Was Abraham Ethical?
Should We Admire His Willingness to Sacrifice His Son?
Carol Delaney, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology, Stanford University
(Prof. Delaney delivered this speech on 18 April 2002 as part of the
Markkula Ethics Center Lecture Series. In it she draws upon her book,
Abraham on Trial: The Social Legacy of Biblical Myth, published
by Princeton University Press in 1998.)
"Was Abraham ethical? Should we admire his willingness to sacrifice
his son?" Just so you know where I am going with this talk, my answer
to both questions is an emphatic "No." But it will take a while
for me to say why.
Most of you are probably familiar with the story in Genesis 22, but let
me read the first few lines to refresh your memory:
"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham,
and said unto him: Abraham. And he said: Behold, here
I am. And [God] said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac,
whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him
there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell
When I first heard this story as a child, I was outraged. What kind of
God would ask such a thing? And what kind of father would be willing to
do it? It is certainly enough to strike the fear of god into youand
also fear of the father. (Perhaps that was part of its intention.)
Even as a child I was very suspicious of the various interpretations
given to meespecially those that tried to convince me it was really
a story about love. (Quite a strange way of showing it.) I always felt
they were trying to pull the wool over my eyesthe proverbial wolf
in sheeps clothingand I no longer trusted them.
Only much later did I realize that Abraham had two sons, Ishmael the
firstborn and then Isaac. But he had banished one into the wilderness
and here he is ready to sacrifice the other. When God referred to his
"only" son, why didn't Abraham retort, "But I have two
sons"? When God said "whom thou lovest," why didn't Abraham
say, "But I love both"? He argued with God to try to save a
few good men in Sodom and Gomorrah. Why then didn't he do anything to
try to save his son?
One interpretation that would see the story as ethical is the one that
sees it as marking the end of the ancient practice of child sacrifice.
For example, the popular Interpreter's Bible states, "The story of
the proposed sacrifice of Isaac would not have been told except to discourage
a custom which already existed." The Encyclopedia Judaica says, "The
original intent of the narrative has been understood by the critics either
as an etiological legend explaining why the custom of child sacrifice
was modified in a certain sanctuary by the substitution of a ram, or as
a protest against human sacrifice."
There is of course no mention of any cultural practice of child or human
sacrifice in Genesis. Furthermore, the evidence that some archaeologists
believe points to such a practice is highly contested and of much later
provenance, and thus of little relevance for the Abraham story. Embedded
in these interpretations are social evolutionary assumptions, chiefly
that the earlier the time the more barbaric the people. But that simply
doesn't hold up anthropologically. Besides, if the purpose of the story
was to put an end to a practice of child sacrifice, God, or rather the
biblical writers, could have said as much; they could simply have prohibited
More important, however is that an etiological tale is unlikely as the
foundation story of the three Abrahamic religions. Such an interpretation
diminishes its theological significance. A prohibition against a practice
of child sacrifice is merely negative, not the positive constitution of
a new faith. The story of Abraham, like that of Jesus, changed the direction
of world history. Nahum Sarna, renowned Jewish scholar, also argues against
the etiological explanation. He says, "The Akedah ["binding"]
in its final form is not an attempt to combat existing practice, but is
itself the product of a religious attitude."
In fact, Abraham is revered not for putting an end to the practice but
precisely for his willingness to go through with it. That is what makes
him the father of faith, the foundation of the three Abrahamic religions,
Judaism, Christianity, and Islamalbeit interpreted in mutually exclusive
But why is the willingness to sacrifice rather than the protection of
the child the model of faith in these traditions? That question spurred
the research that resulted, finally, in my book Abraham on Trial.
But the question itself did not just pop out of the blue. There is a
personal "genealogy" behind it. The outrage I felt as a child
and the punishment I received when I expressed it no doubt etched the
story on my brain or soul. But it went underground until I had a child.
What could ever motivate someone to sacrifice their child? The questions
we choose to explore and the perspective we take on them derive from one's
own experience. The personal is political and also intellectual. The connection
may not seem obvious, but there is always a hook.
