I went to a talk at Harvard this afternoon (February 16, 2005) on the Akedah -- the incident in which God commands Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, then sends an angel to call it off at the last moment. This has got to be one of the weirdest moments in the Bible. How must Abraham have felt, being at the point of plunging a knife into his son? And how must Isaac have felt, being tied up, with his father about to kill him? What kind of sadistic God would put people through these experiences? And why would Abraham obey such a God? Yes, there's a happy ending. Presumably God enjoyed himself, but it wasn't a good experience for any of the other participants. This isn't as bad as the book of Job, since the injuries here are only psychological, but God's behavior isn't exactly endearing.

So I thought I'd look up some of the images on the web of this bizarre scene:

P.S. The ram in the shrubbery is Isaac's stand-in.

You might also like the pages I've posted of artistic representations of Icarus and Saint Sebastian.