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In the Bible there is a development of the faith and the moral:
From "commandment" to "crime": The sacrifice of the firstborn
The text of Gen 22 (The Abraham-Isaac story):
The Church still prays as if the story of the so-called "testing of Abraham" were a story of faith for our time and Abraham was a "father in faith" on the basis of this narrative: - 1st reading of the Second Sunday of Lent (Lectionary Year B): On 25.02.2024 - Second reading in the celebration of the Easter Vigil: On 30.03.2024
Gen 22, 1-19
1 Some time after these events, God put Abraham to the test. He called to him, "Abraham!" "Ready!" he replied. 2 Then God said: "Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you." 3Early the next morning Abraham saddled his donkey, took with him his son Isaac, and two of his servants as well, and with the wood that he had cut for the holocaust, set out for the place of which God had told him. 4 On the third day Abraham got sight of the place from afar. 5 Then he said to his servants: "Both of you stay here with the donkey, while the boy and I go on over yonder. We will worship and then come back to you." 6 Thereupon Abraham took the wood for the holocaust and laid it on his son Isaac's shoulders, while he himself carried the fire and the knife. 7 As the two walked on together, Isaac spoke to his father Abraham. "Father!" he said. "Yes, son," he replied. Isaac continued, "Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the holocaust?" 8 "Son," Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust." Then the two continued going forward. 9 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. Next he tied up his son Isaac, and put him on top of the wood on the altar. 10 Then he reached out and took the knife to slaughter his son. 11 But the LORD'S messenger called to him from heaven, "Abraham, Abraham!" "Yes, Lord," he answered. 12 "Do not lay your hand on the boy," said the messenger. "Do not do the least thing to him. I know now how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son." 13 As Abraham looked about, he spied a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. So he went and took the ram and offered it up as a holocaust in place of his son. 14 Abraham named the site Yahweh-yireh; hence people now say, "On the mountain the LORD will see." 15 Again the LORD'S messenger called to Abraham from heaven 16 and said: "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you acted as you did in not withholding from me your beloved son, 17 I will bless you abundantly and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore; your descendants shall take possession of the gates of their enemies, 18 and in your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing - all this because you obeyed my command.'' 19 Abraham then returned to his servants, and they set out together for Beer-sheba, where Abraham made his home.
Ex 13,1-2: The oldest text calls for the sacrifice of the firstborn: The LORD spoke to Moses and said, "Consecrate to me every first-born that opens the womb among the Israelites, both of man and beast, for it belongs to me.”
"
11 "When the LORD, your God, has brought you into the land of the Canaanites, which he swore to you and your fathers he would give you, 12 you shall dedicate to the LORD every son that opens the womb; and all the male firstlings of your animals shall belong to the LORD. 13 Every first-born of an ass you shall redeem with a sheep. If you do not redeem it, you shall break its neck. Every first-born son you must redeem. 14 If your son should ask you later on, 'What does this mean?' you shall tell him, 'With a strong hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, that place of slavery. 15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every first-born in the land of Egypt, every first-born of man and of beast. That is why I sacrifice to the LORD everything of the male sex that opens the womb, and why I redeem every first-born of my sons.' 16 Let this, then, be as a sign on your hand and as a pendant on your forehead: with a strong hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt."
Num 3,11-13: The Levites were considered a substitute for the sacrifice of
the firstborn:11 The 11 LORD said to Moses,
Num 8,15-19: 15 Only then shall the Levites enter upon their service in the meeting tent. You shall purify them and offer them as a wave offering; 16 because they, among the Israelites, are strictly dedicated to me; I have taken them for myself in place of every first-born that opens the womb among the Israelites. 17 Indeed, all the first-born among the Israelites, both of man and of beast, belong to me; I consecrated them to myself on the day I slew all the first-born in the land of Egypt. 18 But in place of all the first-born Israelites I have taken the Levites; 19 and I have given these dedicated Israelites to Aaron and his sons to discharge the duties of the Israelites in the meeting tent and to make atonement for them, so that no plague may strike among the Israelites should they come near the sanctuary."
Num 18,15:
Cf. Luke 2,21-24: Even with Jesus, the law of "redemption" still applies:
21 When eight days were completed for his circumcision, 7 he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. 22 When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, 23 just as it is written in the law of the Lord, "Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord," 24 and to offer the sacrifice of "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons," in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord.
John 3,16: Jesus as a possession of God:
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.
2 Kings 3,21-27:Other peoples also have sons sacrificed - with success!
21 Meanwhile, all Moab heard that the kings had come to give them battle; every man capable of bearing arms was called up and stationed at the border. 22 Early that morning, when the sun shone on the water, the Moabites saw the water at a distance as red as blood. 23 "This is blood!" they exclaimed. "The kings have fought among themselves and killed one another. Quick! To the spoils, Moabites!" 24 But when they reached the camp of Israel, the Israelites rose up and attacked the Moabites, who fled from them. They ranged through the countryside striking down the Moabites, and 25 destroying the cities; each of them cast stones onto every fertile field till they had loaded it down; all the springs they stopped up and every useful tree they felled. Finally only Kir-hareseth was left behind its stone walls, and the slingers had surrounded it and were attacking it. 26 When he saw that he was losing the battle, the king of Moab took seven hundred swordsmen to break through to the king of Aram, but he failed. 27 So he took his first-born, his heir apparent, and offered him as a holocaust upon the wall. The wrath against Israel was so great that they gave up the siege and returned to their own land.
2 Kings 16,1-4: Later, child sacrifice is considered an "abomination" and thus a crime:
1In the seventeenth year of Pekah, son of Remaliah, Ahaz, son of Jotham, king of Judah, began to reign. 2 Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not please the LORD, his God, like his forefather David, 3 but conducted himself like the kings of Israel, and even immolated his son by fire, in accordance with the abominable practice of the nations whom the LORD had cleared out of the way of the Israelites. 4 Further, he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on hills, and under every leafy tree.
