The Sacrifice of Isaac

THE SACRIFICE OF ISAAC
THEMES IN
BIBLICAL NARRATIVE
JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS
Editorial Board
PHILIP S. ALEXANDER – GERARD P. LUTTIKHUIZEN
Assistant Editor
FREEK VAN DER STEEN
Advisory Board
WOLFGANG A. BIENERT – JAMES L. KUGEL
FLORENTINO GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ – JAMES R. MUELLER – ED NOORT
VOLUME IV
THE SACRIFICE OF ISAAC
The Aqedah (Genesis 22) and its Interpretations
EDITED BY
ED NOORT
AND
EIBERT TIGCHELAAR
BRILL
LEIDEN BOSTON • KÖLN
•
2002
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
The sacrifice of Isaac : the Aqedah (Genesis 22) and its interpretations / ed.
by Ed Noort and Eibert Tigchelaar. - Leiden ; Boston ; Köln : Brill, 2002
(Themes in Biblical narrative ; Vol. 4)
ISBN 90–04–12434–9
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ISBN 90 04 12434 9
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations .................................................................... vii

Preface ........................................................................................ ix
Abbreviations ............................................................................ xi
Contributors .............................................................................. xv
Genesis 22: Human Sacrifice and Theology in the

Hebrew Bible ........................................................................ 1
E. Noort
Sacrificing a Child in Ancient Greece:

The Case of Iphigeneia ........................................................ 21
J.N. Bremmer
The Sacrifice of Isaac in 4Q225 ............................................ 44

F. García Martínez
Abraham, Job and the Book of Jubilees: The Intertextual

Relationship of Genesis 22:1–19, Job 1–2:13 and Jubilees
17:15–18:19 ............................................................................ 58
J.T.A.G.M. van Ruiten
The Aqedah and Its Interpretations in Midrash and Piyyut .... 86

W.J. van Bekkum
The Bodmer Poem on the Sacrifice of Abraham .................. 96

A. Hilhorst
The Lamb on the Tree: Syriac Exegesis and Anti-Islamic

Apologetics ............................................................................ 109
G.J. Reinink
Ibràhìm’s Sacrifice of His Son in the Early Post-Koranic

Tradition .................................................................................. 125
F. Leemhuis
vi contents
Abraham’s Sacrifice in Early Jewish and Early

Christian Art ............................................................................ 140
E. van den Brink
Three Italian Sacrifices: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Andrea Del Sarto,

Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio .................................... 152
J.L. de Jong
Kierkegaard’s Reading of the Sacrifice of Isaac .................... 166

A.F. Sanders
The Sacrifice of Abraham as a (Temporary) Resolution of

a Descent Conflict? A Gender-Motivated Reading of
Genesis 22 ................................................................................ 182
Heleen Zorgdrager
Isaac Threatened by the Knife of Psychoanalysis? .................. 198

P.M.G.P. Vandermeersch
Bibliography of Recent Studies .................................................. 211

M. PopoviÆ
References to Ancient Texts ...................................................... 225
Illustrations .................................................................................. 231

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Abraham’s Sacrifice in Early Jewish and Early Christian Art

E. van den Brink
1. San Callisto catacomb, Rome, c. 200 (André Grabar, Christian

Iconography, Princeton NJ 1980, no. 238)
2. Via Latina catacomb, Rome, c. 350 (Id., no. 239)
3. Doura Europos, synagogue, upper panel of Tora-shrine, 244 (Id.
no. 20)
4. Beth Alpha, synagogue, floor mosaic, c. 525 (Rachel Hachlili,
Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of Israel, Leiden 1988,
no. 64)
5. Podgoritza patera, Petersburg, Ermitage Oo 73, after 300 (Alice
Bank, Byzantine Art in the Collections of Soviet Museums, New York/
Leningrad 1977, no. 26)
6. Passion sarcophagus, Rome, Museo Pio Cristiano, rep. 42, c. 325
(F.W. Deichmann, ed., Repertorium der christlich-antiken Sarko-
phage, Erster Band, Rom und Ostia, Tafelband, Wiesbaden 1967,
no. 42)
7. Brethren sarcophagus, detail, Rome, Museo Pio Cristiano, rep
45, c. 325 (Id., no. 45)
8. Ravenna, San Vitale, north wall of sanctuary, 547 (F.W. Deich-
mann, Frühchristliche Bauten und Mosaiken von Ravenna, Baden-Baden
1958, no. 327)
9. Ravenna, San Apollinare in Classe, south wall of apse, c. 675
(Id., no. 407)
10. San Pedro de la Nave near Zamora, capital of sanctuary, after
650 ( J. Hubert, J. Porcher, F.W. Volbach, L’Europe des invasions,
Paris 1967, 87)
Three Italian Sacrifices: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Andrea Del Sarto,

Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio
J.L. de Jong
1. Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, c. 359, Rome , Vatican Museums

2. Abraham and Isaac, Christ Carrying the Cross; The Widow of Sarefta;
viii list of illustrations
woodcut from a Biblia pauperum-blockbook, c. 1460, Dresden,

Sächsische Landesbibliothek
3. Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, The Crucifixion of Christ; Moses with the Brass
Serpent; woodcut from a Biblia pauperum-blockbook, c. 1460, Dresden,
Sächsische Landesbibliothek
4. Lorenzo Ghiberti, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, 1401, Florence, Museo
del Bargello
5. Filippo Brunelleschi, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, 1401, Florence,
Museo del Bargello
6. Andrea del Sarto, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, 1529, Dresden,
Gemäldegalerie
7. Marco Dente, engraving after the Laocoon-group by Hagesandros,
Polydoros and Athenodoros of Rhodes, c. 1520 (B. XIV, 268,
353)
8. Titian, St Sebastian, detail of the Averoldi-altarpiece, 1519–1522,
Brescia, Ss. Nazzaro e Celso
9. Michelangelo, Rebellious Slave, 1513–1516, Paris, Louvre
10. Michelangelo, Victoria, c. 1520, Florence, Palazzo Vecchio
11. Giorgio Vasari, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, 1545–1546, Naples,
Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte
12. Caravaggio, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, 1603, Florence, Gallerie degli
Uffizi
PREFACE
The yearly conference of the research group “Early Jewish and

Christian Traditions” of the Department of Biblical Studies, University
of Groningen was held on the 19th and 20th of June, 2000 at the
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies. Because of a close coop-
eration with the Department of Languages and Cultures of the Middle
East of the same university we were happy to have W.J. van Bekkum,
F. Leemhuis and G. Reinink among the contributors. The theme
was the history of reception of the Aqedah (Genesis 22). The pro-
ceedings open with a study of the biblical text and its relation to
human sacrifice connected with the problem of dating the enigmatic
narrative (E. Noort). J.N. Bremmer compares the biblical story with
the sacrifice of Iphigeneia and child sacrifice in Ancient Greece.
F. García Martínez studies the Sacrifice of Isaac in 4Q225 and con-
cludes that 4Q225 did not belong “neither to the Jubilees, nor to the
qumranic tradition . . . it is a witness to the development and growth
of the traditions around the Aqedah and . . . assures that some of the
basic elements of the Christian interpretation . . . were already pre-
sent in pre-Christian Judaism”. The disputed relationship between
Genesis 22:1–9 and the framework narrative of the Book of Job is
researched by a detailed analysis of the profile of the protagonists,
the narrative technique and the text itself and their reception in
Jubilees ( J.T.A.G.M. van Ruiten). W.J. van Bekkum studies the
Aqedah in Midrash and Piyyut, the Jewish traditions of biblical exe-
gesis and the liturgical poetry of Late Antiquity and Middle Ages.
The recently published poem “To Abraham” in the Bodmer papyri
is analysed by A. Hilhorst. He offers the text, a translation and a
commentary especially on the role of Isaac. For Hilhorst there is not
proof enough to call it a Christian poem. G.J. Reinink discusses the
“earliest specimens of East Syrian apologetic discourse in response
to Islam”. He concludes that the typological exegesis used in the dis-
putation is in line with older Syriac tradition, demonstrated by the
replacement of the ram by a “lamb suspended on a tree” already
in the fifth century. From here it could enter the later disputations
between representatives of Islam and Christianity. How the story of
Genesis 22 is reworked in the Koran, lacking many narrative details,
x preface
missing the name of the son, and in doing so, leaving place for the
later unanimous opinion it was Ismà'ìl is worked out by the essay
of F. Leemhuis on early Koranic commentaries.
In art the Aqedah is one of the great biblical themes. There are
two essays about the history of art and the Aqedah in the volume.
E. van den Brink studies the older iconography in San Callisto, Dura
Europos, Beth Alpha, Ravenna and Classe, on a glass drinking disk
and on sarcophagi. J.L. de Jong describes the Aqedah in Italian
art from c. 1400–1600 with the Italian artists Lorenzo Ghiberti,
Andrea del Sarto and Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. The last
group of papers treat the reception of the Aqedah in modern times.
Kierkegaard could not be missed and A.F. Sanders analyses the clas-
sical text of Fear and Trembling and the deconstructionist reading of
Derrida. Heleen Zorgdrager studies the Aqedah in a gender-moti-
vated reading. After a survey of literature she reads the narrative as
a descent conflict with rivaling lines, in which Gen 22 gives a solu-
tion. The last essay is written by P.M.G.P. Vandermeersch and offers
a psychoanalytical reading of the Aqedah and the description of the
“Isaac Syndrome”. The volume concludes with a bibliography of
recent studies by M. PopoviÆ. We want to thank the Faculty of
Theology and Religious Studies for the help provided to organize the
Symposium.
Ed Noort
Eibert Tigchelaar
ABBREVIATIONS
AB Anchor Bible
AC Antiquité Classique
ACEBT Amsterdamse Cahiers voor Exegese van de Bijbel en zijn
Tradities
AGAJU Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Antiken Judentums und des
Urchristentums
AnBib Analecta Biblica
ATD Altes Testament Deutsch
BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensiu
Bib Biblica
BIS Biblical Interpretation Series
BKAT Biblischer Kommentar: Altes Testament
BN Biblische Notizen
BZ Biblische Zeitschrift
BZAW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaf
COT Commentaar op het Oude Testament
CRAI Comptes rendues de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
DDD Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible
DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert
DSSSE The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition
FGrH Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, ed. F. Jacoby
GCS Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei
Jahrhunderte
GPM Göttinger Predigtmeditationen
GTT Gereformeerd Theologisch Tijdschrift
HAR Hebrew Annual Review
HSM Harvard Semitic Monographs
ICC International Critical Commentary
IG Inscriptiones Graecae
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies
JJS Journal of Jewish Studies
JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies
JNSL Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages
xii abbreviations
JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and
Roman Period
JSJS Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
JSOTS Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. Supplement
Series
JSSM Journal of Semitic Studies, Monograph Series
LAB Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum
LCI Lexicon der christlischen Ikonographie
LIMC Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae
LXX Septuagint
MT Masoretic Text
OTL Old Testament Library
PAM Palestine Archeological Museum
PG Patrologia Graeca
PRE Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer
RAC Reallexikon Antike und Christentum
RB Revue Biblique
RBK Reallexikon Byzantinische Kunst
RE Reallexicon der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Neue Bearbeitung
1894ff.
REG Revue des études grecques
RES Répertoire d’épigraphie sémitique
RGG Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart
RSF Rivista di studi fenici
SBLEJL Society of Biblical Literature, Early Judaism and Its
Literature
SBLSS Society of Biblical Literature Semeia Studies
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum
SHCANE Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near
East
SPB Studia Post-Biblica
STDJ Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah
TGF Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta
THAT Theologisches Handwörterbuch zum Alten Testament, ed.
E. Jenni & C.W. Westermann
ThR Theologische Rundschau
ThSt Theologische Studien
TUAT Texte aus der Umwelt des Alten Testaments, ed. O. Kaiser
abbreviations xiii
TWAT Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament, ed. G.J.

Botterweck & H. Ringgren
UF Ugarit-Forschungen
VT Vetus Testamentum
WBC World Biblical Commentary
WMANT Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen
Testament
WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
ZAW Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
ZBKAT Zürcher Bibelkommentare. Altes Testament
ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft
ZPE Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik
ZThK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche
CONTRIBUTORS
Prof. dr. W.J. van Bekkum, w.j.van.bekkum@let.rug.nl

Groningen
Prof. dr. J.N. Bremmer, j.n.bremmer@theol.rug.nl
Groningen
Dr. E. van den Brink, Utrecht eddy.brink@wxs.nl
Prof. dr. F. García Martínez, f.garcia.martinez@theol.rug.nl
Groningen
Dr. A. Hilhorst, Groningen a.hilhorst@theol.rug.nl
Dr. J.L. de Jong, Groningen j.l.de.jong@let.rug.nl
Dr. F. Leemhuis, Groningen f.leemhuis@let.rug.nl
Prof. dr. E. Noort, Groningen e.noort@theol.rug.nl
Drs. M. PopoviÆ, Groningen m.popovic@thed.rug.nl
Dr. G.J. Reinink, Groningen g.j.reinink@let.rug.nl
Dr. J.T.A.G.M. van Ruiten, jtagm@hetnet.nl
Groningen
Dr. A.F. Sanders, Groningen a.f.sanders@theol.rug.nl
Dr. E.J.C. Tigchelaar, Groningen e.j.c.tigchelaar@theol.rug.nl
Prof. dr. P.M.G.P.
Vandermeersch, Groningen p.m.g.p.vandermeersch@
theol.rug.nl
Drs. H. Zorgdrager, Leersum
GENESIS 22: HUMAN SACRIFICE AND THEOLOGY
IN THE HEBREW BIBLE
Ed Noort
In Honour of Karel A. Deurloo, on the Occasion of His Retirement

on the 10th of February 20011
1. Introduction
The exegete desiring to study the narrative of the Aqedah in Genesis

22 is confronted with the warning sentences of Gerhard von Rad,
who wrote one of the most sensitive studies2 about the Sacrifice of
Isaac. Surveying many modern publications about the Aqedah, he
concludes:
Aber, wie unberührt, wie wenig bedrängt sind sie im Grunde von der
Gewalt der Aussage, die frühere Ausleger zugleich fasziniert und
abgestoßen hat. Von dem Entsetzen, das hinter Luthers Auslegung
oder hinter Rembrandts Zeichnungen steht, ist wenig zu spüren. Wer
sich auf diese Erzählung einläßt, muß darauf gefasst sein, dass er immer
wieder wie vor einem Abgrund zurückschaudert.3
The theologian Von Rad argues that the great, most influential stud-
ies of Gen 22 are written by people, who “selbst tiefer als andere
an Gott gelitten haben”.4 Since early times, people have been fas-
cinated by this narrative, which recognises and expresses their own
sufferings. Others were put off and could not reconcile this story of
a God who asked for the sacrifice of a son with the image of God
they had. Immanuel Kant had such doubts, when he stated:
daß ich meinen guten Sohn nicht töten solle, ist ganz gewiß; daß aber
du, der du mir erscheinst, Gott sei, davon bin ich nicht gewiß und kann
es auch nicht werden, wenn sie (die Stimme) auch vom Himmel her-
abschallete.5
1
In grateful remembrance of the many hours we spent together with the late
Dr. Roel Oost, and our common interest in the theology of the Hebrew Bible.
2
G. von Rad, Das Opfer des Abraham (Kaiser Traktate 6), Munich 1971.
3
G. von Rad, Opfer, 11.
4
G. von Rad, Opfer, 10.
5
I. Kant, Der Streit der Fakultäten (1798), Werke VI, Hrsg. Von W. Weischedel,
Darmstadt 1966, 333.
2 e. noort
In one the most influential Jewish commentaries on Genesis, pub-

lished in 1934 in Berlin, Benno Jacob compares μyhlah of Gen 22:1
with the μyhlah (Aynb), especially one of them, the ˆfc, ( Job 2:1) and
from the story of Bileam (hwhyA˚alm), who can call himself ˆfc, too
(Numb 22:32). This means that, according to Benno Jacob, the voice
of the tempter in Gen 22 is not the voice of God, but of one of his
servants, one of the members of the heavenly throne council.6
Another way out was taken by the “Amsterdam School”, by adher-
ing to the etymological key in a semantic analysis. Following the
Buber-Translation “und höhe ihn dort zur Hochgabe/Darhöhung
auf einem der Bergen” from 22:2, T. Noorman denies that the divine
command is an assignment from God to sacrifice Isaac. Abraham
misunderstood God. In this way, however, the real skandalon and the
real problems are explained away.7 In exegesis, which has its back-
ground in synagogue and church, Gen 22 functions as a watershed.
Generations of exegetes have tried to make the story readable, under-
standable, fitting into the picture of a loving God or saying farewell
to him. The Aqedah is one of the great stories of the Hebrew Bible.
It is multi-interpretable, as its historical reception and the papers of
this conference demonstrate. Therefore, it is every generation’s task
to start the dialogue with this text again, making clear where changes
have occurred in the position of the inquiring exegete, and the time
in which and the circumstances under which the dialogue is taken
up.8 A full exegesis of the text is not possible within this limited
space, but I want to draw attention to three points, important both
for exegesis and the history of reception:
6
B. Jacob, Das erste Buch der Tora. Genesis, Berlin 1934, 492: ‘Also ist dies nicht
Gott selbst in letzter Instanz, sondern einer seiner himmlischen Diener, ein übereifriger,
vollkommene menschliche Gottergebenheit bezweifelnder Untergebener, den sein
Herr, der der Sache gewiß ist, gewähren lässt. . . . Dieselbe Figur haben wir in dem
Elohim, der den Abraham prüft, zu suchen.’ For the important position of Benno
Jacob’s commentary, see the introduction of B. Janowski, E. Zenger, ‘Ein Klassiker
der Schriftauslegung. Zu Benno Jacobs Genesis-Kommentar’, and the references to
the studies of A. Jürgensen and B.S. Childs in the reprint of the Calwer Verlag,
Stuttgart. I quote the original version of 1934.
7
T. Noorman, ‘Over de tiende beproeving van vader Abraham’, in: D. Mons-
houwer, among others (red.), Verwekkingen. Festschrift Frans Breukelman, Amsterdam
1976, 108–113. His explanation is contradicted by K.A. Deurloo, ‘Omdat ge ge-
hoord hebt naar mijn stem (Gen 22)’, ACEBT 5 (1984) 58, n. 14.
8
Notice e.g. the differences between the exegetical studies within the last twelve
years, especially made for preaching this text: E. Noort, ‘1 Mose 22,1–13’, GPM
human sacrifice and theology in the hebrew bible 3
– The position of Gen 22 within the context;

– The possible relation with human sacrifice;
– The problems of dating the narrative.
2. The Position of Genesis 22 within the Context
A few remarks may be sufficient to describe the location and sig-

nals of Gen 22’s position in the book of Genesis. Gen 22:1–14.19
is situated in the centre of a widening circle. The first ring is the
commentary of Gen 22:15–18 on the narrative of 22:1–14.19; the
second ring is the close relation of Gen 22 with the preceding chap-
ter about the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael and the covenant with
Abimelech (Gen 21:1–21.22–34); and the third, widest ring is the
relation of Gen 22 with the beginning of Gen 12.
The assumed and agreed additional character9 of vv. 15–18 is not
the theme here, but the question of what vv. 15–18 add to the nar-
rative. The answer is simple: they expand the promise in linking
Abraham’s cycle to the patriarchal traditions as a whole. Here the
divine promise is given with special emphasis as is the connection
between obedience and reward as expressed in v. 18b.
The exceptional nature of the promise is revealed by expressions
both unique and unusual, e.g. the form of the oath, yt[bvn yb (16a),
the prophetic formula hwhyAμan (16a), the emphatic verbal forms ˚rb
(17a) and hbra hbrh (17a), the combination of the μymçh ybkwk and
lwj (17b) as metaphors for the numerousness of Abraham’s descen-
dants, and the signal with which the scene opens: tynv . . . arqyw
μymvhAˆm.10 This emphasis focuses on descendants, not on land as in
41 (1987) 176–182; H.-P. Müller, ‘1 Mose 22,1–13’, GPM 47 (1993) 164–170;

J. Jeremias, ‘1 Mose 22, 1–13 (14)’, GPM 53 (1999) 172–178.
9
R.W.L. Moberly, ‘The Earliest Commentary on the Akedah’, VT 38 (1988)
302–323 and almost all the commentaries. The plea of G. Steins, Die »Bindung Isaaks«
im Kanon (Gen 22). Grundlagen und Programm einer kanonisch-intertextuellen Lektüre. Mit einer
Spezialbibliographie zu Gen 22 (Herders Biblische Studien 20), Freiburg i.Br. 1999,
219–222 for an integral origin of 22:1–19 is untenable from a literary-historical
point of view. How the addition should be read, however, is the more important
question.
10
Moberly, ‘Earliest Commentary’, 318: ‘The phrases that are familiar elsewhere
are used here in a uniquely emphatic way, and formulae of emphasis which are
otherwise unparalleled in Genesis are also used.’
4 e. noort
the other Genesis texts. The additional commentary makes it still

clearer: the real heir is Isaac. Therefore the promise of Gen 12:3 is
taken up and changed into ˚[rz (22:18). Not Abraham himself,
but his descendants will be the origin of blessing. The other side
stresses the exemplary figure of Abraham. The symbiotic relation
between obedience and fulfilment of promise is expressed in a par-
ticular way. Fulfilment of all prior promises are bound to the obe-
dience of Abraham (22:18). Here, Abraham becomes a real qydx:
“the purpose of the theological commentary in Gen xxii 15–18 is
to draw out the significance of Abraham’s obedience in such a way
that Abraham can be seen to have a role within the salvation-
history of Israel akin to that of Moses”.11
For the relation with Gen 21 a simple observation suffices: rja yhyw
hlah μyrbdh has a double function: it refers to what happened be-
fore, while simultaneously signalling a new beginning. The same is
the case with the use of the phrase in 22:20 at the end of our text.
Before the narrative of Gen 22 the formula is used in 15:1, then
thereafter not before 39:7.12 This implies that on the level of the
compositor, the story must primarily be read together with Gen 21.
Gen 21 has a double ending. V.33 tells of planting a tamarisk
and invoking the name of μlw[ la hwhy in Beer-Sheba by Abraham.
V.34, however, stresses Abraham’s sojourn in the Land of the
Philistines. V.33 is the natural ending of Ch 21 and the direct link
to Gen 22. Here in Beer-Sheba, Abraham invokes the name of
YHWH probably in a para-Yahwistic form;13 here the name of
YHWH is connected with a sanctuary.14 In this stage of the com-
position, Abraham lives in Beer-Sheba, receives the command to
sacrifice Isaac there, and returns to Beer-Sheba at the end of the
narrative (22:19). For the relation between v. 33, its surroundings,
and v. 34 there are two possible explanations. Either Gen 21 was
influenced by Gen 2615 or a region of the Negeb was viewed as
belonging to the Philistines, as 1 Sam 30:14 suggests with its bgg
11
Moberly, ‘Earliest Commentary’, 321.
12
Further use in Genesis: 40:1; 48:1, in the Former Prophets: Jos 24:29; 1 Ki
13:33 Var.; 17:17; 21:1.
13
For the discussion, see A. de Pury, DDD, Leiden/New York/Cologne 1995,
549–555.
14
For the literary-historical complications, see H. Seebass, Genesis II/I, Neukirchen-
Vluyn 1997, 189f.
15
Seebass, Genesis, 190 referring to Dillmann (189).
ytrkh.16 A variant of the last possibility is offered by B. Jacob, who

states that μytvlp ≈rab μhrba rgyw (v. 34) does not include a verb
of motion and therefore does not mean that Abraham leaves Beer-
Sheba.17 After Jacob, Abraham in v. 34 accepts the offer of Abimelech
in 20:15: “Behold, my land is before you; dwell where it pleases
you”, so the dwelling mentioned in v. 34 means the general accep-
tance and summing up of Abraham’s stay in Philistia, not a new
move. In the present context, however, there is a contradiction
between vv. 32 and 34 if one holds to the assumption that Abraham
did not emigrate to the land of the Philistines. Maybe there is still
another explanation. In the final text of chapters 21 and 22, Abraham
invokes the name of YHWH in Beer-Sheba (21:33), and moves after-
wards to Philistia (21:34). After the expedition to the Land of Morijah
he returns again to Beer-Sheba (22:19). This means that the call of
Elohim to sacrifice his only son reaches him in the land of the
Philistines, outside the territory of YHWH. One need not go as far
as Jacob did in explaining away the Elohim of 22:1 as a member
of the divine council,18 but the opposition between the human sacrifice
asked by Elohim (22:1) and the rescuing hwhy ˚alm (22:11)—con-
nected with the non-Yahwistic land of the Philistines of the added
v. 34—already suggests that this call promises something ill. Thus,
21:34 could suggest a negative interpretation of the divine demand.
Both narratives, the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael (21:8–21)
and the sacrifice of Isaac (22:1–14.19), are related by formal strings
and content.19 The threatening death in the desert (21:15f.) is a coun-
terpart of the threatening death on the altar (22:10). In both cases
the promise-bearing son is involved. Both death situations are initi-
ated by Elohim (21:12 and 22:1.2). At the very last moment, the
voice of a hwhy ˚alm from heaven rescues the victim (21:17f.//22:11).
In both cases the rescue ends with a renewed promise of progeny
(21:18// final text 22:18). The main players may differ, the conflicts
may be on different levels, but it is clear that the divine promise only
16
C.S. Ehrlich, The Philistines in Transition. A History from ca. 1000 –730 BCE
(SHCANE 10), Leiden/New York/Cologne 1996, 38 and E. Noort, ‘Krethi und
Plethi’, RGG4 (forthcoming). The real problem of the Negeb of the Cherethites is
the localization of Ziklag, which is still being discussed.
17
Jacob, Genesis, 490.
18
Jacob, Genesis, 492.
19
S. Nikaido, ‘Hagar and Ishmael as Literary Figures: An Intertextual Study’,
VT 51 (2001) 218–242.
6 e. noort
opens future after a deathly threat. Gen 22 expresses this on a compo-

site level in two ways: firstly, by the relations between Gen 21 and
22; secondly, by linking the list of tribes in Abraham’s Mesopotamian
family in 22:20–2420 with the return from Moriah in 22:19. This
last verse definitively answers the problem of the identity of the real
heir of Gen 15:4; it is given “a dramatic ending”.21
But the line of the composition goes on. The future of Israel and
the neighbouring countries is at stake within these family lines of
heirs—which will become tribes and peoples—and this pattern of
promise, gift, death, threat and rescue. Or maybe, more precisely,
the future of Israel hangs by a thread.
The widest relations within the Abraham Cycle are the connec-
tions between Gen 22 and Gen 12. Both chapters are connected by
the command ˚lA˚l, by the objective of travel ≈ra(h)Ala (12:1//22:2),
and even by the name of Moriah hrwm ˆwla hyrmh (12:6//22:2), as
Mittmann has pointed out.22 That the first verses of Gen 22 speak
of the land Moriah, which is later replaced by the mountain Moriah,
is related to the intention of the author to connect 12:2 with 22:1
Reading the Abraham Cycle in the canonical sequence from Gen
12 to 22, Abraham’s travel to the land of promise starts in Mesopo-
tamia, makes its first stop in Shechem, and ends in Beer-Sheba with
the secret reference to Jerusalem (ha-Moriah). The real heir is revealed
in the combination of Ch 21 and 22. The endangered future of
Israel in the final commentary (22:15–18) closely adheres to the line
Abraham-Isaac, with the exemplary function of Abraham as the obe-
dient qydx.
3. The Problem of Human Sacrifice and Gen 22
One of the central items in the discussion concerning Gen 22 is the

possible background of human sacrifice. In the case of a positive
20
The role of the matriarchs, not the patriarchs, is stressed in 20–24. For the
entire problem, see the article by Heleen Zorgdrager in this volume, 102–197.
21
Seebass, Genesis, 217.
22
S. Mittmann, ‘ha-Morijja—Präfiguration der Gottessstadt Jerusalem (Genesis
22, 1–14.19). Mit einem Anhang: Isaaks Opferung in der Synagoge von Dura
Europos’, in: M. Hengel, S. Mittmann, A.M. Schwemer (Hrsg.), La Cité de Dieu. Die
Stadt Gottes. 3. Symposium Strasbourg, Tübingen, Uppsala: 19–23 September 1998 in Tübingen
(WUNT 129), Tübingen 2000, 67–97 (78f.).
answer, the final aim of the offering of Isaac should be that YHWH
does not request human sacrifices any longer. Therefore, the first
question to be posed is whether human sacrifice, child sacrifice, or
offering of the firstborn at any time belonged to the religious praxis
of Israel?
A dissertation at the University of Freiburg/Breisgau, in the early
20th century, was defended with the theme: “Die Menschenopfer
der alten Hebräer und der benachbarten Völker”.23 The conclusion
was that pure Yahwism and human sacrifice had nothing to do with
each other: “Wer möchte da die Stirne haben, zu behaupten, die
Geistesheroen des Alten Testaments, die Propheten, seien aus einer
Menschenmörderbande hervorgegangen? Sowenig eine schöne Blume
aus dem Kot wächst, obgleich sie Erde und Dünger zu ihrer äusseren
Existenz bedarf, so gewiss sie aus sich selbst und aus ihrem Keime
sich entwickelt, so gewiss ist auch, dass der reine Jahvedienst der
Popheten nicht ein reformierter Molochdienst gewesen ist, sondern
schon bei seinem ersten Erwachen in einer ganz anderen Ideenwelt
stand.” Few scholars would formulate this in the same way today,
but the message of the thesis is still discernible today. What do the
texts tell us?
For the 6th century priest-prophet Ezekiel, living with hrwt, μyqj
and μyfpvm the real way of life is bound to the will of God as for-
mulated in Ezek 20:11. But suddenly, only a few verses later, he
makes a unique statement, saying: “I (YHWH) gave them bad24 μyqj
and μyfpvm, through which they could not live”. V.26 continues, “I
(YHWH) made them unclean through their offerings, when they
offered all the firstborn (by fire25)”. This should certainly be read in
connection with Ezek 16:20f.: “And you took your sons and your
daughters, which you had born to me, and you sacrificed26 them to
23
E. Mader, Die Menschenopfer der alten Hebräer und der benachbarten Völker. Ein Beitrag
zur alttestamentlichen Religionsgeschichte (Biblische Studien 14), Diss. Freiburg/Breisgau
1909.
24
Literally: ‘not good’ (μybwf al). W. Zimmerli, Ezechiel I (BKAT), Neukirchen-
Vluyn 21979, 449, suggests that the expression used here, instead of μy[r, might
soften such a harsh statement.
25
rb[ (Hif.). The expression, used here without (cf. 20:31), suggests a fusion of
terms between the law on firstborn males as a property of YHWH (Exod 22:28b;
34:19), who should be ‘transferred’ (ryb[h) to YHWH and the burning of children
(ryb[h), as M. Greenberg, Ezekiel I (AB), Garden City/NY 1983, 370, states.
26
Mader, Menschenopfer, 184.
8 e. noort
be consumed. Were your harlotries so small a matter that you (also)

slaughtered my sons and delivered them up as an offering (by fire)
to them (foreign gods)?”
What is happening here? Ezekiel and the traditions around him27
condemn child sacrifice as a hb[wt to YHWH. But Ezek 20:25 leaves
the terrifying possibility of the law given by God gaining not life but
death, and this means that in the connection of V.25 and V.26,
child sacrifice could be ordered by God himself.28 This possibility
again brings us in the realm of Gen 22.
This statement of Ezekiel is denied in the polemics against child
sacrifice in Deut 12:29ff. and in the Deuteronomistic29 parts of
Jeremiah (7:31; 19:5; 32:35). Yet the ascribing of child sacrifice only
to the service of foreign gods (V. 35: Ba‘al) and the arguments used
here suggest the opposite: “(They) offer up their sons and daughters
to Molech, a thing which I did not lay on them (μytywx) nor did it
ever come up to my heart (yblAl[ htl[ alw) that they should com-
mit this abomination”( Jer 32:35). Thus, in reality, a situation did
exist in which child sacrifice was part of the service of YHWH, and
it was understood as being ordered by him. Indeed, two kings of
Judah, Ahaz (2 Ki 16:3) and Manasseh (2 Ki 21:6), are accused of
“passing their sons through the fire”.
Consequently, we draw two conclusions: 1. The prophet Ezekiel
offers the possibility that bad, deathly laws connected with child
sacrifice are promulgated by YHWH himself, a conclusion denied
by the Deuteronomistic Jeremiah; and 2. The discussion about the
religious value of child-sacrifice is a viable topic in the 7th and 6th
centuries BC.
In the discussion about the connection between Gen 22 and child
sacrifice, it has been proposed that the sacrifice of Isaac be under-
stood as a narrative solution-specifically, the solution described in
the law of Exod 22:28b regarding the firstborn belonging to YHWH
and its redemption as ordained in Exod 34:20. In this view, the law
about the firstborn should be understood as a rule to sacrifice all
27
Holiness Code: Lev 18:21; 20:2–5.
28
To demonstrate the shocking idea put forward by Ezekiel, Targum is often
quoted, which softens the dictum: ‘I removed them [from me] and delivered them
(Israel) into the power of their stupid impulse; they went and made decrees that were not
right.’ The subject here is not God but Israel.
29
W. Thiel, Die deuteronomistische Redaktion von Jeremia 1–25 (WMANT 41), Neukirchen-
Vluyn 1973, 129.
firstborns to the deity, whereas a later modification replaced the

human victim with an animal sacrifice. This substitution would be
the background of the narrative of Gen 22. However, the idea that
the firstborn son belongs to YHWH appears in the Hebrew Bible
almost always together with the possibility of substitution (Exod
13:13.15, exception: Ex 22:29). To presuppose that at one time the
reality was that every new firstborn had to be sacrificed, contradicts
everything we have learned about the history of religion in the
Levante.
There is testimony, however, for the idea that in case of extrem-
ity sometimes a child, in this case the firstborn, was sacrificed to the
deity to overcome a siege or some other situation of national or
common interest.
But some questions remain. What does the terminology used here
mean? Where does it reflect a real Sitz-im-Leben? Which social, cul-
tural and theological backgrounds does it represent? What links can
be made with the practice of human sacrifice in the world outside
of Israel?
Beside the Ezekiel texts we used initially to discuss this issue, the
Hebrew Bible connects the theme of child sacrifice with two more
specific dates.
First it concerns a topographical detail: the tpt (Tophet)30 in the
valley of (Ben-)Hinnom (μnhAˆb ayg), the large valley surrounding Jerusalem
on the western and southern sides before connecting with the Kedron
Valley in the east. The tpt of Jer 7:31.32; 19:6.12.13.14 looks like
a toponym, but the texts refer to its function, the burning site for
child-sacrifice. It is tempting, and probably the best explanation, to
understand tophet as a bo“ét-Vocalisation of an original têphêt, “fire-
altar”,31 cf. Aramaic aypt “fire-place”.
30
J.A. Dearman, ‘The Tophet in Jerusalem: Archaeology and Cultural Profile’,
JNSL 22 (1996) 59–71.
31
W. McKane, Jeremiah, Vol. I (ICC), Edinburgh 1986, 179. W. Thiel, Die deuteron-
omistische Redaktion von Jeremia 1–25 (WMANT 41), Neukirchen-Vluyn 1973, 128ff.,
220ff. thinks the passages coming from exilic deuteronomistic redactors, which fits
in the way which the guilt of the people of Jerusalem and their kings is described.
It does not say anything about the pre-exilic praxis of the Judaean kings in the
case of child-offering. Probably the deuteronomists give a theological judgment
about an existing custom. For a treatment of the polemics in later rabbinical liter-
ature describing the offerings in the Valley of ben-Hinnom in relation to the well-
known Phoenician and Carthaginian sources, see G. Bohak, ‘Classica et Rabbinica
I: The Bull of Phalaris and the Tophet’, JSJ 31 (2000) 211–216.
10 e. noort
Secondly the Hebrew Bible relates child sacrifice to ˚lm appear-

ing in Lev 18:21; 20:2.3.4.5; 2 Ki 23:10; Jer 32:35.32 The discussion
brought up by O. Eissfeldt and supported with much new material
from H.P. Müller, emphasised the question whether Moloch was a
separate deity, “specialised” in child sacrifice, as later developments
seemed to suggest. This view seemed to be supported by the thou-
sands of stelae with Punic, Neo-Punic inscriptions and Latin tran-
scriptions in the burial grounds of Carthage and by the story of
Diodorus Siculus, in which children are sacrificed in the burning
oven of Kronos. Koch describes the result of this interpretation as
follows: “Das ergab das Bild eines scheußlichen kanaanäischen Götzen,
von dem nichts anderes bekannt war, als dass er Kinder zum Fraß
begehrte. Auch rabbinische Legenden haben diese Verbindungslinie
gezogen. Christlichen (wie jüdischen) Auslegern hat das zwei Jahrtau-
sende lang Anlass gegeben, sich über den unmenschlichen heidni-
schen Götzendienst zu ereifern”.33
We do not recommend continuing the learned tradition about this
child-eating deity. For the reconstructed Moloch and his supposed
ancient Near Eastern predecessor, Malik, a wide range of names
from Ebla ((d)Ma-lik +PN); Ur III ((d)Ma-al-ku-um ”È, “for the god
Malkum”), Mari (Malik +PN; plural Màlìku, underworld deities?),
Ugarit (mlk; mlk.‘Δtrt), Phoenicia (mlk. ‘“trt )34 has been taken into
account. In some of the texts the underworld character of the deity
can be accepted, but nowhere does he have anything to do with
child sacrifice. Moreover, Koch has shown that the Ugaritic mlk does
not appear in the offering lists and that it did not receive any offerings
at all. He disappeared completely from the religious history of the
ancient Near East at the beginning of the first millennium. In his
words, this would mean: “. . . dass ein schon in Ugarit in den Hinter-
grund tretender und dann völlig abgetauchter Gott nach rund einem
halben Jahrtausend in Jerusalem—und nur hier—wieder emporgekom-
men und unheimlich bedeutsam geworden ist”.35 For this reason, a
connection between Malik and Moloch, including a supposed rela-
tion to the Ammonite chief god Milkom is unlikely.36
32
Koch, ‘Molek’, 29 suggests including Isa 30:33.
33
Koch, ‘Molek’, 30.
34
F. Israel, Materiali per ‘Moloch’’, RSF 18 (1990) 151–155; Müller, ‘Malik’,
1007–1009; Müller, ‘Genesis 22’, 237–246.
35
Koch, ‘Molek’, 32.
36
S. Pardee, ‘G.C. Heider, The cult of Molek. A Reassessment’, JNES 49 (1990)
320–372.
It means that we must look again at the character of the mlk-

sacrifice, which plays a prominent role in Old Testament polemics
from the time of the later monarchy through exilic and post-exilic
times, without the burden of a presupposed ancient Near Eastern
deity, Malik. For Müller, the Masoretic l emòlek (Var. lammòlek, ham-
mòlek), derives from l emôlèk > la-mawlik, and is a causative nominal
formation from the root jlk > wlk “to go” or in the causative “to
present, to offer”. Therefore the noun with the prepositional l e-essen-
tiae37 means “as a presentation, as an offering”.38 The terminus means
a special way of offering. The “end of the god Moloch”, announced
by Eissfeldt in 1935, has indeed come. This meaning, as suggested
by Eissfeldt and Müller, can be related to Phoenician and Punic
inscriptions.39 The link between the Hebrew and the Phoenician can
be found in the inscription of Nebi Jùnis, where a Molk-offering (nßb
mlk) is commemorated.40
The Hebrew Ëlm(l) came about through a Massoretic distortion
by a bo“èt-Vocalisation Mòlek, rendered by the LXX as Molox in
2 Ki 23:10 and Jer 39:35 (= MT 32:35) and the Vg as Moloch. From
there it led a separate existence as a Canaanite god, Moloch.41 It
offered the possibility of ascribing all the mlk-offerings as sacrifices
37
The same use in Gen 22:2; Lev 15:18. l e here does not mean ‘for mlk’, but
‘as’.
38
Müller, ˚lm, 965–967; Müller, ‘Malik’, 1006.
39
For a short survey of the terminology, see H.P. Roschinski, ‘Punische Inschriftehn
zum MLK-Opfer und seinem Ersatz’, TUAT II/4, 606–620.
40
RES 376 I,1; B. Delavault, A. Lemaire, ‘Une stèle »molk« de Palestine, dédiée
à Eshmoun? RES 367 reconsidéré’, RB 83–84 (1976) 569–583; TUAT II/4, 597f.
41
O. Eissfeldt, ‘Molk als Opferbegriff im Punischen und Hebräischen und
das Ende des Gottes Moloch’ (Beiträge zur Religionsgeschichte des Altertums 3), Halle
a.d.S. 1935; H.-P. Müller, ˚lm, TWAT IV, 1984, 957–968; H.-P. Müller, ‘Malik’,
DDD, Leiden/New York /Cologne 1995, 1005–1012; H.-P. Müller, ‘Genesis 22 und
das mlk-Opfer’, BZ 41 (1997 ) 237–246; K. Koch, ‘Molek astral’, in: A. Lange,
H. Lichtenberger, D. Römheld (Hrsg.), Mythos im Alten Testament und seiner Umwelt.
Festschrift für Hans-Peter Müller zum 65. Geburtstag, Berlin/New York 1999, 29–50. The
contrary position, Moloch as a deity and related to Malik, is defended by G.C.
Heider, The Cult of Molek: A Reassessment ( JSOTS 43), Sheffield 1985; J. Day, Molech.
A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament, University of Cambridge Oriental
Publications 41, Cambridge 1989; G.C. Heider, ‘Molech’, DDD, Leiden/New
York/Cologne 1995, 1090–1097. With a non-sacrificial interpretation: M. Weinfeld,
‘The Worship of Moloch and the Queen of Heaven and Its Background’, UF 4
(1972) 133–154; M. Weinfeld, ‘Burning Babies in Ancient Israel. A Rejoinder to
Morton Smith’s Article in JAOS 95 (1975) 477–479’, UF 10 (1978) 411–413;
D. Platorati, ‘Zum Gebrauch des Wortes mlk im Alten Testament, VT 28 (1978),
286–300.
12 e. noort
to a foreign god and bringing in a clean YHWH-religion. But even

though the god Moloch has disappeared, the question of child sacrifice
has not been answered. Weinfeld has argued, “that is it is just as
hard to prove the existence of child sacrifices in the ancient world
as it is to disprove it”. His thesis, that the mlk-sacrifice had to do
with initiation and dedication to foreign cult rather than with slay-
ing and burning babies”, was deduced from idiom. The terminol-
ogy of the mlk-offering is connected to ˆtn and rb[ Hif., not to the
normal terminology of offering as tbz, fjv, brq Hif. or πrc.42 This
is an important point, but his interpretation of dedication—not
sacrifice—is based on the Book of Jubilees, the Septuagint and later
Rabbinic sources. He does not have direct proof from the Old
Testament. The most incriminating expression from the Old Testament,
“to pass his sons and daughters through the fire” (˚lml vab ryb[h),
can be innocently explained in the eyes of Weinfeld and others, as
a possible initiation executed by means of passing between torches,
as the custom is known in the pagan world. But this does not really
fit into the Old Testament context. For that reason, admits Weinfeld,
Ezekiel, Deutero-Isaiah and Dtr-Jeremiah may have had “sporadic
child sacrifices” in mind. A final apologetic solution is to understand
the Punic child-offering not as a real sacrifice but as the burning of
corpses of the children who had died earlier, these corpses having
been buried together with foetuses and sacrificed sheep-goats. Following
this opinion, the mlk-sacrifice is “die Bitte des Opfernden an die
zuständige Gottheit, das verstorbene Kind in die göttliche Sphäre
aufzunehmen”.43 There are two reasons for refuting this opinion:
Firstly, no proof exists that children who had died young played an
exceptional role in the “normal” cult and in the rites concerning
death and life; Secondly, the number of cemeteries in the Punic set-
tlements containing buried children aged 1–4 far surpasses the num-
ber normally expected in the case of natural deaths. The most
plausible explanation is that the Punic cemeteries do indeed demon-
strate child-sacrifice.
If we have proof of child-sacrifice in the “Umwelt”, what is the
picture within Israel?
42
Weinfeld, ‘Burning Babies’, 411f.
43
Recently: D. Volgger, ‘Es geht um das Ganze—Gott prüft Abraham’ (Gen
22,1–19), BZ 45 (2001) 1–19 (13).
The harsh polemics in Jeremiah argue that YHWH had to destroy

Jerusalem because of the mlk-sacrifices. This polemic cannot be
explained only by dedication to or acceptance of foreign cults. The
prophets’ judgment and Josiah’s reform measures all talk of extra-
ordinary things, not “only” the normal Deuteronomistic opposition
to foreign cults and foreign gods. The mlk-sacrifice was a rite in
which children were indeed sacrificed and burned,44 a practice prob-
ably known and partly tolerated by the prophets of the 8th century
(Isa 30:33; Mi 6:7). If there was child-sacrifice similar to the Punic
customs, it must have been practised on a regular basis primarily
during the 8th and 7th centuries. If child sacrifice was practised only
in an exceptional case of emergency, as suggested by the fact that
kings are accused of having their sons and daughters vab ryb[h
˚lml, it would have happened on an irregular chronological basis.
The character of the polemics in the Hebrew Bible suggests a mix-
ture of both possibilities. For Moab, we have proof in 2 Ki 3:27
where the king of Moab sacrifices the crown prince on the wall of
the besieged city. V.27a states the result: “there was great anger
(πxq) upon Israel, so they decamped from (the siege) against him and
returned to the homeland”. Some have attempted to understand the
πxq as disgust on the part of the Israelites upon viewing the child-
sacrifice. Such a reaction does not fit into the narrative. The πxq
is the anger of Kamos, the god of the Moabites, towards the Israelites
as result of the child offering of the crown prince. That is why the
Israelites have to give up the siege of the city. In the eyes of the
biblical author, child-sacrifice “worked”.
Other examples, often used in the debate, must be dismissed. For
example, such is the case with the daughter of Jephta, sacrificed as
a whole-offering after her father’s vow ( Judg 11:31). She is not the
victim of a specific, “normal” ritual, but of an extra-ordinary situa-
tion following Jephta’s vow. Another example is the case involving
the sons of Hiel in 1 Ki 16:34, who were probably killed after an
accident during the rebuilding of Jericho, and not during the ritual
of a building sacrifice. It is also the case with the prisoners taken
during a YHWH-war. They are killed, not sacrificed, as a result of
the ˙èrem. Last but not least, the supposed connection with the sacri-
fice of the firstborn must be refuted. In the texts which offer a real
44
Koch, ‘Molek’, 36ff. surveys the context of the mlk-sacrifice and describes the
child sacrifice as a rite to astral gods in which the rua˙ is sent back to the deity (44).
14 e. noort
background for child sacrifice, the terminology used, “having passed

sons and daughters through the fire” has nothing to do with the
first-born offering. On the contrary, with the exception of Ex 22:29,
all texts of the first-born offering are connected with substitution.
If we conclude that in the 8th and 7th centuries child sacrifice
took place, especially in Jerusalem, the next problem of a potential
relation with Gen 22 must be raised. Before this question can be
answered we must start with the question of dating Gen 22.
4. The Date of the Narrative
During the time that source-criticism was the dominant method in

exegesis, the narrative date was fixed as following the source date.
Gen 22 was ascribed to the Elohist and therefore dated to the 9th
or 8th century. In the renewed debate, reflecting the tendency to
late, post-exilic dating, however, the following arguments are used:
– In Gen 22:1–14 not only is the name of Elohim used (22:1.3.8.9.12)
but also the name of JHWH (11.14a). There is no explanation
for such a mixture, if one hand was at work here. At the other
side, to use the different divine names for a literary-critical divi-
sion makes no sense, either. If the change of names can not be
explained by different authors, the solution must be that only in
post-exilic times and writings, the names of God are used promis-
cuously.45 This, however, is not a compelling conclusion. It could
be a matter of stressing the YHWH-name at the theologically deci-
sive point. Apart from the force of the well-known expression
hwhyA˚alm, the name YHWH appears in Gen 22:11.14, where the
act of sacrificing is stopped. Here the real face of God becomes
visible, as demonstrated by the narrator using the Tetragrammaton.46
The difference between the divine names does not force us to a
dating in the post-exilic era.
– The story has an extremely high level of reflection and is an enig-
matic work of art. No exegete forgets to mention this aspect.47 Is
45
For this and the following points advocating a post-exilic date, see Veijola,
‘Opfer des Abraham’, 149.
46
See E. Blum, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte (WMANT 57), Neukirchen-Vluyn
1984, 323, 328ff. referring to Knobel 1852; Volgger, ‘Das Ganze’, 10–13.
47
The classical analysis comes from E. Auerbach, Mimesis, Tübingen/Basel 19949,
such a narrative masterpiece possible within the literary horizon

of the 8th or 7th century? Denying the question puts forward a
post-exilic date. On the other hand, there is no proof that the
post-exilic era had a higher level of narrative art than did the last
centuries before the exile. The language and content of the prophets
of the 8th century, Isaiah, Hosea and Micah, all reflect a high
standard of reflection and a linguistic skill which contradicts such
an evolutionary scheme. The older narrative masterpieces in the
books of Samuel and Kings point in the same direction.
– In the exposition of 22:2–3, a relation with the Yahwistic Gen
12:1–4a must be presupposed. Conversely, Gen 22 seems to pre-
suppose Gen 15:4–5, the problem of the heir. ÚlAËl of Gen 22:2
indeed demonstrates an intimate relation with Gen 12:1. But this
supposed dependency is not really a problem at all. Gen 22:2 links
the narrative to the beginning of the Abraham Cycle. This com-
positional marker does not exclude the texts being from the same
period or even from the same hand. The relation with Gen 15:
4–5 is too general—using the same motif of the search for and the
survival of the real heir—for Gen 22 to be dependent on Gen 15.
– An important role is played by the central verb from V.1 hsn
Pi‘el “to test”. It has been argued that there are only two paral-
lels from a late period with YHWH/Elohim as subject and an
individual as object. The first one is 2 Chron 32:31 where Hezekiah
is said to be tested by God “to discover all that was in his heart”,
which in turn is a quotation from Deut 8:2. The Chronicler here
interprets a passage from 2 Ki 20:12–19, where the Babylonian
envoys come to visit Hezekiah testing Hezekiah for faith and trust.48
And of course, in the eyes of the Chronicler, Hezekiah passes the
test. The second one is Ps 26:2, where the prayer asks YHWH
to test him, because he knows that he lives in YHWH’s truth. In
the case of the Chronicler it is clear that we are dealing with a
late, post-exilic development; in the case of Ps 26, it may be likely
5–27. Cf. R. Lack, ‘Le sacrifice d’Isaac—Analyse structurale de la couche élohiste

dans Gn 22’, Bib 56 (1975) 1–12; Y. Mazor, ‘Genesis 22: The Ideological Rhetoric
and the Psychological Composition, Bib 67 (1986) 81–88; Volgger, ‘Das Ganze’,
6ff.
48
S. Japhet, I & II Chronicles (OTL), London 1993, 996 with a careful, some-
what hesitant positive answer about Hezekiah’s passing the test in the eyes of the
Chronicler.
16 e. noort
that we are confronted with a late text. The same has been said49
of Deut 33:8ff.,50 where the tribe of Levi is put to the test. But
the Levites of Deut 33:8 have functions that differ from the later
image of temple-serving Levites. Here in Deut 33:8 their first func-
tion is to use the divine oracle Urim and Tummim. The second
function is to give tora (V.9f.), and the third and final function is
“offering on thy altar” (V.10). Compared to the later concepts, in
which the offering is part of the priest’s central task and where
the Levites are downgraded to helpers in the temple service, Deut
33:8ff. represents an earlier stage. Moreover, if we leave the level
of the individual and the specific tribe, many texts describe the
divine “testing” of Israel during the time of the wilderness and
the settlement (Ex 15:25; 16:4; Deut 8:2.16; 13:4; Judg 2:22; 3:1.4).
The “testing” of Israel may be an older item than the “testing”
of an individual, but the theme of hsn Pi‘el as a whole cannot be
restricted to the post-exilic period.
– The testing of Abraham results in the statement by YHWH’s mes-
senger: “Now I know you are a God-fearing man” (μyhla ary
V.12). For Veijola, this shows that a central notion of Deuteron-
omistic theology is present here. He finds the same terminology
of the God-fearing man in Wisdom, especially in the Job-Prologue
( Job 1:8; 2:3) ‘Ein Mann, dessen Gottesfurcht auf die Probe gestellt
wird’.51 Therefore the theme of God-fearing must be post-exilic.
Seebass argues more sensitively.52 He denies a general use of ‘God-
fear’ in Wisdom and in the Deuteronomistic History fitting to
Abraham in Gen 22. Gen 22:14 uses the Fear of God in a par-
ticular way. Perhaps Ex 1:17 is comparable. ‘But they (the Hebrew
midwives) were God-fearing women. They did not do what the
King of Egypt had told them to do, but let the boys live’. Here
the ‘fear of God’ means taking a deadly risk,53 as Abraham did
on behalf of God.
– The role of the hwhy ˚alm in V.12 is not to visit men on earth
as a messenger, which is his normal task, but the call from heaven
49
Veijola, ‘Opfer des Abraham’, 151.
50
E. Noort, ‘Eine weitere Kurzbemerkung zu 1 Samuel XIV 41’, VT 21 (1971)
112–116.
51
52
53
represents a later stage in the development of the heavenly beings.

