Good post, but I must offer one small correction. God did not ask Abraham to sacrifice “one of his sons” as you claim. According to Bible-quoting Christians, God asked Abraham to sacrifices his “only” son, Isaac. Actually, Christians make the very same mistake that the Old Testament God made; they thought Isaac had but one son at the time, but he had two, both Isaac and Ishmael. Here is what the Bible says:

“And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of” (Genesis 22:1-2, KJV).

For some reason or other Paul also thought that Isaac only had one son when he was tested by God on the mountain. Here are Paul's exact words:

“By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, Of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called” (Hebrews 11:17-18).

Now everyone who has read the bible knows that Isaac was not Abraham's only begotten son. Ismael, whose mother was Hagar, was Abraham's first-born son (Genesis 16:1-11). Now I have heard all kinds of ignorant defenses of this blatant Biblical contradiction. Over the years, my Christian friends have offered a multitude of explanations in an attempt to reconcile this apparent contradiction. Some have said that Ishmael was not considered to be Abraham's son because Abraham and Hagar were never married, to which I respond, say what? If he “went in unto her” and impregnated her, he's the daddy and it matters not whether he was married to the fair lady Hagar. Besides, the Bible says Abraham and Hagar were in fact married: “And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife” (Genesis 16:3).

Some Christians have even told me that Ismael must have died prior to the time Abraham was tested; however, the Bible shows that both Isaac and Ishmael buried their father.
“Then Abraham gave up the ghost, and died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years; and was gathered to his people. And his sons Isaac and Ishmael buried him in the cave of Machpelah, in the field of Ephron the son of Zohar the Hittite, which is before Mamre” (Genesis 25:8-9).

Another argument Christians use is that Ishmael was sent away from the house of Abraham and thus was not counted as his son. But this argument is senseless since the status of “begotten son” is never negated be any distance, however far, between father and son. Besides, there is not one single word in the scripture which indicates that either Paul or God himself was speaking only of children in Abraham's household. If that was their intent, they certainly know how to verbalize that intent, but they did not.

And some Christians maintain that Ishmael was ignored because God's promise to Abraham was to be fulfilled through the lineage of Isaac, not the descendants of Ishmael, and that God specifically said to Abraham, “In Isaac shall thy seed be called” (Genesis 21:12). However all this is irrelevant since it has noting to do with how many sons Isaac fathered. Regardless of Isaac's special mission, Ishmael is nonetheless Abraham's son.

The words “only begotten son” accurately describe a situation wherein a man has but one living son; however no intelligent person would say he has only one begotten son if he had fathered two children, both of whom are living, regardless of where they might live, when the father last had contact with the child, or any other attendant circumstances.

If I had an adult son who lived with me in my home for many years, and another son whom I had not seen since his childhood long ago, and I know not whether he was dead or alive, and you asked me how many sons I have, how would you expect me to answer you? I certainly would not tell you that I have only one begotten son, that's for sure. I would say instead something to the effect of, “I have two sons, but I lost contact with the oldest one years ago.”

The words “his only begotten son” are unambiguous. Each word means exactly what it says and no more: “his,” showing possession; “only,” meaning there are no others; “begotten,” meaning from his loins as opposed to being adopted; and “son.” meaning male child. There are reasons why we have dictionaries and why each word is assigned specific meanings. If words do not mean what they say, we cannot communicate. When Paul described Isaac as Abraham's only begotten son, it is clear that Paul thought Abraham had fathered but one child and had no others. Paul was wrong. So was the author of Genesis.

When some people discuss the Bible, they abandon every concept of logic, reasonableness and common sense; they pervert, profane and prostitute the English language; and they unwittingly blaspheme their almighty God by asserting their own intellectual superiority over His as they defend Him, and explain Him; and they do all this rather then concede the obvious: that the book called the Bible is not the complete, inspired and inerrant word of God They fail to see the fallacy of it all: that the words of a truly omniscient being need no explaining. When God writes a book there will be but one interpretation, and even a child of ten years will understand it completely upon the first reading.

OK, that's it for today. It's time for all those self-proclaimed divine spokespersons to come forward and explain what their omniscient God meant to say, but didn't quite know how.

Again, good post. Sorry for being so wordy.