That's the pat reply, softening the story for more liberal times. It's about fear, submission and obedience.

It happened some time later that God put Abraham to the test.

'Do not harm him, for now I know you fear God. You have not refused me your own beloved son.'

All nations on earth will bless themselves by your descendants, because you have obeyed my command.'

Faith is believing despite the facts. It is obedience even to committing abominations:

God wants us to behave in a particular way, that if we don't do so we sin and are subject to punishment. — Ciceronianus

And the reward is to "make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the grains of sand on the seashore".

...if you're interested — Hanover

In folk apologising for their book? Not so much.

That's the pat reply, softening the story for more liberal times It's about fear, submission and obedience. — Banno

In folk pologising for their book? Not so much — Banno

The interpretation I offered that interpreted the story as offering opposition to child sacrifice isn't a new fangled liberal interpretation, which you might have to learned had you been interested in understanding what the story means to those who use it. It's a 5th century Talmudic interpretation.

Meaning is use.

So, if you wish to know what people mean when they speak, you'll have to endure their translations. They speak a different language than you.

No language is better than another.

It's a story about obeying one's master, like it or not. Abraham does what he is told, to the point of obscenity, and is rewarded.

It's a story about obeying one's master, like it or not. Abraham does what he is told, to the point of obscenity, and is rewarded. — Banno

Thank you Rabbi Banno for that comprehensive and contextualized analysis. Thousands of pages and hundreds of years of interpretation crystallized.

Others suggest it stands for the proposition that human sacrifice is prohibited. Others as a foretelling of the coming of Jesus. — Hanover

Yep. It sits in the foundational story of Abraham, who would sacrifice his son because god wills it, glorifying doing what one is told to do over taking personal responsibility. — Banno

Banno offers the moral interpretation. Hanover provided a functional interpretation. Combined it might say:

“God wants your full obedience and in doing so will show you that he’s not too unreasonable”.

But he did screw with Abraham’s head and majorly gaslighted Job in the pursuit of “testing” their loyalty. I find that an interesting godly trait.

Reward and punishment for being loyal, and loyalty tests that might require emotional and physical anguish.

Biblical interpretation has to be contextualized. If the document is held out as a guide for life, offering a literalist interpretation to derive it's meaning isn't helpful.

By analogy, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws" had been taken to mean the state could not regulate abortion in the first trimester.

Where do you see that?

It's how you wish use such documents that comes into debate, and that informs how you'll interpret it, meaning how you use it determines its meaning.

It's how you wish use such documents that comes into debate, and that informs how you'll interpret it, meaning how you use it determines its meaning. — Hanover

Surely, you can’t say that the only takeaway from the story of Isaac is that it means that sacrificing humans is not a requirement. Yes that is a proposed explanation for why Israelites didn’t sacrifice like some Canaanites or ancient groups did but that’s like a smaller functional retrojection common in Talmudic pilpul. Rather, the main point is being obedient to god, and being rewarded for doing so.

Rather, the main point is being obedient to god, and being rewarded for doing so. — schopenhauer1

If God is interpreted as Good, then where is the secular/religious distinction you make here?

If God is interpreted as Good, then where is the secular/religious distinction you make here? — Hanover

I’m not quite getting your question. If you replace a major concept with another, it loses the value of its point. Can you explain what you mean?

For God to be an ogre demanding obedience, you have to take a very literalist definition and you must assume he decrees without being subject to interpretation.

If, though, you apply a more open interpretation throughout all contexts, your demand for obedience isn't to some angry demanding man in the sky, but it's to a conceptual goodness.

God is fully incorporeal, so what exactly do you propose you're being obedience to?

What I consider correct is somewhat less imposing and absolute. And even subject to change. — Ciceronianus

Personally, I want some things to be absolute, for example the dignity/essential goodness of human life and the way that disability is understood.

Yep. It sits in the foundational story of Abraham, who would sacrifice his son because god wills it, glorifying doing what one is told to do over taking personal responsibility. — Banno

I think you're retrojecting back a 21st century understanding to an individual who supposedly lived in the early 2nd millennium BC when human sacrifice was a normal cultural practice meant to please the gods and bring about good harvests (I don't believe monotheism was a thing at this time). What's there to say that it's wrong? Animals are sacrificed, why not humans?

For God to be an ogre demanding obedience, you have to take a very literalist definition and you must assume he decrees without being subject to interpretation.

If, though, you apply a more open interpretation throughout all contexts, your demand for obedience isn't to some angry demanding man in the sky, but it's to a conceptual goodness.

God is fully incorporeal, so what exactly do you propose you're being obedience to? — Hanover

Why would I apply a more open interpretation when most likely, at the time, it was precisely the literal one in the text which was trying to be conveyed? Sure, later on, the rabbis in Talmudic fashion, will try to gain more meaning from the text, but even if one believed these post-facto, clever retrojected interpretations, the plain one, and probably the original meaning is right there in the text- Abraham was rewarded for his faith and obedience.

22:9. They arrived at the place of which God had told him. Abraham built an altar there; he laid out the wood; he bound his son Isaac; he laid him on the altar, on top of the wood.