To make his point, Veijola has to explain away Gen 21:17a,
where an angel from heaven rescues Ishmael at the last minute,
a perfect parallel to Gen 22:12. For Veijola, Gen 21:17 is sec-
ondary and may be from the same hand as the author of Gen
22:12.54 In that case, however, it is not logical why the narrator
uses μyhla ˚alm (21:17) at one moment and hwhy ˚alm (21:12) at
another, for the explanation that the saving, rescuing god is named
YHWH, would fit in Gen 21:17, too.
– For Veijola, the place of the sacrifice—the land/mountain of
Moriah, referring to Jerusalem in relation to 2 Chron 3:1—gives
further proof of the post-exilic dating of Gen 22. He notices that
in the other stories of the patriarchs, an offering can be made at
any place the patriarch is situated, with one exception: Gen 22.
The formula with which Abraham is sent away ‘on one of the
mountains, which I will show you’ seems to Veijola to be derived
from the Deuteronomistic formula of centralization: ‘the place,
which YHWH, your God, will choose out . . . to receive his name
that it may dwell there’ (Deut 12:5).55 This means that the nar-
rator already has Jerusalem in mind and the way in which μwqmh
is stressed, the name-giving of the offering as a hl[—a hapax in
the patriarchal stories- and the three-days’ scheme of the travel
all refer to Jerusalem. This is understood by the Chronicler, who
in 2 Chron 3:1 identifies the Mount of Moriah as the mountain of
the temple in Jerusalem. In Veijola’s view the Chronicler does not
solve an earlier riddle by identifying Moriah with Jerusalem, but
rather he believes that it was already the intention of the narra-
tor himself to refer to Jerusalem. The relation between Moriah/
Jerusalem and the formula of centralization leads Veijola to the
conclusion that a post-exilic date is necessary. The formula of cen-
tralization however, is Deuteronomic, not deuteronomistic. This
means that a pre-exilic date is possible, too. The same can be
said of the hidden reference to Jerusalem. If Mittmann is right
with his detailed exegesis of Moriah56 and its connection with
54
Veijola, ‘Opfer des Abraham’, 152, n. 131.
55
56
Mittmann, ‘ha-Morijja’, 78ff.
18 e. noort
Jerusalem and the royal ideology,57 motifs come in which definitely

belong to the pre-exilic period.
– A final argument used in the debate about dating is the history
of reception of the patriarchs, especially the figure of Abraham.58
Outside the book of Genesis, Abraham is only mentioned in late
passages of the Pentateuch. In the Deuteronomistic History, he
plays a minimal role in Jos 24:2.3; 1 Ki 18:36; 2 Ki 13:23. The
Chronicler, however, assigns Abraham an important role as the
symbol of promise. In prophecy, Veijola finds Abraham only in
exilic and post-exilic texts as a guarantee of future,59 once in the
psalms in a YHWHA˚lm song (Ps 47:10) and three times in the
late post-exilic Ps 105. With this survey it is not surprising that
Veijola finds his author in the neighbourhood of the Chronicler
in the 5th century.60 But we may ask whether an argument e silentio,
in this case the supposed absence of Abraham in pre-exilic texts,
can be used to prove the post-exilic date for a text. The patri-
archs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob can be found all over the prophets
from pre-exilic to post-exilic times. It is true indeed that Abraham
has a prominent role in the (post)-exilic prophets, e.g. Isa 41:8f.;
51:2; Ezek 33:24; Isa 63:16.61 Nevertheless, the statistical frequency
of his appearance is not the important point here. Important is
the role which the patriarchs play in the prophetic statements,
57
Mittmann, ‘ha-Morijja’, 84 ‘der Schlußsatz der Engelrede besagt dann in letz-
ter Konsequenz . . .: Abrahams Sohn ist zum Sohne Gottes geworden. Das zielt pro-
leptisch auf das Herzstück der Jerusalemer Königstheologie’. Cf ‘Entscheidend ist
noch nicht, dass hier ein Opfer unüberbietbarer Hingabe dargebracht wird, son-
dern dass Abrahams Sohn bzw. der Davidide hingegeben und zu Jahwes Eigentum,
zu Gottes Sohn wird. Das Opfer Abrahams begründet also die Gottessohnschaft
der künftigen Könige auf dem Throne Davids . . .’ (89); ‘Abraham gehorcht ‘der
Stimme Gottes’ und ermöglicht Gott, indem er ihm den Sohn nicht vorenthält, die
Realisierung der Sohneserwählung. Das stellt Davids frommes Verdienst als solches
in Frage und nimmt ihm alle Bedeutung. Was sich bei David und den Davididen,
Salomo voran, vollzieht ist in Abrahm und Isaak längst präfiguriert. . . . Versagt die
Davidsdynastie, kann sie ersetzt werden, ohne daß das Zionskönigtum in seinem
Bestand davon berührt wird, ersetzt durch einen David redivivus aus dem Samen
Abrahams . . .’ (88).
58
Veijola, ‘Opfer des Abraham, 155.
59
Against this general statement, W.A.M. Beuken, ‘Abraham weet van ons niet’: Jesaja
63:16. De grond van Israëls vertrouwen tijdens de ballingschap, Nijkerk 1986.
60
61
Chr. Jeremias, ‘Die Erzväter in der Verkündigung der Propheten’, in: H. Donner,
R. Hanhart, R. Smend (Hrsg.), Beiträge zur Alttestamentlichen Theologie. Festschrift für
Walther Zimmerli zum 70. Geburtstag, Göttingen 1977, 206–222.
that is, how the figure is used. Hosea, the northern prophet, uses
Jacob, because he needs a negative example to show the corrup-
tion of Israel (Hos 12). For the prophets of judgment, Jacob could
be used, while Abraham—the figure of hope and future—could
not. Israel in (post) exilic times, with the hope for a new begin-
ning, recognises itself in the figure of Abraham. This is why we
find the Abraham traditions in the (post) exilic prophets. But this
does not say anything about the original date of the stories. There
is no real proof that the story of the sacrifice of Abraham must
be dated in the post-exilic period. What are our alternatives?
– The story about Abraham and his child of promise, who at the
last moment is not sacrificed, is a tale about a deadly threat and
the rescue from it. It is the deeply reflective story of a God who
threatens to draw back everything he has promised, who threat-
ens to destroy the future. Isaac is not only the son, he is also the
embodied promise. All the stories of the Abraham cycle deal with
the problems of future and progeny. At this zero hour, every future
seems to be stopped suddenly. It is a story showing the dark face
of God. At the same time, it is the tale of Abraham, who starts
his travel to a land of no return. But this land proves to be a
mountain where he not only gets his son back, but the land also
proves to be a μwqm which he gives a name, demonstrating the
beneficial act of YHWH. In which situation does such a story fit?
From the time of Hosea, the prophetic struggle for the future
of Israel becomes visible. Is YHWH a God who destroys or is he
not? How can the sweeping raids of the Assyrians be interpreted?
After the end of the northern kingdom in 722/21, the prophetic
concern grows stronger. Is there a future for Judah, will Judah
escape a death decided by YHWH? Will the μwqm chosen by
YHWH and already named by Abraham survive? The question
behind the Abraham-Isaac story is not the problems of rebuild-
ing society in the Persian period. It is the problem of survival
encircling the already lost part of Israel and the still existing ‘real
heir’ of Judah and its μwqm. It is the problem of a century in
which everything is at stake: the land, the people, the temple, in
short: the future. A date in the late 8th or 7th century would fit.
– In that same period, we find the prophets’ opposition to child
sacrifice in Jerusalem. Does the narrative have a voice here? Yes
and no. The narrative is not a manifestation of opposition against
20 e. noort
child sacrifice itself. It is not a story telling that YHWH is a God

who does not want children to be sacrificed. The story reflects a
stage in which the possibility that child sacrifice belongs to the
YHWH cult is present. It uses a well known theme and practice
to tell about experiences in which YHWH, this God of life, of
promise, of future, changes sides, and shows the dark face of death
and destruction, apparently recanting his promises. In this story,
Israel reflects its situation in which ‘YHWH of hosts is with us,
the God of Jacob is our refuge” (Ps 46:7) is not valid any longer.
In this situation, the verb hsn in v. 1 offers the key of the nar-
rative and mirrors the ambivalent situation. The reader knows
what Abraham does not: sacrificing his son is a test of God.
Abraham’s acceptance and the ‘Do not lay your hand on the boy”
of v. 12 confirm that even in this hour, Abraham and Judah do
not fall into hands other than the hands of the God who gives
life and future. What Gen 22 says here is the same as what Hosea
said earlier and in a different context: “How can I give you up,
Ephraim? How can I hand you over, o Israel? . . . My heart recoils
with me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not exe-
cute my fierce anger, I will not turn round and destroy Ephraim,
for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst. . . .”
(Hos 11:8f.).
SACRIFICING A CHILD IN ANCIENT GREECE:
THE CASE OF IPHIGENEIA
Jan N. Bremmer
The story of Abraham and Isaac is not often mentioned in pagan

literature. In fact, it is hardly by chance that one of our two refer-
ences is from the Emperor Julian, a former Christian as his nick-
name ‘the Apostate’ all too clearly shows. However, in his Contra
Galileos (fr. 83 Masaracchia) Julian uses the story only in a discus-
sion of sacrificial fire, but does not focus on its element of human
sacrifice. Evidently, he could not have done so, since human sacrifice
is such a striking part of Greek mythology that it would have made
him an easy target for Christian apologists. From the many Greek
examples, which have often been investigated,1 I have chosen one,
in which a father also has to sacrifice a child: the myth of Iphigeneia.2
The myth was famous well into Roman times, especially through
Euripides’ tragedies Iphigeneia in Aulis (IA) and Iphigeneia in Tauris (IT ),
but we will limit ourselves to the earlier versions.
Our oldest extant version of the myth comes from the Cypria, one
of the poems of the so-called Epic Cycle, which was composed by,
1
On human sacrifice in ancient Greece see especially the more recent studies
by A. Henrichs, ‘Human Sacrifice in Greek Religion: Three Case Studies’, in Le
sacrifice dans l’antiquité = Entretiens Hardt 27 (Vandoeuvres-Geneva, 1981) 195–242 (dis-
cussion included); D. Hughes, Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece (London, 1991);
P. Bonnechere, Le sacrifice humain en Grèce ancienne (Athens and Liège, 1994); S. Georgoudi,
‘À propos du sacrifice humain en Grèce ancienne: remarques critiques’, Arch. f.
Religionsgeschichte 1 (1999) 61–82.
2
In addition to the studies mentioned in note 1, see for Iphigeneia most recently
K. Dowden, Death and the Maiden (London and New York, 1989) 9–47; E. Kearns,
The Heroes of Attica (London, 1989) 27–33, 78–8, 174; LIMC V.1 (Zurich and Munich,
1990) s.v. Iphigeneia (L. Kahil); D. Buitron-Oliver, ‘Stories from the Trojan cycle
in the work of Douris’, in J.B. Carter and S.P. Morris (eds.), The Ages of Homer: a
tribute to Emily Townsend Vermeule (Austin, 1995) 437–47; V. Gaggadi-Robin, ‘Iphigénie
à Marseille’, Monuments Piot 75 (1996) 1–19; W. Schindler, ‘Griechisches und Römisches
der Iphigeniensage auf dem Bronzekrater in Varna’, in E.G. Schmidt et al. (eds.),
Griechenland und Rom (Tbilissi, Erlangen and Jena, 1996) 297–305; D. Lyons, Gender
and Immortality (Princeton, 1997) 51–8; S.I. Johnston, ‘Iphigeneia’, in Der neue Pauly
V (Stuttgart and Weimar, 1998) 1096–8; M. Giuman, La dea, la vergine, il sangue:
archeologia di un culto femminile (Milano, 1999).
22 j.n. bremmer
according to tradition, Stasinos in Cyprus around 650 BC.3 It is a

relatively late poem, which already presupposes the Iliad and clearly
leads up to it.4 In a summary of this poem about the Trojan War
by the philosopher Proclus at the end of Antiquity, when he still
had the (an?) original text in front of him,5 we read the following
episode:
After the (Greek) fleet had assembled at Aulis for the second time,
Agamemnon went hunting. When he shot a deer, he said that he had
surpassed even Artemis. The goddess was angered and she penned-up
the fleet with storms. When (the seer) Calchas declared the wrath of
the goddess and ordered to sacrifice Iphigeneia to Artemis, the Greeks
summoned her on the pretext of a marriage with Achilles and attempted
to sacrifice her. But Artemis snatched her away, transported her to
the Taurians and made her immortal; in stead of the maiden she sub-
stituted a deer at the altar.6
A slightly more detailed version we find in the mythological hand-
book of Apollodorus at the beginning of the Christian era. Unlike
Proclus, Apollodorus did not consult the original texts but made use
of excerpts, summaries or commentaries that were continuously con-
taminated.7 Unfortunately, his original book with the myth of Iphigeneia
got lost, but in 1891 two epitomes were published, from which I
give the most detailed version (from the fragmenta Sabbaitica: S):
(But when they had put to sea from Argos and arrived for the sec-
ond time at Aulis,) the fleet was wind-bound. Calchas said that they
could not sail unless the fairest of Agamemnon’s daughters were pre-
sented as a sacrifice to Artemis. As he said, the goddess was angry
with Agamemnon, because, according to some, during a hunt at Icaria
he had said when shooting a deer, that not even Artemis could have
saved her, even if she had wanted to, but according to others, because
Atreus had not sacrificed to her the golden lamb. On receipt of this
3
W. Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution (Cambridge MA and London, 1992)
103–4.
4
See most recently K. Dowden, ‘Homer’s Sense of Text’, JHS 116 (1996) 47–61
at 48.
5
There was clearly more than one version of the Cypria in circulation, cf. J.S.
Burgess, ‘The Non-Homeric Cypria’, Tr. Am. Philol. Ass. 126 (1996) 77–99;
M. Finkelberg, ‘The Cypria, the Iliad, and the Problem of Multiformity in Oral and
Written Tradition’, Class. Philol. 95 (2000) 1–11.
6
For the text see M. Davies, Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta (Göttingen, 1988) 32;
A. Bernabé, Poetae epici Graeci I (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 19962) 41.
7
This is now fully illustrated by M. Huys, ‘125 Years of Scholarship on Apollodorus
the Mythographer: A Bibliographical Survey’, AC 66 (1997) 319–51.
sacrificing a child in ancient greece 23
oracle, Agamemnon sent Ulysses and Talthybius to Clytaemnestra and

asked for Iphigeneia, alleging a promise of his to give her to Achilles
to wife in reward for his military service. So Clytaemnestra sent her,
and Agamemnon set her beside the altar, and was about to slaughter
her, when Artemis carried her off to the Taurians and appointed her
to be her priestess, substituting a deer for her at the altar; but some
say that she made her immortal.8
As the text itself already makes clear by mentioning ‘some’ and ‘oth-
ers’, Apollodorus presents us here with a composite picture from var-
ious sources. He has clearly used the Cypria, if at some remove, but
also Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Aulis, probably also at some remove or,
possibly, via a collection of prose summaries, the so-called hypothe-
seis, of Euripides.9 In my analysis I will concentrate on the versions
of these two summaries, but in order to bring out similarities and
differences I will also draw a few comparisons with the sacrifice of
Isaac (Genesis 22). In its final redaction this story would be only
slightly younger, if it indeed dates from the Persian period, but its
precise moment of origin is still debated.10
Finally, before we proceed with the actual analysis, it is good to
realise that the term ‘human sacrifice’ is often used in a rather loose
way. Ritual executions, sacrifices before battle, and scapegoats are
frequently lumped together as ‘human sacrifice’.11 From a strictly
methodological point of view such confusion is hardly helpful, and
I will stick to those cases in which the sacrificial element is clear in
the tradition, be it literal or metaphorical.
8
Apollod. Epitome 3.16, according to the most recent edition: Apollodoro, I miti
Greci, ed. P. Scarpi and tr. M.G. Ciani (Milano, 1996). I have adapted J.G. Frazer’s
translation, whose own Loeb text is a conflated version of the two epitomes.
9
M. van Rossum-Steenbeek, Greek Readers’ Digests? (Leiden, 1997) 26f.
10
C. Westermann, Genesis II (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1981) 429–51 at 435 (‘spätere
Königszeit’); Th. Römer, ‘Le sacrifice humain en Juda et Israël’, Arch. f. Religionsgeschichte
1 (1999) 17–26 at 24–25 (‘époque perse’); Noort, this volume, 14–20.
11
For scapegoats see most recently R. Parker, Miasma (Oxford, 1983) 258–80;
Hughes, Human Sacrifice, 139–65, 241–48; Bonnechere, Le sacrifice humain, 118–21,
293– 308; D. Ogden, The Crooked Kings of Ancient Greece (London, 1997) passim;
Georgoudi, ‘À propos du sacrifice humain’; J.N. Bremmer, ‘Scapegoat rituals in
ancient Greece’, in R. Buxton (ed.), Oxford Readings in Greek Religion (Oxford, 2000)
271–93.
24 j.n. bremmer
1. Before the Kill
Let us start with the name of the protagonist of the myth. In the
Iliad (IX.145) Agamemnon himself tells us that at home he has three
daughters: Chrysothemis, Laodice and Iphianassa. Iphigeneia’s name
is sufficiently close to Iphianassa to wonder whether Homer knew
of her sacrifice, but his text does not suggest so.12 The Cypria (F 17
Davies = F 23 Bernabé) may have mentioned four daughters, but
names only Iphigeneia and Iphianassa, and the text of the passage
is clearly problematic. Pseudo-Hesiod’s Catalogue (F 23a, 16–7), which
dates from about 580 BC,13 mentions only two daughters, Electra
and Iphimede, although the latter is clearly identical with Cypria’s
Iphigeneia, as she suffers exactly the same fate.14 Sophocles (Electra
157) mentions Chrysothemis, Electra and Iphianassa,15 and the older
Euripides only Iphigeneia and Electra (Electra 15; IT 374, 562). The
conclusion seems clear. Early tradition did not possess a tradition of
a fixed number of Agamemnon’s daughters neither did it have a
fixed name for the unhappy victim at Aulis. This variability fits a
general tendency of Greek mythology to vary names of females, as,
for example, can be well observed in the case of Oedipus’ mother
who is attested in no less than four variants.16 Although Lucretius
(1.85) still uses Iphianassa in a famous passage,17 and a late antique
lexicon attributes her name to the post-Homeric poets, the neôteroi
12
Contra W. Kullmann, Die Quellen der Ilias (Wiesbaden, 1960) 198–9, who com-
pares I.70–2, 106–8, 320ff. and IX.144–8; J. Latacz (ed.), Homers Ilias Gesamtkommentar
I.2 (Munich and Leipzig, 2000) 66 (leaves the question open).
13
For the date see most recently J.N. Bremmer, ‘Myth as Propaganda: Athens
and Sparta’, Zs. für Papyrologie und Epigraphik (= ZPE ) 117 (1997) 9–17 at 11; R.L.
Fowler, ‘Genealogical Thinking, Hesiod's Catalogue, and the Creation of the Hellenes’,
Proc. Cambridge Philol. Soc. 44 (1998) 1–19 at 1 note 4. The discussion of Iphigeneia
by Lyons, Gender and Immortality, is marred by the idea that the Catalogue was by
Hesiod himself.
14
For the connection between the name Iphimede and Linear-B I-pi-me-de-ja
see G. Neumann, Ausgewählte kleine Schriften (Innsbruck, 1994) 595–601 (with an
improbable explanation); M. Rocchi, ‘Osservazioni a proposito di I-pe-me-de-ja’, in
E. de Miro et al. (eds.), Atti e memorie del secondo Congresso internazionale di micenologia,
3 vols (Rome, 1996) II.861–7.
15
Jouan, Euripide, 265 note 2 wrongly suggests that he follows the Cypria.
16
Lyons, Gender and Immortality, 51–8; add Bremmer (ed.), Interpretations of Greek
Mythology (London, 19912) 45 (Oedipus’ mother).
17
For his treatment of the Iphigeneia myth see most recently E. Otón Sobrino,
‘El culto impetratorio en Lucrecio’, Helmantica 44 (1993) 193–8; A. Perutelli, ‘Ifigenia
in Lucrezio’, St. Class. Or. 46 (1996) 193–207.
(Hesychius, s.v. Iphianassan), the name Iphigeneia becomes generally

accepted after Euripides. In the second century AD, Pausanias (1.43.1)
even wrongly ascribes her name to the Catalogue (F 23b).
Having looked at the name of Iphigeneia, let us now move on to
the plot of the myth. The Cypria starts its version with the report
that the Greeks assembled for the second time in Aulis, an impor-
tant harbour on the route to the North.18 This is an innovation com-
pared with Homer, who only knows one meeting (Iliad II.305ff.).
The Greeks arrived in Aulis after an expedition to Mysia, where
Achilles encountered Telephos, a well-known episode in Greek mythol-
ogy.19 Apparently, the author of the Cypria ‘recycled’ known episodes,
which he also used to build up the suspense before the definitive
expedition of the Greeks against Troy by retarding the final action.
In Aulis, the author of the Cypria created a dramatic situation by
penning up the Greek fleet through storms.20 The reason for the
hold up was a display of hybris by Agamemnon during a hunt.
Apollodorus’ version even states the precise hunting-ground, viz. the
Attic deme of Ikarion in the middle of Attica—a detail probably fur-
nished by an Attic author, since the area is not immediately adja-
cent to Aulis. Here the king hit a deer, the animal dear to the
goddess Artemis, as many vases illustrate;21 in Elis she was even wor-
shipped with the epithet Elaphiaia (Pausanias 6.22.10–11). The god-
dess’ close association with deer is stressed by Sophocles in his Electra
(566–9), where Electra declares that her father hit a deer in a sacred
grove of the goddess, thus making his offence even more dramatic.22
Proud of his skill, Agamemnon boasted that not even the goddess
18
A. Sampson, ‘Aulis mycénienne et la route maritime de l’Egée du Nord’, in
Ph. Betancourt et al. (eds), Meletemata, 3 vols (Liège and Austin, 1999) III, 741–7.
Aulis’ situation opposite the island of Euboea may explain the composition of a lost
poem on Iphigeneia by the Euboean epic poet Simonides (Suda, s.v. Simônidês). Its
position in Boeotia will explain the occurrence of the myth in the Boiotika of Menyllos
(FGrH 295 F 1).
19
See most recently LIMC VII.1 (Zurich and Munich, 1994) s.v. Telephos (by
H. Heres and M. Strauss).
20
Cf. Aeschylus, Ag. 188, 198–9, 1418; Vergil, Aen. 11.116; Ovid, Met. 12.24;
Hyginus, Fab. 98; Pausanias 8.28.4.
21
LIMC II.1 (1984) s.v. Artemis, passim (L. Kahil); E. Yannouli and K. Trantalidou,
‘The fallow deer (Dama dama Linnaeus, 1758): Archaeological presence and repre-
sentation in Greece’, in N. Benecke (ed.), The Holocene History of the European Vertebrate
Fauna (Rahden, 1999) 247–81 (also on Artemis and deer).
22
The motif of the sacred grove returns in later authors, but should not be retro-
jected into the Cypria: contra Jouan, Euripide, 266.
26 j.n. bremmer
herself could have surpassed him,23 or, as in Apollodorus (S), that

not even Artemis could have saved the doe, probably a variant con-
nected with the location of the hunt in the sacred grove of the god-
dess.24 The comparison with the goddess’ skill in hunting may surprise
at first sight, but Elaphebolos, ‘deer-shooting’, was an epithet of
Artemis, which gave its name to both the festival Elaphebolia in
Hyampolis and the Ionian month Elaphebolion in Athens and Iasos.25
Apollodorus’ other, probably later, variant, connected the wrath
of the goddess with a ‘sin’ of Agamemnon’s father Atreus, who had
once vowed to sacrifice the finest of his flocks to Artemis, but when
a golden lamb was born, he choked it and kept it in a box. The
motif of the golden lamb itself is old and already occurs in the sixth-
century epic Alcmaeonis (F 5 Davies = F. 6 Bernabé).26 However, in
the oldest versions it is closely connected with the struggle for suc-
cession between Atreus and Thyestes and has nothing to do with
Agamemnon. Apparently, it was the prominence of Artemis, which
led some mythographers to connect this motif with Iphigeneia.
The storms lasted for such a long time that the Greeks suffered
hunger during their period of forced leisure; shortage of food was
indeed a well-known threat to military expeditions grounded by lack
of wind.27 It is not surprising, then, that they decided to consult
Calchas, ‘by far the best of the bird seers’, as the Iliad (I.69) calls
him.28 This development of the plot is also clearly modelled on the
Iliad (II.299–332), where the same seer is consulted after Apollo had
sent a plague to the Greek army. Calchas revealed the wrath of the
goddess and told the Greeks that it could only be appeased by the
sacrifice of the ‘fairest of Agamemnon’s daughters’. This connection
between the wrath of a divinity and human sacrifice is traditional
in Greek culture. It is only a double human sacrifice which can
23
Similarly, Sophocles, El. 569; Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis, 263; Hyginus, Fab.
98; scholion on Euripides, Or. 658; scholion on Lycophron 183.
24
Contra Frazer on Apollod. Ep. 3.22. The distinction between the two motifs is
clearly not ‘bedeutungslos’, as claimed by U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Kleine
Schriften VI (Berlin, 1972) 195.
25
Artemis Elaphebolos: Sappho 44A.9 Voigt; HHom. 27.2; Sophocles, Tr. 213;
Plutarch, Mor. 966A; Bull. Corresp. Hell. 1883, 263 (Pamphylia); Arch. Deltion 2 (1916)
263–8 (Hyampolis); SEG 39.855 (Patmos), 43.399 (Thasos). Festival: Plutarch, Mor.
244E, 660D; IG IX.1, 90.
26
Pherecydes FGrH 3 F 133; Dionysius FGrH 15 F 7; Apollod. Ep. 2.10–11;
T. Ganz, Early Greek Myth (Baltimore and London, 1993) 545–50.
27
Aeschylus, Ag. 188; Thucydides 6.22 (threat).
28
For Calchas see LIMC V.1 (1990) 931–5 (V. Saladino).
appease the wrath of Artemis Triklaria in Patras (Pausanias 7.19.3);

the two daughters of Orion commit suicide because of the wrath of
two ‘infernal gods’ (Antoninus Liberalis 25); in Kalydon the wrath
of Dionysos requires the sacrifice of the maiden Kallirhoe (Pausanias
7.21.1–5), and ‘old wraths’ of Ares eventually cause the death of
Menoecus in Euripides’ Phoenissae (934). Evidently, the wrath of a
divinity cannot be appeased by a normal animal sacrifice, and the
stories thus also illustrate the perceived power of the Greek gods
and goddesses.29
Our summary of the Cypria does not mention the detail of the
‘fairest daughter’. Apollodorus may have derived this qualification
from Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Aulis (20–21), but it could also already
have occurred in the old epic, since the request for the ‘fairest’ or
the ‘most noble’ is a common motif in human sacrifice and scape-
goats.30 The youths for Artemis Triklaria had to be ‘the most beau-
tiful’ (Pausanias 7.19.4); towards the end of the first Messenian War
the Delphic oracle ordered the Messenians to sacrifice a ‘pure girl’
and of royal blood (Pausanias 4.9.1); during a plague in Sparta an
oracle asked for the annual sacrifice of a ‘noble maiden’ (Plutarch,
Mor. 314 C), and the Persian youths alledgedly sacrificed by The-
mistocles were not only ‘very handsome’ but also members of the
highest Persian circles (Plutarch, Themistocles 13.2, Aristides 9.1). Among
the scapegoats, a youth who sacrificed himself in Athens is described
by the aetiological myth as a ‘handsome lad’ (Neanthes FGrH 84 F
16), and Polykrite, the name of a girl who saved Naxos, means ‘she
who has been chosen by many’.31
The idea probably derives from real sacrifice where the victim
had to be unblemished,32 but it fits a literary text that the authors
could vary the value of the victim and dramatize its position by
making it the oldest or youngest daughter (son). We find this drama-
tization clearly in Genesis (22:2), where Abraham has to sacrifice his
‘only son Isaac, whom thou lovest’. The single elements of this com-
bination recur in descriptions of the Phoenician author Philo of
Byblos, who relates that during a plague Kronos offered his ‘only
29
See also Georgoudi, ‘À propos du sacrifice humain’, 70f.
30
See also Georgoudi, ‘À propos du sacrifice humain’, 71–3.
31
For Polykrite see now J.L. Lightfoot, Parthenius of Nicaea (Oxford, 1999) 418–28,
who overlooked Bremmer, ‘Scapegoats’.
32
Aristotle, fr. 101 Rose/Gigon; Plutarch, Mor. 437B; Lucian, Sacr. 12; Pausanias
10.35.4; Pollux 1.29; scholion on Demosthenes 21.171; Eusthatius 49.35.
28 j.n. bremmer
son’ to his father Ouranos. This sacrifice functioned as a kind of

aetiological myth, since the Phoenician elite in times of crisis had to
sacrifice ‘their most beloved child’ to the avenging demons or, in
what is apparently a variant, to Kronos himself (FGrH 790 F3b). In
this case, though, Greek influence cannot be excluded: therefore,
using the Phoenician parallel in the analysis of Isaac’s sacrifice seems
highly debatable.33
It is striking that in these cases the gods often ask for a youth,
in particular a maiden.34 This is virtually the norm in those cases
where a city was in great danger but saved by the, often voluntary,
suicide or self-sacrifce of maidens. During a war of Thebes with
Orchomenos two girls sacrificed themselves, as an oracle required,
in order that Thebes should win the war (Paus. 9.17.1), whereas in
Orchomenos the daughters of Orion sacrificed themselves in order
to stop the plague.35 When Eumolpos threatened to conquer Athens,
the daughters of Erechtheus were sacrificed, and Athens’ luck in a(n
unspecified) war finally turned after Agraulos had voluntarily (§ 2)
thrown herself from the wall; just as noble was the behaviour of the
daughters of Leos when Athens was struck by a plague or a famine.36
We can easily mention other examples, and although the origin of
each of these myths is not always traceable, it is clear that Euripides,
especially, promulgated the pattern in his tragedies, moved, pre-
sumably, by the great danger of the Peloponnesian War to Athens.37
All the above examples are girls, but in a bold move, shortly before
his death and the defeat of Athens, Euripides also introduced a male
saviour of the polis. In his Phoenissae, Menoecus saved his city by
33
Contra H.-P. Müller, ‘Genesis 22 und das mlk-Opfer’, BZ 41 (1997) 237–46.
34
Admittedly, Georgoudi, ‘À propos du sacrifice humain’, 73–4 points out that
Clement of Alexandria (Protr. 3.42.6) and Porphyry (On Abstinence 2.54–55) often
mention ‘a man’, but their catalogues do not seem to be interested in the precise
circumstances of the sacrifices and may well generalise on this point.
35
Antoninus Liberalis 25; Ovid, Met. 13.685.
36
Daughters of Erechtheus: U. Kron, Die zehn attischen Phylenheroen (Berlin, 1976)
196–7; LIMC IV.1 (1988) s.v. Erechtheus, no. 64–68 (U. Kron); Kearns, Heroes of
Attica, 201–2; C. Collard et al., Euripides. Selected Fragmentary Plays I (Warminster,
1995) 156–94. Agraulos: Philochoros FGrH 328 F 105; Kearns, Heroes of Attica,
139–40; H. Solin, Arctos 35 (1999) 190 (popularity of the name). Daughters of Leos:
Kron, Phylenheroen, 195–8; Kearns, Heroes of Attica, 59–63.
37
See J. Schmitt, Freiwilliger Opfertod bei Euripides (Giessen, 1921); P. Roussel, ‘Le
thème du sacrifice volontaire dans la tragédie d’Euripide’, Revue Belge Philol. Hist.
1922, 225–40; E.A.M.E. O’Connor-Visser, Aspects of Human Sacrifice in the Tragedies
of Euripides (Amsterdam, 1987).
committing suicide through cutting his throat and jumping down the
city’s walls.38 Versnel has persuasively argued that in these cases the
highest possession of the state was the spes patriae, but that does not
explain the prominence of girls.39 Confronted with the inevitable
choice, male-dominated Greek society seems to have opted for girls
as the ‘softer’ version rather than sacrificing its male youths.
Given the desperate situation, Agamemnon must have had little
choice and he send out Ulysses and Talthybius to his wife Clytaem-
nestra in order to fetch Iphigeneia on the pretext of a marriage to
Achilles.40 The first was a smooth talking ‘trouble-shooter’, who also
had fetched Achilles when hiding at the island of Scyros,41 whereas
the second was send out by Agamemnon to fetch Briseis for Achilles
(Iliad I.320), which surely gave the author of the Cypria the idea to
employ him here as well. Actually, in the Iliad (IX.141) Agamemnon
also offers one of his daughters in marriage to Achilles, an offer
which clearly served as the model for the sham marriage in the
Cypria. The mention of marriage shows that at the moment of her
sacrifice Iphigeneia was a girl at the brink of adulthood, a detail
which will engage us later (§ 3). The place of Iphigeneia’s stay is
not mentioned in our passages, but this will have been Agamemnon’s
city of Mycenae, as is the case in Simonides (F 608 Page).
2. The Kill
Our information about the sacrifice itself is only limited. According

to Apollodorus, ‘Agamemnon set her beside the altar’. Considering
the other examples, it is most likely that Iphigeneia went along of
38
This example proved to be very influential in Maccabean times, cf. J.W. van
Henten, The Maccabean Martyrs as Saviours of the Jewish People (Leiden, 1997) 125–86.
39
H.S. Versnel, ‘Self-sacrifice, Compensation and the Anonymous Gods’, in Le
sacrifice dans l’antiquité, 136–94 at 144–45, who appropriately compares the (legendary)
Roman examples of Curtius (Liv. 7.6.2) and St. Caesarius (Acta Sanctorum, Nov. 1,
106–07). The explanation of Kearns, Heroes of Attica, 57 is not really very clear;
those of Lyons, Gender and Immortality, and of J. Larson, Greek Heroine Cults (Madison
and London, 1995) 104, unsatisfactory.
40
For these ambassadors see also Sophocles F 305 Radt (Odysseus) and TGF
Adesp. F 663 (probably Talthybius).
41
Polygnotos apud Pausanias 1.22.6; Euripides, fr. 585–6; Bio 2; Suetonius, Tib.
70; Hyginus, Fab. 96; Pliny, NH 10.78; Statius, Ach. 1.207ff.; Apollod. 3.13.8;
P. Berol. inv. 13930, re-edited by Van Rossum-Steenbeek, Greek Readers’ Digests?, 299;
LIMC I.1 (1984) s.v. Achilleus, no. 94–185 (A. Kossatz-Deissmann); G. Alvino, ‘Il
30 j.n. bremmer
her own accord, as Euripides stresses (IA 1555). In fact, a victim’s

voluntary participation was an important part of Greek sacrificial
ideology, which stressed that the victim was pleased to go up to the
altar, sometimes could even hardly wait to be sacrificed! This aspect
of volition goes back to archaic hunting practices, where hunters
pretended that the animal had voluntarily appeared in order to be
killed. The importance of this theme in hunting cultures is illustrated
by the fact that even in the twentieth century legends about victims
appearing voluntarily have been recorded in those countries which
still practised sacrifice in recent times: Finland and modern Greece.42
Admittedly, ideology and practice did not always coincide and Greek
vase paintings, in addition to showing victims rushing to the altar,
also show us ephebes struggling with the victim or the ropes tied to
its head or legs for restraint.43 In the case of Isaac the text says noth-
ing about his behaviour. Any detail would indeed have been against
the style of the narrative, which leaves everything unsaid that is not
absolutely essential.44 It is difficult to imagine, though, that the ancient
reader would have represented Isaac as struggling with his father in
order to escape his death.
Who sacrificed Iphigeneia? It is nearly intolerable for us to read,
but her father himself was going to kill her, as the older evidence
unanimously reports;45 representations of the ‘Aqedah also depict
mito di Achille a Sciro’, in Studi Miscellanei I.1 (Rome, 1996) 7–21; M. Silveira
Cyrino, ‘Heroes in D(u)ress: Transvestism and Power in the Myths of Herakles and
Achilles’, Arethusa 31 (1998) 207–41; K. Waldner, Geburt und Hochzeit des Kriegers
(Berlin and New York, 2000) 94–101.
42
K. Meuli, Gesammelte Schriften, 2 vols (Basel, 1975) II.950, 982, 995f. Legends:
F. Cumont, ‘L'archevêche de Prédachté et le sacrifice du faon’, Byzantion 6 (1931)
521–33 (note that P. Maraval, La passion inédite de S. Athénogène de Pédachthoé en Cappadoce
(BHG 197b), Brussels, 1990, has now published an earlier version of Cumont’s main
text); F. Oinas, Studies in Finnic-Slavic Folklore Relations (Helsinki, 1969) 193–201
(‘Legends of the voluntary appearance of sacrificial victims’); A.M. di Nola, Anthropologia
religiosa (Florence, 1974) 201–62; G.J. Tsouknidas, ‘Symmeikta’, Athena 80 (1985–89)
179–95 at 186–93.
43
Menander, Dysk. 393–9; S. Peirce, ‘Death, Revelry, and Thysia’, Class. Ant. 12
(1993) 219–66 at 255–6; F.T. van Straten, Hierà kalá (Leiden, 1995) 100–2, 111;
N. Himmelman, Tieropfer in der griechischen Kunst (Opladen, 1997) 38–45.
44
Cf. E. Auerbach, Mimesis, tr. W. Trask (Princeton, 1953) 3–23. For the back-
ground of this chapter that privileges the Old Testament over Homer, see Bremmer,
‘Erich Auerbach and His Mimesis’, Poetics Today 20 (1999) 3–10 at 5.
45
In addition to Apollodorus see Aeschylus, Ag. 209–11, 224–5, 228–46; Euripides,
IT 360, 565; TGF Adesp. F 73 (?); Varro, fr. 94–5 Bücheler = Cèbe, cf. J.P. Cèbe,
Varron. Satires Ménippées 3 (Rome, 1975) 453–4; Lucretius 1.99; Cicero, De officiis
3.95; Horace, Sat. 2.3.199–200, 206; Hyginus, Fab. 98.
Abraham with the sacrificial knife.46 Although we may be inclined

to think only of the dramatic effect of Agamemnon’s role, we should
also take into account that in Archaic times the king was the sacrificer
par excellence of the community, as is illustrated by the Odyssey where
Nestor, the king of Pylos, clearly leads the sacrifice (3.430–63).
Similarly, the Athenian king Erechtheus sacrificed his own daughter
to avert the victory of the Thracians (Demaratos FGrH 42 F 4) and
Idomeneus sacrificed his own son in order to fulfil a promise (Servius
on Vergil, Aen. 3.121).
However, at the very last minute Artemis transported Iphigeneia
away and, according to the Cypria, ‘made her immortal’. Unfortunately,
neither of our sources enlarges upon the problem of how Iphigeneia
was made immortal, but the Catalogue (fr. 23a.26 M.-W.) transforms
her into Artemis Einodia. Einodia was a separate goddess in Thessaly,
where her cult had civic significance.47 One may even wonder whether
the passage does not attest Thessalian influence, given the strength
of Thessaly in the seventh century BC.48 Later, Einodia’s name
became an epithet of Hekate (Sophocles, Ant. 1199, F 535 Radt),
the goddess with whom Artemis was also closely related,49 and the
epithet may have induced the version that Artemis had changed her
into Hekate herself (Stesichorus F 215 Davies). Pausanias actually
remembers the passage of the Catalogue as speaking of Iphigeneia and
Hekate (1.43.1).50
As the epic relates that she was transported to the Taurians, we
may surmise that the poet thought of the goddess Parthenos, whom
in the time of Herodotus (4.103.2) was indeed identified with Iphi-
geneia.51 The connection between Artemis and the goddess Parthenos
46
For these representations see most recently V. Sussman, ‘The Binding of Isaac
as Depicted on a Samaritan Lamp’, Israel Expl. J. 48 (1998) 183–9; E. Kessler, ‘Art
leading the story: the ‘Aqedah in early synagogue art’, in L.I. Levine and Z. Weiss
(eds.), From Dura to Sepphoris: studies in Jewish art and society in Late Antiquity (Portsmouth
RI, 2000) 73–81.
47
Unlike the edition of Merkelbach-West I would therefore capitalise Einodia. For
the Thessalian goddess see L. Robert, Hellenica 11/12 (1960) 588–95; P. Chrysostomou,
Hê Thessalikê thea En(n)odia hê Pheraia thea (Athens, 1998).
48
See Fowler, ‘Genealogical Thinking’.
49
For references see F. Graf, Nordionische Kulte (Rome, 1985) 229; add SEG
42.785, 49.
50
For Iphigeneia’s transformation into Hekate see S. Johnston, Restless Dead
(Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1999) 238–47, although I cannot follow her in
considering Stesichoros our ‘earliest attested version of Iphigeneia’s myth’ (241).
51
For this cult see A. Corcella et al., Erodoto: Le Storie IV (Milan, 1993) 315f.
32 j.n. bremmer
may also explain why a certain Pherecydes of Leros wrote a trea-

tise On Iphigeneia, since an area of Leros was called Parthenion (which
is still called Partheni today), where later worship of Artemis Parthenos
is attested.52 On the other hand, the poet may also have thought of
Artemis Tauropolos, since this goddess was also associated with the
myth of Iphigeneia.53
Instead of Iphigeneia, Artemis substituted a deer at the altar.54
The detail has received little attention, but is certainly remarkable,
since Greek sacrifice was limited to domesticated animals.55 However,
deer seems to have been the exception confirming the rule, since its
bones have come to light in the Theban Kabirion, the Samian
Heraion and Artemis’ sanctuaries in Kalapodi and Ephesos; more-
over, sacrificial cakes in the shape of a deer at the festival of the Ela-
phebolia are also attested.56 Sacrificial calendars never mention or
prescribe wild animals, and a possible explanation for the finds would
be to postulate an origin in a succesful hunt. However, in ancient
Israel, where, as in Greece, cattle, sheep and goat constituted the
normal sacrificial victims, excavations have also demonstrated inci-
dental sacrifices of fallow deer, as they have done of red deer in
Italy.57 Evidently, there were blurred edges at the boundaries of
acceptable sacrificial victims to include the most popular game.
Were deer a normal sacrifice at Artemis’ sanctuary at Aulis? We
do not know, but before starting his campaign against Persia at the
beginning of the fourth century, the Spartan king Agesilaus came to
Aulis to emulate Agamemnon and sacrifice a deer to Artemis. However,
the Thebans interrupted the sacrifice and declared it against the
52
Suda, s.v. Pherekydês = Pherecydes FGrH 3 T 3, cf. U. von Wilamowitz-
Moellendorff, Kleine Schriften V.2 (Berlin, 1937) 130f. For the island see L. Bürchner,
RE 12 (Stuttgart, 1925) 2096f.
53
For a full analysis see Graf, Nordionische Kulte, 413–6.
54
See also the representations in LIMC V.1, s.v. Iphigeneia, no. 11f.
55
Bremmer, ‘Modi di communicazione con il divino: la preghiera, la divinazione
e il sacrificio nella civiltá greca’, in S. Settis (ed.), I Greci I (Turin, 1996) 239–83.
56
J. Boessneck, Die Tierknochenfunde aus dem Kabirenheiligtum bei Theben (Böotien)
(Munich, 1973) Tab. 16; J. Boessneck and A. von den Driesch, Knochenabfall von
Opfermahlen und Weihgaben aus dem Heraion von Samos (Munich, 1988) 41; M. Stanzel,
Die Tierreste aus dem Artemis-/Apollon-Heiligtum bei Kalapodi in Böotien/Griechenland (Diss.
Munich, 1991) 90, 159–60; G. Forstenpointer et al., ‘Archäozoologische Untersuchungen
zu den Formen des Tieropfers im Artemision von Ephesos’, in H. Friesiner and
F. Krinzinger (eds.), 100 Jahre Österreichische Forschungen in Ephesos (Vienna, 1999)
225–32 at 230–1. Cakes: Athenaeus 646E; Anecd. Graeca Bekk. 1.249,7.
57
Israel: W. Houston, Purity and Monotheism. Clean and Unclean Animals in Biblical
Law (Sheffield, 1993) 148f. Italy: J.W. Bouma, Religio Votiva: the archaeology of Latial
votive religion, 2 vols (Diss. Groningen, 1996) I, 436, 443.
‘ancestral laws and usages’.58 This strongly suggests that at least in

Aulis sacrifice of deer (no longer?) was accepted at that time. In any
case, it is certain that the nature of the substitute was so unusual
that later versions preferred other animals, such as a young bull (tau-
ros: probably inspired by Iphigeneia’s stay among the Taurians or
the connection with Artemis Tauropolos),59 a bear (inspired by the
rites of Brauron: § 4) or even an old woman (Lycophron 196). The
latter substitution was perhaps caused by the low rating of old women
in ancient Greece, who thus could be sacrificed without a sense of
great loss.60
In any case, there is no reason to connect the deer with a back-
ground in initiation, viz. that in Aulis young girls acted as deer, just
as they acted as bears in Brauron (§ 4). Previous interpretations to
that effect on the basis of inscriptions have now been disproved by
more recent epigraphical discoveries, which show that nebeuô, the
verb customarily connected by scholars with deer, actually means
‘being of the age-class of the young’.61 On the other hand, the priest-
hood of Artemis, as mentioned by Apollodorus, does indeed point
to initiation, since adolescent priest(esses) are well attested in an ini-
tiatory context.62 The dedication of a thymele by a certain Kynanna,
the daughter of Epigenes, to Ennodia in Beroea after her priesthood
may lend support to this interpretation.63
It is interesting to note that the Schwindelautor Pythokles (FGrH 833
F 1) relates that when during a war against the Carthaginians and
Siceliots the Roman general Metellus neglected to sacrifice to Vesta,
the spurned goddess sent a contrary wind against his fleet. On the
advice of the augur, Metellus brought forward his daughter Metella
58
Xenophon, Hell. 3.43, 3.5.5; Plutarch, Life of Agesilaus 6; Pausanias 3.9.3–4;
J.-F. Bommelaer, ‘Le songe d’Agésilas: un mythe ou le rêve d’un mythe?’, Ktema 8
(1983) 19–26.
59
Bear: Phanodemus FGrH 325 F 14. Bull: Nicander apud Antoninus Liberalis
27; scholion on Aristophanes, Lys. 645b; Etymologicum Magnum 747.52. Old woman:
scholion on Lycophron 183.
60
Bremmer, ‘The Old Women of Ancient Greece’, in J. Blok and P. Mason
(eds.), Sexual Asymmetry (Amsterdam, 1987) 191–215.
61
Contra Dowden, Death and the Maiden, 41–2, cf. M.B. Hatzopoulos, Cultes et rites
de passage en Macedoine (Athens, 1994) 25–40.
62
Bremmer, ‘Transvestite Dionysos’, The Bucknell Review 43.1 (1999) 183–200 at
188–90.
63
Chrysostomou, Hê Thessalikê thea En(n)odia, 71, where the lack of reference to
a husband seems to indicate an adolescent; similarly, A. Alexandru et al., ‘Deux
tables sacrées de Callatis’, Horos 13 (1999) 225–32 at 225–7. In any case, Polyaenus
8.43 mentions a priestess of Ennodia.
34 j.n. bremmer
in order to appease Vesta with her sacrifice. But the goddess took
pity with the girl, substituted a heifer and transported her to Lanuvium,
where she became priestess of a serpent that was worshipped there.
Here we see that a Greek author simply has transformed the Iphigeneia
myth into a Roman drama. For our analysis of the role of Iphigeneia
in cult (§ 4) it is important to note, though, that Metella ends up
in a cult focusing on maidens.64
What have we found so far? In the myth of Iphigeneia we can
see an example of human sacrifice, which was not carried out to
the bloody end. It is not evident why this was the case. In a stim-
ulating discussion, Albert Henrichs has argued that this could not
be a case of moral consideration, since in Iliad XXIII (175–6) Homer
was not averse to human sacrifice, and the heroic age also knew
other cases of human sacrifice, such as that of Polyxena, and of can-
nibalism, such as the myths of Pelops and Thyestes. This argument
is not persuasive, since the slaughter of Trojans in Homer is not
depicted as a civilised act; similarly, the cases of Pelops and Polyxena
are usually constructed as horrible deeds with often tragic conse-
quences. He is more convincing when he points out that it was not
a dim memory to times in which such cruel practices still existed,
since no evidence for human sacrifice in Greece in historical times
has ever been produced.65 On the contrary, ‘animal substitution in
connection with human sacrifice is by its very nature ritualistic, and
reflects actual cult practices’.66 This can indeed be the case, but it
should also be taken into consideration that myth as a narrative
could produce ‘stronger’ and ‘softer’ versions of the same motif. For
example, straightforward parricide could take place, although unknow-
ingly, as in the case of Oedipus, but it could also take place indi-
rectly, as in the case of Theseus who ‘forgot’ to change the sails and
thus ‘killed’ his father. Similarly, in the case of Iphigeneia, myth did
also envisage a real death, as happened by Pindar (Pythian Ode XI.22)
and Aeschylus in his Agamemnon, both of whom perhaps depending
on Stesichorus’ Oresteia.67 In fact, there is a clear parallel for a sub-
64
For this cult see also Propertius 4.8.3–14; Aelian, De natura animalium 11.16.
65
See most recently P. Bonnechere, ‘Les indices archéologiques du sacrifice
humain en question: compléments à une publication récente’, Kernos 6 (1993) 23–55;
M. Jost, ‘Les sacrifices humains ont-ils existé?’, L’Histoire 191 (1995) 12–14.
66
Henrichs, ‘Human Sacrifice’, 203–4.
67
E. Fraenkel, Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 3 vols (Oxford, 1951) II.141 note 3; B. Gentili
et al., Pindaro, Le Pitiche (Milano, 1995) 284.
stitute of a proposed human sacrifice with an animal, as when a filly

substituted itself for a Boeotian girl before the battle of Leuctra in
371 BC.68 There seems to be no reason to interpret differently the
substitution in the case of Iphigeneia.
The last example is of great importance for the interpretation of
the motif of human sacrifice in the whole of the myth of the Trojan
War, since the situation is comparable. We are at a highly emo-
tionally charged moment of the battle, just before the actual fighting.
And at this very moment the Greeks were used to perform a whole-
sale slaughter of an animal victim. The recipient of this sacrifice usu-
ally was the goddess Artemis. The myth of Iphigeneia in its oldest
available version could be interpreted as the mythical reflection of
this ritual act.69 It is the poignant prelude to the Trojan War. This
was also an interpretation of Greeks themselves, since Plutarch
(ibidem) relates that, before starting his war against Persia, Agesilaus,
like Agamemnon, dreamt in Aulis that Artemis asked him to sacrifice
his daughter. His love for his child had made him reject the request,
but it had made his expedition unsuccesful. The myth, then, is the
narrative reflection of a ritual act, but not, originally, of initiation.
It is evident that in its function the myth of Iphigeneia is com-
pletely different from that of the sacrifice of Isaac, whose story is
not integrated into a specific mythical or legendary context, but could
also have been placed differently in the Abraham cycle. Moreover,
in its available version it is presented as an aetiological story which
explains the name of Jehovah-jireh (Genesis 22:14). Old Testament schol-
ars regularly consider the story as a kind of charter myth for the
abolition of human sacrifice, but the text cannot be said to clearly
thematize it as such. Its theme of obedience to God rather seems
to have used the most dramatic moment in a man’s life and thus
belongs to a period in which the unconditional following of Jahweh
was a point of issue, that is, in the immediate post-exilic period.
68
Plutarch, Life of Pelopidas, 21–22, cf. J. Fontenrose, The Delphic Oracle (Berkeley,
1978) 146–8.
69
Henrichs, ‘Human sacrifice’, 215–7; J.-P. Vernant, Figures, idoles, masques (Paris,
1990) 169–79; idem, Mortals and Immortals (Princeton, 1991) 244–57; M. Jameson,
‘Sacrifice before Battle’, in V.D. Hanson (ed.), Hoplites: the Classical Greek Battle
Experience (London and New York, 1991) 197–227, who interprets Iphigeneia in a
similar key; R. Parker, ‘Sacrifice and Battle’, in H. van Wees (ed.), War and Violence
in Ancient Greece (London, 2000) 299–314.
36 j.n. bremmer
4. Iphigeneia in Cult
Iphigeneia not only appeared in myth, but was also worshipped in

cult. From Wilamowitz onwards, whose study of 1883 was the first
modern discussion of her myth and cult,70 the cultic references have
been included in discussions of Iphigeneia. Yet no analysis has exam-
ined them more closely and everyone has taken these references,
more or less, at face value and used them as a basis for interpreta-
tion. However, for a proper evaluation we should determine their
chronology before adducing them as valuable evidence of the mean-
ing and significance of the cult. So, let us look again at the various
testimonies and start with Achaian Aigira, where the second-century
traveller Pausanias saw a temple of Artemis. Here a young girl
officiated as priestess (§ 3), and in the temple was a very old statue
of Iphigeneia, as the locals asserted. Pausanias clearly has his doubts
and comments: ‘if what they say is true, the temple was clearly made
for Iphigeneia from the very beginning’ (7.26.5). Artemis’ temple
must have been situated near the theatre, and Iphigeneia’s statue
may well have come from the temple on the acropolis, which was
abandoned in early Hellenistic times. Yet, nothing can be said about
the statue with any certainty; neither do we know anything about a
cult.71
Pausanias (1.41.3) mentions that Iphigeneia also was the subject
of an Arcadian myth. As no such myth was known from other
sources, Wilamowitz, who had a low opinion of Pausanias, suggested
that he had made a mistake and wanted to write ‘Argives’ in stead of
‘Arcadians’.72 Wilamowitz could not yet know, though, that Pausanias
seems to be splendidly vindicated by the publication of the Hercula-
neum papyrus of Philodemus’ On Piety forty years later. This text,
which has been overlooked by all recent scholars of the Iphigeneia
70
U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, ‘Die beiden Elektren’, Hermes 18 (1883)
214–63 at 249–63 = Kleine Schriften VI, 195–208.
71
S. Gogos, ‘Kult und Heiligtümer der Artemis von Aigeira’, Jahresheft Österr.
Arch. Inst. (Beiblatt) 57 (1986–87) 108–39; W. Alzinger, ‘Was sah Pausanias in
Aigeira?’, in S. Walker and A. Cameron (eds.), The Greek Renaissance in the Roman
Empire (London, 1989) 142–5; Y. Lafond, ‘Artémis en Achaïe’, REG 104 (1991)
410–33 at 421–2; M. Osanna, ‘Descrizione autoptica e rielaborazione ‘a tavolino’
in Pausania: il caso di Aigeira’, Kernos Suppl. 8 (1998) 209–26 at 215.
72
Wilamowitz, Kleine Schriften VI, 197–8, comparing other mistakes. For his aver-
sion to Pausanias see C. Habicht, Pausanias (Los Angeles, Berkeley, London, 1985)
165–75.
myth, mentions that ‘Stesichorus (F 215 Davies) in his Oresteia,73 fol-

lowing Hesiod, says that Iphigeneia, Agamemnon’s daughter, is she
who is now called Hekate. But near [Arca]dia she is said to be a
young woman’.74 Pausanias may well refer to this passage, which
seems not to have resulted in a ritual, as far as we know.
In the Argolid, in Hermione, Pausanias saw a temple of Artemis
Iphigeneia and Poseidon (2.35.1). The connection between the two
divinities is old and typical of the Peloponnese,75 but in none of the
other cases does Artemis ever receive the epithet Iphigeneia. It there-
fore seems reasonable to conclude that her local epithet in Hermione
was a later addition. Unlike what some scholars state,76 Iphigenia
did not have a heroôn in Argos, although she does appear in Argive
myth, since Pausanias relates that, after being kidnapped by Theseus,
Helen arrived with child in Argos where she gave birth to Iphigeneia.77
However, she did not keep the baby but handed her over to
Clytaemnestra, who was already married to Agamemnon (2.22.6 =
FGrH 314 F 6). This version thus presupposes Agamemnon as king
of Argos, not Mycenae, as in epic tradition. The terminus post quem
of this version must be ca. 464 BC when Argos destroyed Mycenae
and started to appropriate its mythological traditions.78 This appro-
priation moreover suggests that the Argives had claimed the sacrifice
73
Note that in his edition of Stesichorus, Davies still quotes Gomperz and clearly
had overlooked Schober.
74
A. Schober, Philodemi de pietate pars prior (Diss. Königsberg, 1923) = Cronache
Ercolanesi 18 (1988) 67–125, P.Herc. 248, fr. 3.5–13, as corrected by Dirk Obbink
in his forthcoming edition. In line 12–13 I prefer to read ne[çniw rather than ne[brÒw,
since I find it hard to imagine Iphigeneia as a permanent deer. As Dirk Obbink
(email 7–2–2001) points out to me, ‘it is true that the apograph, the only witness
for this column (the papyrus was destroyed by the Italians) reads ]aian. But that
does not count for much against the change of a to d to allow Schober’s ÉArka]d¤an
(suggested by the MSS of Pausanias 1.43.1 despite Wilamowitz’ emendation), since
the copyist frequently mistakes d for a (and vice versa) in this papyrus, the two
being in fact in extant papyrus fragments sometimes indistinguishable in shape. My
‘forthcoming’ text reads ÉArka]d¤an (with Schober).’ I am most grateful to Dirk
Obbink for showing me his forthcoming text.
75
See the enumeration by K. Wernicke, RE 2 (Stuttgart, 1896) 1368f.
76
Contra Wilamowitz, Kleine Schriften VI, 202; P. Brulé, La fille d’Athènes (Paris,
1987) 186; Dowden, Death of the Maiden, 20.
77
For the East Attic myth of Helen as mother of Iphigeneia see Wilamowitz,
Kleine Schriften VI, 206–8; Kearns, Heroes of Attica, 34. Helen’s presence in East Attica
may surprise, but W. Burkert, Kleine Schriften I: Homerica (Göttingen, 2001) 167 rightly
observes that if Helen is of Indo-European origin, as is generally agreed, she can
also be found outside Sparta, her traditional place of origin.
78
F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker IIIb [Text] (Leiden, 1955) 14–5,
notes that this tendency of Argive historians lasted well into the Roman period.
38 j.n. bremmer
of Iphigeneia for their home town, instead of Aulis. This is confirmed

