Deconstructing Abraham and Isaac | When God Commanded Child Sacrifice

They told us it was the ultimate test of faith...and Abraham passed the test. But what exactly was the test? And did Abraham do the right thing? Let's unpack it.

*Please keep in mind that all everything I say here is my subjective opinion, and is intended to deconstruct fundamentalist/evangelical/conservative Christian ideologies from an ex christian perspective*

Outro Music | "Pixels" by Jeff Kaale

tags | Ex christian, deconstructing christianity, exvangelical, former fundie, leaving christianity, gospels, jesus, bible, god, christian, evangelism, apologist, atheist vs christian, agnostic, recovering from religion

[amy_pieterse]

When I was a child this story scared me. One night I had a nightmare and I remember crying in my father's arms and asked him if God asked him to would he kill me. He said no and continued to comfort me. Then I felt bad that my dad would disobey god.

So, that was fun to go through as a kid. ✨sarcasm✨

[tonyrosaj]

What's really telling is the fact that the theme throughout the bible isn't necessarily having faith, but fearing god. It was never about faith. It's about fear.

[dawnalawrence]

I'm commenting AGAIN because I've always had a particular issue with this story! I always tell people to imagine if this was a modern day child- hanging around their room, playing video games or whatever and the Dad comes and does something like that! The kid would be ruined for life! Imagine having to LIVE with this father- never knowing whether "God" might tell him to do it AGAIN and not let him off the hook that time! You'd be afraid to ever turn your back on him or go to sleep at night! My daughter told me I'm the ONLY one who got that from those verses-that EVERYONE else was INSPIRED by the story! I'm so GLAD to learn I am NOT alone in my take on this!

[leslieyancey]

And this is why, as a kid, I grew up conflating blind obedience to authority figures with morality!

[ricklawrence]

Man, that must have been an awkward walk home. "Soooo...you were gonna, eh, slay me?"

[nami_senpai]

The story of Abraham and Isaac has always bothered me. So has the commandment to respect parents, but nothing about respecting children. Especially after the realisation that my father would have done the same thing as Abraham to me, to his daughter.And yes, once again, the Bible completely ignores the fact that it was his mother who bore Isaac, gave him life and most likely raised him. This decision of Abraham's shows absolute disrespect for his wife. Like she is just an incubator! Also, the narratives of blind obedience are repeated again. The lack of freedom, toxicity, and misogyny in the Bible have bothered me since childhood.Thanks for the video and greetings from Ukraine, Kristi!❤

[grapeshot]

Basically, the invisible sky wizard was like it's just a prank, bro.

[samwell]

Their faith started with and ended with human sacrifice. How heart warming

[libbybee]

I distinctly remember exclaiming "Isaac must have been so scared!" when our Sunday school teacher told this story. She got really indignant & almost yelled back at me "imagine how Abraham must have felt!"

Well dang, that one did some damage. 😅 I'm so thankful for these videos - so cathartic!

[tankerlife]

I remember hearing this story as a child in Catholic school. I asked a question to the nun after the first verse, “what happened to his first son, Ishmael? He doesn’t count as a son? So much for honoring parental responsibility.” Earned me a trip to Mother Superior’s office.

[eprd]

This story disturbed me deeply as a little kid. I was even unable to sleep thinking when would god tell me to stab my parents or do some kind of madness that I wouldn't even be able to contemplate trying. Pretty perverse stuff

[mender]

I spent decades in church. This story was 'always' soft peddled. On top of this, there are many other parts of the bible that depicted horrific scenes. These other passages were never talked about. If they were somehow addressed, they were justified as OK. It's all maddening.

[Aziara]

I know what Isaac felt like.

I was an only child after a 10 year period of infertility.

My abusive parents were VERY clear when they taught me this story. I was Isaac in this story. They loved me very much after waiting so long to have me, but God always comes first.

Every time I got yet another beating, I often wondered if this time, god told them to kill me.

Because they had already told me they would kill me if they were told to.

[triviumtakeout]

This was the pivotal story that really made me unpack and ultimately move away from my literalist understanding of Genesis. Along with all the things you point out, I got to the point of really examining the problem of "testing" (read - tempting) from a positive law basis. If you hold as true propositions that A. Righteousness or morality (rightness) lies in doing what God commands, obeying Him and B. God is good and cannot tempt man to do evil (James 1:13), then the testing presents an objective and undeniable contradiction, not a matter of interpretive nuance. God had previously commanded that Man may not take innocent life or indeed even shed innocent blood in the covenant of Noah. So in Abraham's case, he was being presented with the choice to either obey God's covenantal command or obey His contradictory personal command, either of which choice would necessitate a disobedience of the other command, which is precisely tempting to evil, i.e. there is no choice available that does not violate one of God's commands. Simply no way around it; it is a blatant contradiction.

[benjaminrichmond]

This is the story I've always been most hung up on. Like, I could never understand the "blindness" of this faith, even when I was supposed to believe blind faith was a good thing. They try to cop out with the "sikes, just kidding, just testing ya", but like that's f*cked up, too.

[Emily.]

Ive asked xtians several times whether they would obey god if he told them to kill their child, and ghe result is almost always "well god would never do that", which is very telling. They know they wouldn't do it, but to admit that is to admit that god isn't perfect, and thats unthinkable to them

[sickboy]

Look how God treats his children. Is it really a surprising request? Bad fathers teach bad parenting.

[KyloGram]

The argument of “Well it’s ok bcuz God didn’t want Abraham to kill Isaac!” really falls flat when you learn that there are other instances in the Bible where people *do* offer child sacrifices to God, and he rewards them for it.

[downshift]

If you heard of someone hearing voices in their heads telling them to kill their children, you wouldn't be making stained glass windows in your house telling the story, you'd be phoning the police and getting them sectioned.

[cgcolin]

This hit different when I had a son, my only child, and read this and said "hell, no!" It just cemented the direction I was already headed (away from Christianity).