The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Abraham, Isaac, and the Atonement

Everyone has heard the story of how Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac at God’s command. Most of us have probably been taught to see this as a type of the atonement where God gives His Son, Jesus.

I have a couple of problems with this story. EVERYWHERE else in the bible human sacrifice, and especially the sacrifice of one’s children is anathematized. Why would God ask this of Abraham? HOW could He ask it? And why was He then pleased with Abraham’s obedience to a thing He has stated so clearly that He hates?

In what way does this story depict the atonement – if you think it does? How does it fit in? Most things have become clearer since I’ve embraced EU, but this particular story which seemed to fit so well before now bothers me. I’d be grateful to hear your take on it.

Thanks!

Cindy

God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. Nothing unusual here. Lots of god’s demanded human sacrifice. The big difference was yet to come. Abraham is about to do the deed, and a big voice says Stop! God himself will provide the sacrifice. And here’s the whole point of the story. God does not take. He gives. This was the revelation given to Abraham, that God was good.

This story has bothered me too, Cindy. Love is the whole basis for which I feel like I’m able to judge whether something is good or not. How could God make this request and then commend him for his faith to do it? Shouldn’t Abraham have known better and said, “No way this could be from God!” Is faith blind? Blind faith seems disastrous. Thankfully, as Allan points out, it was never God’s intention he should kill him.

Good stuff AllanS. Abraham received several significant revelations of God. In this case God was “testing” Abraham as a means of helping to correct his understanding of God.

Okay, that makes sense. I guess I had attributed more knowledge of God to Abraham than reasonable, considering his origins, surroundings, etc.

But this story has always been put forth as a prefiguring of the atonement. How does that work? Does God really want blood? I have a lot of thoughts swirling around here, such as . . .

Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins . . .

So, the life is in the blood; blood could be put for life and probably does symbolize life. One life for another? Is that what God wants? Looking at the Hebrew sacrificial system, it does kind of look that way.

I typed a lot more, but looking back over it I can’t even figure out what I was saying, and I have to get back to work before my clay dries out too much. The Abraham and Isaac sacrifice story makes sense to me from a sacrificial/propitiation kind of atonement story, but somehow I think I’m seeing this wrong. I shall be pondering. And I hope, hearing more from you guys. I do appreciate what you have said – thanks!

Thanks, Cindy

If Tom forgives Mary her debt, Tom must take the loss. He now is poorer. He has lost something of value. He has “shed blood”. This is what forgiveness means. The innocent party willingly takes the loss for the sake of the guilty. Without this “shedding of blood”, forgiveness is impossible by definition.

The father of the prodigal son was prepared to “shed his blood” for the sake of his son. He took the financial loss on his chin, the emotional cost, the loss of status and reputation. He swallowed all his son’s sins and destroyed their power. Love, wisdom and hope impelled him.

God also swallows our sins and destroys their power. He sheds blood for us. Christ is the revelation in time and space of this eternal truth.

Allan, you should write a book, bro :slight_smile:

And you too Cindy :wink:

Hey Cindy, I was just thinking… maybe you might want to check out Fear and Trembling by Soren Kierkegaard…

I haven’t read it myself, but I hear that it’s a whole book of philosophical reflections on that one story about Abraham and Isaac… it’s considered a classic in philosophy and one of Kierkegaard’s best works…

I don’t know much about Kierkegaard, but I know that he was a strange duck, a bit eccentric and quite melancholy, and something of a loner… but I also heard that he was a Universalist (though he was more of a philosopher than a theologian, from what I can gather, so I don’t think he brought it up too much…)

Here’s a really cool quote by him from his journals concerning UR though:

“If others go to Hell, I will go too. But I do not believe that; on the contrary, I believe that all will be saved, myself with them—something which arouses my deepest amazement.”

