God Banned Human Sacrifice

In the story of the binding if Issac by Abraham God abolishes the practice of human sacrifice, especially of children. Why then is God’s alleged son employed as a child-sacrifice? Did God see that the Gift of baptism He gave John was not working, and thus He was forced to bring in his Big Gun? But, that didn’t do the trick, so God made Saul-Paul the head of His mission – a serial killer! Why didn’t God get it right the first time? The only answer can be – HE DID GET IT RIGHT – and He had no intention of cutting out the Jews! That was Satan Saul’s idea, because they hated his inventions that slapped God in the face!

When God changes his mind, He has to be extremely clever about it. Paul is clever – but not that clever! Paul turns the Perfect Words of God into a wretched sales job – that makes no sense! Who let this little snipe in the door? Imagine Charlie Manson as an insane Kirby vacuum cleaner salesman – knocking on your door with a bloody knife! In his desperation to put an end to the Church of John the Baptist – that has cut out the traditional middlemen and temple as a way to salvation and eternal life – Paul becomes an extremely intrusive middleman! When you see John is his target, then it all makes sense, because there is very little difference between John and Jesus – TWO JEWS. One is forced to wonder why God created such confusion between the two. The truth is – He did not!

I mean, John is not even dead, when God on high says;

“Gosh darn it. I think I got it wrong. I should have sent my only begotten son to earth to do the job! That way there would be no controversies. Is it too late? Hmmmmm!”

No sooner is Jesus dead, then God says;

“Gosh darn it! I left some stuff out. Best anoint that serial killer on the road – who murders my chosen children – as my Fix-it Man. He’ll get it right – for sure! I know he’s got my best interests at heart!”

Much of what Jesus had to say – was already been said by John! Some lousy author has put John’s words in Jesus’ mouth in order to claim the Jews rejected Jesus. Jews rejected the human sacrifice idea that I suspect was Paul’s baby, his way of turning himself into a great Apostle and Prophet – of which he complains he was not seen as either. What a big friggen baby! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I have no sympathy for this devil!

That’s when Satan Saul got out his hammer and nails and crucified John the Baptist, turning him into his personal whipping boy so he could overcome the world!

God always sends His new message through His prophets – who are always Jews! The Jews rejected Saul’s obscene crucifixion, that Mel Gibson goes hog wild over, he depicted Jews as heartless fiends in the Passion of Christ. Paul and Mel are a lot alike. Jews do not want Mel to make the movie about Judas Maccabeus.

Jesus does descend from the kings of Moab via Ruth, who did practice child sacrifice.

Jon Presco

2 Kings 3:26-27 “And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too fierce for him, he took with him seven hundred men who drew swords, to break through to the king of Edom, but they could not. Then he took his eldest son who would have reigned in his place, and offered him as a burnt offering upon the wall.” (NKJ)

Offering human sacrifices was a very ancient custom, and has been practiced at different times and among many nations, since the most ancient of times. Among the list of nations were the Ethiopians, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Phoenicians, the Canaanites, the Scythians, the Egyptians, the Chinese, the Persians, the Indians, the Gauls, the Carthaginians, the Britons, the Arabians, the Romans, and many more, including the Africans and peoples of the Americas.

These sacrifices were offered in many different ways. Most were slaughtered under the knife; some were burned; some were drowned; some were buried alive, some were pushed down the stairs of a massive pyramid temple. In many ancient cultures parents would sacrifice their own children.

The northern kingdom of Israel followed the practices of the surrounding nations throughout all of their years, but whether or not human sacrifice was customary among them or any of the early Israelites there is no proof. Yahweh condemned such practices. The sacrifice of the firstborn was indeed customary with the people of Canaan. In times of of trouble they offered their best and dearest to the gods, ‘the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul’ (Mic 6:7).

The Old Testament reveals that Ahaz ‘made his son to pass through the fire,’ this is the incident in Scripture that made the valley of Tophet an abomination as recorded in Jer 7:31-32:

“And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart. Therefore behold, the days are coming,” says the LORD, “when it will no more be called Tophet, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Tophet until there is no room.”

Although it is true that Abraham was asked by the Lord to offer his only son on an altar, the Bible indicates that it was a “test” of his faith. Robertson makes a good side note in his book (The Early Religion of Israel, p. 254):

“To Abraham, not unfamiliar with various ways in which among his heathen ancestors the deity was propitiated, the testing question comes, ‘Art thou prepared to obey thy God as fully as the people about thee obey their gods?’ and in the putting forth of his faith in the act of obedience, he learns that the nature of his God is different. Instead, therefore, of saying that the narrative gives proof of the existence of human sacrifice as an early custom in Israel, it is more reasonable to regard it as giving an explanation why it was that, from early time, this had been a prime distinction of Israel that human sacrifice was not practiced as among the heathen.”

