Did Abraham Have Schizophrenia? Hearing A Voice Telling Him To Sacrifice Isaac?

by frankiespeakin 46 Replies latest jw experiences

  • frankiespeakin
    frankiespeakin

    Well if someone came to you saying they were going to sacrifice one of thier children to God because God spoke to them telling them to do so what would you conclude? Would you tell him to be faithfull to the voice and do it so they can become God's friend like abraham was?

    http://www.voiceofdharma.org/books/pp/ch2.htm

    At any rate, Abraham does not behave like a man who, after years of fruitless trying, has been blessed with two sons. He sends the eldest, Ismael, together with his mother Hagar, away into the desert. The youngest, Isaac, will be sacrificed at Yahweh’s command. Did Abraham suffer at the thought that these children, who had restored his manhood in the eyes of his tribesmen, were in fact not his children at all? Did he suffer from a conflict between his delusion of a God-given promise of numerous progeny, of which the sons were the fulfillment, and the sneaking realization that they were not his own sons? At any rate, in a completely pathological development, he hears a voice telling him to sacrifice his son.

    This is one of the great religious founding moments of the Judeo-Christian tradition: Abraham obeying Yahweh all the way, even past the limits of absurdity. But in the Bible narrative (Genesis 22:1-19), this great and profound act is conducted without any religious pomp, even secretively. He doesn’t tell his family he is going to obey Yahweh’s glorious command. He makes his son believe they are going for an ordinary animal slaughter, until Isaac himself notices that they have everything for a proper slaughter except an animal. He expressly tells his servants that he and his son will both come back soon. He knows his family will prevent him from obeying Yahweh’s command, and rightly so.

    The narrative goes on to relate that Abraham is prevented from striking and killing his son. it says that an angel of the Lord intervened. If we discount the hypothesis that angels exist and intervene in human actions, we simply read that someone stopped him. Perhaps the voice (“Yahweh”) has changed its mind, and now tells him not to go all the way. It tells him that he has already passed the test of obedience, and resumes the older tune that he will be the ancestor of a numerous people. But more probably, it is the people in his surroundings who stop him, and the explanation that they have really been Yahwah’s agents ripens later in Abraham’s brain.

  • mamochan13
    mamochan13

    We actually had an interesting discussion on this topic at work today. There are many examples of people who have heard voices and taken action as a result. Joan of Arc, Joseph Smith are two that come to mind outside of those in the Bible. So where are these voices coming from? From a purely psychiatric perspective, we might be inclined to diagnose a mental illness. Or is it a religious experience and the voices come from some other place? How to know the difference?

  • Chariklo
    Chariklo

    There's a very interesting book about this. I think it's called "Vareties of Religious Experience", by I think William James or maybe William Sargent. I read it many years ago.

    As many of you know, my background is Catholic, and that's probably what I still am at heart, despite the whole mad JW adventure. Anyway, we had a priest years ago who also upheld that the voices heard by many of the so-called saints in history might well be symptoms of illness, though he alsom said that wouldn't necessarily invalidate their spiritual element.

    Sorry, i'm afraid it's very late here, I got sidetracked, and it's much too far into the small hours for comfort. Anyway, I simply don't know about Abraham etc....it's a thought...

  • bats in the belfry
    bats in the belfry

    There are those of mankind going on a mission after having 'found the LORD'. They specifically receive instructions to slaughter for HIM in a wild killing spree.

  • frankiespeakin
    frankiespeakin

    As Jung has said the future of mankind hangs on a thin thread and that thin thread is the human psyche, lets hope a mass psychoses don't do us all in.

  • King Solomon
    King Solomon

    I remember reading that there were some earlier versions of the story that had Abraham carrying out the sacrifice of his son, but were changed with time in the move to eliminate the practice of child sacrifice (which is still found in the OT, with offering of first-born of animals and man). Although sanitized, vestiges remain throughout.

    So in the Abraham/Isaac story, YHWH provides a suitable sacrifice for Abraham to use as a proxy; in that sense, it's the perfect dramatic foreshadowing for the idea of YHWH offering Jesus as a sacrifice to Himself to make up for mankind's Adamic Sin.

    And if you think of it, both are basically YHWH engaging in "sacrifical masturbation", making a sacrifice to Himself. God is basically making himself "happy"!

  • Nathan Natas
    Nathan Natas

    People are best judged with conideration of their TIME And PLACE. I do not believe a historical "Abraham" ever existed. I believe he is a fictional character created by the real and anonymous writers of the Bible. However it may be, Abraham is supposed to have been born about 1900 BC according to people who like Usher's (not the musician, the theologian) chronology.

    The Bible story tells us that in Abraham's world, child sacrifice was not uncommon. Baal and his crew like baby back bbq.

    Abraham was not a modern post-renaissance man, he was a wandering goatherder, with a goatherder's grasp of the world and his place in it.

    So I would not say he was crazier than his neighbors who gave their children to "the gods." Death in that sandbox hellhole was paradise compared to the realities of day-to-day survival.

    Another view is that just as the story of Cain and Abel showed the dawn of agriculture over a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, so the story of Abraham showed that man moved from sacrificing his children to "the gods" to sacrificing animals. This small change in mindset made it more likely that mankind would persist on earth, otherwise known as Deathworld.

    That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it unless Leolaia or Farkel can convince me otherwise.

  • frankiespeakin
    frankiespeakin

    Sol,

    As all Mythology the Abraham story is no different they are invention that come from the human psyche, which may have some past history, but far different than what is written in the bible, I do feel there is symbolic meaning,,, but literal,, well that is a stretch.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/mar/29/kierkegaard-philosophy-abraham-isaac

  • King Solomon
    King Solomon

    Y'all are preaching to the choir: I don't believe a lick of the theology, as I'm an atheist (and have even been called a "militant atheist", whatever THAT means!). That doesn't mean the accounts are not fascinating, from a historical stand-point...

  • frankiespeakin
    frankiespeakin

    http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/delaney.html

    Sol,

    If I'm preaching to th choir your suppose to say: 'halleljah' or amen or something arn't you? I know you don't beleive so I'm kicking you off the chior, ya bloody atheist!

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit