tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post977365916175633273..comments2023-09-08T03:25:12.539-05:00Comments on Liberal Jesus: So what's up with Abraham sacrificing Isaac?Matthewhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17980181582122445265noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-66507444175687514902012-08-10T21:39:30.612-05:002012-08-10T21:39:30.612-05:00Ancient Hebrew Learning Center http://www.ahlcglob...Ancient Hebrew Learning Center http://www.ahlcglobal.com/index.php?do=/ahlc/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-60636916711960465892012-08-10T21:38:36.793-05:002012-08-10T21:38:36.793-05:00You most definitely need to read "The Land of...You most definitely need to read "The Land of Meat and Honey" by Dr. Shmuel Asher, Th.D and "The Lost Religion of Jesus" by Keith Akers! They fit well with your journey! Shalom!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-58716878001391339542009-03-28T08:41:00.000-05:002009-03-28T08:41:00.000-05:00Hi, anonymous. Interesting thoughts, but I'd want ...Hi, anonymous. Interesting thoughts, but I'd want to see some sort of argument or evidence outside of the religious traditions that you mention that would help explain why blood should be so important to "the spiritual". I would argue that the prevalence of blood in religious ritual is there not because it has some sort of magical power to change things, but because (more recently) blood symbolizes life, and because (further in the past) religious sacrifice involved killing an outcast person in order to get groups within the society to stop killing one another. See Rene Girard's writings for more on this.<BR/><BR/>Anyhow, this is kind of an old post, but thanks for commenting.Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17980181582122445265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-46657809741861184362009-03-28T02:50:00.000-05:002009-03-28T02:50:00.000-05:00"postmodern liberal humanist"quite inriguing - asc..."postmodern liberal humanist"<BR/>quite inriguing - ascribing to this idealist, seemingly highly placed,school of thought. i will nevertheless, "ascend" to your thought line and judge your posting with your on system. pretty futil since you will remove my post anyway, but at leadt you will have read it.so regarding your prejudiced accusation against Yahweh, in strict judicial environment, there was neither any human sacrifice executed, nor one intended.the evidenenceis the pre-arranged provision of an actual object of sacrifice, a lamb, proving that God knew and intended beforehand not to have isaac sacrificed.<BR/>It would be pretty retarded to believe that Donald trump intends to employ you as a lemonade salesperson just because he gives you a task on apprentice to go and sell some.<BR/>A liberal humanist should be able to desipher this i guess.<BR/><BR/>Then, ever asked yourself why most religions, some of whom so native you wouldnt claim to have had contact outside their village, all seem to have the principle that there hass to be shedding of blood for forgiveness of sin? i am a kenyan and 80% of african religion involve a form of blood sacrifice to remove or somehow atone for sin.<BR/><BR/>well, here is my theory - itis a spriritual principle. spiritual - not christian only. free masonry and dark worship have it too. every one wiling to delfve into the spiritual must know that spiritual relationships are sealed in blood. <BR/>Principles - like gravity - work irrespective of parties involved.<BR/>another example of a spiritual principle is that spiritual entities cannot possess without permission. i.e you have to attend a gathering and perform some ritual which involves verbal proclamations inorder to operate within the power of the spiritual poewr in question - whether christian or satanic or traditional pagan religion.<BR/><BR/>I am establishing that the spiritual world is governed by principles, not human rights. <BR/><BR/>in the psiritual realm as i said, there has to be offering of blood for the remmission of sin. actually somewhere in the new testament those are the exact words.<BR/>thus, if the sacrifiice of a mortal being gives us temprary forgivenes, dont you think, it follows, oh ye liberal humanist, that an immortal sacrifice gives permanent remission of sin?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-88948281405443718912008-10-20T10:02:00.000-05:002008-10-20T10:02:00.000-05:00Anonymous: that's disturbing on a number of levels...Anonymous: that's disturbing on a number of levels. I have removed your comment for several reasons, among them its links to pirate bay, its overgenerality, its apparently ludicrous antisemitism, and its appearance on a post that is very old.Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17980181582122445265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-40880290960238295012008-10-19T23:57:00.000-05:002008-10-19T23:57:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-80788433303129513702008-10-19T23:54:00.000-05:002008-10-19T23:54:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-15625359565959928592008-06-03T09:22:00.000-05:002008-06-03T09:22:00.000-05:00kirby, emjaydee:Thanks for the links. =)Kirby, I t...kirby, emjaydee:<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the links. =)<BR/><BR/>Kirby, I think the sermon you link to has some good things to say, but I think this conclusion is problematic:<BR/><BR/>"As Christians, we have every confidence that God will not call on us to do something that even God would call evil: kill children. That is, after all, one of the express morals of this story of Abraham and Issac."<BR/><BR/>I'm not sure how the author arrives at this conclusion. As far as I can see, if you take the text at face value, the only thing "express" in the story of Abraham and Isaac is that yes, in fact, God *will* tell people to kill their children. And God's reaction to Abraham's obedience seems to teach that the right thing for these people to do is to go out and kill them.Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17980181582122445265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-45448138409722695752008-06-03T08:52:00.000-05:002008-06-03T08:52:00.000-05:00Thanks for these thoughts. This is the lection fo...Thanks for these thoughts. This is the lection for June 29 - when I am liturgist and I really would prefer to look at something else - but I'm disciplined enough to wrestle with the set text. Some initial musing on my (quite new) blogMavishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10742184738139404524noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-575113051383537542008-05-29T15:02:00.000-05:002008-05-29T15:02:00.000-05:00http://www.uniuslibri.com/UniusLibriIndex.asp?acti...http://www.uniuslibri.com/UniusLibriIndex.asp?action=&articleid=63Kirby L. Wallacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01825673333919420557noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-41307860948178426262008-03-06T11:16:00.000-06:002008-03-06T11:16:00.000-06:00Yes, that seems to be what Rene Girard thinks abou...Yes, that seems to be what Rene Girard thinks about it.Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17980181582122445265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-30167503355561093912008-03-06T11:15:00.000-06:002008-03-06T11:15:00.000-06:00I heard a Catholic priest give a talk on this once...I heard a Catholic priest give a talk on this once (can't remember his name), and his point was that this story could have been a dramatization of the end of human sacrifice.<BR/><BR/>Human sacrifice was a big deal in early religions, and it was the Israelites who took the human race a giant leap forward by moving away from that (the priest commented that that could have been one of the greatest contributions of the early Jewish people to humanity). And then Christianty went a step further as Jesus became the sacrificial lamb for all time, hence no more animal slaughter, either (or something like that).<BR/><BR/>You might ask: if that's the point of the Abraham/Isaac story, why didn't they just say so? <BR/><BR/>Well, we're dealing with a story that probably got passed down multiple generations before it was written down, and with many people who had a different take on things. Many redactors, too. I don't really know how stories like this come to be.<BR/><BR/>It could be that while Abraham was following traditional customs and for whatever reason it came time to slaughter his son (maybe there was a drought or some other event that required such an extreme sacrifice). Good and faithful Abraham was prepared to do so, against his deepest stirrings (or at least he thought he could do it), but while we was just about to do so he got a revelation, an epiphany, that the same God he's been worshiping--the same God who created everything and stands by his people, the same universal God over all people and all things who loves so dearly and declared it all to be "good", is the same God who wouldn't want his son slaughtered. This is the revelation Abraham got. The sacrifice of his son did not make sense in light of his vision of God.<BR/><BR/>Abraham probably stuck his own neck out as well (pun intended!) in this by going against the social grain. He was willing to question his God, question the assumptions and traditional practices, and was so connected to this divine, life-giving force, that he could not reconcile the slaughter of his son with the profound, divine life-giving-and-loving God he was connected to, and could not go through with the sacrifice of his son. This was out of his faithfulness, not out of rebelliousness or selfishness.