Tuesday, 9 August 2011

Genesis 22 Abraham, a fresh angle on the angel

If there had been a real, good God inspiring Genesis 22 then you would have the angel say to Abraham,'Stop, you are entirely mistake, God has never wanted human or animal sacrifice and would never ask for it'.

Actually if it had been possible for an angel to appear before people then there are many incidents in the Bible stories and in real life when it would have been really handy to have an angel appear. Why didn't an angel appear before Eve to persuade her not to eat the apple, or to say, 'Stop, don't eat it, remember God said not to'. It would have been good to have an angel appear before Hitler or any crazed gun man to tell him, 'Stop, don't do it. Also what about if Mark 1v11 could have God shout down to Jesus then how come he didn't shout down to Hitler, "Stop or you'll be fried by a lightning bolt". None of these things happen in real life becaue they never happened in ancient times either. It is amazing what a playwrite can make happen on paper, fiction.

 Or are you going to say that the angels got confused about the message? Or did God think that revealing to Abraham that he never wanted human or animal sacrifice was too big a step for Abraham to make in one jump. I suppose it is like when you get a present, you appreciate the thought but you really want to tell them that you never wanted such a thing. So maybe this passage is about the idea ' it is the thought that counts, the willingness to please even if the gift is unwanted. God was too afraid to upset anyone. It is clear to me that if Abraham existed then he was following the cultural superstition of the day, the talking heads of humanity had told him that the gods appreciated human sacrifice so he thought he would do it. In the original story he did sacrifice Isaac but later priests were embarrassed by the story and changed it by placing the angel to say "No" but why not say, "No, the desire to please is appreciated but it doesn't please that you even thought God might find that acceptable". What you really want is for someone to come down and give the full argument / reasoning.

There has been a long debate between orthodox and sceptical Bible scholars about whether the Bible is the word of God or the word of Man. I say it is the word of man.
   The old priests used to imagine they had a word from God and they would say, "This is what the Lord says to you, "You shall drink a can of beer when ever you want to or else you will become frustrated, you shall eat a scone and jam on a Tuesday, if you want to. You shall eat as much as you like but only as long as it is enough and not too much or too little"

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