22:10. And Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son.

22:11. Then an angel of the LORD called to him from heaven: “Abraham! Abraham!” And he answered, “Here I am.”

22:12. And he said, “Do not raise your hand against the boy, or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your favored one, from Me.” — Genesis

It's clear God in these stories, likes tests of faith, sometimes rewarding, sometimes punishing, sometimes basically saying, "Hey I do what I do.. don't question it." (Looking at you, Job).

The Ancient world had all kinds of fables. The Israelite/Jewish ones tended to have an explicitly ethical command attached to it that encumbant on the adherent/tribe-member. But even if there is this ethical difference, it resembled other ones like Near Eastern and Greco-Roman ones in that these stories, though set in some time-frame are still kind of happening in "noumenal space". These "historical events" just so happen to be timeless, literary morality tales. They lack the slice of life that even a good historical fiction provides.

Now Iapetus took to wife the neat-ankled maid Clymene, daughter of Ocean, and went up with her into one bed. And she bore him a stout-hearted son, Atlas: [510] also she bore very glorious Menoetius and clever Prometheus, full of various wiles, and scatter-brained Epimetheus who from the first was a mischief to men who eat bread; for it was he who first took of Zeus the woman, the maiden whom he had formed. But Menoetius was outrageous, and farseeing Zeus [515] struck him with a lurid thunderbolt and sent him down to Erebus because of his mad presumption and exceeding pride. And Atlas through hard constraint upholds the wide heaven with unwearying head and arms, standing at the borders of the earth before the clear-voiced Hesperides; [520] for this lot wise Zeus assigned to him. And ready-witted Prometheus he bound with inextricable bonds, cruel chains, and drove a shaft through his middle, and set on him a long-winged eagle, which used to eat his immortal liver; but by night the liver grew [525] as much again everyway as the long-winged bird devoured in the whole day. That bird Heracles, the valiant son of shapely-ankled Alcmene, slew; and delivered the son of Iapetus from the cruel plague, and released him from his affliction—not without the will of Olympian Zeus who reigns on high, [530] that the glory of Heracles the Theban-born might be yet greater than it was before over the plenteous earth. This, then, he regarded, and honored his famous son; though he was angry, he ceased from the wrath which he had before because Prometheus matched himself in wit with the almighty son of Cronos. [535] For when the gods and mortal men had a dispute at Mecone, even then Prometheus was forward to cut up a great ox and set portions before them, trying to deceive the mind of Zeus. Before the rest he set flesh and inner parts thick with fat upon the hide, covering them with an ox paunch; [540] but for Zeus he put the white bones dressed up with cunning art and covered with shining fat. Then the father of men and of gods said to him: “Son of Iapetus, most glorious of all lords, good sir, how unfairly you have divided the portions!” — Hesiod

The interpretation I offered that interpreted the story as offering opposition to child sacrifice isn't a new fangled liberal interpretation — Hanover

I didn't say it was. I said it suits our more liberal times. In other times it was no doubt understood as showing how a vassal must obey their lord. Nor are the various interpretations mutually exclusive. It can be an admonition both to obedience and against human sacrifice.

But in no reasonable reading could it not be understood as advocating that one ought do as god commands even if what is commanded is abominable. That one's own desires is to be secondary to God's will.

Thank you Rabbi Banno for that comprehensive and contextualized analysis. Thousands of pages and hundreds of years of interpretation crystallized. — Hanover

An ad hom already. That was quick, even for you.

But he did screw with Abraham’s head and majorly gaslighted Job in the pursuit of “testing” their loyalty. — schopenhauer1

Which is at the least good evidence that the god described in such books is not worthy of praise for his morality.

Biblical interpretation has to be contextualized — Hanover

Hmm.

Well, obviously, this is not meant to be taken literally. It refers to any manufacturers of dairy products. — Gregory, Life of Brian

For God to be an ogre demanding obedience, you have to take a very literalist definition and you must assume he decrees without being subject to interpretation. — Hanover

Or you could read what he supposedly says and does in your text.

God said, 'Take your son, your only son, your beloved Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, where you are to offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall point out to you.' — 22:2

Pretty hard to misinterpret the obscenity here.

Why would I apply a more open interpretation when most likely, at the time, it was precisely the literal one in the text which was trying to be conveyed? — schopenhauer1

This is just incorrect. Fundamental literalism is a reactionary response to perceived threats of the scientific revolution. It's a modern phenomenon.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalism#:~:text=Biblical%20literalism%20first%20became%20an,mention%20it%20in%20his%20Encyclop%C3%A9die.

didn't say it was. I said it suits our more liberal times. In other times it was no doubt understood as showing how a vassal must obey their lord. — Banno

Cite?

Well, blessed is just about everyone with a vested interest in the status quo, as far as I can tell, Reg. — Francis, LOB:3

You're denying what is explicit in the text. No citation will help you.

God said, 'Take your son, your only son, your beloved Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, where you are to offer him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall point out to you.'
— 22:2 — Banno

Unconscionable.

If we imagine a historical Abraham in ~1900 bc he wouldn’t know whether child sacrifice is right or wrong. It was a norm of the time. The logic was it appeased gods and led to a good harvest. So maybe this god demands it too. But it turns out he doesn’t luckily.