It was my personal experience of giving birth and the questions raised
by that experience that first began to rekindle my interest in the story.
I felt that giving birth was a miracleeach and every birth, not
just oneyet we are led to believe that only one is a miracle while
all the others are natural, ordinary events.
Many people like Simone de Beauvoir assume that women merely reproduce
the species while men produce the monuments of culture. Even the word
reproduce makes it seem as if what we are doing is churning out photocopies.
Yet what is produced is a sentient, human being, a unique individual,
the very individual we in the West are so concerned about. I felt something
was wrong with de Beauvoir's view. The main questions raised by my experience
and thinking about it were the following:
1. Why is motherhood devalued, while something about fatherhood makes
it an appropriate epithet for God (and for priests)?
2. Why is motherhood associated with what is natural while fatherhood
is associated with the divine? And what is the effect of those associations
on real live men and women?
3. How could anyone think of sacrificing their child, and how could such
an action come to seem ethical?
4. Why is that story at the foundation of the three religions? Indeed,
why is the foundational story about a male-imaged God, a father, and a
Gender and procreation seemed to me to be inextricably intertwined with
notions of divinity and spirituality. I could no longer see them as peripheral
but at the very center of theological speculation. This is hardly even
an issue in traditional interpretations. I will return to this shortly,
but first I wish to turn to Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling, since it
has been very influential in Christian thinking about ethics in relation
to the Abraham story. I dislike the book intensely and do not wish to
get into a long discussion about it. But I will comment briefly. In order
to do so I dug up a critique I did thirty years ago when I was a student
at Harvard Divinity School. (I was pleased to see that I still agree with
Kierkegaard distinguished between ethics and faith: ethics has to do
with universal morality, its based on reason; whereas faith, for
him, is particular and paradoxicalit is in a sense irrational. In
Kierkegaard's terms, an ethical man is good, but the man of faith is best,
and Abraham is the quintessential man of faith. Indeed, for Kierkegaard,
Abraham's temptation or trial was precisely what he called "the ethical,"
that standard of human morality that would condemn murder, especially
of one's own child. Abraham resists the temptation of the ethical and
makes the "leap of faith." Unlike the standard ideal of the
hero, he did not intend to sacrifice his child in order to save a people
(as did Agamemnon) nor to fulfill a vow (as did Jepthah). "Why then
did Abraham do it?" asks Kierkegaard. "He did it for God's sake
because God required this proof of his faith; [and] for his own sake he
did it in order that he might furnish the proof."
Kierkegaard places Abraham above the law. That is what he meant by the
"teleological suspension of the ethical." His act can be distinguished
from murder only if he can be seen as somehow more than human and therefore
beyond human categories. Faith, he says, is "a paradox which is capable
of transforming a murder into a holy act, well-pleasing to God."
I don't think so. Why should such an act be pleasing to God? What kind
of God would find that pleasing? Why is faith not demonstrated by the
love, care and protection of the child (and other people)? Why should
faith first require allegiance to God and only secondarily to fellow humans?
Kierkegaard's position presupposes at least two things that are not addressed
but assumed: First, he assumes that there is a God. He does not consider
the way in which this story establishes the notion of God and the kind
of faith appropriate to that God. Second, he assumes that God can speak
to humans in explicit terms.
Today, people who hear voiceseven those who claim they hear God
speaking to themare labeled as insane. A chapter in my book describes
a trial that happened here in California of a man who sacrificed his child,
claiming that God told him to. He was serious and had all the right theological
arguments, even though he was relatively uneducated man. He was convicted
of murder in the first degree in the first phase of the trial, but in
the second phase he was acquitted on the basis of insanity. He did not
go free; instead hes in an institution for the criminally insane
rather than in prison.
But if we deem him insane, why dont we re-read the Abraham story
in that light? Why do we accept that God spoke to him and asked for such
This is like a question that Kant briefly discussed in his obscure little
book, The Conflict of the Faculties, written about 50 years before Kierkegaards
Fear and Trembling. Here is Kants position:
"If God should really speak to man, man could still never know that
it was God speaking. It is quite impossible for man to apprehend the infinite
by his senses, distinguish it from sensible beings, and recognize it as
such. But in some cases man can be sure the voice he hears is not Gods.
