Hi,
The story of Abraham and Isaac/Ishmael as sacrifice is one which confuses me a lot. Let's look at the contradictions:
****The Story
Islam = Abraham receives the dream to sacrifice his son, Ishmael readily agrees and says that his father will certainly find him of the patient ones. Ibrahim takes with him a rope and a knife, the son tells the father to tie him up so that he won't struggle and make Abraham more upset. Then, Abraham ties him up and blindfolds himself and then does the sacrifice. When he opens his eyes, he sees a dead ram instead and Ishmael next to the ram
Christianity = Abraham receives the dream to sacrifice his only son as a burnt offering. He goes to the place where he is ordered to go, builds an altar, bounds Isaac and lays him on the altar where there is also wood. As soon as he is about to take out his knife and slay the son, an angel intervenes. Abraham looks up in a thicket and finds a ram there so he sacrifices it instead of his son.
****The Sacrifice
Islam = Ishmael was to be sacrificed
Christianity = Isaac was to be sacrificed
Judaism = Isaac was to be sacrificed
****Test of Faith
Islam = The sacrifice is silently interrupted, but when Abraham opens his blindfolded eyes, he sees that he sacrificed a ram and that his son was replaced by the ram (weird, they also changed places and exchanged the ropes that were initially tied to Ishamel)
Christianity = The sacrifice is visibly interrupted as an angel intervenes and Abraham sees a ram in the thicket. However, in verse 22, only Abraham returns. (weird, where did Isaac go? It's later in verses that Isaac comes back on the stage)
Genesis 22:19 (So Abraham returned to his young men, and they rose up and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham dwelled at Beersheba)
****Existence of Abraham
---------------AGAINST------------
1) The archaeological evidence of Abraham does not exist.
2) In addition, I'll quote Dick Harfield, someone who debated against the existence of Abraham in Quora:
"He could not have travelled from Ur of the Chaldees, because the Chaldean people did not migrate into the region of Ur until over a thousand years later.
He could not have met the Philistine kings, again because the Philistines did not arrive on the Levantine coast until around 1250 BCE, long after the time attributed to Abraham.
The destruction of Sodom is a myth and the city of Sodom never really existed."
----------------FOR--------------------
1) The lineage of Abraham has important personalities such as Jacob and Joseph. Joseph has his very own importance in the Abrahamic religions as he was a renowned interpreter of dreams who was sold in slavery, later to become the second-in-command of Pharaoh.
2) The 12 tribes of Israel existed and were expelled from Israel. Of this we have archeological evidence and third party accounts.
3) The tribes (millions of people) have a tradition that they started from 12 brothers
4) Where did the Christian well at Beersheba come and the Islamic well of Zam zam if Abraham did not exist? Because they are interlinked, Abraham has an important role in these holy well stories because if he didn't exist, there would be no Ishmael and Isaac.
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Here is what bothers me now.
1) If we deny the existence of Abraham, what about his important lineage and what about the events that were predicted by Joseph on the basis of the dreams of Pharaoh? Where did Joseph and Jacob go then if Abraham didn't exist? According to Islam, Moses and many other Islamic prophets came from the lineage of Isaac and Muhammad was the only one who came from Ishmael.
2) Forget the existence. Let's assume Abraham did exist. What about the sacrifice then? If he did murder his son, then where did Jacob and Joseph come from? If he did not sacrifice then what stopped his lunacy suddenly from a non-religious point of view?
What is your view of this story and is there anyone who can solve the puzzle with the help of evidence? Look, I'm not asking you to tell me that we can't say anything about this story because there's always an answer to everything but I'm just not able to crack this code up.
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Hey there, Seek. I like how you laid things out there. That whole sacrifice story has been chewed up many times on this site. Been awhile, though, so you may get some good fresh input. However, I may as well go ahead and give you a heads-up and tell you that most of what you might get will probably go something like this....
To ask to provide evidence to help solve any of the (multiple) problems/puzzles in the bible is basically about the same as asking for evidence to help solve the mysteries of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." LOL Still, should make for an interesting discussion anyway.
