Imagine if someone told you that a deity they worshipped wanted them to sacrifice their child. You’d get social services involved, pronto.

So what are we to make of the Genesis story of Abraham preparing to sacrifice the son he loved, Isaac?

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins argued that this “disgraceful story” is an example of child abuse. “What kind of morals could one derive from this appalling story?” he wrote.

In fact, the story has a strong moral message. Child sacrifice and the infanticide of unwanted children were commonplace. The purpose of the story was to put an end to that.

Many people say the story is about God testing Abraham: is he willing to give up his son for his relationship with God? But, in fact, I don’t think that’s the purpose of the passage.

Shortly before the incident, God tells Moses that “it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” He will also make Ishmael “into a nation also, because he is your offspring”. So there is a clear promise here that Isaac is going to have children – God couldn’t possibly want him to be sacrificed as a child.

“God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son,” Abraham says. That’s sometimes interpreted as Abraham trying to keep his planned killing secret from Isaac. But given God’s promise to Abraham about Isaac’s future, maybe he means it literally.

It is perhaps notable that Abraham has also told his servants, who are close by looking after a donkey, that he and Isaac both were going to return. If someone is in the frame of mind of obeying God’s instructions and also asking him for forgiveness through a sacrifice, it seems unlikely at that moment that they’re going to be telling lies. It’s the wrong frame of mind.

In fact, in the five books of the Bible that Moses compiles, this is just part of a collection of passages making the consistent message that people are not to do child sacrifice. In Exodus, God gives Moses the ten commandments with “Thou shalt not kill”. In Deuteronomy 18, the followers are God are told to not to follow the “detestable” occult practices including sacrificing children.

So the truly starling thing about this Genesis story is not that God favours child sacrifice – which was common at the time – but that he is against it.

The passage is also a precursor to what Jesus does on the cross: God is dealing with the consequences of sin himself rather than making people pay the penalty for their sin.

As the theologian N.T. Wright has said: “In many expressions of pagan religion, the humans have to try to pacify the angry deity. But that’s not how it happens in Israel’s scriptures. The biblical promises of redemption have to do with God himself acting because of his unchanging, unshakeable love for his people.”

Photo: “Atheist Bus Campaign Launch“, sourced from Wikipedia, by Zoe Margolis, CC BY 2.0