<BR/><BR/>This is the faithfulnes of Abraham, just like the faithfulness of Job is exhibited through his profound protest and demands for justice (as well as his ability to dive into the mystery of God). This is the kind of faithfulness that leads to revelation, and Job got the revelation in the whirlwind, and Abraham got it through angels or however the story goes.Frank Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02703468758526562774noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-30099287550287384242007-11-29T10:51:00.000-06:002007-11-29T10:51:00.000-06:00Speaking of kids, I'm busy getting one born and ho...Speaking of kids, I'm busy getting one born and home from the hospital. <BR/><BR/>Briefly: the Heim book suggests that the story of Abraham and Isaac is a story about the transition from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice. More about that later. =)Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17980181582122445265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-20554692504112920352007-11-28T17:35:00.000-06:002007-11-28T17:35:00.000-06:00I think that murderous episodes such as those Matt...I think that murderous episodes such as those Matt describes in his post (maybe even the Abraham and Isaac incident...) are a good explanation of why faith must <I>not</I> be "democratic and purely individual." Christianity was founded as an explicitly communal religion. We are meant to be in community with other members of our faith; therefore, our faith must be a communal faith open to critique from other members of the faith community. We're supposed to have other Christians around who can say, "Whoa, wait up. So God told you to <I>murder your children</I>? That doesn't quite add up." Maybe it's significant that Abraham was more or less alone in his faith: as far as the Bible tells us, he wasn't exactly surrounded by other Yahweh-worshipers. No one else was there to help him problematize the "kill your kid" signal he was getting. He had to figure it out all on his own....Smartinizhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14744127642155875243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-68523111467952273762007-11-28T17:12:00.000-06:002007-11-28T17:12:00.000-06:00I've been reading some midrash on the Akedah. Thi...I've been reading some midrash on the Akedah. This doesn't answer anything and may actually sharpen your moral concerns, but a lot of midrash on this subject deals with the fact that Isaac doesn't (overtly in the text) return back home with Abraham. The issue for the rabbis is why?<BR/><BR/>Interestingly, some rabbis have suggested that this whole incident was so psychically traumatic to Isaac that he had to go away for a time to heal, psychologically speakingRichard Beckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06500628452135216019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-4513799192757351062007-11-28T16:24:00.000-06:002007-11-28T16:24:00.000-06:00Yeah, I'm not sure either. I should add that Kier...Yeah, I'm not sure either. I should add that Kierkegaard insists also that Abraham knew he would get Isaac back “on the strength of the absurd,” whatever that means. And it’s also significant that Kierkegaard claims he himself *doesn’t* have the kind of faith Abraham had.<BR/><BR/>What that means is that his book works better as a critique of people who water down faith than it does as an explanation of how we could have faith. I suppose my comment above has the same problem.<BR/><BR/>Like everyone else commenting here, I don’t want to do anything I can’t defend ethically, and I don’t like the idea that God would do or command something I am convinced is evil. It’s just that Matt’s alternative seems to me to be a God that we have explicitly invented because we like him/her, and I don’t find that satisfying either.scootshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14648062432937107093noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-39901467042317041672007-11-28T09:19:00.000-06:002007-11-28T09:19:00.000-06:00From scoots:"faith is what Abraham had enough of t...From scoots:<BR/><BR/>"faith is what Abraham had enough of to kill his son simply because God told him to"<BR/><BR/>Again, I think this is a huge dividing line between religious people. One side says "God said it therefore I do it" and the other side asks "but why?" <BR/><BR/>Not sure what to do with that.Mr. Parkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04266437585026544459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-8239948161001071302007-11-27T23:50:00.000-06:002007-11-27T23:50:00.000-06:00penguin wrote: “True faith is democratic and purel...penguin wrote: “True faith is democratic and purely individual.”