Mormons facing the Abusive God

[_MrStakhanovite]

Hi Honor/Morley,

I'm curious what you think about other alternative hypothesis' from the JEDP evaluation of the Abraham account? For example, that Abraham may have decided on his own to sacrifice the ram when he saw it in the thicket and the second message of the angel being added to make it appear that God brought this about rather than it being an act of disobedience on Abraham's part?

Is it your view that the most compelling evidence comes from the return of Abraham without mentioning Issac? or is there other information embedded in the accounts as they break down between authors that you feel push us in your direction?

I'd be interested to hear your (and your Reb's) point of view on this, too. I always took the Abraham/Isaac/ram story to be an apocryphal narrative about the end of human sacrifice among the Israelites.

I’d be happy to opine, but I want to preface this with my total lack of qualifications on this subject, I’ve got rudimentary training in Biblical and Mishna Hebrew with a scant grasp on middot like Rabbi Ishmael’s 13 principles of interpretation. Anything I’ve learned about modern biblical criticism is self taught. This is Maklelan’s house so to speak, I just muddy up the carpet in the doorway.

I think Genesis 22 is an E story, it opens up with Abraham being addressed by Elohim directly, with Elohim being used in verses 1,3 and 9. Right before a description of Abraham killing Isaac, an angel if YHWH stops him, which to me is the fingerprints of an editor. When Elohim addresses Abraham, he doesn’t say “take” (la kach) but the text literally says “please take” which suggests to me that this request from Elohim wasn’t some outrageous demand that Abraham struggled with, but more something that was expected, not an amazing trial of faith that Nightlion reads.

The idea of sacrificing your child to God isn’t a foreign idea either. In the 2nd Kings chapter 3, the king of Moab Mesha sacrifices his son at the last moment in battle against Israel and Judah to secure victory (there is actually a stele discovered that marks the occasion). Historically, if Mesha really sacrificed his son, it probably would have been to Chemosh, but in Rashi’s commentary, he says that that the word for “on the wall” (kow’man) is missing a waw indicating that Mesha worshipped the sun.

Also, there is Jephthah sacrifices his daughter, and some scholars feel mention of “Topeth” in Isaiah and elsewhere shows Israelite activity in human sacrifice. To be fair, the idea of a ram in the thicket isn’t an anachronism, there are two Sumerian statues that depict some kind of animal tied to a bush, so take that for what it’s worth.

The Midrash I mentioned earlier comes from Ta’an 16a (and I want to say Tosafot) has this really depressing Haggadah about the question of why people put ashes on their heads during a public fast. It’s supposed to be a tribute to the ashes of Isaac, whom Abraham killed and offered up as a holocaust and those ashes provide extra merit and atonement for Israel (Isaac was later restored to life somehow)*. I know in medieval times, this story had special relevance when Jewish parents killed themselves and children to escape torture and conversion.

Sorry to prattle on like that, I almost went into my disagreements with Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. I hope this was helpful.



*- when I wrote this sentence, I could just see all those arm chair theologians over at MD&D licking their collective chops at such a chance to draw wild and stupid parallels between Rabbinic commentary and their own pet ideas.

[_Morley]

Thank you for taking the time to put that together, Stak. That was pretty much as I'd understood it. There's a mention of the ashes of the sacrificed Isaac in the Talmud, usually explained as "as if Isaac had been sacrificed."

I'd be interested in a summary of your dispute with Kierkegaard, if you have the time and energy. Though I'd understand if you prefer to be John the silent.

[_Nightlion]

It's okay to read something like faith and hope into texts that show an outcome for both.

No it is not, that is eisegesis, reading what you want into the text to get a desired result.

I said that if the text shows a certain outcome you can justly surmise what brought such an outcome even if the text does not. That is not seeking a desired results it is only searching into the actual results shown with prudence and understanding.

Like you can be assured that they traveled from place to place when the texts actually does not count each step. You can argue that steps were not taken because the text specifically fails to mention it, but why?