by Apollodorus, since he mentions that Telephos came to Argos
where the Greeks had assembled for their expedition against Troy—
contrary to mainstream tradition which located that encounter in
Aulis (Ep. 3.20–1: § 1).
As Philodemus notes in his passage on Iphigeneia, ‘some have
seen a human’s tomb (i.e. of Iphigeneia) in the city of Megara’, and
his information is confirmed by Pausanias who mentions a heroôn.79
The case is instructive, since the Megarians did not only tell that
Iphigeneia had died in Megara but they also claimed that Agamemnon
had founded a sanctuary for Artemis in their city when he tried to
enlist Calchas for the Greek expedition against Troy. Evidently, like
Argos, early Megara had tried to eliminate Aulis as the port of depar-
ture for the Greeks against Troy and had appropriated the Iphigeneia
myth for that purpose.80
The most famous example of Iphigeneia’s cultic function occurred
in Artemis’ sanctuary in Brauron,81 a port at the east coast of Attica,
where Athenian girls, called arktoi, ‘bears’, performed an initiation
ritual at the Brauronia, a quadrennial festival of Artemis. Her tem-
ple was built by Pisistratus and situated near a brook in an area
with a flourishing vegetation, which the Greeks liked to select for
initiatory cults.82 In recent decades the publication of black-figured
krateriskoi, small goblets dating from the late sixth and fifth centu-
ries with details of the ceremonies, has considerably increased our
knowledge of the ritual side of the festival.83 For example, we now
know that the girls ran races under the supervision of a man and
a woman wearing bear-masks. Although we therefore are able to
79
Philodemus, De pietate = P.Herc. 248, fr. 3.13–6 Schober = Obbink; Pausanias
1.43.1.
80
F. Jacoby, Kleine philologische Schriften I (Berlin, 1961) 368–9; add the claim of
the Megarian royal dynasty to have descended from Agamemnon (Paus. 1.43.3).
Megara hardly invented this tradition as a reaction to the Athenian appropriation,
as is suggested by L. Piccirilli, Megarika. Testimonianze e frammenti (Pisa, 1975) 118f.
For the possible location of the heroôn see A. Muller, ‘Megarika’, Bull. Corr. Hell.
105 (1981) 203–25 at 220–1, 224.
81
For the sanctuary see most recently J. Mylonopoulos and F. Bubenheimer,
‘Beiträge zur Topographie des Artemision von Brauron’, Arch. Anz. 1996, 7–23.
82
For the coastal situation and flourishing landscape see Brulé, La fille d’Athènes,
186–200. Pisistratus: Photius s.v. Braurônia.
83
This is the great merit of Lily Kahil, cf. her studies in: Antike Kunst, Beiheft 1
(963) 5–29; Antike Kunst 8 (1965) 20–33 and 20 (1977) 86–98; W.G. Moon (ed.),
Ancient Greek Art and Iconography (Madison 1983) 231–44; CRAI 1988, 799–813.
analyse the myth and ritual complex of Brauron in greater detail

than was possible for previous generations of scholars,84 we will focus
as much as possible on the myth which is of more importance to
our subject.
There were two aetiological myths associated with the ritual: one
without Iphigeneia and one which related her sacrifice in Brauron.
The first myth is closely comparable to that of Attic Munichia at
Piraeus, where a similar ritual must have been acted out, as the fol-
lowing schematic survey of the myth demonstrates:85
Munichia Brauron
1. Athenians killed a she-bear
2. Artemis got angry
3a. Delphian oracle told 3b. Artemis (or Delphi) demanded
Athenians to sacrifice a virgin that Athenian girls
4a. Goat substituted dressed ‘play the bear’
as girl 4b. Institution of ‘bear-ritual’
The exact meaning of the myth is still unclear and the bear has
been interpreted in various ways. What cannot be in dispute, though,
is the antiquity of this tradition. This is confirmed by the fact that
the priestess of Artemis was called arkos in Cyrene in the fourth cen-
tury BC.86 The form is clearly a variation of arktos, as nouns like
arkulos, ‘bear cub’, and names like Arkoleon, ‘Bear-Lion’, demon-
strate.87 Moreover, the Arcadians related that the nymph Kallisto
broke her vow of virginity by letting herself be seduced by Zeus.
84
The best study of the ritual is now C. Sourvinou-Inwood, Studies in Girls’
Transitions. Aspects of the arkteia and age representation in Attic iconography (Athens, 1988);
note also S.G. Cole, ‘The Social function of the Rituals of Maturation’, ZPE 55
(1984) 233–44; R. Hamilton, ‘Alkman and the Athenian Arkteia’, Hesperia 58 (1989)
449–72; H. Lloyd-Jones, Greek Comedy, Hellenistic Literature, Greek Religion, and Miscellanea
(Oxford, 1990) 306–30 (= JHS 103, 1983, 87–102); K. Waldner, ‘Kulträume von
Frauen in Athen: Das Beispiel der Artemis Brauronia’, in Th. Späth and B. Wagner-
Hasel (eds.), Frauenwelten in der Antike (Stuttgart and Weimar, 2000) 53–81.
85
The scheme is adapted from Henrichs, ‘Human Sacrifice’, 200f.
86
SEG 9.13.12, 9.72.98; note that this famous sacred law now has been re-edited
by C. Dobias-Lalou, Le Dialecte des inscriptions grecques de Cyrène = Karthago 25 (2000)
297–309.
87
O. Masson, Onomastica graeca selecta, 2 vols (Paris, 1990) II.617–20; Dobias-
Lalou, Dialecte des inscriptions, 61; add to her linguistic and onomastic analysis IG
XIV.1302, 1308; W.J. Slater on Aristophanes Byz. F 174b.
40 j.n. bremmer
When bathing with her nymphs, Artemis found out that she was
pregnant and in anger turned her into a bear. In this shape she
gave birth to Arcas, the national ancestor of the Arcadians.88 Behind
these three refracted versions we can see an archaic tradition of the
priestess of Artemis as bear, just like the maiden novices. Clearly,
Iphigeneia has no place in this tradition.
It therefore follows that the alternative Brauronian myth which
related Agamemnon’s sacrifice of Iphigeneia in Brauron, her replace-
ment ‘by a bear not a deer’, and the institution of a ‘mystery’ (i.e.
the bear-ritual), was a local fabrication.89 Evidently, Brauron had
appropriated the epic version of the beginning of the Greek expe-
dition and with it the glory of the Trojan War, just as it had appro-
priated the myth of the statue of Artemis that Orestes and Iphigeneia
had brought back from the Taurians. In an interesting glimpse of
this game of local mythological ‘one-upmanship’, Pausanias reports
the, surely Brauronian, version that Iphigeneia had left her statue at
Brauron, subsequently arrived in Athens, ‘and later in Argos’!90
Yet, once appropriated, a myth can generate its own ritual, as
appears from Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Tauris, where the goddess Athena
concludes the drama with the words: ‘And you Iphigeneia, in the
holy meadows of Brauron, must serve this goddess (Artemis) as tem-
ple warden (kleidouchein). When you die, you will lie buried here, and
they will dedicate for your delight the finely woven garments which
women who die in childbirth leave behind in their houses’ (1462–7,
tr. D. Kovacs, Loeb). Apparently, women had started to model
Iphigeneia on Artemis and to associate the former with childbirth
as well. As Iphigeneia means ‘She who has been born with power’
or ‘She who has been born by means of power’, the process was
perhaps reinforced by the element *geneia in her name. Nicander
(apud Antoninus Liberalis 27.4) even credited Iphigeneia with the epi-
88
For this myth and its many variants see most recently Dowden, Death and the
Maiden, 182–91; P.M.C. Forbes Irving, Metamorphosis in Greek Myths (Oxford, 1990)
72–4, 202–5; LIMC V.1 (1990) s.v. Kallisto (I. McPhee); M. Jost, ‘Versions locales
et versions ‘panhelléniques’ des mythes arcadiens chez Pausanias’, Kernos, Suppl. 8
(1998) 227–40 at 231–4; K. Waldner, ‘Kallisto’, in Der neue Pauly VI (Stuttgart and
Weimar, 1999) 205.
89
Euphorion, fr. 95 Van Groningen; Schol. Aristophanes, Lys. 645b.
90
Pausanias 1.23.7, 33.1. For the statue see also F. Graf, ‘Das Götterbildnis aus
dem Taurerland’, Antike Welt 10 (1979) 33–41; Bremmer, ‘James George Frazer en
The Golden Bough’, Hermeneus 68 (1996) 212–21; Lightfoot on Parthenius F 41.
thet Orsilochia, ‘She who delivers children’, but this epithet is a rel-
atively late invention.91 Euripides’ passage may also give another indi-
cation about Brauron’s cultic realities. I have quoted Kovacs’ translation
in full, but the Greek kleidouchein, ‘to hold the key’, usually indicates
a priestess (see also IT 131 and 1153), who can often be seen on
vases wearing the key of the temple.92 Given the adolescent status
of Iphigeneia, does this perhaps mean that the Brauronian priestess
of Artemis was (originally?) an adolescent?
What can we conclude from our discussion? Previous investiga-
tions have all accepted the cultic references at face value, perhaps
led astray by the very late notice of Hesychius (s.v. Iphigeneia) that
Iphigeneia is identical to Artemis. However, we have seen that these
cults are relatively late wherever we had the chance to control the
facts. Regarding Aigira, the only case where we could not do so,
Pausanias himself evidently had his doubts about the claim of the
locals and, on the basis of the other parallels, we can be fairly cer-
tain that his doubts were fully justified. It should now be clear that
the desire to claim the glory of the Trojan War for their own com-
munity led a number of Greek cities to appropriate the assembly at
Aulis from the pan-Hellenic myth, and Iphigeneia was in a way the
icon of this assembly.93
Yet, the appropriation was not just an arbitrary choice, as we can
see from those cults about which we have more information. In
Aigira and Brauron, her maidenhood perfectly fitted a maiden ini-
tatory ritual in honour of Artemis, just as her maidenhood must
have made it easy to integrate her into the cult of Parthenos. The
appropriations also well fit the familiar cult figurations of a hero(ine)
alongside a god(dess).94 Apparently, the officials behind these mytho-
logical ‘thefts’ clearly had thought about the appropriateness of
the particular cults into which Iphigeneia became integrated. The
91
For Iphigeneia and birth see most recently C. Calame, Choruses of young women
in ancient Greece, tr. D. Collins and J. Orion (Lanham, 1997) 166. Invention: Wilamowitz,
Kleine Schriften VI, 206.
92
H. Kohl, ‘Kleiduchos’, RE 12 (Stuttgart, 1922) 593–600; A.G. Mantis, Problê-
mata tês eikonographias tôn iereiôn kai tôn iereôn stên archaia Ellênikê technê (Athens, 1990),
28–65 (keys), 82–96 (iconography of priests), 114–5 (catalogue of preserved keys).
93
For this tendency of local communities to appropriate pan-Hellenic figures see
also A. Lardinois, ‘Greek Myths for Athenian Rituals’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine
Studies 33 (1992) 313–27.
94
See most recently Waldner, Geburt und Hochzeit des Kriegers, 219f.
42 j.n. bremmer
appropriations may therefore have started to take place at a rela-

tively early stage of Iphigeneia’s myth.
Finally, according to Levenson, ‘the impulse to sacrifice the first-
born son remained potent long after the literal practice (in Israel)
had become odious and fallen into desuetude’.95 I do not see any
proof for this statement, but it is true that Israel had long practised
human sacrifice and that Greece was unusually fascinated by the rit-
ual, albeit only on the level of myth. In this respect modern civili-
sation has made, perhaps, some progress.96
Addendum
After the completion of my contribution two more studies came to

my attention which deserve some notice. First, I should perhaps have
mentioned that Pseudo-Hesiod (fr. 23.17–24 M.-W.) does not have
Artemis produce a deer at the altar when Iphimede is about to be
sacrificed but a kind of phantom, an eidôlon. The motif is discussed
by Clarke, who persuasively argues that it certainly is as old as the
Iliad (V.449–53), where Apollo whisks Aeneas out of the battlefield
to safety.97 Moreover, it was quite a productive motif in the Archaic
Age considering its occurrence in Homer, the Hesiodic corpus and
Stesichorus (F 192–3 Davies).
Second, Manganaro has recently published an, admittedly, rather
fragmentary inscription from Morgantina dating to the third or sec-
ond century BC that looks like a lex sacra. For our subject it is most
interesting that it seems to list a number of animals that have to be
raised in the sanctuary. Amongst them we clearly find deer (elap-
hous), quails and doves.98 As the inscription almost certainly mentions
sacrifice (th]usia) it seems to confirm the presence of deer amongst
those animals that could be presented to the gods. Manganaro also
draws attention to an inscription from Kyme, probably a lex sacra,
95
J.D. Levenson, The Death and the Resurrection of the Beloved Son (New Haven and
London, 1993) 52.
96
For information and comments I would like to thank Fritz Graf, Bob Fowler,
Joshua Katz, Dirk Obbink and Wietske Prummel. Michèle Lowrie thoughtfully cor-
rected my English.
97
M. Clarke, Flesh and Spirit in the Songs of Homer (Oxford, 1999) 196, note 78.
98
G. Manganaro, Sikelika. Studi di antichità e di epigrafia della Sicilia greca (Pisa and
Rome, 1998) 57–60, who is perhaps too generous in his restitutions.
that forbids hunting deer—deer, presumably, from its own sanctu-

ary (I. Kyme 35.7).
These inscriptions raise the problem as to what extent deer were
considered to be wild or domesticated animals. Or could they be
either one of these categories depending on the situation? We need
not answer the question here, but it is precisely this kind of epi-
graphical evidence that helps to show that sacrificial practices in the
Greek world were probably less homogeneous than our literary texts
sometimes seem to suggest.
THE SACRIFICE OF ISAAC IN 4Q225
Florentino García Martínez

Qumran Instituut-Groningen
We do not often encounter the name of the Patriarch Isaac in the

non-Biblical manuscripts from Qumran. The orthography of the
name fluctuates between the tsade and the sin (as in the Biblical text),
although on the majority of occasions, the name is written with sin,
and even once with samek (in 4Q225 2 i 9). Altogether, I have counted
22 occurrences of the name of the Patriarch. There are two men-
tions of Isaac in 4Q364 (the “Rewritten Pentateuch”)1 in passages
which reproduce Gen 25:14 and 35:28 but which do not add any-
thing in this respect to the MT (4Q364 1:2 and 8:2). On three other
occasions, only the name has been preserved, but without any con-
text: 4Q273 4 i 9;2 4Q509 24:2;3 6Q18 2:7.4 The name of Isaac is
usually part of the classical list of Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob (CD 3:3;5 4Q180 1:5 and 4Q181 2:1;6 4Q379 17:4;7 4Q388
7 ii 2;8 4Q393 4:5;9 4Q505 124:6 and 4Q508 3:3).10 From these 14
references, we do not learn anything substantial about Isaac, and of
course, nothing about the Aqedah; neither do we find the expected
1
Edited by E. Tov and S. White in Qumran Cave 4. VIII: Parabiblical Texts. Part
I (DJD XIII; Clarendon: Oxford, 1994), 205 and 214, pls. XIII–XIV.
2
Edited by J.M. Baumgarten in Qumran Cave 4. XIII: The Damascus Document
(DJD XVIII; Clarendon: Oxford, 1996), 196, pl. XLI.
3
Edited by M. Baillet in Qumrân Grotte 4. III (DJD VII; Clarendon: Oxford,
1982), 193, pl. XIII.
4
Edited by M. Baillet in Les ‘Petites Grottes’ de Qumrân (DJD III; Clarendon:
Oxford, 1962), 133, pl. XXVII.
5
Edited by E. Qimron in M. Broshi (ed.) The Damascus Document Reconsidered
(Israel Exploration Society: Jerusalem, 1992).
6
Edited by J.M. Allegro in Qumran Cave 4. I (DJD V; Clarendon: Oxford, 1968)
78 and 80, pls. XXVII and XVIII.
7
Edited by C. Newsom in Qumran Cave 4. XVII: Parabiblical Texts, Part 3 (DJD
XXII; Clarendon: Oxford, 1996), 274, pl. xxii.
8
Edited by D. Dimant in Qumran Cave 4. xxi: Parabiblical Texts, Part 4:
Pseudo-Prophetic Texts DJD XXX; Clarendon: Oxford, 2001), 208, pl. VII.
9
Edited by D. Falk in Qumran Cave 4. XX: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 2
(DJD XXIX; Clarendon: Oxford, 1999), 58, pl. III.
10
Edited by M. Baillet in Qumrân Grotte 4. III (DJD VII; Clarendon: Oxford,
1982), 169 and 179, pls. XXIII and LIV.
the sacrifice of isaac in 4q225 45
reworking of Gen 22 in the Genesis Apocryphon from Cave 1,11 because

the manuscript ends abruptly halfway through the re-writing of Gen
15, and there has been no sign of the remainder of the composition.
Happily though, seven of the eight other references to Isaac are
concentrated in a single manuscript; 4Q225 (4Q225 2 i 9.10.11; 2
ii 2.4.10.12).12 The last reference is to be found in a fragment of
another manuscript; 4Q226 (4Q226 7:5), which may or may not be
another copy of the same composition preserved in 4Q225, but which
in any case is closely related to it and also deals partially with the
Aqedah narrative.13 4Q225 (as well as 4Q226 and 4Q227) have been
classified by the editors as “Pseudo-Jubilees”14 in order to convey the
idea that “the texts employ language that is familiar from and to
some extent characteristic of Jubilees, but the documents themselves
are not actual copies of Jubilees”.15
4Q225 is a manuscript copied in a Herodian formal hand, and
can be dated around the end of the first century BCE or the be-
ginning of the first century CE. From this manuscript, only three
fragments have reached us. The first fragment speaks about the Cov-
enant (the word has not been preserved) of Circumcision made with
Abraham, but immediately after that goes on with a speech addressed
directly to Moses and dealing with the Creation and a new (?)
Creation. Although this first fragment certainly deals with Abraham,
and the shape and the patterns of deterioration of the fragment sug-
gest that it comes from a position in the scroll very closely related
to that of Frag. 2, its contents are not related to the story of the
Aqedah. Of the contents of the third fragment, since it consists of
only some isolated words from the end and the beginning of two
consecutive columns, nothing can be said. However, in the two
columns of Frag. 2, which mentions the Patriarch Isaac seven times,
11
Edited by N. Avigad and Y. Yadin, A Genesis Apocryphon. A Scroll from the Wilderness
of Judaea (Magnes: Jerusalem, 1956).
12
Edited by J.C. VanderKam in Qumran Cave 4; VIII: Parabiblical Texts. Part I
(DJD XIII; Clarendon: Oxford 1994), 141–55, pl. X.
13
Edited by J.C. VanderKam in Qumran Cave 4; VIII: Parabiblical Texts. Part I
(DJD XIII; Clarendon: Oxford 1994), 157–69, pl. XI.
14
The precise relationship of 4Q225 with the book of Jubilees has been exam-
ined by VanderKam in a paper dedicated ‘to weigh the utility of the label “Pseudo-
jubilees”’. Cfr. J.C. VanderKam, ‘The Aqedah, Jubilees, and Pseudojubilees,’ in C.A.
Evans and S. Talmon (eds.), The Quest for Context and Meaning. Studies in Biblical
Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders (Brill: Leiden, 1997) 241–61.
15
DJD XIII, 142.
46 f. garcía martínez
we do find a re-telling of the narrative of Gen 22 with some inter-

esting elements in spite of its fragmentary character.
The following is a transcription and translation of the two columns
of Frag. 2 of this manuscript as presented in the DSSSE:16
Col. I
ayhh [çp]nh trkt t[. . .] 1
hnç μ[y]rç[ ˆrjb b[çy . . .]hym[[ brqm] 2
[rz[]ylaw y[ryr][ ab ynnh ynda μyhwla la μhrb[a rmayw] 3
vacat ynçryw hawh [ytyb ˆb] 4
harw μybkwkh ta apx aç μhr[b]a la yn[da rma] 5
μa yk ≈rah rp[ taw μyh tpç l[ rça lwj{k}h[ ta rwpsw] 6
[ˆym]ayw hk[rz hyhy hkk awl μa [π]aw hla μyn[mn wyhy] 7
ˆk[ yr]ja ˆb dlwyw hqdx wl bçjtw μ[yh]wla [μhrba] 8
hmf[ç]mh rç awbyw qjsy wmç ta arq[y]w μ[hrbal] 9
μyhwl[a ]rmayw qjçyb μhrba ta μyfçyw μyhw[la la] 10
[rça hk]dyjy ta qjçy ta hknb ta jq μh[rba la] 11
μy[hwbgh μ]yrhh dja l[ hlw[l yl whl[hw ht[bha wtwa] 12
[. . .]· l[ twrabh ˆm[ ˚ ]l[yw μw]qyw hkl [rmwa rça] 13
ta [μhr]ba açyw [. . .] 14
Col. II
[. . .] . . . [. . .] 1
[. . .] μhrba la qjçy [rmayw] 2
[. . .]la μhrba rmayw hlw[[]l 3
[. . .]k wyba la qjçy rma wl 4
[. . .]l[ μykwb μydmw[ çdwq ykalm 5
[. . . hmfç]mh ykalmw ≈rah ˆm wynb ta 6
[μa . . .]w dbay wçk[ μyrmwaw μyjmç 7
[. . .] ˆman axmy al μaw çjk axmy 8
[. . . yk yt[dy ht][ rmayw ynnh rmayw μhrba μhrba 9
[ta dlwyw wyj ymy lwk qj]çy ta hwhy la ˚rbyw bha hyhy al 10
[lwk wyhyw vacat yçylç rw]d ywl ta dylwh bwq[yw bwq[y 11
[. . . y]wlw bwq[yw qjçyw μhrba ymy 12
[. . .]· rwsa vacat hmfçmh rçw 13
[. . .]la l[ylb [mçyw hmf[ç]mh rç 14
Col. I
1
[. . .] that p[erson] shall be cut off 2 [from the midst of ] his [na]tion
[. . . liv]ed in Haran twenty years. 3 [And A]braham [said] to God:
16
F. García Martínez – E.J.C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition.
Volume One (1Q1—4Q273) (Brill-Eerdmans: Leiden-Grand Rapids, 2000) 478–81.
“My Lord, see that I am going ch[ildle]ss, and Eli[ezer] 4 is [the son
of my house], and he will inherit me”. Blank 5 [The Lo]rd [said] to
A[b]raham: “Lift up, observe the stars, and see 6 [and count] {it all}
the sand on the shore of the sea, and the dust of the earth, whether
7
these [can be coun]ted, or not, thus your offspring shall be”. And
[Abraham] tr[usted] 8 Go[d], and righteousness was accounted to him.
And af[ter] this a son was born 9 [to Abraha]m. And [he] called him
Isaac, and the Prince of A[ni]mosity came 10 [to G]od and accused
Abraham with regard to Isaac. And [G]od said 11 [to Abra]ham: “Take
your son, Isaac, [your] only one, [whom] 12 you [love], and offer him
to me as a burnt-offering on one of the [high] mountains 13 [which I
will tell] you”. And he ar[ose, and we]n[t] from the wells up to [. . .]
14
[. . .] and Ab[raham] lifted
Col. II
1
. . .] . . . [. . .] 2 [and] Isaac [said] to Abraham [. . .] 3 for the [bur]nt-
offering”? And Abraham said to [. . .] 4 for himself ”. Isaac said to his
father: [“. . .” . . .] 5 the angels of holiness were standing weeping above
[. . .] 6 his son from the earth. And the angels of An[imosity . . .] 7 were
rejoicing and saying: “Now he will come to and end”. And [. . . whether]
8
he would be found untruthful, and whether he would not be found
faithful [. . .] 9 “Abraham, Abraham”. And he said: “Here am I”. And
he said: “N[ow I know . . .] 10 he will not be loving. And God yhwh
blessed Isa[ac all the days of his life. And he begot] 11 Jacob, and Jacob
begot Levi, a [third] ge[neration; Blank And all] 12 the days of Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob and Lev[i were . . .] 13 and the Prince of Animosity Blank
Bind [. . .] 14 the Prince of An[im]osity, and Belial listened to [. . .]
The retelling of the Aqedah in our manuscript is extremely compact
and most of the details of the Biblical text (such as the journey, the
presence of the servants, the construction of the altar, the attempt
to sacrifice Isaac, the first call of the angel arresting Abraham and
even the replacement of Isaac by the ram) are not mentioned, and
the narrative is entirely concentrated within the framework of the
testing of Abraham’s “fidelity.” Strictly speaking, we should not even
speak of the Aqedah story in our text, because the detail of the “bind-
ing” of Isaac is one of the elements about which the narrative is
silent.
As seen by the author of our text, the whole story is directly linked
to the promise made to Abraham and to the assertion of his fidelity.
The wording of the promise is a combination of different versions
of the patriarchal blessings (the stars come from Gen 15:5, the sands
form the shore of the sea in Gen 22:17, and the dust of the earth
comes from Gen 13:16, for example), but with a peculiar formulation
which combines the positive conditional affirmation of the Masoretic

text in Gen 13:16 (twnm vya lkwy μa “if a man can number”) with
the negative affirmation of 1QapGen 21:13 and Neofiti (al yd
hynmml çwna rb lwk jkçy “no man can number”). The double con-
ditional of our text (awl μa πaw hla μynmn wyhy μa yk) has it both ways:
“whether these can be counted or not”; in both cases, the offspring
of Abraham (to whom the fuller form of the name has already been
given) shall be like the stars, the sand, or the dust.
More interesting is the wording of the theologically heavily loaded
Gen 15:6 in our text. The phrase in question is differently worded
in the MT and in the LXX.17 The Hebrew text reads hwhyb ˆmahw
hqdx wl hbvjyw while the LXX reads ka‹ §p¤steus° Abram t“ ye“ ka‹
§log¤syh aÈt“ efiw dikaiosÊnhn.
The LXX translates the unexpected hiphil perfect (ˆmahw) of the
MT with a aorist (ka‹ §p¤steus°); this has caused many problems for
commentators. Our text has a more logical future with waw: ˆymayw.18
Our text requires the reconstruction of Abraham in the lacuna, as
in the LXX, but does not allow us to decide if the right translation
of the Hebrew and of the Greek is credere in deum or credere deo. What
our text clearly does with the use of the niphal form bçjtw is to
prove that the translation of the actif qal hbvjyw of the MT by the
passive aorist §log¤syh of the LXX does not need to be interpreted
as a theological explanation, but it is most probably the result of
the use of a different Hebrew Vorlage. Instead of MT “and he
accounted it to him [as] righteousness”, our text (as does the LXX)
reads “and [it] was accounted to him as righteousness”, or in a more
literal translation (because neither the MT nor 4Q225 has the equiv-
alent of the efiw Greek) “and righteousness was accounted to him”.
This allows us to conclude that the use of Gen 15:6 in the New
Testament (Rom 4:3.9; Gal 3:6: James 2:23) may not be founded
in the LXX reading, but in a Hebrew text form similar to the one
of 4Q225, with a niphal reading.
17
For a detailed study of both texts, see the two studies by Rudolf Mosis,
‘‘‘Glauben” und “Gerechtigkeit”—zu Gen 15, 6’ and ‘Gen 15, 6 in Qumran und
in der Septuagint’, collected in his Gesammelte Aufsätze zum Alten Testament (Forschung
zur Bibel, 93; Echter: Würzburg, 1999) 55–93 and 95–118.
18
Although the word has not been completely preserved, its reconstruction seems
fairly certain. Taking into account the minimal remains of ink on the border, it
will be even possible to transcribe ˆ[ym]ayw.
As already mentioned, in our text, the story of the “testing” of

Abraham is directly linked to the promise. The birth of Isaac fol-
lows directly the promise of posterity in Gen 15:6, and our story
comes after the giving of the name and without any interruption,
followed equally directly and without interruption, by a summary of
the results of the promise, the lineage of Abraham through Isaac
and Jacob until Levi.
If we carefully read the Hebrew text and compare it with the
Masoretic text of Gen 22, some small differences in wording come
to the fore: for example, the land of Moriah has been probably inter-
preted as “one of the high mountains”; the place where Abraham
and Isaac are dwelling is called “the wells” and is apparently an
allusion to Beer Sheva. But the most interesting elements of our text
are those which are not present in the Hebrew Bible and which clearly
anticipate some of the later developments of the Aqedah story, both
in Judaism and in Christianity. I will consequently focus my atten-
tion on these elements.
1. The “Testing” of Abraham is Caused by Mastema
I hesitate to use the word “testing” (μhrba ta hsn μyhlahw “and God
tested Abraham”) because the verb hsn “to try, to test” is not used
in the preserved fragments (the editor reconstructs it on line 7 of
col. ii,19 but this is most uncertain; in other versions of the story it
is always God who “tests” Abraham ( Jubilees, for example, lists in
17:17 seven “tests” that God made Abraham pass, although the
classical number is ten, as Jubilees itself recalls en passant in 19:8
“This was the tenth test by which Abraham was tried”). In any case,
the point of the whole story is indeed to prove “whether he would
be found untruthful, and whether he would not be found faithful”
as is said in ii 8, which certainly implies the idea of “testing.” The
verb used in our fragment is μfç (i 10: μyfçyw) “to bear a grudge,
to cherish animosity,” the verb used to characterize the hatred of
Esau for Jacob (Gen 27:41), but also God’s assaults on Job ( Job
16:9; 30:21), and from which the name Mastema (hmfçm) has been
constructed.
19
‘And [in all this the Prince Mastemah was testing whether] he would be found
weak . . .’ DJD XIII, 151.
Be it an accusation or an attack, this work of hate against Abraham

is done by the hmfçmh rç, the Prince of Animosity, and it is done be-
cause of Isaac. The first element is present in several other forms of
the story of the Aqedah, starting with Jubilees 17:16, from which our
text may depend;20 the second one inaugurates, in my view, the shift
which later on will led to consider Isaac (and not Abraham) the cen-
ter of the story (for example, in the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 32:2–4).
In our text, Mastema appears suddenly, without any introduction,
and the reasons for his intervention will only be revealed later, in
the next column. In Jubilees, as in the later rabbinical tradition, the
intervention of Mastema (or Satan in the Talmud) is related to the
innocent sentence with which the Biblical narrative begins: rja yhyw
hlah μyrbdh. By taking μyrbdh to mean “words”, the assumption
is that there have been rumours in heaven concerning Abraham
(“There were voices in heaven regarding Abraham, that he was
faithful in everything . . .”, Jub 17:15).21 In other witnesses to the tra-
dition (the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum for example), these “rumours”
in heaven are explicitly attributed to the angels, who are jealous
of Abraham, and this jealousy is the motive for the testing of Abraham:
“All the angels were jealous of him, and the serving hosts envied
him. Since they were jealous of him, God said to him . . .” (32:1–2).22
In the rabbinical tradition, several developments of this midrash can
be found.23 In Talmud Bavli,24 μyrbdh refers precisely to the words
20
‘Then Prince Mastema came and said before God: “Abraham does indeed
love his son Isaac and finds him more pleasing than anyone else. Tell him to offer
him as sacrifice on an altar. Then you will see whether he performs this order and
will know whether he is faithful in everything through which you test him.”’ (trans-
lation from J.C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees [CSCO 510–11, Scriptores Aethiopici
87–88; Peeters: Leuven, 1989] vol. 2, p. 105.
21
VanderKam’s translation (op.cit., 105). M. Kister, ‘Observations on Aspects of
Exegesis, Tradition, and Theology in Midrash, Pseudepigrapha, and Other Jewish
Writings,’ in J.C. Reeves (ed.), Tracing the Threads. Studies in the Vitality of Jewish
Pseudepigrapha (SBLEJL 6; Scholars Press: Atlanta, 1994), 26, n. 39 notes that as
translation of μyrbdh ‘voices’ is not the most adequate rendering of Ethiopic qâlât,
an opinion now accepted by VanderKam in his article ‘The Aqedah, Jubilees, and
Pseudojubilees,’ where he recognizes that translating ‘words’ instead of ‘voices’ would
have been a ‘more literal rendering in the context;’ (p. 249, note 19).
22
Translation from H. Jacobson, A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum
Biblicarum. With Latin Text and English Translation (AGAJU 31; Brill: Leiden, 1996) 149.
23
The main texts were already collected and discussed by G. Vermes in his
‘Redemption and Genesis XXII: The Binding of Isaac and the Sacrifice of Jesus,’
in idem, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism (SPB 4; Brill: Leiden, 1961) 193–227.
M. Kister has analysed anew these texts on the article quoted in note 21, pp. 7–15.
24
‘After what words? Said R. Yohanan in the name of R. Yosi ben Zimran:
of Satan, thus offering a close parallel to Jubilees; one of the three

interpretations present in Gen. Rab. 55:4 (the one attributed to
R. Eleazar) echoes the form of the midrash as it appears in the LAB,
since the “words” originate with the ministering angels, but another
interpretation puts the origin of the rumours not in heaven but on
the earth, with “the nations of the world.”25 In the rabbinic interpre-
tations, the pretext for the “words” is sought in the sacrificial sphere,
while in older witnesses to the tradition, the jealousy of the angels
comes to the fore. But all these texts use a common exegetical device:
they anchor the independent exegetical development in the biblical
text as a reflection on the μyrbdh. Our text, on the contrary, does
not use any exegetical device to introduce Mastema, and goes directly
to his accusation as being the motive for the accusation.
In our text, Mastema’s accusation of Abraham is also different
from the accusations in the other narratives, and the author of 4Q225
makes his main interpretative point at the hand of the accusation.
Mastema’s accusation is done “with regard to” or “because of ” Isaac
(qjçyb). The real meaning of the preposition is clarified later on, in
the exclamations of joy of the angels of Mastema at the prospect of
the death of Isaac (ii 7–8): “Now he will perish.” Neither jealousy
nor a desire to test Abraham direct his actions; what Mastema hopes
to achieve with this stratagem is to cross God’s plans and to make
ineffective the promise to Abraham of a progeny numerous as the
stars, the sand or the dust.
2. The Presence of Fire to Mark the Place?
The next element of our text which may not have a correspondence
in the biblical text is, according to the editor, the mention of “fire”
in 4Q225 2 ii 1. VanderKam notes the presence of fire in Gen
22:6,7, but recognizes that there is not enough room in the lacuna
to insert even a summary of these two verses. For this reason, as
After the words spoken by Satan. For the text earlier said: “and the boy grew up
and was weaned, and Abraham made a great banquet on the day Isaac was weaned”
(Gen 21:8). At that time Satan said to God: “Master of the Universe! You have
blessed this old man at the age of one hundred years with offspring. Yet amidst
all this banquet that he prepared, was there no pigeon of fowl for him to sacrifice
before You?”’ TB Sanh 89b.
25
A third interpretation, the first presented in the text, makes Abraham himself
the one who utters these ‘words.’
background to the presence of this word he suggests the explana-

tion given in the Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer (105): Abraham, who has not
seen the place before, was able to recognize it because he and Isaac
saw there “a column of fire from the earth until heaven.”26 But the
reading of ça is problematic; the letter shin is certain on the pho-
tographs, but no trace of alep can be discerned; on the contrary, the
shin is directly followed by two letters, best interpreted as waw and
yod respectively, and besides, at the beginning of the line, the recon-
struction of wyny[ “his eyes” is required in order to complete the sen-
tence at the end of col. i: “and Abraham lifted his eyes”; this leaves
a very short space available to reconstruct a complete sentence with
the word “fire.” Although this notion is present in PRE (Targum
Pseudo Jonathan to Gen 22:4 and the Gen. Rab. 56:1–2 use the “cloud
of glory” to point out the place to Abraham) nothing can be said
about its presence in 4Q225.27
3. Isaac Consents and Asks to be Tied
We are on firmer ground with the next element, although here again
our transcription in the DSSSE is more conservative than DJD and
we have not reproduced the letter kap on the border of the line 4
of column two.28 Although not complete, there can be no doubt of
its presence in the photographs,29 nor of its reading as a kap. The
Biblical text records only one speech by Isaac: the one we have here
on lines 2–3. Afterwards he remains silent. But in our text, after
Abraham’s answer, Isaac speaks again. Of this new speech, only the
broken letter kap has been preserved. As VanderKam remarks,30 the
Targumic tradition (Neofiti, PsJonathan, Fragment Targum) uni-
formly records a second speech by Isaac in Gen 22:10, as does Gen.
26
‘There is insufficient space for the full expression ça dwm[ aryw on the frag-
ment, but the text may have indicated in some way that he saw a fire on the
mountain to explain how it was that Abraham recognized the place though he had
never seen it before.’ (DJD XIII, 151)
27
For G. Vermes, ‘New Light on the Sacrifice of Isaac from 4Q225,’ JJS 47
(1996) 140–46, the reading of ça is clear and the ‘pillar of fire’ is identical with
the ‘cloud of glory,’ and he lists the presence of this element in 4Q225 as a proof
of the antiquity of the tradition (note 10 and p. 146).
28
PAM 43.251 which we used is darkened in this place.
29
Particularly clear are PAM 41.518 and 42.361.
30
DJD XIII, 151–52.
Rab. 56:7, and in all these witnesses of the tradition the speech of
Isaac starts with the same word, the imperative of tpk “tie” or
“bind”.31 This makes the reconstruction twp]k proposed in DJD quite
a reasonable one.
If this can be accepted, our text is a witness (and for the first
time, because the issue is not mentioned in Jubilees) to one of the
most important of the later developments of the story of the Aqedah,
the one presenting Isaac as a willing victim, fully consenting to his
own sacrifice. Josephus (Ant I. § 232) attests to this development
already: “The son of such a father could not but be brave-hearted,
and Isaac received these words [of Abraham, who explains that he
has to be the victim] with joy . . . and with that he rushed to the
altar and his doom”. The same theme is similarly expressed in LAB
(40:2) “Or have you forgotten what happened in the days of our
fathers when the father placed the son as a burnt offering, and he
did not dispute him but gladly gave consent to him, and the one
offered was ready and the one who was offering was rejoicing?” This
is, of course, a common feature of the rabbinical presentation of the
Aqedah.
In the Targumic tradition, the reason given for the request to be
tied is Isaac’s wish not to render the sacrifice invalid. As Neofiti says:
“Father, tie me well lest I kick you and your sacrifice be rendered
useless.”32 But other witnesses insist more on the spiritual element
of the acceptance: 4 Mac, who sees the prototype of the martyr in
Isaac, says for example on 14:20: “Isaac offered himself to be a
sacrifice for the sake of righteousness.” And in the rabbinic tradi-
tion, the development of this idea went so far that in the words of
Rabbi Akiva, as reported by R. Meir, “Isaac bound himself upon the
altar.”33 (Sif. Deut. 32)
31
Pseudo Jonathan and Neofiti read tway yty tpk ‘tie me well,’ while the Frag-
mentary Targums MSS 110 and 440 read twaiy yady [yydy] twpk ‘tie well my hands.’
Gen. Rab. affixes the pronoun to the verb: hpy hpy yntpk ‘tie me very well.’
32
Neofiti Margin specifies: ‘in the hour of my sorrow I move convulsively and
I create confusion and our sacrifice be found blemished.’ English translation from
M. McNamara and M. Maher in A. Díez Macho, Neophyti 1. Tomo 1. Genesis
(Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas: Madrid-Barcelona, 1968) 551.
33
Sifre Deut. 32 (ed. Finkelstein, p. 58): jbzmh ybg l[ wmx[ dq[ç qjxyk.
4. The Angels are Present and Weep
The presence of many angels witnessing the sacrifice of Isaac is not

attested to in the Biblical text, which speaks of only one angel, “the
angel of the Lord” who does the talking to Abraham in Gen 22:11.15.
Jubilees implies the presence of other angels besides “the angel of the
presence,” although, curiously enough, in his version of the story it
is God himself who is doing the speaking, and not the “angel of the
Lord” of the MT: “The Lord again called Abraham by his name
from heaven, just as we had appeared in order to speak to him in
the Lord’s name. He said: ‘I have sworn by myself . . .’” (18:14).34
The presence of many angels at the scene visible only to Isaac is a
standard feature in the version of the story of the Palestinian Targu-
mim,35 and later rabbinic writings will make the “ministering angels”
(trçh ykalm) witness the whole scene.
The detail that the holy angels (çdwq ykalm) were weeping is not
present in these early traditions, but, as the editor notes,36 they are
prominent in the version of the story as recorded in Gen. Rab. 56:5.
There the ministering angels are not only present and weeping, but
the absence of the knife in Gen 22:12 (“lay not thy hand upon the
lad”) is explained as being because “the tears of the ministering
angels had fallen on it and dissolved it.” (Gen. Rab. 56:7). Again, our
text is the oldest attestation of an element which later on will be
fully developed.
5. The Demons are Equally Present and They Rejoice at the Expected Death
In the Biblical narrative, the only witness to the actions of Abraham

and Isaac is the “angel of the Lord”; in other versions of the story,
angels are also present (as we have seen). Our text adds more wit-
ness: “the angels of the Mastema” (hmfçmh ykalm). As far as I know,
no other version of the story attests to the presence of the wicked
angels at the scene. Jubilees says simply that “Prince Mastema was
34
VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, Vol. 2, 108.
35
In Neofiti we read: ‘The eyes of Abraham were on the eyes of Isaac and the
eyes of Isaac were scanning the angels on high. Isaac saw them, Abraham did not
see them’ (Neophyti 1, 551).
36
DJD, 152.
put to shame” (18:12). But for the purpose of the author of our text,
the presence of the wicked angels is required as a contrast to the
angelic hosts. Their cry “Now he will perish” expresses the main
intention of our text’s narrative: Mastema’s intention in testing Abra-
ham was to cross the divine plan and abort the promise of posterity
through Isaac.
The next line of our text does not have a parallel in the Biblical
text either. But it is not clear to whom the two parallel expressions
(çjk axmy “to be found untruthful” and axmy al ˆman “not to be
found faithful”) refer: to Isaac or to Abraham. VanderKam reads a
doubtful alep at the end of the line,37 and applies the expressions to
Abraham, assuming that what it is tested is his “fidelity”. This is
without doubt the reading of the somewhat parallel sentence in
4Q226 7:1, where we can read: μyhlal ˆman μhrba axmn “Abraham
was found faithful to God.” But the order of the sentence is not the
same, and in 4Q226 the fidelity of Abraham is expressed positively,
while in 4Q225 the sentence is conditional and negative. In our text,
the subject of the previous line 7 is clearly Isaac (the one expected
to be killed) and the expressions of line 8 are apparently a contin-
uation of the sayings of the angels of Mastema. Moreover, Abraham
is directly addressed in the next line, which reproduces Gen 22:11
with the double call of his name. For these reasons, it seems more
logical to consider Isaac, and not Abraham, to also be the subject
of line 8.38 If so, this expression may contain an allusion to the theme
of the testing of Isaac found in Judit 8:26: “Remember what he
[God] did with Abraham, and how he tested Isaac.”
The subject of the first part of line 10 is most probably Abraham;
after the direct speech addressed to him on line 9, he is by far the
most likely candidate for the subject of the text. The speaker is also
most probably God, who enters into a dialogue with Abraham in
line 9 and is the subject of the second rmayw (since line 9 closely fol-
lows Gen 22:11). But we do not have a context into which to place
the first sentence bha hyhy al, nor can we imagine who this negative
37
The photographs show indeed the remains of a letter in the border of the
fragment, but its shape is hardly compatible with an alep, even in the somewhat
irregular script of the manuscript.
38
This is also the interpretation of G. Vermes, ‘New Light on the Sacrifice of
Isaac,’ 142, n. 17, who gives to çjk the meaning of ‘weak’ and translates: ‘whether
he will be found weak and whether A[braham] will be found unfaithful [to God.’
expression, which is a reversal of the traditional title of Abraham,

known as the bha, the “lover” of God, refers to.39
6. The Blessing of Isaac
In Gen 22:17, at the end of the test is a solemn blessing of Abraham.

Our text concludes in typical fashion with a blessing of Isaac in the
second part of line 10, and with the listing of a third generation
genealogy on lines 11 and 12. This genealogy lists not the first-born
sons, but, as VanderKam notes,40 the carriers of the priestly line. In
this way, 4Q225 not only again underlines the essential role of Isaac
in the story (he, and not Abraham, receives the blessing) but closes
its retelling of the story within a strongly unified perspective: the
fidelity of God to his promise.
The wording of the blessing contains an interesting detail: the
name of God is worded hwhy la “God the Lord,” and the tetra-
grammaton is not written in palaeo-Hebrew but in the same script as
the rest of the fragment. This detail makes a Qumran origin for the
composition less likely.41 Milik, and VanderKam after him, have
labeled 4Q225 “Pseudo-Jubilees,” but the composition is certainly
different from Jubilees. Indeed, our text has some elements of lan-
guage and of content which agree with Jubilees, but it also has other
elements which are not present in it.42 It belongs thus neither to the
Jubilees nor to the qumranic tradition. This characteristic makes it
even more interesting, in so far as it is a witness to the development
39
Vermes, ‘New Light on the Sacrifice of Isaac,’ understands the expression as
coming from the Lord and addressed to Mastema: ‘The missing words are more
likely to be those of God to Mastema, e.g. “Now I know that you have lied that
he is not a lover (of God).”
40
DJD XIII, 153.
41
On the different ways of writing the divine name in the Qumran Scrolls, see
H. Stegemann, ‘Religionsgeschichtliche Erwägungen zu den Gottesbezeichungen in
den Qumrantexten,’ in M. Delcor (ed.), Qumrân: sa piété, sa théologie et son milieu (BETL
46; Duculot-Leuven University Press: Paris-Gembloux-Leuven, 1978) 195–217. See
also E. Schuller, Non-Canonical Psalms from Qumran. A Pseudepigraphic Collection (HSM;
Scholars Press: Atlanta, 1986), 38–43 and E. Puech, ‘Le plus ancien exemplair du
Rouleau du Temple,’ in M. Bernstein, F. García Martínez, J. Kampen (eds.), Legal
Texts and Legal Issues (STDJ 23; Brill: Leiden, 1997), 59–61.
42
VanderKam (‘The Aqedah, Jubilees‚ and Pseudojubilees’, 261) concludes his analy-
sis of the relationship between Jubilees and 4Q225: ‘the fact is that Jubilees and
4Q225 appear to be markedly different kinds of compositions. . . . There appears
to be no justification for classifying the cave 4 text as “Pseudojubilees.’’’
and growth of the traditions around the Aqedah, though not in a par-
ticular sectarian context but within the wider context of the Judaism
of the time. In view of the date of the manuscript (around the turn
of the era), it also assures us that some of the basic elements of the
Christian interpretation of the Aqedah were already present in pre-
Christian Judaism.
It would be also interesting to examine what elements of the story
of the Aqedah as developed fully in rabbinical writings are not pre-
sent in our text,43 and to explore the reasons for this silence. But
we will be in a better position for this after the presentation of the
Aqedah in the Pseudepigrapha by Jacques van Ruiten and in the
Rabbinical writings by Wout van Bekkum. I shall therefore conclude
by summarizing the main points of interest of our text:
4Q225 shows us that these traditions were not restricted to the more
or less sectarian circles around Jubilees or to the Qumran community,
but that they also circulated among other Jewish groups; it attests that
some of these traditions have developed much earlier than we previ-
ously thought; and it proves conclusively that, although the most
advanced theological speculations of the Rabbis and of the Christians
are still lacking, the Aqedah story was already used for purposes other
than the ones in the Biblical text, namely to show God’s fidelity to
the promise done to Abraham manifested in the blessing of Isaac.
43
For example: the age of Isaac, the blood of Isaac, the linking of the place of
the sacrifice with the temple of Jerusalem and with Passover, the linking of Isaac
with the sacrificial lamb of the Tamid sacrifice, the ashes of Isaac, etc.
ABRAHAM, JOB AND THE BOOK OF JUBILEES: THE
INTERTEXTUAL RELATIONSHIP OF GENESIS 22:1–19,
JOB 1:1–2:13 AND JUBILEES 17:15–18:19
Jacques van Ruiten
1. Abraham and Job
The Old Testament does not make an explicit comparison between

the figures of Abraham and Job. In the book of Ezekiel, the right-
eousness of Job is compared to that of Noah and Daniel (Ezek 14:12,
20).1 Ben Sira refers to Job in the context of a reference to Ezekiel
and the twelve prophets, and he reflects on what Ezekiel has to say
about Job (cf. Ben Sira 49:9). Only in the Testament of Abraham is Job
for the first time explicitly related to Abraham. The archangel Michael
announced Abraham’s death to him. Abraham was not willing to
follow him, however. The archangel then said to God: ‘Lord Almighty,
thus he speaks, and I refrain from touching him, because from the
beginning he has been your friend and he did everything which is
pleasing before you. And there is no man like unto him on earth,
not even Job, the wondrous man. And for this reason I refrain from
touching him. Command, then, immortal king, what is to be done”
(Test. of Abr. 15:14–15).2 According to Delcor, the Testament of Abraham
should be seen as a polemic against the image of Job that is painted
in the Testament of Job.3 The author of the Testament of Abraham bor-
rows the virtuous image of Job from the Testament of Job and trans-
fers it to Abraham.4
1
For a comparison of Ezek 14:12–23 with Job 1:1–2:10; 42:7–17, see U. Berges,
‘Der Ijobrahmen (Ijob 1,1–2,10; 42,7–17). Theologische Versuche angesichts un-
schuldigen Leidens’, BZ 39 (1995) 225–245 (esp. 229–231). Daniel is mostly identified
with the hero from Ugaritic Epos of Aqhat, see: M. Noth, ‘Noah, Daniel und Job
in Ezechiel XIV’, VT 1 (1951) 251–260; H.P. Müller, ‘Magisch-mantische Weisheit
und die Gestalt Daniels’, UF 1 (1969) 79–94; J. Day, ‘The Daniel of Ugarit and
Ezekiel and the Hero of the Book of Daniel’, VT 30 (1980) 174–184.
2
The translation is taken from E.P. Sanders, ‘Testament of Abraham’, in: J.H.
Charlesworth (ed.), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, I (London 1983), 892.
3
M. Delcor, Le Testament d’Abraham. Introduction, traduction du text grec et commentaire
de la recension grecque longue, Leiden 1973, 76.
4
J. Weinberg, ‘Job versus Abraham. The Quest for the Perfect God-Fearer in
abraham, job and the book of JUBILEES 59
Whereas Job’s rank is to some extent reduced in the Testament of

