My name is Christy, and today we're going to be continuing on in a series that I've been doing on deconstructing Bible stories, stories that we were taught in church, stories that we were taught in Sunday school, and seeing if we can come to a different conclusion than the conclusion that they wanted us to come to.

So far, I have not come to any of the same conclusions that we came to when I was in the church.

I see things very differently, and you might see things very differently too, but the whole goal here is to really take the things that they taught us to believe were true, and the lessons that they wanted us to get out of these stories, and to figure out for ourselves how we feel about it, what we think, what we believe.

When you're raised in a Christian church, especially a high-control Christian church, you are fed these stories and taught that you're supposed to interpret it a certain way, you're supposed to feel a certain way about it, and that there is one lesson to get out of it, and they'll give you the lesson.

They'll tell you what to think and believe, but I think they do such a disservice to you when they don't give you the opportunity to figure out how you feel about these stories.

They don't give you the space to figure it out for yourself.

And so, that's what we're here to do.

You're going to hear my perspective.

You might come up with a different perspective, but what's important is that you're willing to take the time to think about what you believe, rather than just clinging to what somebody else has told you.

Now, in this video, like all my others, I will be reading the Bible at face value, and

I will be doing this through a fundamentalist lens.

The goal of my channel is to kind of combat these fundamentalist evangelical ideologies, and within fundamentalism, these stories are true.

The Bible is the inerrant word of God, and it has been provided by God to give us a guide to Him, kind of a map to God, and what He wants, His desires, His plan, His purpose, all of that.

If that's the case, then I should be able to pick up a Bible and read it, and get whatever is being said, get whatever God is trying to tell me out of it.

If I can't do that, if I need to dig into the historical context, the ancient languages, if I need to contact theologians, and biblical scholars, and read concordances, and all of that, then I don't think it's the inspired word of God, and I don't think that it's the path to truth meant for all people, because not all people have access to those things.

Not all people have access to the resources, and the scholars, and all of that to be able to determine what was actually said in this ancient dead language.

I'm going to read the story, and just see how I feel about it, and let's see where we land.

Today's story is, by popular request, Abraham and Isaac, when Abraham is asked to sacrifice his only son to God, and God stops him right before it happens.

He spares him, he provides a lamb, and they live happily ever after.

Before we get started, I just want to remind you guys that I do have a merch shop, jezebelvibes.com slash merch.

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Let's get into it.

Let's get into the sacrifice of Isaac, starting in Genesis 22.

This is a pretty short story, so it probably won't take us very long to go through it.

However, I do have a lot of thoughts.

So here we are, Genesis 22, verse 1.

After these things, God tested Abraham, and said to him, Abraham, and he said, here I am, an omniscient, omnipotent God.

He's calling out, Abraham, where are you?

And Abraham's like, hey God, I'm over here.

I just imagine, people actually think this really happened, and I just think that's so funny to think about that scenario.

Moving on, verse 2.

He said, take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, of which I shall tell you.

I ain't gonna tell you yet, because I haven't thought this through, but I will tell you, don't worry.

So just stopping right there.

God has requested, demanded, commanded, that Abraham takes his son, his only son, whom he loves, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him as a burnt offering on the mountain.

Now in church, we know that they tell us, you know, that this story is a story of faith, right?

Abraham's faith.

He had so much faith in God that he was willing to do whatever God told him.

And that, to me, is usually the moral of the story.

Have faith.

Know that God will provide.

Just do whatever God says.

But if God is testing Abraham, and he was testing him on if he was going to do the right and moral, ethical thing, then I would think Abraham's answer would be immediately no.

Absolutely not.

Like he would pass the test by saying, no, God, I'm not going to do that.

I love my son.

I'm his parent.

I would never hurt him.

I would never sacrifice my child.

I won't do that.

It's wrong.

And that would be the most moral answer he could give.

But it's not a test of morality and ethics.

It's a test of faith.

And you would think that if God was testing Abraham to do the right thing in God's eyes, then that would be the most moral and ethical thing.

But in this scenario, the moral thing and the right thing are not the same thing.

And I don't understand that.

In God's world, what's right and what's moral are not synonymous.

Because the moral thing is to say, no, I'm not going to sacrifice my son.

But God doesn't want him to answer that way.

God is testing him to see if he's going to have enough faith to do whatever God says, even if it's so awful that he would ask to give up his son.

Kill your own son.

Let's see if he'll do it.

So if Abraham is going to pass the test and do what is right, he's going to say no, right?

Right?

Right?

So Abraham rose early, verse three, Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac.

And then he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.

On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.

Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey.

I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you.

And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife.

So they went both of them together.

And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, my father.

And he said, here I am, son.

I see what they did there.

He said, behold, the fire and the wood.

But where's the lamb for a burnt offering?

Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering my son.

So they went both of them together.

So let's rewind just a little bit and just kind of sit on the fact that there was no back and forth between God and Abraham.

Abraham didn't question God.

He didn't say, why are you asking me to do this?

I don't want to do this.

I don't want to give up my son.

There was no questioning.

There was immediately, okay, I'm doing this.

I'm taking my son.

I got my knife.

I got everything I need.

We're going to go up to the mountaintop.

That's a little alarming.

And it's crazy that Abraham is just praised for this.

But then we move on and we see that, you know, they're gathering everything up.

And Isaac notices that there's not a lamb for the burnt offering.

And he's like, where's the lamb?

What's going on here?

I don't see the animal for sacrifice.

And Abraham says, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.

So both of them went together.

And Christians have told me that this right here shows that Abraham knew that God was going to provide a lamb.

Like he knew that he wasn't going to actually sacrifice his son.

And that certainly is one way to interpret it.

And I understand why they have to interpret it that way.

But I don't read that.

Like my first initial reaction is, oh, well, Abraham is obviously making sure that his son is not afraid.

You know, he doesn't want to freak his son out before he lays the knife down in his heart.

So he's just saying, don't worry, God will provide.

Don't you worry, you know?

That's what I see.

I see an Abraham who is gathering up his supplies, who has not questioned it, who is ready to go, who takes his son, who is in motion to do the thing he was asked to do.

And in a minute here, I'll be able to show you why I think that it does not show that

Abraham knew God was going to provide and that Abraham fully intended to sacrifice his son.

In verse nine, when they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

So Abraham takes him up.

He puts his son on a table or an altar of some sort.

He binds him, he ties him down to the altar, and then he takes a knife and he holds it over Isaac's body like he's about to.

So just stopping right there, what's going through Isaac's mind?

What is Isaac thinking when his father, who he loves and trusts to protect him and take care of him, what is he thinking when he sees his dad standing over him with a knife?

Probably it's probably not good.

There's probably a lot of terror and fear.

I remember being told this story in my Sunday school class, and not once did anyone ever consider or bring up the feelings of Isaac in this situation.

My Sunday school teacher didn't ask me, how do you think Isaac felt in this situation?

What are your thoughts on this?

I think this is probably the biggest problem with Sunday school, with the indoctrination that kids get in Sunday school, is that these children are being taught by these adults these very scary stories, these stories that kids should not be learning about.

They're not being taught to explore the story, to consider everyone in the story.

They're not being taught to empathize with the characters in the story.

They're just being fed it, and they're being told this is the lesson you're supposed to get out of it.

This is how you believe.

You think Abraham was really good, right?

You think Abraham was being really faithful, right?

You think he did the right thing, right?

Isn't it so great that he had faith?

It's not a place where kids can explore and empathize.

I didn't learn empathy in Sunday school.

I didn't learn empathy in the church.

I had to learn that on my own, because nobody ever taught me.

Nobody taught me to put myself in someone else's shoes, and so when I'm being taught a story about a child whose father is holding a knife over him after tying him down to an altar, I never, until I was an adult, even thought about the perspective of Isaac in that situation, because the point isn't, it's not about Isaac.

It's not about Abraham.

It's about God, and what God wants, and you doing what God says, and God being glorified, and everything working out the way God wants it to, no matter how everybody else feels, and this is how people are taught to disregard people's feelings.

This is how Christians are raised with a lack of empathy, because they're not taught to feel what those in the story might have felt.

They're not taught to put themselves in their shoes, to explore.

They're just told, this is the story.

Deal with it.

This is how it goes.

This is what you believe about it, and yeah, so I just, now as an adult, I can actually look, and I'm like, oh my gosh, like reading the story as an adult, like I can't imagine what Isaac must have gone through.

That's terrifying.

That's traumatizing, and you know, we know what happens in the story.

You know, spoiler alert, he doesn't kill him, so when they're walking down from the mountain,

I'm just like, like what must that have been like, you know, with his dad, and him, like nothing ever is ever said about how Isaac feels in the story.

It's never said.

It's just like, oh, well, that's what happened.

He didn't kill him.

Thank goodness.

Moving on.

So it says in verse 10 that Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son, but the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham, and he said, here I am.

He said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.

And Abraham looked up with his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns, and Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

So Abraham called the name of the place the Lord will provide as it is on this day on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.

Look at verse 11.