Rule number one of biblical hermeneutics is that we only have the text. What does the text say and what doesn’t the text say?

I suppose its considered extra-biblical hermeneutics to go a fishing for alternate texts until you get what you want. So long as those texts actual say so. Or perhaps even better that they fail to say so.

In the case of the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22, Abraham tells his boys “We’ll come back to you” but the story concludes “And Abraham went back to his boys.” Another important clue is that in verses 11-15 (where the Angel of YHWH stops Abraham) are not in included in Exodus 24 on Mount Horeb, even though there are 18 parallels of language between Gen 22 and Exodus 24.

Like my mentor and Reb always tells me in our study sessions, “Don’t ask me! Look at the text! What does the text says!?!”

? I fail to get what you are saying here at all. What has Exodus 24 got to do with the Abraham story? Parallels? HUH?

The greater question is how to account for Jacob if Abraham killed Isaac? Just fables?
I noted that you failed to address this point. Your fragment of extra-biblical text ends and that's it?

Win with confusion but win.

[_huckelberry]

Rule number one of biblical hermeneutics is that we only have the text. What does the text say and what doesn’t the text say?

In the case of the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22, Abraham tells his boys “We’ll come back to you” but the story concludes “And Abraham went back to his boys.”

Like my mentor and Reb always tells me in our study sessions, “Don’t ask me! Look at the text! What does the text says!?!”

Stak I am glad you went to the trouble of putting together the explaination you posted after this one which I have quoted. Your exlanation was interesting enough to make the subject nag my mind. But perhaps you can admit that on the face of it it is bizarre to make such a point of focusing on the text when the text is so obviously explicit that Isaac was not killed. That only Abraham is stated to have returned hardly guarantees Isaac was not there. Well there is the evidence that the text goes on with Isaacs romance marriage children old age. In fact Isaac living is the link to the entire rest of the Bible. To have him not live threatens the sense of the whole story. I suspect the matter of seeing an alternate narrative is made attrative by that very threat of negation of the entire story. The monstrosities of persecution have threatened Jewish existence and threaten to negate any meaning in the Biblical story.

I am extremely doubtful that there is a question of historical accuracty here. The stories and editing are a thousand years later than the time of Abrahm. Any version would be a reflection of a theological understanding. It would be interesting to fill out a theological understanding behind a completed Isaac sacrifice story. If telling the story that way can happen after the editing of Genisis it could have happened before as well. . One might imagine King Manasseh's propaganda team creating such a story. but that would be a southern source.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Hey Nightlion/Huck,

I said that if the text shows a certain outcome you can justly surmise what brought such an outcome even if the text does not. That is not seeking a desired results it is only searching into the actual results shown with prudence and understanding.

Guilty of the same crime. There are going to be rivaled theories at the results of different stories, but if you want to posit that aliens were behind something (as an example), you are going to have to rely on the text itself to support it, or introduce aliens as an assumption prior to the exegesis.

If you want to take a Mormon concept of faith, and read back into Genesis 22, you can do that, but that is more like some kind of typology than prooftexting.

I suppose its considered extra-biblical hermeneutics…

Extra-biblical? How is what I’m doing any less biblical than your interpretation?

I fail to get what you are saying here at all. What has Exodus 24 got to do with the Abraham story? Parallels? HUH?

The stories are linked, they share so much linguistically that they are being used to prove the same point. You make a textual comparison to find out what that point might be.

But perhaps you can admit that on the face of it it is bizarre to make such a point of focusing on the text when the text is so obviously explicit that Isaac was not killed.

You are thinking about what the Redactor put together, not what the E author is saying. In E, after Genesis 22, Isaac doesn’t show up anymore and the very next passage that is traced to E, Abraham is having more children with Keturah.

In fact Isaac living is the link to the entire rest of the Bible. To have him not live threatens the sense of the whole story.

Again, the Redactor’s story, not the story that was developed in Northern Israel.

Any version would be a reflection of a theological understanding. It would be interesting to fill out a theological understanding behind a completed Isaac sacrifice story.

