“Abraham…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.” Genesis 22:2 Thus, Abraham, with perfect faith and trust in the Lord, sets out the next morning.to follow the commandment of God. This is the beginning of one of the most intriguing and horrific stories in the Old Testament. A man willing to kill his only son because he believes it is a Divine command from God. All well and good for Abraham; however, what if someone today came to me and said that the Lord had told them to sacrifice their child? Unlike Abraham, I do not have perfect faith and I doubt, I question, and I would probably think they were crazy. This also sets the stage for one of the nagging questions of morality that has been tackled by theologians and philosophers for ages: Was the command that God Gave Abraham to kill Isaac moral? This issue has been tackled by the likes of Soren Kierkegaard and Immanuel Kant (Collins, 2007). For myself, this is a topic I have wanted to tackle since I took an ethics class last year. In my opinion, there is indeed sufficient rationale for Abraham to act on the word of God and to take his only son to Mount Moriah to offer him up as a sacrifice. Looking at the situation from a historical context, as well as the fact that the Noahide laws in Genesis, chapter nine, state that all life belongs to God (Deffinbaugh, 2004), that God is an all knowing being, that there was no evidence of a direct threat of punishment or an offer of reward in following the instruction (Landau, 2010), that both Abraham and Isaac had perfect faith and trust in the Lord, and finally that God does not ask anything of Abraham that he did not...
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...nd say that I would believe or have faith enough to follow in Abraham’s footsteps; I believe that it would be difficult for most people to believe that God himself spoke and commanded such an act. Perhaps, if more people had the faith of Abraham and listened for the voice of God, our world would be a better place.
References
Armstrong, K. (1993). A History of God. New York, NY: Random House Publishing Group.
Collins, J. J. (2007). A short Introduction to the Hebrew Bible. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
Cosby, B. (1983). Bill Cosby, Himself. (B. Cosby, Performer) Hamilton Place Theater, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Deffinbaugh, B. (2004, May 11). The Noahic Covenant - A New beginning. Retrieved March 29, 2011, from Bibke.org: http://bible.org/print/book/export/html/69
Landau, R. S. (2010). The Fundamentals of Ethics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
The Bible: The Old Testament. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Sarah Lawall et al. Vol 1. 7th ed. New York: Norton, 1999. 47-97.
...yne A. The HarperCollins Study Bible New Revised Standard Edition . New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. 1645-1722. Print.
New Testament. Vol. 2. Edited by Gerhard Kittel. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1964.
Robinson, B. A. (2008, March 30). Books of the Hebrew Scripture . Retrieved May 7, 2011, from Religious Tolerance: http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_otb3.htm
... In conclusion, Abraham is shown to be justified; he is not a murderer. In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard wrote that "the future will show I was right (Kierkegaard, 91). " Well, Abraham was proven right by the result. He does not kill Isaac.
Collins, John J. A Short Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007.
The first problem, “Is there a teleological suspension of the ethical?” begins by declaring that the ethical is the universe which applies to everyone. However, our purpose in the universe, is to act ethically. “As soon as the single individual wants to assert himself in his particularity, in direct opposition to the universe, he sins, and only by recognizing this can he again reconcile himself with the universe” (Kierkegaard, 1985, p. 83). I think that this statement makes sense because we cannot move forward in life unless we acknowledge the mistakes that we have made.
Abraham obeyed God by preparing wood and loading his donkey and took away Isaac and two servants with him. On reaching the place ordered by God, Abraham built an Alter and arranged the wood on it. He tied up his son and placed him on altar, on top of the wood and picked up the knife to kill him. Abraham was stopped by the Lord’s voice from heaven telling him, he was an obedient man who honored God. The angel of God confirmed to him how God would richly bless him and give him many descendants as there are stars in the sky or grains of sand along the seashore.
Abraham did end up taking his son to a mountain to sacrifice him, but at the last minute God told Abraham to stop and sacrifice a lamb instead. This event showed that God would come through for Abraham in the end because Abraham’s faith in Him was so great.... ... middle of paper ... ...
New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997. Osborne, Grant R. Revelation. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002.
Abraham had demonstrated his remarkable faith and obedience in leaving Ur. In Genesis 15, God made a covenant with Abraham in relation to his heir and Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Abraham was obedient and God came in for him, saved his son and provided another sacrifice.
Therefore, I need to obey God’s commandments and walk in his ways to achieve the eternal life as God promised the blessings to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Carson, D, & Moo, D. (2005) An introduction to the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
Arragel, Moses, A. Paz Y Meliá, Julián Paz, and Alba, Jacobo Stuart Fitz-James Y Falcó. Bible (Old Testament). Madrid: Priv. Print. for Presentation to the Members of the Roxburghe Club, 1918. Print.
Carson, D.A., and Douglas J. Moo. An Introduction to the New Testament. 2nd Edition. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2005.