If I were to ask YOU to summarize your personal belief regarding this story of sacrifice, how would you do so? Can you tell me what are your own thoughts regarding this e.g. if someone tries to prove the miracle of his God correct by bringing up this story of sacrifice, how would you answer back in a line or two?
@Seek Re: "...how would you answer back in a line or two?"
Glad you asked. Wonderful topic. Looks like Nyar has already done a fine job of answering many of your questions, but since you asked for my personal belief maybe what I say can be of help to you also.
First of all, let me start by saying I am not any type of "bible scholar" in any way, shape, or form. Fact is, I have actually read very little of the bible over my lifetime, because it is something that never really interested me that much. I pretty much view the whole thing as a bunch of mythological/fairy tale stories all thrown together over a period of thousands of years. To me, the bible is not much different than the Grimm's Fairy Tales book I got my wife for Christmas. Hmmm.... Come to think of it, most of the Grimm's tales actually provide better lessons to follow in life. Definitely more interesting to read, too. *chuckle* Yet, oddly enough, nobody ever seems to build a religion (that I know of) around Grimm's Fairy Tales, and I have never heard anybody arguing about whether or not the characters in the book are true historical figures or not. Funny that...*scratching chin*... But I digress...
So, in regards to the whole sacrifice thing in the bible, I personally find the entire concept of blood sacrifice appalling, ludicrous, and asinine, to put it nicely. (Particularly human sacrifice. And even more particularly the human sacrifice of one's own child.) However, let's just say for a moment the characters you mentioned were actually real people and that was a real historical event. (Hypothetically, of course.) It is my understanding that story was told in order to illustrate how important it is to be totally devoted to God and obey his every command. And God was supposedly testing Abraham's faith and devotion. Right? Well, my first question would be, "Why in the world would an omniscient god need to test anybody?" He should already know the outcome before the test ever begins, shouldn't he? (But that is another discussion altogether.) Anyway, so Abraham had a "dream" that God told him to kill his own son...... and he somehow thought this was a good idea? Really? Imagine in today's day and age if you told a friend, "Hey, I had a dream last night that God spoke to me. And God told me to sacrifice my child to him. Is that awesome, or what? Here's my chance to show God how much I really love him. I'm about to go build my altar. Oh, do you have a large knife I can borrow? Oh, and some rope? That boy may be only six years old, but he's feisty." All I can say is that I hope you like padded rooms and "hug-myself" jackets.
Honestly, I could go on and on about all the faults and ridiculousness regarding God's demands for sacrifices, but I think you get the idea. But you asked me to counter someone trying to use this example as a way to prove the "miracles of God." Well, I suppose my response might be something like, "What miracle??? Even IF that story were true, the only thing it proves to me is that: !. Abraham was obviously in need of psychiatric help. And 2. What type of "loving and caring and omniscient" god would ever require a person to kill his/her own child to prove themselves to him?" Basically, it is all just a bunch of lunacy to me, whether is was ever real or not. Personally, I would put more stock in the stories in Grimm's Fairy Tales. *chuckle*
"If I were to ask YOU to summarize your personal belief regarding this story of sacrifice, how would you do so? Can you tell me what are your own thoughts regarding this e.g. if someone tries to prove the miracle of his God correct by bringing up this story of sacrifice, how would you answer back in a line or two?"
Murdering someone for any reason, but especially as a blood sacrifice is abhorrently immoral. Listening to voices in your head telling you to kill people is insane, and they should seek help. If a deity wants a human to be willing to murder a child, then it's a piece of shit and the only answer any half decent person could give would be FUCK RIGHT OFF.
Seek3R,
"If I were to ask YOU to summarize your personal belief regarding this story of sacrifice, how would you do so?"
Abraham is the shittest character in the Bible. He has no redeeming qualities. He gets praise for obeying his delusion but even the Bible says that such idiots should have told Yahweh to go screw himself for such antics of getting people to sacrifice their children.
In essence the crazy old coot sold his soul for personal fame and fortune. Even if there's no such thing as a soul a person should have key values that he won't abandon for personal gain.
The real point of the silly ass story is to show that a person has to be willing to perform acts of complete obedience and loyalty to the Boss regardless of cost to his loved ones or even his own life. This idea is repeated in all of the biblical stories. An obvious one is the command for parents to stone to death their disobedient children. In the New Testament the Jesus character offers a hundredfold return to the followers who left their homes and families to tag along after him.