And child sacrifice unfortunately was practiced by the ancient Israelites from time to time up until the second temple period. So no this story did not stop child sacrifice. And if you’ll are mad that God messes with Abraham’s head well I’ve got some news for you…

The literal text of the Bible, taken in isolation without other traditions, texts, and cultural norms has not been the way any major religion has treated the Bible, with the best exception to what I just said being very modern Christian fundamentalism, but even there, that can't fully be said.

You're just going on and on with a strawman that no one who takes biblical critical theory seriously would take seriously.

In Judaism, for example, the oral tradition, is just as prioritized as the Torah, offering explanations well beyond the limited text you cite.

This would be like you citing a Georgia statute and refusing to consider any other statute, federal authority, prior judicial interpretation, or any constitution, and your insisting your interpretation was correct because the literal text says what it says.

Again, of all people you accept that meaning is use. The community that uses those words doesn't slaughter their children and never would, so obviously it means something quite different to them than to how you read it.

But if you're sure the Bible dictates dashing children's heads against stones, then you're right to avoid it and those who embrace it that way.

I just saw a play today. Unfortunately no actor broke a leg.

I mean literally I wanted to see a complex displaced femur fracture. Unfortunately no orthopedic injuries befell the cast.

And if you’ll are mad that God messes with Abraham’s head well I’ve got some news for you… — Moses

I'm not mad, but I'm curious about the news you are alluding to.

He floods the world earlier in the book.

You're just going on and on with a strawman that no one who takes biblical critical theory seriously would take seriously. — Hanover

Quite right. The religious need scholarship in order to make their scriptures palatable, even unto themselves.

Real life isn’t palatable. Tsunamis and hurricanes kill countless. I get that you may want God to be sparkles and rainbows but if there is a singular God who is above nature and in charge of everything then I don’t know how our account of him would be sparkles and rainbows and representative of reality at the same time. Something’s gotta give.

Sure. So the obvious conclusion is that there is no consistent account of the nature of god as posited.

Now from this we might conclude either that he doesn't exist or that he does and we just have to accept that he is inscrutable.

You get to choose.

Hello friends!

I am somewhat concerned that a topic about politics and religion, society and religion, democracy and religion, or law and religion always starts as a complaint rather than an analysis.

What I mean by analysis is, let's start with a close look at the primal fear of humans -- because only then do we get to understand that the idea of "father" resides permanently in our psyche. Our fear of being "alone" in the universe is embedded in our biological makeup. It is not by accident that the first humans looked up in the sky when they sensed that a dark matter was about to snuff everybody out of existence.

'tis the truth. Work with religion, not against it.

This would be like you citing a Georgia statute and refusing to consider any other statute, federal authority, prior judicial interpretation, or any constitution, and your insisting your interpretation was correct because the literal text says what it says. — Hanover

Exactly right. It doesn't bother me much that modern atheists balk at the binding of Isaac, but modern atheism does seem to be the flip side of Christian fundamentalism. In each case the text is just a prop for some ulterior end.

Meaning is use.

So, if you wish to know what people mean when they speak, you'll have to endure their translations. They speak a different language than you. — Hanover

:smile:

Thank you Rabbi Banno for that comprehensive and contextualized analysis. Thousands of pages and hundreds of years of interpretation crystallized. — Hanover

An ad hom already. That was quick, even for you. — Banno

How could you construe that as an ad hominem? :chin:

Where do the Abrahamic religions fall in your genealogy of modern tolerance? — Leontiskos

I'm uncertain what you mean by this. — Ciceronianus

Where does your virtue of tolerance come from? The American Revolution? The French? Romanticism? The Enlightenment? The humanist revival? Christendom? The Roman Empire? Greek philosophy? The Hebrew scriptures?

This is just incorrect. Fundamental literalism is a reactionary response to perceived threats of the scientific revolution. It's a modern phenomenon. — Hanover

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshat

Peshat interpretations also note the importance of context, both historical and literary.[3] This is in contrast to Drash, which will often take the text of a verse out of its context, for uses beyond the context such as ritual or moral purposes.[3]

There is nothing in the text or commentaries contradicting the basic text’s meaning which is Abraham was obedient. You might get other things, like god is merciful, and would not allow human sacrifice, but the main character here is Abraham and his fidelity and trust.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshat — schopenhauer1

"Peshat interpretations also note the importance of context, both historical and literary."

I think the point here is that the literal meaning of a text isn't necessarily what an uneducated atheist takes away after reading a translation a few thousand years later.

Now, I do think the text lauds Abraham's obedience. That is part of the meaning. I'm not convinced that @Hanover was disagreeing with this.

Now, I do think the text lauds Abraham's obedience. That is part of the meaning. I'm not convinced that Hanover was disagreeing with this. — Leontiskos

So what is this debate about? That was the question at hand.. Is this about obedience? As here:

If God is interpreted as Good, then where is the secular/religious distinction you make here? — Hanover

He took this completely out of context, and even added ideas of “Goodness”. You can make a text do whatever you want.