I loved the piece. The comments are interesting. But alas, I cannot think of a single Ensign talk that interprets Abraham’s decision as a failure, or as anything other than what Protestant Christian tradition has said about it for some centuries. I suppose that’s why I read these blogs.

Keep up the good work Walter!

Although its practice is not as widespread as it once was, the belief in and the practice of ritual human sacrifice in order to satisfy the perceived demands of god(s) is still a significant problem in Uganda and India.

I do worry that people just reject what they don’t like. I think we should read the Old Testament as raising a lot of questions that trouble us and force us to ask questions of God. Accepting it at face value or simply discounting it avoids that.

Regarding revelation I’m just trying to read between the lines at what the Church focuses in on. While the Church does and has focused on false revelation or bad interpretations that’s not what’s been focused on the last 20 years. The fact it’s not focused on suggests where the brethren see the problem.

I think the problem of people latching onto any emotion as if it were revelation is a big problem though. So I do wish we had the emphasis that we used to get such as with this talk of Pres. Lee’s. However I am sure the brethren have a better grasp of what’s going on in the church than I do.

Pacumeni (46) regarding Nephi I think the political situation at the time (leaders in secret deals with Egypt, expected conquest by Babylon, possibly Jeremiah in prison) ought affect the judgment. It’s not clear there was anyone else Nephi could go to. But I don’t want to go down that tangent we discussed when we were doing the close readings of 1 Nephi here a few months ago. People can track that down to see the pros and cons on the situation. I’m definitely in the camp that sees Nephi as doing the right thing and am surprised he waited. That said I think your point about state makes sense – for the Nephi for 20 years later.

Nephi had the ten commandments which forbade him to do what he did. And as the article I link notes, Welch’s argument cannot justify Nephi’s behavior because even if Laban were guilty of capital crimes (which he probably was), Nephi, a private citizen, would not be empowered to execute Laban for his crime when he encountered him drunk during the night. Other authorities existed in Jerusalem who would have been charged to carry out the sentence for bearing false witness as Laban did.

Young Nephi was clearly traumatized by the command to kill. He felt he was being charged to commit a murder and was horrified at the thought. This is the respect in which he was like Abraham. Both were called to obey a personal directive from God/the Spirit which was in direct conflict with the moral law they had been given by God.

What ultimately persuades Nephi to carry out the execution is a consideration of state. If he doesn’t, his nation will dwindle and perish in unbelief because they won’t have the scriptures. So the execution is a sovereign act, committed by the crown prince of a newly formed sovereign people in the very moment in which they obtained the national symbols of sovereignty (the sword of Laban and the brass plates). When the king (or a soldier) kills someone to protect the people en masse, the act has different moral status than when an individual acts upon their personal motives.

So yes, Nephi comes to see this killing as like the genocide of Joshua, as a sovereign act. But we see the transition in his thinking, from private citizen to sovereign, in the Book of Mormon text, which has a number of details that support the sovereign act interpretation. But before the transition in his thought, Nephi’s dilemma was much the same as Abraham’s, though less intense because he didn’t personally love Laban. In Kierkegaard’s sense, it was an Abrahamic test before it became a test of Nephi’s ability to serve as sovereign and protect his people.

God put him to the test and said if you want to be like me, here is what you will have to do. He was spared because he not only passed the test, but the sacrifice wasn’t actually necessary. Perhaps it will be in the next phase of his plan of exhalation…?

If anyone thinks they can be the heirs of exaltation – literal godhood, without eventually being required to render the same sacrifice then they simply do not understand it, as this post makes clear. That’s OK. But don’t deny the truth because you don’t understand it. Better to just trust in the scriptures and prophets and say you’re waiting further light and knowledge on it, but for now it’s not clear to you.

It had not occurred to me that as “a practical matter the Church sees the big problem as people not paying enough attention to personal revelation. So they emphasize that even if it means people will not focus enough on the problem of when they are receiving personal revelation versus it being something else.” My observation has been has been to the contrary — people regularly presuming that any wisp of an idea or any whim of warm, fuzzy emotion is personal revelation. When expressed in testimony such presumptions can have unintended negative side effects such as loss of credibility or provoking depression, anxiety and loss of faith in a listener who believes, e.g. (real life) that either God doesn’t love her or doesn’t exist because he won’t answer her prayers as to what to do about serious marital and economic problems when he regularly answers another Relief Society sister’s prayers with explicit “revelation” as what to cook for dinner.

Also Isaac would have known and I believe have been a willing participant.

Anyone who repeats this when God does not demand it will be wrong.

So we must first know God well enough to be sure, and know that we know him well enough.

I don’t.

(See Lectures on Faith 6:5, mere sacrifice of all does not quite meet the standard)

JR (17), I don’t think the epistemological issues get enough play. I think as a practical matter the Church sees the big problem as people not paying enough attention to personal revelation. So they emphasize that even if it means people will not focus enough on the problem of when they are receiving personal revelation versus it being something else. While I think the danger or misinterpretation is much bigger than most think, I can sympathize with them on where the big problem is. As a practical matter most Mormons don’t have the problem of thinking they have a personal revelation to go do something problematic. (Although after the Bundy standoff perhaps the Church might rethink this somewhat)

That said, I think the narrative presupposes that Abraham knows it’s from God. (Just as the Nephi/Laban situation presupposes Nephi actually is talking with God) One can of course read these narratives with a deeply suspicious hermeneutic. I’m not sure that gets us as much as some think. One danger of that approach is of course that it becomes quite easy to discount any narratives we don’t like. As such we don’t engage seriously with the questions.