For if the voice commands him to do something contrary to moral law, then
no matter how majestic the apparition may be, and no matter how it may
seem to surpass the whole of nature, he must consider it an illusion."
I think Kant, not Kierkegaard, is right on this subject. Yet Kants
voice is not unlike what Kierkegaard felt would be the voice of Satan
tempting Abraham away from faith! Kant is taking the voice of reason and
human morality. He felt that Abraham should have said a resounding "No!"
He did not let him off the hook as did Kierkegaard.
As I noted earlier, ones personal life and experiences shape the
kinds of intellectual issues one delves into and the perspective one takes
on them. The same is true in Kierkegaards case no less then my own.
When you realize that Fear and Trembling was written immediately after
Kierkegaard broke his engagement with his fiancée, Regina, you
feel quite differently about it. According to the edition by well-known
translator and commentator, Walter Lowrie, "Abrahams sacrifice
of Isaac is a symbol of Kierkegaards sacrifice of the dearest thing
he had on earth." Kierkegaard saw his sacrifice as heroic: he wanted
to set her free. But he really wanted to set himself free: he acknowledged
that he was afraid of her dependence, but he also seemed afraid of the
responsibility entailed in human relationships.
Kierkegaard was not even honest with her but blackened his character,
told her lies, so that she would hate him and thus relinquish him. This
is unethical behavior. He made it even worse when he tried to make an
analogy to a mother who blackens her breast to wean a child, ignoring
the fact that a child has to be weaned to survive; nor does weaning break
the relationship between mother and child.
Abraham, too, lied or dissembled in response to Isaac's poignant question,
"Father, behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for
the burnt offering?" Shifting the onus from himself, Abraham replied,
"God will provide the lamb." It should be noted that in the
Muslim version of the story in the Quran, Abraham tells his son
what is to happen: "My dear son, I have seen in a dream that I must
sacrifice you. What do you think about that?" The son replies, "Father,
do what is commanded of thee. God willing, he will find me among the steadfast."
Nevertheless, there is a major difference between what Abraham was about
to do and what Kierkegaard did. His sacrifice of the relationship with
Regina is not at all the same as taking away the life of another. (Does
anyone have that right?) Kierkegaard was not about to kill his fiancée,
but that is what Abraham was prepared to do to Isaac. How often the use
of the word "sacrifice" allows a dangerous elision whereby relinquishing
something is equated with killing, with taking a life, with shedding blood.
Kierkegaard justified his deed in terms of love: he loved her so much
he just had to give her up! I find this perverse. Harming in the name
of love: it perverts the meaning of love.
Yet this relates to another popular interpretation whereby Abraham has
been seen as ethical. During my research, quite a number of learned people
including rabbis and ministers claimed that its really a story about
love. They assume that Abraham loved his son, but loved God more. (Incidentally,
there are reasons for some ambivalence about his paternity, namely the
visit of the angels and the suspicion that one of them may have impregnated
To prove his love for God, why didn't he simply sacrifice himself? Because,
say the conventional interpreters, he had to sacrifice the thing he loved
most in the world, and he loved his son more than his own life. But is
it ethical to sacrifice the life of another, especially without their
knowledge or permission?
So those are some of the conventional interpretations. Now I want to
ask a question that will seem absurd, but that opens up a whole new perspective
on the story
Was Isaac his to sacrifice?
All commentators have assumed this without question. It may seem absurd
because God asked him. How could he not comply? But surely an all-knowing
God knows that a child belongs to the mother as much as to the father.
Would he ask only one parent? Even so, why does this question never arise
in the centuries of commentary? Instead, most commentators like the Biblical
writers simply assume that he belongs to his father in a way he does not
belong to his mother. Its a non-issue for them.
Today, a typical response is that the child was seen as belonging only
to the father because of the culture of patriarchy. But such a response
explains nothing, because patriarchy means the power of fathers, so such
an answer is circular and only begs the question, what is it about fathers
or fatherhood that conveys such power?