Here’s a Wiki article about his theology, where I found that quote:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology_o … ierkegaard

And here’s a Wiki article about Fear and Trembling: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling

Who knows, maybe his book might give you some insight into this… it might be worth checking out :slight_smile:

Blessings to you in your search for answers. :slight_smile:

Matt

I remember you saying that before, Allen. Only I’d forgotten – sometimes I need telling more than twice. :blush: I’m sorry it took me so long to respond, but I’ve been thinking about all the things you and Sherman have said. You’ve really helped to open this up for me. :smiley:

And thanks to you too, Matt. I’ll check out those articles. I’m not sure someone like Kierkegaard might be too difficult for me to follow, but maybe I can find a writing sample so I can get an idea of his style.

Blessings, Cindy

That passage in the Old Testament has bothered me too…and it still does to this day…along with a lot of other passages.

I’m not buying “it was not God’s intention to have Abraham kill Isaac but only a test - he saved Isaac at the last moment” thing. It might comfort some but it does not hold water for me. What loving God tests people with a mortal sin? What if Abraham asnwered “No God, I will not committ murder to prove myself” Would that have been the wrong answer?

If a loving parent tells his son/daughter that to prove their love & devotion for his parents they must steal something from their neighbour…and then at last moment as they are about to steal it the parent stops them, saying “Stop, it was only a test…you’re a good child”. That’s crazy!
Recently on History Channel I watched the mini series “THE BIBLE” and the scene where Abraham had to kill his son was very gut wrenching. The expression of pain on the fathers face as he tied up his son and painfuly raised the knife was horrible. Very disturbing!
Maybe I’m not as well read as you here on this forum but I cannot see how a loving God would do that.

Honestly - I think there are MANY other, better ways, to prove ones love and devotion, than to test them by committing a crime (breaking a Commandment). Would it not be better to ask them to go out and perform good deeds, loving your neighbour as yourself, providing for the poor and misfortunate etc., to prove their love & devotion to God insted of violating one of the Ten Commandments? and yes I know this happend before he gave Moses the Ten Commandment but in my books a loving God would never ever ask his people to committ such a hainous act…Test or test! Any sacrifices - human or animal are anathema to Christianity.

Jesus never asked his disciples to kill a family member to test them before following him.

Just my two cents.

Frank

Considering that God doesn’t mind if Abraham tries to negotiate Him down for sparing the city of his ally, the king of Sodom, along with some other intriguing hints in the OT, my impression is yes, that would have been an even better answer. :slight_smile:

Still, the point seems to be that Abraham trusts God to bring Isaac back to life, assuming God doesn’t spare Isaac after all, thus fulfilling God’s promises and covenants; thus Abraham tells the servant that he and Isaac will be right back down after the sacrifice is over! Trusting God to care for Isaac even if God Himself demands the life of Isaac, is the issue at stake here – no doubt in the face of an apparently contradictory command for human sacrifice.

(This seems to have been the prevalent interpretation of the rabbis, too, btw.)

Let me restate the part of the previous replies that resonated with me . . . I won’t go back and re-read them, so maybe I’ll use different words and ‘accidentally’ clarify what I saw in them.

Abraham is from a culture in which sacrificing one’s offspring was a commonly accepted practice and not an unusual thing for a god to ask of his followers. Though (as Jason pointed out) Abraham has passed one test in that he pleaded for Sodom and Gomorrah, God still has work to do in revealing Himself to Abraham. So He gives Abraham another situation to deal with to ‘see what he will do’ – not that He doesn’t know, but Abraham doesn’t know what he’ll do and God wants him to know. (imo) Because Abraham doesn’t go into this expecting to lose his son, he is willing. The thing that amazes me is that Isaac is willing too, as (I probably already said) he is not a little boy at this point but a strapping young man indubitably stronger than his aging father. They are alone on Moriah. Isaac must choose to submit to this drama and he may not have the faith of his father that he will be restored – nevertheless we’re not told that he resisted in any way. The assumption has to be that he voluntarily cooperated.

This turns into a beautiful picture of the cooperation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Jesus’ own sacrifice much later – especially in that God does in fact provide Himself a sacrifice. The sons of Adam are not sacrificed, but rather God sacrifices Himself to reconcile us to Himself. Amazing love.

