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> Kierkegaard’s greatest illustration of this is his retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Fear and Trembling (1843). Abraham is often held up as a par

by bambax 9y ago

> Kierkegaard’s greatest illustration of this is his retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Fear and Trembling (1843). Abraham is often held up as a paradigm of faith because he trusted God so much he was prepared to sacrifice his only son on his command. Kierkegaard makes us realize that Abraham acted on faith not because he obeyed a difficult order but because lifting the knife over his son defied all morality and reason. No reasonable man would have done what Abraham did. (...) So when Abraham took his leap of faith, he took leave of reason and morality. I don't know if Kierkegaard actually said any of this, but it's wrong. Child sacrifice is as old as time. Many myths or actual rituals involved killing one's own children. It's found in most ancient cultures from the Middle East to the Americas. It was therefore not "irrational" to do so, but, rather, quite reasonable and normal (if horrible), esp. in dire times. The innovation found in some books of the Bible was just the opposite: to declare that child sacrifice is in fact bad and should be avoided. And of course Jesus is that exact same myth of child sacrifice (with a twist: he dies but lives again).

coliveira 9y ago
Like in mostly everything, the Bible is ambiguous about child sacrifice. A lesser known character, Jephthah, committed child sacrifice after wining a battle with the help of god, and in that case there was no scapegoat as in Isaac's tale.
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  and meanwhile, anything related to Moloch, It-Who-Feeds-On-Children, is 10000% bad and should be destroyed on sight.
- doulos 9y ago
  The account of Jephthah is vastly different than of Abraham; though neither indicate any ambiguity on God's stance regarding child sacrifice. Judges 11 1) The Spirit of the Lord had already come upon Jephthah before he made his vow; showing that God was already intending to give him victory. (v29) 2) Jephthah rashly made a vow to God of his own accord, which was never affirmed by God nor required by God. (v30-31) Even on a surface level reading of the passage, it would be difficult to defend that it was ever God's desire that Jephthah sacrifice his daughter. And, if he knew the character of God as proclaimed by God himself in Exodus 34:6-7, he could have repented and received grace and he still would have had his daughter.
  - coliveira 9y ago
    > he could have repented and received grace and he still would have had his daughter. This is just modern people creating a new interpretation of old writings. Apparently Abraham also didn't know about the "grace", since he was decided to kill his son and didn't even tried to ask God otherwise. God also was not worried at all, since he didn't care to enlighten Jephthah about his "grace" (even for the sake of the child).
- jabretti 9y ago
  Jepthah made a vow to sacrifice whoever walked out of his front door first when he returned home; the fact that it's his daughter is portrayed as a horrible twist (I guess he was hoping to sacrifice a servant or something? How did this guy not see it coming? Though I just read another interpretation, that he expected it to be one of his animals) and the approval or disapproval of God is not recorded, nor is whether he The point of the story seems to be that you shouldn't go round making stupid oaths, not that you should sacrifice your children.
  - coliveira 9y ago
    > approval or disapproval of God is not recorded That's the whole point, certainly this was viewed as tragic but normal. In other words, child sacrifice was not recommended but certainly was within realm of possibility for ancient jewish religion (and of course for all other religions around that area).
quantumofmalice 9y ago
> And of course Jesus is that exact same myth of child sacrifice (with a twist: he dies but lives again). The twist is more complex than that: it is God sacrificing his own Son, which is also Him, in place of all sacrifices. God becomes the scapegoat. Rene Girard talks about this idea in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNkSBy5wWDk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNkSBy5wWDk
- jmcqk6 9y ago
  >God sacrificing his own Son, which is also Him, in place of all sacrifices. The twist is more complex than that. God is sacrificing his own son, which is also him, to himself, in order to satisfy rules that he himself also put in place so that he doesn't have to send people he created and loves infinitely to be tortured forever in a place he created because they broke rules they couldn't understand with consequences they couldn't comprehend.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    That's not "more complex". That's the high school kind of "religion is absurd" reaction, and is a naive literal reading that even the people of the bible era were above. The key is that there are no "rules that he himself also put in place" etc. (as he doesn't exist and even if he did it wouldn't matter). The rules were formed by people (obviously) and codify societal practices and philosophies towards morality and right. The story of Christ, as such, codifies a different approach contrary to those older practices -- which is why it was the basis on a whole different mentality that shaped Europe and ended in things like the "human rights" and modern ethics. (Or course this can be difficult to fathom in places were Old Testament beliefs are still championed, along with very crude literal meanings of religion, in the name of "Christianity". But this wasn't the case in later Rome and Europe, not even in the Inquisition era).
    - jmcqk6 9y ago
      I was raised in one of those places where Old Testament beliefs are still championed and they believe in a literal bible. They absolutely believe as I described it, though they would not connect those beliefs together like I did. There are millions of Christians like this in the US alone, let alone the rest of the world. I'm not sure what you're trying to push with your interpretation of christianity, but it's certainly not common, given that it assumes their god doesn't exist.
coldtea 9y ago
>And of course Jesus is that exact same myth of child sacrifice (with a twist: he dies but lives again) The twist is in fact a different one -- "sacrifices, dies but lives again" is older. The key is that the victim, normally a scapegoat the city is happy to get rid of, is this time celebrated as to be in the right. This is a turning point in putting the victim as noble (as opposed the punishers as noble), on which most of modern morality is based on (Old Testament-following puritans aside).
- bambax 9y ago
  > The key is that the victim is this time celebrated as to be in the right Yes, you're absolutely right -- except maybe for the part of "most modern morality"... the Latin dictum "vae victis" was embraced throughout modern times. That said, having the victim come back from the dead is kind of cheating.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >the Latin dictum "vae victis" was embraced throughout modern times. Indeed, but that was and will always going to be (including in modern times). What Christianity did was shape a morality where this was increasingly considered bad (as opposed to "just the way of the world"), not shape a world where this was eliminated. This has a large effect on many practices and beliefs.
baldfat 9y ago
Fear and Trembling was written under the name of Johannes DE SILENTIO. S.K. was writing under the view point of a non-believer trying to figure out God requesting Abraham to sacrifice his son. S.K. was a Christian and a Theologian and was trying to voice the opposition.
lurcio 9y ago
Abrams experience foreshadowed Christ he continued to be led by God, even to the offering of his only (God given) son, still faithful to Gods promise to him. The 'twist' is that to establish the new covenant, God provided the sacrifice and that Christ wasn't a victim, but had the power -> No man takes my life, but I lay it down...etc etc