Abraham, Rabbi, the composer of the Mishnah, puts him on the same
level as Abraham.5 In TSotah 6:1, the term ‘God-fearing’ is used both
in relation to Job and to Abraham, and in both cases it is derived
from love: ‘. . . Rabbi says: God-fearing is stated with reference to
Abraham (Gen 22:12) and God-fearing is said with reference to Job
( Job 1:1). Just as God-fearing stated with reference to Abraham means
that Abraham did what he did out of love, so God-fearing stated
with reference to Job means that Job did what he did out of love
for God. And all the rest of the murmuring stated in that passage
is stated only out of the events’.6 According to BT Sotah 31a, this
statement is even older and from Rabbi Meir, the teacher of Rabbi.7
In BT Baba Batra 15b–16b, one can find several statements regard-
ing the apposition of Abraham and Job. Sometimes Job is the one
who is preferred, at other times Abraham. God’s enquiry as to Satan’s
whereabouts receive a response from Satan that plays on the bibli-
cal statement ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walk-
ing up and down on it’ ( Job 1:7): ‘I have traversed the whole world
and found none so faithful as thy servant Abraham. For Thou didst
say to him: “Arise, walk through the land to the length and the
breadth of it, for to thee I will give it” (Gen 13:17), and even so,
when he was unable to find any place to bury Sarah [until he bought
a site for four hundred shekels of silver] he did not complain against
thy ways. “Then the Lord said to Satan: Have you considered my
servant Job for there is none like him on earth?” ( Job 1:8)’.8 Rabbi
Rabbinic Tradition’, in: W.A.M. Beuken (ed.), The Book of Job (BETL, CXIV),
Leuven 1994, 281–296 (esp. 291).
5
On rabbinic views about Job, see: I. Wiernikowski, Das Buch Hiob nach der
Auffassung der rabbinischen Litteratur in den ersten fünf nachchristlichen Jahrhunderten, Breslau
1902; L. Ginzberg (ed.), The Legends of the Jews, V, Philadelphia 1955, 381–390; on
the relationship between Job and Abraham, see A. Büchler, Studies in Sin and
Atonement in the Rabbinic Literature of the First Century (London 1929; repr.
1967), 130–150; J. Weinberg, ‘Job versus Abraham’, 281–296.
6
The translation is from J. Neusner, The Tosefta. Nashim (The Order of Women),
New York 1979, 170.
7
The relevant passage of BT Sotah 31a, the gemara on MSotah 5:5, runs as fol-
lows: ‘It was taught, Rabbi Meir said: Abraham is described as God-fearing, and
Job is too: just as Abraham’s faith stemmed from his love of God so did Job’s. But
how do we know this of Abraham himself ? Because it is written: “The seed of
Abraham who loved me” (Isa 41:8)’. In PT Sotah 5 (20d) proofs are given for the fact
that Job is a true lover of God, but no comparison with Abraham is found here.
8
This translation is according to I.W. Slotki, ‘Baba Bathra’, in I. Epstein (ed.),
The Babylonian Talmud. Seder Nezikin, II, 76–77.
60 j.t.a.g.m. van ruiten
Yohanan, a third-century Palestinian Amora, appreciates Job even

more. He proclaims Job’s superiority: ‘Said R. Yohanan: Greater
praise is accorded to Job than to Abraham. For of Abraham it is
written ‘For now I know that thou fearest God (Gen 22:12), whereas
of Job it is written ‘That man was perfect and upright, and one that
feared God, and eschewed evil ( Job 1:1)’. Job fears God right from
the beginning, Abraham only after the trial of the offering of Isaac.9
Raba and Abaye, two Babylonian Amora from the 4th century,
oppose this positive view of Job. They stress his negative side: ‘Raba
then compares Job to Abraham unfavourably with regard to his
desire for women. Job congratulates himself on not hankering after
other people’s wives ( Job 31:9), but Abraham did not even look at
his own wife. ‘Rab said: Dust should be placed in the mouth of Job;
he refrained from looking at other men’s wives. Abraham did not
even look at his own, as it is written: ‘Behold now I know that thou
art a fair woman to look upon (Gen 12:11), which shows that up
to then he did not know’.10 Then follows a more serious accusation,
i.e., Job denied the resurrection of the dead (cf. Job 7:9). In two late
midrashim, Job is considered the lesser because of his aggressive atti-
tude: ‘R. Levi said: Two men said the same thing, viz. Abraham
and Job. Abraham: That be far from thee, to do after this manner,
to slay the righteous with the wicked (Gen 18:25). Job: It is all one—
therefore I say: He destroyeth the innocent with the wicked ( Job
9:22). Yet Abraham was rewarded for it, while Job was punished
for it! The reason is because Abraham said it in confirmation, while
Job said it in cavil: It is all one!’ (GenR 49:9).11 In PesR 47:3, it is
said that if Job had stood up to his sufferings with no cry of resent-
ment, God would have caused Job’s name to be linked with his, as
God’s name is linked with the names of the Patriarchs. It is stated
in the name of R. Hanina bar Papa: ‘Had he not raised a cry, even
as now we say in the Tefilla “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and
God of Jacob”, we would also be saying “and God of Job”.’12
According to Weinberg, the clue to understanding the diverse appre-
9
So Weinberg, ‘Job’, 293.
10
Slotki, ‘Baba Bathra’, 80.
11
For the translation, see H. Freedman, The Midrash Rabbah. I. Genesis, London
1977, 428.
12
The translation is taken from W.G. Braude (ed.), Pesikta Rabbati. Discourses for
Feasts, Fasts, and Special Sabbaths, II, New Haven 1968, 802. (ed. Friedman, pp.
189b–190a).
ciation of Job and Abraham lies not so much in understanding the

various Biblical passages, but rather in examining the communica-
tion of religious ideals in specific historical situations—whereby both
Job and Abraham can serve as examples.13
2. The Aqedah (Genesis 22:1–19) and the Framework Story of the Book
of Job ( Job 1:1–2:13, 42:10–17)
In addition, contemporary exegesis regularly refers to the resem-

blance between Abraham and Job. People often compare Gen 22:1–19,
the test of Abraham,—namely, the offering of his most beloved son,
Isaac—with the framework story of the book of Job ( Job 1:1–2:13;
42:7–17), in which the sufferings of Job are described, i.e., the loss
of all his property, the loss of his children, and his own physical
harm14 According to Westermann, the resemblance between Gen
22:1–19 and the framework story of the book of Job supports a later
date for Gen 22:1–19. The test of the individual is a relatively late
development in the religion of Israel and early Judaism, and this is
proved by the fact that ‘die sachliche nächste Parallele zu Gen 22,1,
der Hiobprolog, auch ein später Text ist’.15 When one considers that
the texts closely parallel one another, the opinion that one of the
texts has influenced the other is not far-fetched.16 The differences
13
Weinberg, ‘Job’, 296 (cf. 289).
14
G. von Rad, Das erste Buch Mose Genesis (ATD 2–4), Göttingen 19729, 206;
W. Zimmerli, 1 Mose 12–25 Abraham (ZBKAT 1.2), Zürich 1976, 110–111; B. Jacob,
The First Book of the Bible Genesis. His Commentary Abridged, Edited and Translated by E.I.
Jacob and W. Jacob, New York 1974, 142; W.H. Gispen, Genesis II. Genesis 11:27–
25:11 (COT ), Kampen 1979, 230–231; G. von Rad, Das Opfer des Abraham,
München 1971, 24; C. Westermann, Genesis 12–36 (BKAT I/2), Neukirchen-Vluyn
1981, 436; (Sarna 1989, 393); G.J. Wenham, Genesis 16–50 (WBC 2), Dallas 1994,
110; R.W.L. Moberly, Genesis 12–50 (Old Testament Guides), Sheffield 19952
(1992), 45.
15
Westermann, Genesis 12–36, pp. 435–436; zie ook: T. Veijola, ‘Das Opfer des
Abraham—Paradigma des Glaubens aus dem nachexilischen Zeitalter’, ZThK 85
(1988) 129–164 (esp. 150–151): ‘Auch einzelne Termini und Motive deuten auf eine
spätere Entstehungszeit hin. . . . Eine Parallele, die sachlich am nächsten kommt,
bietet in diesem Fall die nachexilische Rahmenerzählung des Buches Ijob, wo in
Hi 1–2 das Hauptthema gerade die Prüfung eines Frommen ist . . .’.
16
J.C. VanderKam, ‘The Aqedah, Jubilees and Pseudojubilees’, in: C.A. Evans –
S. Talmon (eds), The Quest for Context and Meaning. Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in
Honor of James A. Sanders (BIS 28), Leiden 1997, 241–262 (esp. 249, note 17:
‘S. Talmon has written to me that Job, in the biblical book, is modeled on the
figure of Abraham’).
between the texts have also been pointed out, but these differences
do not negate the opinion that the texts are very close to one another,
with regard to both form and content.17 Hence, even if there is no
explicit comparison between Abraham and Job in either the Old
Testament or Early Jewish literature prior to the Testament of Abraham,
this does not mean that they are not related to each other implicitly.
Furthermore, some people have pointed to the fact that in the
book of Jubilees, Abraham and Job are also related to each other.
According to some, the influence of Job 1:1–2:13 can probably be
discerned in Jub 17:15–18:19, one of the oldest rewritings of Gen
22:1–19. This passage is called a ‘reading of Genesis 22 in the light
of Job 1’.18 Kister writes: ‘Apparently the situation in Jubilees is shaped
by the opening scene of the book of Job’. He even calls Jub 17:15–18:1
a midrash on the Job verses.19 Especially the beginning of the pas-
sage ( Jub 17:15–18), in which the Prince of Mastema is introduced,
is seen as the most evident influence of Job 1–2: ‘On notera aussi
l’intervention de Mastéma à propos du sacrifice d’Isaac; le prince
des démons, en non plus Dieu lui-même, est responsable de l’épreuve
imposée à Abraham; cet épisode rappelle le début de l’histoire de
Job ( Job 1s)’.20 VanderKam also stresses the influence of Job on the
rewriting of Genesis 22 in Jubilees: ‘We recognise the influence of
Job 1–2 not only from the title of the malicious individual who chal-
lenges God to try Abraham—the Prince (of ) Mastema, reflecting
Job’s ˆfçh—but also from the nature of the conversation that takes
place between him and God. Here we discover that Abraham’s
virtues were being reported in heaven: he was faithful, loved by the
Lord, and successful in all trials. The sorts of virtues that Abraham
is said to possess are not the very same but are similar to those the
deity specifies for Job who is blameless, unique, fears God, and turns
17
An explicit negation of this opinion can be found in H.-D. Neef, Die Prüfung
Abrahams. Eine exegetisch-theologische Studie zu Gen 22,1–19 (Arbeiten zur Theologie, 90;
Stuttgart 1998), 79.
18
Moberly, Genesis, pp. 91–92
19
M. Kister, ‘Observations on Aspects of Exegesis, Tradition, and Theology in
Midrash, Pseudepigrapha, and Other Jewish Writings’, in: J. Reeves (ed.), Tracing
Threads. Studies in the Vitality of Jewish Pseudepigrapha (SBLEJL 6), Atlanta 1994, 1–34
(esp. 10).
20
R. Martin-Achard, 1969, 122. So also Veijola: ‘In de Nacherzählung von Gen
22,1–19 durch Jub 17,15–18,19 wird die Initiative der Prüfung auf Mastema, den
Fürsten der Dämonen, verlegt, was die früh empfundene Verwandtschaft mit dem
Ijobprolog zeigt’. See Veijola, ‘Opfer’, 151, note 127.
aside from evil (e.g. Job 1:8)’.21 If this supposition is correct, then
this would be the first instance in which Abraham and Job are related
to each other.
In the following section, I will explore the intertextual relation-
ship between Gen 22:1–19, Job 1:1–2:13; 42:10–17, and Jub
17:15–18:19. I have a twofold question in mind. First, is there a
dependency between Gen 22:1–19 and Job 1:1–2:13 in one way or
another? Second, could Job 1:1–2:13 have functioned as intermedi-
ary between Gen 22:1–19 and Jub 17:15–18:19? In order to be able
to answer these questions I will first compare Gen 22:1–19 and Job
1:1–2:13; 42:10–17, then I will compare Gen 22:1–19 and Jub
17:15–18:19. In order to respond to the question regarding the depen-
dency between Gen 22:1–19 and the framework story of the Book
of Job, I will compare both stories with regard to their narrative
technique, the profile of the protagonists, the test, the reaction of
the protagonists, and the blessing after the trial.
a. Narrative Technique
According to some exegetes, Gen 22:1–19 and Job 1:1–2:13 display
similar narrative techniques. E.g., Zimmerli writes: ‘In einer Weise
die an 1.Mose 18,1 erinnert, stellt der Erzähler gleich an den Anfang
die Mitteilung dessen, worum es in der ganzen Erzählung [= Gen
22:1–19] gehen wird. Ähnliches wäre auch von den himmlischen
Szenen in Hiob 1f zu sagen: “Gott versuchte den Abraham”. Der
Leser der Erzählung weiss von diesem ersten Satze an, worum es
gehen wird. Das mildert die schwere Härte des Ganzen für den
Hören, nicht aber für Abraham, der (gleich Hiob) von der ganzen
Absicht Gottes nicht weiss’.22 It is indeed true that in this way the
narrator creates two levels of knowledge. The reader shares in the
omniscience of the narrator, whereas the persons who do not share
21
J.C. VanderKam, ‘The Aqedah, Jubilees and Pseudojubilees’, in: C.A. Evans –
S. Talmon (eds), The Quest for Context and Meaning. Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in
Honor of James A. Sanders (BIS 28), Leiden 1997, 241–262 (esp. 249).
22
W. Zimmerli, 1 Mose 12–25 Abraham (ZBKAT 1.2), Zürich 1976, 110–111. See
also B. Jacob, The First Book of the Bible Genesis. His Commentary Abridged, Edited and
Translated by E.I. Jacob and W. Jacob, New York 1974, p. 142: ‘The reader shall
know from the outset, what Abraham does not know: the the stupendous demand
made of him shall be only a test. . . . This reminds us of the book of Job . . .’;
W.H. Gispen, Genesis II. Genesis 11:27–25:11 (COT), Kampen 1979, 230–231: ‘Even-
min als Job wist Abraham, dat God hem door zijn bevel op de proef stelde’.
this knowledge are Abraham and Job.23 However, this point is elab-
orated on quite differently in the two texts. The author of Gen
22:1–19 deals with this aspect in the heading of his story, and he
uses only one word for it ( hsn: ‘He tested’). The author of the frame-
work story of the book of Job elaborates this point in two, nearly
identical dialogues between God and Satan ( Job 1:6–12; 2:1–7a).
As far as the narrative technique is concerned, more differences
between the two stories exist. I will only point out the use of place
and character. The complete story of Gen 22:1–19 takes place on
earth, although in Gen 22:11a one can perhaps speak of a point of
contact between the heavens and the earth (‘The angel of the Lord
called to him from heaven’). There is direct contact between God
and Abraham, but we do not know what is happening in the heav-
ens. Nothing about that is revealed. In the prologue of the book of
Job (1:1–2:13), earth and heaven alternate. The text can be divided
into five scenes: 1. Job 1:1–5: on earth; description of Job’s charac-
ter; 2. Job 1:6–12: in heaven; first confrontation between YHWH
and Satan; 3. Job 1:13–22: on earth: announcement of the disasters
and Job’s response; 4. Job 2:1–7a: in heaven: second confrontation
between YHWH and Satan; 5. Job 2:7b–13; on earth; Job’s personal
afflictions; Job’s response; arrival of his friends.24 With the exception
of the first and last scenes, these scenes are delineated by a stereo-
typed phrase: ‘Now there was a day’ (w μwyh yhyw). Omission of the
phrase in Job 2:7b shows that the heavenly and earthly spheres cross
their borders. There is no direct contact between God (and Satan)
and Job, but we do know what is happening in the heavens. As far
as the characters are concerned in Gen 22:1–19, there are only a
few personages: God, Abraham and Isaac, and in the background
the two boys, but they have no active role in the text. In Job, how-
23
J. Fokkelman, “‘On the Mount of the Lord There Is a Vision”. A Response
to Francis Landy concerning the Akedah’, in: J. Cheryl Exum (ed.), Signs and Wonders.
Biblical Texts in Literary Focus (SBLSS), Atlanta 1989, 41–58 (esp. 47).
24
A synchronic analysis of the prologue of the book of Job can be found in:
D. Clines, ‘False Naivity in the Prologue of Job’, HAR 9 (1985) 127–136; R.W.E.
Forrest, ‘The Two Faces of Job. Imagery and Integrity in the Prologue’, in:
L. Eslinger, G. Taylor (eds), Ascribe to the Lord. Biblical and Other Studies in Memory of
Peter C. Craigie ( JSOTS 67), Sheffield 1988, 385–398; A. Brenner, ‘Job the Pious?
The Characterization of Job in the Narrative Framework story of the Book’, JSOT
43 (1989) 37–52; C.R. Seitz, ‘Job. Full-Structure, Movement, and Interpretation’,
Interpretation 43 (1989) 5–17; A. Cooper, ‘Reading and Misreading the Prologue to
Job’, JSOT 46 (1990) 67–79.
ever, there are many more characters. Although each scene has only
a few characters, altogether there are quite a few personages: Job,
his children, God, the sons of God, Satan, the wife of Job, his three
friends.25
The genre of both Gen 22:1–19 and the framework story of the
book of Job may be viewed as being a legend, in that the focus is
on character rather than event.26 Several features of a tale can be
detected, however. In Gen 22:1–19, there is a short exposition (Gen
22:1ab), followed by a lengthy complication (Gen 22:1c–10). This
complication can be divided into three stages. Each successive stage
raises the tension (a. 1c–4; b. 5–6; c. 7–10). After the climax, there
is a resolution (Gen 22:11–12), a denouement (Gen 22;13–14) and
a conclusion (Gen 22:19). In the book of Job, there is an exposition
( Job 1:1–5) followed by a twofold complication (the two heavenly
scenes and their consequences: Job 1:6–19; 2:1–7). A double reso-
lution can be found in Job 1:20–22 and 2:8–10. A third arc of ten-
sion builds in Job 2:11, with the arrival of Job’s friends. Its resolution
is not reached until the epilogue ( Job 42:10–17). Thus the book of
Job contains three arcs of tension, while in Gen 22:1–19 there is
only one. In Genesis, the climax is quite brief. It concerns the prepa-
ration of the offering, and the raising of the hand. In Job it is quite
long. In Genesis, the climax of the story is in a certain sense inter-
rupted, in that the offering of Isaac is not executed. In Job, the
intended disasters do take place. In the denouement of the story of
Genesis 22, we see substitution of the son with a ram (Gen 22:13).
The epilogue of the book of Job does not substitute the lost prop-
erty with something of a different kind. The lost property is dou-
bled, whereas the lost children are replaced by the same number.
It is not my intention to explore the diachronic structure of the
framework story of the book of Job.27 It is important, however, to
25
In ch. 42:10–17 even more characters occur.
26
D.J.A. Clines, Job 1–20 (WBC 17), Dallas, 6–7.
27
For the diachronic structure of the framework story of the book of Job, see:
D.B. MacDonald, ‘The Original Form of the Legend of Job’, JBL 14 (1898) 63–71;
F. Buhl, ‘Zur Vorgeschichte des Buches Hiob’, in: K. Budde (ed.), Vom Alten Testament
(BZAW 41), Giessen 1925, 52–61; A. Alt, ‘Zur Vorgeschichte des Buches Hiob’,
ZAW 55 (1937) 265–268; C. Kuhl, ‘Neuere Literarkritik des Buches Hiob’, ThR 22
(1954) 261–316; G. Fohrer, ‘Zur Vorgeschichte und Komposition des Buches Hiob’,
VT 6 (1956) 249–267; H.P. Müller, Hiob und seine Freunde. Traditionsgeschichtliches zum
Verständnis des Hiobbuches (ThSt 103), Zürich 1970; L. Schmidt, ‘De Deo’. Studien zur
Literarkritik und Theologie des Buches Jona, des Gesprächs zwischen Abraham und Jahwe in
note that the two heavenly scenes ( Job 1:6–12; 2:1–7a) are often
considered to be later additions. The first heavenly scene does not
play a part in the description of the disasters announced to Job ( Job
1:13–21), whereas Job 1:13 links up with Job 1:5 very well.
b. Profile of the Protagonists

Both in Gen 22:1–19 and in the framework story of the book of
Job ( Job 1:1–2:13; 42:10–17) the protagonists are rich and pros-
perous and at the same time pious and God-fearing. Although the
story of Gen 22:1–19 does not mention the wealth of Abraham, it
is clear from the preceding chapters of the book of Genesis that
Abraham is a well-off person (Gen 12:16; 13:2; 14:14; 24:35).28
Specific numbers with regard to his wealth are not mentioned.29 In
Gen 22:1–19, nothing is said about Abraham’s property, since the
test is not about the possessions of Abraham. It is about Isaac, his
only son, whom he loves. It is about the promises of God regard-
ing the multiplying of Abraham’s descendants, which is now threat-
ened. In the beginning of the book of Job, the protagonist is described
as a rich person, and his possessions are specified by numbers ( Job
1:3: ‘He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hun-
dred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses, and very many ser-
vants; so that this man was the greatest of all the people of the
east’). The calamities that overtake Job also concern his property.
In Gen 22:1–19, the piety of Abraham is not characterised explic-
itly before the test. Of course, in Gen 11:26–21:34 a special rela-
tionship between YHWH and Abraham is emphasised. Abraham
does what YHWH has told him (cf. Gen 12:4), he builds altars (Gen
12:8; 13:18), and calls on the name of YHWH (Gen 12:8; 13:4;
21:33). YHWH makes a covenant with Abraham (Gen 15:1–21;
Gen 18,22ff und von Hi 1 (BZAW, 143), Berlin 1976; M.P. Reddy, ‘The Book of
Job. A Reconstruction’, ZAW 90 (1978) 59–94; P. Weimar, ‘Literatkritisches zur
Ijobnovelle’, BN 12 (1980) 62–80; L Schwienhorst-Schönberger & P. Weimar, ‘Zur
Entstehung, Gestalt und Bedeutung der Ijob-Erzählung (Ijob 1f; 42)’, BZ NF 33
(1989) 1–24; E. Kutsch, ‘Hiob und seine Freunde. Zu Problemen der Rahmenerzählung
des Hiobbuches’, in: S. Kreuzer, K. Lüthi (eds), Zur Aktualität des Alten Testament,
1992, 73–83; U. Berges, ‘Der Ijobrahmen (Ijob 1,1–2,10; 42,7–17). Theologische
Versuche angesichts unschuldigen Leidens’, BZ 39 (1995) 225–245.
28
Also the prosperities of the other patriarchs is stressed: Isaac (Gen 26:12–13);
Jacob (Gen 36:7).
29
With the exception of Gen 14:14, which describes that Abraham led forth
three hundred and eighteen of his trained men.
17:1–27). However, taken by itself, the story of Gen 22:1–19 does

not mention the piety of Abraham beforehand. One of the purposes
of the test is to find out that Abraham is someone who is God-fear-
ing. His piety only becomes evident during the test, in that Abraham
accepts what is imposed on him, i.e., the offering of his beloved son.
At the climax of the test, when Abraham is on the point of killing
his son, the angel of YHWH proclaims: ‘Because now I know that
you are one who fears God’ (Gen 22:12).
Whereas Abraham is only said to fear God after the binding of
Isaac, it is said that Job fears God right from the beginning;30 his
character is explicitly mentioned in the beginning. He is a man
‘blameless and upright, one who feared God, and turned away from
evil’ ( Job 1:1). This is repeated by God in front of Satan (cf. Job
1:8, 2:3). God calls Job ‘my servant’, and ‘there is none like him on
the earth (cf. Job 1:8). This characterisation has nothing to do with
his actual behaviour during his suffering. The goal of the series of
plagues is not to discover that Job is blameless and upright, but that
Job is persistent in these qualities. He does not have these moral
qualities because he is a wealthy man, but ‘for naught’ (cf. Job 1:9).
The piety of both Abraham and Job is expressed by the words
‘God-fearing’. The meaning of this expression is made clear in the
literary context. Abraham does not withhold anything from God,
not even his own son, on whom his future depends.31 In the book
of Job, the expression is related to some other moral expressions (μt;
rçy; [rm rws). Moreover, an active participation in some sort of test
is not demanded. The expression ‘God-fearing’ is therefore inter-
preted somewhat differently with regard to Abraham and Job, respec-
tively. In addition, the fear of God occurs elsewhere in the Old
Testament quite often. Joseph reassures his brothers that he will treat
them fairly because he fears God (Gen 42:18), and it is said that
Obadiah, who was the housekeeper, feared YHWH (1 Kings 18:3,
12). The fear of God (or of YHWH) is used in relation to both cult
and ethical behaviour.32 It is applied to the people as a whole and
to individuals.
30
Cf. Weinberg, ‘Job’, 293.
31
Seebass, 211
32
J. Becker, Gottesfurcht im Alten Testament (AnBib 25; Rome 1965); H.-P. Stähli,
art. ary, THAT, I, 765–778; W. Fuhs, art. ary, TWAT, III, 869–893.
The piety of Job is not only described with the expression ‘God-
fearing’, but also with other expressions: μt; rçy and [rm rws. In
front of Satan, God uses the word ydb[, whereas he also says ˆya yk
≈rab whmk. The collocation of the words μt and rçy occurs espe-
cially in the Wisdom Literature and the Psalms: Job 1:1, 8; 2:3; Ps
37:37; 25:21; Prov 2:21; 28:10; 29:10.33 The expression μt is also
used in relation to Noah before the Flood (Gen 6:9: μymt), to Abraham
(Gen 17:1: μymt), and to Jacob (Gen 25:27: μt çya). The word rçy
occurs quite often in the Old Testament (over 200 times). However,
it is not used in relation to Abraham or any of the other patriarchs.
The expression [rm rws (the avoiding of evil) in parallel with ‘God-
fearing’ occurs outside Job 1:1, 8; 2:3 also in Job 28:28; Prov 3:7
(cf. Prov 14:16; 16:6). Besides, the expression occurs in Ps 34:15;
37:27; Prov 4:27; 13:19; Isa 1:16; 59:15. In relation to Abraham the
expression is not used. The term ydb[ (‘my servant’) is frequently
applied to other persons by God:34 Moses (e.g., Exod 14:31; Num
12:7; Deut 34:54), Caleb (Num 14:24), David (2 Sam 7:5, 8), Isaiah
(Isa 20:3), Zerubbabel ( Jer 25:9), the prophets (e.g., 2 Kings 9:7;
17:13, 23), but also Abraham (Gen 26:24; Ps 105:6, 42), Isaac (Gen
24:14; 1 Chr 16:13); Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Exod 32:13; Deut
9:24). The phrase ‘there is none like him in the earth’ is usually
applied to God. Only in Job 1:8; 2:3, and in 1 Sam 10:24 (Saul) is
the phrase applied to humans.35
In sum, one can say that although the protagonists of both sto-
ries are wealthy and God-fearing, and although both are involved
in some sort of trial, the way they are portrayed and their relation
to the test of their piety is very different.
c. The Test
From the beginning onwards, what happens to Abraham is called a
test (‘God tested Abraham’).36 Moreover, the test concerns his son,
his only one, whom he loves. Nothing is said about a loss of prop-
erty, nor of a physical injury. Besides, the test has an important link
with the plot of the Abraham story in the book of Genesis. The
33
Cf. also 1 Kings 9:4; Prov 2:7.
34
D.J.A. Clines, Job, 24. cf. M. Pope, Job (AB 15), Garden City, NY 1965, 12.
35
Cf. Clines, Job, 24.
36
For the meaning of hsn, see, e.g., Neef, Prüfung, 51–53.
promise of a huge amount of offspring, which God made several

times to Abraham (Gen 12:2; 13:16; 15:5; 17:2–5, 16), is threatened
not only by the fact that Sarah is barren, but also by the fact that
when, late in life, she bears Abraham a son (Gen 21:1–8), Abraham
has to offer him. It is only through Isaac that his descendants will
be named (Gen 21:12). The test did not go so far as to force Abraham
to actually offer his son. The aim of the test was to ascertain whether
Abraham was ‘God-fearing’ or not. The actual offering was not nec-
essary to achieve this goal. The fact that Abraham carried out the
words of God to completion was sufficient.
In the framework story, what happens to Job is not called a test.
The text speaks about evil that befalls Job (e.g., Job 2:10: ‘Shall we
receive the good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?).37
Job is affected in his property ( Job 1:13–17: the oxen, the asses, the
sheep, the camels, the servants), his children ( Job 1:18–19), and in
his own body ( Job 2:7b). Satan, or God, does not prevent the fulfil-
ment of the evil. He loses his property and his children. God only
restores them to him in the epilogue. The aim of the plagues is to
hit Job, but not his children. The aim is not to find out if Job is
God-fearing or not. From the beginning, he is recognised as being
a man who fears God. The aim seems to be to refute Satan, who
doubts the selflessness of Job’s behaviour.
In Genesis 22, God (μyhla) is the one who tests. He charges
Abraham to offer his son. Abraham, the father, is going to carry
out this order. In the end, it is the Angel of YHWH (hwhy ˚alm)
who prevents the offering of the son. In the prologue of the book
of Job, God is not the one who tests. He has delivered Job to Satan,
with some restrictions. Satan is the cause of Job’s distress. Job is not
addressed to carry out an order, let alone to offer one of his chil-
dren. Instead, plagues are sent to him: a raid by foreigners (Sabaeans;
Chaldaeans), a strong fire, a great wind, and a disease. Although
Job himself ascribes the suffering to YHWH ( Job 1:21; 2:10), in the
heavenly scenes the author makes clear that Satan is the instigator
of the injuries. Finally, in the epilogue it is said that YHWH restored
the fortunes of Job. Whereas Abraham is prevented from offering
his son, the loss of children and property does happen to Job.
37
Compare the epilogue: ‘all the evil (h[rh lk) that YHWH had brought upon
him’ ( Job 42:11).
Genesis 22:1–19 describes how Abraham carries out the order to

offer his son. Almost no emotion of Abraham is made explicit. Indeed,
he seems to reassure his servants (‘we will return to you’) and his
son (Gen 22:8: ‘God will provide for himself the lamb of the sacrifice,
my son’). After the angel prevents the offering of Isaac, what Abraham
feels is not shown. He sees a ram, and offers it instead of his son,
whereas he also gives a name to the place (‘YHWH will see’). The
reaction of Job to the plagues is described quite extensively. After
the loss of his property and his children, Job’s lament is shown ( Job
1:20: ‘Then Job arose, and rent his robe, and shaved his head, and
fell upon the ground, and worshipped’). Although this probably reflects
a ritual action, it also reflects something of Job’s feelings. After the
attack on his physical integrity, Job sits on the ashes ( Job 2:8: ‘And
he took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the
ashes’). In the prologue, it is stressed that Job did not blame God
(cf. Job 1:21–22; 2:9–10).38 Whereas Abraham accepts a charge, Job
accepts what happens to him. His piety is not for naught.
It is said of both protagonists that they had accumulated wealth
before the test, whereas after the test both are blessed abundantly.39
The angel of YHWH blesses Abraham after the test (Gen 22:17–18).
The blessing is not concerned with his personal property, nor with
a restoration of his son. The test was not about a loss of his prop-
erty, whereas his son is saved. The blessing is applied especially to
the future generations. In the prologue of the book of Job, a bless-
ing from YHWH is lacking after the sufferings. It is only after the
poetic dialogue part of the book ( Job 3:1–42:6) that Job is blessed
abundantly ‘YHWH gave Job twice as much as he had before’ ( Job
42:10). YHWH blessed the latter days of Job more than his begin-
ning ( Job 42:12). The blessing does concern his personal property.
Moreover, the same number of his children that died, is now restored
( Job 42:13). Finally, he dies at a venerable age ( Job 42:16–17).
During the test nothing is said about Sara, the wife of Abraham.
In contrast, the wife of Job does play a role in his drama. She tries
to persuade Job to curse God, albeit without success. Finally, another
similarity is the old ages the protagonists reach (Gen 25:8; cf. Job
42:16–17).
38
I refrain here from the dialogue part of the book ( Job 3:1–42:6), which describes
Job as a rebel.
39
Gispen, Genesis II, 231.
d. Conclusion
In Genesis 22, God is the one who tests, the angel of YHWH is
the one who prevents Abraham from offering his son. With regard
to Job, Satan causes the suffering, God defines the limits of it, but
he does not prevent the death of Job’s children. In Genesis 22,
Abraham is the one who intends to execute the offering, Job expe-
riences the suffering, but does not actively play a part in it. In Gen
22, the trial is not completed; the plagues are actually executed. Both
Abraham and Job were innocent with regard to their trial. The
reader, however, does have the relevant information in both cases,
although the way he is informed is different in each case. The sim-
ilarities between Gen 22:1–19 and Job 1:1–2:13 are too vague and
too general, while there are too many differences that preclude say-
ing that one passage influences the other.
3. A Comparison of Genesis 22:1–19 and Jubilees 17:15–18:19 40
The story of the offering of Isaac (Gen 22:1–19) is rewritten quite

literally in Jub 18:1–17. The most striking deviation is the fact that
the rewriting is preceded by an introduction ( Jub 17:15–18), and fol-
lowed by a conclusion ( Jub 18:18–19), both of which are related to
the story. Genesis leaves the reader with the question of why God
had to test Abraham. In the introduction ( Jub 17:15–18), the author
of Jubilees makes clear that it is not God who takes the initiative,
but the Prince of Mastema. According to Jubilees, the test does not
show to God that Abraham is God-fearing, since God is omniscient.
Moreover, Abraham has already been tested six times. God knows
that Abraham is faithful to him ( Jub 17:17–18). The introduction
runs as follows:41
40
I refrain here from the important text 4Q225, which has many similarities
with Jub 17:15–18:19. Cf. VanderKam, ‘Aqedah’, 241–261. See also the contribu-
tion of F. García Martínez in this volume.
41
Quotations from Jubilees are from J.C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, II
(CSCO 511; Scriptores Aethiopici 88), Leuven 1989, with slight modifications.
Jubilees 17:15–18
15a During the seventh week, in the first year, during the first month—on the
twelfth of this month—in this jubilee,
15b there were voices in heaven regarding Abraham,
15c that he was faithful in everything that he told him,
15d that the Lord loved him,
15e and (that) in every difficulty he was faithful.
16a Then Prince Mastema came
16b and said before God:
16c ‘Abraham does indeed love his son Isaac
16d and finds him more pleasing than anyone else.
16e Tell him to offer him as a sacrifice on an altar.
16f Then you will see whether he performs this order
16g and will know whether he is faithful in everything through which you
test him’.
17a Now the Lord was aware that Abraham was faithful in every difficulty
which he had told him.
17b For he had tested him through his land and the famine;
17c he had tested him through the wealth of kings;
17d he had tested him again through his wife when she was taken forcibly,
17e and through circumcision;
17f and he had tested him through Ishmael and his servant girl Hagar when
he sent them away.
18a In everything through which he tested him he was found faithful.
18b He himself did not grow impatient,
18c nor was he slow to act;
18d for he was faithful
18e and one who loved the Lord.
One can consider the introduction as an addition to the biblical text

of Gen 22:1–19. It is very well possible, however, that there is
a clue in the biblical text, i.e., the very first sentence: rja yhyw
hlah μyrbdh (Gen 22:1). This formula occurs in the book of Genesis
outside Gen 22:1 only in Gen 39:7; 40:1, and in slightly different
form also in Gen 15:1; 21:20; 48:1.42 The function of the formula
seems to be to fit the individual events into the entire story.43 In this
case it provides the connection with the preceding passage.44 The
author of Jubilees has taken over the formula only in Jub 14:1 (=
Gen 15:1): ‘After these things’ (wa’emde¢ra zenagara), and in Jub 39:14:
‘In those days’ (wabawe’etu mawà’el ).45 It is very well possible that the
42
Outside the book of Genesis, see 1 Kings 17:17; 21:1. In slightly different form,
see: Josh 24:29; Est 2:1; 3:1; 7:1.
43
So, e.g., Westermann, Genesis II, 433; Neef, Prüfung, 51.
44
Cf. Seebass, Genesis II, 203.
45
The passages in which Gen 22:20 and 48:1 occur are not taken over in Jubilees.
author of Jubilees interpreted the formula of Gen 22:1 as referring

to something that happens before Abraham is put to a test, though
he could not find this occurrence in the text of Genesis. By way of
a midrash, he suggests that something in the heavens caused the
test. More precisely, it seems as if he interpreted μyrbd (LXX: =Æmata)
as ‘words’. The phrase ‘there were words (qalat ) in heaven regard-
ing Abraham’ ( Jub 17:15b), seems to reflect the opening phrase of
Gen 22:1.46 Prince Mastema raises objections with regard to Abraham.
Although he is a model of good behaviour, you only know if he is
really faithful when you ask him to offer his son Isaac, claims the
Prince. God complies with Prince Mastema’s request, though he
knows it is not really necessary. The test is being executed for others,
in the first place for Mastema ( Jub 18:9, 12), but also for others
( Jub 18:16).
Jub 17:15–18 forms the beginning of a history of interpretation of
Gen 22:1. A comparable interpretation occurs in 4Q225, Pseudo-
Philo, LAB 32:1–4; BT Sanh 89b en Gen R 55:4.47 These texts describe
the events that precede the binding of Isaac, which is the direct
cause for the test of Abraham. From several sides, doubts are cast
upon the true loyalty of Abraham. In Jub 17:15–18 and 4Q225 it
is Prince Mastema who doubts; according to him, Abraham is not
willing to offer his only son. In Pseudo-Philo, LAB 32:1–4, it is
recounted that all the angels were jealous of Abraham, and that all
the worshipping host envied him. In BT Sanh 89b, Satan puts for-
ward objections. According to him, Abraham has prepared many
feasts, but he had not even a turtledove or a young bird to sacrifice
to God. In Gen R 55:4, objections against Abraham are put forward,
first by Abraham himself, then by the ministering angels, and finally
by the nations of the world. Although Abraham caused everyone to
rejoice, he did not set aside a single bull or ram for God. In the
course of the tradition, several instigators of the test of Abraham are
mentioned: the Prince of Mastema ( Jubilees, 4Q225), Satan (BT Sanh
89b), the worshipping angels (Pseudo-Philo; Gen R 55:4), the foreign
Gen 39:7 is rewritten in Jub 39:5, but Jubilees does not have an equivalent for ‘It
happens after these things’.
46
Since the heavenly ‘words’ ( Jub 17:15b) reflect the ‘words’ of Gen 22:1a, the
plural reading seems to be preferred. See Kister, ‘Observations’, 10; VanderKam,
‘Aqedah’, 249.
47
For the following, see Kister, ‘Observations’, 10–15; cf. also VanderKam,
‘Aqedah’, 249–250.
nations (Gen R 55:4) and Abraham himself (Gen R 55:4). The reasons
why they object to Abraham are diverse. According to Jubilees and
4Q225, Abraham is not prepared to offer his only son; according
to Pseudo-Philo the worshipping angels were jealous of Abraham,
although no concrete accusation is uttered.48 According to TB Sanh
89b, he has no turtledove or a young bird to offer to God, and
according to Gen R 55:4, no single bull or ram. In Jubilees and 4Q225,
God meets the challenge of Mastema, in Pseudo-Philo he responds
to the jealousy of the angels, whereas in TB Sanh 89b and Gen R
55:4 God is reacting to objections put forward by several sides. In
all cases, God is the one who tests Abraham. The goal of the test is
to show to others how faithful Abraham is to God.
A final element in the introduction is the date for the binding of
Isaac. According to the author of Jubilees, it takes place during the
seventh week, in the first year of the forty-first jubilee (cf. Jub 17:15a),
which is anno mundi 2003. Isaac was born in anno mundi 1988 (cf. Jub
16:15; 17:1), and should have been fifteen years at the time of the
binding. The test started on the twelfth of the first month ( Jub
17:15a), and lasted seven days. The indicators of time can be found,
apart from Jub 17:15a, in 18:3a (‘early in the morning’), 18:3e (‘on
the third day’, or: ‘in three days’), and 18:18b (‘seven days during
which he went and returned safely’). It seems to be obvious that the
challenge of Mastema and the commandment of YHWH took place
on the 12th of the first month, which is according to the calendar
of Jubilees a Sunday. According to some, the departure of Abraham
was on Monday, the 13th (‘early in the morning’), whereas the arrival
and the binding of Isaac should have been then on Wednesday, the
15th. The return-trip started at the 16th and ended on the 18th, a
Saturday.49 In the light of the strict Sabbath observation, it is difficult
to imagine that Abraham would have travelled on a Sabbath day.50
However, when one realises that the author of Jubilees could have
viewed the evening as the beginning of the day, it works out some-
48
The envy might be caused by his being loved by God, or because he got a
son from his barren wife.
49
This is more or less the opinion of Déaut, although, according to him, Abraham
departed on the 12th. R. Le Déaut, La nuit pascale. Essai sur la signification de la Pâque
juive à partir du Targum d’Exode XII 42 (AnBib 22; Rome 1963), 179–184; cf.
A. Jaubert, ‘Le calendrier des Jubilés et les jours liturgiques de la semaine’, VT 7
(1957) 252–253.
50
VanderKam, ‘Aqedah’, 246. See, especially, Jub 2:29–30.
what differently.51 In this case the challenge of Mastema took place

during the evening or night of the 12th of the first month, but ‘early
in the morning’ ( Jub 18:3a) was still on the same day. The arrival
at the mountain was, in this opinion, not on the 15th, but on the
14th,52 whereas the return-trip took place from the 15th until the
17th. The 18th could in this case be celebrated as a Sabbath.
The date of the binding of Isaac is the same as the date for the
Passover.53 According to Vermes the saving virtue of the Passover
lamb proceeded form the merits of the first lamb, i.e., Isaac, who
offered himself upon the altar.54 At the same time, the author of
Jubilees proves the patriarchal origin of a festival of seven days (cf.
Jub 18:18), as can be seen at the end of the text, after the rewrit-
ing of Gen 22:1–19:
Jubilees 18:18–19
18a He used to celebrate this festival joyfully for seven days during all the years.
18b He named it the festival of the Lord in accord with the seven days during
which he went and returned safely.
19a This is the way it is ordained
19b and written on the heavenly tables regarding Israel and his descendants:
19c (they are) to celebrate this festival for seven days with festal happiness.
Most probably this refers to the festival of the Unleavened Bread,

which is related to Passover.55 The problem with this interpretation is
that in the Bible (cf. Lev 23:6–8; Num 28:16–25) this festival happens
51
J. Baumgarten, ‘The Beginning of the Day in the Calender of Jubilees’, JBL
77 (1958) 355–360; VanderKam, ‘Aqedah’, 247–248.
52
G. Vermes, ‘Redemption and Genesis xxii—The Binding of Isaac and the
Sacrifice of Jesus’, in idem, Scripture and Tradition. Haggadic Studies (SPB, 4; Leiden),
193–227 (esp. 215, note 3); A. Jaubert, La notion d’alliance dans le Judaïsme aux abords
de l’ère chrétienne (Paris 1963), 90 (note 5); VanderKam, ‘Aqedah’, 247.
53
Vermes, ‘Redemption’, 215; Jaubert, Notion, 90 (note 5); VanderKam. ‘Aqedah’,
247. See Jub 49:1 (‘Remember the commandments which the Lord gave you regard-
ing the passover so that you may celebrate it at its time on the fourteenth of the
first month, that you may sacrifice it before evening, and so that they may eat it
at night on the evening of the fifteenth from the time of sunset’).
54
Vermes, ‘Redemption’, 215–216.
55
According to M. Testuz, Les idées religieuses du Livre des Jubilés (Genève &
Paris 1960), 162–163, the travel of Abraham took place on the festival of Booths.
See also A. Dupont-Sommer & M. Philonenko (eds), La Bible. Écrits intertestamen-
taires (Paris 1987), 710. For the rejection of this opinion, see Jaubert, Notion, 90
(note 5).
to be from the 15th until the 21th of the 1th month, and not from
the 12th until the 18th of this month.56 However, Jub 18:18–19 does
not say that dates of the festival are the same as the days of the
travel of Abraham.57 The association of the sacrifice of Isaac with
Passover was important for the author of Jubilees.58
These elements explain most of the additions in the text of Jubilees
with regard to the text of Genesis, not only the introduction and
the conclusion ( Jub 17:15–18; 18:18–19), but also some of the other
additions ( Jub 18:9, 12a, 16cd). The rest of the text of the trial of
Abraham ( Jub 18:1–17) is a quite literal reproduction of Gen 22:1b–19,
as can be seen in the following synopsis.59
Genesis 22:1–3 Jubilees 18:1–3
1a after these things God [cf. 17:15–18]

tested Abraham.
1b He said to him: 1a The Lord said to him:
1c ‘Abraham [ ]!’ 1b ‘Abraham, Abraham!’
1d And he said: 1c And he said:
1e ‘Here am I’. 1d ‘Here am I’
2a He said [ ]: 2a He said to him:
2b ‘Take your son, your only one 2b ‘Take your son, your beloved
whom you love—Isaac, one whom you love—Isaac—
2c and go to the land of Moriah. 2c and go to a high land.
2d Offer him there as a 2d Offer him [ ] on one of the
sacrifice on one of the moun- mountains which I will
tains (of ) which I will tell you’. show you’.
3a So Abraham got up early in the 3a So he got up early in the
morning, morning,
3b saddled his ass, 3b saddled his ass,
3c and took two servants with 3c and took with him two ser-
him and his son Isaac. vants and his son Isaac.
56
Cf. VanderKam, ‘Aqedah’, 248. This might indicate that the dates of Abraham’s
travel took place from the 15th until the 21th. Cf. J. Baumgarten, ‘The Calendar
of the Book of Jubilees and the Bible’, in idem, Studies in Qumran Law, 103–104.
57
VanderKam, ‘Aqedah’, 248 (note 15).
58
This tradition continued to play a part until the 2nd century CE. See, Vermes,
‘Redemption’ 215–216.
59
In the synoptic overview I try to give a classification of the similarities and
dissimilarities between Genesis and Jubilees. I put in small caps the elements of
Genesis which do not occur in Jubilees, and vice versa, i.e., the omissions and addi-
tions. In ‘normal script’ are the corresponding elements between both texts, i.e.,
the verbatim quotations of one or more words of the source text in Jubilees, other
than addition or omission. Sometimes there is a rearrangement of words and sen-
tences. I underline those elements.
table (cont.)
Genesis 22:3–8 Jubilees 18:3–7b
3d He cleaved the wood for the 3d He cleaved the wood for the
sacrifice, sacrifice,
3e and arose and went to the 3e [ ] and went to the place
place of which god had [ ]
told him.
4a On the third day Abraham
lifted up his eyes on the third day. [ ]
4b and he saw the place from a 3f And he saw the place from
distance. a distance.
[ ] 4a When he reached a well
of water,
5a Abraham said to his servants: 4b he said to his servants:
5b ‘Stay here with the ass; 4c ‘Stay here with the ass
5c I and the child will go yonder, 4d I and the child will go [ ],
5d we worship, 4e we worship,
5e and we will return to you’. 4f and we will return to you’.
6a Abraham took the wood for 5a He took the wood for the
the sacrifice, sacrifice
6b and laid it on Isaac his son. 5b and placed it on the shoulders of
Isaac his son.
6c He took in his hand the fire 5c He took in his hand fire and
and the knife. a knife.
6d The two of them went 5d The two of them went
together [ ]. together to that place.
7a Isaac said to his father 6a Isaac said to his father [ ]:
Abraham,
b and he said:
7c ‘MY father!’ 6b ‘[ ] Father’.
7d He said: 6c He said:
7e ‘Here am I, my son’. 6d ‘Here am I, my son’.
7f He said [ ]: 6e He said to him:
7g ‘Here are the fire and the 6f ‘Here are the fire, the knife,
wood; and the wood,
7h but where is the lamb for the 6g but where is the sheep for the
sacrifice [ ]?’ sacrifice, father?
8a Abraham said: 7a He said:
8b ‘God will provide for himself 7b ‘The Lord will provide for
the lamb of the sacrifice, my himself a sheep of the
son’. sacrifice, my son’.
8c They went both of them [ ]
together.
Genesis 29:9–14 Jubilees 18:7c–13

9a When they came to the place of 7c When he neared the place of the
which God had told him, mountain of the Lord,
9b Abraham built an altar there, 8a he built an altar [ ]
9c and laid in order the wood [ ]. 8b and placed the wood on the altar.
9d He bound Isaac his son 8c He tied up Isaac his son,
9e and laid him on the altar, on the 8d and placed him on the wood which
wood. was on the altar.
10a Abraham stretched forth his 8e and stretched forth his hand to take
hand, the knife to slaughter Isaac his son.
10b and took the knife to slaughter 9a Then I stood in front of him,
[ ] his son and in front of the prince of
[ ] Mastema.
9b The Lord said:
9c ‘Tell him not to let his hand
go down on the child,
9d and not do anything to him
9e because I know that he is one
who fears the Lord’.
11a The angel of the Lord called to 10a I called to him from heaven
him from heaven,
11b and said [ ]: 10b and said TO HIM:
‘Abraham, Abraham!’ 10c ‘Abraham, Abraham!’
[ ] 10d He was startled,
11c And he said: 10e and he said:
11d ‘Here am I’. 10f ‘Here am I’.
12a He said [ ]: 11a I said to him:
12b ‘Do not lay your hand on the 11b ‘Do not lay your hand on the
child child
12c and do not do anything to him, 11c and do not do anything to him,
12d because now I know that you 11d because now I know that you are
are one who fears God. one who fears the Lord.
12e You have not refused me your 11e You have not refused me your
son, your only one’. first-born son’.
[ ]
13a Abraham lifted up his eyes, 12a The prince of Mastema was put
to shame.
13b and looked, 12b Abraham lifted up his eyes,
13c and behold, a ram behind, 12c and looked,
caught in a thicket by its horns. 12c and behold a ram caught;
13d Abraham went 12d it was coming with its horns.
13e and took the ram. 12e Abraham went
13f He offered it as a sacrifice 12f and took the ram.
instead of his son.
14a Abraham called the name of 12g He offered it as a sacrifice instead
that place ‘The Lord will see’, of his son.
14b as it is said to this day: 13a Abraham called [ ] that place
14c ‘On the mount of the Lord The Lord saw’,
it will be seen’. 13b so that it is said [ ]:
13c ‘[ ] The Lord saw’.
13c It is Mt. Zion.
Genesis 22:15–19 Jubilees 18:14–17
15a The angel of the Lord called to 14a [ ] The Lord called to Abraham
Abraham [ ] a second time from by his name a second time from
heaven. heaven,
[ ] 14b just as we had appeared in order
to speak to him in the Lord’s
name.
16a He said: 15a He said:
16b ‘By myself I have sworn, says the 15b ‘By myself I have sworn, says the
Lord: Lord:
16c because you have done this thing, 15c because you have done this thing
16d and have not refused [ ] your son, 15d and have not refused me your first-
your only one [ ], born son whom you love,
17a I will indeed bless you, 15e I will indeed bless you
17b and I will indeed multiply your 15f and will indeed multiply your
descendants as the stars of heaven descendants as the stars of heaven
and as the sand on the seashore. and as the sand on the seashore.
17c Your descendants will possess the gate 15g Your descendants will possess the
of their enemies. cities of their enemies.
18a By your descendants will all the 16a By your descendants will all the
nations of the earth be blessed, nations of the earth be blessed
18b because of the fact that you have 16b because of the fact that you have
obeyed my voice’. obeyed my voice.
[ ] 16c I have made known to everyone
16d that you are faithful to me in
everything that I have told you.
16e Go in peace’.
19a Abraham returned to his servants. 17a Abraham went to his servants.
19b They arose 17b They arose
19c and went together to Beer-sheba; 17c and went together to Beersheba.
19d Abraham lived at Beer-Sheba. 17d Abraham lived at the well of oath.
Despite the fact that the author of Jubilees follows Genesis 22:1–19
quite literally, the synopsis shows that there are additions, omissions
and other variations. In the first place, the additions in Jub 18:9,
12a, 16cd are motivated by the introduction ( Jub 17:15–18). In Jub
18:9a, 12a, Prince Mastema is mentioned, but also other additions
and variations in these verses are related to the introduction. When
one compares Gen 22:11–18 with Jub 18:9–16, it is striking that
whereas in Genesis the ‘Angel of YHWH’ twice calls to Abraham,
he is not referred to explicitly in Jubilees. However, an angel does
indeed play a part in Jubilees. In Jub 18:9–11 the use of the 1st per-
son singular ( Jub 18:9a, 10a, 11a) refers to ‘the Angel of the Presence’,
who is dictating the whole book of Jubilees to Moses (cf. Jub 2:1).60
In Jub 18:14b the 1st person plural is used. The angel speaks directly
( Jub 18:10a, 11a) or indirectly ( Jub 18:14b: ‘just as we had appeared
in order to speak to him’). In contrast to Genesis, the Angel of the
Presence explicitly receives the command to speak from God ( Jub
18:9bc: ‘The Lord said: ‘Tell him . . .’). Moreover, God dictates lit-
erally ( Jub 18:9c–e) what the angel later on says to Abraham ( Jub
18:11b–d). In Jub 18:14b, it is explicitly stated that the angels speak
to Abraham ‘in the Lord’s name’. In addition, in Jub 18:15a the
3rd person singular is used (‘He said’), and this refers to God, not
to the angels. In conclusion, on the one hand one can say that,
more explicitly than in Genesis, God is held responsible for the con-
tent of what the angel says. On the other hand, it is clear that by
putting the words of Gen 22:12b–e into the mouth of the angel ( Jub
18:11b–e) God is protected against the reproach that he is innocent.
He should have known beforehand how Abraham was going to
behave. It is possible that the use of ‘now’ ( ye’eze) in Jub 18:11d
contributes to this interpretation, for this word does not occur in Jub
18:9e, where God is speaking.61
In the second place, most of the deviations in Jub 18:1–17 with
regard to MT Gen 22:1–19 are of a text-critical nature. They run
parallel to alternative readings of words and phrases in one or more
ancient versions of Genesis. I point out the deviations in the fol-
lowing lines: Gen 22:1c (= Jub 18:1b), 2a (= Jub 18:2a), 2b (= Jub
18:2b), 2c (= Jub 18:2c), 3a (= Jub 18:3a), 5a (= Jub 18:4b), 6a (=
Jub 18:5a), 7a (= Jub 18:6a), 7f (= Jub 18:6e), 8a (= Jub 18:7a), 9a
(= Jub 18:7c), 9b (= Jub 18:8a), 9c (= Jub 18:8b), 10a (= Jub 18:8e),
10b (= Jub 18:8e), 12a (= Jub 18:11a), 12b (= Jub 18:11b), 13c (=
Jub 18:12c), 13f (= Jub 18:12g), 14a (= Jub 18:13a), 14c (= Jub
18:13c), 15a (= Jub 18:14a), 16d (= Jub 18:15d), 17c (= Jub 18:15g).
In most of these cases, the differences between Jubilees and MT Gen
22:1–19 are attested in ancient versions of Genesis. Therefore, they
could be due to the fact that the author of Jubilees had a text of
Genesis in front of him that was slightly different from MT.
60
Some Ethiopic manuscripts read Jub 18:10: ‘He called’; cf. VanderKam, Book
of Jubilees, II, 106.
61
Apparently, the contradiction between Jub 18:9a (‘I stood in front of him, and
in front of the Prince of Mastema’) and Jub 18:10a (‘I called to him from heaven’)
was not relevant for the author of Jubilees. It illustrates the tendency in this chap-
ter to follow the biblical text as closely as possible.
In the third place, there are also quite a lot of small differences
between Jub 18:1–17 and MT Gen 22:1–19, which are not attested
in ancient versions, but which do not fundamentally change the
meaning of the text. I point out: Gen 22:1b (= Jub 18:1a), 2d (=
Jub 18:2d [2x]), 3e (= Jub 18:3e [2x]), 4a (= Jub 18:3e [2x]), 4b (=
Jub 18:4a), 5c (= Jub 18:4d), 6b (= Jub 18:5b), 6d (= Jub 18:5d),
7b (= Jub 18:6a), 7c (= Jub 18:6b), 7h (= Jub 18:6g), 8c (= Jub 18:7b),
9a (= Jub 18:7c [2x]), 9b (= Jub 18:8a), 9d (= Jub 18:8c [?], 11a
(= Jub 18:10a), 11b (= Jub 18:10b), 11c (= Jub 18:10d), 12e (= Jub
18:11e), 13c (= Jub 18:12d), 14a (= Jub 18:13a), 14b (= Jub 18:13b),
14c (= Jub 18:13cd [2x]), 15a (= Jub 18:14ab [2x]), 16d (= Jub
18:15d [2x]), 19a (= Jub 18:17a), 19d (= Jub 18:17d).
Many of these small deviations, either text-critical or not, are dis-
cussed by VanderKam, and it is not necessary to go into all these
differences here.62 I restrict myself to some of the differences. Firstly,
three times MT Gen 22:1–19 contains the word ‘your only one’
(˚dyjy Gen 22:2b, 12e, 16d), the first time completed with the phrase
‘whom you love, Isaac’ (Gen 22:2b: qtxy ta tbha rça). In all these
places LXX, OL, EthGen Gen read ‘your beloved one’ instead of
‘your only one’. This reading possibly goes back to the form ˚dydy.
The reading ‘your only one’ is not followed in Jubilees. Instead, it
reads ‘your beloved one’ in Jub 18:2d (= Gen 22:2b), which is the
reading that is attested in LXX, OL, EthGen. In Jub 18:11e (= Gen
22:12e) and in Jub 18:15d (= Gen 22:16d), the reading is ‘your first-
born son’, in the last case followed by the phrase ‘whom you love’,
as is the case in Gen 22:2b (= Jub 18:2d). The original Hebrew of
Jubilees probably read ˚rwkb, a reading not attested in any of the
versions of Gen 22:12e, 16d.63
Secondly, some of the differences have to do with the place of
the offering. In his rendering of Gen 22:2c (‘the land of Moriah’)
with ‘a high land’ ( Jub 18:2c), the author of Jubilees comes close to
the reading of the LXX (tØn ÍchlÆn).64 This reading possibly goes
62
VanderKam, Book of Jubilees, II, 105–109. For a complete inventarisation of
the differences, see idem, Textual and Historical Studies in the Book of Jubilees, Missoula
1977, 150–198; ‘Jubilees and the Hebrew Textsof Genesis—Exodus’ in From Revelation
to Canon. Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature ( JSJS 62), Leiden 2000,
448–461.
63
Note that the Latin text of Jubilees reads in 18:11e: primogenito (= ˚rwkb), and
in 18:15d: unigenito (= ˚dyjy).
64
Cf. also Old Latin and EthGen.
back to a Hebrew Vorlage of Gen 22:2c, which did not have hyrmh,
but something like hmrh.65 However, it is also possible that the author
of Jubilees deliberately changed his Vorlage because in Jub 18:13 it be-
comes clear that the place where Abraham is going to offer his son
is identified with Mount Zion. The identification of Moriah and Zion
( Jerusalem) occurs also in 2 Chron 3:1 (‘. . . the house of YHWH
in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where YHWH had appeared . . .’),
and in rabbinic sources.66
In three places where the text deals with the place of the sacrifice,
Jubilees changes or omits the relative clause: Jub 18:2d reads ‘Offer
him on one of the mountains which I will show you’, which could
perhaps better be translated with ‘which I will make known to you’
(za’ana ’ajad‘aka), against the MT: ‘which I will tell you’ (Gen 22:2d:
rça ˚yla rma); Jub 18:3e omits the relative clause of Gen 22:3f (rça
μyhlah wl rma), whereas in Jub 18:7c he interprets the ‘place of
which God had told him’ (Gen 22:9a) with ‘the mountain of the
Lord’, which can hardly mean anything other than Mount Zion.
The author of Jubilees thus consistently interprets the place of the
offering as Mount Zion, and he might therefore have deliberately
changed ‘the land of Moriah (Gen 22:2c) into ‘a high land’ ( Jub
18:2c), whereas the changes the author makes with regard to the
description of the place ( Jub 18:3e, 7c) serve the same goal.
Thirdly, it is a striking fact that the proper name ‘Abraham’ is
used in Jub 18:1–17 considerably less than in Gen 22:1b–19: against
17 times in Gen 22:22:b–19, only 10 times in Jub 18:1–17.67 This
difference might be due to text-critical reasons, in that the author
of Jubilees did not have the proper name in his copy of Genesis.
However, when one looks at the evidence in the versions, omission
65
The versions differ quite a lot in their rendering of hyrmh. SamP has harwmh,
Peshitta reads ‘mwrj’, which reflects yrmah. Symmachus reads t∞w Ùptas¤aw, which
might reflect a vocalisation of the verb hary in Gen 22:14a, d as a passive form:
‘will appear, be seen’. Cf. A. Salvesen, Symmachus in the Pentateuch ( JSSM 15),
Manchester 1991, 44. GenR 55:7 gives several etymologies of the word hyrmh, harwh
(‘teaching’), hary (‘fear’), dyrwm (‘bring down’, i.e., the nations to Gehenna), ywar of
the correspondence of the Temple to the heavenly Temple, rwm of the myrrh of
the Temple and in Song of Songs 4:6. Cf. also Salvesen, Symmachus, 44, note 177;
M.M. Kasher, Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation, Genesis III, New York 1957, 133.
66
E.g., GenR 56:10; BT Pes 88a; BT Ber 62b.
67
In one place MT only once reads ‘Abraham’, whereas Jubilees reads it twice
(Gen 22:1c = Jub 18:1b). Therefore, in fact eight times Jubilees does not have the
proper name ‘Abraham’ of Genesis.
of the proper name ‘Abraham’ occurs only in some LXX manu-

scripts (cf. Gen 22:3a, 6a, 10a)—in the Peshitta (Gen 22:5a), in
EthGen (Gen 22:8a), and some are not attested at all. Furthermore,
it is striking that omission of the proper name occurs only before
the intervention of the angel of the Lord ( Jub 18:10 = Gen 22:11).
From Jub 18:10 onwards, the use of the proper name is identical to
MT.68
Fourthly, sometimes the author of Jubilees omits indications of
direction, probably because they are vague or redundant (cf. Gen
22:5c: yonder; 22:9: there). At other times, he specifies the indica-
tion of direction. In Jub 18:5d ‘to that place’ is added with regard
to Gen 22:6d. It fixes the direction of the departure of Abraham
and Isaac. They are not going somewhere (cf. the omission of ‘yon-
der’ in Jub 18:4d), but to the place of the sacrifice.69 In Jub 18:8b
(cf. Gen 22:9c), the author specifies that the wood is placed ‘on the
altar’. In connection with this, he rearranges the words of Gen 22:9e
(‘on the altar, on the wood’) in Jub 18:8d (‘on the wood which was
on the altar’).
Fifthly, on three occasions the author of Jubilees seems to omit
duplications of words (compare Gen 22:2d: ‘Offer him . . . as a
sacrifice’ [hl[l . . . whl[hw] with Jub 18:2d: ‘Offer him’) and phrases
(compare Gen 22:4ab: ‘Abraham lifted up his eyes and he saw the
place . . .’ with Jub 18:3f: ‘And he saw the place . . .’; and Gen 22:8c:
‘They went both of them together’ [cf. 22:6d] with Jub 18:7b [cf.:
18:5d]). Finally, I point out some narrative additions, which have
nothing to do with the introduction (cf. Jub 18:4a: ‘When he reached
a well of water’; Jub 18:10d: ‘He was startled’).
4. Job 1:1–2:13 an Intermediary between Genesis 22:1–19 and

Jubilees 17:15–18:19?
The final question which we have to deal with here, is the one
we posed at the beginning of this article: Could Job 1:1–2:13 have
68
In four cases, Jubilees adds ‘to him’ to the verb ‘to say’ (wajebelo: Jub 18:2a, 6e,
10b, 11a; compare MT Gen 22:2a, 7f, 11b, 12a). In some cases, the addition also
occurs in Peshitta and EthGen (Gen 22:2a, 7f, 12a). It might be that the addition
is not significant, since in some places where MT does have not the personal pro-
noun (see Gen 22:1c, 7d, 8a, 11c, 16a), it does not occur in Jubilees either (see Jub
18:1c, 6c, 7a, 10e, 15a).
69
See ‘place’ also in Jub 18:7c, 13a.
functioned as intermediary between Gen 22:1–19 and Jub 17:15–18:19?