2 Kings 21,1-6: But even in Israel there are still child sacrifices:
1 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hephzibah. 2 He did evil in the sight of the LORD, following the abominable practices of the nations whom the LORD had cleared out of the way of the Israelites. 3 He rebuilt the high places which his father Hezekiah had destroyed. He erected altars to Baal, and also set up a sacred pole, as Ahab, king of Israel, had done. He worshiped and served the whole host of heaven. 4 He built altars in the temple of the LORD, about which the LORD had said, "I will establish my name in Jerusalem" - 5 altars for the whole host of heaven, in the two courts of the temple. 6 He immolated his son by fire. He practiced soothsaying and divination, and reintroduced the consulting of ghosts and spirits. He did much evil in the LORD'S sight and provoked him to anger.
Ps 106, 34-39: Another reference to the continued practice of child sacrifice in Israel:
34 They have not destroyed the peoples, as LORD had commanded to them, 35 And mix themselves among nations, and learn their works, 36 And serve their idols, and they are for a snare to them. 37 And they sacrifice their sons and their daughters to the demons, 38 And they shed innocent blood—Blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they have sacrificed to idols of Canaan, and the land is profaned with blood. 39 And they are defiled with their works, and commit whoredom in their habitual doings.
Judges 11, 29-40: A daughter is sacrificed in Israel and not saved like Isaac:
29 The spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah. He passed through Gilead and Manasseh, and through Mizpah-Gilead as well, and from there he went on to the Ammonites. 30 Jephthah made a vow to the LORD. "If you deliver the Ammonites into my power," he said, 31 "whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites shall belong to the LORD. I shall offer him up as a holocaust." 32 Jephthah then went on to the Ammonites to fight against them, and the LORD delivered them into his power, 33 so that he inflicted a severe defeat on them, from Aroer to the approach of Minnith (twenty cities in all) and as far as Abel-keramin. Thus were the Ammonites brought into subjection by the Israelites. 34 When Jephthah returned to his house in Mizpah, it was his daughter who came forth, playing the tambourines and dancing. She was an only child: he had neither son nor daughter besides her. 35 When he saw her, he rent his garments and said, "Alas, daughter, you have struck me down and brought calamity upon me. For I have made a vow to the LORD and I cannot retract." 36 "Father," she replied, "you have made a vow to the LORD. Do with me as you have vowed, because the LORD has wrought vengeance for you on your enemies the Ammonites." 37 Then she said to her father, "Let me have this favor. Spare me for two months, that I may go off down the mountains to mourn my virginity with my companions." 38 "Go," he replied, and sent her away for two months. So she departed with her companions and mourned her virginity on the mountains. 39 At the end of the two months she returned to her father, who did to her as he had vowed. She had not been intimate with man. It then became a custom in Israel 40 for Israelite women to go yearly to mourn the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite for four days of the year.
For Sara, it's a deadly story: In later Judaism, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son is seen as a problem:
A
late Jewish tradition tells us that after Abraham's return and on the news of
what had happened, Sarah uttered six screams and died. (Strack-Billerbeck IV, 181f.).
From: First Eucharistic Prayer of the Catholic Mass: The Church has prayed for centuries as if Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son was something positive:
Be
pleased to look upon these offerings with a serene and kindly countenance,
********************************************************* The family therapist B. Hellinger has formulated an analogous double narrative to the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. This uncovers the problematic relationships in the original biblical story. In doing so, he exposes this biblical narrative as a completely useless and misleading story for our time, which cannot claim to be true about God or about a valid Christian faith:
A suggestion for an alternative SECOND READING at the Easter Vigil:
A man dreamed in the night he heard the voice of God telling him, "Arise, take your son, your only beloved. Take him to the mountain I will show you and offer him to me there as a sacrifice." In the morning, the man got up, looked at his son, his only beloved, looked at his wife, the child's mother, looked at his God. He took the child, led him up the mountain, built an altar, bound his hands, drew the knife, raised it to slaughter. Then he heard another voice and slaughtered a sheep instead of his son. Now how does the son look at the father, how does the father look at the son, how does the wife look at the husband, how does the husband look at the wife, how do they look at God and how does God, if he exists, look at them? And another man dreamed in the night that he heard the voice of God saying to him, "Arise, take your son, your only beloved." Take him to the mountain I will show you and offer him there as a sacrifice to me." In the morning, the man got up, looked at his son, his only beloved, looked at his wife, the child's mother, looked at his God. Then he answered: "I am not doing this." How does the son look at the father, how does the father look at the son, how does the wife look at the husband, how does the husband look at the wife, how do they look at God and how does God, if he exists, look at them?
Bert Hellinger (From the book: „Zweierlei Glück“) A suggestion for a concluding word after the reading: “Words of life”
Closing remarks
People believed that one had to give back to God a part of the gifts of creation: one had to offer sacrifices as a sign of gratitude, reverence and humble submission to his rule. People believed that their children were their property, over which they had total right of disposal, including over their lives. The authors of the New Testament also applied this thinking to God and Jesus: Jesus, as the "Son of God", was the property of his Father, therefore he could "give him up" to die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins.
Manfred Hanglberger (www.hanglberger-manfred.de)
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How the story of „The testing of Abraham“ (Gen 22) might have come about: >>> How the story of „Cain and Abel“ (Gen 4) might have come about >>> |
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Bible-Index (German language) >>> The crucifixion of Jesus in its redemptive effect >>>
Why was Jesus crucified? >>> |
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