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Post by gameboy on Mar 21, 2020 3:24:26 GMT
Replace "child" with "son". That's irrelevant. I agree with you. But the story is not "unsettling", it's ennobling. And it's really not about a test of Abraham's faith. It was a political directive about law and social reform. My point is both theists and atheists are concentrating on the idea that god asked Abraham to sacrifice his son. That is not the point of the story at all. It's not as if god asked for a human sacrifice and then changed his mind. There is only one point to the story: Human sacrifice as practiced in Canaan and the Middle East was now BANNED. I'm an atheist. You see it as a religious issue. I see it as a step forward in human rights. You have taken a more enlightened and intelligent approach to the parable. The issue is when God gets in the way of giving the directive, it does become and sound warped to many and understandably so. It is an opportunity to mock what God represents, based on the deluded belief as being objective and real. Read what SciFive said though. Judaism is very practical. People may invent gods but when it boils down it, these parables are designed to affect how humans live.
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Post by Toasted Cheese on Mar 21, 2020 3:30:18 GMT
You have taken a more enlightened and intelligent approach to the parable. The issue is when God gets in the way of giving the directive, it does become and sound warped to many and understandably so. It is an opportunity to mock what God represents, based on the deluded belief as being objective and real. Read what SciFive said though. Judaism is very practical. People may invent gods but when it boils down it, these parables are designed to affect how humans live. Thing is, these parables have been grossly taken out of context. The muck does wash off, but some just seem to want it to still stick, even if glaringly archaic and irrational in projection. Yes, these parables have founded and implemented much of how we live today, but one doesn't need a God to tell one that stealing and killing is wrong.
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Post by SciFive on Mar 21, 2020 9:24:35 GMT
You have taken a more enlightened and intelligent approach to the parable. The issue is when God gets in the way of giving the directive, it does become and sound warped to many and understandably so. It is an opportunity to mock what God represents, based on the deluded belief as being objective and real. Read what SciFive said though. Judaism is very practical. People may invent gods but when it boils down it, these parables are designed to affect how humans live. Exactly right!! One of my favorite quotes from the Torah is when an enemy finds the Hebrew camps to curse the Hebrews. He sees them and says to himself, “How goodly are your tents, O Jacob.” The Hebrews were civilized with an orderly society that had rules and law enforcement. Their “tents” were a good functioning culture. This is a good lesson. |
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Post by fatpaul on Mar 21, 2020 19:04:14 GMT
According to Richard Elliot Friedman, via the documentary hypothesis, Genesis 22: 1-10 and 16- 19 was written by a source labelled E (Elohim) with Genesis 22: 11-15 written by a redactor. From verse 8:
I see how this would be troubling and misunderstood if sticking to a literal interpretation.
If you read just the E verses then you read a story that implies that Abraham went thru with the sacrifice with the giveaways being: for the rest of the E source in the Torah, Isaac is never mentioned again; from the start of Genesis 22, God is only mentioned and then suddenly an angel of YHWH appears to do God's bidding; the angel again calls to Abraham which implies this second call was added to relate the statement beginning in verse 16 to the angel rather than God.
One school of thought on why redactors would do this to, not only this source, but to other sources throughout the Torah is that if selling monotheism to polytheists and familial deity worshipers then associate various deities as the same deity (Elohim and YHWH), especially if attempting to justify why an unpopular, yet divinely decreed, ritual isn’t necessary anymore. However there are many schools of thought about why a redactor would do so and Richard Elliot Friedman doesn't himself go into detail about this as he just examines the textual and linguistic differences in the Torah itself.
The information here and translation are from Richard Elliot Friedman’s book, The Bible with Sources Revealed: (Harper Collins (USA); Reprint edition (1 Aug. 2005));
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Post by SciFive on Mar 22, 2020 6:41:00 GMT
According to Richard Elliot Friedman, via the documentary hypothesis, Genesis 22: 1-10 and 16- 19 was written by a source labelled E (Elohim) with Genesis 22: 11-15 written by a redactor. From verse 8: I see how this would be troubling and misunderstood if sticking to a literal interpretation. If you read just the E verses then you read a story that implies that Abraham went thru with the sacrifice with the giveaways being: for the rest of the E source in the Torah, Isaac is never mentioned again; from the start of Genesis 22, God is only mentioned and then suddenly an angel of YHWH appears to do God's bidding; the angel again calls to Abraham which implies this second call was added to relate the statement beginning in verse 16 to the angel rather than God. One school of thought on why redactors would do this to, not only this source, but to other sources throughout the Torah is that if selling monotheism to polytheists and familial deity worshipers then associate various deities as the same deity (Elohim and YHWH), especially if attempting to justify why an unpopular, yet divinely decreed, ritual isn’t necessary anymore. However there are many schools of thought about why a redactor would do so and Richard Elliot Friedman doesn't himself go into detail about this as he just examines the textual and linguistic differences in the Torah itself. The information here and translation are from Richard Elliot Friedman’s book, The Bible with Sources Revealed: (Harper Collins (USA); Reprint edition (1 Aug. 2005)); Isaac finishes out his life and dies an old man after having twin sons. Jacob (later renamed Israel) is the one who inherits Isaac’s spiritual legacy. Otherwise, the Hebrews would have stopped with Isaac. Nothing else would have happened in the story of the Jewish people. |
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