So if Yahweh told you to kill 1 Billion people would you do it?
Dude, Abraham is a fictional character. His lineage is fictional. I realize depending on your background this might be an alien concept; but the answers to all your questions is just that it is fiction. You could ask very similar questions about Mickey Mouse, and it would be just as silly. For example:
If Mickey Mouse isn't real, how did he get a Hollywood star?!?
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Attach Image/Video?:
The lineage is fictitious? Hmmm, I never thought about that. Is there any way you can prove that Joseph was a fictitious character?
Can you prove Mickey Mouse is a fictional character? No. So why would you ask me to do something that is impossible?
Perhaps a better question is: what evidence is there that Joseph was real? The answer is there is no evidence he was real.
Sorry, I meant to ask what you proposed as a better question. That's surprising (the wikipedia page). I've never been skeptical about Joseph's existence because my goodness, ever since I was a toddler, I was shown movies about Joseph (Joseph the King of Dreams), I was given small narrative books to read about him and his brothers and ahhhh.
I thought we did have evidence of Joseph and his interaction with Pharaoh but if we don't then that does kind of support the argument that his lineage was fictitious too.
However, I have one confusion now. What about the holy well at Beersheba and Islamic holy well of Zam zam? Who found them if it was not Hagar as she was related to Abraham and if Abraham didn't exist then?
Yeah I figured you had been raised to believe all that non-sense. This will probably blow your mind as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus#Historicity
Basically Genesis/Exodus are just origin myths.
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As far as your question about Hagar. Well I'm sure you can guess by now what I'm going to say. It is mythology. And let me jump ahead and tell you that Moses is a myth as well.
This is all very interesting because throughout my research as an atheist, I didn't question the existence of the people. I was only debunking the claims made by them such as Moses splitting the sea.
Does this mean that the well we have at Beersheba and the Zam zam well, it has NOTHING TO DO WITH HAGAR? They are just normal and usual underground springs and aquifers that came into existence someday and some random guy discovered them but decorated the story with mythological figures?
Perhaps it is a cultural thing; but I don't understand you question. I don't know much about well though.
We know the authors included contemporary structures and locations into their origin myths (often anachronistically, which is one way it is obvious mythology). Doesn't seem like a stretch to suppose this is where the stories of the wells came from.
Are you making a specific supernatural claim about these wells?
No, I'm just asking how they came into existence if there was no Abraham.
Islam = Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael to the desert on the order of God where she eventually ran out of water. She ran 7 rounds between some places which are now known as Safa and Marwa. Ishmael started scraping the sand with his foot and eventually water gushed forth. This water is now known as Zam zam. By the 6th century, the place of zam zam was buried by Jurhumites. They buried it with their equipment and more sand to hide the place. Abdul Mutallib, the grand father of Muhammad was shown in a divine dream to go to the place where Zam zam was originated and he built a well there. This well is what we have today in Saudi Arabia.
Christianity = Very same as the Islamic story except that nobody ever went to the desert. Hagar and Ishmael went to Beersheba. They both wandered there and then in Bible's words:
"17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. 18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
19 Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink."
My only question is one. We do know that there's a well at Beersheba and there's a well in Saudi Arabia. I'm just asking who found these wells if Hagar did not exist?
If you still didn't get it, then look, we're talking about a man whose wife was sent away. That wife with her son, according to 2 different religions, becomes thirsty and ends up finding a well (in christianity), endless water (in islam). If Hagar did not exist, who found these things? Was it someone else sent to Beersheba who happened to find the well? Was it someone else who wandered in the desert and happened to discover the Zam zam water which is now transformed into a proper well today?
I'm just talking about the things that came into existence due to Hagar and Ishmael. Now it's obviously weird that a well came into existence in Beersheba and an endless source of water was discovered out of no where in a desert in Saudi Arabia but both were discovered by Hagar and Ishmael. It's obviously already fishy that same people were present at two different places and ended up finding two miraculous sources of endless water.