Is the author of Jubilees influenced in his rewriting of Gen 22:1–19
by the framework story of the book of Job? In order to find an
answer to this question, I first compared Gen 22:1–19 with Job
1:1–2:13, and then Gen 22:1–19 with Jub 17:15–18:19.
When one compares the differences between Jub 17:15–18:19 and
Gen 22:1–19 with the framework story of the book of Job, one can
point in the first place to the narrative technique by which the reader
becomes informed about what is going to happen in the life of the
protagonists. Both Job and Jubilees make use of a heavenly scene to
achieve this goal. In the second place, there is dialogue between God
and Satan/Mastema about the virtue of the protagonists. God is
absolutely confident about the faithfulness of his hero, whereas Satan/
Mastema try to bring this topic up for discussion. This demonic
intervention forms the starting point of the unravelling drama, both
in Job and Jubilees.
However, there are also several differences between Jubilees and
Job with regard to this heavenly scene. In Jubilees, God remains the
one who tests Abraham, as he is in Genesis. Although he is chal-
lenged by the Prince of Mastema, he remains the sovereign. With
regard to the book of Job, it is clear that God puts Job into the
hands of Satan. Of course, God imposes restrictions with regard to
the activities of Satan (no injury to the body; no death), but Satan
is the one who afflicts Job (cf. Job 2:7). Moreover, the verb hsn (to
test) which is used in Gen 22:1a, and which is not used in the frame-
work story of the book of Job, is very important for the author of
Jubilees. In the introduction ( Jub 17:15–18), the verb makkara (to test)
is used five times. In addition, it is important for the author of Jubilees
that God is not ignorant. He shows this also in other parts of his
rewriting. All emphasis is put on the fact that the test is to show oth-
ers, i.e., Mastema ( Jub 18:9a, 12a) and everyone ( Jub 18:16cd), that
Abraham is faithful to God. God himself knew already that Abraham
would be faithful to him.70 In the framework story of the book of
Job, Satan simply disappears from the stage after the plagues. It is
not said that he is put to shame. Finally, the modification of Jubilees
with regard to Genesis, i.e., the dating of the event of the Aqedah,
70
Cf. Jub 17:17: ‘Now the Lord was aware that Abraham was faithful in every
difficulty, which he had told him’. See also Jub 18:9e, where the word ‘now’ is
omitted when compared to Gen 22:12e.
does not play a part in Job. Other differences and similarities between
Jubilees and Job are due to the fact that Jubilees is quite a literary
rewriting of Genesis. I did not find other indications that the author
of Jubilees tries to incorporate elements from Job in his rewriting of
Gen 22:1–19.
Despite the common narrative technique, there are substantial
differences between Jubilees and Job. Therefore, I consider it very
unlikely that the author of Jubilees was influenced directly by the pro-
logue of the book of Job. This part of the Hebrew Bible (the Writings),
which was probably not yet concluded in the days of the author of
Jubilees, does not play an important part in the Book of Jubilees, in
any case. Moreover, in the literature of this period, the intervening
appearance of Satan does occur more often.71 In addition, Mastema
also plays an important part elsewhere in the Book of Jubilees. He
has an argument with God in Jub 10:1–14, and he tries to kill Moses
and assist the Egyptians (cf. Jub 48:1–19). In this context, the angel
of the Presence stood between the Egyptians and Israel ( Jub 48:13;
cf. 18:9).
I think it is more probable that both Jubilees and Job are com-
parable examples of rewritten older material. In the book of Job,
the heavenly scenes are commonly considered to be later additions
to a basic story, whereas the book of Jubilees can be considered to
be a later version of Genesis. The difference between Job and Jubilees,
however, is that Genesis still exists, whereas the original version of
Job can only be reconstructed.
71
Apart from the biblical texts (1 Chron 21:1; Zech 3:1–2), I point to 1 Enoch
40:7; 65:6; 4Q213 1:17. For the development of the meaning of ˆmç in the bibli-
cal tradition, see P.L. Day, An Adversary in Heaven. Satan in the Hebrew Bible (HSM
43; Atlanta 1988). For the Qumran material, see: J. Frey, ‘Different Patterns of
Dualistic Thought in the Qumran Library. Reflections on their Background and
History’, in: M. Bernstein et al. (eds.), Legal Texts and Legal Issues. Proceedings of the
Second Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies Cambridge 1995. Published
in Honour of Joseph M. Baumgarten (STDJ 23; Leiden 1997), 275–335.
THE AQEDAH AND ITS INTERPRETATIONS IN
MIDRASH AND PIYYUT
Wout Jac. van Bekkum
The famous Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel once observed of the
aqedah or the biblical story of Isaac bound by Abraham for sacrifice:
“Terrifying in content, the aqedah has become a source of consola-
tion to those who, in retelling it, make it part of their own experi-
ence. Here is a story that contains Jewish destiny in its totality, just
as the flame is contained in the single spark by which it comes to
life. Every major theme, every passion and obsession that make
Judaism the adventure that it is, can be traced back to it.”1 I hope
to show that Elie Wiesel’s words invoke a long tradition of Jewish
preoccupation with a story often considered to be the most magnificent
and deepest in meaning of all Bible stories. The theme of this nar-
rative emerged as central in Midrash and Piyyut, the traditions of
biblical exegesis and liturgical poetry in Late Antiquity and Middle
Ages. According to the original text in Genesis 22, God calls Abraham
in order to test him, asking him to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice.
Abraham proceeds to implement God’s wish, and only through divine
intervention is he prevented from carrying out the sacrificial act: a
ram is provided as a substitute offering. God then promises Abraham
that he and his offspring shall inherit the earth. Both the incident
and the story are referred to in Jewish tradition as the aqedah, a
noun meaning ‘binding’, and such a reference implies the existence
of both an actor and a recipient of the act. The event, when seen
as fundamentally involving Abraham, is referred to as the trial of
Abraham; when viewed primarily as Isaac’s ordeal, it is called either
the binding or sacrifice of Isaac. The biblical narrative suggests the
participation of five major characters. The divine realm is repre-
sented both by God and an angelic messenger. The two human
characters are Abraham and Isaac; they are accompanied in their
journey by two anonymous and silent servants (in some midrashim
they bear the names Ishmael and Eliezer, both pictured as vying for
1
Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God, New York: Random House 1976.
the aqedah and its interpretations 87
the position of Abraham’s heir). The animal figure, the ram, is cen-
tral to the biblical narrative, as it provides a resolution of the dilemma
by becoming Isaac’s surrogate in the sacrificial act.2
The story keeps to a deliberate uncertainty about the emotional
state of its characters. However, the use of appositions in v. 2, in a
progression from the general to the specific, indicates the great psy-
chological effort asked of Abraham: ˚dyjy ta ˚nb ta an jq rmayw
qjxy ta tbha rça—‘Please, take your son, your only one, whom
you love, Isaac’. Each apposition further emphasizes Abraham’s spe-
cial attachment to his son, and this dramatic request represents the
aqedah not exclusively as a test for Abraham but also for God. Rabbinic
literature expands the cast of characters and includes an unmen-
tioned tempter figure in the superhuman category, namely Satan
who, as in the story of Job or in Jubilees 17, serves as an instiga-
tor who triggers the entire chain of events. This idea appears in the
Babylonian Talmud in a unique sequence of dialogues (Sanhedrin 89b).
The question is asked what is meant by the words μyrbdh rja yhyw
hlah—‘And it came to pass after these words’ in v. 1. R. Johanan
said on the authority of R. Jose b. Zimra: ‘After the words of Satan’,
as it is written, lmgh μwyb lwdg htçm μhrba ç[yw lmgyw dlyh ldgyw
qjxy ta—‘And the child grew, and was weaned and Abraham made
a great feast the same day that Isaac was weaned’ (Gen 21:8).
Thereupon Satan said to the Almighty: ‘Lord of the universe! To
this old man You did graciously vouchsafe the fruit of the womb at
the age of a hundred, yet of all that banquet which he prepared,
he did not have one turtle-dove or pigeon to sacrifice before You.
If he did so, then it was in honour of his son.’ Replied God: ‘Yet
were I to say to him, “Sacrifice your son before Me”, he would do
so without hesitation.’ Straightway, God did tempt Abraham and
said: “Please take your son.”
R. Simeon b. Abba said: ‘The word ‘please’ can only denote
entreaty. This may be compared to a king of flesh and blood who
was confronted by many wars, which he won by the aid of a great
warrior. Subsequently he was faced with a severe battle. Thereupon
he said to him: ‘Please assist me in battle, that people may not say,
there was no reality in the earlier ones.’ So also did the Holy One,
2
Yitzhak Avishur, Studies in Biblical Narrative; Style, Structure and the Ancient Near
Eastern Literary Background, Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publication 1999,
pp. 75–103.
88 w.j. van bekkum
blessed be He, say unto Abraham: ‘I have tested you with many
trials and you did withstand all. Now, be firm for My sake in this
trial, that men may not say, there was no reality in the earlier ones.’
So God asked him: ‘Your son’. Abraham replied: ‘But I have two
sons!’ ‘Your only one’. ‘Each is the only one of his mother!’ ‘Whom
you love.’ ‘I love them both!’ ‘Isaac!’. And why all this circumlocu-
tion and not say directly: ‘Isaac’? That Abraham’s mind should not
reel under the sudden shock.’ In a parallel tradition Abraham replies
to the words ‘whom you love’: ‘I love them both: are there limits
to one’s emotions?’ Said God to him: ‘Even Isaac.’ The question is
asked again: Why did God not reveal it to Abraham without delay?
This was in order to make him even more beloved in God’s eyes
and reward him for every word spoken, for the Holy One, blessed
be He, first places the righteous in doubt and suspense, and then
He reveals to them the meaning of the matter (GenRabb 39:9).
The narrative continues with a description of the journey as last-
ing three days, the three longest days in Abraham’s life as an accen-
tuation of the agony of his trial. The account of Abraham’s leaving
his servants behind emphasizes the loneliness of the scene, succinctly
summarized by the words of v. 8: wdjy μhynç wklyw—‘And the two of
them went on together’, just as the brief dialogue immediately pre-
ceding this underscores the major issues. The fact that Isaac is made
to carry the firewood for his own slaughter heightens the bitter irony
of the situation. The question hl[l hçh hya—‘Where is the lamb
for the burnt offering?’ reveals Isaac’s concern, while Abraham’s
ambiguous answer, hl[l hçh wl hary μyhla—‘God himself will pro-
vide the lamb for the burnt offering,’ indicates a moral dilemma fac-
ing Abraham which is not fully evoked in the biblical text: is it really
Abraham’s belief that God will provide a substitute for Isaac, or does
this statement indicate that Abraham is transferring responsibility to
God’s domain? The rhetorical device of repetition when the angel
calls for Abraham to stop the sacrifice in vv. 11–12 communicates
direct urgency to the reader: la ˚dy jlçt la . . . μhrba μhrba
hmwam wl ç[t law r[nh—‘Abraham, Abraham . . . Do not lay your
hand on the boy, do not do anything to him!’ The reader partici-
pates in the experience by raising his own basic questions for which
no definite answers can ever be given.3
3
Silvano Arieti, Abraham and the Contemporary Mind, New York: Basic Books 1981,
pp. 146–159.
Rabbinic-Jewish tradition takes up the essential characteristics of

the short dialogues and fills in some of the textual gaps. Their sur-
viving exegetical and liturgical explanations drawn from the aqedah
all give evidence of how the implications of this narrative remained
powerful in Jewish religion and culture. The words ta˚nb ta an jq
˚dyjy—‘Please take your son, your only one’, and la ˚dy jlçt la
r[nh—‘Do not lay your hand on the boy’ present both a divine com-
mandment and a divine prohibition, thus establishing a seemingly
inner contradiction in the story. The question was asked why then
was Abraham summoned to take his son to no purpose. The answers
allude to God’s intention to make Abraham known in the world, as
it is written, twç[l h ˚rd wrmçw wyrja wtyb taw wynb ta hwxy rça ˆ[ml
fpçmw hqdx—‘So that he will direct his children and his household
after him to keep the way of God by doing what is right and just’
(Gen 18:19; NumRabb 17:2). Abraham’s world-wide reputation or
international fame is popular in Hebrew and non-Hebrew texts from
various times and places and suggests a typology of the first prophet
who is called ‘the beloved of God’ or ‘friend of God’, so very com-
mon in Islam. What also can be learned from Gen 18:19 are the
first signs of Abraham’s assimilation to the Moses traditions when
he proves to be a servant of God by the so-called ‘covenant between
the pieces’ and who upholds the Mosaic Torah before its revelation.
There are additional places in the Midrash where Abraham’s role
in the aqedah has led to influential observations. When Abraham says,
he cannot descend from mount Moriah without offering a sacrifice,
God answers him: ‘Your sacrifice has been ready for you ever since
the days of creation’. In Pirqey Avot, the ‘Sayings of the Fathers’, a
mishnaic tractate inserted in the fourth order of Neziqin or ‘Damages’,
it is related that God had created a ram in the twilight of the Sabbath
eve in the week of creation, and had been preparing it since then
as a burnt offering instead of Isaac (MAvot 5:9). The text of v. 13
reads: wynrqb ˚bsb zjan dja lya hnhw aryw wyny[ ta μhrba açyw
wnb tjt hl[l whl[yw lyah tajqyw μhrba ˚lyw—‘Abraham looked up
and there he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took
the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son (Gen
22:13). The Sages ask: “What then is the purpose of the additional
words ‘instead of his son’? When Abraham sacrificed the ram, he
said: ‘Lord of the universe! Regard the act as though the blood of
Isaac were being sprinkled before You.’ He took the ram and flayed
it, saying: ‘O consider the act as though I had flayed the skin of
90 w.j. van bekkum
Isaac before You.’ He took the ram and dried its blood with salt,
saying: ‘O consider the act as though Isaac’s blood were being dried
before You.’ He burnt the ram and said: ‘O consider the act as
though Isaac’s ashes were being heaped up upon the altar.’” Another
exposition has it that the phrase ‘instead of his son’ implies an ulti-
mate promise. Abraham would not move from the place until God
swears to him that He will never again put him to any test. God
swore to him that He would never test him again (NumRabb 17:2).
This divinely created ram has its extraordinary purpose within the
narrative but its existence since the time of creation is found puz-
zling and adds to the acuteness of the problem of providence within
the story which implies that God never intended that Abraham should
actually sacrifice Isaac. Equally extraordinary is its interpretation in
Jewish tradition and its meaning for religio-political thought. The
word rja in v. 13 can be read as achar (‘behind’ or ‘after’) or, gram-
matically congruent, echad (‘one’), or acher (‘another’). The following
exposition reads acher and clarifies the role of the horns of the ram
in Rabbinic Judaism: “This teaches that the Holy One, blessed be
He, showed our father Abraham the ram tearing itself free from one
thicket and getting entangled in another. The Holy One, blessed be
He, said to Abraham: ‘In a similar manner are your children des-
tined to be caught by iniquities and entangled in troubles, but they
will ultimately be redeemed through the horns of the ram.’ Hence
it is written: ‘The Lord God will blow the horn’ (Zech 9:14).
R. Huna son of R. Isaac said: ‘It teaches that the Holy One, blessed
be He, showed Abraham the ram tearing itself free from one thicket
and getting entangled in another. The Holy One, blessed be He,
said to Abraham: ‘In a similar manner are your children destined
to be caught by the nations and entangled in troubles, being dragged
from empire to empire, from Babylon to Media, from Media to
Greece, and from Greece to Edom (Rome), but they will ultimately
be redeemed through the horns of the ram.’ R. Abba son of R. Pappi
and R. Joshua of Siknin in the name of R. Levi said: ‘All the days
of the year Israel is occupied with their work, and on New Year
they take their horns and blow before the Holy One, blessed be He,
who rises from the throne of judgment and moves to the throne of
mercy, and is filled with compassion for them.” (LevRabb 29:10).
The significance of these midrashic statements can be attached to
the thoughts and experiences on the occasion of the great days of
awe in Judaism, the New Year and the Day of Atonement. Here
we also touch upon the expiatory and soteriological values of Abraham’s

sacrifice, so important in both Judaism and Christianity.4 On the
Jewish New Year Israel considers how judgment is formed and on
the Day of Atonement it considers how judgment is sealed. The key
words are ‘judgment’ and ‘mercy’, and the horns of the ram, the
shofarot, call Israel to account, as it is said in a prayer text: “The
sound of the shofar breaks into our lives. It shatters our illusions and
we awake to truth. Our time is short and we are forced to choose.
Life and death have been set before us, good and evil, blessing and
curse. Without penitence sin brings only destruction. The shofar sounds
its warning, and calls us to account.” The two horns of the ram of
Moriah encompass dimensions of past and future: the one was blown
at the end of the revelation on mount Sinai; the other will be used
to proclaim the ingathering of the exiles in the time to come.
What then is the role of Abraham’s victim so-to-speak, his own
beloved son Isaac who was the dq[n, the bound one? The Hebrew
verb dq[ in v. 9 does not recur anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible
in the active, conjugated form and possesses a specific value in
Judaism which cannot be retrieved in the Christian tradition.5 The
translations keep close to the original Hebrew meaning: Targum
Onkelos reads: qjxy ty dq[w—‘And he bound Isaac’, and Targum
Yonathan translates: qjxy ty tpkw—‘And he tied Isaac’. The Septuagint
renders: ka¤ sumpod¤saw Isaak—‘And he tied the feet of Isaac together’,
a meaning which, in an indirect way, recurs in Rashi’s commentary:
hdyq[ ayh djyb μylgrw μydyh wyrwjam wylgrw wydy dq[y—‘And he bound
his hands and his feet behind him, hands and feet together, this is
aqedah.’ The biblical aqedah story focuses in Jewish perception upon
Isaac as the main protagonist in the father-son drama. Not exclu-
sively the sacrifice of Abraham but predominantly the binding of
Isaac is the ever recurring motif in the descriptions and versifications
of Jewish martyrdom. Like a permanent refrain, the comparison of
the experience of sufferance and death with that of Isaac can be
found in numerous historical records and poems, as in the poetry
of Ephraim ben Jacob of Bonn (1133–1221) who witnessed the
4
Carol Delaney, Abraham on Trial, The Social Legacy of Biblical Myth, Princeton:
Princeton University Press 1998, pp. 120–125, 137–145.
5
Margarite Harl, ‘La ‘Ligature’ d’Isaac (Gen. 22,9) dans la Septante et chez les
Pères Grecs’, Hellenica et Judaica, ed. par A. Caquot c.s., Leuven-Paris: Éditions
Peeters 1986, pp. 457–472.
92 w.j. van bekkum
persecutions of the Jews during the Second Crusade: “They offered

up sacrifices; they prepared victims like Isaac their father.”6 But what
enabled Jews in the Middle Ages who lost their lives in countless
killings and massacres μçh çwdyq l[, in the sanctification of God’s
name, to compare themselves to Isaac who did not have to give his
life and came out alive? Perhaps parts of the answer to this ques-
tion of dazzling complexity are to be found in midrashic tales of
Isaac’s frightening experience.7 In an early version Isaac was so
terrified that his soul escaped from him, when the slaughtering knife
was set upon his throat. As soon as the angelic voice admonished
Abraham not to slaughter his son, Isaac returned to life. Abraham
loosened his bonds, and Isaac stood upon his feet, and said: “Blessed
are You, O God, who quickens the dead.” A later version (PRE 30)
recounts how Isaac’s soul fled and departed, when the blade touched
his neck, but when he heard the two cherubim saying to Abraham:
“Do not lay your hand on the boy”, his soul returned to his body,
and Abraham set him free, and Isaac stood upon his feet. He knew
that in this manner the dead in the future will be revived. He opened
his mouth and said: “Blessed are You, O God, who revives the
dead.” Such traditions could be based upon the word-play hdyjy÷dyjy,
‘the only/unique one’ as a reference to both Isaac who is dyjy ˆb,
the only son, and the soul which is hdyjy, ‘the unique one’, accord-
ing to Ps 22:21. It should be noted that these thoughts strengthen
Isaac’s position within the context of daily recited standard prayer,
specifically the second benediction of the Amidah or Shmoneh Esreh.
The first benediction is called ˆgm or ‘shield’ in connection with
Abraham according to Gen 15:1: ‘Do not be afraid, Abram, I am
your shield.” The second benediction on the mighty deeds of God
was attached to the one that is second in the order of the patri-
archs, and thus this benediction became associated with Isaac. The
life and revival of nature during summer in the Middle East is depen-
dent upon dew so that the subject of dewdrops was set down in
connection with the resurrection of the dead. Some midrashim ven-
ture to assume that Isaac really died on mount Moriah. He was
reduced to ashes and his sacrificial dust was cast on the mountain.
The Holy One, blessed be He, brought upon him dew and revived
6
Hans-Georg von Mutius, Ephraim von Bonn, Hymnen und Gebete, Judaistische Texte
und Studien 11, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag 1989, pp. 84–90.
7
Allan Mintz, Hurban, New York: Columbia University Press 1984.
him.8 This or similar ideas in rabbinic lore magnify the dimensions

of the aqedah to such an extent that the patriarch Isaac was believed
to have been put to death as the most pure symbol of martyrdom
in the name of God and then to be revived as a symbol of the doc-
trine of resurrection.9
Whatever the origins or implications of this strain of thought may
have been, later generations who experienced great distress strongly
identified with Isaac and much less with Abraham. Recent studies
show that this shift in focus could have been a Jewish response to
the strong interest of Christian theology in Abraham.10 Two anony-
mous piyyutim from Late Antiquity seem to confirm this tendency.
The first poem describes the aqedah from the theological perspective
of Abraham:11
Abraham, the steadfast one, made You known, before You were known by the
world; he revealed to all creatures the path which they should take.
He was designated from among twenty-six generations and withstood every trial.
Lord, you have put him to the test ten times; You granted him offspring in his
hundredth year.
Benign One, when You said to him: ‘I desire your child as a fragrant offering’—
he rushed to fulfil the command, he lost no time at all.
Quickly he split the wood, took up the fire and the knife, loaded his favoured
one, Isaac, with the faggot for the burnt offering.
Then he went on to build the altar, stood up and placed his lamb upon it; he
took the sword in his hand and took no pity at all.
The Almighty cried out to him: ‘Drop your hand at once! Instead of your son,
I desire the ram caught by his horns in the thicket.’
O God, heed these ashes, credit us with his covenant, favour us for his bind-
ing, reward our self-denial!
8
Shibbolei ha-Leqet 9a–b.
9
Shalom Spiegel, The Last Trial, on the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham
to offer Isaac as a Sacrifice: the Akedah, New York: Schocken Books 1969; Eli Yassif,
The Binding of Isaac—Studies in the Development of a literary Tradition, Jerusalem: The
Magnes Press 1978.
10
P. Davies and B. Chilton, ‘The Aqedah: A Revised Tradition-History’, The
Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 (1978), pp. 514–546; Jeffrey S. Siker, Disinheriting the Jews:
Abraham in Early Christian Controversy, Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press 1991.
11
T. Carmi, The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, Harmondsworth 1981, pp. 201–202.
94 w.j. van bekkum
By contrast, in a recently published book on Jewish Palestinian

Aramaic Poetry from Late Antiquity published by Michael Sokoloff and
Joseph Yahalom, we encounter an impressive poem reconstructed
from Genizah manuscripts:12
“Isaac said to his father, how pleasant is the altar you built me, my father,
stretch out quickly, and take your knife, while I pray before my Lord.
Uncover your arm and gird your loins, like a man who prepares a meal for his
lord, this is the day about which they will say: a father did not pity, a son
did not tarry.
How will you go and tell my mother Sarah, how will you leave me and go
home? And Isaac kissed his father Abraham, and commanded him, told him
this:
Sprinkle my blood over the altar, assemble my dust and bring it to my mother,
my life and death, it’s all in His hands, I thank Him that he has chosen me.
Blessed are you, my father, that they will say: I am the ram for the burnt
offering of the living God, let your anger be stronger than your compassion, my
father, and be the man who does not spare his son.
Like a merciless man, take up your knife, and slaughter me, lest I shall become
unclean, do not weep, I shall not stop you, I take myself not because of you.
Why do you cry, said Isaac to Abraham his father, blessed is the Lord of the
world who has chosen me, the spirit will rest [by] the blood of the altar, how
we went out together in sincerity.
Give me your knife, my father, that I can touch it, I beg you not to defile me,
my eyes see the woodpiles put in order, a burning fire on the day of my sacrifice.
Open your mouth and say a blessing, father, I will listen and say amen, my
throat is stretched out to you, my father, whatever you please to do please do.
12
Jerusalem: Publications of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
1999, pp. 124–131; cf. J. Yahalom, Poetry and Society in Jewish Galilee of Late Antiquity,
Tel Aviv 1999, pp. 108–110; some of the motifs are strikingly similar to what is
found in Syriac verse homilies, cf. Sebastian Brock, “Two Syriac Verse Homilies
on the Binding of Isaac”, Le Muséon 99, Louvain-la-Nueve 1986, pp. 61–129, reprinted
in Sebastian Brock, From Ephrem to Romanos, Interactions between Syriac and Greek in Late
Antiquity, Ashgate: Variorum Collected Studies Series 1999, no. VI.
The angels stood up to appease their Lord, we beg you to take pity on the boy,
because of the love of his father we plead for the man in whose house we have
eaten salt.
The Almighty told him: be not afraid, boy, I am the Redeemer, and I shall
redeem you, firm is God and strong are His deeds, there is no other like Him,
none who resembles Him.”
This poem reveals a number of dramatic details about Isaac’s
readiness to be sacrificed at the hand of his father for the sake of
God. The text focuses entirely on Isaac and the religious dimensions
of his character. There is no actual ram to serve as the substitute
victim, and only the last two strophes refer to the angels who accord-
ing to Gen. 18 visited Abraham and were received with great hos-
pitality. Throughout the centuries medieval exegetical and poetic
responses to the theme of the aqedah viewed Jewish martyrs as sacrificial
offerings to God rather than senseless victims in a world devoid of
respect for fellow human beings.13 Even in modern times the burnt
offering of Isaac or holokauston/holocaustum turned into a name for the
death of million Jews during the Nazi period. Elie Wiesel refers to
his own experiences when he calls attention to the aqedah but secu-
lar Jews will not be consoled by a biblical tale which promises divine
intervention against death. Without the miraculous salvation of Isaac
the story turns into a bitter myth. This ambiguity of the aqedah nar-
rative will guarantee its relevance in modern and future times.
13
Louis Jacobs, ‘The Problem of the Akedah in Jewish Thought’, Kierkegaard’s Fear
and Trembling: Critical Appraisals, ed. by R.L. Perkins, University of Alabama, pp. 1–9;
James Swetnam, Isaac and Jesus, Rome: Biblical Institute Press 1981; Albert van der
Heide, ‘Aqeda: de beproeving die verzoening bewerkte, de middeleeuws-joodse
exegese van Genesis 22’, Betekenis en Verwerking: het offer van Isaak en de holocaust, ed.
by Willem Zuidema c.s., Baarn: Ten Have 1982, pp. 19–59.
THE BODMER POEM ON THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM
Ton Hilhorst
Among the treasures in the set of papyri acquired by the Swiss col-
lector Martin Bodmer1 is a Greek poem consisting of 30 hexameter
lines, headed ‘To Abraham’. It has been published twice so far, by
Enrico Livrea in 1994 and by André Hurst and Jean Rudhardt in
1999.2 Livrea thanks Hurst and Rudhardt for sending him a tran-
script of the text and he thanks the Bodmer Library for allowing
him to study the papyrus in situ, but in fact he published the text
without having received permission to do so. Actually, Hurst and
Rudhardt were preparing the editio princeps of the text.3 Small won-
der, then, that Livrea’s publication is not mentioned in their official
1999 edition. They do mention his conjectures in their critical appa-
ratus, marking them as being by ‘Livrea’; however, they apparently
base themselves on earlier contacts with Livrea, for at one point they
mention three alternatives under his name,4 whereas in his publica-
tion he retains only one of these alternatives. In the following, I will
base my remarks on the edition of Hurst and Rudhardt, but since
Livrea’s pirated edition—which is not without its merits—is avail-
able, I will also take his article into consideration where it is of inter-
est. Recently, an essay by Pieter W. van der Horst and Martien
F.G. Parmentier appeared which contains an annotated translation
and offers a wealth of material for comparison from Jewish and
Christian (Greek as well as Syrian) sources.5 These three publica-
1
On the Bodmer Papyri, see R. Kasser, ‘Bodmer Papyri’, The Coptic Encyclopedia
8 (1991) 48–53.
2
E. Livrea, ‘Un poema inedito di Dorotheos: Ad Abramo’, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie
und Epigraphik 100 (1994) 175–187; A. Hurst and J. Rudhardt, Papyri Bodmer XXX–
XXXVII; «Codex des Visions». Poèmes divers (Bibliotheca Bodmeriana), Munich 1999,
37–56.
3
Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 103 (1994) 154 contains three declarations
on this affair: ‘Mitteilung der Bibliotheca Bodmeriana’ by H.E. Braun, ‘Stellungnahme
von E. Livrea’, and ‘Stellungnahme von A. Hurst und J. Rudhardt’. Cf. also P.W. van
der Horst and M.F.G. Parmentier, ‘Een nieuw oudchristelijk geschrift over het offer
van Izaäk’, Bijdragen, tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie 61 (2000) 243–260 at 244 n. 3.
4
Hurst and Rudhardt (n. 2) 47, critical apparatus ad l. 21.
5
See note 3.
the bodmer poem on the sacrifice of abraham 97
tions are all that has appeared in print so far concerning our poem.
As is usual with papyrus texts, the poem has not survived undam-
aged. Most lines show gaps, and two have disappeared completely.
Thus, the first and foremost task of the editors is to restore the orig-
inal text, insofar as this can be done. Fortunately, we have a dou-
ble advantage here, the metre and the abecedarian structure: apart
from the first three and the last three verses, each verse of the poem
begins with a successive letter of the Greek alphabet. Furthermore,
the subject matter of the poem is well known to us: it is a para-
phrase of the story of Isaac’s sacrifice as told in Genesis 22. The
poem was totally unknown until now, and we still do not know who
wrote it. In the papyrus codex that transmits it, the poem follows
the lengthy poem called ‘The Vision of Dorotheus’, and Livrea
believes that it has so many points of agreement with that previous
poem, that Dorotheus must be the author of the Abraham poem as
well. Hurst and Rudhardt, on the contrary, feel that for linguistic
reasons Dorotheus cannot have written it.6 A consensus still seems
to be far away. Even the date of composition is unknown. Hurst
and Rudhardt have good reasons for arguing that it stems from the
fourth century; the papyrus itself was written either in the second
half of the fourth century or early in the fifth century AD.7 In this
paper, I will present this poem by offering its text together with a
translation, followed by a discussion of some of its aspects.
1. Text and Translation
The text will be printed here as it has been reconstructed by Hurst

and Rudhardt. Square brackets denote gaps in the papyrus; char-
acters inside them are conjectures of the editors. A dot below a char-
acter indicates that that character cannot be identified with any
certainty. In numbering the lines, I include the captions, which makes
for a total of 33 lines. The text, then, reads as follows:
6
Livrea (n. 2) 176–177; Hurst and Rudhardt (n. 2) 9–10.
7
Hurst and Rudhardt (n. 2) 5–24. For the date of the papyrus, cf. J.N. Bremmer,
The Rise and Fall of the Afterlife, London and New York 2001 (forthcoming), intro-
duction to Appendix 3.
98 t. hilhorst
PrÚw ÉAbraãm Íp)°[ry]eta

àOw kÒsmon sun°zeuje ka‹ oÈranÚ)n [±d¢ yã]lassan
afiy°row §kpro˝alle t«i ÉAbraåm ê)g)g[elon] »k+Á)n
=°jai §Ún f¤lon uÂa telh°sshn §katÒmbhn.
5 katå stoixe›on
aÈt¤ka dÉ …w jun°hken §xÆrato prÒfroni y+u[m«i
b∞ dÉ ‡men efi pep¤yoien égakleitØn parãkoi[tin:
,,gÊnai §mÆ, poy°ei yeÚw êmbrotow ˆfra kom[¤ssv
d›on ÉIsak, m°ga d«ron )¶)h[n] )§)p)‹ gÆrao[w o]+È)d[«i
10 §kgen°thw: tel°seien )t[«i ge yeoË tÚ y°l])h)m[a:
zeÊjv §mÚn pot‹ bvm[Ú])n )Ù+r[egnÁw uflÚn] )ê)yi[kton”.
±Êjato dÉ …w pepÊye[s]ke gun[Ø ] )pepnum)°[na bãzei])n.
,,yãrsei, §mÚn f¤le t°k)n)on, §p[e‹] mãkar ¶p[leo sÁ z]«n
ÉIs)a[k] §m«n mel°vn )t[°kow ].ki.[
15 [k
[l (tok∞aw uel sim.)
me¤lixa] kagxalÒvn prosef≈nee fa¤dimow uflÒw:
,,num[f¤]d)ion yalerÚn yãlamon teÊjasye tok∞ew,
jan[y]Æn moi plokãmoisi kÒmhn pl°jasye pol›tai,
20 ˆf[rÉ fler])Øn tel°saimi xãrin megalÆtori yum«i”.
)p[Ër aÈ])tår per‹ bvmÚn §te¤xisan ‡storew émf¤w,
)=[o¤bdh]sen d¢ yãlassa per‹ flÒga, tØn =å Mo#sØw
)s[x¤se]i: ÉAbraåm uÂa potijunae¤reto kËma.
)t[Ún dÉ ¶]feren yuÒenta patÆr, xa¤ronta d¢ bvm«i
25 ÍcÒye]n ÑHfa¤stoio deid¤sketo, yÊnato dÙjÁ
fãsgano]n aÈx°neow potifein°men: éllå yeo›o
xe‹r mØn ém]fetãnusto: fãneske går §ggÊyi m∞lon:
c∞len dÉ ÉAbr]aåm, uÂa s≈vn, énå d°ndrea karpÚn
Àste prosy])°menow tÒ =É §l°jato da›ta pone›syai.
30 tå loip]å prÒsyeta
)a)È)t[¤ka sÊ,] +megãyume, lãxoiw g°raw êllo katÉ aÈtÚ
x¤lia[ t°kna s]e to›on §paugãsai ényemÒenta
dvro[dÒth])n )panãriston §pembeba«tÉ §p‹ pÊrgvi.
This text may be rendered as follows:8

To Abraham—introductory
He who assembled the world and heaven and sea
sent a swift messenger from the ether to Abraham
in order that he should sacrifice his beloved son as a perfect offering.
5 By letter
8
There is a French translation by Hurst and Rudhardt (n. 2) 48–49 and a Dutch
one by van der Horst and Parmentier (n. 3) 245–246. Livrea (n. 2) 180 offers an
abecedarian translation of his own reconstruction.
As soon as he heard it, he rejoiced with a willing mind

and he set out, that he might persuade his glorious wife:
‘My wife, the immortal God wishes that I should bring
noble Isaac. He was a great gift on the threshold of my old age,
10 my offspring. May God’s will be fulfilled for him.
I will bind my untouched son, stretching him on my altar.’
As soon as she heard this, the woman proudly spoke the wise words:
‘Take courage, my dear child, for you were happy during your life,
Isaac, child of my limbs.
15
(his parents or the like, as the object of ‘addressed’)
the famous son addressed with gentle words, exulting:
‘Prepare a blooming bridal chamber, my parents,
Twine my fair hair in braids, my fellow-citizens,
20 that I may perform a holy offering with a generous mind.’
Skilled persons built a fire round about on the altar,
and around the flame the sea rustled which Moses
was to divide; a wave lifted Abraham’s son.
Him, the fragrant, bore his father, and while the boy rejoiced at
the altar
25 he presented him above Hephaestus9 and he brandished the sharp
sword to strike his throat.10 However, God’s
hand stretched out, for nearby a sheep appeared
and Abraham, saving his son, tore the fruit from among the trees
and continuing11 chose it to prepare a feast.
30 The remaining, additional
May you, noble one, obtain presently another reward for this:
that a thousand children make you shine thus, you flowery one,
giver of presents, best of all, who have climbed the tower.
2. Uncertainty of the Text
In my translation, I have followed the reconstruction by Hurst and

Rudhardt, indicating conjectures by using italics. In many cases the
reconstruction is quite certain; no one will dispute that a hexame-
ter ending on égakleitØn parãkoi and missing one syllable at the
end will have to be completed by tin. Thus, Hurst and Rudhardt
9
I.e. the fire, cf. below, p. 103.
10
Rather than ‘neck’, cf. I. Speyart van Woerden, ‘The Iconography of the
Sacrifice of Abraham’, Vigiliae Christianae 15 (1961) 214–255 at 228, and the illus-
trations.
11
For this rendering of prosy])°menow, cf. F. Blass, A. Debrunner and F. Rehkopf,
Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, Göttingen 199017 § 435 n. 5.
100 t. hilhorst
agree with Livrea in their integration of lines 1–3, 6–8, 14, 18, 19,
24–27, and 30. On the other hand, they disagree in lines 9–13, 17,
20–23, 28–29, and 31–33. The difference is not always alarming.
Thus, in vv. 9–10, Hurst and Rudhardt write ‘noble Isaac. He was
a great gift on the threshold of my old age, my offspring’, whereas
Livrea has ‘noble Isaac, a great gift on the threshold of my old age,
from the hour of his birth’.12 While the construction is different, the
tenor is roughly the same, although Hurst and Rudhardt’s solution
has the drawback of presenting Isaac’s sonship as something of the
past (the same applies to their conjecture ¶p[leo] in l. 13). But in
v. 12 both editions assess the situation in a different way: Hurst and
Rudhardt make Sara ‘proudly speak wise words’, where Livrea has
her ‘beseech her clever son’.13 In Hurst and Rudhardt’s view, Sarah
shares the attitude of Abraham completely. Just like him, she con-
siders it a privilege that their son will be sacrificed to honour God.
In Livrea’s representation, on the other hand, she is the archetype
of a caring mother. Several paraphrases of Genesis 22 exist in which
Sarah laments,14 but the purpose of the present poem seems rather
to present a united family—father, mother and child—each giving
one single, positive statement. Consequently, Hurst and Rudhardt’s
proposal is preferable. On the other hand, Livrea’s proposal ‘clever
son’, )pepnum)°[non uflÒ])n, which evokes young Telemachus in Homer’s
Odyssey, is ingenious, suggesting as it does the idea of being endowed
with the Spirit (pneËma).15
In some lines, the physical damage of the papyrus is only the
accompaniment to an intrinsic mysteriousness of the text. Thus, in
lines 22–23,
and around the flame the sea rustled
which Moses was to divide; a wave lifted Abraham’s son,
the words ‘rustled’ and ‘was to divide’ can be reconstructed with a
fair amount of probability, but the real problem is the meaning of
‘the sea which Moses was to divide’. Scholars have tried hard to
12
Hurst and Rudhardt d›on ÉIsak, m°ga d«ron )¶)h[n] )§)p)‹ gÆrao[w o])È)d[«i / §kgen°thw,
Livrea d›on ÉIsãk, m°ga d«ron )§)m[o])Ë [§])p‹ gÆraow) [o]Èd[«i / §k genet∞w.
13
Hurst and Rudhardt ±Êjato dÉ …w pepÊye[s]ke gun[Ø ] )pepnum)°[na bãzei])n, Livrea
hÎjato dÉ …w pepÊye[s]ke gun) [Ø ] p) epnum°) [non uflÒ]n) .
14
See Hurst and Rudhardt (n. 2) 52.
15
Livrea (n. 2) 183.
solve the puzzle.16 Livrea thinks a lustral purification is meant, but

the parallel texts he offers deal with purification of the sacrificer, not
of the sacrifice. Furthermore, Livrea as well as Hurst and Rudhardt
suggest a symbolic passage through the Red Sea, but the poem,
instead of speaking of a stagnant sea being crossed (cf. Exodus 14:22:
‘And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry
ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and
on their left’), on the contrary makes the water move on with a
thundering roar and lift the apparently passive boy. Van der Horst
and Parmentier, who reject the idea of a baptism of Isaac, consider
it probable that some prefiguration of baptism is meant, but they
do not explain its function in the text. Anyway, we should not for-
get that even the word )s[x¤se]i, apart from the first letter, is purely
conjectural, and instead of relating the passage to the crossing of the
Red Sea we might also think of Numbers 20, where Moses strikes
water from the rock.17
Finally, lines 31–33 are a brainteaser. Both Livrea and Hurst and
Rudhardt presume that the poet addresses Abraham directly; nev-
ertheless, due to the different ways that the gaps are filled in, the
differences grow more spectacular with each verse. Whereas Hurst
and Rudhardt integrate the lines so as to say
May you, noble one, obtain presently another reward for this:
that a thousand children make you shine thus, you flowery one,
giver of presents, best of all, who have climbed the tower,
Livrea conjectures:
May you, my noble lord, obtain another reward for this
a thousand times; lord, watch thus the flowery
Dorotheus, the best of all, having climbed the tower.
Here, the thousand children—pointing to Abraham’s numerous prog-
eny (cf. Genesis 22:15–19)—are gone, but Dorotheus, the putative
author of the poem, has entered the scene; and not Abraham has
climbed the tower: the hope is, rather, that Dorotheus will once have
16
Livrea (n. 2) 184–185; Hurst and Rudhardt (n. 2) 40–41, 54; van der Horst
and Parmentier (n. 3) 247, 257–258.
17
For this scene as a pendant to the sacrifice of Abraham on Christian sar-
cophagi cf. Speyart van Woerden (n. 10) 236–237.
102 t. hilhorst
climbed it.18 As for the tower, all scholars refer to the tower in the
Christian writing The Shepherd of Hermas, a text which appears in
the same collection of papyri as our poem; there the tower repre-
sents the Church.19 I feel slightly uncomfortable with this association
as far as the reconstruction of Hurst and Rudhardt is concerned,
for there the talk is of a strictly personal reward for Abraham, whereas
the supposed belonging to the Church cannot be the privilege of
one single person. In Livrea’s text, this objection does not apply, but
the self-importance with which Dorotheus summons Abraham to
watch him, ‘the flowery one, the best of all, having climbed the
tower’, is rather unsuitable.20 Further research will have to study
afresh the arguments for and against a common authorship of the
Vision of Dorotheus and the present poem; such research should also
include the next poem of the codex, To the Righteous, which accord-
ing to the reconstruction of Hurst and Rudhardt contains the name
Dorotheus: Dv[rÒy]eon KÊntou nai°men §n dika¤oiw (l. 160).
3. The Poem as a Paraphrase
The poem offers a recasting of the story of Genesis 22 in the tra-

dition of Greek poetry, and it is by no means the first experiment
in treating biblical topics this way. Indeed, we have a number of
poems, Jewish as well as Christian, that transpose the biblical sub-
ject matter to the world of Greek literature; suffice it to recall the
Sibylline Oracles, the Exagoge of Ezekiel the poet, the verses of Gregory
of Nazianzus, and Nonnus’ Paraphrase of St John’s Gospel. This trans-
position entails first of all the use of the secular poetic metre and
language. A fine example is the rendering of Genesis 22:2, tÚn uflÒn
sou tÚn égaphtÒn, ˘n ±gãphsaw, by the equally tender •Ún f¤lon uÂa.21
18
The differences are: v. 31 Hurst and Rudhardt a) )È)t[¤ka sÊ], Livrea +k+Ê+r[i° mou],
v. 32 Hurst and Rudhardt [t°kna s]°, Livrea [kÊri]e, v. 33 Hurst and Rudhardt
dvro[dÒth]n) , Livrea Dvr!Ò[yeo]!n.
19
Livrea (n. 2) 187; Hurst and Rudhardt (n. 2) 53, 56, cf. ib. 40; van der Horst
and Parmentier (n. 3) 246 n. 21.
20
Jan Bremmer, who prefers Livrea’s integration DvrÒ) [yeo])n, in a personal con-
versation suggested to me that I interpret pÊrgow as the stake on which Dorotheus
was to die a martyr’s death. The suggestion is interesting enough, but suffers from
the same objection as Livrea’s interpretation, namely Dorotheus’ self-glorification.
21
The expression may be rendered simply by ‘his own son’, as Hurst and
The participle kagxalÒvn is also pleasantly appropriate: a homerism

that expresses the etymology of the name Isaac.22 The phrase )§)p)‹
gÆrao[w o])È)d[«i, ‘on the threshold of my old age’ (l. 9), came to the
surface as a matter of course; earlier, Josephus used it in the same
context, Ant. 1.222: ÖIsakon . . . §p‹ gÆrvw oÈd“ katå dvreån aÈt“ toË
yeoË genÒmenon, ‘Isaac . . . born to him on the threshold of old age
through the bounty of God’ (trans. Thackeray). Not surprisingly, we
read the customary epitheta ornantia: égakleitØ parãkoitiw, yeÚw êmbro-
tow, d›ow ÉIsak, fa¤dimow uflÒw. Furthermore, the author uses tradi-
tional, i.e. pagan, religious terminology, with a remarkable ease: =°zv
and •katÒmbh (l. 4) for énaf°rv and ılokãrpvsiw (Gen. 22:2), bvmÒw
(ll. 11, 21, 24) for yusiastÆrion (Gen 22:9).23 To the Genesis account
he even adds the sacrificial meal or da¤w (l. 29), a feature known
from Homer onward. In the same vein, in line 25 the name of
Hephaestus, the god of fire, is used as a metonym for ‘fire’. Apparently,
the poet had no qualms about mentioning the pagan god, no more
than, for that matter, many centuries later John Calvin had in using
the expression crassa Minerva, ‘with a dull Minerva’, i.e. ‘without art,
in a homely style’24 Finally, the author introduces poetic images like
the representation of the sheep as a fruit hanging on the trees
(l. 28). It is possible that in doing so he attributes to the word m∞lon
its double meaning, ‘apple’ and ‘sheep’ (or ‘goat’).25
Apart from these formal aspects, the shifts in content demand our
attention. First of all, the author reduces the narrative to such an ex-
tent that the intended readers must have been familiar with the story
and with the Pentateuch in general, as the reference to creation in
line 2 and to Moses in line 22 make clear. Here, a comparison with
Rudhardt, and van der Horst and Parmentier choose to do, but in view of the cor-
responding verse in Genesis a more affective interpretation would seem to be nat-
ural.
22
Cf. Genesis 17:17,19; 18:12; 21:6; 26:8; Livrea (n. 2) 183; C. Jacob and
S. Schrenk, ‘Isaak I (Patriarch)’, in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 18 (1998)
910–930 at 911 and 914.
23
Cf. G.J.M. Bartelink, ‘Einige Bemerkungen über die Meidung heidnischer oder
christlicher Termini in dem frühchristlichen Sprachgebrauch’, Vigiliae Christianae 19
(1965) 193–209 at 194–195. James 2:21 keeps the biblical vocabulary, but Josephus
Ant. 1.224 uses bvmÒw.
24
Ad Gen. 3.21 (Iohannis Calvini Opera Quae Supersunt Omnia 23, Brunswick
1882, 77); I owe this reference to Prof. G.P. Hartvelt. For these types of expres-
sions, cf. J. Wackernagel, Vorlesungen über Syntax, II, Basel [19282], 62–63.
25
Livrea (n. 2) 186; Hurst and Rudhardt (n. 2) 41, 55; van der Horst and
Parmentier (n. 3) 246 n. 19, 259.
104 t. hilhorst
St Gregory of Nyssa’s De deitate filii et spiritus sancti et in Abraham is

interesting. Gregory inserts the narrative of Abraham’s sacrifice as
an illustration in a sermon about the divine Persons, and he intro-
duces it by remarking that probably few among his audience would
be familiar with the story.26 Our poet, on the contrary, can neglect
to inform his readership that God’s order is meant as a test (Gen
22:1); furthermore, the thousand children of line 32 suffice as a ref-
erence to God’s promise in Genesis 22:17. In addition, he drops
such details as Moriah, the ass, the third day, etc.
On the other hand, he introduces a character absent from Genesis
22, namely Sarah. Abraham realises that he has to persuade her
that God’s will must be done. She, on her part, acquiesces, although,
as we saw, it depends on the integration chosen for lines 12 and 13
whether she did it gladly or with concern. In view of the positive
attitude of Abraham, whose first reaction is joy (l. 6), and of Isaac,
the former option, that she acquiesced gladly, seems preferable.
Interestingly, other sources, such as Josephus Ant 1.225 and St
Gregory of Nyssa’s just-mentioned sermon, give a very different inter-
pretation of Sarah’s absence from Genesis 22. According to them,
an encounter with Sarah might have had such an emotional impact
on Abraham that he would no longer be able to obey God’s com-
mand; therefore, he wisely performs the sacrifice before meeting
Sarah.27 One might be inclined to interpret Abraham’s statement
about Isaac in lines 9–10, ‘He was a great gift on the threshold of
my old age, my offspring’ as betraying a sense of regret, but con-
sidering the willingness or even eagerness with which Abraham in
line 6 immediately welcomes God’s command, this passage is no
doubt meant to underline the greatness of Abraham’s behaviour or
the value of the sacrifice, and is not to be regarded as a sign of sor-
row. Although Genesis 22 refrains from mentioning Abraham’s sen-
timents, in later sources his readiness to obey is a topos.28
As for Isaac, he is indeed portrayed rather differently than in the
Genesis account. The poet is clearly not interested in his initial igno-
rance, which a modern reader finds so poignantly expressed in Genesis
26
Gregorii Nysseni Opera X.2, ed. F. Mann, Leiden 1996, 131 (= PG 46,567). Or
is it just a rhetorical device on the part of Gregory, who needs a pretext to nar-
rate this moving story?
27
See van der Horst and Parmentier (n. 3) 253; Livrea (n. 2) 176.
28
See Livrea (n. 2) 182; van der Horst and Parmentier (n. 3) 250–252.
22:7–8. On the contrary, from the outset he is characterised as highly

motivated to undergo his lofty fate. This feature is to be found in
many sources, Jewish as well as Christian.29 There are also minor
changes. The ‘skilled persons’ who build a fire on the altar are no
doubt the servants ordered to stay behind with the ass in Genesis
22:7. Not the angel of the Lord (Genesis 22:11–12) stops Abraham,
but God’s own hand (l. 26–27, although the hand is reconstructed);
conversely, in ll. 1–3 God acts through his angel, whereas in Genesis
22:1–2 he acts directly. The sheep (m∞lon, not the kriÒw, ‘ram’) is
not ‘caught in a thicket by his horns’ (Genesis 22:13) but stands
among trees (l. 28). The two latter features are also present in two
of the few representations to survive from antiquity that have been
identified as being unequivocally Jewish, namely the fresco in the
synagogue of Dura-Europos and the mosaic in that of Beth Alpha.30
4. The Bridal Chamber
One of the most intriguing aspects of the new poem is the passage
in lines 17–20:
the famous son addressed (his parents) with gentle words, exulting:
Prepare a blooming bridal chamber, my parents,
Twine my fair hair in braids, my fellow-citizens,
that I may perform a holy offering with a generous mind.
These lines depict the direct speech of Isaac after he is addressed
by his mother. The introductory line 17 sets the tone: his words are
‘gentle’,31 he ‘exults’ and he is called a ‘famous son’. So we expect
a noble reaction, and we are not disappointed. We could even say
that the poet overplays his hand, for if the boy is to ‘perform a holy
offering’ it is almost an anticlimax if in the end a sheep takes his
place.
One is struck, furthermore, by the nuptial imagery. The combi-
nation numf¤diow yãlamow, ‘bridal chamber’, evokes the idea of a wed-
ding, and the adjective yalerÒw also belongs to this vocabulary, cf.
29
See van der Horst and Parmentier (n. 3) 247–250, 255–256.
30
See Jacob and Schrenk (n. 22) 917; for the Christian representations cf. ib.
926–928; van der Horst and Parmentier (n. 3) 249, 258.
31
Filling the gap by me¤lixa, with Hurst and Rudhardt; Livrea reads mht°ra
instead.
106 t. hilhorst
the expression yalerÚw gãmow in Homer Od. 6.66; 20.74. The next
line, 24, points to the same context. Isaac exhorts his ‘fellow-citi-
zens’ (pol›tai) to braid his fair hair. The addressed, I surmise, are
the members of his family. Since ‘doing the hair’ is, however, usu-
ally ‘doing the hair’ of the bride, not of the bridegroom,32 I won-
der if Isaac here features as a bride.33 This needs further research.
Whatever the case may be, we are invited to regard Isaac’s immi-
nent sacrificial death as a wedding.34 Through his death, Isaac will
enter heaven immediately, and thus share the heavenly marriage
feast. Livrea mentions three patristic passages where Isaac’s sacrifice
is presented as a wedding,35 but in these passages the marriage is
only mentioned to express Abraham’s perplexity or the protest of
Abraham’s slaves: ‘was this (sc. Isaac’s sacrificial death) the young
man’s marriage?’, whereas here the mention is quite positive, evok-
ing the idea of a mystical union. Generally speaking, the idea is typ-
ical of martyrs. Thus, in the Letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne,
transmitted by Eusebius H.E. 5.1.3–2.8, Blandina is portrayed as fol-
lows: ‘The blessed Blandina . . . after duplicating in her own body
all her children’s sufferings, . . . hastened to rejoin them, rejoicing
and glorying in her death as though she had been invited to a bridal
banquet instead of being a victim of the beasts’ (§ 55, trans. Musurillo).
St Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio 15,10 (PG 35,929B) uses a similar
phrase to describe the mother of the Maccabean martyrs: …w §p‹
numf«na tØn purkaiån dramoËsa, ‘hurrying towards the stake as towards
a bridal chamber’.
Therefore, we are entitled to assume that Isaac is viewed here as
a martyr. This view is already present in 4 Macc. 13.12, where the
brethren encourage each other by saying ‘Remember of what stock
ye are; and by the hand of what father Isaac endured to be slain
for the sake of piety’ (trans. Brenton), and the same view is con-
32
See, e.g. Paulinus of Nola 25.64,79–88. Cf. E. Rohde, Der griechische Roman und
seine Vorläufer, Leipzig 19143, 164 n. 3; L. Friedlaender – G. Wissowa, Darstellungen
aus der Sittengeschichte Roms in der Zeit von August bis zum Ausgang der Antonine, I, Leipzig
19199, 274. Both Livrea (n. 2) 184 and Hurst and Rudhardt (n. 2) 53 think the
hair may be an allusion to the sacrificial flame.
33
Cf. the designation pary°now used for men in Revelation 14:4. See W. Bauer –
K. Aland – B. Aland, Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments
und der frühchristlichen Literatur, Berlin—New York 19886 s.v. 2.
34
Cf. Hurst and Rudhardt (n. 2) 41–42, 53.
35
Livrea (n. 2) 183–184. See further the comments by van der Horst and
Parmentier (n. 3) 249 and 256–257.
veyed by the words of the mother of the brethren in 16.20 and