<BR/><BR/>Ironically enough, this is similar to the approach taken in probably the most famous book that <I>affirms</I> Abraham for (almost) sacrificing Isaac: <I>Fear and Trembling</I>, by Søren Kierkegaard.<BR/><BR/>Kierkegaard argues that ethical generalizations are not the stuff of Christian faith, because faith demands obedience to God even when we cannot defend our actions to others.<BR/><BR/>The point is not that Abraham was following societal norms, but precisely that he was rejecting them, because of what God told him to do. Kierkegaard emphasizes that an individual with faith responds directly to God, rejecting what everyone else says. And according to Kierkegaard, anyone who tries to imitate Abraham’s sacrifice (or any preacher who encourages people to do so) is a fool, because God commanded it to Abraham, not to everyone.<BR/><BR/>It’s a confrontational and even offensive interpretation of the story, but Kierkegaard ultimately exposes the lame idea that “faith” is something so meaningless that everyone has it whether they even know they have it. It remains to be seen why that kind of faith would have any kind of power to save anyone at all.<BR/><BR/>In the Christian tradition, faith is what Abraham had enough of to kill his son simply because God told him to, and it’s what Paul said would cause us to believe that God saved the world through a crucified Jew whom he literally raised from the dead.<BR/><BR/>In our culture, like in Kierkegaard’s, faith is such an attractive word that people want to salvage it as the backbone of their religion, even if they don’t actually believe anything that anyone would have any reason <I>not</I> to believe.scootshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14648062432937107093noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-6078820996642287292007-11-25T07:35:00.000-06:002007-11-25T07:35:00.000-06:00Speaking as a postmodern Jew, we are currently sac...Speaking as a postmodern Jew, we are currently sacrificing thousands of lives in Iraq, which ethical right wing Christians and Jews, as well, can probably accept following that biblical logic of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, begotten when he was long past senility, by the way. George Bush has gotten into too many peoples' heads, ansd that is not a voice of reason, let alone of God. I am having my debut novel published next spring. I bring it up because it involves a search for faith out in the desert of Iraq in the midst of war. HUNTING THE KING follows archaeologist Molly O'Dwyer on a hunt for Jesus and his illegitimate daughter Hannaniah. Religion is purelu political and susceptible to Karl Rovian spin. True faith is democratic and purely individual. The only voice that should eb in your head is your own.Penguinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09555937079831330686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-44346667145237235912007-11-24T23:19:00.000-06:002007-11-24T23:19:00.000-06:00SMARTINEZ: So there's a radical division of labor:...SMARTINEZ: So there's a radical division of labor: we imitate Christ to reduce human misery; Christ's intervention effects a happy eschatology. A division of labor.<BR/><BR/>It makes sense, hadn't heard that. But it strikes me as a radical disconnect. Of course, it could be argued that that's exactly what Christ coming into the world is supposed to be all about.<BR/><BR/>But it leaves me with a feeling of ultimately living in a dis-universe.Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14770384445526387065noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-91332235162376935892007-11-24T13:01:00.000-06:002007-11-24T13:01:00.000-06:00I tend to take a "transformational" kind of view o...I tend to take a "transformational" kind of view of salvation. The imitation of Christ (see Girard again and his ideas about mimesis, especially those about <I>good</I> mimesis) is our path to escaping the violence of human systems of social interaction. Only by imitation of Christ can community among humans ever be restored, i.e. saved from the violence we humans do to one another. <BR/><BR/>Matt, the ideas of Girard really made me think a lot about <I>The Trial of God</I> and the whole idea of "God is with the victims." If Jesus was God and also the ultimate victim of human violence, then the resurrection is God's vindication of the victim. It kind of turns the entire idea of a Godly war on its head.Smartinizhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14744127642155875243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-8943085334014411882007-11-24T12:35:00.000-06:002007-11-24T12:35:00.000-06:00That Jesus saves us, by one interpretation or anot...That Jesus saves us, by one interpretation or another, is definitely an aspect of the message - the central aspect, it seems to me, both as presented in scripture and by the church.