So my question is, if these people don't exist, is there any point in history where we can say that YES, it was not Hagar and Ishmael who discovered these sources of water but rather SOMEONE ELSE and hence conclude that Hagar and Ishmael never existed because these things are their last proof of existence!
I hope you get my question now.
@Seek3R
Let me tell you a story, a North American myth:
We have a myth of a powerful pioneer/logger named Paul Bunyan. There are several stories of his exploits. In one of them he absentmindedly allowed his ax to drag behind him while walking and it created the Grand Canyon. The questions and arguments you have made would be like me asking: if Paul Bunyan wasn't real, who made the Grand Canyon? You might laugh but it is about as silly as what you seem to be saying.
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The point is, myths are often made to explain the unknown; it also gives them a veneer of believability; at least until more is learned about the subject. For example: according to Wikipedia, the Zamzam well was excavated by hand; which contradicts the mythology you repeated.
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There is no such thing as an endless water; and if you dig in just about any location, you will find water (even the desert). I suspect you have had your head filled with some pretty serious non-sense by religious "authorities". I'm guessing you have quite the struggle ahead of you to purge that non-sense; and for that I'm sorry.
That's weird, the Paul Bunyan myth. I've never heard of as I'm not an American.
Anyways, now I'm going to conclude everything that you've said in a very brief manner and you are going to confirm if whatever I've understood is correct and if not, then please correct the parts which are wrong.
First of all, we started with the story of Abraham and the sacrifice. We eventually realized as you pointed out that there never was any Abraham or Isaac/Ishmael and their lineage is fictional. We also pondered upon some historical evidences of the existence of Abraham's lineage and found out that none of those things ever happened. Afterwards, we started arguing about the final so-called existence proof of Hagar and Ishmael, the well at Beersheba and the spring of Zam zam. After you pointed out the myth of Paul Bunyan, the following can be understood about the well at Beersheba and the spring of Zam zam (which is today a well excavated by hand):
Both of these, in reality and in history, have nothing to do with the characters we today know as Hagar and Ishmael. The well at Beersheba and the spring of Zam zam were discovered naturally by ordinary people who gave no importance to these. However, when the Abrahamic religions discovered these, they had no idea of how these sources of water came into existence. Since these religions already had a belief in the existence of Abraham and the myths had already been forming, Christianity forged another myth that it was God who miraculously showed Hagar the well at Beersheba and Islam later spiced up the story and Islamicized it by modifying the story that it was Ishmael who scraped the sand with his foot which caused the spring to gush forth and in another tradition it is said that it was Angel Gabriel who scraped the sand with his wings. Quite a fancy decoration of stories, Islam always takes it one step ahead in decoration.
So, am I correct in understanding what you meant?
Yeah, that is pretty much it!
I'd just add that Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, and Moses are mythological characters (and as far as I know, so is every other character in the Pentateuch) .
@Seek3r
I just want to add to this conversation:
Everything makes a lot more sense, and is much easier to operate from a standpoint that all characters, stories etc are at least in part fictional, if not entirely fictional.
This is also a very safe approach when you realize every bronze age religion, plagiarized heavily from religions before it, then spent 2000+ years being edited, translated, politicized etc. Even very devout believers of a religion should be highly suspicious of how much "human" interference occurred with their "sacred text."
On of my favorite comments of late on religion: "The evidence that man made up 'god' is overwhelming, the evidence that 'god' made man is negligible."
@Seek3r
I will let you know that I have been researching the Christian Bible for 30 years. I have even traveled throughout the Levant and surrounding areas looking for artifacts in the museums.
My summation: I wasted those 30 years chasing nothing but lies and plagiarized stories. Literally everything in the Christian Bible is plagiarized from numerous myths and legends far older than the stories in the Bible. Many thousands of years older.
Just for a very short idea: Noahacian Flood Story
Where is the evidence?
The Noahacian Flood story (Genesis 6 to 9; written circa 1440 to 1400 BCE) is nothing more than the plagiarizing of the ancient Mesopotamian Flood Stories.
