A Skeptic Reads the Bible 10: Abraham (Nearly) Murders Isaac in a Human Sacrifice

After Sodom and Gomorrah, God tried to balance the somewhat bloodied cosmic scales by giving the barren couple a son. Ishmael, Abraham's son through their slave Hagar, evidently doesn't count after all. As Isaac grows up, Sarah and Abraham decide to exile the slave and his illegitimate son in order to deny them any inheritance. They are left dying of thirst in the desert, and would have perished had not God intervened by sending an angel with some water. God does not seem particularly concerned about the fact that Abraham very nearly murdered a slave woman as well as his own son: he still regards Abraham as his righteous vessel.

Incidentally, this story has some problems in terms of Biblical inconsistency or even (dare I say it) Biblical contradiction. "Harmonize" this: Abraham is 86 years old at Ishmael's birth, and 100 years old at Isaac's birth, but when Ishmael and Hagar are banished, some time after Isaac's birth, Ishmael is still a baby. We know this because Hagar supposedly is carrying him while she wanders, and sets him down behind a bush so he will not hear her cry in despair, "about a bowshot away," at their total lack of water.

But we're getting off track here. Isaac is Abraham's chosen son, his favourite, and yet Abraham does not seem overly concerned with raising him to be a strong, independent man in his own right. And soon, the most bizarre "test" of all occurs: God asks Abraham to perform a human sacrifice and murder Isaac. And Abraham agrees!

I'll re-tell the story here before I get into my analysis. God decides to "test Abraham," in the words of Genesis, by telling him to "take your son..., whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there s a burnt offering." Abraham obligingly summons two servants and his son, gathers some wood, and heads off. Along the way he orders his servants to hang back, presumably so there are no witnesses, and then lies to his son (who perceptibly wonders why there is no animal to sacrifice) by stating that "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering."

I say lie for a reason: from all that Abraham knew at the time, there would be no lamb for the offering. As it turned out, he was fortunately mistaken. Abraham ties Isaac down (the boy apparently does not struggle, though he must now know what is happening, and be well and truly terrified), and is about to dispatch him with the knife when God halts the proceedings, praises Abraham for not "withholding his son," and points them to a nearby ram to sacrifice instead.

As far as the traditional Christian interpretation of the story goes, it pretty much ends there: Abraham has proven that his faith in God is so great that he will not even hold back his only son. And so we should all praise Abraham for his great faith. God is impressed too, it seems, and promises that Abraham's descendants will be "as numerous as the stars" and will "take possession of the cities of their enemies."

At this point, you should probably be questioning the sanity of Abraham as well, perhaps, as God himself. This near-human sacrifice is an immensely significant symbolic moment both in Jewish and Christian "history"; to the Christians, it's an obvious precursor to God's decision not to "withhold" from sacrifice his only son, Jesus Christ, in the New Testament. But you'd be pretty hard-pressed today to find any Christian man or woman who would frankly state that they would have been as willing to murder their own child for God's sake as Abraham was. And if you pressed them to examine their feelings closely enough, most of those parents would probably admit that in their minds killing your kids is always wrong, even if God tells you to.

So much for Abraham, who, although he's clearly relieved when God provides the alternate sacrifice, otherwise shows no particular concern over the fact that he's going to murder his own kid on God's orders. He definitely knows what he's doing is wrong, because he orders the servants to turn back and initially lies to his son about what's going to happen. But none of that is enough to convince him maybe it's worth not going through with it. Abraham was willing to bargain with God for the lives of the Sodomites. He doesn't attempt to do so for his own son, Isaac.

We also have to wonder about God, here, however. Frankly, what God has done here is disgusting. It is immoral. It is, I think I would venture to say, sinful.

Now, the obvious Christian response is that God knew all along that nobody was going to be killed. He knew, obviously, that his plan was to step in at the last minute and make sure that Isaac was never harmed.

But that's not the point. I have already noted that Genesis is painfully vague on what sin is and isn't, but murder is clearly sinful. God said so, to Noah. From God's perspective, this is really an extremely cruel and deceitful little "test": basically, he wants to see whether we can convince one man to murder another man, after previously telling them they're not allowed to kill each other.

I am reminded, a little bit, of Keanu Reeves's statement in Constantine that God is little more than "a kid with an ant farm.

From this perspective, God's plan is irrelevant. The fact that he was going to intervene before Isaac was harmed is irrelevant. The point is, he is deliberately attempting to convince a man to sin in the most horrible way imaginable. As soon as it's clear that Abraham is willing to do so, the experiment is over, and God calls a halt in order to save Isaac. But his point is made: his word is so powerful, at least to Abraham in particular, that he can convince a man to commit unspeakable atrocities. And somehow God regards this as a legitimate "test" of loyalty!

So far I've only been talking about the mindsets of God and Abraham, but there's obviously someone else who was deeply affected by this incident: Isaac himself. Nearly being murdered by your own father, who was convinced that he was doing was righteous and commanded by God, would no doubt be an extremely traumatizing experience for any youth. I wonder if this helps explain why Isaac later becomes such an indecisive and tormented figure himself.

Read more of the "A Skeptic Reads the Bible" series, published on AssociatedContent.com:

"An Insecure God Trashes the Tower of Babel" (Genesis 10-11)

"Abraham Lies, Cheats and Swindles His Way into Grace" (Genesis 12-25)

"Homosexuality and Sexism in Sodom and Gomorrah" (Genesis 18-19)

Check out the index to all published "A Skeptic Reads the Bible" commentaries.