<BR/><BR/>But there are defintely enough verses exhorting us to be like Jesus in our works and actions, including "those who seek their lives will lose them and those who lose them will find them," and "What greater love is there than this . . ." that to me the idea of our own sacrifice is a genuine part of the message.<BR/><BR/>If both are aspects of the message, they appear incompatable: 1. The only work that really counts has already been done; 2. Work hard. I haven't done a lot of reading in the history of Christianity, but I'm thinking that Martin Luther's resolution plays down number two -"justification by faith alone."<BR/><BR/>Yet in terms of the imitation of Christ, so to speak, the NT doesn't present Jesus himself as concerned with his own justification. When he prays in the garden for the cup to pass from his lips if possible, the sense I get of it is simple human dread over the prospect of being crucified.<BR/><BR/>For sure we don't end up with the sense that Jesus finally consents to the cross because he knows that if he doesn't, he'll go to hell - a kind of fallen God-figure to accompany the fallen angel. His motives appear more expansive than that - infinitely more.Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14770384445526387065noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-51473792123403731202007-11-23T22:42:00.000-06:002007-11-23T22:42:00.000-06:00Hey, smart-iniz and Paul.Funny you should mention ...Hey, smart-iniz and Paul.<BR/><BR/>Funny you should mention Girard and "sacrifice", because I'm actually reading <I>Saved from Sacrifice</I> by S. Mark Heim, an interpretation of Girard's atonement theory.<BR/><BR/>For those who haven't read Girard, the short version seems to be that religion has a deep history of sacrificial violence, and that Jesus saves us by exposing that violence and giving a voice to the victims of sacrifice.Matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17980181582122445265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-86358457335420461392007-11-23T20:07:00.000-06:002007-11-23T20:07:00.000-06:00To me the message of the cross and sacrifice is: E...To me the message of the cross and sacrifice is: Everybody dies. And we're here to dedicate our own lives to the larger world in our own ways while we're here. <BR/><BR/>The cross, to me, holds up Jesus as an example. Christians through the centuries have pondered the mystery of who's saved and who's not, forgetting the example of one whose focus decidedly was not on saving his own skin. <BR/><BR/>Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect, work while it is day, know that the Sabbath was made for man, etc - this aspect of the good news isn't as easy to hear as "the Lord has saved us," and it's no coincidence that it's been relatively downplayed. But if enough of us had ears to hear it could have some major practical effects on the planet and the kind of earth our great grandchildren will inherit.<BR/><BR/>I'm not crazy about the word "sacrifice" because it implies that to live this way diminishes us rather than fulfills us.Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14770384445526387065noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11807447.post-22348636393222237392007-11-23T17:35:00.000-06:002007-11-23T17:35:00.000-06:00"I guess what matters is not so much what scriptur...<I>"I guess what matters is not so much what scripture says, but what one's culture says it says."</I><BR/><BR/>I absolutely agree, Matt. This is why the "inerrant Bible" point of view is so frustrating to me. In our post-postmodern society, there's no way you can viably claim to have <I>the</I> interpretation of any text. It's as though people who interpret the Bible this way are living in some immaculate bubble that separates them from every development in literary theory since the Middle Ages.<BR/><BR/>As for my own personal understanding of violence, the Bible, the will of God and the death of Jesus, I've found the works of Rene Girard incredibly helpful. He views many of the Old Testament stories as ancient myths (in the literary sense, not the common sense) that the Biblical author has re-worked from a new <I>more</I> Godly perspective. He sees the authors of the Old Testament as moving closer to God's truth but still rather far from its essentials. His reading of Jesus' death vis a vis atonemenet fits more or less with the Christus Victor interpretation mentioned above.<BR/><BR/>I'm not sure I buy everything he says yet, but his perspective has been very illuminating for me.Smartinizhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14744127642155875243noreply@blogger.com