Customer Reviews

Abraham on Trial

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Using anthropological insight, Carole Delaney raises serious questions about the faith foundations of the world's three major monotheistic religions--Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. She sees notions of exclusive, patrilineal generativity underlying male conceptions of God and male dominance and/or ownership of family. Women are lesser creatures, fertile ground (sometimes) for growing a child (the seed and life being supplied by the father) but contributing nothing to the biology and value of the child. Children thus belong to the father and owe absolute obedience to him. He may do with them as he likes, particularly if a "patriachial" God demands them as offerings. Hence, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac (Ishmael in Islamic tradition), though with hand stayed in the Genesis 22 narrative. (Sarah is nowhere to be found in this portion of the story.) Delaney describes in poignant terms a contemporary case of a girl child being murdered by her father who believed he heard the voice of God telling him to do so. After stressful deliberation the jury concluded "not guilty by reason of insanity." In this case, as in the Abraham episode, the mother's voice was not heard, the child was murdered (no doubt Isaac was traumatized) in the name of God. Western religious traditions (including Graeco-Roman paganism) willingly devalue women and children and give that devaluation divine sanction. It is time, Delaney says, to re-examine and re-envision the legacy of the biblical narrative of supreme Abrahamic faith which denies voice and value to women and children, whether in biblical or koranic studies or in Freud's parallel Oedipal ideas which ignore the deeds of the father against the child. Such ideas "construct" a social world which ignores the worth of children. One note: there is a contrary set of traditions (not always allowed much space in the sacred narratives) where God speaks on behalf of the victims in a patriarchial system that silences women and children. The Abrahamic narrative has two voices, one speaking against the child and one, however obliquely, for the child. This is an important book. Would that it were required reading for our public policy makers. Children are not our first priority. What if they were?

Not exogesis. Delaney seems to conceive her conclusion about the story of Abraham first and then read this conclusion into all the texts at her disposal. However, she does raise fascinating questions regarding the formative and constitutive aspects of myth and stories. One quibble is her constant insistence that this Abraham story is "THE" faith model for the three Abrahamic monotheisms. However, the primary model for a certain number of Christians in virtues including faith is not Abraham but Mary; and her arguing that it is only because Mary is Jesus' mother biologically that she is not considered co_Creator is patently shortsighted. Her assumption hehind this argument is that God himself is only Creator because he is the father of Jesus. That is NOT why God is creator. Perhaps Delaney should have swallowed her evident distaste for so-called patriarchal institutions for the sake of academic honesty or at least precision.

Interesting insight into the history of the era and culture of the times of Abraham. She presents new and interesting perspectives on Abrahams 'Monotheistic God" Good reading for the progressive mind.

There are two especially strong reasons as to why I found Carol Delaney's book Abraham on Trial to be one of the better studies of the three major monotheistic religions that I've ever read.

The first reason is that it partly deals with how a devoted religious believer - in this case a Christian - uses ancient (or at least 2000 years old) ideas and apply them to contemporary society, which results in the death of a little innocent child and the outrage of a shocked public. In California in the early 1990s, Christos Valenti decided to murder, or sacrifice as he himself saw it, his youngest child simply because God has told him to do so. Now, the idea of killing your own child in cold blood isn't a new idea to Christians, Jews, and Muslims, even though most of them thankfully enough choose not to do so.

Their role model Abraham did so, however, and thereby became the ultimate believer. In his case though, God decided to stop him before his knife plunged into the body of his child. The point was that he would gladly have taken his child's life in order to prove his devotion of God, and that was what this strange God wanted to see.

Valenti proved his devotion, too. But in his case the outcome was a complete tragedy. God never stopped him, and the child was killed. The real tragedy, though, was that Valenti was indifferent to the sufferings of his wife and other children, and he remained convinced that he was an honest, loving Christian. After all, he just did what God wanted him to do.

Just as Delaney points out again and again throughout the book, what kind of faith is this where the ultimate sign of devotion is the willingness to KILL your child instead of LOVING it? It's an attitude that's almost impossible to comprehend, an attitude best suited for a gory splatter movie or an extremist murderous fringe cult.

But no, this isn't Hollywood and it isn't a small group of fringe believers. This is one of the most central parts in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam with their millions and millions of adherents. Isn't that just horrible?

It sure is. It's indeed truly mindboggling, and that's where the second great aspect of the book emerges. Because rarely have I had the pleasure of reading a book that so clearly shows how complicated and complex these strange religions and their beliefs are, and the numerous ways these can be discussed and analyzed. We all know that the topics of religion and religious beliefs can be discussed for aeons on end, with new ways of looking at something always appearing just as soon as you think you believe what they're all about.

Delaney does a great job in exposing this complexity. But she also demands a lot of her readers.