Wally (14) I don’t know German so I can’t speak there. I know in late 20th century philosophical debate the double nature of gift/poison is common. A great example of this is Derrida’s analysis of Plato’s Pharmakon in The Phaedrus. This same sort of analysis is then brought to Abraham (by way of Kierkegaard in many ways) in his book The Gift of Death. This take, which was influential far beyond Derrida sees the Abrahamic story as a kind of paradox. (I think elements of that paradox are appearing in this thread) For Derrida there’s an inherent tension between demands with have for the Other (in this case God) and the demands we have socially (the ethical intuitions brought up in this thread). Derrida’s solution is a kind of deferral or openness. This in turn can be interpreted as a kind of radical fallibilism towards these questions rather than the typical determined solution where Abraham is completely right or completely wrong. Further Derrida sees in this God wherever there is Other due to the nature of the analysis. (Interestingly this then makes Jacob an even stronger type of God) Effectively we are left with a kind of responsibility where we don’t have enough information to determine what we should do. This implies responsibility always has essentially a strong element of risk to it.

JR (39) the typology of Christ that especially developed among the Christians is interesting. The typical reading is that the sacrifice at least sets up the idea of vicarious sacrifice that’s so important for both Jews and Christians. (The scapegoat is the other vicarious sacrifice)

I agree that for many moderns the epistemological issues are most important. However those sorts of considerations are really alien to the narrative from what I can see.

To the theory that Abraham and God knew it wouldn’t happen I believe this is usually wrapped up in the idea that the test was not of Abraham but of Isaac. I think Nibley delves into those traditions in one of his books on Abraham. I should note that this seems reading quite a bit into the text since the clear thrust of the text in Genesis is Abraham. (Which isn’t to deny the obvious reasons to change the focus when one asks questions like how an old guy like Abraham could bind Isaac unless Isaac went willingly)

I’m not convinced that I understand the intended tone of your comment 28 or what it may imply if you mean something other than to recommend saying “no” to God when you know it is God instructing you to take action contrary to your own principles.

I am quite happy to agree that multiple readings can be instructive.

At least in the LDS context, I do not believe that the minority interpretation is motivated by an understanding “that God would never command us to do something that, on its face, seems wrong or icky.” Instead, it is motivated by the presumption, pursuant to LDS scripture, that Abraham learned from his own experience of being rescued by an angel from being a victim of intended human sacrifice, that such human sacrifices were contrary to God’s will. Presumably knowing that (in addition to the promise of descendants through Isaac), Abraham should be expected to question whether the idea to sacrifice Isaac was actually an instruction from God or from some other source. The problem in that case is not one of contemplating a “no” answer to a commandment of God. Instead, it is a problem of learning whether the purported commandment contrary to what was known to be a commandment of God is or is not a new and incomprehensible commandment of God. In the received record, there is no indication that the problem even occurred to Abraham.

The Nephi example is not particularly helpful. There is no parallel between the role of Laban in that story and the role of Isaac in the Abrahamic sacrifice story. Nephi presumably knew of God’s allegedly commanding various genocides while the Israelites were taking over the land of Canaan following the exodus from Egypt. If so, then he did not understand, up to that point, that God’s law forbidding homicide was inviolable. If, in addition, Jack Welch is right that the execution of Laban was a legally justified homicide, then it may well be that Nephi’s reluctance was merely that he hadn’t previously been an executioner and it’s an icky role he would prefer not to have to play. There is no necessary inconsistency in Nephi’s mind between the prompting to slay Laban and the commandment not to kill.

I cannot confirm where it originated, but I seem to recall another intriguing interpretation being attributed to Jewish sources. That is, neither God nor Abraham had any intention of actually sacrificing Isaac (and both knew there was no such intention) but only of going through the motions, up to the point where an angel intervenes and a ram is provided in order to demonstrate to the surrounding cultures that child/human sacrifice was not acceptable. Of course, in that case, there is no “test” at all (unless it’s Isaac’s willingness to play act) and no foreshadowing of anything. If that view were adopted, then other, modern scriptural references to an Abrahamic test would have to be in reference to the traditional Christian typological view of the story and not to any reality of Abraham’s. This would bother me no more than Job being fictional but referred to in D&C 121 in order to teach a lesson.

I’m not sure that any general LDS agreement on the akedah is achievable unless it is limited to the unacceptability to God of human sacrifice. Even that wouldn’t be agreed by the Salt Lake City mother who was told by God to throw her children off the 5th floor balcony to their deaths.

Walter

Jader (31) I don’t think anyone believes Abraham had the kind of stewardship and ownership over Jacob that you suggest here. (That is in terms of modern ethics, not ancient ones) This just isn’t a difference of the sort you suggest.

BTW – I have a comment from Friday that appears to be in moderation still. (It shows for me as message 18)