Abraham/Isaac sacrifice
 

Who here believes the narrative as proposed?

I'm aware of its metaphorical value, but does everybody simply accept at face value that Abraham was requested and accepted the fact that he intended to sacrifice Isaac? I will not deny the power of the analogy, but whether anybody is really willing to kill one's offspring, is very difficult for me to accept. It is also plausible for me that something which evolved into the current narrative actually occurred, but what do I know.

Any other speculations?

I believe it, but mainly because believing it adds power to the message; i.e., I want to believe it. I can only take Kierkegaard in small doses, but his Panegyric Upon Abraham, at the beginning of Fear and Trembling, has provided fodder for at least a half dozen talks I've given over the years. Like the narrator in that introduction, I'm incapable of fully understanding or appreciating Abraham, but it's an interesting exercise to try.

The Abraham/Issac story was presented recently in a lesson I attended as an example of the "refiner's fire."

I suppose the point was that Abraham wanted all of the things he wanted for himself, not because it was the lord's will. Through his faith and the refiner's fire of having to give Issac up as an offering to the Lord, he was showing the lord that he would do the lord's will when asked.

The Abraham/Isaac sacrifice is one of the most damaging and stupid stories in all scripture, IMO.

Job also ranks right up there.

You never disappoint, Sooner.

Inflammatory statement with zero explanation or support. Ding!

Ready for this? My Old Testament teacher believes Abraham actually sacrificed Isaac and God raised Isaac from the dead later.

Noah and the flood, Moses and the Red Sea, Daniel and the lion's den, baby Moses floating down the river...

Your Old Testament teacher is an idiot. You can tell him I said that.

I'll be sure to do that.

Aren't you even a little curious as to how he arrived there? He's a converted Jew, btw.

Also, you have no substance. You can tell you I said that.

The idea that Isaac was raised from the dead is found is some rabbinic midrash. I assume he is drawing on those sources.

I'd enjoy hearing that explanation.

While the Abraham story is indeed horrible (Killing is fine as long you think God told you to!), it's hard to beat the flood story. God wipes out however many millions of people because they were "wicked," when he's the one supposedly responsible for creating them that way to begin with. Without changing their nature, humans return to "sin" immediately. I wonder if God was surprised by that or if he just got his rocks off by killing people. Otherwise, what was the point of the flood?

Fascinating. Really. I love the story of Job. Not so much the end, which seems to have been the work of Hollywood screenwriters trying to come up with an ending that will send the crowd home satisfied. But the first 90% contains, for me at least, some great and deeply profound truths.

Most likely.

Here are some of his points:

1. In the first part of Genesis 22, the verbs used when Abraham and Isaac go up to the mountain, the plural forms are used. However, in verse 19, Abraham returns alone, and the verb used for "returned" is definitely singular. "Abraham (singular) returned (singular)."

2. In verse 19, Abraham lives in Beer-sheba. In the first part of Genesis 23, Sarah dies and Abraham has to journey to Kirjath-arba to bury her, which is 30 miles from Beer-sheba. Is is possible that Sarah knew what Abraham was going to do and gave him a "if you return without my son, don't come back at all," ultimatum?

3. In Hebrew, the word we get "to offer" from (if I remember right) is "obla." "Obla" is the same word as "to go up," as when burnt offerings are made, the entire offering is consumed and goes up to God. Essentially, the word "to offer" implies a lot more in Hebrew than it does in English. To us, there is no implication of giving. We can offer things and have them rejected or choose to take them back. To a Jew, "to offer" means to go all the way... give it to God, entirely.

3a. Every time an apostle (Paul) or prophet (Nephi) references Abraham and Isaac, they use the word "offer." In Gen 22:16 it reads:

And said, By myself have I sworn saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son:

One way to look at it is that God accepted Abraham's "offering" (English understanding) and Isaac was not sacrificed. But the Hebrew understanding of "offering" is a very final one.


That's essentially it. My teacher was very clear about how this isn't doctrine; there are two ways to interpret the scriptures, and either story has the same doctrine behind it. And frankly, it doesn't matter. It's just something interesting.

The "pain is but an instant" and "trials lead to growth" aspects are fine, but the "God is a dick who likes to punish people for his own amusement" isn't quite as honorable. I'm pretty sure even the fundies consider Job to be a parable, though, so the former aspects are probably the point of the story. With that understood, Job doesn't really bother me.

God chatting with Satan and deciding to lay down a wager seems a bit odd to me.

I've read the accounts of Old Testament scholars who point out that chronologically speaking, Isaac would have been in his late 20's at the time of the sacrifice, which means Abraham would have been pushing 130. So that brings up a whole new point: that Isaac was willing to be sacrificed, for certainly he could have overpowered his old man.

Job might be an inspiring allegory to me if it wasn't about God torturing Job to win a bet with Satan. If God had lost the bet, it wouldn't be in our scriptures, and that makes me wish that God had lost the bet.

OK, that was funny.

Yes, he is drawing on jewish midrash of the story. These midrash usually expand on Genesis 22:19 in about the way you just describe (they attach great singificance to the fact the it only refers explicitly to Abraham returning and not Isaac). My understanding is that this was a very common view in the middle ages.

God murdering all of Jobs family seems a bit out of character as well.

I find it more amusing than troubling, a mortal author's attempt at explaining why bad things happen to us. I don't regard it as doctrine, although it's useful when defending an occasional trip to the tables. I assume it goes without saying I do not believe in the literal truth of the book.

One of my favorite parts is when the friends/home teachers visit Job and take turns at trying to figure out why Job got on God's craplist.

Of course, there's the fact that the Genesis account explicitly mentions the ram in the thicket, "Lay not thine hand upon the lad," etc.

