NEW explanation for why God killed babies in the OT (Heresy?)

[Gorgias]

No we dont. We admit its a mixture throughout and use a variety of literary techniques, common sense, the deposit of faith etc to determine the most harmonious explanations for the conundrums we face.

Yeah, actually we do.

Not all of the Torah is “historical narrative”, and maybe that’s what you’re getting hung up on. However, once we exit the “pre-history” of the opening chapters of Genesis, and enter into the “historical” period, we’re out of “pre-historical allegorical narrative”. We may not stay in “historical narrative”, of course… but we’re not switching between “pre-history” and “history.”

Child sacrifice is no longer acceptable to the ancient Israelite God of Abraham.

You’re asserting it once was…???

It matters not whether the small incident the author wrote of re the sacrificing of Isaac actually happened.

It does.

If it didn’t happen, then you’re saying that the promises of God to Abraham – the covenant between God and his people – is just a happy bedtime story.

 

[BlackFriar]

Please.
The point is we only know of God’s involvement 3rd hand. First we only have the words of the temple/priest editor of the preceeding material. That material was unlikely composed by Abraham himself but may have been a more ancient text or even an oral tradition handed down over centuries.
And even then we only, allegedly, have Abraham’s woven reflections on an incident that happened when he was a young man.

So by all means believe God, Abraham, Isaac said and did everything exactly as the priest editor wrote it if that tenuous aetiology gives you confidence it is all perfectly and historically accurate.

Me, I am happier to go along with other approaches to the OT that I find far more convincing and which are also acceptably held by many respected Catholic scholars, priests, bishops and Popes.

As I say Abraham, as the story goes, clearly believed he had been ordered by God to sacrifice his son.

The theological truth of the story does not rest on it being perfectly historically true. Ancient minds would have found your modern obsession that it be so amusing.

 

[BlackFriar]

Yes, it is the constant fear of those not yet equipped with the skills to distinguish fact from story.
If that is the case by all means pursue a literal historical approach as a crisis of faith would ensue for you if you did not.

But have the humility to allow that others may be better equipped to climb higher and more dangerous paths safely where you cannot. Especially as the Church has already sanctioned such approaches.

 

[mkoopman]

You have difficulty with abstraction. You show this clearly in your assertion of the real, as if it applies to only the visible. This same appears to be indicated in your assertion that the heavenly host are not composite because they have no material component. This is not what Thomas asserts. Only God is indivisible or not a composite thing.
God is also the only perfectly immutable thing. It is his unchanging nature breathed into mud that makes Adam a rational being. Your assertion identifies Angels as either non existent or not rational. Which wrong answer is it?
The dependence of body and soul is the issue respective of this unchanging nature. The assertion is that a human person remains a composite creature after death. That is, even though the body decays the human soul does not transition into another thing. The term for this unchangeable form is immutable. This is different from the immutable character of God who is wholly unchanging. What I stated as The Holy Mighty One.
Is it against your language policing to call God The Holy Mighty One? Do you not comprehend the many attributes of this nature? One if them being His capacity to form, or often “forge,” a composite being that remains a composite even after the body dies. This is one of the major characteristic differences between men and other animals. Are you following? What term do you use for this aspect of the composite person in your paraphase pocket book of Aquinas?

 

[Kei]

I feel you are taking this to take away any meaning the text actually has.
And it would be traditionally Moses who wrote this down.

I think it is more you who has a modern obsession, if I am to be frank.

I may botch some of this story up, but Abraham was the son of an idol maker. He one day smashed all his father’s idols, and his father returned home, saying, “Who did this?”
And Abraham replied, saying, “They fought amongst themselves and have caused this”
And his father replied, “What?! Idols do not move,”
“Then why do you worship them?”
Indeed, Abraham had realized that if you worshipped a thing on Earth, it easy defeated by another. If one were to worship fire, it would be put out by water. In this manner, he was able to shame the ruler of the land.
But he followed God, and was made a friend with God, and made a pact with Him.
Abraham was promised that he would have those of his seed numbered incredibly, and that his descendents would inherit the land.
However, in his old age, he had not a son by his wife. However, miraculously, she was able to birth a son in her old age.
Now the next part is important
God promised to him that his son would be the heir to him.
Then, God asked Abraham to sacrifice this child of his that he had promised Abraham would be the heir.
Abraham, as the child of an idol maker, knew of the sacrificing of children to the idols. But this was no idol, but the LORD that he was to sacrifice to.
He does not lie, and keeps His covenants.
So Abraham knew not what was to happen, but trusted in God and carried out His Command, even though he understood not how this would fulfill His promise to him.
So Abraham went in faith to do the thing, but then an angel of the LORD stopped him, and behold, a ram (which is a male SHEEP) was provided by the power of the LORD to be a sacrifice. And Abraham sacrificed him.

This serves multiple purposes. One, it is saying YHWH is NOT like those idols, and does not need human sacrifice. Two, it teaches us the importance of faithfulness and carrying out the commands of the LORD even when we don’t understand them. Three, it is a clear type of Christ, probably in multiple ways. The male sheep provided by God was what was sacrificed. In this, the one whose seed would bring forth Israel was spared. God does not require our sacrifice, but provides His own. And it is also possibly a type of the Resurrection.

What do you have against this story?

 

[BlackFriar]

I feel you are taking this to take away any meaning the text actually has.

1. Its not about me. Its an acceptable approach that many respectable Catholic scholars and priests accept and is allowed by our Church.
   Noone denies your right to accept every legend in the OT as absolutely historically true and the Pentateuch wholly written by Moses if you wish. It flies in the face of how things go from oral tradition to continuously written/edited texts in every other examole of human history but as we cannot 100% prove that Moses didnt 100% write the Pentateuch as we know it today thats fine.
2. You are free to believe that Moses had the same exact knowledge of Abraham as you believe we today have the exact writings of Moses without editorial licence by him or others. That also flies in the face of experience but you are free to do so.
3. There is no reason why a small self contained story must be absolutely historically true for if it isnt then it can contain no other truth. The story of Isaac to many is simply a personification of the true journey of the Hebrews as a whole from acceptance of polytheism and child worship to monotheism and abhorrence of that old practice. Most of js can see it doesnt matter at all if this very pithy incident never actually took place as recounted.

We are going in circles and all that can be said has been said.
By all means reject this approach for yourself.
But please dont impose your approach on other Catholics as the only acceptable one to the Church.
That simply isnt the case.

 

[Kei]

You’ve been acting like this story is some abhorrent thing. All I have done is posit that this is simply not the case, and that it is a great story. God has always been the same.

 

[BlackFriar]

Yes, it is abbhorent to me that:

1. God could ever command someone to sacrifice their own child…even as a trick.
2. the Hebrews somehow went from an oral to a written tradition in ways no other civilisation on earth has done. They had an obsessive commitment to absolute historical truth and accuracy such as has never been seen before or since until rediscovered as important by Europeans around 250 years ago.

You not so much.
We clearly believe in a different God and a different understanding of how humans transmit knowledge from the past.

 

[Kei]

It is indeed you with the mind of a modern.
It is not a trick. It is a teaching and revelatory method.

I don’t know why you suddenly are bringing up oral traditions, but if you want to talk about those, then it is presumed they can last about 2 generations before fact gets blurred by legend, and they can last about 200 years in aural cultures.
Prior to writing, the main method was memorization and hence memorization was considered a very important skill. Indeed, many old books will have odd sentences or things that may not make sense to us, like repetition of something or two words that would rhyme in the original language, or ridiculous comparisons. These were to aid in transmitting oral stories with some accuracy. I feel you undermine how reliable oral transmission can be.