Most of us take the concepts of father and mother for granted. They are
felt to be self-evident. But are they? This was just where my research
began. What was the meaning of father, mother and procreation during Abraham's
time or that of the biblical writers? And what light, if any, might it
throw on the story?
Genesis (as you might expect) is preoccupied with generativitythe
coming-into-being of the earth, animals, plants, and human beingsbut
especially with paternity and with the continuity of the patriline established
by seed. Isaac belongs to Abraham because he is his seed. The theory of
procreation embedded in the Bible and Genesis in particular is what I
have called the seed-soil theory. It is the father who plants the seed;
the mother is then imagined as the soil in which it is planted. She nurtures
the seed-child in the womb, gives birth, and nurtures again at the breast.
The word seed is used more times in Genesis than elsewhere in the Bible.
Sarah is the first woman in the Bible to be called barren, a word contrasted
to fertile. But both words are also used to describe earth, the soil.
This simple agricultural metaphor is really not so simple. By evoking
associations with agriculture and the natural world, the image naturalizes
a structure of power relations as it also conceals it. Represented as
seed and soil, male and female have been differently valued and hierarchically
ordered. This theory of procreation, common to both the ancient Hebrews
and Greeks, has been the dominant folk theory in the West for millennia,
shaping popular images and sentiments of gender, as well as laws and institutions.
Men were thought to beget, women to bear. That is, men have been (and
often still are) seen as the ones who engender, while women merely give
birth. The life and soul (and thus identity) come from the seed, from
the male. Men are imagined as authors of the child as God is of the world;
upon this their authority rests. It is this presumed ability that symbolically
allies men with the divine and women with the earth, with nature, with
what is created by God.
No wonder the biblical writers assumed that Isaac belonged to Abraham
in a way that he did not belong to Sarah. No wonder he could take him
without consulting her. In this now outdated theory of procreation, father
and son are one, they are of the same essence. No wonder that according
to the Encyclopedia Judaica, "The Akedah became in Jewish thought
the supreme example of self-sacrifice in obedience to God's will"
But whose self-sacrifice? There has been a conflation of two people:
father and son, Abraham and Isaac. Abraham's submission to God and Isaac's
submission to his father, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son and
the presumed willingness of the son to be sacrificed, have been conflated.
It is a very dangerous conflation, because it conceals the hierarchical
structure of the relationship, the dimension of patriarchal power, as
it also conceals the distinctness and sanctity of each individual.
In Christianity, it is God the Father who sacrifices his Son; Mary the
mother is not consulted; while revered, she is not imagined as co-creator.
Father and Son are one, but mother and Son are not.
Again, these central theological concepts are suffused with gender definitions
that emerge from a particular outdated theory of procreation. Not surprisingly,
ethical issues regarding gender, sexuality, and procreationfor example,
birth control, abortion, homosexuality, same-sex marriages, marriage of
priests, women as priests, etc.are issues of central concern today
as the three religions struggle to keep their power and authority.
It should be clear that my answers to the questions "Was Abraham
ethical?" and "Should we admire his willingness to sacrifice
his son?" are a resounding "No." However, it also should
be clear that they cannot be answered in an Either/Or fashion. There are
too many presuppositions that typically have not been addressed. My analysis
has tried to understand the network of assumptions that made the story
possible, rather than proceeding from the story as given.
Finally, I ask you to think about what our society might have looked
like had protection of the child rather than sacrifice been the story
at the foundation of faith.
I would like to end with part of a poem by Eleanor Wilner that indicates
an alternative I find to be particularly poignant. (I also think about
it in connection with current crises like 9/11, Israel vs. Palestine,
and the scandal surrounding Catholic priests.) The poem is called "Sarahs
Copyright for this presentation is held by the author, Carol Delaney.
(The poem by Eleanor Wilner is reprinted on pages 133-135 of Delaneys
Abraham on Trial. Once were able to obtain permission from the poet,
well reproduce here the part that Prof. Delaney used to end her
Further information about Carol Delaney is on the web at http://www.stanford.edu/dept/anthroCASA/people/faculty/delaney.html.
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