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Genesis 22: The Narrative "God Is Testing Abraham"

How this biblical story might have come about

(But maybe it was completely different)

Around 900 years before Christ, a young priest named Simeon from the tribe of Levites lived with his wife and his little son in the land of Israel. Simeon's wife had fallen seriously ill. His father-in-law, who was also a priest, said to him:
“You must offer your son as a sacrifice to God, so that he may see that you trust and respect him completely; then he will also answer your prayers. Our king also sacrificed his own son when external enemies threatened him, and then defeated his enemies with God's help. Sacrifice your son - maybe God will then save your wife's life."
And the old priest continued: "People used to be more devout and more willing to make sacrifices! At that time, they obeyed the ancient law of God, which is written in the 13th chapter of the Second Book of Moses: Every male firstborn of a woman or a mother animal must be sacrificed to God. But people always want to make things easier for themselves. That is why, some time ago, they started sacrificing an animal instead of their firstborn child. Only when they are in great need some are willing to sacrifice a child again. The more we are willing to give to God, the more we can hope to receive His help. For that reason, you have to show to God that you respect Him so much that you are ready to give to Him your most beloved one, your son."

Back home, Simeon looked at his wife, who he loved so much, and he looked at his son, who was so close to his heart, and he was in complete despair at the words of his father-in-law.
Simeon was a very faithful young priest who was convinced that God was very attached to his people and had saved them many times through the centuries in severe hardships.
In the evening he could no longer eat and all joy in life seemed to have been destroyed. His brooding and despair kept him from falling asleep for many hours, he just tossed and turned restlessly in bed. But when he suddenly fell asleep, he had an exciting dream:
He dreamed that he was stacking a pile of wood in his garden and tying his son to it offering him as a sacrifice to God. He felt no emotion in doing so; he acted like a mechanism. As he raised the knife to kill his son, he suddenly felt someone holding his hand and he heard a voice: "No! Don't harm your child! God does not want parents to sacrifice their children!” At that point he turned around and saw a beautiful young woman. He asked her, "Who are you?" She replied, "I am your wife's mother. She was still a little child when I died. I am always there with you. If you ask me, I can give you my blessing.”
Full of joy, Simeon woke up, woke up his wife and excitedly told her his dream. Then they both sat up in bed and prayed to the woman's mother, asking for her blessing on their family. Then the fever left the woman, she was able to get up and eat, and she became well again.

Simeon told everything to his father-in-law, who was very agitated by it. After a long silence, the old priest said to his son-in-law: "Truly, here God has spoken to you through my deceased first wife, who was very pious and wise. We must make this revelation known to the people of Israel, so that they will learn to pray in the right way instead of sacrificing their children.

However, we must write the story in such a way that it had already been experienced by our progenitor Abraham, in order to give it more credibility. And we have to tell it in such a way that Abraham is tested by God and he actually would have been willing to sacrifice his son; because some people think that whoever is willing to sacrifice more is more faithful and can count on more help from God. Otherwise they will say that this story only wants to destroy people's willingness to make sacrifices and thus the people would be deprived of God's blessing. Because some get terrible feelings of guilt when they are not willing to sacrifice their most precious thing, their children, when they are in great worry.

Deep into the night, the two thought about what the story should be, so that it would free people from the deadly inner compulsion to sacrifice their children to God in order they could be sure of his blessing and help. And so they wrote the following story:

Genesis Chapter 22

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."

3 Early 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.

13 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 Beersheba, where Abraham made his home.

But in our time, some believers say:
"This is not a good story about God. It is true that this story saved the lives of many children in earlier times. At that time it was a valuable and powerful spiritual remedy. But it also has dangerous side effects.”

1. This story portrays God as a sadistic tester of humans. This is a cruel and dangerous game on a person's feelings and beliefs.
A father of whom it would become known in our times to be willing to sacrifice a child for the sake of his faith would immediately be taken to a psychiatric ward as insane.

2. In this story, the feelings and the will of the mother are completely ignored. The man does not consider the woman and does not take her seriously. He alone decides on the life and death of a child: A terribly patriarchal story.

3. In this story, the father sees his son as his possession, like a thing he can do with as it pleases to him. The child has no dignity of its own, no right to live independently of the parents. Killing a child by its own parents is not considered a crime.

4. In this story, there is a competitive relationship between love and faithfulness toward God and love and faithfulness toward wife and child. This is a false and dangerous image of God! For God is loved and respected precisely through genuine love and faithfulness to one's spouse and children!

5. In this story, people still believe that God expects sacrifices from people for His own sake. If not a child, then an animal is to be killed "for God" instead. Blood must flow! But already the prophet Hosea proclaimed in 750 BC in the name of God: "In love I delight, not in sacrifices" (Hos 6:6; similarly, Isa 1:11; Jer 7:22; Mt 9:13).
Sacrifices should not be made for God, but for human beings in need, for a more just world, for the suffering creation, for one's own spiritual well-being - this is the will of God. The original Christian understanding of sacrifice is not to return to the giver of all gifts, but rather passing them on!

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The family therapist B. Hellinger has formulated an analogous double narrative to the biblical Abraham-Isaac narrative. This reveals 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 any truth about God or about a valid Christian faith:

A suggestion for an alternative SECOND READING at the Easter Vigil:

The Religous Faith

A man dreamed at night that he heard the voice of God saying to him: "Get up, take your son, your only beloved one. Take him on the mountain, which I will show you, and there, offer him as a sacrifice to me." In the morning the man got up, looked at his son, his only one beloved, looked at his wife, the mother of the child, looked at his God. He took the boy, led him up the mountain, built an altar, tied his hands, drew the knife, raised it to start slaughtering. At that point he heard another voice and slaughtered a sheep instead of his son. Now how does the son look at the father, how the father looks at the son, how the woman looks at the man, how the man looks at the woman, how do they look at God and how does God, if He exists, look at them?
Another man dreamed at night that he heard the voice of God telling him: "Get up, take your son, your only beloved. Take him to the mountain I will show to you and there offer him to me as a slaughter sacrifice." In the morning the man got up, looked at his son, his only one beloved, looked at his wife, the mother of the child, looked at his God. Then he said in a firm voice, "I'm not going to do that." Now how does this son look at the father, how does this father look at the son, how does this woman look at the man, how does this man look at the woman, how do they look at God, and how does God, if He exists, look at them?

Bert Hellinger (From the book: „Zweierlei Glück“; "Two kinds of happiness")

There is also a narrative in the Old Testament about the sacrifice of a daughter, but unlike the son of Abraham, she was not saved:

Judges Chapter 11

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.

by Manfred Hanglberger (www.hanglberger-manfred.de)

Translated by: Ingeborg Schmutte

LINK to share: https://hanglberger-manfred.de/en-gen22-geschichte.htm

>> Collection of texts on Gen 22

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>> Noah's Ark (Gen 6-9: A critical interpretation)

>> How the story of „Cain and Abel“ (Gen 4) might have come about

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