All he had to do, was say, "No! Do with me as you wish, god, but I will not kill my son to satisfy your tyrannical whim." But this chapter infers that it pleased god that he didn't do that. And that says a lot about them both. Or about those who invented them.
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
Posted by archaeopteryx at 2/22/2012 9:13 PM 
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: religion Christianity Judaism Islam Agraham Issac Sarah Rebekkah Bible The New American Bible god sacrifice burnt offering
Categories: uncategorized
Tags: religion Christianity Judaism Islam Agraham Issac Sarah Rebekkah Bible The New American Bible god sacrifice burnt offering
I remember hearing his story in grammar school and wondering some of the same questions that you have so articulately asked. Isn't it reaffirming to know that 4 of those who expressed the desire to lead the most powerful nation in the world said that god had told them to run for that office. Is it lunacy, idiocy or both?
Great article! Thanks for clearing things up.
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Judge for yourself, Geoff --
pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx
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I love your humorous moments,it actually makes reading the bible "again" kinda fun.I'm like Geoff,isn't it quite egotistical to actually say God spoke to you,I mean talking about a Narcissistic personality.
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