Sorry, David. Even expected, it still sucks. Go out to dinner and have several cocktails.

Ah, damn, Hec.

I think there should be martinis at dinner.

What Jesse said. That sucks!

I look forward to the day in Natter 56 when the topic of discussion is "Remember the night that Hec became a full-time writer? Look how great that turned out." Then someone will go and Nilly post 7429 of Natter 43. That will be cool.

My take on the God and Abraham and Isaac misery is less practical joke, more... err, I'm not even quite sure exactly how to put it. Closer to the whole thing between V and Evey in V for Vendetta, only less fucked up. God knew that Abraham was loyal enough to God and trusting enough of God's goodness to be able to follow this awful command and trust that somehow it would turn out all right, but Abraham didn't know it, until that challenge was given. Which was a horrid challenge, but, as Cindy says, not totally inconceivable in the context of his own time and culture. And what ultimately happened was that the horrid challenge was nullified -- when he showed himself willing to lose all he had and jump into that abyss, God declared that now and forever, that abyss no longer existed. No more human sacrifice, no more sacrifice of one's beloveds, never again (except, much later, for God's own child, by his own choice, but that's not part of this story).

Not that any of that is intended to convince anyone else on the planet. It's what works for me, but I'm weird and twisty.

Though I think I'm now slightly in love with the notion of God as V.

That sucks, Hec. They way the lying bastards handled it is beyond the pall. Go get drunk.

So, come to find out, the guy does NOT have a Smith-or-Jones type name after all! Good thing I asked.

serial: Also, I really really hope Nilly catches up on all this and has something to say. I really, really want to know her thoughts when she wraps her amazing brain around Abraham and Isaac.

Ugh, David. We hate them. Have a nice dinner.

My dinner is cooking and seriously stinking up the joint (salmon).

Would a just God put Abraham through the process of deciding to kill his son and making all of the preparations?

I think you're misunderstanding me. The drama of the story is to say, "look, I know you'd do anything for god, god knows you'd do anything for god, and since god is aware that you're that devoted, you don't have to actually prove your devotion in this barbaric way, you bunch of freaks."

Like not eating pork as a way to avoid that pork-eater disease. At the time, it made sense, but people were going to be freaks and still eat the pork even though it was killing them. But since people are all devoted to the Bully in the Sky, we'll just say the Bully isn't cool with pig meat and we'll save our people.

Your question assumes that there is a god. Me? I think god = the great and powerful oz, and some philosopher was horrified at the screams and gurgles of people bleeding out on alters. So he got behind a curtain and set a bush on fire. The stories, at their base sense, are social lubricant meant to stop people from committing unspeakable acts in the name of an imaginary friend in the sky who eats babies.

And if I'm coming at the Torah with that perspective, then it's just the laws of a people from long ago, who went through all the arguments about whether the low tech Phoenix Board of yore in the desert should have a moderator or a preferential voting, and this is what they decided.

I post at the Judiasm board.