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Does God accept human sacrifice?
Deuteronomy 12:31 "Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods."
vs.
Genesis 22:2 "And he 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 thee of."
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It was a test of what was Abraham's 'God' for he had put having a child ahead of God's will before (by having Ishmael). Isaac was NOT killed. He lived and bore children himself. God did NOT require human sacrifice.
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Exodus 22:29 "For thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors; the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me."
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Ooh. Look at this comment in the translation notes of the bible -
22:29 The meaning of the Hebrew for this phrase is uncertain.
How I read it is it's a dedication. There is nothing in the bible anywhere that suggests the Hebrews killed their firstborn sons as an offering to God. I repeat, the bible must be taken as a WHOLE.
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Judges 11:30-39 "And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hand, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon . . . and the Lord delivered them into his hands. . . . And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: . . . And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed."
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Had Jephthah studied Gods word he would have seen that that was an abomination. God did not require it. He had directly decreed not to do that. Jephthah cornered himself with his unthinking vow.
Bear in mind, the bible often simply records events without passing Judgement. ALL the Judges were flawed characters. Sampson, Ehud, Gideon, this guy Jepthah. One of the macro messages found by reading all Judges is that God can and does use flawed people. And he restores. He continually forgave Israel again and again. He continually used flawed people with flawed methods to rescue Israel from plights they only brought themselves on.
Jephthah could have just asked God for victory. He could have had the faith that God would have answered his prayer. Instead, he made an absolutist deal. Stupid mistake. We can learn many, many things from that single story. It doesn't show a contradiction however.
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II Samuel 21:8-14 "But the king [David] took the two sons of Rizpah . . . and the five sons of Michal . . . and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest . . . And after that God was intreated for the land."
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It quite clearly states that the Gibeonites (Israels enemies) killed these guys. David didn't offer them as a sacrifice at all. No contradiction.
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Hebrews 10:10-12 " . . . we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ . . . But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God."
I Corinthians 5:7 " . . . For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us."
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How is God himself dying for all humanity a contradiction of an edict for humans not to sacrifice humans to God?
It's bizzarre.
The death and ressurection of Jesus Christ are what enable eternal life. It's God, as a perfect sinless human, taking the consequence of sin - death - upon himself.
Again, there is no contradiction.
No contradiction re. Omnipotence, Human sacrifice, and "do not murder".
Again, I'll post more later.