by bambax 9y ago

coliveira 9y ago

Like in mostly everything, the Bible is ambiguous about child sacrifice. A lesser known character, Jephthah, committed child sacrifice after wining a battle with the help of god, and in that case there was no scapegoat as in Isaac's tale.

hprotagonist 9y ago
and meanwhile, anything related to Moloch, It-Who-Feeds-On-Children, is 10000% bad and should be destroyed on sight.
doulos 9y ago
The account of Jephthah is vastly different than of Abraham; though neither indicate any ambiguity on God's stance regarding child sacrifice. Judges 11 1) The Spirit of the Lord had already come upon Jephthah before he made his vow; showing that God was already intending to give him victory. (v29) 2) Jephthah rashly made a vow to God of his own accord, which was never affirmed by God nor required by God. (v30-31) Even on a surface level reading of the passage, it would be difficult to defend that it was ever God's desire that Jephthah sacrifice his daughter. And, if he knew the character of God as proclaimed by God himself in Exodus 34:6-7, he could have repented and received grace and he still would have had his daughter.
- coliveira 9y ago
  > he could have repented and received grace and he still would have had his daughter. This is just modern people creating a new interpretation of old writings. Apparently Abraham also didn't know about the "grace", since he was decided to kill his son and didn't even tried to ask God otherwise. God also was not worried at all, since he didn't care to enlighten Jephthah about his "grace" (even for the sake of the child).
jabretti 9y ago
Jepthah made a vow to sacrifice whoever walked out of his front door first when he returned home; the fact that it's his daughter is portrayed as a horrible twist (I guess he was hoping to sacrifice a servant or something? How did this guy not see it coming? Though I just read another interpretation, that he expected it to be one of his animals) and the approval or disapproval of God is not recorded, nor is whether he The point of the story seems to be that you shouldn't go round making stupid oaths, not that you should sacrifice your children.
- coliveira 9y ago
  > approval or disapproval of God is not recorded That's the whole point, certainly this was viewed as tragic but normal. In other words, child sacrifice was not recommended but certainly was within realm of possibility for ancient jewish religion (and of course for all other religions around that area).