Phoenician mythology records that when war and pestilence afflicted the land, a man named Krones offered up his son Yeoud as a sacrifice.

note: An interesting inscription discovered near ancient Babylon contained an offer of Nebuchadnezzer allowing his son to be burned to death to assure his nation’s protection.

Biblical narrative
According to the biblical story, God commands Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice. (Genesis 22:5 and 22:8). After Isaac is bound to an altar, the angel of God stops Abraham at the last minute, saying “now I know you fear God.” At this point Abraham sees a ram caught in some nearby bushes and sacrifices the ram instead of Isaac.

An angel prevents the sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham and Isaac, Rembrandt, 1634
The Book of Genesis does not tell the age of Isaac at the time; however, verse 6 of Chapter 22 indicates that Isaac was at least grown enough to walk alongside Abraham up the mountain carrying the load of wood that his father had gathered (22:6). While it is often imagined that Isaac was a small child, some sources claim he was an adult (noting that Jews are considered adults at age 13). The Talmudic sages teach that Isaac was thirty-seven, likely based on the next biblical story, which is of Sarah’s death at 127 (she was ninety when Isaac was born). Bishop Ussher’s chronology would place Isaac at about 20 years of age.
Genesis 22:14 states that it occurred at “the mount of the LORD”: in 2 Chronicles 3:1; Psalm 24:3; Isaiah 2:3 & 30:29; and Zechariah 8:3, the Bible seems to identify the location of this event as the hill on which Solomon was said to later build the Temple, now known as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.[citation needed]
[edit] Jewish views
The majority of Jewish Biblical commentators argue that God was testing Abraham to see if he would actually kill his own son, as a test of his loyalty. However, a number of Jewish Biblical commentators from the medieval era, and many in the modern era, read the text in another way.
The early rabbinic midrash Genesis Rabbah imagines God as saying “I never considered telling Abraham to slaughter Isaac (using the Hebrew root letters for “slaughter”, not “sacrifice”)”. Rabbi Yona Ibn Janach (Spain, 11th century) wrote that God demanded only a symbolic sacrifice. Rabbi Yosef Ibn Caspi (Spain, early 14th century) wrote that Abraham’s “imagination” led him astray, making him believe that he had been commanded to sacrifice his son. Ibn Caspi writes “How could God command such a revolting thing?” But according to Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz (Chief Rabbi of the British Empire), child sacrifice was actually “rife among the Semitic peoples,” and suggests that “in that age, it was astounding that Abraham’s God should have interposed to prevent the sacrifice, not that He should have asked for it.” Hertz interprets the Akedah as demonstrating to the Jews that human sacrifice is abhorrent. “Unlike the cruel heathen deities, it was the spiritual surrender alone that God required.” In Jeremiah 32:35, God states that the later Israelite practice of child sacrifice to the deity Molech “had [never] entered My mind that they should do this abomination.”