But Abraham – I don’t think it was as bad for Abraham as we might imagine in our society. Yes, he loved his son, but the idea of sacrificing a son to one’s god was nothing like as horrifying to him as it would be to us. Second, Abraham had been walking with God for many, many, many years and had come to genuinely trust Him. Abraham talked with God face to face on many recorded occasions and possibly on other occasions as well. Abraham was ready for this demonstration of God’s love. I think it’s reasonable to think that this was one more object lesson in Abraham’s development. Abraham already did not believe God would permanently deprive him of his son. He trusted the earlier promises. He needed to learn that this is not a thing his God would ever require of humans. God Himself provides the needed sacrifice.

And I agree with Jason that Abraham’s response, while good, was most likely not the best response possible. Nevertheless, it showed his trust in God’s love and faithfulness. So . . . that’s what I heard – a father – THE Father – teaching the father of His chosen people that He will provide the sacrifices and that He is not the kind of god that requires or desires or is pleased with the sacrifice of one’s offspring.

Right; and the rabbis had an absolute field-day with this. You could hardly get to the end of their praise of Isaac for that voluntary faithful cooperation. (It also helps that Isaac has the fewest evil deeds reported of him among the patriarchs and ancestors; maybe none??)

A tradition arose that, in order that the word of God would be fulfilled, Abraham did indeed slightly nick Isaac with the knife before he could fully stop, and so one drop of Isaac’s blood was spilled, and wow did they pile on the poetic merit of that one drop of Isaac’s blood!–in it was all the blood of Israel and so all the blood of Israel was sacrificed in Isaac!–no, that one drop of blood was worth more than all the blood of Israel because Israel was (and still is) notoriously unfaithful but Isaac was utterly faithful! Etc.

I’m a bit surprised this line of thought didn’t come up in the NT canon texts, too, as a precursor to the blood of Christ. But maybe the idea developed among non-Christian Jews after the coming of Christ as a way of competing with claims about the blood of Christ. (i.e. we don’t need the sacrifice of the lamb/ram on the same hill as Isaac, we already have the blood of Isaac spilled on our behalf.)

I rather doubt that’s true, although we’d have to speculate I guess since the scriptures don’t report what he thought on that topic (or do they?) – he was called out of that mess to live as a light in that mess. El Elohim was supposed to be higher and different than the idols he had carved as a younger man. For God to order him to do that, completely aside from the question of God seeming to go back on His promises about Isaac, would introduce the question of whether God was really morally better (even if more powerful) than the false gods.

I’d say this has some bearing on Christian universalism, too: we read of terribly bloody wrath ordered and promised by God, the kind of things we’d expect from a morally lesser god, and those routinely all over the world call into question whether God is morally superior in quality to brutal lesser gods or whether the difference is simply one of power. And we deal with that problem in various ways – by denying the things did and/or will happen (because the real God wouldn’t do such things), or by collapsing into a might-makes-right morality after all (effectively denying the underlying precept of trinitarian theism, by the way), or by insisting that the people must deserve it (which might be true, except relative innocents get caught up in the devastation as well, and wouldn’t it be better for God to lead at least the relatively less guilty people, who didn’t have much choice about being in that situation, to be better?) even though the same explanation could be offered for the wrath of lesser gods.

But we also read that God loves everyone, and there are portions of scripture which seem to prophetically promise that God will bring everyone together in joyous resolution on a Day of the Lord to come.

So do we read those (relatively fewer) scriptures in light of the (relatively more numerous) scriptures, or vice versa? On what principle do we interpret one in favor of the other?

Abraham was faced with a shocking atrocity ordered by God, an atrocity that seems no different than the false gods around him, not even demanding the death of an enemy but of someone both beloved and faithful (actually worse than passing one’s baby through the fire), an atrocity that seems to go against apparent promises God made about this person.

If Abraham had told the servant “I’ll be back soon,” he would have been interpreting the promises of hope and fair-togetherness subordinate to the promise of tragedy. He’d’ve found a way, in his mind, to justify the final tragedy one way or another. (“I’m just following orders from Authority,” or whatever.)