18.11.36 Should we take Isaac’s statement in line 20, ‘that I may
perform a holy offering with a generous mind’, as an expression of
a vicarious sacrifice? Livrea, although reservedly, interprets it this
way, but we should not overlook that his reconstruction of this dam-
aged line differs from that of Hurst and Rudhardt. Where the lat-
ter read ˆf[= fler])Øn tel°saimi xãrin megalÆtori yum«i, Livrea conjectures
ˆf[= Ím])›n ktl., but this is certainly not cogent; the idea is absent
from Genesis 22, and its introduction here would seem almost
grotesque in view of the outcome of the story. My own preference
would be to conceive of xãriw as a thank-offering, a meaning men-
tioned by Liddell and Scott (cf. also the Supplement) s.v. V 2 both
for Aeschylus and Attic prose.
5. Jewish or Christian?
Since the story of Abraham’s sacrifice or, alternatively, Isaac’s aqedah

belongs to the same Scripture for Jews and Christians, the question
is whether the poetic reformulation in our papyrus text was pro-
duced in a Jewish or a Christian milieu. In the current discussions,
the Christian origin of the poem is beyond dispute.37 To Livrea, this
origin is demonstrated by the fact that, as he feels, the poet is none
other than Dorotheus, the author of the demonstrable Christian
poem, the Vision of Dorotheus—yet as we have seen, this authorship
is by no means sure. Hurst and Rudhardt deduce the Christian char-
acter from the baptismal and other Christian symbolism in the poem,
yet precisely this symbolism is far from certain. Finally, van der Horst
and Parmentier simply mention the text as one of a collection of
seven early Christian poems. They may be right; after all, the poem
belonged to a codex which contained specifically Christian texts. But
we need a much more rigorous demonstration of the Christian sym-
bolism than has been offered so far for it to be evident that the
poem is Christian. It does not suffice to adduce material for compa-
rison from other sources: what we need is a convincing explanation
36
C. Krauss Reggiani, 4 Maccabei (Commentario storico ed esegetico all’Antico
e al Nuovo Testamento, Supplementi 1), Genua 1992,57; Jacob and Schrenk
(n. 22) 911–912.
37
Livrea (n. 2) 176–177; Hurst and Rudhardt (n. 2) 40–43; van der Horst and
Parmentier (n. 3) 243.
108 t. hilhorst
of how the images function within the present poem. In the mean-
time, I would prefer to leave the question open, in order not to
block possible roads to a better insight. If nothing forbids a Christian
origin, there seem to be no elements in the poem that are incom-
patible with Jewish ideas either, even if some of these ideas are more
familiar than others.38 In addition, Greek as a medium in Diaspora
Judaism has lived on well into the Byzantine era. Therefore, a Jewish
origin cannot be excluded, and if the text was found in a Christian
collection, this may mean no more than that Christians appropri-
ated Jewish texts, which is nothing new.
We have dwelt a good deal upon the problems of the text. Let
us end by trying to assess its importance. In my view, this impor-
tance is twofold. On the one hand, the poem enriches our knowl-
edge of the reception of Genesis 22; in addition, it is a new specimen
of a literature that treats biblical topics according to Greek poetical
conventions, a literature that has been underrated and underre-
searched for too long. On the other hand, the poem also has a right
to claim our attention for its own sake. In comparison with the
wordy paraphrases of the story known so far it is of a pleasant pithi-
ness. It is original in its views, elegant in its handling of the epic
language, and it leaves something to be guessed, as good poetry
should.39
38
Wout van Bekkum kindly pointed out to me that the former half of the poem
shows much more current Jewish elements than the latter half; but unfamiliar is
not the same as incompatible.
39
I am grateful to Jan Bremmer for a number of corrections and suggestions.
THE LAMB ON THE TREE:
SYRIAC EXEGESIS AND ANTI-ISLAMIC APOLOGETICS
Gerrit J. Reinink
1. Introduction
In the early eighth century a high Arab functionary belonging to the

notables in the entourage of the emir Maslama stayed for ten days
in the monastery of Bet Hale in Iraq to recover from an illness.
During his stay there the Arab notable came to be on familiar terms
with a monk of the same monastery, and both men fell into a lively
conversation on the Christian Scriptures and the Qur"an. One of
the topics which came up for discussion was the biblical narrative
Gen 22: the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. The form and function
of this story in the discussion between the Arab and the monk are
the subject of the present paper; but first of all a few introductory
remarks need to be made on the author, date, milieu and the genre
of the work which preserves the account of this discussion.
The (still unpublished) work1 is preserved in two East Syrian man-
uscripts:2 Diyarbakir 95, of the early eighteenth century,3 and Mardin
82, written in 1890.4 Though these manuscripts are of a rather late
date, we may be fairly sure that the work represents one of the ear-
liest specimens of East Syrian apologetic discourse in response to
Islam.5
1
H.J.W. Drijvers and the present writer are preparing the publication of this
work in the series CSCO in Leuven.
2
Cf. P. Jager, ‘Intended Edition of a Disputation between a Monk of the
Monastery of Bet Óale and one of the ˇayoye’, in: H.J.W. Drijvers, R. Lavenant,
C. Molenberg & G.J. Reinink (eds), IV Symposium Syriacum 1984 (Orientalia Christiana
Analecta 229), Roma 1987, 401–402.
3
A. Scher, ‘Notice sur les manuscrits syriaques et arabes conservés à l’archevêché
chaldéen de Diarbékir’, Journal Asiatique 10/10 (1907) 395–398; A. Desreumaux,
Répertoire des bibliothèques et des catalogues de manuscrits syriaques, Paris 1991, 130. In the
following we quote the work as Disputation according to the folios of this manuscript
(Diyarbakir 95, item 35, fol. 1r–8v ).
4
A. Scher, ‘Notice dus les manuscrits syriaques et arabes conservés dans la bib-
liothèque de l’évêché chaldéen de Mardin’, Revue des Bibliothèques 18 (1908) 87;
Desreumaux, Répertoire, 182. This manuscript is not accessible to us.
5
Cf. S.H. Griffith, ‘Disputes with Muslims in Syriac Christian Texts: from
110 g.j. reinink
No mention is made of the name of the author in the textual wit-

nesses of the work. In the introduction the author says that he com-
posed ‘the disputation which an Arab had with the monk in the
monastery of Bet Hale’ at the request of a certain Aba Jacob.6 It is
likely that Jacob was the abbot of the monastery of Bet Hale and
that the author was one of his monks and perhaps even the Arab’s
interlocutor, but his identity was apparently supposed to be known
at the time. Anton Baumstark, however, has suggested that we can
establish the author’s identity, since ‘Abdisho’s’ catalogue of Syriac
literature (written shortly after 1315/16) lists a ‘disputation against
the Arabs’ written by Abraham from the monastery of Bet Hale.7 It
is indeed possible, if not likely, that the work which ‘Abdisho’ found
in his library is the same as our ‘disputation’, but we may doubt
whether Abraham’s name was originally connected with the work.
In later times, people may have felt a need to identify the author
of the disputation and thus looked for a possible candidate. Abraham
of Bet Hale was such a candidate. The monastic history of Isho-
‘denah, metropolitan of Basra (c. 850),8 a work known by ‘Abdisho’,9
records the biography of Abraham of Bet Aramaye who was a pupil
of John Azraq (c. 700)10 in the monastery of Bet Hale near Hira.11
To be sure, there are more monks from the monastery of Bet Hale
recorded by Isho'denah,12 but Abraham takes an outstanding place
in the company, the more so as his tutor John Azraq, the later
bishop of Hira, was a well-known author and personality in the East
Syrian tradition.13
But can we be certain that the monastery of Bet Hale, mentioned
in the introduction, is indeed the monastery in the desert of Hira
Patriarch John (d. 648) to Bar Hebraeus (d. 1286)’, in: B. Lewis & F. Niewöhner
(eds.), Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter (Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien 4), Wiesbaden 1992,
259–261.
6
Disputation, fol. 1r.
7
A. Baumstark, Geschichte der syrischen Literatur, Bonn 1922, 211; ‘Abdisho’, Catalogue,
ed. J.S. Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino-Vaticana III/1, Rome 1725, 205.
8
Baumstark, Geschichte, 234.
9
Catalogue, ed. Assemani, 195.
10
Baumstark, Geschichte, 210. John Azraq was a contemporary of the Catholicos
Henanisho’ I (d. 699/700) but was still alive in 731.
11
Isho'denah, ed./transl. by J.-B. Chabot, Le livre de la chasteté composé par Jésusdenah,
évêque de Baçrah (Extrait des Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire publiés par l’École française de
Rome 16), 47/40, 61/51.
12
Cf. J.M. Fiey, Assyrie chrétienne III (Recherches publiées sous la direction de l’institut de
lettres orientales de Beyrouth 42), Beyrouth 1968, 223.
13
Also recorded in ‘Abdisho’s’ Catalogue, ed. Assemani, 182.
syriac exegesis and anti-islamic apologetics 111
which was founded by Kudahwi by the middle of the seventh cen-

tury?14 There was another monastery of the same name (also known
as the Dayr al-Tin) on the Tigris river near the town of Hadita (to
the south of Mosul).15 Whereas Robert Hoyland left the question
undecided,16 Sidney Griffith argued strongly for the more renowned
monastery in the desert of Hira, as the place where the disputation
between the monk and the Arab notable took place.17 If Griffith’s
choice were to be the right one, a rather precise date of the dispu-
tation could be established; for it is generally assumed that the emir
Maslama, in whose administration, as the introduction reports,18 the
Arab held the position of rab baytà, may be identified with Maslama
ibn 'Abd al-Malik (d. 738).19 Maslama, son of the famous caliph
'Abd al-Malik, became governor of Mesopotamia, Armenia and
Azarbayjan in 710, and of both Iraqs at the beginning of July 720.
He lost his position one year later, but received from the caliph
Hisham the governorship of Armenia and Azarbayjan from 725–729
and from 730–732.20 The period of 720–721 in particular, when
also Southern Iraq fell under the jurisdiction of Maslama, may be
considered as the date of the disputation, if the monastery near Hira
were indeed to have been the place of the encounter between
Maslama’s rab baytà and the monk.
In the introduction the work is typified as a ‘controversial trea-
tise’ or ‘disputation’ (drà“à), just as Abraham of Bet Hale’s work is
called in ‘Abdisho’s’ catalogue. In East Syrian tradition the drà“à
represents a specific genre of the school tradition.21 It is a contro-
versial treatise, often written in a dialogue format, in which religious,
14
See Isho'denah, ed./transl. Chabot, Le livre de la chasteté, 45/38; Fiey, Assyrie
chrétienne III, 222.
15
Fiey, Assyrie chrétienne I (Recherches publiées sous la direction de l’institut de lettres orien-
tales de Beyrouth 22), Beyrouth 1965, 102.
16
R.G. Hoyland, Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. A Survey and Evaluation of Christian,
Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam
13), Princeton, N.J. 1997, 465.
17
Griffith, ‘Disputes with Muslims’, 259; idem, ‘Disputing with Islam in Syriac:
The Case of the Monk of Bêt Hàlê and a Muslim Emir’, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac
Studies 3, 1 (2000) 6.
18
Disputation, fol. 1r. The Syriac expression is rather common, but it suggests that
the Arab was in charge of financial and other practical affairs concerning the man-
agement of the emirate.
19
Griffith, ‘Disputes with Muslims’, 259; idem, ‘Disputing with Islam’, 6–7;
Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 472.
20
Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, VI, Leiden 1991, 740.
21
See S.H. Griffith, ‘Chapter ten of the Scholion: Theodore Bar Kònì’s Apology
for Christianity’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 47 (1981) 170.
112 g.j. reinink
theological or philosophical matters are discussed with the purpose

of instructing the students how to respond to the objections of the
opposing party. These opponents may, for example, belong to another
Christian community (heretics) or to a different religion ( Jews, Mus-
lims). An example of the first category is provided by the heading
of the East Syrian collection of christological texts published by Luise
Abramowski and Alan Goodman: ‘By the power of the Trinity I am
collecting a little from the confession of the heretics from the writ-
ings of the fathers, and controversial treatises (drà“è) and responses against
them.’22 An example of the latter is Theodore bar Koni’s Scholion,
written in the early Abbasid time (c. 791/2). Book 10 of this work
contains a dialogue between a teacher and a student, in which the
teacher takes the place of the Christians and the student the posi-
tion of the Muslims. In the introduction Theodore notes that stu-
dents may have much profit of this treatise, in particular because it
is not only a controversial treatise (drà“à) against heresy, but also writ-
ten in the question and answer format.23 The question and answer
format represents the typical teaching style of the East Syrian school
tradition, which was widely used for the instruction of biblical exe-
gesis and other fields of study.24 It is exactly the same purpose—of
instructing the own co-religionists—which underlies the composition
of the disputation between the Arab and the monk of the monastery
of Bet Hale. The work is a drà“à which—as the author himself says
in the introduction—is deliberately written in the question and answer
format with the intention that Aba Jacob’s monks will have much
profit from the work. The author also calls it an ‘investigation into the
apostolic faith through a son of Ishmael’,25 which means that the
treatise should determine the principal differences between the Christian
confession and the faith of the ‘sons of Ishmael’ and provide the
arguments with which the Christians will be equipped to counter
the religious claims of the new political power in the Middle East.
22
Ed./transl. by L. Abramowski & A.E. Goodman, A Nestorian Collection of Christological
Texts, vol. I: Syriac Text, vol. II: Introduction, Translation and Indexes, Cambridge
1972, 1/3.
23
Ed./transl. by A. Scher (ed.) and R. Hespel & R. Draguet (transl.), Theodorus
bar Kònì. Liber Scholiorum II, in: CSCO, vol. 69, Scriptores Syri, tom. 26 (text), vol.
432, Scriptores Syri, tom.188 (transl.), Leuven 1960, 1982, 232/172.
24
Cf. C. Molenberg, The Interpreter Interpreted. I“o' bar Nun’s Selected Questions on the
Old Testament, Diss. Groningen 1990, 48–52.
25
Disputation, fol.1r. In the disputation the islamic Arabs always are called ‘sons
of Ishmael’ as in other Syriac sources from the Umayyad times (see below nn. 78–79).
If we may conclude that our disputation is a highly artificial prod-

uct, how sure can we be of its being rooted in a real debate which
would have taken place between an Arab notable and a monk in
the monastery of Bet Hale somewhere in the early eighth century?
Could not this drà“à be a literary fiction dating from later times,
composed by an author, who by mentioning Maslama’s name, intended
to make its authenticity credible and, in so doing, reinforce its apolo-
getic objectives? But it is exactly through the way in which these
apologetic objectives find expression in our disputation—both as
regards their historical setting and their unique features—that this
disputation stands out from the scholarly apologies against Islam
belonging to the Abbasid period.26 As I have argued elsewhere, our
disputation probably was written not long after the Apocalypse of
Pseudo-Methodius (written c. 691/2),27 since the author of the drà“à
tries to redefine the politico-religious message of Pseudo-Methodius
under the drastically changing historical and social conditions of the
early decades of the eighth century; these changes provoked a new
(apologetic) response from the Christians to the religious claims of
the Muslim authority.28 The author, therefore, may very well have
lived in the days of Maslama, the son of the caliph who initiated
the new policy of the Arabization and Islamization of the empire—
which is, of course, no decisive argument for the historicity of the
debate itself.
2. Isaac’s Sacrifice in the Disputation and its Exegetical Background in

Syriac Tradition
In the opening words of the disputation the Arab defines the differences
between Islam and Christianity both in a positive and in a negative
way: on the one hand the Muslims are said to keep carefully the
commandments of Muhammad and the sacrifices of Abraham, on
26
Cf. Griffith, ‘Disputes with Muslims’, 260; idem, ‘Disputing with Islam’, 11–12.
27
Ed./transl. by G.J. Reinink, Die Syrische Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodius, in: CSCO,
vol. 540, Scriptores Syri, tom. 220 (text), vol. 541, Scriptores Syri, tom. 221 (transl.),
Leuven, 1993.
28
Reinink, Die Syrische Apokalypse des Pseudo-Methodius, Einleitung (text), XLIII–XLIV;
idem, ‘The Beginnings of Syriac Apologetic Literature in Response to Islam’, Oriens
Christianus 77 (1993) 184–187; idem, ‘An Early Syriac Reference to Qur"àn 112?’,
in: H.L.J. Vanstiphout et al., All those Nations . . . Cultural Encounters within and with the
Near East (COMERS/ICOG Communications 2), Groningen 1999, 123–130.
114 g.j. reinink
the other hand they do not accept the idea of God having a son, the
worship of the cross, the relics of the martyrs and the icons, and
the Christian practice of baptism.29 With these words the author
defines the topics of the whole ensuing discussion; in this the Arab
takes the role of posing questions, which give the monk the oppor-
tunity to explain, in relatively long exposés, the rightness of Christian
belief and practices.
The theme of Isaac’s sacrifice forms part of the first item of the
disputation, in which the meaning of Abraham and the Abrahamic
faith are discussed.30 The Arab wants to know why the Christians
do not fulfil the commandments of Abraham, viz. the circumcision
and the sacrifice. After having stated that the commandments and
laws which were given throughout Old Testament history could only
bear ‘the shadow of the truth’, the monk explains that the circum-
cision, which was given to Abraham as the sign of those who accepted
the Law, has now been replaced by baptism, being the type of
Christ’s death, burial and resurrection: ‘And as in that time every-
one, who was not circumcised, was not called a son of Abraham,
so today everyone, who is not baptised, is not called a Christian.’
When the Arab thereupon asks how Abraham’s sacrifice can be the
type of Christ’s sacrifice, the monk replies: ‘Abraham was ordered
to sacrifice his son so that he would typify [this] that our Lord would
suffer on our behalf. And this, that he took two boys with him, [is]
a type of the two robbers who were crucified together with Christ.
And the wood on Isaac’s shoulder [is] the type of our Lord’s cross
on His shoulder. And this, that Isaac was bound on the altar, accom-
plished the type of His godhead. And this, “Lift your hand from the
boy and do not do anything to him, and see, a lamb was suspended
on a tree”, [is] the type of the body that He took from us, which
suffered on the cross, whereas His godhead was not harmed.’ These
last words of the monk’s typological exegesis of Gen 22 mark the
transition to the discussion of christological and theological items (the
doctrine of Trinity).31
The highly literary character of the disputation clearly appears
from the monk’s exposition of Gen 22. For the Arab is not only
supposed to accept a priori the biblical story of Gen 22, which differs
29
Disputation, fol. 1v–2r.
30
Disputation, fol. 2v–3r.
31
Disputation, fol. 3r–5r. In this context the Christian ‘sacrifice’, the eucharist, is
discussed.
from the Qur"anic story of the sacrifice of Abraham’s son,32 but it

is also implied that he can understand and be immediately convinced
by what is a piece of clear-cut Christian exegesis. In fact, the monk
is not quoting directly from the biblical text, providing it with his
explanation, but, as appears from the style, he is simply epitomising
some commentary of Gen 22. Its exegesis is rooted in the East Syrian
school tradition, and we shall try to determine the constitutive ele-
ments of this tradition in connection with the exegesis of Gen 22 in
the disputation. It is, however, first of all appropriate to make a few
methodological observations.
The hey-day of East Syrian exegesis was in the sixth century,
when the directors (who occupied the chair of exegesis) and teach-
ers of the School of Nisibis produced a considerable number of bib-
lical commentaries; among these the commentaries on Genesis took
an outstanding place.33 When the School of Nisibis, because of seri-
ous internal christological controversies at the end of the sixth cen-
tury, lost its position of centre of learning par excellence for the East
Syrian Church, its role was taken over in particular by the School of
Seleucia-Ctesiphon, the capital of the Persian empire and the seat
of the East Syrian Catholicos.34 In the seventh century the School
of Seleucia-Ctesiphon generated noted exegetes who carried on and
developed further the tradition of the School of Nisibis.35 However,
apart from the biblical homilies of Narsai, the first director of the
32
Sura 37: 102/100–110. Cf. H. Busse, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity: Theological
and Historical Affiliations, Princeton 1998, 82–84.
33
Commentaries on Genesis were composed by Mar Aba I, John of Bet Rabban,
Henana of Adiabene, and Michael Badoqa; cf. A. Vööbus, History of the School of
Nisibis, CSCO, vol. 266, Subsidia, tom. 26, Leuven 1965, 163, 213–214, 238, 278–279.
34
For the background of the controversies in the School of Nisibis, which arose
under the directorate of Henana of Adiabene, see G.J. Reinink, ‘Tradition and the
Formation of the “Nestorian” Identity in 6th–7th Century Iraq’, forthcoming in the
Proceedings of the Fourth Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam. Patterns of Communal
Identity in the Late Antique and Early Islamic Near East, London, 5–7 May 1994; idem,
‘“Edessa Grew Dim and Nisibis Shone Forth”: The School of Nisibis at the Transition
of the Sixth-Seventh Century’, in: J.W. Drijvers & A.A. MacDonald (eds), Centres
of Learning. Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East (Brill’s Studies
in Intellectual History 61), Leiden-New York-Köln 1995, 77–89; idem, ‘Babai the
Great’s Life of George and the Propagation of Doctrine in the Late Sasanian Empire’,
in: J.W. Drijvers & J.W. Watt, Portraits of Spiritual Authority. Religious Power in Early
Christianity, Byzantium and the Christian Orient (Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 137),
Leiden-Boston-Köln 1999, 171–193.
35
Gabriel Qatraya en Mar Aba II composed commentaries on Genesis, of which
fragments have been preserved in some of the later East Syrian compilations men-
tioned below (the fragments of Mar Aba II are only found in the Gannat Bussame).
116 g.j. reinink
School of Nisibis (d. 502/3), the prolific heritage of the exegetes of

the sixth and seventh century is almost completely lost. The East
Syrian exegetical compilations which contain explanations of Gen
22, all date from the 8th–10th centuries or—in one case—perhaps
even from a still later period: the Anonymous Commentary on Gen-
Exod 9:32 (8th c.),36 the Scholion of Theodore bar Koni (c. 791/2),37
the Selected Questions of Isho' bar Nun (before 828),38 the Com-
mentaries on the OT and NT of Isho'dad of Merv (c. 850),39 the
Anonymous Commentary on the OT (c. 900?),40 the Gannat Bussame
(10th c.),41 and the Anonymous Scholia on the OT and NT (date
uncertain, but probably late).42 These compilations, indeed, contain
much older material, but here the problem of the identification of
their sources emerges, since these traditions are mostly transmitted
anonymously. These circumstances make it virtually impossible to
identify the direct source used by the author of the disputation dis-
cussed here, for his explanation of Gen 22. It is, however, possible
to say something more about the background of the exegesis of Gen
22 in the disputation, since we have some knowledge of the main
streams of exegetical tradition which circulated in the School of
Nisibis in the sixth century. According to Barhadbeshabba, who was
a teacher of the School of Nisibis by the end of the sixth century,43
three traditions were predominant in the School of Edessa, when,
36
Ed./transl. by L. van Rompay, Le commentaire sur Genèse-Exode 9, 32 du manu-
scrit (olim) Diyarbakir 22, in: CSCO, vol. 483, Scriptores Syri, tom. 205 (text), vol.
484, Scriptores Syri, tom. 206 (transl.), Leuven 1986, 87–88/111–113.
37
Ed./transl. by A. Scher (ed.) and R. Hespel & R. Draguet (transl.), Theodorus
bar Kônî. Liber Scholiorum I, in: CSCO, vol. 55, Scriptores Syri, tom. 19 (text), vol.
431, Scriptores Syri, tom. 187 (transl.), Leuven 1960, 1981, 133–135/140–141.
38
Ed./transl. by E.G. Clarke, The Selected Questions of Ishô bar Nûn on the Pentateuch,
Leiden 1962, 32.
39
Ed./transl. by C. van den Eynde (ed. in cooperation with J.-M. Vosté), Commentaire
d’I“o'dad de Merv sur l’Ancien Testament. I. Genèse, in: CSCO, vol. 126, Scriptores Syri,
tom. 67 (text), vol. 156, Scriptores Syri, tom. 75 (transl.), Leuven 1950, 1955,
173–176/186–189.
40
Ed. by A. Levene, The Early Syrian Fathers on Genesis, London 1951, 41–39 (fol.
14v–15v).
41
The commentary on Gen 22 (belonging to the readings of the Holy Saturday
before Eastern) has not yet been published. I quote the text according to the MS
Leuven, CSCO, syr. 14, fol. 534v–535v. For the description of this MS, see G.J.
Reinink, Gannat Bussame, I. Die Adventssonntage, in: CSCO, vol. 501, Scriptores Syri,
tom. 211, Leuven 1988, IX–X.
42
Ed. by G. Hoffmann, Opuscula Nestoriana, Kiliae-Parisiis 1888, 129.
43
For the discussion of the date and identity of Barhadbeshabba, see Reinink,
‘The School of Nisibis’, 81.
after the death of the director Qiyore, his successor Narsai was forced
to flee the city and founded the School of Nisibis. These are: the
works of Ephrem Syrus (d. 373); the ‘tradition of the School’, rep-
resenting the orally transmitted ancient tradition of the School of
Edessa;44 and the commentaries of Theodore of Mopsuestia (d. 428),
which were translated from Greek into Syriac in the School of Edessa,
when Qiyore was the director of the School.45 Since the ‘tradition
of the School’ remains a rather elusive phenomenon,46 and the com-
mentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia on Genesis is almost completely
lost (no fragments on Gen 22 are preserved),47 we shall take the
works of Ephrem as the starting-point and adduce the traditions from
the later East Syrian commentaries when these are relevant for our
comments on the exegesis of Gen 22 in the disputation.
The monk introduces his explanation of Gen 22 with the general
remark that the sacrifice of Isaac was ordered so that a type of the
Passion of Christ should be accomplished. This typology is common
property to all early Christian writers,48 and both Ephrem and the
44
For a discussion of the ‘tradition of the School’, see L. van Rompay, ‘Quelques
remarques sur la tradition syriaque de l’œuvre exégétique de Théodore de Mopsueste’,
in: Drijvers et al. (eds), IV Symposium Syriacum 1984, 38–41.
45
Ed./transl. by A. Scher, Mar Barhadb“abba 'Arbaya. Cause de la fondation des écoles,
in: Patrologia Orientalis IV/4, Turnhout 1971, 382–383. Cf. Reinink, ‘The School of
Nisibis’, 86, n. 38. For Qiyore and the translation work under his auspices, see
Vööbus, History, 10–11, 14; Van Rompay, ‘Quelques remarques’, 35–39.
46
According to Bar˙adbeshabba Narsai inserted the ‘tradition of the School’ into
his homilies and other works, but it remains difficult to define this tradition; cf.
Van Rompay, ‘Quelques remarques’, 38; J. Frishman, The Ways and Means of Divine
Economy. An Edition, Translation and Study of Six Biblical Homilies by Narsai, Diss. Leiden
1992, 39–41. In the later East Syrian compilations a particular exegesis is some-
times connected with the ‘tradition of the School(s)’. As for Gen 22, an example
can be found in the Selected Questions of Isho' bar Nun (above n. 38). Here the
exegesis of Ephrem of the ram on the tree (Gen 22:13), in which the ram is said
to have been created from the tree, is set against the opinion of the ‘tradition of
the School’, according to which the ram was taken by an angel from Abraham’s
flock and placed in the tree, ‘in order that it be known that just as it originated
from the nature of the sheep and not from the tree on which that ram was sus-
pended, in like manner also Christ, in his manhood was created from the nature
of us, men, and not from another nature’. For a discussion of this exegesis in Isho'
bar Nun, its sources and its relation with Isho'dad’s exegesis, see Molenberg, The
Interpreter Interpreted, 140–148.
47
For a survey of the remnants of Theodore’s commentary on Genesis, see
M. Geerard, Clavis Patrum Graecorum, vol. 2, Turnhout 1974, 345.
48
Cf. D. Lerch, Isaaks Opferung christlich gedeutet (Beiträge zur historischen Theologie 12),
Tübingen 1950, and the contributions of M.C. Paczkowski and L. Cignelli in:
F. Manns (ed.), The Sacrifice of Isaac in the Three Monotheistic Religions (Studium Biblicum
Franciscanum, Analecta 41), Jerusalem 1995, 101–126.
118 g.j. reinink
later Syriac tradition follow this standard Christian typological inter-

pretation of the sacrifice of Isaac.49 Thereupon the monk advances
four examples which intended to demonstrate this typological mean-
ing of Gen 22.
In the first example the two ‘boys’ whom Abraham took with him
on his journey (Gen 22:3,5) are said to represent typologically the
two robbers crucified with Christ (Matt 27:44, Luke 23:39–43). This
interpretation cannot be found in the works of Ephrem, but it occurs
in three later East Syrian commentaries. Theodore bar Koni attrib-
utes this interpretation to those exegetes ‘who compare all things
that were done by the type of the sacrifice of Isaac with the things
of our Saviour and [explain] the two young men in the likeness of
the two robbers’.50 Isho'dad of Merv briefly states that ‘the two boys
[are] the type of the two robbers’.51 The Gannat Bussame, which in
its exegesis of Gen 22 is dependent on two sources,52 presents this
typology according to its second source: ‘The two young men who
were with Abraham perform the type of the two robbers who were
crucified together with our Saviour.’53 It is interesting to note that
both Isho‘dad and the disputation call the two companions of Abraham
‘boys’ (†làyè ) and not ‘young men’ ('laymè ) as they are called by
Theodore bar Koni and in the Gannat Bussame in accordance with
the Syriac bible (Gen 22:3,5,19). ‘Boy’ (†alyà) implies a younger age
than ‘young man’ ('laymà), and by calling the young men ‘boys’ their
age is equated with Isaac’s age (Gen 22:5,12). It is possible that both
the disputation and Isho'dad have preserved here an element of an
older source, but, if so, its identity remains a mystery.54 Neither do
49
See S. Brock, ‘Genesis 22 in Syriac Tradition’, in: P. Casetti, O. Keel &
A. Schenker (eds), Mélanges Dominique Barthélemy. Études bibliques offertes à l’occasion de
son 60 e anniversaire (Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis 38), Fribourg-Göttingen 1981, 2–30;
idem, ‘An Anonymous Syriac Homily on Abraham (Gen 22)’, Orientalia Lovaniensia
Periodica 12 (1981) 225–260.
50
Ed./transl. Scher and Hespel & Draguet, 134/141.
51
Ed./transl. Van den Eynde & Vosté, 173/187.
52
The first source agrees with the exegesis in the Anonymous Commentary on
Gen-Exod 9:32 (above n. 36), the second source is related to (but not identical with)
Theodore bar Koni and Isho‘dad. The sources used in the commentary on Gen
22 are the same as the author of the Gannat Bussame has used for the exegesis of
the other readings from Gen; cf. G.J. Reinink, Gannat Bussame, I. Die Adventssonntage,
in: CSCO, vol. 502, Scriptores Syri, tom. 212, Leuven 1988, XXXII–XXXVII.
53
MS Leuven, CSCO, syr. 14, fol. 535v.
54
It is possible that the pa›dew of the Greek Bible were translated into ‘boys’
(tlàyè ) in a Syriac translation of some Greek commentary. Narsai, Homily 3, ed. by
A. Mingana, Narsai Doctoris Syri Homiliae et Carmina, vol. I, Mosul 1905, 65, calls the
we know how and when the typological connection between the two
young men and the two robbers entered the East Syrian tradition.
We know, however, that the topic figured in earlier Syriac tradition.
In an anonymous dialogue poem ‘On Abraham and Isaac’, prob-
ably dating from the early fifth century,55 the two ‘young men’ ('laymè )
who accompanied Abraham are compared with the two robbers who
were crucified ‘together with the son of Maria’.56
The second example concerns the wood for the burnt offering
that Abraham laid upon Isaac (Gen 22:6). Again the disputation is
not quoting the biblical text, but it only presents its typological exe-
gesis: ‘The wood on Isaac’s shoulder [is] the type of the Lord’s cross
on His shoulder.’ This typology figures in almost all the Syriac sources
from the fifth century published by Brock.57 But the disputation’s
words, that the wood was ‘on Isaac’s shoulder’, reflect the words in
Ephrem’s commentary on Genesis,58 and these are also used in one
of Ephrem’s hymns in connection with the wood on Isaac’s ‘shoul-
ders’ prefiguring the cross of Jesus.59 Three later East Syrian com-
mentaries also bear evidence of this typological exegesis. Theodore
bar Koni attributes it to the same interpreters as mentioned above:
‘The wood upon Isaac is the type of our Lord carrying His cross.’60
‘young men’ of the Syriac Bible ‘servants’ (‘abdè ) which, according to Brock (‘An
Anonymous Syriac Homily’, 256; idem, ‘Two Syriac Verse Homilies on the Binding
of Isaac’, Le Muséon 99 (1986) 83), may also reflect the Greek tradition. However,
Ephrem in his commentary on Genesis already calls the ‘young men’ ‘servants’
('abdè ); ed./transl. by R.-M. Tonneau, Sancti Ephraem Syri in Genesim et in Exodum
Commentarii, in CSCO, vol. 152, Scriptores Syri, tom. 71 (text), vol. 153, Scriptores
Syri, tom. 72 (transl.), Leuven 1955, 84/69.
55
For the date of this Soghitha (dialogue poem), see S. Brock, ‘Two Syriac Verse
Homilies’, 97–98. For its place in the Syriac tradition of dialogue poems, see idem,
‘Syriac Dialogue Poems: Marginalia to a Recent Edition’, Le Muséon 97 (1984) 41,
53, and idem, ‘Syriac Dispute Poems: the Various Types’, in: G.J. Reinink & H.L.J.
Vanstiphout (eds), Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East
(Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 42), Leuven 1991, 117.
56
Ed./transl. by B. Kirschner, ‘Alfabetische Akrosticha in der syrischen Kirchen-
poesie’, Oriens Christianus 6 (1906) 64/65. New ed. by S. Brock, Soghyatha mgabbyatha,
Monastery of St Ephrem, Holland 1982, 8.
57
Brock, ‘An Anonymous Syriac Homily’, 241/249; Soghyatha, 11–12 (= Kirschner,
‘Alfabetische Akrosticha’, 66/67); ‘Two Syriac Verse Homilies’, 119/123. This typol-
ogy is also widespread in the Greek tradition, cf. Brock, ‘Genesis 22 in Syriac
Tradition’, 12 and n. 58, and idem, ‘An Anonymous Syriac Homily’, 255–256.
58
Ed./transl. Tonneau, 84/69. The same wording is used in the first verse homily
published by Brock, ‘Two Syriac Verse Homilies’, 104/109.
59
Nat. 8, 13, ed./transl. by E. Beck, Des heiligen Ephraem der Syrers Hymnen de
Nativitate (Epiphania), in: CSCO, vol. 186, Scriptores Syri, tom. 82 (text), vol. 187,
Scriptores Syri, tom. 83 (transl.), Leuven 1959, 61/53.
60
Ed./transl. Scher and Hespel & Draguet, 135/141.
120 g.j. reinink
Isho‘dad writes: ‘The wood that Isaac carried is the type of the cross
of Jesus upon His shoulder.’61 The second source of the Gannat Bussame
says: ‘The wood upon Isaac is the type of our Lord who carried
His cross upon His shoulder.’62 The three commentaries seem to be
dependent on some common source which directly or indirectly was
influenced by Ephremian thought and wording.
The third and fourth example belong together, both forming part
of one combined christological typology according to which the bind-
ing of Isaac (Gen 22:9) is compared with Christ’s godhead and the
ram (Gen 22:13) with His manhood. This interpretation, which has
no parallel in Ephrem’s works, has a long history in the Greek exeget-
ical tradition. Origen already had compared Isaac, who was not
slain, with the Word who remained uninjured, and the ram, which
was slain, with the flesh of the Word which died.63 In the fifth cen-
tury this exegesis was adopted by Greek writers in the Antiochene
christological tradition, and it is highly probable that it entered the
East Syrian tradition through this channel.64 Theodore bar Koni
knows this interpretation, though he shows some reservation towards
this tradition: ‘I do not consider this [interpretation] likely, [namely]
that Isaac [is] the type of the godhead and the ram the type of the
manhood, and [that] the former did not die like the godhead that
does not die, while the latter died because of the manhood that died:
“This is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”
( John 1:29), and further: “As a lamb he was led to the slaughter”
(Isa 53:7; Acts 8:32). We have, however, recorded [this interpreta-
tion], so that every one just as he likes can accept what he reads.’65
Although Theodore bar Koni may have found this christological
exegesis ‘not likely’, it was certainly an attractive one for East Syrian
exegetes because of its distinctive dyophysite character.66 The dispu-
tation gives the oldest example of this exegesis in the East Syrian
61
Ed./transl. Van den Eynde & Vosté, 174/188.
62
MS Leuven, CSCO, syr. 14, fol. 534v.
63
Hom. in Gen. VIII, 9, ed. W.A. Baehrens, Origenes Werke, vol. VI (GCS ), Leipzig
1920, 84. Cf. Paczkowski, in: Manns (ed.), The Sacrifice of Isaac, 116–117.
64
Cf. Brock, ‘Two Syriac Verse Homilies’, 77–78.
65
Ed./transl. Scher and Hespel & Draguet, 134/141. The quotation of John 1:29
is also found in Origen’s commentary.
66
Some manuscripts of the East Syrian recension of the Cave of Treasures use the
second part of this exegesis (the ram is the type of the manhood of the Word) to
polemicise against theopaschitism; ed./transl. by Su-Min Ri, La Caverne des Trésors.
Les deux recensions syriaques, in: CSCO, vol. 486, Scriptores Syri, tom. 207 (text), vol.
tradition.67 But—and this makes this witness so interesting—the dis-

putation offers an amalgam of an older Syriac motif and the Greek-
Antiochene christological exegesis. The older Syriac motif appears
in the words which the author professes to be a direct quotation of
the biblical text, but which are probably taken from his exegetical
Vorlage: ‘Lift your hand from the boy (Peshitta: Do not lay your hand
on the boy) and do not do anything to him, and see, a lamb was
suspended on a tree (Peshitta: and see, a ram held in a branch by
its horns) (Gen 22:12–13).’ The cardinal point here is the expression
of the lamb that was suspended on a tree. In his commentary on Genesis
Ephrem quotes Gen 22:13 as follows: ‘Abraham saw a ram on a tree,
and he took it and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his
son.’ Then Ephrem explains the miraculous origin of the tree and
the ram and their typological meaning: ‘The mountain threw up the
tree, and the tree the ram, so that, through the ram which was sus-
pended on the tree and became the sacrifice instead of Abraham’s son,
that day of His might be depicted, when He was suspended on the wood
as the ram, and tasted death on behalf of the whole world.’68 As
R.B. Ter Haar Romeny has argued in connection with the quota-
tion of the biblical text called ‘the Syrian’ (ı SÊrow) by Eusebius of
Emesa (fourth century), the reading that the ram was ‘suspended
(kremãmenow; cf. Gal 3:13, Acts 5:30; 10:39) on the branches of a
tree’ belonged to an early witness of the Peshitta tradition, which
may have been influenced by the Jewish Targumic or exegetical tra-
dition.69 This reading appears to have been known by Ephrem and
by later East Syrian exegetes,70 but the Syriac sources from the fifth
487, Scriptores Syri, tom. 208 (transl.), Leuven 1987, 226/86. Isho‘dad, ed./transl.
Van den Eynde & Vosté, 172/186, connects a slightly related tradition with the
introduction on Gen 22 which was taken from the Anoymous Commentary on
Gen-Exod 9:32 (above n. 36): Isaac who died and did not die is a type of the Lord
by His godhead that did not suffer and His manhood that did suffer (but here the
ram plays no role and Isho'dad’s exegesis may be an adaptation of that of John
Chrysostom; cf. Brock, ‘Two Syriac Verse Homilies’, 78).
67
Brock, ‘Two Syriac Verse Homilies’, 78, n. 38, suggests that Narsai represents
the reversed schema, viz. Isaac representing the manhood and the ram the god-
head. However, it seems that Narsai compares the divinity (the ‘Hidden Power’
dwelling in Christ) by which He was rescued, with the divine command (Gen
22:11–12) by which Isaac was rescued from death (Homily 3, ed. Mingana I, 66).
68
Ed./transl. Tonneau, 84/69.
69
R.B. Ter Haar Romeny, A Syrian in Greek Dress. The Use of Greek, Hebrew, and
Syriac Biblical Texts in Eusebius of Emesa’s Commentary on Genesis, Leuven 1997 (Diss.
Leiden), 80–81, 330–331. The Targumic element concerns the word ‘tree’.
70
Isho'dad, ed./transl. Van den Eynde & Vosté, 175/188. According to Ter
122 g.j. reinink
century testify that the ‘ram’ (dekrà) was soon supplanted by the
‘lamb’ ("emrà),71 which through its connotations with the New Testament
‘Lamb’ could accentuate still more the typological use of this old
reading of the Syriac bible.72 The two verse homilies published by
Brock (probably dating from the mid and second half of the fifth
century) correspond literally with the wording in the disputation:
‘And see, a lamb was/is suspended on a tree.’73 This tradition entered
the School of Nisibis early, as appears from one of Narsai’s homi-
lies: ‘And [Abraham] suddenly saw a lamb which was suspended in the
type of the cross . . . On the top of the tree the lamb was suspended, which
was shown to him, and instead of with nails He had fastened its
body with branches of wood . . . The Destroyer of death (i.e. Christ)
would die the death on the wood, and the lamb was suspended on the
top of the tree, so that it would proclaim His death . . . The hidden
divine command had suspended it on the tree as a type of the Truth.’74
The later East Syrian commentaries have preserved (elements of )
this reading of Gen 22:13, including its typological interpretation,
though it seems that it was transmitted to them through different
channels.75
Haar Romeny, A Syrian in Greek Dress, 326–300, Isho'dad draws upon Eusebius of
Emesa.
71
Gen 22:7–8. The anonymous Syriac Homily on Abraham speaks of ‘the lamb . . .
being suspended on the wood’, ed./transl. Brock, ‘An Anonymous Syriac Homily’,
243/251. The dialogue poem ‘On Abraham and Isaac’ speaks of ‘the lamb . . .
being suspended by its horns’, ed./transl. Kirschner, ‘Alfabetische Akrosticha’, 50/51,
52/53; ed. Brock, Soghyatha, 8.
72
Note, however, that Ephrem in his Commentary on the Diatessaron XVI, 27
compares the ‘lamb’ by which Isaac was delivered with the ‘lamb’ by which the
Israelites were saved in Egypt (cf. Exod 12) and the ‘true Lamb’ of John 1:29,36
by which the nations were redeemed, ed./transl. L. Leloir, Saint Éphrem. Commentaire
de l’évangile concordant (Chester Beatty Monographs 8), Dublin 1963, 186/187; English
transl. by C. McCarthy, Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron ( Journal of
Semitic Studies Supplement 2), Oxford 1993, 257.
73
Ed./transl. Brock, ‘Two Syriac Verse Homilies’, 105/110, 120/124.
74
Homily 1, ed. Mingana I, 22.
75
The Anonymous Commentary on Gen-Exod 9:32: ‘The ram which was sus-
pended on the tree: in order to indicate that also the lamb of God would be sus-
pended on the cross’ (ed./transl. Van Rompay, 88/113). Dependent on this
commentary is the Anonymous Commentary on the OT (above n. 40; ed. Levene,
39 [fol. 15v ]). Theodore bar Koni, Isho‘dad and the second source of the Gannat
Bussame call ‘the tree which bore the ram’ the type of the cross (Theodore: ed./transl.
Scher and Hespel & Draguet, 135/141; Isho‘dad: ed./transl. Van den Eynde &
Vosté, 174/188; Gannat Bussame: MS Leuven, CSCO, syr. 14, fol. 535v ). Again
Theodore, Isho'dad and the Gannat Bussame seem to draw upon a common source.
It is interesting to note that the wording of these commentaries shows some resem-
Summarising the preceding results, we may conclude that the dis-

putation’s typological exegesis of Gen 22 is very much in line with
the older Syriac tradition—i.e. the works of Ephrem Syrus and the
subsequent Edessene tradition of the fifth century. This older Syriac
tradition lived on in the School of Nisibis, and it entered there or
elsewhere into an alliance with the Greek-Antiochene christological
typology of Isaac and the ram. This development may have taken
place in the post-Narsai period, in the course of the sixth or sev-
enth century, when certain East Syrian exegetes wanted to empha-
sise the dyophysite christological meaning of the sacrifice of Isaac in
conformity with the christology of their Church.76 Anyhow, the dis-
putation’s exegesis of Gen 22 gives us a fresh and interesting piece
of information about the many missing links between the older tra-
ditions of the Schools of Edessa and Nisibis and the later East Syrian
exegetical compilations.
3. Conclusion: Gen 22 and the Refutation of Early Islam
It is not by chance that the disputation opens with the topic of the
commandments of Abraham. Syriac (and Armenian) sources from
the seventh century testify that early Islam was not seen as a new
religion which succeeded Judaism and Christianity, but rather as a
form of the Old Testament religion adopted by the ‘people of the
desert’ who converted from pagan polytheism to the monotheistic
faith of Abraham.77 In order to distinguish these monotheistic Arabs
from pagan and Christian Arabs, they were called ‘sons of Ishmael’
or ‘sons of Hagar’,78 the name ‘Muslims’ not being attested in Syriac
blance with the Cave of Treasures XXIX, 5, 9: ‘the tree which bore the lamb that
saved Isaac’, which ‘is/was (the type of ) the cross of Christ’ (ed./transl. Su-Min
Ri, 224–227/86–87).
76
We doubt, whether Theodore of Mopsuestia, the Antiochene interpreter par
excellence of the East Syrians, may be connected with the disputation’s christological
typology. Neither Narsai, who is in general greatly indebted to Theodore’s exege-
sis, nor the later East Syrian tradition, show any positive indication in that direc-
tion. On the contrary, Thedore bar Koni’s hesitations as regards this interpretation
(see above) rather suggest that he did not know it as the exegesis of Theodore of
Mopsuestia.
77
See the references in Reinink, ‘Beginnings’, 166–167; idem, ‘Pseudo-Ephraems
“Rede über das Ende” und die syrische eschatologische Literatur des siebenten
Jahrhunderts’, Aram 5 (1993) 443–444; Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 535–538.
78
Another early attested appelation is mahgrayè/mhaggerayè; cf. Reinink, ‘Beginnings’,
124 g.j. reinink
sources before Abbasid times.79 Circumcision and sacrifice, as the

Abrahamic commandments are defined in the disputation, may have
been for a time ‘the pillars of nascent Islamic faith, which was a
religion of Abraham’;80 on the other hand it is exactly these prac-
tices which were recognised by Christian tradition since its earliest
times as being connected with Abraham, which, therefore, soon found
a new interpretation and signification within the framework of Christian
faith and practices. In other words, even irrespective of the question
of how important the role of the practices of circumcision and sacrifice
in early Islam actually may have been, the definition of early Islam
as the religion of Abraham, either by Christians or by ‘Muslims’ or
by both parties, required the discussion of these central issues—in
particular in an apologetic treatise such as the disputation.
As we observed above, the disputation is a scholarly product com-
posed for the author’s monastic community, with the purpose of
defining the Christian tenets over against early Islam, so that the
Christians would have the right instruments with which to counter
the religious claims of the new authority. Quite naturally, the topic
of the sacrifice of Isaac came up in the discussion of the tawdìtà
d-"Abràhàm, as the Abrahamic confession is called in the disputation.
The story of the sacrifice of Isaac, together with its typological mean-
ing, was deeply rooted in Christian self-consciousness, and, just as it
was used in the past to counter Judaism,81 so it could now be used
to demonstrate with the same arguments that the religion of Abraham,
to which the present islamic Arabs aligned themselves, had already
found its fulfilment in the truth of Christ. Or, in conclusion, to
express it in the monk’s own words: ‘As the shadow is for the body,
and the word to the act, so also is the manner of life of our father
Abraham to the new things that Christ did for the redemption of
our lives.’82
172, 177, n. 72. Syriac authors may have connected this name with the name of
Hagar, but it probably has an islamic Arab background; cf. Hoyland, Seeing Islam,
179–180, 547–548.
79
Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 156, 414, n. 88.
80
Hoyland, Seeing Islam, 470. This point of view is stressed by P. Crone & M. Cook,
Hagarism. The Making of the Islamic World, Cambridge etc. 1977, 12–13.
81
An interesting example for the typological exegesis of Gen 22, comparable to
the arguments in our disputation, can be found in the Doctrina Jacobi nuper baptizati
13, a Greek anti-Jewish apologetic work which was composed about 634, ed./transl.
by V. Déroche, Travaux et Mémoires 11, Paris 1991, 202–205.
82
Disputation, fol. 2v.
IBRÀHÌM’S SACRIFICE OF HIS SON IN THE EARLY
POST-KORANIC TRADITION
F. Leemhuis
For muslims the story of Ibràhìm willing to sacrifice his son is cer-
tainly not just a story. It is part of God’s message to the world as
contained in the Koran. And from this story lessons are to be learnt
for those who understand. Lessons about obedience to God’s will
and His reward for those who obey Him unquestioningly.
Nowadays muslims generally are convinced that the intended vic-
tim was Ismà'ìl, the firstborn son of Ibràhìm. To sacrifice an animal
on the 10th day of the month Dhùl-Óijja, whether it be on pilgrim-
age in Minà near Mecca or anywhere in the world, is to remember
Ibràhìm’s preparedness to sacrifice Ismà'ìl and to repeat the sacrifice
of the substitute that was provided to take the place of Ibràhìm’s
son. The believers are thus reminded of the lesson to be learnt from
the story. The function of the liturgy is to strengthen the faith of
the believers.
In the Koran the story is referred to in Sùrat al-Íàffàt (37): 100–113.
It begins with a prayer of Ibràhìm:
100. ‘My Lord, grant me someone who is righteous’
101. Then We gave him the good news of a gentle boy.
102. When he had reached the age of running [or: working] with him, he
said: ‘My dear son, I see in my sleep [or: dream] that I shall sacrifice
you. So, look, what is your view?’ He said: ‘My father, do what you
are commanded. You shall find me, if God wills, someone who is stead-
fast.’
103. When they both had submitted themselves and he had laid him on his
forehead,
104. We called to him: ‘Ibràhìm!’
105. You have confirmed [or: accepted as true] the vision. Thus We reward
those who do right.
106. This indeed was the clear trial [or: clearly a trial].
126 f. leemhuis
107. And We ransomed him with a great sacrifice

