Human Sacrifice - Abraham 1:5-12

1:5-12 - We know that Abraham was ordained to the priesthood by Melchezidek because he sought out the blessings of the Fathers, but not from his father, which we can deduce means that his father was not worthy of educating or ordaining Abraham to such an office. Indeed Abraham states “my fathers, having turned from their righteousness… unto the worshipping of the gods of the heathen.” Abraham’s father had an affinity for “the god of Elkenah, and the god of Libnah, and the god of Mahmackrah, and the god of Korash, and the god of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.” With all these different gods, it begs the question, why does there have to be so many, why couldn’t Terah just choose his favorite and stick with that one? The answers has more to do with his motivation “for their hearts were set to do evil” than it does for any practical purpose. The worship of these gods consisted of “offering up their children unto these dumb idols… (and) endeavored to take away my life by the hand of the priest of Elkenah… (who) was also the priest of Pharaoh. I’ve never understood the concept of sacrificing children or human sacrifice in general. It just doesn’t make any sense to me that any God worthy of being served and worshipped with require someone to allow their children to be killed to honor them. And I think one of the most notable reasons is that usually these sacrificial rituals are absolutely horrific. If a deity truly wanted the blood of a human spilled in order to do humanity some favor, it wouldn’t matter how the person was killed, only that they were. So why then do these “gods” require the person’s death to be in such a disgusting manner? Use a guillotine or something really quick, the end is met without all the suffering, or allow the person to be a volunteer or something like that. Employing fear and terror and suffering and torture into the death of the person doesn’t indicate to me that there is anything other than the devil at play in these matters. Abraham gives us an example of this human sacrifice, noting that “a child” was sacrificed as a “thank-offering” as well as three young women, labeled here as “virgins” which I think is probably a reference to their youth and not being married, but I’m just going to call them young women because I don’t like referring to people by their sexual activity status. I know that it probably isn’t like that, and I’m making a big deal out of something that doesn’t matter, but this is a personal issue for me and I don’t want to use that description. There was a man named Onitah, “one of the royal descent directly from the loins of Ham.” Onitah had three daughters who were unmarried, and “they would not bow down to worship gods of wood or of stone.” It’s interesting to consider that Abraham knew of the gospel even though his father didn’t live it and probably didn’t teach him about it. Apparently these girls knew about it as well, even though their father was a wicked, idol worshipping man as well. I wonder what kind of society this was where the knowledge of the gospel was pervasive enough to permeate through generations in a family without the parents being involved in its propagation. For their refusal to worship the idols, “they were killed upon this altar, and it was done after the manner of the Egyptians.” In the light of Abraham also being snatched up for sacrifice, it seems that this human “sacrifice” was in a large part, an effort to get rid of political and spiritual opposition.