Thread by @JustSayXtian

Just before Rosh Hashanah I was arguing with some Edgy Atheists about the Old-Testament-God-is-Mean thing, and one of them pulled out "What about the binding of Isaac?" - so, some post RH thoughts about the Akeidah, biblical originalism, and exegetical norms in Judaism:

The question posed to me by Edgy Atheist (I can't find the original tweet, because I'm blocked now) was - what do you think was originally supposed to be the moral of that story? And of course, EA's answer was "obey God no matter what, even if God says to murder your son, duh."

But the thing is, if we're talking about the *original intent* we can't do that in the context of *contemporary norms*. We have to consider what the societal norms were of the people who were hearing this story for the first time.

For Bronze Age people in the Mediterranean/Mesopotamia, the idea of a God saying "sacrifice your kid for me" would not have been shocking. We know for sure, from both written sources and archeological finds, that child sacrifice was practiced by the Phoenicians and Canaanites.

So in the time and place where this story was originally put forth to characterize the God of the Israelites, it's not God saying to kill Isaac that would've drawn gasps - that's normal God behavior. It's when God said "actually, no, don't, human sacrifice isn't a thing anymore"

If we're going to insist on an *originalist* interpretation of the story, the most likely intended lesson was that *this* God was better, because *this* God wouldn't ask you to kill your friends and family for them.

This is held up in some of the copious Midrash around the Akeidah - there's midrash that Abraham says "let me at least draw a little blood for you" and God has to firmly tell him no. It's hammering home the *new* idea that human sacrifice is wrong.

It's being extremely explicit that this is a kinder, gentler God than the people at the time were used to. If you're insisting on an originalist take, it's the *opposite* of the "bloodthirsty, violent OT God" thing.

And, incidentally, this is not me bringing a fresh new perspective - the notion that the major *original* lesson was a deviation from the existing norm of child sacrifice has been put forth by highly respected rabbis and biblical historians.

BUT ALSO - insisting on an originalist take is a silly thing to do in the context of Judaism. Edgy Atheists and religious conservatives, both Jewish and Christian, complain that religious progressives are interpreting scriptures through the lens of modern socio-religious ideas

And we absolutely are! But that's only because interpreting scriptures through the lens of modern socio-religious ideas is what Jewish exegetes have been doing since as long as we have records.

That's what the Amoraim were doing when they were deriving the halakha that "an eye for an eye" is about recompense, not vengeance. It's what the Tannaim were doing when they interpreted the Mishnah to include legal protections and safeguards against excessively punitive verdicts

That's what Maimonides was doing when he applied Aristotelian logic to the Talmud, and formulated a doctrine of faith like what can be found in Islam and Christianity. It's what poskim have done in every generation as they examine old texts in the light of a changing world.

So when I say that the Tanakh is fundamentally a text about social justice and human empathy, I don't meant that everything *directly in the text* is just and empathetic. It's clearly not, by the standards of our time and place.

What I mean is that if we look at it in historical context, we can see the ways in which it was calling for a more just, more empathetic world than the one that existed. And we have a tradition stretching back thousands of years that gives us permission to carry that forward.

*Permission*, not *obligation*. Like all sacred myths, what we choose to learn from it and how we choose to apply it is up to us. We don't *have* to find the progressive, just, empathetic ways of using the text. But we are allowed to, and we have a framework for doing so.

So when we're told that we're projecting our modern socio-religious ideas and morals backward onto the text, I think it's important to both acknowledge that this is true, and also that this is a normal, healthy thing to do.

I think it's important to accept the permission our tradition gives us to do so, and also to make sure we're not erasing the context of the source material while we do it - just the opposite in fact.

Knowing the context that our sacred stories were first told in is exactly what allows us to honor the kind of world that our ancestors were trying to build. They told us, directly, what they wanted that world to be - just, and kind, and loving.

We can believe the text that this is what our God and our ancestors want the world to be like. We can honor the ways that the pshat was a step on that path, and the tradition that we can find the next steps by digging beneath the surface meaning and struggling for deeper meaning.

By turning it and turning it again, because everything is in it. The original message, *and* all the ways it has been interpreted, *and* the message that applies here and now, that helps us move forward on our path. That's what we've always done, and we should keep doing it.