Summarising chapter 16

The idea that God could command Abraham to destroy his own son strikes many as being preposterous.

The problem is compounded by the fact the child sacrifice was very prevalent among the nations of the ANE, and by the consideration that the OT itself repeatedly condemns the practice.

The usual evangelical approach is to note that the Spirit of Christ finally breaks through.  At the last minute God prevents the sacrifice from taking place and provides a substitute.…

Summarising chapter 14

The deliverance at the Red Sea (Ex 14) took place without any human assistance.  It has been argued that God would always have preferred to work that way, if only his people had trusted him.  But does God ever need to resort to violence?

The author of the narrative certainly thought that it was Yahweh, ‘a man of war’ (Ex 15:1), who drowned Pharaoh’s army in the sea.  But our cross-centred hermeneutic determines that we should see this ascription of divine violence to the writer’s fallen and culturally conditioned thinking. …