Yes, and I think such a theology can be found in Israel/Canaan’s culture.

[_Nightlion]

Again, the Redactor’s story, not the story that was developed in Northern Israel.

See there! I knew it was witchcraft. Those Northerner wanted justification for passing their children through the fire in human sacrifice. That is why they got up extra-biblical inventions.

There cannot be spiritual hermeneutics. It all has to be without faith and without spiritual insight or revelation. And yet they THINK that they are disciplined to interpret spiritual texts. Fantastic.

The LDS have only been shot out of the gun for less than two hundred years. Already they are completely blind spiriutally and could not interpret correctly the
Restoration scriptures if their eternal life depended upon it. I understand that nobody hands out credentials for faith. Your language is of the letter and mine is of the heart.

[_huckelberry]

But perhaps you can admit that on the face of it it is bizarre to make such a point of focusing on the text when the text is so obviously explicit that Isaac was not killed.

You are thinking about what the Redactor put together, not what the E author is saying. In E, after Genesis 22, Isaac doesn’t show up anymore and the very next passage that is traced to E, Abraham is having more children with Keturah.

Of course I am thinking of what the redactor put together. That is what Genesis is, that is what is canon or scripture. I believe in inspiration of scripture and I understand that to refer to the Genesis we have, the one that is a result of post Josiah reform understanding. It is quite clear that for hundreds of years prior to Josiah there were competing and combating understandings of God and Israel, Judah. It would certainly be historically very interesting to find more documents actually explaining the other point of view. The ones we have in the Bible are only the one side, even if using material from multiple cultural grouping of Israel, Judah .

That is perhaps a round about way of saying we don't actually have the preredacted version of the e material. What its theology would have been is a bit speculative. But that shadow and uncertainty might be a spot to project imaginatively theological thinking which has been compelled by circumstances to go beyond the views of Jeremiah, Isaiah and company.

[_huckelberry]

Stak noted concerning Genesis 22 and Exodus 24:
"The stories are linked, they share so much linguistically that they are being used to prove the same point. You make a textual comparison to find out what that point might be."

I though your previous point about the oddity of only mentioning Abraham returning from the mountain and pointing out the shift from E to J in the mountain narrative was fairly clear and straightforward. On the other hand your comparison to EX24 makes me think you have put on a poker face and are holding your cards close.

Obviously both passages are mountain top meetings with God where crucial covenent relationship is reestablished. It is not suprisiing there would language similarities. I am totally missing how you see one passage to clarify the other. Might one suspect a lost throne mysticism in Abrahams mountain top experience s contained in the e story replaced by the redactors concern with negating any human sacrifice ? What I see in EX 24 would be linking seeing God with the pattern for making the tabernacle.(Gods dwelling place with his people)

I understand the Abraham story in the manner mentioned by Morley, primarly a rejection and replacement of human sacrifice. I thnk that clearly is what the author of Genesis meant. It becomes difficult to be clear tracking the history of that understanding of sacrifice. There are no instructions to sacrifice people. The biblical material rejects it. But of course all Biblical material is written or significantly edited post Josiah.

[_Nightlion]

How can a scholar make a valid exegesis of a text by pirating it under the template of another completely unrelated text with just enough similarity to silk screen a false meaning? What is the right word for that sort of sophistry, ehh, Stak?

[_huckelberry]

David Blumenthal concerning reading psalm 44,
" she understood that it needed to be read with power. I asked her to read it once more, setting it in winter 1945, Auschwitz (just before the liberation). The young woman, who later became a minister, prayed it so powerfully that I could not talk when she finished. I still find it difficult to resume speech when I recall that moment. The act of praying this psalm in the context of the holocaust is an act of "embracing pain,"[34] almost infinite pain. Praying is praxis in theology."

Stak, is this closer to the concern of your opening post? I found Mr Blumenthal web site he had article of the abusing God just under an interesting article about the Zohors teaching about Gods interrelationship with creation. Interesting stuff I thought.