When Abraham tells the servant “We’ll be back soon,” he’s interpreting the promise of tragedy subordinate to the promises of hope and fair-togetherness. He didn’t believe the tragedy would be final, if God even allowed it at all. He believed God was greater than final tragedy, that in God there would be no final tragedy. (Not for his own loved one anyway. I don’t want to press Abraham’s faith in God too far. :wink: )

So maybe I’m wrong; maybe it was the best response possible after all. :slight_smile: After his many many many years of personal experience with God, Abraham couldn’t seriously challenge (as we might) whether he was being deceived by something pretending to be El Elohim. Perhaps he could have self-critically asked whether this meant God saw him to be of such poor moral character that he would agree to do it–since God uses immoral agents for His purposes, too, and then punishes them for acting immorally! (“If you agree to do the job of Satan, you had better be prepared to be content with his wages!” – C. S. Lewis.)

But his hope in God was stronger than his fear of final tragedy from God (after all these years of God seeming to allow final tragedy while promising the fulfillment of hope), and that makes a big difference in the meaning of how he chose to act (even if he could have been more self-critical about his own character).

**First and foremost I want to thank you all for this discussion. I am not here to condemn anyone’s views…but rather to learn. If one is not forced to defend their beliefs how can you know they’re the right beliefs?

I would like to address some points in Cindy’s post;**

Let me restate the part of the previous replies that resonated with me . . . I won’t go back and re-read them, so maybe I’ll use different words and ‘accidentally’ clarify what I saw in them.

Abraham is from a culture in which sacrificing one’s offspring was a commonly accepted practice and not an unusual thing for a god to ask of his followers.

Cultural practices and religious practices are two different things. Are you saying that God in the Old Testament accepted human & animal sacrifice/burnt offerings
and then in the New Testament his Son comes along and now he does not condone sacrifices of any kind?
It’s not jiving for me sorry. To me God is PERFECT and INFALLIBLE…Not someone that learns & evolves as he goes along. I don’t believe that he would he say something like “Ok people, back in the day I liked it when you sacrificed living things to me but not anymore…I changed my mind.”
Yes you can bring up Jesus’ death on the cross as a sacrifice but it’s a little different when He says “Abraham, I have one more test to prove your devotion to me, I want you to kill your son.” The difference is that the Father, the Son & Holy Spirit are three in one. So in essence God sacrificed himself but God can’t really die so it’s not the same as a human sacrifice…because God/Jesus/Holy Spirit are not human
.

Though (as Jason pointed out) Abraham has passed one test in that he pleaded for Sodom and Gomorrah, God still has work to do in revealing Himself to Abraham. So He gives Abraham another situation to deal with to ‘see what he will do’ – not that He doesn’t know, but Abraham doesn’t know what he’ll do and God wants him to know. (imo) Because Abraham doesn’t go into this expecting to lose his son, he is willing.
So he goes into this because he knows God will stop him before it’s too late. Hmm I would rather have God that tests me with acts of good rather than horrific acts.

The thing that amazes me is that Isaac is willing too, as (I probably already said) he is not a little boy at this point but a strapping young man indubitably stronger than his aging father. They are alone on Moriah. Isaac must choose to submit to this drama and he may not have the faith of his father that he will be restored – nevertheless we’re not told that he resisted in any way. The assumption has to be that he voluntarily cooperated.

This turns into a beautiful picture of the cooperation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Jesus’ own sacrifice much later – especially in that God does in fact provide Himself a sacrifice. The sons of Adam are not sacrificed, but rather God sacrifices Himself to reconcile us to Himself. Amazing love.

But Abraham – I don’t think it was as bad for Abraham as we might imagine in our society. Yes, he loved his son, but the idea of sacrificing a son to one’s god was nothing like as horrifying to him as it would be to us

Wow, really? The act of killing ones child was not as disturbing then as it now?
You make it sound like it was just another day at work.
And going to back to an earlier statement about human sacrifices being acceptable in his day – see my comments above.