108. and We left for him among posterity.
109. ‘Peace be upon Ibràhìm.’
110. Thus We reward those who do right.
111. He, indeed, was one of Our believing servants.
112. And We gave him the good news of Is˙àq, a prophet [or: as a prophet]
among those who do right.
113. And We blessed him and Is˙àq. Of both their offspring there are some
who do right and some who plainly wrong themselves.
Obviously, this is not a usual narrative like the story in Genesis 22.
It is true that elements of a story are present, but in its form, the
Koranic message is too fragmentary and the style too formal and
elliptical to even look much like a story. This is not surprising, it is
the normal procedure in the Koran in referring to the experiences
of the earlier prophets. The Koran primarily aims to get a message
across, its aim is to warn the unbelievers, to comfort the faithful, to
teach lessons to those who understand. Such a lesson may be drawn
from a story about well-known events in the past, but the story is
not the lesson. In the Koran these edifying stories are not so much
told, but, rather, known stories are referred to in order to convey a
message. This is precisely what Mu˙ammad A˙mad Khalafallàh in
his study on narrative technique in the Koran drew attention to
when he concluded: ‘The purpose of a story is the extraction of the
religious truth that the noble Koran propounds from one or more
stories in a sùra. . . . Events and personalities in the Koranic narra-
tive are the elements from which the composition is formed. These
elements may be historical or imaginary or they may be mental con-
cepts i.e. convictions and postulates. . . . These elements were in most
cases present in the environment wherein the Koran was revealed
and the Koran based itself on their existence as they were.’1 The
Koran quite clearly takes these stories, like the one of Ibràhìm’s
1
Mu˙ammad A˙mad Khalafallàh, Al-fann al-qaßaßì fì al-qur "àn al-karìm, Cairo
19572, pp. 256–257. At the time the study met with fierce opposition from con-
servative circles, because of the suggestion that the Koran in referring to these sto-
ries is not necessarily recording facts. The idea in itself that the Koranic reference
ibràhìm’s sacrifice of his son 127
sacrifice, for granted. In conveying its message, the Koran may elab-
orate on some of the known elements, as in Sùrat Yùsuf, the twelfth
sura, but other elements may be left out or may be modified.
In fact, in the Koran very few elements of the story of Ibràhìm’s
sacrifice as recorded in the Thora are present. There is no mention
of the typical narrative details as the cutting of the wood, the jour-
ney of three days, Abraham carrying the fire and the knife, the ques-
tion of Isaac about the missing lamb, Abraham taking the knife to
slay his son etc. But apart from this, the focus in the Koran is also
different. This was recognised throughout the history of Islam. As a
modern illustration we may quote Riffat Hassan’s comment on Sùrat
al-Íàffàt (37): 100–111:
It is of interest to note that in the above-cited narrative the “son” is
not named. However, unlike Isaac in the Biblical narrative, the son
in this story does know that God had commanded his father to sacrifice
him. The Qur"anic narrative, therefore, lacks the suspense of disclo-
sure found in the Biblical story. What this narrative stresses is the obe-
dience of both Abraham and Ishmael who symbolize what it means
to be ‘Muslim’. While Abraham and Ishmael do not show the slight-
est hesitation in accepting God’s command, God also does not show
any hesitation in offering immediate ransom for the son. Thus while
the story illustrates the faith of Abraham and Ishmael, it also shows
the mercy and compassion of God toward those who remain steadfast
in their resolve to live and die in accordance with the will and plea-
sure of God.2
In the Koran, indeed, the son is not named, but for Riffat Hassan,
as for the vast majority of muslims to-day, it is clear who it was:
. . . while in the Jewish and Christian traditions the son Abraham was
about to sacrifice was Isaac, in the Islamic tradition it was Ishmael.
to e.g. prophetic stories aims at teaching lessons has, however, already been accepted
in Islam for a long time.
2
Riffat Hassan, ‘Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) in Islam: Abraham, Hagar and
Ismael’ in Commitment and Commemoration, Jews, Christians, Muslims in Dialogue, edited
by Andre LaCocque, Exploration Press, Chicago Theological Seminary, 1994, (pp.
131–150), p. 148. Similarly, Dr. Mu˙ammad al-Sayyid ˇan†àwì, the present Shaikh
al-Azhar, states in his Al-qißßa fì al-qur"àn al-karìm, Cairo 1996, vol. 1, p. 173 about
Ibràhìm: ‘that he—peace be upon him—faithfully fulfilled his obligation when he
saw in his dream that he should sacrifice his son Ismà'ìl—peace be upon him—
whom God—exalted is He—had granted him in spite of his old age, since Ibràhìm
promptly and without hesitation told his son about it and executed what he saw
in his dream. But God rewarded this faithfulness by ransoming Ismà'ìl with a great
sacrifice.’
128 f. leemhuis
From the perspective of the latter, since the son whom God com-
manded Abraham to sacrifice was his ‘only’ son, the son in question
had to be Ishmael who was Abraham’s first son.3
That it must have been Ismà'ìl is so obvious to present-day mus-
lims that in modern commentaries it is often, without further dis-
cussion, simply stated that the intended victim was Ismà'ìl, as in the
so-called Intermediate Commentary of the Koran of Dr. Mu˙ammad al-
Sayyid ˇan†àwì.4 Even in a modern compilation of some of the clas-
sical Koran commentaries it is simply stated about Sùrat al-Íàffàt (37):
101 that ‘the majority of the commentators hold that this boy who
was announced is “Ismà'ìl”’.5 Especially the reason given by Riffat
Hassan which derives not from the Koran, but from Genesis 22,
appears to be seen nowadays as decisive: ‘the son whom God com-
manded Abraham to sacrifice was his “only” son, the son in ques-
tion had to be Ishmael who was Abraham’s first son.’6
This argument in favour of Ismà'ìl was forcefully put forward by
the late mediaeval Syrian scholar Abù al-Fidà" Ismà'ìl ibn Kathìr
(d. 774/1373) in his collection of stories of the prophets where he
3
O.c., p. 147. Riffat Hassan continues with a comment on the reason why the
Jewish and Christian traditions have ignored Ismael in favour of Isaac: ‘because
they do not accord to Hagar the same status of being Abraham’s “wife’ as they
do to Sarah. The Islamic tradition does not, however, distinguish between the sta-
tus of Hagar and Sarah, or Ishmael and Isaac.”’
4
Dr. Mu˙ammad al-Sayyid ˇan†àwì, Al-tafsìr al-waßì† lil-qur"àn al-karim, vol. 22,
Cairo 1985, p. 125. Also in his Al-qißßa fì al-qur "àn al-karìm (see note 2 above) only
Ismà'ìl is mentioned. This is also found islamic sites on the internet. The follow-
ing may be taken as an example. It is taken from the site www.the-webplaza.com/
hajj/Bkgnd.html#Legacy: ‘After he was blessed with a son at old age, he left his son
Prophet Isma’eel and wife Hazrat Bibi Hajar (PBUT) in the barren desolate Baka
(Makka) valley on Allah SWT’s commands. Allah SWT wanted to test him through
this son too as a final test, and ordered him to sacrifice his beloved son. Ibraheem
was successful in this test too. He took his son, Isma’eel to a mount called Marwah
near the Ka’ba and laid him prostrate, face down, to slaughter him with his own
hands. Satisfied with Ibraheem’s complete submission and profound love, Allah ran-
somed Isma’eel with a sacrificial animal. Nahr. (It is in comemmoration of this very
event that animals are sacrificed during Hajj and by Muslims all over the world
on the occasion of Eid-ul-Adha).’
5
Mu˙ammad 'Alì al-Íàbùnì, Safwat al-tafàsir, Cairo 19779, vol. 3, p. 39.
6
Cf. as an example on the internet site of Majid Tucson, United Submitters
International, http://www.submission.org/ismail.html: ‘The Bible teaches that God ordered
Abraham to sacrifice his only son by slaughtering him with a knife.’ Incidentally,
on this site it is also argued that in the Koran God never commanded Ibrahim to
slaughter his son: ‘the Quran teaches us that Abraham had a dream in which he
saw himself slaughtering his son. Abraham believed the dream and THOUGHT
that the dream was from God (The Quran never said the dream was from God).’
states that those who say that Is˙àq was the intended sacrifice base
themselves on isrà"ìliyyàt, i.e. stories of the Jews. Then he goes on
to say: ‘In their book there is ta˙rìf i.e. alteration of words. Especially
in this case it is absolutely and inevitably so. According to them,
God commanded Ibràhìm to sacrifice his only son, and in an Arabic
version, his first-born Is˙àq. The word Is˙àq here is a false and fab-
ricated insertion, because he was neither the only, nor the first-born
son. That was Ismà'ìl.’7 In his commentary on the Koran, Ibn Kathìr
makes the same choice, but there he discusses at length the different
traditions and arguments favouring either Is˙àq or Ismà'ìl. It would
appear, however, that for him the decisive argument was the one
he brought forward in his stories of the prophets.
The same choice for Ismà'ìl was made by al-Bai∂àwì (d. circa
690/1291) who dismisses the possibility that it could have been Is˙àq
out of hand. However, other late mediaeval commentators, such as
al-Fakhr al-Ràzì (543/1149–606/1210), al-Qur†ubì (d. 671/1272),
al-Gharnà†ì (693/1294–741/1294) and al-Ma˙allì (791/1389–864/
1459) mention both possibilities, sometimes extensively listing the
arguments in favour of each candidate without making a choice.
This does not necessarily mean that the majority of moslims were
not convinced that Ismà'ìl was the sacrificial son, but it does sug-
gest that even towards the end of the middle ages the issue was not
yet absolutely decided, at least not in the sunnite scholarly community.
In contrast to this, Goldziher,8 and, more recently, Firestone9 sup-
posed that the original view that Is˙àq was the intended victim was
quite soon superseded by the conviction that it must have been
Ismà'ìl. Goldziher stated: “Nach einigem Schwanken setzt sich schliess-
lich im Gesamtgefühl der Muslime die letztere (i.e. the view that
Ismà'ìl was the sacrificial son) durch”,10 i.e. after a short period of
irresolution. Firestone reached a more or less similar conclusion: ‘The
earliest exegetes supported Isaac’s candidacy as the Sacrifice, while
virtually all exegetes after ˇabarì (d. 923) supported Ishmael.’11
7
Abù al-Fidà" Ismà'ìl ibn Kathìr, Qißaß al-anbiyà", ed. Abù 'Ammàr Muràd b.
'Abdàllàh, Cairo 1419/19993, pp. 149/50.
8
Ignaz Goldziher, Die Richtungen der islamischen Koranauslegung, Leiden 1920, repr.
1970, pp. 79–81.
9
Reuven Firestone, 'Abraham’s son as the intended sacrifice (al-dhabì˙, Qur"àn
37: 99–113): Issues in Qur"ànic exegesis’, Journal of Semitic Studies, vol. 34, 1989, pp.
95–131.
10
Goldziher, o.c., p. 81.
11
Firestone, o.c., p. 129.
130 f. leemhuis
If Goldziher’s and Firestone’s conclusions regarding the relatively

early date of the almost universal acceptance of the view of the pro-
Ismà'ìl school have to be revised, how about their views on the
beginnings of Koranic exegesis?
Godziher held the view that Mohammed himself probably would
have considered Is˙àq to have been the intended victim. Also the
early exegetes would have no doubts. But already quite early both
views came to stand opposed to each other, supported as they both
were by reliable traditional authorities.12 On the basis of the analy-
ses of much tradition material, Firestone reached the conclusion that
‘the earliest authorities cited for the traditions tend overwhelmingly
to consider Isaac the intended victim.’13
The problem concerning the very extensive tradition material which
relates the views of the earliest muslim authorities is that for many
issues conflicting views are often trustworthily reported from one and
the same authority. In fact, the early tradition material, which to a
large extent is only available from later works, for the greater part
does not primarily appear to simply record the opinions held by the
early authorities. Rather, these transmitted views of earlier authori-
ties were used as supportive evidence for opinions that were held in
the debates on certain issues, that were going on in later genera-
tions. This was recognised by Goldziher and Firestone. Its conse-
quence, however, that this material is not fit for unqualified use in
determining the views that were hold by these early authorities appar-
ently escaped them. Nevertheless, already at an early stage muslim
scholars themselves were aware of the fact that traditions could and
were wrongly remembered, defectively passed down or falsified.
The discussions and debates themselves, in which these traditions
were used as supportive arguments were, however, certainly genuine.
For issues concerning the text and meaning of the Koran that were
focussed upon in the early stage of Koranic exegesis, we have now
more texts at our disposal than before, because a number of early
commentaries have been edited and published in the last decennia.
It is to this early stage of Koranic exegesis that the above mentioned
later commentators referred. In these early texts, which were prob-
ably written down in the second century of islam14 we often find the
12
Goldziher, o.c., p. 80.
13
Firestone, o.c., p. 129.
14
See Claude Gilliot, ‘Les débuts de l’exégèse coranique’ in: Les premières écritures
reflection of discussions and debates that took place a generation

before.15 The issues remained, however, very often the subjects of
debate for at least another two centuries.
These early commentaries are mostly not very elaborate; they
inform about the meaning of difficult words or passages, identify
unnamed persons and may put somewhat more flesh on the skele-
tons of stories that are referred to in the Koran. In the case of these
stories, they apparently drew upon material that was available to
them from other sources, be it traditional material from the pre-
islamic or early Islamic Arabs or material from Jewish or Christian
origin.
From these early commentaries it becomes clear that the frag-
mentary data furnished by the Koran about the story of Ibràhìm’s
sacrifice asked for more details. They were supplemented from tra-
ditional stores of information and, as is the case with other Koranic
stories which are know from the Tenakh, we also find material that
apparently derives from rabbinic sources, mostly to be found in
midrashic literature and which had been incorporated into oral tra-
ditions that were known to the early muslims.16
It has been generally acknowledged that the Koran itself appears
to presuppose familiarity with all kinds of biblical stories, albeit not
necessarily in their exact biblical form. That they must have pre-
ceded the Koran is quite obvious; otherwise the sometimes very scant
Koranic references to them would be quite unintelligible. That these
stories indeed must have preceded the Koran was also pointed out
by Norman Calder, but for him it was an argument for Wansbrough’s
thesis that the genesis of a textus receptus of the Koran is the result
of a continuing process that probably was not concluded before the
late 2nd or early 3rd (late 8th/early 9th) century.17 Rather like the
development of the Mishna. The presumption is that the muslims
only came into contact with rabbinic material after the conquests.
islamiques = Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée, 58, Aix-en-Provence 1990,

pp. 82–100. But see also Andrew Rippin, ‘Tafsìr’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, new
ed. Leiden 1954–, vol. 10, pp. 83–88.
15
See my forthcoming ‘Discussion and Debate in Early Commentaries of the
Koran.’ In: With Reverence for the Word, Oxford University Press.
16
The seminal work in dealing with this subject is, of course: A. Geiger, Was
hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen?, Leipzig 1902.
17
Norman Calder, ‘From Midrash to Scripture: The Sacrifice of Abraham in
Early Islamic Tradition’, in: Le Muséon, vol. 101, 1988, pp. 375–402.
132 f. leemhuis
There are, however, quite strong arguments to agree with the gen-
eral lines of the muslim tradtion about the fixation of the Koran as
a textus receptus.18 Also independent data make the existence of a tex-
tus receptus of the Koran before the beginning of the second islamic
century very probable.19 On that basis, I believe that Calder’s dat-
ing of the influx of this material must be rejected, although his rel-
ative chronology certainly remains valid. This material must indeed
have been in circulation before the collection of the Koran. Probably
already in Medina, where Muhammad was clearly in contact with
Jewish communities.
Thus, it is no surprise that most of the material with which the
story of Ibràhìm’s sacrifice is padded out in later sources and which
for a long time remained part of the stock in trade of the later com-
mentators, is already present in these early commentaries of the sec-
ond islamic century.
Apart from the issue of the intended victim with which I will deal
further on, the other elements which are presented in these early
commentaries are worth noticing. These elements are mostly men-
tioned very succinctly, rather in the manner of giving key words
referring to known parts of the story.
Apparently there were a number of issues which were raised with
respect to the sparse Koranic text. Some of these arose probably out
of sheer curiosity, others have more serious implications. The fol-
lowing issues may be identified:
1. How did Ibràhìm know that his dream to sacrifice his son was
true?
2. What was the age of the intended victim?
3. Was Ibràhìm not tempted to disregard the command?
4. How willing was the intended victim?
5. What exactly was the ransom that was sacrificed?
6. What was the reward for the obedient intended sacrifice?
7. Who was the intended victim and where did the event take
place?
18
Angelika Neuwirth, ‘Koran’, in: Helmut Gätje (ed.), Grundriss der Arabischen
Philologie, Band II: Literaturwissenschaft, Wiesbaden 1987, pp. 96–135. See especially
note 20 on p. 103.
19
See my forthcoming ‘Ursprünge des Koran als Textus Receptus’, in ZDMG.
In the later commentaries of al-ˇabarì (d. 310/923), al-Samarqandì

(d. between 375/984 and 393/1003) and al-Màwardì (d. 450/1058)
all these issues are addressed and a wealth of material expressing
the views of the early authorities is included. In the early texts them-
selves, however mostly only a few of these issues are addressed. In
the table on page 11 these are schematically itemized.
The issues are addressed in the following ways:
1. Ibràhìm was not so much commanded by God to sacrifice his
son, but he himself on the announcement of the birth of his son
had vowed that this son would be sacrificed to God. In his dream
he was reminded of his vow. Alternatively, Ibràhìm at first did not
believe his dream, but when it was repeated, it became clear to him
that the command was indeed God’s command.
2. At first glance, the question of the age of the victim seems to
be mere curiosity. However, also the question of the age of full legal
capacity probably was the motive behind the question. It would
appear that the answers brought forward favour a minimum age of
13 years.
3. After Ibràhìm had had his dream and had left Sàra together
with Is˙àq on his way to fulfil the command, the devil said that, if
he could not tempt them away from what Ibràhìm was setting out
to do, he never would be able to tempt them anymore. So he
approached Sàra and then Ibràhìm and Is˙àq, but they all with-
stood his temptation, by answering that, if it was God’s command,
then it surely would be done.
4. The willingness to obey God’s command is underlined by the
active consent of the sacrificial son. The son wants to make sure
that he himself will not try to resist his father and thus asks to be
bound. He also wants to make sure that Ibràhìm will execute God’s
command and that he will not show mercy at the last moment.
Therefore he asks that his face be put down so that his father will
not look him in the eyes.
5. The animal that was sacrificed is identified as a ram or a moun-
tain goat. But the report that the sacrificial animal was prepared a
long time before in paradise, which is also expressed, probably alludes
to the idea that God had, of course, not really wanted Ibràhìm to
kill his son. God had long before prepared the animal to be sacrificed
instead.
6. If the sacrificial son was indeed as obedient to God’s command
as the Koran tells, then he surely must have been granted a special
134 f. leemhuis
reward. This reward was told to consist in the revelation to Is˙àq

that he would be granted a prayer that would be answered. Is˙àq
then prayed that whosoever from the ancestors and from posterior-
ity who upon meeting God would not attribute to Him any associ-
ates, i.e. who would believe in God alone, would enter paradise.
These additions not only filled in the missing parts of the story or
made some elements more explicit, they also provided additional
material for the edification of the believers. Other material of this
kind would similarly find its way to later commentaries in order to
become part of the conventional treatment of the Koranic message
about Ibràhìm’s sacrifice. Although this additional material, which
was registered as having been handed down from the early author-
ities, was not always agreed upon in detail, most of it does not really
appear to be the subject of much contention.
However, the identification of the sacrificial son and, in connec-
tion with it, the identification of the place where the event took place
was for many commentators an issue about which opinions mat-
tered. If we look at the extant early Koran commentaries rather
than at the transmitted opinions of early authorities as they appear
in later works, it becomes clear that during the second islamic cen-
tury this was indeed the subject of a continuing debate at least in
the scholarly community. As mentioned before, the outcome of this
debate was, not decided for many centuries.
The earliest extant tafsìr, that of Muqàtil b. Sulaimàn (d. 150/767)20
simply identifies the victim as Is˙àq and the place as Jerusalem.21 In
Warqà"s (d. 160/776) version of Mujàhid’s tafsìr 22 no mention is made
20
Tafsìr Muqàtil ibn Sulaimàn, ed. 'Abdallàh Ma˙mùd Sha˙àta, 5 vols., Cairo
1979–1989.
21
Tafsìr Muqàti, vol. 3, pp. 613–616. Calder, o.c., p. 392, in agreement with
Wansbrough, is inclined to consider the available text of Muqàtil’s tafsìr to be a
late redaction. His remark ‘The Muqàtil text as related to Qur"àn 37.102–7 con-
veniently incorporates a gloss referring to al-Farrà" (207/822) which helps to confirm
that this is indeed a late redaction’, however misses the point that the gloss of al-
Farrà" is in the text itself marked as such, at the end of the inserted gloss it is men-
tioned raja'a ilà Muqàtil ‘back to Muqàtil’! This kind of remark rather suggests a
certain care to mark off the annotation from the annotated text.
22
Of this tafsìr three major versions are known. See pp. 19–25 from my ‘Origins
and Early Development of the tafsìr Tradition.’ In: Approaches to the History of the
Interpretation of the Qur’an, A. Rippin (ed.) Oxford, pp. 13–30. The version by Warqà"
b. 'Umar (d. 160/776) is known from the tafsìr of al-ˇabarì and from an inde-
pendent redaction by Àdam b. Abì Iyyàs (d. 220/835): Tafsìr Mujàhid, ed. 'Abd-al-
Ra˙màn al-ˇàhir ibn Mu˙ammad al-Sùratì, Islamabad 1976, reprint Beyrouth
of the name of the intended victim,23 but in Àdam b. Iyyàs’ (d.

220/835) redaction, two traditions are added, not going back to
Mujàhid, of which one is favouring Is˙àq and the other Ismà"ìl.24
In the tafsìr of Sufyàn al-Thaurì (d. 161/777)25 and in the Ma'ànì
al-Qur "àn of al-Farrà" (d. 207/822)26 it is only Ismà"ìl who is men-
tioned. In the tafsìr of 'Abd al-Razzàq al-Ían'ànì (d. 211/827)27 tra-
ditions, which favour both and which support both possible locations,
are mentioned, but there is no apparent preference.
In the later, more comprehensive commentaries of al-ˇabarì (d.
310/923),28 al-Na˙˙às (d. 338/949)29 and al-Sàmarqandì (d. between
375/983 and 393/1003)30 we find compilations of the traditional
material of the first two centuries. On the issue of the identity of
the sacrificial son they mention many traditions favouring both can-
didates and both possible locations, but all three opt for Is˙àq and
Jerusalem. With the latter two we are already well into the fourth
Islamic century.
It is striking to read how al-Na˙˙às in another more specialised
commentary, his I'ràb al-qur "àn forcefully and nearly scornfully
n.d., Tafsìr al-imàm Mujàhid ibn Djabr, ed. Mu˙ammad 'Abd-al-Salàm Abù al-Nìl,
Cairo 1989.
23
Ed. Al-Sùratì, vol. 2 p. 543, ed. Abù al-Nìl, p. 569. In the tafsìr of al-ˇabarì
a tradition (nr. 92524 in the edition mentioned below n. 28) is mentioned accord-
ing to which Mujàhid favoured Ismà'ìl.
24
See above n. 23. Calder, o.c., p. 392 states that the published Mujàhid tafsìr
exhibits the same structural framework as his version 7 and 8, but this is incorrect
as only a small part of the material concerning Ibràhìm in it is attributed to Mujàhid;
the rest is interpolated by the redactor Àdam b. Abì Iyyàs.
25
Tafsìr al-Qur"àn al-Karìm lil-imàm Abì 'Abdallàh Sufyàn ibn Sa'ìd ibn Masrùq al-
Thaurì al-Kùfì-, ed. Imtiyàz 'Alì 'Arshì, Rampur 1965, reprint Beirut (without some
of the indices) 1983. See p. 213 in the Rampur ed. and p. 253 in the Beirut ed.
26
Abù Zakariyà" Ya˙yà b. Ziyàd al-Farrà", Ma'àni al-qur"àn, vol. 1, ed. A˙mad
Yùsuf Nagàtì and Mu˙ammad 'Alì al-Naggàr; vol. 2, ed. Mu˙ammad 'Alì al-
Naggàr; vol. 3, ed. 'Abd al-Fattà˙ Ismà'ìl Shalabì and 'Alì al-Nagdì Nàßif second
ed. Cairo 1955–1972, 19802. See vol. 2, p. 389.
27
Tafsìr al-Qur"àn lil-imàm 'Abd-al-Razzàq ibn Hishàm al-Ían'ànì, ed. Muß†afà Muslim
Mu˙ammad, Riyadh 1989. See vol. 2, pp. 152–153.
28
Abù Ja'far Mu˙ammad ibn Jarìr al-ˇabarì, Tafsìr al-ˇabarì al-Musammà Jàmi'
al-Bayàn fi Tafsìr al-Qur"àn. Beirut: Dàr al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya, 1412/1992 (12 vols.).
See vol. 10, pp. 505–518.
29
Abù Dja'far al-Na˙˙às, Ma'ànì al-qur"àn al-karìm, ed. Mu˙ammad 'Alì al-Sàbùnì,
Mecca 1988/9 (6 vols.). See vol. 6, pp. 47–52.
30
Tafsìr al-Samarqandì al-musammà Ba˙r al-'Ulùm li-Abì al-Layth Naßr ibn Mu˙ammad
ibn A˙mad ibn Ibràhìm al-Samarqandì, eds. 'Alì Mu˙ammad Mu'awwa∂, 'Àdil A˙mad
'Abd al-Mawdjùd, Zakariyya 'Abd al-Madjìd al-Nùtì, Beirut 1413/1993 (3 vols.).
See vol. 3, pp. 119–121.
136 f. leemhuis
dismisses the argument of the pro-Ismà'ìlites that there are many

trustworthy reports of early authorities who claim to have seen the
horns of the ram suspended from the Ka'ba and that they were
burned in the fire of the Ka'ba in the year 64/683 during the rebel-
lion of the anti-caliph 'Abd Allàh b. al-Zubair. For the pro-Ismà'ìlites
the presence of the horns of the ram in Mecca apparently was seen
as a potent argument for Ismà'ìl being the sacrificial son, because
only Ismà'ìl had been in Mecca and its surroundings and Is˙àq had
never left Syria. Al-Na˙˙às simply states the tradition and dismisses
the claim off-hand, saying that the fact that the horns were hang-
ing there did not preclude them from having been brought to Mecca
from Syria.31
At least as remarkable is the fact that the famous grammarian Ibn
Jinnì (d. 392/1002), also in the fourth century, in his Mu˙taßab, a
specialised work on non-canonical variae lectiones of the Koran also
appears to be in the pro-Is˙àq camp. In discussing a different read-
ing for fa-lammà aslamà ‘When they both had submitted themselves”
in verse 103 of Sùrat al-Íàffàt (37) he simply mentions that with the
dual in this verse Ibràhìm and Is˙àq are meant.32
A generation or so later al-Màwardì (d. 450/1058) in his com-
mentary apparently is still undecided.33 Only in the ßùfì-commentary
of al-Qushairì (d. 465/1072) it is again only Ismà'ìl who is men-
tioned as the intended victim.34
Although more commentaries from the classical period which is
considered to begin with al-ˇabari may be consulted, we may safely
conclude that, at least in the discipline of Koranic commentary, the
issue was discussed for many centuries, without a clear general win-
ner for the honour of being the sacrificial son.
Of course, initially the issue of a struggle between Mecca and
Jerusalem over primacy in Islam as a firmly established cultic cen-
31
Abù Dja'far A˙mad b. Mu˙ammad b. Ismà'ìl al-Na˙˙às, I'ràb al-qur"àn, ed.
Zuhair Ghàzì Zàhid, Beirut 19883 (5 vols.). See vol. 3, p. 432.
32
Abù al-Fat˙ 'Uthmàn Ibn Jinnì, Al-mu˙taßab fì tabyìn wujù˙ shawàdh al-qirà"àt
wa-l-ì∂à˙ 'anhà, eds. 'Alìal-Najdì Nàßif, 'Abd al-Óalìm al-Najjàr and 'Abd al-Fattà˙
Ismà'ìl Shalabì, Cairo 1966–69 (2 vols.). See vol. 2, p. 222.
33
Abù al-Óasan 'Alì b. Mu˙ammad b. Óabìb, Tafsìr al-Màwardì al-musammà al-
nukat wa-l-'uyùn, ed. Khi∂r Mu˙ammad Khi∂r, Kuwait 1993 (4 vols.). See vol. 3,
p. 475.
34
Al-imàm al-Qushairì, La†à"if al-ishàràt, ed. Ibràhìm Basyùnì, Cairo 1971, repr.
1981. (3 vols.). See vol. 3, p. 238.
tre may have played its part in the debate,35 but it seems highly
unlikely that after the second century of Islam this still would have
been the case. The debate rather was of a scholarly kind, a literary
topos, and probably only became socially relevant again, when rela-
tions with the people of the Book and especially the Jews were being
revised at a much later time.
35
Cf. Calder, o.c., pp. 397–8 and Firestone, o.c., p. 277.
Elements of the story of Abraham’s sacrifice in some early Koranic commentaries
138
Elements of the sacrifice story Muq Muj Suf Far Raz Àda ˇab Na˙ Sam Jin Màw Qus
Reason of sacrifice: Vow by Ibràhìm x x x
Ibràhìm dreams repeatedly: 2x or 3x x x x
Age of victim: 7 yrs x x
Age of victim: 13 yrs x x x x
Ismà'ìl 13 yrs. older than Is˙àq x x
Devil tempting Sàra, Is˙àq, Ibràhìm x x x
Victim asks his face to be put down x x x x x
Victim asks to be bound x x x x x

f. leemhuis
Ibràhìm is asked not to soil his shirt with

the blood of the victim x x
Is˙àq asks for his shirt to be brought to Sàra x
Knife is turned away or does not cut x x x
ransom animal: ram or mountaingoat x x x x x
ransom animal: ram from paradise x x x x x
ransom animal: ram that Hàbìl offered x

Is˙àq is granted a prayer that will be
answered x x
Only Is˙àq is mentioned x x
Preference Is˙àq, both mentioned x x x
Place of sacrifice: Syrià Jerusalem x x x x x x

*
Only Ismà'ìl is mentioned (x) x x x
Place of sacrifice: Mecca or Minà x x x x
Horns of the ram on the Ka'ba x x
Both mentioned, no preference x x x
* See above n. 23.
Abbreviations:
Muqàtil (d. 150/767)
Mujàhid according to Warqà"s (d. 160/776) version.
Sufyàn (d. 161/777)
ibràhìm’s sacrifice of his son
Al-Farrà" (d. 207/822)

'Abd al-Razzàq (d. 211/827)
Àdam b. Abì Iyyàs (d. 220/835) Additions in his redaction of Tafsìr Mujàhid.
Al-ˇabarì (d. 310/923)
Al-Na˙˙às (d. 338/949)
Al-Samarqandì (d. between 375/983 and 393/1003)
Ibn Jinnì (d. 392/1002)
Al-Màwardì (d. 450/1058)
139
Al-Qushairì (d. 465/1072)

ABRAHAM’S SACRIFICE IN EARLY JEWISH AND
EARLY CHRISTIAN ART
Eddy van den Brink
For almost 40 years any research on Abraham’s Sacrifice has been

facilitated by Speyart’s invaluable article,1 containing a full, after
some checking still rather complete, Catalogue of the Monuments.
Her list of 311 items from the 3rd through the 13th century gives
195 items from Late Antiquity, and another 87 from the Middle
Ages, the 9th through the 12th century. This means that Abraham’s
Sacrifice was frequently painted and sculpted in Late Antiquity, at
least by Christian artists. The list contains only 2 Jewish monuments,
Doura Europos and Beth Alpha; with the discovery of Sepphoris in
1993 the sum total of Jewish monuments, to the best of my knowl-
edge, still amounts to only 3. The image is also very old: Abraham’s
Sacrifice in Doura is the first known Jewish painting (244) and it is
among the earliest of the Christian in San Callisto Catacomb, dat-
ing from shortly after 200. In chronological terms we therefore start
with the Christian artist in San Callisto (see fig. 1).
The image is simple, but very well painted, like most of the cata-
comb painting. To regard it as the pious amateur brushwork of
Christian dilettanti is a 19th century fairy tale. These paintings show
the expert hand of professional, which in the 3rd century means:
pagan painters, with whom Christian believers placed their orders.
Represented here are Abraham and Isaac as orantes, with pray-
ing gesture, the ram, a tree, the wood for the burnt offering, and
perhaps we catch a glimpse of an altar on the left. What we have
here, is an image-sign, like most of the first Christian catacomb paint-
ings. They ‘are not meant to represent events—they only suggest
them’, they ‘imply more than they actually show’, so that their ‘clar-
1
Isabel Speyart van Woerden, ‘The Iconography of the Sacrifice of Abraham’,
Vigiliae Christianae 15 (1961) 214–255. Easily accessible surveys are provided by
Reallexikon Antike und Christentum 1, Stuttgart 1950 (RAC ), 22–27; Reallexikon Byzantinische
Kunst 1, Stuttgart 1966 (RBK ), 11–22; Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie 1, Freiburg
i Br 1968 (LCI), 23–30.
abraham’s sacrifice: early jewish and christian art 141
ity is a function of the training of the viewer’.2 Abraham’s Sacrifice

here, like other examples of this kind: Jonah, Noah, and the Three
Hebrews in the Furnace, all carry the same message of deliverance
in need or from death. Their origin is the commendatio animae, the
Prayer for the Dying that is still in use.3 The images allude to that
prayer: save him, her, me, ‘sicut liberasti Isaac de hostia et de manu
patris suae Abrahae, Amen,4 like You delivered Isaac from the sacrifice
and from the hand of his father.
The particular iconography of this image in San Callisto, Abraham
and Isaac as orantes thanking God for his deliverance, is a hapax.
Later on the representation of the dramatic climax of the story came
into use, as in the Via Latina Catacomb (see fig. 2).5 This example
even contains a narrative extension: a waiting servant with the ass
in the zone below. The upper zone shows Abraham, clad in tunica
and pallium, as a patriarch, not as a shepherd. He holds his sword6
in his raised right hand, turning his head toward the Hand of God
that is hardly visible here in the upper left corner. In front of him
the half-dressed Isaac is kneeled down, his hands tied on his back.7
Left of Abraham is the altar, with a burning fire, determining it
explicitly as a Jewish or pagan altar, not as a Christian altar, which
never has a fire. At a later stage in the iconographic history, see
below, when Abraham’s Sacrifice has assumed other meanings, the
altar is Christianized into a church altar. Left of the altar is the ram,
its head turned to Abraham.
2
André Grabar, Christian Iconography; A Study of its Origins, Princeton NJ (1/1968)
1980, 8, 9.
3
Speyart, o.c., 215; Grabar, o.c., 10; Alfred Stuiber, Refrigerium Interim; Die Vorstellung
vom Zwischenzustand in der frühchristlichen Kunst (= Theophaneia 11), Bonn 1957, 169ff.
4
Th. Klauser, ‘Abraham’ in: RAC, (n. 1) 24.
5
Lieselotte Kötzsche-Breitenbruch, Die neue Katakombe an der Via Latina in Rom;
Untersuchungen zur Ikonographie der alttestamantlichen Wandmalereien (= Jahrbuch Antike und
Christentum, Ergänzungsband 4 ), Münster iW 1976, 61–65.
6
Sword or knife depends on the wording of the quoted text: the Septuagint
reads ‘knife’, the Vulgate has ‘sword’. The Hebrew text is irrelevant for the Christian
iconography, because it left no traces there. This does not mean that Rome and
the West always show a sword: the early Church was predominantly Greek, even
in Rome.
7
In Christian iconography the normal position of Isaac. On the symposion it
was pointed out to me, that Isaac’s tied hands in Beth Alpha (see below) are very
peculiar in the Jewish tradition, going back on a rare and rather late text.
142 e. van den brink
This is the normal and with some variations frequently found8

type of Abraham’s Sacrifice in the catacombs. It carried its first
Christian meaning, deliverance from need and death, well into the
5th century. Variants with Isaac carrying the wood may point to a
second meaning of the image to be considered below.
Roughly contemporaneous with San Callisto, but of a slightly later
date, is the Jewish image in the synagogue of Doura Europos from
2449 (see fig. 3). Here Abraham’s Sacrifice is painted on the most
prominent place, the front of the Tora-shrine, where it was left when
the rest of the walls were repainted. The Sacrifice is portrayed on
the right side in an obvious Temple context: in the middle the
Temple façade resembling the picture on coins of Bar Kochba10 and
to the left a huge menora with lulav and ethrog.
The dramatic climax is depicted: Abraham raises his knife. He is
seen from the back, a most unusual position in early painting. Does
it express his priestly service in front of the people, or is it due to
a Jewish reluctance at a too realistic human image? Isaac is on the
altar, a position never shown in the catacombs, and rarely on the
later sarcophagi. Above him the Hand of God is pointing at the sac-
rifice, or preventing Abraham from accomplishing it.
In the upper right corner is a building or tent with a human
figure, which also may be seen from the back. This detail provoked
the wildest speculations, the finest and least probable being Sara in
the door of her tent.11 We will come back to this tent below.
The lower part of the picture shows the ram close to a tree.
Before discussing the meaning of Abraham’s Sacrifice here, we
will first take a look at the second well-known Jewish picture, the
floor mosaic of the synagogue of Beth Alpha (see fig. 4), dated some-
where around 525,12 which is 300 years later than Doura.
Above in the center is the Hand of God pointing towards Abraham,
the tallest figure on the picture, who holds the knife in his right
8
Speyart, o.c., 245f. lists over 20, not counting Via Latina, published after her
listing in 1960.
9
Speyart, o.c., 221, following C.H. Kraeling, Final Report of the Excavation at Dura-
Europos, I, The Synagogue, New Haven 1956.
10
Kraeling, o.c., 59.
11
Gerard F. Hali, Doura Europos, Synagoge (2), Interpretatie 5 (1997) 5, 25, refer-
ring to E.R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, 9, 11, 12, New
York 1964.
12
Rachel Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of Israel, Leiden
etc. 1988, 396.
hand and Isaac, with his hands tied behind his back, in his left. He
is about to throw Isaac into the burning fire on the altar, the dra-
matic climax of the scene, or possibly taking him away from it after
God’s intervention. On the left stand the two servants with the ass,
cut by the left frame. This detail clearly demonstrates the (Greek)
reading direction from left to right, in spite of the Hebrew inscrip-
tions in it.
Between the lads and Abraham is the ram, tethered to the tree
by a rope. This detail has provoked discussion about the meaning
of the whole scene, but the peculiar fact is that it was discussed
about Doura, where there is no rope between the ram and the tree.
Stuiber sees it in Doura as well as in Beth Alpha and therefore
speaks of ‘eine starke Tradition’,13 which is relevant because it devi-
ates from the written text that tells the ram was ‘caught in a thicket
by his horns’. This deviation enhances the explanation of the pic-
ture by a Jewish story, of which the earliest written text dates only
from the beginning of the 13th century, a thousand years after Doura!
The ram was created on the eve14 of the 6th day and waited in the
Garden of Eden for the occasion to be slaughtered instead of Isaac.
Thus the meaning of Abraham’s Sacrifice is the paradigm of God’s
intervention by His Providence on behalf of those who have faith
in Him. In her explanation of Doura, the almost impeccable Speyart
does not doubt the (non-existent!) rope, but rejects the high-flown
explanation of it.15 Introducing an attractive but too young story can
be dismissed by simply pointing out that the Hellenized Jews of 6th-
century Beth Alpha read the picture from left to right, in doing so
proving to be more familiar with Greek than with Hebrew. The
Septuagint reads katexÒmenow, ‘caught by’ as well as ‘bound to’.
Several other less convincing explanations of the pictures of Doura
and Beth Alpha have been offered in the literature.
Kraeling, the excavator of Doura, maintains that it refers to a the
actual temple of Jerusalem, and b the reconciliation with God and
obedience to his will, by which man is assured of God’s magna-
nimity.16 Stemberger, after relating more or less all the theological
concepts concerning God’s relationship his people, formulates ‘wie
13
Stuiber, o.c., 178.
14
More probable than Stuiber’s ‘am Abend des 6. Schöpfungstages’ o.c., 179.
15
Speyart, o.c., 235f.
16
Kraeling, o.c., 54–62; Speyart, o.c., 235 follows Kraeling at this point.
auch immer, die Opferung Isaaks ist auf jeden Fall als heilswirkende
Szene verstanden, die dem Kult im Tempel Sinn gibt, Israel Sühne
schafft und ihm den Zutritt zur himmlischen Welt erlaubt’.17 Hachlili
explains in only one single very typical phrase that ‘in Judaism, how-
ever, the sacrifice is a symbol of life and of belief in God’s grace,
“an example of divine help as well as confirmation of God’s covenant
with Israel”’.18 Her phrasing betrays the fundamental error of all
these explanations, explaining the text, not the picture. Such lines
of reasoning fail to appreciate the fact that pictures never coincide
with texts: they add, subtract, explain, distort or even deny; never
are they so gratuitous as just to correspond.
I prefer therefore Schubert’s explanations, who combines careful
iconographical analysis with texts on the function of synagogues as
holy ground,19 and I reinforce his argument with due consideration,
alongside the iconography, of the function of the images, as modern
art-historical research should do. The context or the localisation of
the image often discloses function.
After ‘the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70, the Presence
of God had not departed from Israel’,20 it was transferred to the
synagogue, that was therefore considered as agiow topow or sacra sina-
goga. Not only in Doura, where it is painted on the front, but also
in Beth Alpha, where Abraham’s Sacrifice is the third picture after
the Ark with the Temple furniture and the Zodiac on a floor strip
leading to the Tora-shrine. Both here and on the floor of Sepphoris21
it accentuates the shrine as the climax of the synagogue. Its context
is full of allusions to Sukkoth, the Feast of Tabernacles: the Temple
front in Doura, the tent in Doura, lulav and ethrog in Doura and
Beth Alpha, the menorot flanking the Ark, seen through the opened
curtains in Beth Alpha, they all celebrate Sukkoth and the Temple.
The feast was the occasion of an annual pilgrimage to the Temple,
and after 70 the reminder of it.22 Abraham’s Sacrifice in this con-
text explains itself, at least for anyone familiar with the Jewish
identification of Mount Moriah with the Mount of the Temple (2
17
Günter Stemberger, ‘Biblische Darstellungen auf Mosaikfußböden spätantiker
Synagogen’, Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie 13 (1998) 153f.
18
Hachlili, o.c., 292, quoting M. Shapiro, Israel Ancient Mosaics, Unesco 1960.
19
Heinz Schreckenberg & Kurt Schubert, Jewish Historiography and Iconography in
Early and Medieval Christianity, Assen 1992, 161–170.
20
Schubert, o.c., 163.
21
Stemberger, o.c., 154ff.
22
Hachlili, o.c., 18, 262, 267.
Chr 3:1): it denotes this place, the Tora-shrine of Doura and of Beth
Alpha as a holy place, as the Temple itself, where the Sacrifice was,
is and ever shall be made.
A few remarks concerning the relationship of Jewish and Christian
iconography seem useful here. We know of three Jewish monuments
depicting Abraham’s Sacrifice that cover a period of 300 years, which
leads one to suspect that there was a Jewish tradition, but gives too
little information to know how that tradition was, or whether the
Christians knew it. The few coincidences of Jewish and Christian
iconography are better explained in the light of their common basis,
the biblical text, than by postulating influences, which by the way,
considering the period from 200 till 550, might have worked both
ways if at all.
Research on this question, as on possible relationships of Jewish
and Christian art in general, is corrupted by the ban on images from
the Second Commandment. To the present day the most frequently
asked question on Doura is: how come the Doura synagogue and
the Doura house-church were contemporaries in circumventing the
Jewish and Christian ban on images. Now, there never are good
answers to bad questions and there never has been a Christian ban
on images. It is a chimera, invented by Byzantine iconoclasts in the
8th century, based on bad reading of the Patres, that has been haunt-
ing church history and art history ever since. The history of that
chimera is a fascinating (and humiliating) piece of historiographic
history.23
We do not know, and probably never will, if there was any Jewish-
Christian interaction with regard to Abraham’s Sacrifice; we know
too much to ignore the possibility, but too little to be sure.
Back to the Christian monuments. We look at the Podgoritza pat-

era, a 4th century glass drinking disk (see fig. 5). At the center is
Abraham’s Sacrifice, its meaning being proved by its context: on its
edge we see (clockwise) Jonah, Adam and Eve, Lazarus, Moses strik-
ing the rock, Daniel, three Hebrews in the furnace, and Susanna,
all salvation images.
With Constantine and the establishment of the church Abraham’s
Sacrifice appears in a totally different context on the so-called pas-
23
Eddy van den Brink, Van Romeins tot Romaans; Kunstgeschiedenis van Europa van
200 tot 1200, Zoetermeer 2000, 23–26; cf. P.C. Finney, The Invisible God; The Earliest
Christians on Art, New York/Oxford 1994, 3–68.
sion sarcophagi (see fig. 6) from 325 on. In actual parlance they
might have better been called paschal sarcophagi, because not pas-
sion in the sense of suffering and death is at stake here, but partic-
ularly victory over death. This two-zone sarcophagus is crammed
with miracles, Christ’s triumphs.24 In the corners on both sides of
the central shell containing portraits of the deceased and his wife
we see the Hand of God, on the left giving the law to Moses, on
the right intervening in Abraham’s Sacrifice.
Abraham, dressed here as a shepherd in exomis and mid-length
boots, raises the sword in his right hand, with his left holding the
kneeling Isaac by his hair, in front of a non-Christian altar with a
fire. The ram appears from behind Abraham, who is withheld by
two persons (the left’s head has been broken off ). They are angels:
for a long time the church did not know how to represent them;
later on angels are always depicted with wings. In comparison with
the catacomb pictures the iconography of the scene has not changed,
but the meaning has. The old idea of salvation from need and death
does not fit in this triumphal context. Here a typological meaning
must be assumed: Abraham’s Sacrifice prefigures the Crucifixion,
‘der Kontekst gibt hier die Sicherheit’.25
For at least 150 years earlier the crucifixion had already become
the standard exegesis of Abraham’s Sacrifice by the Patres.26 From
the theological sphere it entered the church and thus became under-
standable for the normal believer by way of the liturgy: ‘Genesis
XXII was among the lessons from the Old Testament read during
the Easter Vigil’27 and Genesis was read during Lent to the cate-
chumens seeking baptism at Easter. In Milan the 2nd Sunday of
Lent was called Dominica de Abraham.28
24
From the upper left on we read: raising of Lazarus, warning to Peter, heal-
ing of a blind person, (skipping the centre) raising of a dead person, arrest of Christ,
(below:) Peter’s water-miracle, arrest of Peter, Kana, healing, Daniel, multiplication
of bread, benediction of bread and fish (prefiguring the Eucharist) and a healing.
25
Sabine Schrenk, Typos und Antitypos in der frühchristlichen Kunst (= Jahrb Antike u
Christentum, Ergbd 21), Münster iW 1995, 35–47, esp. 43.
26
Klauser, o.c., 26; E. Stommel, Beiträge zur Ikonographie der konstantinischen Sarko-
phagplastik (= Theophaneia 10), Bonn 1954, 69f.; Stuiber, o.c., 181f.; Speyart, o.c.,
215ff., 239f.; E. Lucchesi Palli, ‘Abraham’, in: LCI (cf. n. 1), 28; the most encom-
passing compilation of texts from the beginning through the 12th century in: Rudolf
Suntrup, Präfigurationen des Meßopfers in Text und Bild, Frühmittelalterliche Studien,
18 (1984) 468–528, with abundant secondary literature.
27
Speyart, o.c., 219.
28
Klauser, o.c., 22f.
Origen’s Homily on Abraham’s Sacrifice reads like a description

of the picture:
And Abraham (—says the Scripture—) took the wood of the burnt
offering, and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took in his hand the fire
and the knife.
That Isaac himself carried the wood is an example that also Christ
himself carried his cross and because wood carrying is a priestly ser-
vice. So he [Isaac] is Sacrifice and Priest.
When there is written “So they went both together” that means,
that Abraham as a priest carries fire and knife, Isaac goes not behind
him, but together with him, to show that he equally performed a
priestly service . . .
[On Isaac’s question Abraham answers:]
“God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son”.
He answered his son for the future, even though Isaac asked for
the present. For God will provide himself a lamb in Christ.
And Abraham lifted up his eyes (—says the Scripture—) and looked,
and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns.
Whereas we just said Isaac to be the type of Christ, here this ram
as well seems to be a type of Christ. It is worthwhile to consider how
both examples fit to Christ, Isaac who was not killed, and the ram
that was slaughtered:
Christ is the Word of God, but the Word became flesh. So one
thing in Christ is from above, one thing from human nature, taken
from the Virgin’s womb.
So Christ suffers, but in the flesh; he suffered death but in the flesh,
of which the ram is the visible image, as St John says:
“Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world”.
The Word on the other hand, remained in incorruptibility, namely
Christ according to his spirit, of whom Isaac is the image. That is
why he is Sacrifice and Priest at the same time.
According to his spirit He brings the sacrifice to His Father, accord-
ing to his flesh He is sacrificed on the altar of his cross. For just as
is said of Him: “Behold the Lamb of God”, so also it is witnessed of
Him: “Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedech”.29
Many sarcophagi show Abraham’s Sacrifice,30 and where a context
is visible, the usual meaning is the crucifixion. The crucifixion itself,
very exceptional indeed in Early Christian art, at first sight is totally
lacking on sarcophagi. Therefore the contention that Abraham’s
29
Origenes, In Gen Homiliae, 8, in: Migne, PG 12, 203–240; Stommel, o.c., 70;
handmade translation of Stommel’s German; Latin text in: Speyart, o.c., 218f.
30
Speyart, o.c., 243ff., counts 93, 47 alone in Rome.
Sacrifice not only prefigured, but in fact substituted the absent

crucifixion has a long tradition, dating back to the 17th century.31
In some cases the contention seems rather plausible (see fig. 7): the
so-called Brethren sarcophagus shows on the right of the Sacrifice,
with Abraham in tunica and pallium as patriarch, a double portrait
of Pilate, ready to wash his hands, and pensively meditating the
intervention of his wife. Adherents of the substitution-thesis32 always
refer at least to this example, because in this scene Christ is needed,
but seems absent. But taking into acccount the overwhelming pres-
ence of Christ in the accompanying triumphal miracles, even here,
he cannot be said to be really absent. Recently Schrenk dismissed
the substitution-thesis in particularly pointing out, that not even the
crucifixion is lacking on the sarcophagi: they often have the tri-
umphal cross referting to the crucifixion.33 This was adequate in the
early church, that even in portraying the crucifixion, if at all, always
pictured Christ’s triumph over death, never his suffering.
Dismissing the substitution in the meantime there is no reason to
dismiss Stommel’s tempting argument as to why Abraham’s Sacrifice
is so adequate to represent the crucifixion. The crucifixion repre-
sents the crucifixion, nothing more, nothing less. Abraham’s Sacrifice,
on the other hand, represents the biblical and theological exegesis
of it: in one and the same image it shows the Father sacrificing his
Son, the Son voluntarily carrying the wood and being sacrificed, sal-
vation from death (Isaac typos) and salvation by and over death
(Christ antitypos), the ram, mute, being slaughtered in someone else’s
place, and God’s Hand, watching over it, bringing salvation to all
mankind.34 Gregory of Nazianzus could not look at the image of
Abraham’s Sacrifice without being moved to tears.35
When Abraham’s Sacrifice so thoroughly prefigures the crucifixion,

it is adequate to carry a further transfiguration of the crucifixion in
the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass. In the monuments this was
already done in 400. The best-known and most beautiful picture is
in the mosaic decoration of San Vitale in Ravenna (see fig. 8). On
31
Schrenk, o.c., 37.
32
Like Stommel, o.c., 70; recently Marcus Mrass, ‘Kreuzigung Christi’, in: RBK
(n. 1), 291f.
33
Schrenk, o.c., 37–47.
34
Stommel, o.c., 73.
35
Klaus Wessel, ‘Bild’, in: RBK (n. 1), 644.
the north wall of the sanctuary, together with Abraham’s philoxe-

nia, is the Sacrifice. Isaac kneels on a clearly Christian altar, exactly
over the real altar in the church. The iconography of the altar as
well as its localisation demonstrates its meaning and its function: to
draw attention to the Eucharistic renewal of Christ’s death and res-
urrection in every Mass on the church’s altar. This is driven home
to every viewer by the mosaic of the south wall, where Abel and
Melchizedek bring their offerings to an altar that still more explic-
itly represents the Altar of San Vitale itself: draped white over pur-
ple, with a huge chalice and two patens on it.
That the Eucharist is prefigured here is hardly controversial36 in
the literature.37 San Vitale’s three sacrificers were brought together
in the Supra quae passage of the eucharistic prayer in the canon of
the Mass, where God’s acceptance is implored of our offering, like
that ‘pueri tui iusti Abel, et . . . patriarchae nostri Abrahae’, as well
as that brought by ‘summus sacerdos tuus Melchisedech’. The pas-
sage is one of the oldest in the canon, said in Rome already around
40038 and read to the present day, also in the vernacular versions
of the Roman canon.
The three were brought together again 125 years later in Ravenna,
in a single mosaic in the sanctuary of Sant’Apollinare in Classe (see
fig. 9). Here the meaning of the image is still more exclusively concen-
trated on the prefiguration of the actual Christian Mass: Melchizedek
the high priest stands hierarchically central, with a bread-breaking
gesture, behind the clearly Christian altar with chalice and patens.
Abel with his lamb approaches the altar from the left, and Abraham
and Isaac from the right. The Mass is focused in such a way, that
Abraham’s Sacrifice loses all previous iconographic characteristics
here: Abraham meekly conducts Isaac towards a Christian altar. This
eucharistic iconography remains a hapax in the whole history of
Abraham’s Sacrifice, its date (675) and its form, completely flat, bare
of any illusionist depth, has crossed the threshold to the Middle Ages.
36
F.W. Deichmann, Ravenna, Hauptstadt des spätantiken Abendlandes, II Kommentar, 2,
Wiesbaden 1976, 157, 273, is the most important to deny it.
37
Speyart, o.c., 241; Victor Elbern, Über die Illustration des Messkanons im
frühen Mittelalter, in: Miscellanea pro Arte, Festschrift H. Schnitzler, Düsseldorf 1965,
60–68; Suntrup, o.c., 523; Schrenk, o.c., 58–60; Josef Engemann, Deutung und
Bedeutung frühchristlicher Bildwerke, Darmstadt 1997, 141f.
38
J.A. Jungmann S.J., Missarum Sollemnia I, Kasterlee 1966, 68.
The striking fact remains that some correspondence appears between

the Jewish and the last Christian meaning of the image, without any
conceivable influence of one on the other. It denoted the holy place
of the Tora-shrine on one side, the holy place of the altar on the
other.
This third Christian meaning, referring to the Eucharist, turns out
to be definitive in the church and was carried into the Middle Ages
to the outskirts of the former Roman Empire. It can be seen from
Visigothic Spain in the west to Palestine Sinai in the east, always
close to the altar. It is painted (650) on a column next to the altar
in St Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, sculptured (650) on a capital
over the altar of San Pedro de la Nave near Zamora (see fig. 10).
All three, Abel, Abraham’s Sacrifice and Melchizedek are still
together on the front page of a 10th-century sacramentale from
Fulda,39 incorporating that same meaning.
Singular, merely historical, is its meaning in Beatus’ Commentaries
on the Apocalypse. Most of its 26 illuminated Spanish manuscripts
from the 10th and 11th centuries are preceded by genealogical tables,
illustrating the eras of world history from Adam to Noah, from Noah
to Abraham, from Abraham to David and so on. The leaf with the
table from Abraham on gives a tiny emblem with Abraham’s Sacrifice
illustrating his name.40
But not much of the Sacrifice can be seen in these centuries. It
reappeared abundantly in the 12th century, fond of prefigurations
and highly ingenious in inventing new ones. And it was there to stay
during the high and later Middle Ages and after. Meanwhile the
original meaning of salvation was long forgotten, while the crucifixion
and the Eucharist came to new popularity.
It was introduced in Maastricht in the Netherlands as late as 1180
where it can be seen on a capital over the altar of Our Lady’s,
Abraham’s Sacrifice on one side, the sacrifice of the ram on the
other.41
Engraved on the huge gold Klosterneuburg Altar, finished around
the same time by Nicolas of Verdun, is a row of images of Christ’s
life from the Annunciation to the Last Judgement. The upper row
39
Göttingen, theol 231, f. 1v.
40
New York, Pierpont Library, M 644, f. 6.
41
A.F.W. Bosman, De Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk te Maastricht; Bouwgeschiedenis en histo-
rische betekenis van de oostpartij, Zutphen 1990, 72–75.
has prefigurations ante legem, before the Law, and there Abraham’s
Sacrifice stands for the crucifixion. The bottom row with prefigurations
sub lege, under the Law, ingeniously engraved Botrus in Vecte for it:
the bunch on the stick, the grapes carried back by the spies from
the Promised Land.42 Here the meaning of the crucifixion is com-
bined with the Eucharist.
42
Helmut Buschhausen, Der Verduner Altar; Das Emailwerk des Nikolaus von Verdun
im Stift Klosterneuburg, Vienna 1980, 52, pl. 25–27.
THREE ITALIAN SACRIFICES: LORENZO GHIBERTI,
ANDREA DEL SARTO, MICHELANGELO MERISI
DA CARAVAGGIO
Jan L. De Jong
The biblical episode of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac was a cur-
rent theme in Italian art from c. 1400 to 1600. It certainly was not
a ‘new’ subject, for it already occurred in the arts of the fourth cen-
tury, for example on the sarcophagus of a Roman prefect called
Junius Bassus, who died on July 25, 359 (see ill. 1).1 This sarcoph-
agus shows on its front side two horizontal rows of scenes, illustrat-
ing biblical episodes chosen mainly from the New Testament. The
scene showing Abraham’s Sacrifice is situated in the upper row on the
left corner. On the right corner of the same row is a scene which
is its pendant, not only because of its position, but also with respect
to its content. It shows Jesus before Pontius Pilate and this suggests a
link between Isaac (almost) being sacrificed and Jesus being sacrificed.
In the following centuries, this ‘parallel’ was elaborated. Two wood-
cut illustrations from a Biblia pauperum from c. 1460 show that not
only the The sacrifice of Isaac had come to be seen as a type or pre-
figuration of the crucifixion of Christ, but also that this parallel had
been elaborated in great detail.2 Isaac carrying the wood for the
altar was paralleled to Christ carrying his cross (see ill. 2), while
Isaac being sacrificed was made to correspond to Christ being crucified
(see ill. 3).
This extremely short survey of representations of Abraham Sacrificing
Isaac illustrates that this scene was generally seen as a prefiguration
of the Crucifixion, and its usual context underscored this point of
view. In the period after 1400, however, the theme often appeared
1
Now in the Vatican Museum in Rome.
2
The woodcuts illustrated here, from the Biblia pauperum blockbook which is now
in Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek, date from c. 1460, but they continue a
tradition going back to the 14th or 13th century. See A. Henry, ‘The Iconography
of the Forty-page Blockbook Biblia pauperum: Form and Meaning’, in: S. Mertens
& C. Schneider (eds.), Blockbücher des Mittelalters: Bilderfolgen als Lektüre (Exh. cat.
Mainz, Gutenberg-Museum 1991), Mainz 1991, 263–288, esp. 266.
three italian sacrifices: ghiberti , sarto, caravaggio 153
as an independent scene which did not belong to a series or even

to a specifically religious context. This raises the question: how should
we interpret the scene of Abraham Sacrificing Isaac in the arts of the
Renaissance? Was it still predominantly considered as a prefiguration
of the Crucifixion, or did it acquire a new meaning? In order to
give a general answer to this question, I will not give an exhaustive
survey of representations of the theme, but focus on three well known
works of arts from the period between c. 1400 and 1600, which
were all made in Italy. In each case I will study the specific con-
text and circumstances in which they originated, as an aid to recon-
struct their original meaning.
1401: Lorenzo Ghiberti
In 1401 the Operai del Duomo of Florence decided to provide the