As my teacher put it, it's as if there are two accounts of the story. Our Western linear minds have a hard time with that.

He wore a blue shirt to church one week.

Hey Lingo:

Why don't you ask your Old Testament teacher what he thinks of God killing a man because of coitus interruptus (spilling his man gravy) because he didn't want to impregnate his new wife (his brother's widow)?

Okay. Where is that?

It is easy to pick on Job with some funny one liners but I really think many people miss the point of the book. Job taken as a whole provides very important theological balance to other books in the Old Testament. It provides particular balance to the "Wisdom Literature" in the OT such as proverbs where Retributive Theology is the primary theological viewpoint. Job provides a remarkable counterpoint to the "Wisdom Literature." People get hung up on the fact that the narrative is told in a very stylistic way. But the highly stylized narrative adds to the punch of the dramatic theological counterpunch. Job is a masterpiece.

Genesis 38:6-10

The husband of Tamar died. Judah told Onan that he had to marry Tamar, his brother's widow. Onan "wasted his seed on the ground." God killed Onan because God was displeased. Onanism=the withdrawal method. Highly unreliable. I don't recommend it. One of my best friends and his wife had an unplanned pregnancy because of this.

Yes, many people have hypothesized that there is editorial activity combining multiple accounts together and we are seeing evidence of editorial seams in those verses.

Soonercoug, it is fine to try to get some oneliners in but you are smart enough to approach the scriptures in a much more sophisticated way than you have done in this thread. Instead of trying to take potshots at stories interpretated through a particularly hermeunetic that you find distasteful, step up to the plate and outline a heremeunetic that allows the stories to be relevant and useful in modern LDS discourse. I really think your intellectual energy would be much better served in such a cause.

If you're having sex without any form of birth control, how is any pregnancy unplanned? :)

I think the stories are fine if they are interpreted this way:

1) Written by ancient non-prophets who were describing and interpreting awful events

AND/OR

2) Pure mythology that speaks to every human being's desire to understand why life tends to suck from time to time

But when people ponder what these stories tell us about God, then I tune out, because these stories aren't about God. I think these stories are about people writing stories. They might be entertaining stories, and they might tell us something about humanity, and they might even be beautifully written...but that doesn't make me embrace them as theology.

I can't discuss this crap with Lingo because he's too far gone.

Coitus interruptus is a form of birth control.

I realize that.

I'm confused... God killed someone for practicing coitus interruptus, so this couple you know doesn't use it and the wife gets pregnant?

Again, having sex without using any form of birth control = pregnancy. Can't be unplanned.

I said "odd", not "troubling".

I always assumed that the story of Job was a highly-embellished legend meant to teach a principle that was eventually recorded as scripture. A legend which may have originated with some poor man who seemed to suffer greatly and yet bear his burdens with dignity and humility. And in the telling and retelling of the story, the more bizarre elements were added to spice things up and make it more powerful.

Would now be a good time to bring up the She-Bears?

Ooh, that's a good one. Don't mess with the prophet, man. Especially if you're a kid.

Lingo's dad never taught him about the birds and the bees.

Lingo: When you ejaculate into a vagina, then the chances of pregnancy are greater than when you don't ejaculate into a vagina.

There is such a thing as pre-ejaculatory fluid, which contains fewer sperm than ejaculate.

Coitus interruptus decreases the chances of pregnancy. However, some sperm are very strong swimmers. Because of this, pre-ejaculatory fluid is sometimes enough to fertilize an egg.

Birth control is about decreasing the chances of pregnancy. Sometimes condoms don't work. It doesn't mean that condoms aren't birth control. Coitus interruptus is less effective than a condom, but more effective than ejaculating into a vagina.

Sometimes HIV passes through condoms. This doesn't mean that condoms don't decrease the transmission rate for HIV.

Sooner, I know all this stuff. Spare the lecture.

What I don't get is how this Old Testament account has anything to do with your friend and his wife getting pregnant.

I want to know why God killed Onan, but not my friend. Has God become more relaxed with age?

That's fine. I think providing a framework and explaining what you find valuable is far more useful even on a board where one-liners are highly prized. I don't think you are giving the OT enough credit, but I appreciate the effort. I think there is great theological worth in the book of Job. I would approach the book like the following:

Job Lesson notes

I think in general people try to draw theological or doctrinal inferences from details of the story and then they miss the overriding theological points. The details of Job aren't meant to describe or establish specific theological points. Instead the details are meant to focus the reader on the overriding theological or doctrinal themes.

I am not going to answer this question because I don't think it is important but I do want to defend the Onan story in general. I find this story very interesting for the contrast it provides with the Joseph story (which it is sandwiched in the middle of). Also, it continues the theme of reversal. Once again the first born is not righteous and his fate is highlighted. This continues a very important theme in the OT where the firstborn incurs God's displeasure. Why? Why is this such an important theme? Does this theme tell us someting about God even if we find some of the specific detauls of the reversal events distasteful or weird from a modern perspective? Is the theme of reversal as important in the NT?If If so how is reversal different or similar in the OT and NT? Is this an important source of continuity between the OT and NT?

Also let me add that Onan reversal is at least two fold. It is ironic that he is essentially called to serve his younger brother (Judah calls him to serve his younger brother when Judah refused to do exactly this with Joseph). He refuses to do this and is punished by God. We can think of many other examples where this specific reversal is highlighted. I think there is some room for a nice discussion instead of giggling over the description of a sexual act.

The story is full of irony; Judah invented the lie told to his father about the "death" of Joseph. He loses two sons very quickly. His lack of grief in these verses provides contrast to Jacob's grief upon learning about Joseph's death