The Binding Of Isaac

The story of Abraham and Isaac is pretty bone-chilling in modern interpretation.

To sum up the story, it goes like this:

God pops into Abraham's head and says, "Go kill your son." Abraham makes arrangements to do so, and even lies to his kid to get him to go along. "God will provide the lamb," sounds like a great response until you realize that it implies Isaac has no idea what's about to happen. But Abraham isn't perfect, I guess, and largely is simply convinced that God demands a blood sacrifice of kin in violation of *checks notes* everything that Abraham believes up until this point. This is important. Learn to actually interpret stories holistically, but it'll come up later. I suppose to give the Islam faith credit, Abraham's son gives his consent to the whole ordeal (Ishmael, Isaac, whatever... different languages).

So Abraham packs up his donkey and his son and heads off to the mines of Moria to do battle with a bal... wait, that's not quite right. Hold on. Heads up the mountain of Moriah to sacrifice his son Isaac. There we go. Back where I need to be. He binds Issac to an altar, he draws a sharp knife and holds it above Isaac, and then Yahua sends one of his angels to be all, "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Hold the phone! Don't do that." The angel uses exclamation points and everything to get Abraham's attention. Abraham is commended for following orders in what is probably one of the oldest forms of that joke where the CIA boss orders the man to kill his wife.

This is the entirety of the story. Much can be hung upon it. For example, the way it was taught to me was that God's word is infallible and no matter what the fuckhole asks, you just gotta sorta do it. This is the most chilling interpretation, because like all good author's... stirring shit up is sort of Yah's thing. That's what it does. That's the impetus behind the entire Universe; a playground for Jah. Not everything is supposed to be sunshine and rainbows all the time; stories without conflict are boring. Yachua stirs shit up.

The testing of Abraham is a good title for the piece. Abraham could've done anything in response. I feel like that's often missed in a lot of interpretations, it certainly was back when I had a youth minister trying to get into my mom's pants. So really all that matters is that The Queef That Reverberates Throughout The Ages spoke and Abraham responded.

There's a whole realm of thought that very much thinks Abraham was just going through the motions, firmly knowing that this is the case and that ultimately Divine Fuckwind The Greasy Stain would back down. This is slightly less chilling than a belief in the uniform and full enactment of God's every pressing concern. It's usually important to remember also that God doesn't need anybody's help. In no uncertain terms, Lechmichamarsch can murder anybody that Lechmich wishes. For most any reason. Sacrifices usually have a much larger point than a simple "Yashuha wishes for it to be so" at the end of the day. They tend to be narratively important to SOMEBODY involved.

Anyway, this realm of thought largely goes "Yea, Abraham did it... but knew the whole damned time that God would back down." Never mind the trauma to Isaac, I suppose. But still, this interpretation is less chilling: "God will tell you to do awful things sometimes, but doesn't actually mean it and just wants to see how far you'll go" is slightly better than "Do it immediately and without reservation". God's will be damned, sometimes the request is more in line with playing a role that you'd rather not.

Which all sounds very blasphemous, I'm sure. But it's important to remember the tenants of Free Will and how we are given this explicitly. Not to sin, not to follow the will of God, but to do whatever the fuck we want. By doing so, you follow God's will. I posit instead that the only thing God cared about was that Abraham responded. That Abraham could have actively denied the request (which would have Had A Result, to be sure) or that Abraham could have gone along with it (which Had A Result, to be sure), or whatever Abraham wanted. The scenario was simply presented, to be interacted with as Abraham saw fit.

Perhaps Abraham did thread a needle, playing along until the last minute just to see what would happen. Perhaps when Abraham said, "God will provide the sacrifice" it was safe in the knowledge that the end of the adventure was going to be something of a twist. Abraham was pretty smart, and it's not like this is the first time Abraham's interacted with Ye Olde Divine Plippityplop. What else is there to do? Hey, Ferb! I know what we're going to do today! Even if it's seemingly asinine. It's not like going against the grain is necessarily going to be any better of an outcome. The text is full of The Divine Toddler throwing tantrums and proving that the world bows to every whim, regardless. Choose your battles.

Or perhaps Abraham was going to play it straight, again because why not? That's what the request was, and shit's gonna go down one way or another. The questline is already written a certain way, and who is to say that a more collaborative approach would be better? If anything, it may actively make things worse. Free Will is sort of a bitch and a half to wrangle down. It requires you take responsibility for your own actions. Accountability. The beauty of the Divine Toddler is that it really all does all sort of boil down to "It's all in your head, amigo. Me, you, the world, the people you're pissed at right now and ruining your day." Luckily, the nature of divinity is to grow.

Ultimately, Abraham's response doesn't matter. The story ends on a bit of a whiff with a handwave and a "Yeah, I was, uh, just testing you. Good job. Here's a cookie." These events go nowhere, and ultimately the sacrifice ends up just being another ram that was "provided by God". The story moves on. Yahuha comes off as almost bored. And a bored God is a dangerous God prone to asking weird things in an effort to alleviate the boredom.

It could be argued that this bored response speaks to Abraham's wisdom, because "boring" is also usually what all of us are striving for at the end of the day. To receive a bored response, perhaps with some vague praise, is better than whole heaps of possible alternatives and we can conclude that Abraham presents a sort of "mischief managed" scenario that frankly probably 100% explains why Abraham is so well respected amongst the Abrahamic faiths. Dude plays Jach like a fiddle.

What I find most interesting, though, is that "blind obedience to Yah" is regarded so highly amongst certain sects of Xianity. Meanwhile, every. single. hero. of. the. faith? Not necessarily the case, once you start delving into what's presented in a way that inherently demands everybody involved be wrong and have an active say in the matter. Meanwhile, this "do what God wants" response is usually regarded as the most boring response done in an effort to get whatever over with as quickly as possible.

Certainly a way to live one's life, but I argue that I'm here to stir shit up.