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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Excuse me, an artist. No doubt he’s very famous and very prolific and very successful. Yet, not accurate in this particular instance. [/quote]

Yes, his fiction is different than your fiction.[/quote]

No, his song embellished Scripture for artistic purposes.

Hint: learning about the Bible from Bob Dylan songs is probably not the best way to go about it. [/quote]

The point.  You miss it.

There is no qualitative difference between how you interpret that fiction and how Mr. Zimmerman does.

None.[/quote]

There are no words in the Scripture that describe God as threatening that  Abraham must kill his son, or Abraham would have to run from God at their next meeting.

[/quote]

Maybe not in that passage per se, but does that negate these? I don't think it does.

Deuteronomy 11:26-28
“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today, by following other gods which you have not known.

Deuteronomy 28:15-20
“But it shall come about, if you do not obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

1 Samuel 12:15
If you will not listen to the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the command of the Lord, then the hand of the Lord will be against you, as it was against your fathers.

1 Kings 9:6-7
“But if you or your sons indeed turn away from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statutes which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them, and the house which I have consecrated for My name, I will cast out of My sight. So Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

Ezekiel 6:9-10
Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations to which they will be carried captive, how I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from Me, and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols; and they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed, for all their abominations. Then they will know that I am the Lord; I have not said in vain that I would inflict this disaster on them.”’

Those all sound like threats to me, if he is not obeyed.[/quote]

An understanding of the ancient context makes this scene all the more potent. The God of the Bible adopts the mask of his rival gods in order to reveal his true nature. When God intervenes to stay Abraham’s hand, Abraham receives an in-your-face object lesson of who this God really was. This God was unlike other gods. This God desired the rending of hearts, not the slaughter of children. In fact, this God did not even require the killing of rams from a thicket.

It’s a truth that becomes clearer as time goes on. As Israel’s history unfolds, people begin to see more of the truth of God’s heart. Unlike the gods of the Ancient Near East, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not revel in sacrifices like a bloodthirsty tyrant. Child sacrifice is condemned in the clearest of terms and is seen as one of the reasons for Israel’s exile when they disobey (Leviticus 18:21, Deuteronomy 12:31; 18:10). Later it becomes clear that God did not even delight in the blood of cows or sheep (Ps. 50:9-13, Hosea 6:6, Isaiah 58:5-6, Amos 5:21-24, Jeremiah 7:22-23), but preferred acts of mercy and compassion as a sign of worship.

Finally, in the coming of Jesus, God’s heart is fully revealed. In dying on the cross, God showed that he would rather provide his own sacrifice than to receive sacrifices from others. Jesus’ death finally signalled the end of a system that was never on God’s heart.[/quote]

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