quantumofmalice 9y ago

> And of course Jesus is that exact same myth of child sacrifice (with a twist: he dies but lives again). The twist is more complex than that: it is God sacrificing his own Son, which is also Him, in place of all sacrifices. God becomes the scapegoat. Rene Girard talks about this idea in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNkSBy5wWDk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNkSBy5wWDk

jmcqk6 9y ago
>God sacrificing his own Son, which is also Him, in place of all sacrifices. The twist is more complex than that. God is sacrificing his own son, which is also him, to himself, in order to satisfy rules that he himself also put in place so that he doesn't have to send people he created and loves infinitely to be tortured forever in a place he created because they broke rules they couldn't understand with consequences they couldn't comprehend.
- coldtea 9y ago
  That's not "more complex". That's the high school kind of "religion is absurd" reaction, and is a naive literal reading that even the people of the bible era were above. The key is that there are no "rules that he himself also put in place" etc. (as he doesn't exist and even if he did it wouldn't matter). The rules were formed by people (obviously) and codify societal practices and philosophies towards morality and right. The story of Christ, as such, codifies a different approach contrary to those older practices -- which is why it was the basis on a whole different mentality that shaped Europe and ended in things like the "human rights" and modern ethics. (Or course this can be difficult to fathom in places were Old Testament beliefs are still championed, along with very crude literal meanings of religion, in the name of "Christianity". But this wasn't the case in later Rome and Europe, not even in the Inquisition era).
  - jmcqk6 9y ago
    I was raised in one of those places where Old Testament beliefs are still championed and they believe in a literal bible. They absolutely believe as I described it, though they would not connect those beliefs together like I did. There are millions of Christians like this in the US alone, let alone the rest of the world. I'm not sure what you're trying to push with your interpretation of christianity, but it's certainly not common, given that it assumes their god doesn't exist.

coldtea 9y ago

>And of course Jesus is that exact same myth of child sacrifice (with a twist: he dies but lives again) The twist is in fact a different one -- "sacrifices, dies but lives again" is older. The key is that the victim, normally a scapegoat the city is happy to get rid of, is this time celebrated as to be in the right. This is a turning point in putting the victim as noble (as opposed the punishers as noble), on which most of modern morality is based on (Old Testament-following puritans aside).

bambax 9y ago
> The key is that the victim is this time celebrated as to be in the right Yes, you're absolutely right -- except maybe for the part of "most modern morality"... the Latin dictum "vae victis" was embraced throughout modern times. That said, having the victim come back from the dead is kind of cheating.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >the Latin dictum "vae victis" was embraced throughout modern times. Indeed, but that was and will always going to be (including in modern times). What Christianity did was shape a morality where this was increasingly considered bad (as opposed to "just the way of the world"), not shape a world where this was eliminated. This has a large effect on many practices and beliefs.

baldfat 9y ago

Fear and Trembling was written under the name of Johannes DE SILENTIO. S.K. was writing under the view point of a non-believer trying to figure out God requesting Abraham to sacrifice his son. S.K. was a Christian and a Theologian and was trying to voice the opposition.

lurcio 9y ago

Abrams experience foreshadowed Christ he continued to be led by God, even to the offering of his only (God given) son, still faithful to Gods promise to him. The 'twist' is that to establish the new covenant, God provided the sacrifice and that Christ wasn't a victim, but had the power -> No man takes my life, but I lay it down...etc etc