Genesis 22 has always been a tough biblical story for me. Commonly, in Christian circles, referred to as "the sacrifice of Isaac", I found the story rightly horrorifying. That God would demand that a father sacrifice his son. Even if it's just a test. The request alone seems cruel and inhumane.
So what to do with Genesis 22?
In his Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard wanted to understand that same anxiety experienced by Abraham -- and by extension, me, the reader -- in the story. The sorts of "infinite resignation" expressed in Abraham's hope, Kierkegaard said, is the very heart of religious faith. "There comes a moment in a person's life when immediacy is ripe, so to speak, and when the spirit requires a higher form, when it wants to lay hold of itself as spirit. As immediate spirit, a person is bound up with all the earthly life, and now spirit wants to gather itself together out of this dispersion, so to speak, and to transfigure itself in itself; the personality wants to become conscious in its eternal validity. If this does not happen, if the movement is halted, if it is repressed, then depression sets in". Once Abraham became conscious of that hope, he'd arrived at the door of personal faith in Yahweh.
I read Kierkegaard's little book as a senior in high school. My own teenage angst found it helpful in dealing with a gruesome story. But in the back of my mind, there was still a lingering doubt: Why would this story even be found in the Bible?
I had a thought recently that may go to responding to that lingering question.
We know the culture in which ancient Israel lived and worshipped was largely a Canaanite one. That Canaanite religion included the sacrifice of children. After all, even Israel was pulled into the sacrifice of children at one point (2 Chronicles 28.1-3):
Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord. He followed the ways of the kings of Israel and also made idols for worshiping the Baals. He burned sacrifices in the Valley of Ben Hinnom and sacrificed his children in the fire, engaging in the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.Thus the various prohibitions against child sacrifice in the OT. For example, Leviticus 18.21:
Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed to Molek, for you must not profane the name of your God. I am the LORD.This brings me to my idea and question. Israel's faith wasn't to include child sacrifice but that was a part of neighboring religions. So, what kind of religious debate would have been created in that kind of climate? Just think: If you were Canaanite, the criticism is simple -- we're more committed to worshipping our god than you are to worshipping Yahweh.
In such a context, how would you answer the Canaanite criticism?
Well, you'd tell this story from Genesis 22. The followers of Yahweh no are less committed to their god because they don't practice child sacrifice. Because that seems to be precisely the point of the story: That Yahweh doesn't demand child sacrifice but that the followers of Yahweh are just as committed to their god as are the Canaanites to theirs. This story says that child sacrifice cannot be used as the ultimate test of religious devotion. And no doubt it was being use as such a test as the Israelites and Canaanites compared religions.
That Yahweh doesn't demand child sacrifices is no reflection upon the love, faithfulness, and commitment of the Israelites. Abraham, as the founder of the faith, demonstrated this once at the beginning so no further tests are needed. The point has been made: Followers of Yahweh don't need blood sacrifices of our children. But that say nothing about our passionate worship and obedience to Yahweh. We don't have to sacrifice our children, but if we did, we would.