The Sacrifice of Isaac, a painting on the floor of Beit Alfa Synagogue
Other rabbinic scholars also note that Abraham was willing to do everything to spare his son, even if it meant going against the divine command: while it was God who ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son, it was an angel, a lesser being in the celestial hierarchy, that commanded him to stop. However, the actions and words of angels (from the Greek for “messenger”) are generally understood to derive directly from God’s will.
In some later Jewish writings, most notably those of the Hasidic masters, the theology of a “divine test” is rejected, and the sacrifice of Isaac is interpreted as a “punishment” for Abraham’s earlier “mistreatment” of Ishmael, his elder son, whom he expelled from his household at the request of his wife, Sarah. According to this view, Abraham failed to show compassion for his son, so God punished him by ostensibly failing to show compassion for Abraham’s son. This is a somewhat flawed theory, since the Bible says that God agreed with Sarah, and it was only at His insistence that Abraham actually had Ishmael leave. In The Last Trial, Shalom Spiegel argues that these commentators were interpreting the Biblical narration as an implicit rebuke against Christianity’s claim that God would sacrifice His own son.
The Tzemach Tzedek[4] cites a question asked by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk: At first glance, this appears to have been mainly a test of Isaac, for he was the one to be giving up his life al kiddush Hashem (in order to sanctify God’s Name). However the Torah states (Gen. 22:1) that God meant to test Abraham, not Isaac? Rabbi Menachem Mendel answers that although it is a very great Mitzvah to give up one’s life, it is unremarkable in the annals of Jewish history. Even the most unlettered and “ordinary” Jews would surrender their lives in martyrdom. Thus, as great a Mitzvah as it is, this test is considered trivial for someone of the spiritual stature of Isaac, who, as one of our forefathers, was likened to God’s “chariot” (Gen. Rabba 47:6) for he served as a vehicle for the divine traits of kindness, strictness, and compassion.
Rather, at the binding the main one tested was Abraham. It was a test of faith to see whether he would doubt God’s words. Abraham had been assured by God that “Your seed will be called through Isaac” (Gen. 21:12), i.e., Isaac (and not Ishmael) would father a great nation—the Jewish people. However, Abraham could apparently have asked a very glaring question: at the time that God commanded him to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice, Isaac was still single, and if Isaac would die now, how could he possibly father the nation which was to be born from Abraham? Moreover, isn’t God eternal and unchanging, as God declares: “I have not changed” (Malachi 3:6), implying that He does not change His mind?
Yet Abraham paid no attention to this altogether logical question. Instead, he dismissed it totally from his consciousness and believed with pure and simple faith that if this is what God was telling him to do now, this was surely the right thing to do. It was passing this test that was remarkable even for someone of Abraham’s stature.
In The Binding of Isaac, Religious Murders & Kabbalah, Lippman Bodoff argues that Abraham never intended to actually sacrifice his son, and that he had faith that God had no intention that he do so. Others suggest[who?] that Abraham’s apparent complicity with the sacrifice was actually his way of testing God. Abraham had previously argued with God to save lives in Sodom and Gomorrah. By silently complying with God’s instructions to kill Isaac, Abraham was putting pressure on God to act in a moral way to preserve life. More evidence that Abraham thought that he won’t actually sacrifice Isaac comes from Genesis 22:5, where Abraham said to his servants, “You stay here with the ass. The boy and I will go up there; we will worship and we will return to you.” By saying that we (as opposed to I), he meant that both he and Isaac will return. Thus, he didn’t believe that Isaac would be sacrificed in the end[5]
In The Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides argues that the story of the Binding of Isaac contains two “great notions.” First, Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac demonstrates the limit of humanity’s capability to both love and fear God. Second, because Abraham acted on a prophetic vision of what God had asked him to do, the story exemplifies how prophetic revelation has the same truth value as philosophical argument and thus carries equal certainty, notwithstanding the fact that it comes in a dream or vision.[6]
In Glory and Agony: Isaac’s Sacrifice and National Narrative, Yael S. Feldman argues that the story of Isaac’s Binding, in both its biblical and post-biblical versions (the New Testament included) has had a great impact on the ethos of altruist heroism and self-sacrifice in modern Hebrew national culture. As her study demonstrates, over the last century the “Binding of Isaac” has morphed into the “Sacrifice of Isaac,” connoting both the glory and agony of heroic death on the battlefield.[7]
[edit] Christian views

Sacrifice of Isaac, by Adi Holzer 1997.
The Binding of Isaac is mentioned in the New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews among many acts of faith recorded in the Old Testament: By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. (Hebrews 11:17–19, NKJV)
Abraham’s faith in God is such that he felt God would be able to resurrect the slain Isaac, in order that his prophecy (Genesis 21:12) might be fulfilled. Early Christian preaching sometimes accepted Jewish interpretations of the binding of Isaac without elaborating. For example Hippolytus of Rome says in his Commentary on the Song of Songs, “The blessed Isaac became desirous of the anointing and he wished to sacrifice himself for the sake of the world” (On the Song 2:15).[8] Other Christians from the period saw Isaac as a type of the “Word of God” who prefigured Christ. (Origen, Homilies on Genesis 11–13) The majority of Christian Biblical commentators view this episode as prefiguring God’s plan to have his own Son, Jesus, die on the cross as a substitute for humanity, much like the ram God provided for Abraham. Abraham’s willingness to give up his own son Isaac is seen, in this view, as foreshadowing the willingness of God the Father to sacrifice his Son; also contrasted is Isaac’s submission in the whole ordeal with Christ’s, the two choosing to lay down their own lives in order for the will of God to be accomplished, as no struggle is mentioned in the Genesis account. Indeed, both stories portray the participants carrying the wood for their own sacrifice up a mountain.
Genesis 22:2 states that it occurred “in the region of Moriah”. There has been speculation within Christianity whether the Binding occurred upon the Temple Mount or upon Calvary, the hill upon which Christ was crucified, or somewhere else. An alternate interpretation proposes that Calvary was on a section of Mount Moriah, the temple mount, which has subsequently been divided from the main part for the purpose of defending Jerusalem. As such the crucifixion would occur on the same mountain.

