No Bullshit Bible Lesson #11: Isaac

Genesis, Chapters 22-23:

When Abraham was hanging out at Abimelech's place, he was visited by God,
        “Abraham.”
        “Yes?”
        “So....you know that miracle kid your wife had? Isaac?”
        “Uh...yeah.”
        “Turns out, I’m gonna need to take him back. So, I need for you to go to Moriah, and sacrifice him to me on a to-be-disclosed mountain.”
        “Okay. First thing in the morning good for you?”
        “Sure.”

True to his word, Abraham packed up and set out to sacrifice his only (now that Ishmael had been sent away) son to God. He traveled for three days to reach the spot where he was to needlessly kill his son and only heir, with nary a lingering doubt all the while. Seeing the place in the distance, they pulled to a stop and Abraham told his servant to wait while he went to “worship.”

Abraham and Isaac went to the place of sacrifice, the boy carrying all the firewood,
        “Father,” called Isaac.
        “Yes?”
        “Um...I notice you have a torch for the fire and a knife for the killing and plenty of wood for the burning, but you seem to have forgotten the lamb to sacrifice.”
        “God will provide the lamb,” Abraham lied. Isaac, gullible with youth, accepted this, not seeing that God providing His own sacrifice was a little like a birthday-boy providing his own presents.

When they got to the spot, Abraham built an altar and tied up Isaac who, for his part, seemed unconcerned that there was no lamb in sight as he was being bound and placed onto an altar by his knife-weilding father. With this part of the task complete, Abraham grasped his knife and brought it down for the killing blow.

        “Abraham!” called an angel from the heavens.
        “Uh...what? I’m trying to kill my son here.”
        “You don’t have to kill the kid. I get the idea, you are clearly scared shitless of me, seeing as how you were totally willing to kill your only son just because I told you to,” the angel said, speaking of God in the first person for some reason.

Looking up, Abraham spotted a ram behind him (somehow) with its horns stuck in a thicket. So, clearly needing to fulfill a bloodlust, whether his own or God’s, he killed that instead.

        “Oh, hey,” came the angel’s voice again, “since you were totally willing to kill Isaac, I am so gonna multiply your seed.”

Abraham thought this sounded pretty groovy and went back home. God apparently was okay with a relatively loose definition of “seed,” because it was Abraham’s brother that ended up having his seed greatly multiplied, having 12 children with two women.

Sarah, however, never gave Abraham any more children, as she died at the age of 127. Abraham wept for her and, in his mourning, sought a place to bury her. As a powerful and respected man, a quite nice field/cave combo was gifted to him for this purpose.
        “How much do I owe you for this?” Abraham asked Ephron, the owner of the plot.
        “No, man. It’s a gift,” replied Ephron.
        “Come on, here. How much? I want to pay you. What’s the place worth?”
        “It’s worth 400 sheckels. That’s like, nothing. Just take the land and bury your wife.”

But Abraham was stubborn and gave Ephron the 400 sheckels, because he wanted to be sure that he could use the land as a family plot. Thus was born the deathcare industry.