Was Abraham a man of faith or a fool?

A:

When Abraham undertook to sacrifice his son, he was certainly a man of faith, but he could also have been a fool. Christians today tell us that if a message that supposedly came from God tells us to do wrong, then that message is just the devil tricking us. If we should believe that to be true today, then it must have been true four thousand years ago. Reading The Bible literally and in a modern context, Abraham should have refused to kill his son, Isaac, and would have been a fool not to do so.

Although we usually read the Bible as if in a modern context, and sometimes read it in a context consistent with post-Exilic Judaism, it can also be read in the context of the time in which the stories originated. The clear consensus of biblical scholars and historians is that Abraham never really existed - which means that as an actual person, he was neither a man of faith nor a fool. The story of Abraham's sacrifice originated early in the monarchic period of Israel, when scholars have established that child sacrifice was not really uncommon - in fact human sacrifice appears only to have ceased at the time of the Babylonian Exile. The Hebrew people who passed on this account would not have been surprised at Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son. In fact, they would probably have rejected Abraham as a role model if he showed any disinclination to do so. By his willingness to sacrifice his son he was, for them, a man of faith and one whom they would have willingly emulated.