Second, Abraham had been walking with God for many, many, many years and had come to genuinely trust Him. Abraham talked with God face to face on many recorded occasions and possibly on other occasions as well. Abraham was ready for this demonstration of God’s love. I think it’s reasonable to think that this was one more object lesson in Abraham’s development. Abraham already did not believe God would permanently deprive him of his son. He trusted the earlier promises. He needed to learn that this is not a thing his God would ever require of humans. God Himself provides the needed sacrifice.

And I agree with Jason that Abraham’s response, while good, was most likely not the best response possible. Nevertheless, it showed his trust in God’s love and faithfulness. So . . . that’s what I heard – a father – THE Father – teaching the father of His chosen people that He will provide the sacrifices and that He is not the kind of god that requires or desires or is pleased with the sacrifice of one’s offspring.

**My closing thoughts:

One of the most noticeable contrasts one notices between the two books is that the Old Testament is full of violence & vengeance. A sharp contrast to the New Testament of Jesus’ teachings of Love & Compassion.

I have taken the liberty to illustrate some of these contrasts:**

In His sermon on the mount, in Matthew chapter five, Jesus teaches in contrast to the Law of Moses at least six times. One of which was “Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.” (Lev .24:20 & Matt. 5:38&39) He continued; “But I tell you not to resist an evil person.” Jesus taught against taking revenge. “Repay no one evil for evil’. (Romans 12:17) Jehovah always sought revenge! While the Heavenly Father loves and is not revengeful!
30. Concerning the Heavenly Father, Jesus told the Pharisees, “You have never heard His voice nor seen His form.” (John 5:37) John said, “No one has seen God at anytime”. (John 1:18, 1st John 4:12) According to the Old Testament Jehovah had been both visually seen and audibility heard several times. “So Jehovah spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend.” (Exodus.33:11) Moses also saw him. Jehovah was visible but God the Father is Spirit and invisible. Paul used the expression, “the invisible God”. (Col.1:1`5)

Jesus had the following to say, “No one knows the Son but the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and he to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” (Matthew 11:27) According to Jesus, the Heavenly Father was not known in the world until He revealed Him. He told the Jews, “It is my Father who honors Me, of whom you say He is your God. Yet you have not known Him”. (John 8:54) Jesus once and for all confirms to the Pharisees, the Heavenly Father was not the God of their religion neither was He known in the Old Testament. He was not known until Jesus revealed Him. (Matthew 11:27)

**I have read here many versions of “oh he was going to save him at the end all along” but no one has answered:

  1. Why a loving benevolent God would use a heinous act to prove devotion?
  2. Why didn’t Jesus ask of disciples to perform such acts in order to follow him?

In the Old Testament Jehovah destroyed anyone and anything for Israel. Jesus on the other hand lived in a occupied land. Palestine in those days was a Roman province and under the rule of the Caesars. Something the residents did not like. Why didn’t “Jehovah” smite all the Romans with Jesus at the helm? No instead Jesus’ approach was the complete opposite of anything in the Old Testament. Apart from the Binding of Isaac story the other huge contradiction is “An eye for an eye” vs. " Turn the other cheek".

How many of you ask of your children heinous acts to prove their love of their parents only to stop them at the last moment? That to me is diabolical in nature. If I were Abaraham after God stopped me I would still be in a state of mental distress.

One last thing that I cannot get my head around is the term “Christian Jews”. To me that is a text book oxymoron. You are either Christian or Jewish. Jew, Jewish, Judaism is a religion not a race of people or a geographical place on the earth. Would it be true to say a “Christian Muslim”? or a “Christian Budist” etc?

I know I will probably get banished from here for my views.