Here is the accounting as I have found:
The Noahacian Flood story was written 1440-1400 BCE and biblical scholars calculate the Noahacian Flood occurred circa 2300 BCE. The Epic of Gilgamesh was written 2100 BCE (almost 700 years before). The Epic of Atra-Hasis was written 2600 BCE (almost 1200 years before). The Epic of Ziusudra was written 2900 BCE (almost 1500 years before).
The three Mesopotamian Flood Stories were probably stories about when the flood plain of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers was flooded circa 2900 BCE. River flood sediments in the ruins of Shuruppak, Uruk, Kish, etc. have been radiocarbon dated to circa 2900 BCE. Radiocarbon dating is generally limited to dating samples no more than 50,000 years old, as samples older than that have insufficient C-14 to be measurable. Radiocarbon dating has an accuracy rate of ±0.4% at up to 10,000 years. Since that flood occurred about 2900 BCE, that places the flood about 4918 years ago. Well within the 10,000 years. That means the flood occurred within the range of 4819 to 4937 years ago (2900 BCE ±19 years).
If it were not for the series of dams and irrigation projects on the upper Euphrates and Tigris Rivers basins, then the floodplain would still flood today. On a biblical scale as it did almost 5000 years ago. Even the climate in southern Anatolia area was different than today. About 4 to 8 thousand years ago, the southern Anatolia area was wetter. Proof is in the sediment layers in northern Syria and Iraq, and southeastern Turkey have shown this to be true. Southern Anatolia includes the northern regions of Iraq and Syria AND southeastern Turkey. Many ruins that are over 5000 years old have been found completely buried under fluvial sediments in the area marked “Floodplain” in the image below. There has even been some found in the areas surrounding the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers in the “Dams Project Areas.”
https://i.imgur.com/FvTnaIE.jpg
Since there is evidence of a catastrophic flood in the “Floodplain” area circa 2900 BCE, it is my contention is that all three Epics are stories about this event. In fact, the Epic of Ziusudra specifically states, “Then the flood swept over. After the flood swept over, kingship descended from heaven; the kingship was in Kish.” However, like any story of the “Fish That Got Away,” the retelling is embellished until it literally becomes a falsely assumed global event.
On the stone tablet WB-82, the line following the mentioning of Ziusudra reads: “Then the flood swept over.” The next line reads: “After the flood swept over, kingship descended from heaven; the kingship was in Kish.” The city of Kish flourished in the Early Dynastic period soon after an archaeologically attested river flood in Shuruppak (modern Tell Fara, Iraq) and various other Sumerian cities. This flood has been radiocarbon dated to circa 2900 BCE. Polychrome pottery from the Jemdet Nasr period (circa 3000 BCE) was discovered immediately below the Shuruppak flood stratum.
Finally, guess who was traveling through this region about 200 years after the Epic of Gilgamesh was written? Yep, Abram. The same guy who stole the Laws of Hammurabi and later became Abraham.
If the stone plaque mentioning the Epic of Ziusudra surviving a “catastrophic flood” was dated to 2900 BCE (the same time as the real catastrophic flood event) and the plaque with the Epic of Atra-Hasis happened around 2600 BCE and the Biblical Flood supposedly occurred circa 2300 BCE… Well… You get the idea. And here is another disagreement. When did the Noahacian Flood occur? Dates I have found range from 2400 to 2200 BCE. I settled on 2300 BCE since it is the median date between the extreme ends of the range. And how do you explain the fact that there were empires (Egypt, Hittite, Assyria, Persia, Hurria, Kittim, Macedonia, Akkadia, Elam, etc., etc.) that existed BEFORE the Biblical Flood and existed in the same state AFTER the Biblical Flood? And with absolutely NO written records of any kind of flood ever happening, except in Babylonian myths (the Epics of Ziusudra, Atra-Hasis, and Gilgamesh)?
Since Ziusudra was the son of Suruppak, then king of Shuruppak and the Sumerians, Ziusudra became the king in the city of Kish, which flourished under his rule. Furthermore, Ziusudra being a king from Shuruppak is supported by the Gilgamesh XI tablet, Line 23, making reference to Utnapishtim (Akkadian translation of the Sumerian name Ziusudra) with the epithet “man of Shuruppak.”
I could continue, but this alone is proof the Bible was plagiarized from far older myths and legends.
