6.1.12 Gen. 22: The sacrifice of Abraham

One of the most difficult and darkest chapters of the entire Bible. How  can God give Abraham the order to slaughter his own son? A found food  for the opponents of the Bible, but also for the “demythologizers”, who  don’t want to take the wording of the Bible too seriously anyway. But the  unsolved questions begin much earlier: How could Israel, which led a  constant fight against the invasion of the Baal cults with their child  sacrifices, include such a story in the Bible? 

In the context of the stories of the fathers this incident is clearly  interpreted by 22, 1a as a part of Abraham’s tests of faith and obedience  and thereby takes up the thread of Gen. 12 and 18 again and increases  it into the almost unbelievable. So the reader or listener knows at least  from the beginning that everything is “only” a test of Abraham’s faith.  This is also how it is interpreted in the NT: Rom. 4, 1 and Hbr. 11, 8. 

vRad, together with many others, considers a Canaanite cult legend to  be the basis, which, however, is then completely replaced by the Jewish  faith. 

was “turned around” to a confession against the brutal custom of child  sacrifices. In today’s shape of history, different layers are suspected, but  they can no longer be separated. 

There are the most different starting points of interpretation. The most  sensible seems to be this one: The story is not supposed to say: Faith  requires even the cultic practice of child sacrifices if necessary, but the  opposite: The God of Israel abhors child sacrifices. This is indicated by  the use of the names of God. The order is given by the “deity” אלהים (elohim), the prohibition of child sacrifice on the other hand יהוה (Yahweh) through his angel. The gods of the Canaanites were also  worshiped as אל el and אלהים elohim. Only the God of Israel had  revealed Himself to His people under His name Yahweh. (Note: The  difference in meaning between אל el and יהוה Yahweh is an important key  to this interpretation. One completely blocks one’s access to it if one  works here with the assumption of two different sources). Thus Gen. 22  states pretty much the opposite of what is always imputed to it by its  opponents, namely: the confession of Yahweh is at the same time the  =rejection of human sacrifice. The only truly satisfying interpretation is the messianic interpretation on  the atonement of Christ.