Respectfully

Frank **

Hi Frank –
I’m sure you won’t be banished for your views – your views are heartfelt, but you’ve not set out to give offence, no way.
I’m not offended :slight_smile:

There are indeed many passages in the Hebrew Bible that are disturbing – and which have filled me with some mixture of horror, disgust and terror at some point in my life; the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, the story of Moses being made a ‘bridegroom of blood’ to avert the night attack from Yahweh, the story of Jephtah and his Daughter, the conquest narratives in Joshua, massacre that closes the Book of Esther etc. An early Christian teacher Marcion of Sinope – who had a huge following – felt the same horror and dealt with this by saying that the God of the Old Testament is in fact an inferior semi-diabolic being, completely different from the loving Father of Jesus Christ. He was pronounced a heretic but his logic about the moral character of God in the Bible is still influential (although he also drew other conclusions that would not cut much ice with many today). But I think Marcion’s solution was too drastic by far.

As well as disturbing passages, the Hebrew Bible also contains many passages of wide charity, mercy and justice – especially, but not only, in the Great Prophets – the God who desires mercy and not sacrifice. So even in the OT/Hebrew Bible there are narratives that question the seemingly cruel and brutal passages. And even in the New Testament there are seemingly violent passages.

I do think there is a progressive revelation of the ethical in the Bible – it is not all a clear cut development in a straight line but progress is there. For example in Genesis we have Lamech who speaks of revenge justice – if one of his kin is killed seven of the kinsmen of the killer will have to die; then in the ‘eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth’ statue we have a law of proportionality – a great advance eon revenge justice; and then in Jesus Sermon on the Mount we have the counsel of perfection to practice benevolence towards enemies. So I often think in terms of a light shining dimly at first and then gradually getting brighter.

Human sacrifice was a fact in archaic religion – often prettified and glossed over by myth. Anthropologists consider passages say in the early Vedic hymns of Hinduism that speak of the cosmos being created from the body of a microcosmic man as actually referring to human sacrifice – likewise the myths of the Greeks and Romans where gods and goddesses fall in love with human beings and abduct them are euphemisms for a terrible reality of human sacrifice. At least in the text of the Bible we see sacrifice unvarnished alongside many texts that proclaim the deeper truths of the innocence of victims. I guess this conflict within the text is what has always stirred the conscience of mainstream rabbinic Judaism and mainstream Christian tradition as these developed anti-sacrificial ethics.

I understand with Jason – for example – that the Talmudic rabbis view the story of the near sacrifice of Isaac as a test for Abraham to reject sacrifice, and many Rabbis also concluded that Jephtah was a bad man obeying an evil impulse in sacrificing his daughter (as the text implies). Mainstream Christian tradition has likewise often reflected on the violent passages in the Old Testament and seen these as shadows of something greater that is fulfilled in Jesus.

But I have every sympathy with you for feeling outrage at the bloodier and more disturbing stories of the Bible. I think it good that you feel this disquiet and outrage. The bloody stories can operate as the irritating piece of sand in the oyster that produces the pearl of compassionate reflection.
All the best

Dick

Frank,

Thank you for sharing your perceptions. You’re not alone. It appears that Greg Boyd shares your honest impressions in his forthcoming book that Scot McKnight has just begun discussing on his blog, Jesus Creed (patheos). Two other honest reflections are C. S. Cowles in the 4 Views book, “Show Them No Mercy,” and Kenton Sparks in his “Sacred Word, Broken Word.”

Grace be with you,
Bob

Um, no – I didn’t say that. If that’s what you got from my post, I’m sorry for communicating poorly. It does seem clear that He accepted animal sacrifices though in another place one of the prophets says “Sacrifice and offerings You did not desire . . .”

That’s not quite what I meant. Certainly the request from Abraham for the life of his son was horrifying to him. BUT what I was trying to say was that while in our modern-day society we do not do this – at least we don’t sacrifice our children to things we think of as actual gods – we may sacrifice them (before birth) to convenience and we may ‘sacrifice’ them in other ways such as ignoring them in the quest for financial success, etc., in Abraham’s day, this WAS a thing that was done. In the culture (religion and culture were pretty much synonymous in those days) in which Abraham grew up, this was an accepted and expected practice of society. It was not unusual. That was my point. Not that Abraham would have said, “Oh yeah, whatever you say, Boss! No biggie! Right away.” My point was that the idea would not have been foreign to his experience as it would be to ours.

