J. Richard Middleton. Abraham’s Silence: The Binding of Isaac, the Suffering of Job, and How to Talk Back to God. Baker Academic, 2021. The binding (Aqedah) of Isaac is one of the most troubling stories in all Scripture. And it is not hard to see why. The story depicts God commanding a father to butcher […]
Abraham
Committing moral horrors in God’s name revisited (yet again)
In “The mutilation of Isaac” I argued that it would have been wrong for Abraham to kill and mutilate his son as a burnt offering. This was in response to Matthew Flannagan’s argument that there is nothing inherently wrong with God commanding a father to kill his child if the father does so knowing that God […]
Abraham, Isaac and a big knife. Like, wassup with that?
James asks, “I’m pretty sure I just missed this and you’ve talked about it somewhere (if so, just point me to it), but how do you interpret the story in Genesis where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son if you believe that God would never ask someone to sacrifice their son? Or do you […]
The mutilation of Isaac
Matthew Flannagan, respected analytic theologian, Christian apologist and faithful blogger, has taken issue with my argument that God would not ask a parent to sacrifice their child. Matt asks us to consider why it is that killing a human being is wrong. It is wrong, he avers, because it deprives one of their future life. […]
Teach your children well (and don’t mutiliate their corpses)
Last November I was on a panel discussion with Matt Flannagan at the Evangelical Philosophical Society in Atlanta talking about Old Testament ethics. We agreed on a number of points but disagreed sharply on the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. After returning I blogged about the experience and Matt has now published a belated critical […]
