Abraham on Trial: The Social Legacy of Biblical Myth

By Stefan Isaksson

Abraham on Trial: The Social Legacy of Biblical Myth
Carol Delaney
Princeton University Press
333 pages
ISBN: 0691070504

There are two especially strong reasons as to why I found Carol Delaney’s book Abraham on Trial to be one of the better studies of the three major monotheistic religions that I’ve ever read.

The first reason is that it partly deals with how a devoted religious believer – in this case a Christian – uses ancient (or at least 2000 years old) ideas and apply them to contemporary society, which results in the death of a little innocent child and the outrage of a shocked public. In California in the early 1990s, Christos Valenti decided to murder, or sacrifice as he himself saw it, his youngest child simply because God has told him to do so. Now, the idea of killing your own child in cold blood isn’t a new idea to Christians, Jews, and Muslims, even though most of them thankfully enough choose not to do so.

Their role model Abraham did so, however, and thereby became the ultimate believer. In his case though, God decided to stop him before his knife plunged into the body of his child. The point was that he would gladly have taken his child’s life in order to prove his devotion of God, and that was what this strange God wanted to see.

Valenti proved his devotion, too. But in his case the outcome was a complete tragedy. God never stopped him, and the child was killed. The real tragedy, though, was that Valenti was indifferent to the sufferings of his wife and other children, and he remained convinced that he was an honest, loving Christian. After all, he just did what God wanted him to do.

Just as Delaney points out again and again throughout the book, what kind of faith is this where the ultimate sign of devotion is the willingness to KILL your child instead of LOVING it? It’s an attitude that’s almost impossible to comprehend, an attitude best suited for a gory splatter movie or an extremist murderous fringe cult.

But no, this isn’t Hollywood and it isn’t a small group of fringe believers. This is one of the most central parts in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam with their millions and millions of adherents. Isn’t that just horrible?

It sure is. It’s indeed truly mindboggling, and that’s where the second great aspect of the book emerges. Because rarely have I had the pleasure of reading a book that so clearly shows how complicated and complex these strange religions and their beliefs are, and the numerous ways these can be discussed and analyzed. We all know that the topics of religion and religious beliefs can be discussed for aeons on end, with new ways of looking at something always appearing just as soon as you think you believe what they’re all about.

Delaney does a great job in exposing this complexity. But she also demands a lot of her readers.

Because Abraham in Trial is not a book that anyone can casually skim through. True, some sections are more easily understood than others, such as the one about the criminal Valenti where the most important qualities are compassion and common sense instead of academic training. But the rest of the book is a lot more difficult to comprehend. The reader is more or less required to have a good understanding of the three monotheistic religions along with anthropological methodology and reasoning, because Delaney’s is a hardcore scholar with complicated reasoning and tough analyzing.

Everyone willing to learn why there has always been so many conflicts, suffering, misery and death ever since old Abraham decided to kill his offspring after a voice inside his head told him to should read this book, but it’s not likely that everyone will be able to understand it.

Delaney is a master investigator, and I just wish the section about the murderer Valenti had been a little longer. As it is now this section ends much too soon, leaving the reader with many questions to ponder.