Those people also think the bible was written by god.
Isn't that the Torah? The Bible was composed by a council using selected books from the Torah and various writings from the apostles.
To be fair most Christians have never read the Bible and don't even know what's in there.
The crazier part is that Abraham almost certainly didn't exist, so people made up a guy who starts hearing voices, tries to kill his kid, and then starts cutting off the tip of their dicks.
The more interesting part of the patriarch period in the Bible is how it is poorly masking the matriarchal tradition underneath though, from Abraham's wife's name change (from 'chief' to 'princess') and being the first gebirah ("great lady") to the way her son Isaac's blessing on his sons is the only place the male form of gebirah is found in the Bible, in a blessing that the recipient's "mother's sons" bow down to them (pretty odd for a patriarchal blessing).
But the more fun prophet story is the one of the guy who can suddenly talk to God after discovering a burning bush and subsequently creates a double layered tent in which he continues to talk to God and everyone knows that's happening because a cloud of smoke appears. Not only is the anointing oneself and going into a tent how the Scythians hotboxed cannabis in Herodotus, but as of its discovery in 2020 an 8th century BCE Judahite temple's holiest of holies is the earliest archeological evidence of cannabis use in a solely religious context.
That second guy I can at least get a bit behind. He certainly seemed to know how to party.
That’s not exactly what happened. Circumcision was already a custom, but the rest is spot on.
What do you mean? Do you believe Abraham actually existed? Because according to the Bible God invented MGM with Abraham. And I thought we were talking about what the Bible said and how it was crazy, not whatever a historical Abraham might have actually done.
Not really.
Circumcision randomly starts in many places. None of them related to hygiene.
Another dude climbed a mountain and reappeared a month later with a rock and yelled at people having a good time around a golden statue of an animal, pointing at how his rock is better.
Egypt man known for talking with a bush found guilty of theft of multiple tablets and destruction of community funded livestock statue.
Genesis 22 is a great story.
It might speak to an older rites of passage for boys to become men among pre-Iseralites of Cannan.
"Here I am." ... is also an astounding way to respond back to a god. And 22 is neat because it uses both ELOHIM and YHWH but the change is mid story. It links to perhaps two stories pushed into one.
Really don't be such a party pooper. The Jewish take on this so I'm told is that their god requires obedience and a sense of duty. The Xian one sees it as an fact of blind faith in their Lord. Islam even has dibs on this story. So I took time to find why it is meaningful. And learn to address that meaning instead of the story.
All these religious nutties are more interesting when you can offer them more about their texts than they can.
You got some interesting comments there. I'll add that child sacrifice seemed endemic to Canaanite society (archaeologists Found evidence to back up Roman claims in Carthage), and this story seems more about how we do NOT sacrifice children anymore.
Also, the whole sacrificial system seems to have something to do with reciprocity, so you tell me who is more fucked up: Abraham, or 8 billion people acting like they can rape the planet without any consideration for evening the balance.
... as for chopping off your penis's toque: don't know why you'd do that.
There is a Greek story where one god wants someone to sacrifice their son and another god intervenes. In that story God is a lot less schizo than in the ot. It could simply be lifted from there.
Abe's got a sick kukri there.
Assuming the illustrator was attempting some degree of historical accuracy, it's more likely Greek Kopis.
I would agree if it was some random dude but the fact that actually a great Nation came out of him and then even all nations where blessed in him and now worship the God of Abraham is strong evidence that he was right all along.