Reassessing an Apostle:
The quest for the historical St. Paul yields some surprising new theories
by Jeffery L. Sheler
He never walked with Jesus of Nazareth, yet he traversed the Roman Empire proclaiming him the divine Christ. He never heard Jesus teach, yet he became Christianity’s most influential expositor of doctrine. He spoke little about Jesus’s life, yet he attached cosmic significance to his death and Resurrection. The Apostle Paul, some scholars now believe, was more instrumental in the founding of Christianity than anyone else–even Jesus himself.
A tireless missionary and prolific theologian, Paul almost single-handedly transformed a fringe movement of messianic Jews into a vibrant new faith that, within a few generations, would sweep the Greco-Roman world and alter the course of Western history. His preaching of salvation “by grace . . . through faith” in the Risen Lord has inspired spiritual seekers throughout the centuries.
Yet precisely because of his larger-than-life stature in the nascent Christian church, Paul always has been a figure surrounded by controversy. In his own time, he was reviled by religious and political adversaries and arrested, beaten, exiled, and eventually executed for his zealous preaching in the Roman precincts of the Mediterranean rim. In more recent times, some have branded him a misogynist and a homophobe.
A scholarly quest. Today, in a batch of recent books and articles, critics and admirers alike have sought to penetrate what some contend are flawed interpretations and deliberate distortions of Paul’s teachings. Just as some have tried for centuries to uncover a “Jesus of history” unadorned by church tradition, many scholars now have taken up a Quest for the Historical Paul. Among the more provocative theories that have emerged from these studies:
As a Christian missionary and theologian, Paul knew little and cared less about the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. More important in Paul’s mind was the death and Resurrection of the exalted Christ who appeared to him in a mystical vision.
Paul was intensely apocalyptic and believed that Christ’s Second Coming was imminent. Consequently, he did not intend his sometimes stern judgments on doctrinal matters and on issues of gender and sexuality to become church dogma applied, as it has been, for nearly 2,000 years.
Although an apostle to the gentiles, Paul remained thoroughly Jewish in his outlook and saw the Christian movement as a means of expanding and reforming traditional Judaism. He had no thought of starting a new religion.
For all of his energy and influence, Paul wrote only a fraction of the New Testament letters that tradition ascribes to him, and even some of those were subsequently altered by others to reflect later developments in church theology.
As might be expected, these claims are passionately debated. In some quarters, the quest for a new and improved Paul is denounced as an ideological attack on the Bible and Christian tradition. “Paul in the 20th century has been used and abused as much as in the first,” says N. T. Wright, a New Testament scholar and dean of the Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire, England. Yet there is wide recognition among scholars of every stripe that to discover fresh insights into the life of the Apostle is to draw closer to the roots of Christianity.

Exclusive — Warner Bros. has put on hold a controversial Mel Gibson movie project about the Jewish Maccabee revolt in the 2nd century B.C. after reading the script by writer Joe Eszterhas, TheWrap has learned.

A spokesman for the studio told TheWrap, “We are analyzing what to do with the project.”

Jewish groups were outraged after news broke in September that Gibson had reached a production deal with Warner’s to direct the story of Judah Maccabee, whose victory over Greek and Syrian armies is celebrated at Hanukkah. One Jewish group called it “a moral lapse in judgment.”

Eszterhas delivered the script in late February, and Warner’s has since passed on it, according to an individual close to the project. Warner production president Greg Silverman described it as lacking in “feeling” and “a sense of triumph,” according to the individual.

As another individual put it, “The script didn’t pass muster.”

A spokesman for Gibson had no immediate comment. Eszterhas declined to comment. Warner’s has a long history of collaborating with Gibson, but the star was upset after the studio rescinded his cameo in “The Hangover Part II” when the crew protested his involvement.

The project involved one of Gibson’s favored themes: an underdog army fighting for freedom. In 165 B.C., Jewish leader Maccabee led his brothers in revolt against the Seleucid Empire, ruled by Antiochus Epiphanes, who had forbidden Jewish practices.

Noting his checkered history of making anti-Semitic remarks and his controversial depiction of Jews in his 2003 film “The Passion of the Christ,” Jewish leaders said the choice of Gibson to direct a film about a prominent figure in their religion was insensitive.

“Casting him as a director or perhaps as the star of ‘Judah Maccabee’ is like casting Madoff to be the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission,” Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement after the project was announced.

The Anti-Defamation League asked Warner’s to reconsider the choice of Gibson. In a statement, the group said, “Not only has Mel Gibson shown outward antagonism toward Jews and Judaism in his public statements and actions, but his previous attempt to bring biblical history to life on the screen was marred by anti-Semitism.”

The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants labeled the choice of Gibson a “moral lapse of judgment.”

“Given our brutal experience, we are pained that Warner’s has abandoned principle and taken this unworthy path,” the group said at the time.

Gibson was detained by police in Malibu for drunken driving in 2006 and found himself embroiled in a public relations fiasco when reports surfaced that he had launched into expletive-laden anti-Semitic remarks while in custody.

It was left to Eszterhas to offer a modest defense of Gibson in a New York Times interview in February. The screenwriter noted that he had an anger problem but said he understood how to make a movie of the story of Maccabee on a “Braveheart”-like scale.