Oct 20·edited Oct 20Liked by Damir Marusic, Santiago Ramos
Child sacrifice in Phoenicia and Canaan was not uncommon in the early Iron Age. This is a fairly consensus opinion. Carthage in particular, originally a colony of Tyre, seemed to practice it. It was mentioned by the Romans during the Punic Wars, and “tophets” (originally a Biblical word) have been discovered in Carthage and its colonies having human child bones and animal bones.
It is therefore quite possible, even likely, that the Israelites were surrounded by cultures practicing child sacrifice, and practiced it themselves.
Tzemah Yoreh is a Biblical Scholar who argues that Isaac is actually sacrificed in the earliest layers of the Abraham-Isaac story (e.g. the layers referring to Elohim as opposed to Yahweh).
This historicist reading adds a few more layers to the fear and trembling on offer in the story.
I do think the historicist complications are absolutely worth thinking about.
However, I do think it's fair to interrogate this story as we moderns are experiencing it today. As I was saying in the episode, it's all too easy to come up with ways of thinking about the story that make it less troubling. But in doing so, I believe we're trying to look away from questions that we ought not look away from.
(If you're a Kantian/Rawlsian/Dawkinsian, of course, you also don't want to look too closely, for all you see is "backwardness" instead of the human condition.)
And in that line, if child sacrifice was common in the region, maybe the Isaac story can be seen as showing how this god is better than the others because he doesn't make you go through with it.
The Iphigeneia parallel is also interesting, although sacrificing a daughter is certainly not apples to apples in the ancient context.
I'm all for talking about our feelings as we engage literature, but I think we do a disservice reading our context into ancient texts as a first line of assessment. It's important, but it's not the most important approach.
An original audience would be struck by two things -
1. The undoing of an expected (and completely normal) ritual of human sacrifice
2. The literary parallels between the story of Abraham and Isaac and the Story of Hagar and Ishmael
Eastern readers don't work with fact sheets to understand truth, they have powerful stories, for them that's "the stuff" that make these lessons palpable and unforgettable. God is the God who is different from these other gods, and he even has mercy on Ishmael, who was Abraham's mistaken effort to make God's promise become a reality. Sounds like a pretty good God to me.
Also interesting, it's like a half day walk from Beersheba to Mt. Moriah, Abraham does it in 3 days, but he never abandons Isaac the way Hagar abandons her son... there's a contrast of importance there.
Here's the source for these, if you're interested in reading the OT in vivid color, I recommend all of them:
Agreed, that’s the point I was trying to make, from a different angle, when I was talking about the trust that Abraham already had in the Lord leading up to this request. And a common criticism of Kierkegaard’s reading is precisely that he was imposing a Kantian moral framework on an ancient text.
That said: it stands to reason that ancient reader would be shocked by God’s demand — after all, God had promised Sarah a child.
I’m just curious at which point historicism begins to get uncomfortable for the believer. Sure, Genesis is WAY back in time, and we have this BC/AD pivot to tell us how far we are from the Gospels. But to what extent are you willing to contextualize and historicize Christianity, for example?
Child sacrifice in Phoenicia and Canaan was not uncommon in the early Iron Age. This is a fairly consensus opinion. Carthage in particular, originally a colony of Tyre, seemed to practice it. It was mentioned by the Romans during the Punic Wars, and “tophets” (originally a Biblical word) have been discovered in Carthage and its colonies having human child bones and animal bones.
It is therefore quite possible, even likely, that the Israelites were surrounded by cultures practicing child sacrifice, and practiced it themselves.
Tzemah Yoreh is a Biblical Scholar who argues that Isaac is actually sacrificed in the earliest layers of the Abraham-Isaac story (e.g. the layers referring to Elohim as opposed to Yahweh).
This historicist reading adds a few more layers to the fear and trembling on offer in the story.
I was thinking about this as well. The original audience probably wasn't asking "What sort of god could demand something like this?"
Right, Kronos/Saturn did not preserve his own children, why would he feel the need to preserve yours.
I do think the historicist complications are absolutely worth thinking about.
However, I do think it's fair to interrogate this story as we moderns are experiencing it today. As I was saying in the episode, it's all too easy to come up with ways of thinking about the story that make it less troubling. But in doing so, I believe we're trying to look away from questions that we ought not look away from.
(If you're a Kantian/Rawlsian/Dawkinsian, of course, you also don't want to look too closely, for all you see is "backwardness" instead of the human condition.)
I don’t know. I was suggesting that child sacrifice is pretty troubling.
Right, but under the assumption of moral progress, right?
And in that line, if child sacrifice was common in the region, maybe the Isaac story can be seen as showing how this god is better than the others because he doesn't make you go through with it.
The Iphigeneia parallel is also interesting, although sacrificing a daughter is certainly not apples to apples in the ancient context.
I'm all for talking about our feelings as we engage literature, but I think we do a disservice reading our context into ancient texts as a first line of assessment. It's important, but it's not the most important approach.
An original audience would be struck by two things -
1. The undoing of an expected (and completely normal) ritual of human sacrifice
2. The literary parallels between the story of Abraham and Isaac and the Story of Hagar and Ishmael
Eastern readers don't work with fact sheets to understand truth, they have powerful stories, for them that's "the stuff" that make these lessons palpable and unforgettable. God is the God who is different from these other gods, and he even has mercy on Ishmael, who was Abraham's mistaken effort to make God's promise become a reality. Sounds like a pretty good God to me.
Also interesting, it's like a half day walk from Beersheba to Mt. Moriah, Abraham does it in 3 days, but he never abandons Isaac the way Hagar abandons her son... there's a contrast of importance there.
Here's the source for these, if you're interested in reading the OT in vivid color, I recommend all of them:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4b3nVRDhzysU0KfNppMFDm
Agreed, that’s the point I was trying to make, from a different angle, when I was talking about the trust that Abraham already had in the Lord leading up to this request. And a common criticism of Kierkegaard’s reading is precisely that he was imposing a Kantian moral framework on an ancient text.
That said: it stands to reason that ancient reader would be shocked by God’s demand — after all, God had promised Sarah a child.
I’m just curious at which point historicism begins to get uncomfortable for the believer. Sure, Genesis is WAY back in time, and we have this BC/AD pivot to tell us how far we are from the Gospels. But to what extent are you willing to contextualize and historicize Christianity, for example?
https://www.amazon.com/Death-Resurrection-Beloved-Son-Transformation/dp/0300065116/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.nvmPs0quffipF1cx4NWPUIT0S448R4tTUB0pJzYVDDs5WPpCdxwwIBNMFMieuhHAOqV8RcHoKMmPzVeffTi3yyjhErZsAt6314axLisimrGQqn5fO68pahngzQRYf8xc9qliMuDoyFhN638x0JjZAOoD2GYb3gazoKImRcZZvkeufsjzgRjZS8k7Njhysdlji3KXOriuL_o0r8azb18h-A.U9rGethhEl2UPmswyPHHZ0jDc-jgAgEn9B7dv3Ccir4&dib_tag=se&keywords=Jon+D.+Levenson&qid=1729476930&s=books&sr=1-2. I’d recommend Jon Levenson’s book. Also, Judaism has a strain that argues that Isaac was willing to be sacrificed himself. He was a young man and not a child/baby. Good podcast :)
Fascinating, thanks for the rec!