In Genesis, Abram and his wife Sarai are not able to have a child. They pray, and have Isaac in their old age.
Perhaps the reader is meant to infer that the child wasn't really theirs.
Abram goes to pray and thinks God is telling him to sacrifice Isaac, which he gets started doing. God stops him and makes a covenant with him.
If you were praying and meditating, perhaps on security for your family and possessions, and you thought your conscience was telling you to sacrifice your own son, wouldn't you maybe think "I don't believe it. It must be something I ate."
On the other hand, if your practice was to occasionally make a sacrifice of livestock to God, you might infer God was telling you to sacrifice your choicest livestock which you were raising in the hopes of making a good sale. Perhaps the goal was to make an advisor-demigod-priest out of them in order to inspire other tribes in the ethics of hard work and honesty as well as the skills of raising animals and farming. Then perhaps you might realize that after prayer your conscience was telling you not to treat another human being like livestock.
What follows isn't against any ethnicity or religion per se, because I'm quite sure that if any conservatives heard of someone who was intelligent but being pressured into entertainment, they'd just take the attitude that letting the other side have one every now and then keeps them happy.
One hopes the meaning of the later Book of Ezra is not that the Israelites made a deal with Persia. They had been carried off into captivity in Babylon, then King Cyrus of the Persians freed them, let them go home, and funded the reconstruction of their holy temple, apparently to some resistance from Cyrus' own officials. It sure is quite a sweet deal for a conqueror to make to a vanquished people. Artaxerxes and Darius apparently continued the reconstruction. While Cyrus banned slavery in his empire, perhaps he made an unwritten exception for himself to take the occasional Joseph-like advisor.
Perhaps this is when some of the religious leadership of the Israelites became called "Pharisee." It sounds suspiciously like Persia or "Parsee," which is the name of the Persian minority in India. Perhaps the goal was to imbed Persian agents into the religious leadership of the Israelites, so they could keep an eye out for potential Joseph-like helpers who would then be asked to join the Persian kings' court.
Perhaps ancient kings had learned that keeping and raising their own slave-advisors resulted in increasing corruption. Perhaps they had found their helpers would get too wise and soon start manipulating their captors maliciously or selfishly. Perhaps the goal was to let them grow up learning the ethics of honesty and hard work, and risking poverty if they did not learn, then recruit a few when it suited the Persians.
Perhaps this is the reason God sent his only begotten Son, to end the practice of enslaving people like Mary Magdalene. Her name might not derive from Magdala but may mean "magija dalina," or "she distributes magic." The point of the early Christian communities may have been to let blacklisted targets of what was essentially the mob get back on their feet economically so they couldn't be boycotted into submission. Perhaps you had to be a believer in salvation as opposed to submission to rapport in order to be a member of such a community.
Perhaps the reader is meant to infer that the child wasn't really theirs.
Abram goes to pray and thinks God is telling him to sacrifice Isaac, which he gets started doing. God stops him and makes a covenant with him.
If you were praying and meditating, perhaps on security for your family and possessions, and you thought your conscience was telling you to sacrifice your own son, wouldn't you maybe think "I don't believe it. It must be something I ate."
On the other hand, if your practice was to occasionally make a sacrifice of livestock to God, you might infer God was telling you to sacrifice your choicest livestock which you were raising in the hopes of making a good sale. Perhaps the goal was to make an advisor-demigod-priest out of them in order to inspire other tribes in the ethics of hard work and honesty as well as the skills of raising animals and farming. Then perhaps you might realize that after prayer your conscience was telling you not to treat another human being like livestock.
What follows isn't against any ethnicity or religion per se, because I'm quite sure that if any conservatives heard of someone who was intelligent but being pressured into entertainment, they'd just take the attitude that letting the other side have one every now and then keeps them happy.
One hopes the meaning of the later Book of Ezra is not that the Israelites made a deal with Persia. They had been carried off into captivity in Babylon, then King Cyrus of the Persians freed them, let them go home, and funded the reconstruction of their holy temple, apparently to some resistance from Cyrus' own officials. It sure is quite a sweet deal for a conqueror to make to a vanquished people. Artaxerxes and Darius apparently continued the reconstruction. While Cyrus banned slavery in his empire, perhaps he made an unwritten exception for himself to take the occasional Joseph-like advisor.
Perhaps this is when some of the religious leadership of the Israelites became called "Pharisee." It sounds suspiciously like Persia or "Parsee," which is the name of the Persian minority in India. Perhaps the goal was to imbed Persian agents into the religious leadership of the Israelites, so they could keep an eye out for potential Joseph-like helpers who would then be asked to join the Persian kings' court.
Perhaps ancient kings had learned that keeping and raising their own slave-advisors resulted in increasing corruption. Perhaps they had found their helpers would get too wise and soon start manipulating their captors maliciously or selfishly. Perhaps the goal was to let them grow up learning the ethics of honesty and hard work, and risking poverty if they did not learn, then recruit a few when it suited the Persians.
Perhaps this is the reason God sent his only begotten Son, to end the practice of enslaving people like Mary Magdalene. Her name might not derive from Magdala but may mean "magija dalina," or "she distributes magic." The point of the early Christian communities may have been to let blacklisted targets of what was essentially the mob get back on their feet economically so they couldn't be boycotted into submission. Perhaps you had to be a believer in salvation as opposed to submission to rapport in order to be a member of such a community.