I actually have heard of “Christian Muslims, Buddhists, etc.” After asking many questions, my understanding from those I’ve asked is that these are true believers in Christ who no longer worship Allah or believe in principles not compatible with following Jesus, but rather they call themselves this because their former religion and their culture are so inextricably intertwined that they still think of themselves as “Muslims” because they still adhere to many practices of the Muslim culture – not because they worship the god of the Quran. Ditto for the Buddhists and Hindus (as I am told), though those religions/philosophies are not something I’ve studied. A “Christian Jew” would, I expect, be along the same lines.

Were you aware that many, many religious Jews see the ancient ‘histories’ of the Old Testament (or at least many of the pre-exilic stories) as being parabolic and metaphorical? They don’t believe these stories were ever intended to be seen as literal histories. That works for me; I lean in that direction at least in part. Historically it’s believed that these stories were written in Babylon as a response to Babylonian world-views/religious views.

I’m sorry to have offended you, Frank. That wasn’t my intent. Sometimes on-line communication can be difficult, especially surrounding such sensitive subjects. And of course my comments were directed toward the conversation already at hand and I couldn’t have known the particular hot buttons of everyone who might be reading.

As for yourself, while I won’t pretend this is a guaranteed “safe” place in the sense that no one on the forum will ever be rude to you (it’s happened), I can promise you that so long as you are kind to others and abide by the forum rules, no one will ban you for expressing your views. You’re welcome to say anything you like so long as you’re sincere and respectful to others. Welcome to the group. :slight_smile:

Dick,

Great post :smiley: Somehow or other you posted it twice, so I deleted the first one – in case you might have modified the second one and I missed where, but I think they were both the same.

Blessings, Cindy

First off Cindy, I was not offended in the least :slight_smile:
I agree with you that online communication can and often times are difficult to interpret because we cannot hear the tone of the other person. This is probably why we have these little funny emoticons to my right LOL.
I come from an era (and I suspect most - no offence lol) before the cell phone texting craze and being connected. When I was growing up, etch a sketch and light bright were high tech and drinking from the garden hose was an everyday thing.

I also want to thank Dick for his wonderful response. I am still not 100% clear but I am way further ahead than when I first posted here. I have to say that I stumbled across this forum while searching for questions pertaining to the binding of Isaac and in the search, Cindy’s thread came up.

Not that It matters to me but I noticed but I noticed the name of this forum is Evangelical Universalist. I was born and raised a catholic and have gone to church regularly all my life and still do. I’m sure it makes no difference to everyone here but I thought I would just put it out there as part of a mini introduction.

I really liked Dick’s line “the irritating piece of sand in the oyster that produces the pearl of compassionate reflection”. I firmly believe in open dialogue to better understand what you believe in.

Cindy’s response to the “Christian Jews” thing helped clarify the title to some degree. Maybe I had/have a little trouble getting my head around because of the “names” of two religions side by side. I agree in that what makes it hard to differentiate is that Judaism and Islamic religions are so entwined in how they live their daily life that it’s hard to separate what is tradition and what is religion. Christianity (to the best of my knowledge do not have strict codes such as not being allowed to eat pork ( I love bacon too much LOL) or not being allowed to keep dairy & meat in the same fridge or eat them together. I know for a fact (being Italian) that they won’t eat meat on Christmas Eve. It’s not church doctrine, I can tell you that however I am unclear as to where & how that tradition started.

Dick mentioned Marcion. My knowledge of him is somewhat limited. I first heard of him while watching a BBC documentary on the Lost Gospels. I googled his name. There aren’t a lot of books out there for sale on him but I did read some stuff online and found out that he is credited with the formation of the New Testament books. What I didn’t know is that he was even before the council of Nicea (325 A.D.)

I am starting to digress here, so I will thank everyone for their insights.

Respectfully

Frank (Francesco)