Because Abraham in Trial is not a book that anyone can casually skim through. True, some sections are more easily understood than others, such as the one about the criminal Valenti where the most important qualities are compassion and common sense instead of academic training. But the rest of the book is a lot more difficult to comprehend. The reader is more or less required to have a good understanding of the three monotheistic religions along with anthropological methodology and reasoning, because Delaney's is a hardcore scholar with complicated reasoning and tough analyzing.

Everyone willing to learn why there has always been so many conflicts, suffering, misery and death ever since old Abraham decided to kill his offspring after a voice inside his head told him to should read this book, but it's not likely that everyone will be able to understand it.

Delaney is a master investigator, and I just wish the section about the murderer Valenti had been a little longer. As it is now this section ends much too soon, leaving the reader with many questions to ponder.

HEADLINE: "Man murders his own child. the Accused defends crime by alleging God whispered this instruction to him." As it turns out, this was an actual criminal case in California so the father's defense was to use the Abraham story as alibi. (He was acquitted). The best part of the book is the tale of this crimimal trial...but the author explores in considerable detail the Bible story of Abraham and how it has been interpreted in the
three monotheistic religions. Her main points are (1): Abraham did not own the child - the boy also belonged to Sarah (2) Rather than use the story of a father willing to murder his son as an examplar of faith, the model should be a parent who
does everything in his or her power to protect the child. (3) The myth of Abraham cannot be understood as a movement from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice, either anthropologically or biblically.

Overall, a very interesting book, but a serious flaw is that the author never works hard to develop a competent exegesis of the original story. She begins her analysis with two factual errors. First, she comments that Abraham obeys God's "command" to sacrifice Isaac. False. The Hebrew particle na' which accompanies the imperative verb "take" softens Elohim's
command to a request. In other words, Abraham voluntarily chooses to fulfill God's request since he is free to refuse to slay his son. Second, Professor Delaney argues that "As Abraham takes the knife to slay his son", God blesses Abraham. False. The blessing is given considerably later in the narrative... only after Abraham captures a ram, hacks it into pieces, drags the meat to a slaughter site, and burns it to the Lord. The ram is the key to the whole understanding of the narrative because it shows that Abraham substitutes HIMSELF - the ram is a father symbol - in lieu of his son as a sacrifice to God.

Despite the flaws, the book is still worthwhile to all those
interested in exploring one of the key stories of the Bible. The section on the California trial is alone worth the price of the book.

Being a devout Muslim, as well as a philosophy student who spent a lot of time studying Kierkegard's and others views on the sacrifice of Abraham, I was very interested to study what this book had to say. Very soon into reading it, it became very clear that it was a shallow feminist polemic that was not interested in probing the real meaning of the sacrifice.
I was particularly disappointed by the chapter on Islam which spends more time giving an introduction to this faith then analyzing the different aspects of its version of the sacrifice and what they might mean. Even then, the introduction is shallow.
Every year, at the Eid-ul-Adha celebrations, sermons are delivered at every mosque on a different aspect of the sacrifice. I have been attending such services my entire life, and every time I go, a new aspect is revealed. The author would have been well-served to attend at least one such sermon if she was at all interested in the meaning of this sacrifice to Muslims.

For those who are interested, the ultimate point for a Muslim is that one should, at all times, be WILLING to sacrifice their most loved and prized earthly attachments in favour of seeking the love and pleasure of God -- not that God actually wants us to actually relinquish such attachments. It is all about a state of mind that is completely consumed and devoted to loving and seeking the pleasure of God and not allowing any attachment to get in the way of this objective. Abraham spent his entire life praying for progeny and yet, when God finally gave him a son (Ishmael, as the Bible refers to his "only begotten son" and Isaac came later), He wanted him back. The fact that, despite his long history of praying for at least one son, Abraham is still willing to give him up. Further, in the Quranic version, the dream is related by Abraham to Ishmael and it is the latter that interprets it to mean a sacrifice. Therefore, unlike the Biblical version, Ishmael knows about and fully participates in the same sacrifice making a statement about how even young men, who have their whole lives ahead of them, should be willing to forfeit same for the pleasure of God. Ultimately, God does not require the literal sacrifice and states that the sacrifice was already fulfilled when both Abraham and Ishmael were willing to go through with it.
It is very sad that absolutely no mystical interpretation of the sacrifice was even mentioned by the author.

An interesting but ideologically-driven work. I had hoped it would give me more insight into the Abraham stories and, particularly, the Binding of Isaac (who--at least according to Jewish sources-- was a consenting adult in his thirties at the time of his "sacrifice,"). I would have liked to see some discussion of how this story, which seems to the author to indict the Patriarchal God of the Torah/Quran (though that same Deity ultimately makes it clear that He does NOT desire the sacrifice of Abraham's son) relates to the feminist willingness to actually sacrifice untold millions of unborn children in the service of their own ideology.