And here is my conclusion: Why should I even believe in a God who is so ruthless he feels he must destroy ALL of his children? If your God is truly omnipotent, why is it such a bungling incompetent creator? The Bible certainly confirms such a diety. A deity that screwed up its creation so badly it had to flood the entire planet, killing everything to start over from scratch. This makes me wonder since your God is omnipotent, yet it needed such a clumsy and heavy-handed method for restart when it could simply will a new existence into being without genocidal floods and the unnecessary suffering? And why did this global flood suspiciously leave absolutely no geological evidence?
That is just one of the stories I am writing about in my book Riding Some Wild Tangents 2. To me it appears you are well on your way to proving what I have spent 30 years doing.
As far as I am concerned, Abram (Abraham, Ibrahim, whatever) never existed. Since this is true of the "father" of the Big Trinity of the Faiths, then I am skeptical that even Isaac and Ishmael ever existed. Thus, probably none of the others that followed ever existed.
Basically, as far as I am concerned, ALL religions are nothing more than lies created by con-men with hopes of enslaving the entire human species.
rmfr
@ Arakish
Thank you so much for posting this. Brilliant.
The only confusing aspect about the story of Abraham attempting to sacrifice one of his children because his god told him to, is how billions of people can claim that Abraham's god is moral when it clearly isn't.
I remember learning that story in school scripture classes when I was about six or seven. It terrified me. They showed us pictures of a bound boy on top of a lit bonfire, with his father ready to gut him with a big knife. Then the angel grabs the father's hands. So are they going to let the boy burn to death? It's a horror story unfit for children.
We also got the death of the first-born sons in Egypt, the slaughter of the innocents by Herod, and something about capturing Philistines and hanging their arms on the city wall. (They didn't tell us that arms were weapons, not limbs.)
These stories are part of a conspiracy to terrify children into submission.
Excellent answers guys. I'm just wondering something. Who is inside the tombs of these people? I think there's a tomb for almost every person we've discussed so far.
Can we also discuss about King David? Some inscriptions have been found about him which contains the words "House of David" and I think "King David" as well.
Let's see:
Priests are scammers, in every religion I've had any contact with. It seems it has always been that way.
@ Seeker
This link will give you some solid ideas...certainly the biblical accounts are in the main fictitious, however there has been ONE discovery of an Assyrian shard that mentions "House of David" . This is a fascinating read, so thanks for asking the question. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/myth-and-reality-of-king-david-s-je...
Well, I'm a very skeptical person. I only go deep inside things when they don't seem to satisfy my curiosity. The link you gave me blazed an interest inside me to look over the Mesha inscription and the Tel Dan Stele inscription. Since I was the one who brought this question up,
I'm going to make an entire topic about this so that anyone after me does not get confused by these inscriptions. I must thank you though because had you had never shown that page to me, I'd have never known about these inscriptions.
You are very welcome. It pcqued my curiosity as well. But I am short of time, so you do the legwork and I will cheer you on!
Oh, and my opinion of the story of the OP:
The only thing I have to say about this is: What kind of terrible monster is willing to force a man to kill his son as a burnt offering in order to test him? Now is when I get foul-mouthed. That makes your God nothing more than a sorry shit unworthy of anyone’s worship. If I had been Abraham, I would have told your God to go fuck himself.
Nuff said.
rmfr
arakish,
"If I had been Abraham, I would have told your God to go fuck himself."
As it says in Ezekiel 20:22-26 (MSG) = “‘But I did lift my hand in solemn oath there in the desert, and swore that I would scatter them all over the world, disperse them every which way because they didn’t keep my laws nor live by my statutes. They desecrated my Sabbaths and remained addicted to the no-god idols of their parents. Since they were determined to live bad lives, I myself gave them statutes that could not produce goodness and laws that did not produce life. I abandoned them. Filthy in the gutter, they perversely sacrificed their firstborn children in the fire. The very horror should have shocked them into recognizing that I am God.’"
& in Ezekiel 23:37 (GW) = "They have committed adultery. Their hands are covered with blood. They commit adultery with their idols. They have sacrificed the children they gave birth to for me as burnt offerings to idols."