But, you also presume that the story of Abraham is in fact orally transmitted as opposed to revealed. The Scripture was to be read aloud, and hence, may include various tricks and ticks that oral stories would normally have, despite being written down, as they are for the public (which couldn’t read) to remember and know.
I think you are taking a modern look at the text, and judging it by modern sensibilities that would have been ridiculous to the ancients.

 

[BlackFriar]

As I say,
we clearly believe in a different God and a different understanding of how humans transmit knowledge from the past

It is abbhorent to believe that God actually ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son even as a trick.

 

[Kei]

I do not see how that is possible if Muslims and Catholics believe in the same God, unless you are not Catholic.

You take too much sensibilities in how God chose to reveal so much truth in this one story would be my opinion.
Of course, I also believe that God is Good, and not following a higher moral law, but is Himself the source of such, and is completely self sufficient.
But, even if I thought there was some moral high law above this, I see no problem with this test of trust that also reveals so much.

 

[BlackFriar]

It is abbhorent to believe that God actually ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son even as a trick.

Yes its a great “story” so long as you dont take it literally true as if God really did order this.

You asked, I answered.

 

[Kei]

Again you say trick. It is not a trick but a test of trust and faith. I find it abhorrent that you speak against God by saying He has done “tricks” in such a manner.

A will do C.
A cannot do C if he is dead.
A must die.
But, A will still do C afterwords.
This is not possible, unless you expect A to come back after dying.

You also may not realize that this was also a teaching AGAINST human sacrifice. Abraham was from a place where they DID do this, for realsies, to their idols.
This is actually an amazing story that shows the difference between God and the dead idols.

 

[BlackFriar]

Please get a grip.
I didnt say God does tricks, I said the author of the story demonstrates God to do so.

Which is why I dont take that tall story to be absolute fact or as seriously as yourself.

Yes I get it you dont see this as an abhorrent deception in a grave matter. We obviously differ over that too. I am not interested in your God or your religion if he deceives people in that way.

 

[phil19034]

God mellowed out as a result of His Incarnation because He experienced directly how difficult it is to be human.

No.

Humanity had a softening of heart after the incarnation.

The reason God allows horrible things to happen is because of our hardness of heart. Sometimes, we humans have to learn the hard way.

In the OT, all of humanity was so far from the truth that our hearts were extremely hard to God’s truth.

While the Middle Ages were not prefect (because rulers were still sometimes cruel), average people became more kind after Christ (saved children, etc). The major exception were the rich and noble class - and we all know what Jesus said about the rich.

 

[Kei]

Tall tale? Really? You know anyone making a religion out of Pecos Bill? No, you don’t.

it’s not involving deception at all.
It was a command, not “I want you to do x”.
I think that Abraham still fulfilled a sacrifice by offering up the ram, like Abraham said would happen to his son. (“God will provide us the sacrifice”).

 

[BlackFriar]

It was a command, not “I want you to do x”.

One of us is misreading the clear instruction from God as related by Abraham and, according to you, accurately written down by Moses then.

Just as your God deceived Abraham so Abraham deceived his son.

How can you believe such obvious athropromorphism is fact.

 

[Kei]

You again are putting words in my mouth.
Hebrew is a highly context heavy language unlike English. There are other languages like this today.

I never said the Bible was clear.

I also never said Moses definitively wrote this down.

But yes, I would suppose so. I have also heard that the rabbis say Abraham never again saw his son after this btw. We should give our all to God, you see.

 

[BlackFriar]

No I dont see.
You need to walk down an endless path of theologic, textual and verbal somersaults and definitional prevarications to feel comfortable with the God presented in this story.

Others just recognise the story for what it is…a story with some historical licence by the author for the sake of making a deep theological insight. Child sacrifice was never acceptable to YHW…

 

[Kei]

Yes, it was never acceptable, which is the bloody point of the thing!
you don’t need to go through a bunch of hoops! I don’t think it is difficult to see the many great lessons the story teaches!