Abrahamic Tests.... Nonsense!

[_James Clifford Miller]

I find the very idea of an Abrahamic test completely odd.

We have a man who was willing to kill his son so he could gain a reward in heaven.

Personally, I think Abraham failed the test.

I think to pass the test Abraham would have had to say something like.... "No God. I will not kill my child. I will sacrifice my place in heaven so my son can live. (Not to mention obey the commandment not to kill)."

I can't figure out why Abraham is held out to be such a wonderful man because he was willing to kill his son.

We hear of men giving their wives to Joseph Smith as an "Abrahamic test."

Wouldn't passing the test be more like... "No Joseph, I will not give my wife to you. I love her and have promised to be her husband. I would rather die than give her to another."

The whole Abrahamic test thing gets me dizzy!

~dancer~

If a supernatural being asked you to sacrifice your son, that supernatural being wouldn't be a god, it'd be a demon. As far as I'm concerned, if YHWH asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, YHWH is the one who failed the test. As did Andrea Yates.

James Clifford Miller
millerjamesc@cox.net

[_Seven]

I honor Abraham for it. Another thing to note is that Abraham believed. He knew that God wasn't just doing this for him it was for his son too. It was for the best all-around. He believed that. I've noticed that real believers take death less seriously as well. He was being asked to move Issac on to bliss. If I were Abraham I would wonder whether God was saving Issac from a trial he would fail or if he was needed on the other side of the veil.

Then we should all kill our children before they reach the age of eight. Think of the gift we are giving them. They will be guaranteed Celestial glory and we are saving them from the trials in mortal life.

The sacrifice was in similitude to Christ's. I have heard people accuse God of cruelty regarding what happened to his only begotten son. Abraham's trial was easier than God's.

How so? God and Jesus are one. Jesus sacrificed himself for us-it was His choice and He had the divine capability to stop it. I have never understood why "the only begotten son" has more meaning to God (in LDS beliefs) than His other innocent children who are tortured, massacred, sold into sex slavery.... I am not seeing the parallel. We are all God's children. The message of the story of Abraham for me is "what kind of father would do that?" Why was that necessary to inflict terror into his child? Just one more horror story from the Old Testament.

I don't let my children watch the animated "Living Scriptures" version of Abraham and Isaac.

[_Roger Morrison]

IF i counted correctly, 8 posters see Abraham as less than honourable, or one to be emulated. One (1) poster honours Abraham in the traditional sense of Judeo-Christianism... Why so? Interesting, eh? Warm regards, Roger

[_Inconceivable]

I honor Abraham for it. Another thing to note is that Abraham believed. He knew that God wasn't just doing this for him it was for his son too. It was for the best all-around. He believed that. I've noticed that real believers take death less seriously as well. He was being asked to move Issac on to bliss. If I were Abraham I would wonder whether God was saving Issac from a trial he would fail or if he was needed on the other side of the veil.

So.. where was Abraham moving Hagar and their son on to? A wilderness is what a wilderness is (and he never when after them). Perhaps this was the test devised by both God and his first wife?

I'll still give him a flogging F

[_Blixa]

I never hear the phrase "Abrahamic test" without being reminded of Nicolas Ray's little-seen 1956 masterpiece, Bigger Than Life, a film which uses "roid rage" as a metaphor for patriarchal awfulness.

James Mason plays a mild-mannered schoolteacher who is treated with the then-experimental hormone, cortisone, for a life-threatening illness. He not only recovers, but finds himself increasing happy, fit, full of energy, smarter, why nearly super human...and thus, the cortisone abuse begins.

One of the symptoms of his manic rage is his increasing punishment of his young son for minor infractions. Finally he decides that since his son is unworthy of such a powerful father, he should be done away with. He orders his wife to bring him a kitchen knife, grabs his Bible and starts yelling at the kid about Abraham and Isaac. Desperate to stay his hand, his wife tries to remind him that God stepped in and saved Isaac.

"GOD WAS WRONG!" he roars.



Good essay on the film here.

[_harmony]

There is no closer bond than parent to child.. today. The way we parent today is a fairly modern invention. Parents of children a thousand years ago would not recognize themselves in parents today. Parents in 5000 BC (or whenever it was that Abraham was supposed to have lived) would likely not see themselves in Abraham either. They simply didn't value their children as much as we do today. They had them and women returned to working in the fields immediately; they often died in infancy, or died while children. The Mosaic law contains the commandment for children to love their parents. Why? Because children didn't!

That said, the lesson of Abraham is nothing to do with parenting; it's everything to do with primitive man's idea of a vengeful god that rewards obedience above all. Don't confuse the stories with the reality. The Old Testament is as useful as Aesop's Fables or the Tales of the Arabian Nights. It's more a recording of a specific tribe's concept of God than of what God really is.

[_The Nehor]

If Abraham thought so little of his child why was his birth and Sarah giving birth at such an advanced age so important to him?

I don't have much to say about Hagar and Ishmael but I doubt he threw them into the wilderness to die. I'm guessing Hagar screwed up somehow. I doubt Ishmael would have joined with Issac in burying their father if his father had tried to kill him as a child.

I don't expect God to always ask things of me that I can reason out alone, perhaps everyone else does.

[_harmony]

I don't have much to say about Hagar and Ishmael but I doubt he threw them into the wilderness to die. I'm guessing Hagar screwed up somehow. I doubt Ishmael would have joined with Issac in burying their father if his father had tried to kill him as a child.

Indeed, if something unexplainable is wrong, blame it on the woman. Well done, Nehor! You're going to make a stellar LDS man!

[_A Light in the Darkness]

Are you a mother truthdancer? Have you ever expected your children to trust your judgment without understanding how you came to that judgment? Assuming the answer is yes, do you think you were justified in doing this? Assuming the answer is yes, why were you justfied?

[_The Nehor]

I don't have much to say about Hagar and Ishmael but I doubt he threw them into the wilderness to die. I'm guessing Hagar screwed up somehow. I doubt Ishmael would have joined with Issac in burying their father if his father had tried to kill him as a child.

Indeed, if something unexplainable is wrong, blame it on the woman. Well done, Nehor! You're going to make a stellar LDS man!

Well the evidence seems to speak for itself. Who else would be responsible for the two of them getting lost in the wilderness? Ishmael? I don't think I have a previous record of blaming women for everything and I've been on here a long time.