North portal of the city’s baptistery with bronze doors decorated
with biblical scenes in relief. These doors would have to match those
on the South portal, which had been made by Andrea Pisano around
1330–1336. In order to get the best artist to execute these reliefs,
Operai del Duomo organized a competition, inviting artists to design a
quatrefoil scene of c. 50 × 50 cm., showing Abraham Sacrificing Isaac.
One of the reasons to chose this topic was that the reliefs on the
doors were to show scenes from the Old Testament, as a counter-
part to the scenes from the New Testament on the doors of the
South portal. In 1550 the Italian artist and biographer Giorgio Vasari
wrote that ‘. . . for the subject [the Consuls of the Guild ] chose the
story of Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, wherein they thought that
the said masters should be able to show their powers with regard
to the difficulties of their art, seeing that this story contained land-
scapes, figures both nude and clothed, and animals, while the fore-
most figures could be made in full-relief, the second in half-relief,
and the third in low-relief. [. . .]’3 In 1956 the art historian Richard
Krautheimer suggested that this subject was (also) chosen because it
‘was the outstanding typological prefiguration of the Crucifixion and
3
Giorgio Vasari, ‘Vita di Lorenzo Ghiberti’, in Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scul-
tori et architettori, Florence 1550 and, revised and extended by Vasari himself, Florence
1568; the quotations are after the translation of the 1568 edition by Gaston du
C. de Vere & D. Ekserdjian, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, London 1996,
I, 291–293.
154 j.l. de jong
as such formed throughout the Middle Ages part and parcel of all
large Old Testament cycles.’4
Six artists sent in a design, of which two were selected for the
final choice: those by Lorenzo Ghiberti and by Filippo Brunelleschi.5
(see ill.’s 4 and 5). Although the four other designs have not been
preserved, the similarities between the reliefs by Ghiberti and Brunel-
leschi suggest that there were specific reasons to select these two
works of art. According to Richard Krautheimer in 1956, ‘. . . it can
hardly be by chance that the competition reliefs of both Brunelleschi
and Ghiberti contain the same number of figures and exceed the
limits of the Sacrifice proper. Alongside the traditional elements of
the subject—Abraham, Isaac, the angel appearing from heaven, the
ram and the thicket—there are two servants at the foot of the rock
and an ass drinking from the fountain. [. . .] The combination is not
traditional. As a rule, the Sacrifice and the waiting servants form
two different scenes, as, indeed, they are described in Genesis 22.
Very rarely are the two scenes fused into one.’6 Given these simi-
larities, the choice between the one and the other must indeed have
been difficult. It was Ghiberti who won, and it is interesting to recon-
struct the criteria which were used to come to this decision. Did
Ghiberti’s rendering of the subject better express ‘the typological
prefiguration of the Crucifixion’, as suggested by Krautheimer, or
was it considered to better meet with the aesthetic criteria of the
commission, as intimated by Giorgio Vasari?
According to Ghiberti’s own memory of the event, as he recorded
it in his Commentarii from around 1450, everyone—also the real art
connoisseurs—agreed that his work outdid the others.7 Unfortunately
4
R. Krautheimer, Lorenzo Ghiberti (Princeton NJ ) 19823, 38.
5
According to Ghiberti’s Commentarii from ca. 1450, repeated by Vasari in 1550
(Vita di Lorenzo Ghiberti), there were six competitors (Lorenzo Ghiberti: I com-
mentarii (Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, II, I, 333), ed. L. Bartoli, Florence
1998, 93): Filippo Brunelleschi, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Jacopo della Quercia, Niccolò
Aretino, Francesco di Valdambrino and Simone de’Bronzi. Their designs have all
been lost, except those of Ghiberti and Brunelleschi, which are now in the Museo
del Bargello in Florence.
6
R. Krautheimer, Ghiberti, 39–40.
7
Commentarii, 93: ‘Mi fu conceduta la palma della victoria da tutti i periti e da
tutti quelli si provorono mecho. Universalmente mi fu conceduta la gloria sanza
alcuna exceptione. A tutti parve avessi passato gl’altri in quelle tempo, sanza veruna
exceptione, con grandissimo consiglio et examinatione d’uomini dotti. Vollono gli
operai di detto governo el giudicio loro scritto di loro mano. Furono huomini molto
periti, tra pictori e scultori, d’oro e d’argento e di marmo. I giudicatori furono 34,
Ghiberti did not go into details, but Vasari’s account may offer some
clarification: ‘Only that scene which Lorenzo [Ghiberti] made as a
specimen—according to Vasari—[. . .] was in every part wholly per-
fect. The whole work had design, and was very well composed. The
figures had so graceful a manner, being made with grace and with
very beautiful attitudes, and the whole was finished with so great
diligence, that it appeared not made by casting and polished with
tools of iron, but blown with the breath.’8 Vasari’s criteria match
very well with the recommendations that Ghiberti’s contemporary
Leon Battista Alberti gave in his treatise On Painting from 1435/1436.
It is true that this text does not relate to sculpture, but many of
Alberti’s instructions regard the making of a storia (that is: how to
tell a story with visual means), and are therefore applicable to both
painting and relief sculpture as well. In the introduction of his trea-
tise Alberti mentioned a few contemporary artists, of whom only one
was a painter: Masaccio. The other artists he mentioned were all
sculptors, and one of them was Ghiberti.9 This probably indicates,
that (relief ) sculpture was an important source of inspiration for
Alberti, and that he derived his recommendations from examples in
relief sculpture rather than from actual paintings.10 In fact, some of
Alberti’s suggestions come very close to particulars of Ghiberti’s
Abraham-scene. According to Alberti, a good storia comprises: varia-
tion, emotions, and propriety. As for variation, Alberti considers it
the most important aspect to make a picture attractive. A good sto-
ria should contain, for instance,
tra della città e delle altre terre cincunstanti: da tutti fu dato in mio favore la
soscriptione della victoria, e consoli et operai e tutto il corpo dell’arte mercatoria
la quale à in governo il tempio di sancto Giovanni Battista.’
8
G. Vasari, ‘Vita di Lorenzo Ghiberti’, in De Vere & Ekserdjian, I, 291–293.
9
On painting, translated by C. Grayson, with an introduction and notes by
M. Kemp, Harmondsworth 1991 (Penguin Books), 34: ‘But after I came back here to
this most beautiful of cities [i.e.: Florence], from the long exile in which we Albertis
have grown old, I recognized in many, but above all in you, Flippo [Brunelleschi],
and in our great friend the sculptor Donatello and in the others, Nencio [Lorenzo
Ghiberti], Luca [della Robbia] and Masaccio, a genius for every laudable enter-
prise in no way inferior to any of the ancients who gained fame in these arts.’ It
should be noted that in 1436, when Alberti wrote the introduction to the Italian
version of his treatise, Masaccio had already been dead for almost ten years.
10
Other ‘examples’ were paintings from classical Antiquity, which Alberti had
never seen but which he knew through ekphrases and descriptions as for instance
Pliny’s Natural History, Quintilian’s Institutiones oratoriae, Lucian’s De Calumnia (in the
recent translation by Guarino da Verona), and many others.
156 j.l. de jong
a properly arranged mixture of old men, youths, boys, matrons, maid-

ens, children, domestic animals, dogs, birds, horses, sheep, buildings
and provinces [. . .] Though variety is pleasing in any storia, a picture
in which the attitudes and movements of the bodies differ very much
among themselves, is most pleasing of all. So let there be some visi-
ble full-face, with their hands turned upwards and fingers raised, and
resting on one foot; others should have their faces turned away, their
arms by their sides, and feet together, and each one of them should
have his own particular flexions and movements. Others should be
seated, or resting on bended knee, or almost lying down. If suitable,
let some be naked, and let others stand around, who are half-way
between the two, part clothed and part naked. But let us always observe
decency and modesty.11
Variation also comprises ‘to paint well, as far as our talent allows,
not only the human figure but also the horse, the dog and other
living creatures, and every other object worthy to be seen.’12 It does
not need an extensive description to see that Ghiberti’s relief matches
many of these recommendations perfectly.
Ghiberti’s relief also contains renderings of emotions, according to
Alberti’s advice:
A storia will move the spectators when the men painted in the picture
outwardly demonstrate their own feelings as clearly as possible. Nature
provides [. . .] that we mourn with the mourners, laugh with those
who laugh, and grieve with the grief-stricken. Yet these feelings are
known from movements of the body.13
In fact, the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac is an ideal pretext for
depicting various kinds of emotions such as fear and grief, and it
comes very close to Alberti’s example par excellence of depicting emo-
tions, Timanthes’ painting of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. This paint-
ing from the fourth century BC was long since lost, but Alberti knew
it through the extensive description in Pliny’s Natural History, which
he quoted almost in full.14
11
On painting, II, 40 (trans. Grayson, 75–76).
12
On painting, III, 60 (trans. Grayson, 93).
13
On painting, II, 41 (trans. Grayson, 76).
14
On painting, II, 42 (trans. Grayson, 78): ‘They praise Timanthes of Cyprus for
the painting in which he surpassed Colotes, because, when he had made Calchas
sad and Ulysses even sadder at the sacrifice of Iphigenia, and employed all his art
and skill on the grief-strucken Menelaus, he could find no suitable way to repre-
sent the expression of her disconsolate father; so he covered his head with a veil.
and thus left more for the onlooker to imagine about his grief than he could see
Both Ghiberti’s own account and Vasari’s later rendering of the

competition and the first prize awarded to Ghiberti’s relief, plus the
criteria for assessing a ‘good’ storia by a (near) contemporary like
Leon Battista Alberti, indicate that Ghiberti’s work—and that of his
competitors also—was judged according to aesthetic criteria, more
than on the basis of considerations about expressing a religious or
didactic message. In other words, Krautheimer’s suggestion that the
theme of Abraham Sacrificing Isaac was (also) chosen because it ‘was
the outstanding typological prefiguration of the Crucifixion’ is not
confirmed by contemporary sources.15 Ghiberti’s relief does not seem
to have been considered from that point of view. The theme was
rather chosen for its potential to include details creating variety and
to show persons in various, contrasting states of emotion. In order
to find further confirmation of this finding in the time period of the
Italian Renaissance, we will turn to two more representations of
Abraham Sacrificing Isaac.
Before doing so, however, a few words should be said about the
considerations that led to the decision to award the first prize in the
contest to Ghiberti and not to Brunelleschi, for many qualifications
just mentioned, including important ones such as variety and emo-
tions are applicable to both reliefs. In fact, the decision does not
seem to have been easy.16 From the aesthetic point of view, the jury
members may have found Ghiberti’s more conventional and ‘fluent’
style more attractive than Brunelleschi’s ‘daring and aggressive’ (these
words are Krautheimer’s) approach.17 They may have noticed that
Ghiberti had adapted his composition better to the difficult shape
of the quatrefoil, and had created a spatially more interesting scene
with the eye.’ (ed. Grayson, Alberti’s source for this story is Quintilian’s, Institutiones
oratoriae II, 13, 13; the same story is told by Cicero, Orator XXII, 74, and by Pliny,
Naturalis Historia XXXV, 73.
15
See also the interesting remarks by C. Gilbert, ‘The Smallest Problem in
Florentine Iconography’, in: S. Bertelli, G. Ramakus & C.H. Smyth, Essays Presented
to Myron P. Gilmore, vol. 2 (Florence 1978), 193–205, esp. 196.
16
Cfr. Krautheimer, Ghiberti, 42–43.
17
Krautheimer, Ghiberti, 44–45, and 49: ‘[Ghiberti’s relief ] lacks the freshness
and vehemence of Brunelleschi’s relief; it shows none of the love of experiment or
the rebellious violence which made Brunelleschi’s piece both awkward and intrigu-
ing. Yet the very absence of rebellious elements in Ghiberti’s relief may have been
one of its great virtues in the eyes of the jury. The perfect ease of the design, the
convincing yet forceful quiet of the composition and narrative and, last but not
least, its infinitely superior technical perfection were decisive, one would suppose,
in obtaining the much coveted award for the young goldsmith Ghiberti.’
158 j.l. de jong
by—amongst other things—making the angel not fly parallel to the

picture plane, but by making him (assuming that angels are male)
diagonally soar in from the background. Moreover, apart from all
considerations of aesthetics, through his superior craftsmanship,
Ghiberti was able to cast his relief in almost one piece (only the
figure of Isaac had to be mounted on it separately), which made the
costs of his work considerably lower than those of Brunelleschi’s
work.18
1529: Andrea del Sarto
Giorgio Vasari, who also described the life of Lorenzo Ghiberti,

wrote in the biography of his older contemporary and fellow towns-
man Andrea del Sarto (1486–1530) about the year 1529:
About the same time Giovan Battista della Palla, having bought all
the sculptures and pictures of note that he could obtain, and causing
copies to be made of those he could not buy, had despoiled Florence
of a vast number of choice works, without the least scruple, in order
to furnish a suite of rooms for the King of France, which was to be
richer in suchlike ornaments [p. 850] than any other in the world.
And this man, desiring that Andrea [del Sarto] should return to the
service and favour of the king, commissioned him to paint two pic-
tures. In one of these Andrea painted Abraham in the act of trying
to sacrifice his son; and that with such diligence, that it was judged
that up to that time he had never done anything better.19
This description is interesting because, first of all, it mentions the
theme of Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, in a context of competitive artistic
accomplishments. Pushing the painter to show the best he could,
Andrea della Palla made him paint the same subject that more than
one hundred years before the Operai of Florence had selected for the
competition relief. King Francis I of France, moreover, may have
been very receptive to this kind of artistic tour de force. The Florentine
painter Rosso Fiorentino also managed to obtain a position at the
18
Krautheimer, Ghiberti, 45–47.
19
G. Vasari, ‘Vita di Andrea del Sarto’, in De Vere & Ekserdjian, I, 849. The
other painting that Sarto made for the kimg was a woman with three children
personifying Caritas. This picture is now in the Kress Collection in the National
Gallery, in Washington D.C.; see J. Shearman, Andrea del Sarto, London 1965, II,
278 (cat. 91), and S.J. Freedberg, Andrea del Sarto, Cambridge (Mass.) 1963, II,
165–166 (cat. 73).
king’s service by dangling a first rate work of art before him.20 Sarto’s
painting, however, never made it to the king, as the painter died on
November 30, 1530. It became a collector’s item and after various
wanderings it ended up in the Dresden Gemäldegalerie (see ill. 6).
The admiration must have been so great, that Sarto, in the short
life span between the execution of the painting and his death, per-
sonally made a copy of it, which is now in the Prado Museum in
Madrid.21
Andrea del Sarto made full use of the theme of Abraham Sacrificing
Isaac to show his artistic abilities. The disposition and arrangement
of the figures of Abraham and Isaac, for instance, are not so much
a logical result of the contents of the story as they are a ‘response’
to contemporary artistic issues. In other words, they are in the first
place to be seen and understood as an instance of creative emula-
tion. A very famous and in the years around 1529 also still very rel-
evant work of art to which Sarto ‘responded’ was the sculptural
group of Laocoon. It had been unearthed only in 1506, even though
it had been known for much longer through the description in Pliny’s
Natural History22 (see ill. 7). One of the ‘experts’ called in immedi-
ately after its uncovering was the famous sculptor Michelangelo,
whose works from after 1506 testify to the deep influence this great
work of ancient art exerted on him. But also the works of the great
Venetian painter Titian—to mention only one of the most obvious
examples—show how it became sort of a touchstone, which was
adapted, reworked or in some way integrated by many artists to
show how they were able to rival or even to surpass ancient works
of art (see ill. 8).23 The one artist who was generally considered to
have indeed outdone the artists of classical antiquity was Michelangelo,
and Sarto also responded to his sculptural works. The attitude of
20
J.L. de Jong, ‘1530: getekend, gegraveerd en geschilderd. Een ekphrasis van
Lucianus bij Rosso Fiorentino, Jacob Binck en Correggio’, Desipientia—zin & waan
6/1, 1999, 4–10, esp. 6–7; D. Franklin, Rosso in Italy. The Italian Career of Rosso
Fiorentino, New Haven/London, 1994, 263–264.
21
Shearman, Andrea del Sarto, II, 269–270 (cat. 79: Cleveland, Museum of Art),
II, 280–281 (cat. 94: Dresden, Gemäldegalerie), and II, 281–282 (cat. 95: Madrid,
Prado); Freedberg, Andrea del Sarto, II, 146–151 (cat. 66).
22
Pliny, Naturalis Historia XXXVI, 37. Sarto may have seen the Laocoön group
during his stay in Rome c. 1511, or he may have know the group through prints
and copies, several of which were certainly in Florence. See M. Bieber, Laocoon. The
Influence of the Group and its Discovery, Detroit 1967, 15–16.
23
For a short overview, see Bieber, Laocoon, 17–20.
160 j.l. de jong
Isaac, for instance, is clearly influenced by Michelangelo’s Slaves for

the tomb monument of Pope Julius II, and in particular by the so-
called Rebellious Slave from around 1516 (see ill. 9).24 The way in
which Abraham is standing with Isaac bent forward under his knee,
must have been inspired by Michelangelo’s Victoria group from around
1520 (see ill. 10). The scenery in the background of the painting is
unusual for Sarto’s late work and may have been created to emu-
late Flemish painters, who were generally admired for their land-
scapes.25
How successful Sarto’s attempt at creating an artistic masterpiece
was, appears not only from the various efforts by connoisseurs to
obtain the work or a copy of it, but also from the long and admir-
ing description by Giorgio Vasari. The painting stimulated him to
more than just a rendering in words of its theme and characteris-
tics; in fact, it inspired him to describe it in a way which would
outdo similar descriptions by classical authors like Pliny, Lucian and
Philostratus. Such descriptions, which are practically short literary
masterpieces on their own authority, form a genre called ekphrasis,
which was very frequent in late Antiquity and in the Renaissance.
Relying as much on the text of Genesis 22 as on the painting and
his own imagination, Vasari described Sarto’s masterpiece as follows:
Beautifully expressed in the figure of the patriarch was seen that liv-
ing and steadfast faith which made him ready without a moment of
dismay or hesitation to slay his own son. The same Abraham, like-
wise, could be seen turning his head towards a very beautiful little
angel, who appeared to be bidding him stay his hand. I will not
describe the attitude, the dress, the foot-wear, and other details in the
painting of that old man, because it is not possible to say enough of
them; but this I must say, that the boy Isaac, tender and most beau-
tiful, was to be seen all naked, trembling with the fear of death, and
almost dead without having been struck. The same boy had only the
neck browned by the heat of the sun, and white as snow those parts
that his draperies had covered during the three days’ journey. In like
manner, the ram among the thorns seemed to be alive, and Isaac’s
draperies on the ground rather real and natural than painted. And in
24
Paris, Louvre. There is no doubt that Sarto has seen Michelangelo’s Slaves.
The so-called Dying and Rebellious Slave stayed in Florence until 1546, when they
were sent to Paris as a gift to Roberto Strozzi. The others have always been in
Florence; see C. de Tolnay, Michelangelo, IV, Princeton (N.J.) 1954, 97.
25
Cfr. Shearman, Andrea del Sarto, II, 269–270.
addition there were some naked servants guarding an ass that was
browsing, and a landscape so well represented that the real scene of
the event could not have been more beautiful or in any way different.26
1603: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
Giovanni Pietro Bellori, writing in 1672, recorded about the painter

Michelangelo Merisi, generally known as Caravaggio:
For Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who became Pope Urban VIII, in
addition to a portrait, he painted the Sacrifice of Abraham, in which
Abraham holds a knife to the throat of his son, who screams and falls.
With the help of payments that have been preserved, the period
when Caravaggio executed this painting can be accurately recon-
structed: from May 20, 1603, to January 8, 1604.27
In a recent study this painting (see ill. 12) has been interpreted
as a picture whose ‘orthodox iconography’ should be understood ‘in
the light of the controversies among the Christian confessions in the
second half of the 16th century, in the wake of the Council of
Trent.’28 According to the author of this study, three layers of ‘exe-
gesis’ can be distinguished: the first one is that of ‘Christological
prefiguration’ (i.e.: Isaac’s sacrifice should be seen as a prefiguration
of the sacrifice of Christ), the second is a ‘paradigmatic’ one (i.e.:
Abraham serves as ‘a metaphor of the need for the faithful to prac-
tice satisfactory works in order to sustain Faith’) and the third—at
which the author arrives after discussing a large number of patris-
tic texts—refers to satisfactio, i.e. the cancellation of Adam’s sin:
On the basis of some singular exegetical texts of the Patristic [sic]29
and of visual imagery [. . .], the howling Isaac may be understood as
a symbol of mankind while expiating Adam’s sin, and Abraham as
26
G. Vasari, ‘Vita di Andrea del Sarto’, in De Vere & Ekserdjian, I, 849. Sarto’s
painting also inspired Vasari’s own rendering of the same theme, now in Naples,
Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte (ill. 11); see L. Corti, Vasari. Catalogo completo dei
dipinti, Florence 1989, 63.
27
H. Hibbard, Caravaggio, New York etc, 19852, 367 and 164.
28
M. Gallo, ‘Il Sacrificio di Isacco di Caravaggio agli Uffizi come meccanica
visiva della satisfactio’, in S. Macioce (ed.), Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, la vita e
le opere attraverso i documenti: atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Rome 1995, 331–360
and 370; the quote is from the English summary on p. 370.
29
I guess that what is meant, is: Patristics. The Italian text on p. 333 reads: ‘la
grande Tradizione esegetica delle Sacre Scritture, la Patristica’.
162 j.l. de jong
God condemning humanity because of that crime. The angel hints at

the divine nature of Christ who stops God’s action accepting to sacrifice
his mortal part, symbolized by the ram.30
In the context of the representations of Abraham Sacrificing Isaac that
we have discussed before, one may wonder if this interpretation is
not too far-fetched.31
The patron of the picture was Maffeo Barberini (1568–1644), who
in 1603 was still an ambitious young prelate. In 1606 he became a
cardinal and in 1623 he was elected pope with the name of Urban
VIII. From then on he revealed himself as one of the most lavish
patrons ever, who practically monopolized artists such as Gianlorenzo
Bernini and Pietro da Cortona. Already around 1600, however,
30
For the sake of covenience, I quote from the English summary of the article
on p. 370. It is confusing, however, that the description of the three ‘layers’ of
meaning in the original Italian text differs from that in the summary. Cf.: ‘[Il dip-
into] di Caravaggio si avvale [. . .] della mediazione della tipologia figurale con-
nessa ai patriarchi, venedo così a creare, ripetiamo, una triplicità di livelli esegetici:
1) quello cristologico-eucaristico apparente; 2) quello paradigmatico (Abramo come
typus del fedele cattolico); 3) quello della iustificatio per fede e opere. Sono appunto
gli ultimi due livelli, nel loro gioco inestricabile di intrecci e sovrapposizioni [. . .
che marcano . . .] l’indubitabile appartenenza del dipinto al campo della confessione
cattolica.’ (351) with: ‘On the basis of some singular exegetical texts of the Patristic
[sic] and of visual imagery, like the painting by Lukas Grüneberg representing
Satisfactio (i.e. the cancellation of Adam’s sin), the howling Isaac may be understood
as a symbol of mankind while expiating Adam’s sin, and Abraham as God con-
demning humanity because of that crime. The angel hints at the divine nature of
Christ who stops God’s action accepting to sacrifice his mortal part, symbolized by
the ram. Two other levels may be added to the painting’s interpretation: the first
one directly concerns the meaning of Christological prefiguration (according to the
Bible’s exegetics Abraham and Isaac symbolized God’s acceptance in offering His
Son for the redemption of mankind, so that Isaac’s sacrifice foreshadows Christ’s
one), while the second one involves ethical and paradigmatical ideas, according to
which Abraham is a metaphor of the need for the faithful to practise satisfactory
works in order to sustain Faith.’ (p. 370).
31
For reasons of space, I skip questions such as: were pictures indeed expected
to contain several layers of meaning? (see E.H. Gombrich, ‘Aims and Limits of
Iconology’, in id., Symbolic Images. Studies in the Art of the Renaissance, London 1972,
1–26, esp. 15–17), and did patrons around 1600 expect pictures which were based
on so many specific, well-considered textual sources? Francis Haskel’s description
of seventeenth century patronage in Rome (Patrons and Painters. Art and Society in
Baroque Italy, New Haven/London 19862, 8–9) suggests rather the contrary: ‘The
artist was usually given the subject of the picture he was required to paint, but it is
difficult to determine how far his treatment of it was actually supervised by the
patron. [. . .] Indeed, a surprising degree of freedom often seems to have been left
to painters, even in important commissions, and this depended a good deal on the
cultural sophistication of Rome.’
Maffeo Barberini was attracting attention as an art connoisseur.

Between 1604 and 1616 he had a chapel built and lavishly deco-
rated in the Church of S. Andrea della Valle in Rome. Some of the
most prominent artists of that moment were involved in this presti-
gious project, but unfortunately for Barberini, the painter whom he
wanted to paint the altarpiece—Federico Barocci—had become too
old. Yet Barberini tried to obtain a painting from him, which he
could hang in his private apartment: ‘As long as it is by you—he
wrote to Barocci—I do not mind what the subject is.’32 In the same
time period Barberini commissioned the Abraham Sacrificing Isaac from
Caravaggio, a painter who had made furore in Rome with his scenes
from the life of St Matthew in the church of S. Luigi dei Francesi,
scenes of the lives of Sts Peter and Paul in the S. Maria del Popolo,
and a number of other (religious and profane) pictures. Caravaggio
distinguished himself by a preference for themes with a potential to
show intense emotions, elaborated in a very personal style, with
strong light-dark effects and on the foreground large (half ) figures,
without any idealization.
So again we are dealing with a context where artistic achieve-
ments were valued highly. Barberini’s decision to obtain a painting
from Caravaggio should certainly be seen against this background.33
In fact, the painting of Abraham Sacrificing Isaac fits very well in it.
The paintings contains a number of distinctive elements of Caravaggio’s
style, such as the strong light, the unidealized rendering of Abraham
as a wrinkled old man, and the various states of emotions of the
characters. Abraham is presented as a bald old man, who is clearly
disturbed by the sudden appearance of the angel, while Isaac is an
innocent young boy, who seems to scream for help. His terrified
expression is set off against the head of the goat appearing on the
right and the serene countenance of the angel on the left. Apart
from offering a range of various states of emotions, these figures also
constitute an example of variety, which perfectly matches Alberti’s
recommendations from 1436, The landscape in the background,
which is rather unusual in Caravaggio’s work, further contributes to
this variety.
32
Quoted by Haskel, Patrons and Painters, 26.
33
Hibbard, Caravaggio, 167, characterizes Maffeo Barberini’s patronage before he
became a cardinal as ‘personal and esthetic rather than institutional.’
164 j.l. de jong
From this short analysis it may be clear that Caravaggio on the

one hand continued the Albertian tradition, according to which the
rendering of emotions and variety were very important. On the other
hand, however, he enriched this tradition with totally new artistic
means. The theme of Abraham Sacrificing Isaac seemed a perfect oppor-
tunity to apply these characteristics. It is not known who chose this
theme, Barberini or Caravaggio, but one may wonder if its ‘com-
petitive’ artistic connotations were not a more important criterion
than the possible theological layers of meaning.
Conclusion
None of the three Abraham-scenes discussed in this paper came into

being in a specifically religious context, which would bestow a Christian
‘framework’ on them. They were all three created in a context of
high artistic achievements and connoisseurship. The subject of Abraham
Sacrificing Isaac seems to have been considered very opportune for
demonstrating the artist’s genius in rendering issues which were con-
sidered very important in art, such as passions and emotions, and
variety. Moreover, the theme had obvious reminiscences of a famous
painting from classical Antiquity, Timanthes’ Sacrifice of Iphigenia. This
lost painting was presented by Alberti and by practically all authors
of art treatises after him, as the summit of rendering emotions, which
stimulated Renaissance artists to equal or even to outdo their clas-
sical predecessor.
These observations must lead to the conclusion that the theme of
Abraham Sacrificing Isaac was chosen rather for its artistic potentials
than for its religious implications. That does not mean, of course,
that the theme lacked religious significance. It could always be seen
as a general example of firmness in faith. Many biblical texts, espe-
cially from the New Testament, had ‘preconditioned’ men to inter-
pret this event in this way: ‘By faith Abraham, when God tested
him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice.’34 Observers may have sensed this
34
Heb 11:17; Cf. Rom 4. In these passages, it is in particular Abraham’s faith
which is stressed. In Jas 2:20–24 Abraham’s actions are stressed just as much. In
the course of the 16th century these different accents were heavily debated in the
discussion between Protestants and Catholics on the justification by faith. I do not
think that these issues played any role in the works of art discussed in this paper.
general connotation immediately, even before studying the specific

details of the works of art. This appears for instance from the first
line of Vasari’s description of Sarto’s painting, which was prepon-
derantly focussed on artistic matters: ‘Beautifully expressed in the
figure of the patriarch [Abraham] was seen that living and steadfast
faith which made him ready without a moment of dismay or hesi-
tation to slay his own son.’ This general religious connotation made
the works of art appropriate in various different contexts: on the
doors of a Baptistery, as a donation to the ‘most Christian King’ of
France, and as a private painting for a prelate. They offered space
and freedom for the personal religious thoughts and feelings of the
owners and observers. But they were more compelling as works of
art: any connoisseur or art lover would have grasped the sense of
competition with the lost Sacrifice-scene from classical Antiquity, the
aspiration to emulate prominent contemporary works of art, and the
effort to create new artistic means within the firm Albertian tradi-
tion of variety, emotions and decorum. The theme of Abraham Sacrificing
Isaac ranked as a general example of firmness in faith; to Renaissance
artists, however, it offered an occasion to demonstrate the faith in
their own artistic powers.
KIERKEGAARD’S READING OF THE SACRIFICE OF ISAAC
Andy F. Sanders
1. Introduction
Reading the story of the sacrifice of Isaac is one thing, reading Søren
Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling (1843), one of its famous literary-
philosophical interpretations, another. In this contribution my aim
is, first, to give a brief exposition (sections 2–3) of how Genesis
22:1–19 is read by Johannes de Silentio, the pseudonymous writer
of Fear and Trembling and, next, to exhibit its ongoing significance by
comparing it briefly with Derrida’s recent reinterpretation of it (sec-
tion 4).
Though there are perhaps few philosophers whose life and work
are so intricately connected as those of Kierkegaard, I cannot go
into the controversial issue of his pseudonymous authorship.1 Let
me just recall that, except for a few journeys to Berlin, he lived and
worked as a writer in Kopenhagen where he was born in 1813
and died in 1855, that he got a Lutheran upbringing by a severe and
melancholic father, that his mother, six of his seven brothers and
sisters and his best friend died before he was 23, and, not surpris-
ingly, that he suffered himself from ‘melancholy’. Also important to
recall in this connection is that he broke off his engagement with
the love of his life, the seventeen year old Regine Olsen in October
of 1841, less than two years before Fear and Trembling appeared. From
his diaries we know that he himself understood this rupture as a
sacrifice and that it was very much in his mind while he was writ-
ing the book.2 However, as I will focus on the text itself, the host
1
Though there is no reason to suppose that Kierkegaard’s views are significantly
different than those of his pseudonym, I will respect the distance he wished to cre-
ate between his writings and his own person by referring to de Silentio or Kierkegaard-
de Silentio as the author.
2
It has been suggested with good reason that part of the hidden meaning of
Fear and Trembling was to disclose to Regine why he had broken off their engage-
ment. According to Malantchuk, it is therefore not Abraham, but Isaac who rep-
resents Kierkegaard-de Silentio: ‘[he] simply wanted to tell Regine that he himself
kierkegaard’s reading of the sacrifice of isaac 167
of psychological hypotheses that have been ventured to uncover and

explain the author’s motives, will not be my concern.
In the context of this volume it may also be worth mentioning
that Fear and Trembling was not without influence on Old Testament
studies. This, to mention but two examples, can be detected in the
work of G. von Rad and C. Westermann.3 Whereas the former is
quite sympathetic and even seems to adopt certain Kierkegaardian
elements in his own interpretation of the narrative, Westermann is
critical. According to him, the many attempts to read the narrative
as a eulogy on Abraham or as representing him as a paradigm exam-
ple of faith are off the mark: ‘such eulogies on Abraham (Kierkegaard)
have not understood the narrative.’ He then goes on to argue that
the story is not addressed to onlookers, but to participants; for the
latter the story gets a different meaning because ‘they know what it
means to have to give up a child’.4 They do not see Abraham pass-
ing the test successfully, but rather his suffering all the way to the
moment when he says ‘God will see to it!’. This, according to
Westermann, means to Abraham that, thank God, his child is saved.
As I hope will become clear below, it is hard to comprehend Wester-
mann’s brief but negative appraisal of Fear and Trembling. Certainly,
Abraham is praised and admired by Johannes de Silentio, but very
much so from a participant’s point of view, a view wholly focussed
on understanding Abraham and his actions. De Silentio is at pains
to distinguish between test of obedience and personal ordeal and his
emphasis is wholly on the anxiety and the suffering involved in the
latter. Westermann, it seems to me, is criticizing one-sided or par-
tial readings of Fear and Trembling rather than the work as a whole.
But he surely is right in pointing out that not the differences in inter-
pretations of the story are essential, but that the process of inter-
preting it will continue.
was being sacrificed, and therefore he had to sacrifice her’. His problem was that
he felt bound to his father’s memory not to reveal to her ‘terrible things, my rela-
tionship to my father, his melancholy, the eternal night brooding within me . . .’,
cf. G. Malantchuk, Kierkegaard’s Thought, Princeton 1974, 236f. In this sense Fear and
Trembling might also be read as the story of ‘the binding of Isaac’. Cf. also G. Fendt,
‘Whose Fear and Trembling?’, in: (ed.) R.L. Perkins, International Kierkegaard Commentary,
Vol. 6, Macon 1993, 177–191, esp. 180–183, where this possibility is overlooked.
3
Cf. G. von Rad, Das Opfer des Abraham, München 1971, 7–41; C. Westermann,
Genesis. Biblischer Kommentar Altes Testament, Band I/2, Neukirchen-Vluyn 1981, 429–447,
esp. 433, 446f.
4
Westermann, Genesis, 447.
168 a.f. sanders
2. Fear and Trembling 5
The book has a rather slow start: no less than four beginnings take
almost half of the book—a Preface, an Exordium, a Eulogy on Ab-
raham and a Preliminary Expectoration, a lengthy section that Mooney
aptly calls a ‘Preamble from the Heart’.6 The remainder consists of
the treatment of three Problemata or dialectical aspects implicit in the
story of Abraham and a brief Epilogue.
Let me begin with the Exordium because it illustrates nicely
Johannes de Silentio’s modus operandi. It tells a little story about a
man who became so fascinated and puzzled by the story of Abraham
that in the end he wished he could have gone along on the three-
day journey ‘when Abraham rode with sorrow before him and Isaac
behind him’. He wished to be there at the moment that Abraham
raised his eyes and saw Mount Moriah in the distance, the hour
when he left the asses behind and went up the mountain with Isaac:
‘what occupied him was not the beautiful tapestry of imagination
but the shudder of the idea’ (FT 9). The man admired Abraham
but was at the same time appalled by him: he just wasn’t able to
understand him. This man, de Silentio tells us, was neither a sys-
tematic theologian nor a theist and certainly no follower of the great
Hegel. Worse, he was not even an exegetical scholar: ‘[h]e did not
know Hebrew; if he had known Hebrew, he perhaps would easily
have understood the story and Abraham’ (ibid.).
This ironical remark already suggests that the focus of de Silentio’s
enterprise will be primarily on Abraham and on Isaac, Sarah and
his servants only in a secondary sense. So crucial is the person of
Abraham that as far as de Silentio is concerned,
. . . If Abraham perhaps did not do at all what the story tells, if per-
haps because of the local conditions of that day it was something
entirely different, then let us forget him, for what is the value of going
to the trouble of remembering that past which cannot become a pre-
sent. (FT 30)
5
All references are to the critical edition of S.A. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling,
(eds.) H.V. Hong & E.H. Hong, Kierkegaard’s Writings VI, Princeton, NJ, 1983.
Further references to this edition will be abbreviated as FT.
6
E.F. Mooney, Knights of Faith and Resignation. Reading Kierkegaard’s Fear and
Trembling, Albany 1991, 15.
For the author of Fear and Trembling the essential point of the story
is its portrayal of Abraham as ‘the first to feel and bear witness to
that prodigious passion’, i.e., to faith (FT 23). Accordingly calling
him ‘the father of faith’ (FT 55) and ‘the knight of faith’ (FT 38).
Abraham becomes the paradigm example of the religious believer
who is not a teacher of faith but a witness to it.7 The interest is not
in the historical or the literary aspects of the narrative for they might
distract readers from trying to (re)appropriate its significance. More
polemically speaking, Kierkegaard-de Silentio does not wish to speak
scholarly about the narrative and about Abraham for that would
only further enhance the general lack of interest among Christian
believers of his days to appropriate the biblical narratives in the first
place.
What speaking humanly means, can be illustrated by the four lit-
tle stories, imaginative retellings of the narrative, in the Exordium.
Together they prepare the reader for what is to come. Each little
story sketches the substance of the narrative from a slightly different
angle but they all have one thing in common: they lure the reader
into imagining what might have happened if Abraham had not had
faith.
In the first story, Abraham, Isaac and the servants ride for three
days and go up on the mountain on the fourth. Then Abraham
decides to tell Isaac what their journey is all about. But Isaac doesn’t
understand and begs for his life, but to no avail. As they go up the
mountain Abraham suddenly becomes angry: ‘Stupid boy, do you
think I am your father? I am an idolator. Do you think it is God’s
command? No, it is my desire!’ At that moment Isaac realizes he
has lost his father. But Abraham says softly to himself: ‘Lord God
in heaven, I thank you; it is better that he believes me a monster
than that he should lose faith in you’ (FT 11). Abraham does not
tell the truth and fails in his duty to God. He sacrifices his son’s
love for him in order for Isaac to keep his love for God.
The gist of the second retelling is that Abraham keeps Isaac but
only at a very high price: his own love for God: ‘Abraham could
not forget that God had ordered him to do this . . . [his] eyes were
darkened and he saw joy no more’ (FT 12).
7
Cf. also: ‘Abraham is an eternal prototype (Forbillede) of the religious man’,
Journals and Papers IV 4650, in: FT, Supplement, 266f.
170 a.f. sanders
The third retelling suggests that Abraham has in fact sacrificed

Isaac and now has lost his faith—he despairs about what he has
done and prays to God to forgive him for forgetting his duty to his
son and for not comprehending that it was a terrible sin that he
had been willing to sacrifice to God the best he had, the son whom
he loved.
The fourth story shifts the attention to Isaac. At the moment the
knife is drawn he sees that his father’s left hand is clenched in despair.
They go back, but because Isaac had seen his father’s despair he
has lost his faith. In this case the whole point of the story collapses:
Abraham passes the test of obedience, he retains Isaac but not in
virtue of his trust.
Each of the four stories is concluded with a brief moral in terms
of the methods a mother might use in weaning her child, the anx-
iety she thereby endures and the risk to the child who now must de-
pend on a new source of nurture. A striking feature of these little
morals, as Edward Mooney argues convincingly, is that the essence
of the patriarch’s faith is depicted in the imagery of motherhood:
the ordeal of the separation of the child from the mother’s love and
what that does to both of them.8 It is left to the reader to decide
whether the child represents Abraham or Isaac, or both. Each moral
evokes a different image of the deeply human problem of achiev-
ing independence-in-relationship through a giving up (in resignation)
and getting back (in faith) which, as we will see, is precisely how
Kierkegaard-de Silentio characterizes the double movement of Abra-
ham’s faith.
What does it mean to be a knight of faith like Abraham and what
is the aim of de Silentio in exploring Genesis 22 in the first place?
We need to answer these questions before turning to the three Prob-
lemata regarding the dialectical aspects of the knight of faith: sin-
gularity, duty and silence.
2.1 The Aim

The aim of Fear and Trembling as a text is wholly in line with the
overall aim of Kierkegaard’s authorship, the reintroduction of Chris-
8
E.F. Mooney, ‘Art, Deed, and System: The Prefaces to Fear and Trembling’, in:
(ed.) R.L. Perkins, International Kierkegaard Commentary, Vol. 6, Fear and Trembling
and Repetition, Macon 1993, 67–100, esp. 82f.
tianity into Christendom. Positively this means edification (by means

of indirect communication), negatively internal critique. In the Preface
and the Epilogue, de Silentio underscores time and time again that
Christianity has become such a cheap bargain, such a real steal and
so distant from the actual lives of women and men ‘that it becomes
a question whether there is finally anyone who will make a bid’
(FT 5).
That de Silentio will have none of this is already clear from the
title of the book. It is clearly an allusion to Paul’s letter to the
Philippians 2:12: ‘Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed,
not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence,
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling’. Working out
one’s salvation shouldn’t be cheap or easy, on the contrary, and
especially the rich in the realm of ideas should expect it to go hand
in hand with anxiety and suffering.9
It is also clear that Johannes has a rather low view of the way in
which the Genesis narrative is treated in the practices of Danish
Christendom. For example, preachers are ridiculed for voicing clichés
like: ‘The great thing was that he loved God in such a way that he
was willing to offer him the best’ (FT 28). What if on Monday some-
one would set out to do as Abraham did? Surely that person would
be the first to be told by that very same preacher how despicable
he was. Or, to take another example: ‘We praise God’s mercy, that
he gave him Isaac again and that the whole thing was only an
ordeal’ (FT 52). What if the audience said ‘Oh well, it’s just a test,
you just have to wait a minute and than you’ll see the ram and the
ordeal will be over, no big deal’? Surely any preacher would severely
denounce such spiritless superficiality. It would be ludicrous ‘to sell
a cheap edition of Abraham and yet forbid everyone to do likewise’.
Rather, the essential point is:
to perceive the greatness of what Abraham did so that [a] person can
judge for himself whether he has the vocation and the courage to be
tried in something like this. (FT 53)
9
There is more New Testament background to Fear and Trembling. E.g., Luke
14:26 is quoted in full as an example of a ‘hard’ teaching on the absolute duty to
God and in support of de Silentio’s claim that becoming a Christian is not a bar-
gain but has its price (cf. FT 72ff.).
172 a.f. sanders
2.2 Faith as Paradox
Throughout Fear and Trembling, and in most of the other pseudony-

mous works as well, it is emphasized time and again that faith is a
paradox. If a person has faith, its is ‘by virtue of the absurd’. What
Kierkegaard means by the paradox of faith, is a matter of consid-
erable controversy. In my own field, the philosophy of religion, it is
often construed as a thesis on the relation between faith and rea-
son. For example, Plantinga suggests that according to Kierkegaard
faith teaches ‘the absurdity that “the eternal is the historical” [i.e.,
that God became man] and that this proposition is among the
deliverances of faith but absurd from the point of view of reason;
and that it should be accepted despite the absurdity.’10
In my view this is a misconstrual of Kierkegaard’s view that faith
is not adherence to a set of propositions, beliefs, doctrines or even
a view of life, but rather a way of life. Moreover, as de Silentio
argues, the paradoxical is ‘not identical with the improbable, the
unexpected or the unforeseen’ (FT 46), but rather that which ‘no
thought can grasp’ (FT 53), is ‘impervious to thought’ (FT 56) or
‘cannot be mediated’ (FT 66, 70). So when he says that ‘[f ]aith
begins precisely where thought stops’ (FT 53), this does not mean
that faith is logically contradictory, but rather that one’s reasoning
cannot fully encompass or capture one’s life simply because it is part
of that life. Reasoning is but one of the things we do, and there are
many things we do, and do quite well, without any (conscious) rea-
soning involved.
De Silentio’s own reasoning is quite consistent with this. He admits
that he cannot fully understand Abraham and thus cannot follow
him all the way either in thought or in action. But he denies that
this means that he cannot describe the paradox of faith, as it were,
from the outside (like dry swimming).
The paradox of faith can be described in many ways, but in Fear
and Trembling the two central expressions are: ‘that the single indi-
vidual is higher than the universal’ (FT 55) and that the single indi-
vidual relates himself absolutely to the absolute within his relationship
of absolute duty to God, that is, ‘there is an absolute duty to God’.
10
A. Plantinga, ‘Reason and Belief in God’, in: (eds.) A. Plantinga & N. Wolterstorff,
Faith and Rationality. Reason and Belief in God, Notre Dame/London 1986, 87f.
The paradox is central because ‘either there is this paradox or Abra-

ham is lost’ (FT 120). He would not be the knight of faith, but a
murderer. To be a single individual (in relation to God, the absolute
or wholly other) is higher than to be an individual who is wholly
determined by the universal, i.e., the moral law. As the single indi-
vidual is characterized by interiority (Innerlichkeit), interiority is higher
than and, as we will see, incommensurable with, exteriority (cf. FT
69). Prototypically, Abraham, the knight of faith, is the singular indi-
vidual whose whole life is constituted by his relationship of duty to,
and love for, God.
The narrative bears this out. It is itself riddled with paradox: Abra-
ham loves Isaac, as a fact and in virtue of the universal moral obliga-
tion of a father to love his son. But he also loves God both as a
fact and in virtue of his absolute duty to God. Morally speaking,
Abraham intends to kill Isaac, but religiously speaking he means
to perform a ‘holy act’ of sacrificing Isaac (FT 30). Abraham has
faith that God will not demand Isaac of him and yet he is willing
to sacrifice him when it is demanded (FT 33). God commands
Abraham to sacrifice his son and in the next moment rescinds the
requirement (FT 34).
All this illustrates that the paradox of faith is not an apparent
contradiction between propositions but rather a conflict and a sub-
sequent dilemma of choice between different modes of existing as a
human being. For example, love of God does not belong to the
sphere of the universal or the ethical, whereas love of one’s child
does. Kierkegaard’s objection against the Hegelianism of his days is
that this conflict cannot be mediated by reason, but only in and
through action which in its turn requires a moment of choice. If
this choice can be derived from a set of universal moral principles,
there could not be a religious sphere distinct from the ethical. Or,
could an appeal be made to specifiable religious principles, for exam-
ple, that when a divine command comes into conflict with moral
duty, the former should override the latter? De Silentio, I think,
would deny that possibility because it would not relativize the ethi-
cal sphere by subsuming it under the religious, but annihilate it. It
would take all the anxiety out of real life dilemmas and make their
solution not a matter of responsible choice, but mere calculation.
The story of Abraham suggests otherwise as well. Abraham, as much
as he may be shattered by the command, simply is not in the rea-
soning or calculating line of business. He goes underway, carrying
174 a.f. sanders
with him all the anxiety and suffering that a horrifying conflict of
duty and responsibility brings with it.
So far the issue of the paradoxical nature of faith. Let me now
briefly consider the three major dialectical problems that Johannes
de Silentio detects in the narrative substance of Genesis 22:1–19.
3. Singularity, Duty and Silence
The first problem is whether there is a teleological suspension of the

ethical. The answer is affirmative. The story of Abraham does involve
such a suspension in that he transgressed the sphere of the ethical
(FT 55, 66). Any other construal of Abraham’s situation, de Silentio
maintains, would make him not even a tragic hero but a murderer.
But what does this transgression mean? The ‘universal’ is the ethi-
cal; it pertains to every individual in the same way, and it is dis-
tinguished sharply from the sphere of the religious. A person may
wholly be defined by the universal when he or she expresses his or
her life in terms of it. This is righteous and virtuous and provides
safety—after all, don’t we all try to live according to the moral law?
What more can one want?
To this the answer of de Silentio is: yes, a person may want more.
Faith is higher than the ethical because it has a telos that lies out-
side the ethical, namely one’s relation to the absolute, the Wholly
Other, God. It is precisely this that the story of Abraham and Isaac
bears out. To enter into that relationship a person has to become
a singular individual and that means that he or she has to suspend
the sphere of the ethical. This is not a one time affair, but rather
something that is done all the time—that is, being or becoming such
a singular individual is, as we might say, a way of life, it is some-
thing in which a person may have his or her whole life.
Interestingly, de Silentio illustrates the differences between the
spheres of the ethical and of faith by contrasting what he calls ‘tragic
heroes’ like Agamemnon, Jephta and Brutus ( Junius) with the knight
of faith, Abraham. The tragic hero sacrifices his child but remains
wholly within the moral sphere of the universal. His conflict is between
public and private morality and so he is always able to give an
account of why he acts as he does: for the sake of a greater public
good, such as, e.g., saving the nation, fulfilling a promise, uphold-
ing the idea of the state or, in still other cases, to appease the angry
gods. Everybody can understand the tragic hero in his courage, great-
ness and distress, but why it is not so with Abraham?
Unlike the tragic hero, Abraham cannot be understood publicly
because he neither expresses the universal nor himself. In his unique
singularity he is ‘incommensurable’ to general understanding. As soon
as he would speak he would, by virtue of his using a common lan-
guage and the general categories embedded in it, be cancelling his
singularity and return to the sphere of the universal. So, as the sphere
of the singular individual, of faith and interiority, is not exhausted
by the ethical the latter can be suspended in virtue of, and with an
eye to, one’s relationship to God.
This leads to the second problem: is there an absolute duty to God

that transcends the universal? Again, the answer is in the affirmative.
But if the single individual has an absolute duty to the absolute,
what does this mean for the ethical?
First, it does not follow that the ethical now becomes invalid, as
if anything goes. On the contrary, leading a morally good life is part
and parcel of the sphere of faith as well. However, ‘the single indi-
vidual determines his relation to the universal by his relation to the
absolute’, not the other way around (FT 70). Hence, the ethical gets
a wholly different expression: ‘love to God may bring the knight of
faith to give his love to the neighbour’ (ibid.). The difference, I sug-
gest, is between loving one’s neighbour in virtue of one’s duty to
God and thus as an expression of one’s love for God (interiority),
and loving one’s neighbour in virtue of one’s duty to the moral law
as an expression of the universal (exteriority). Here also the specific
Christian character of Kierkegaard’s reading comes to the fore: though
absolute duty may lead to what ethics would forbid, ‘it can never
lead the knight of faith to stop loving’ (FT 74).
Second, the ethical remains present also in another sense: it becomes
a temptation, something that lures a person away from doing his
duty to God. Morally speaking, Abraham’s duty is to love his son.
Yet he is willing to sacrifice him. How to understand this? As he is
obviously not willing it for the sake of Isaac, de Silentio suggests
that Abraham can only be willing it both for God’s sake and his
own. He does it for God’s sake because God demands it as a proof
of his faith, and he does it for his own sake ‘so that he can prove
it’ (FT 59f.). It is precisely this that makes it both a personal ordeal
and a temptation.
176 a.f. sanders
Faced with a terrible conflict between his duty to love and obey
God and his moral duty to love Isaac, Abraham resists the tempta-
tion.11 But that is not to say that he also stops loving Isaac. As de
Silentio points out, Abraham must love him or it would not be a
real sacrifice on his part. Moreover, his obedience to God’s com-
mand is only fulfilled in the moment that his deed absolutely ‘contra-
dicts’ his love (FT 74). So whereas the tragic hero sacrifices himself
in order to express the universal, the knight of faith sacrifices the
universal in order to become a single individual before God. But,
as we saw earlier, in doing so he makes him incommensurable to
the universal and this means that he cannot communicate to others
what he is going through. Abraham, then, has to keep silent and
this leads to De Silentio’s third main problem, namely, ‘was it eth-
ically defensible for Abraham to conceal his undertaking from Sarah,
from Eliezer, and from Isaac?’
One of the most striking features of the story of Abraham is his

silence. In reply to God’s command he only says, ‘Here I am’, and
the next morning the small party is already on its way. But he con-
ceals the real purpose of the journey and thereby excludes the voices
of Sarah, Isaac and Eliezer. Nothing is said or done on behalf of
Sarah. No word is spoken for the whole three days of the journey,
not even to God. It is Isaac, not Abraham, who breaks the silence
by posing the core question that ruptures the third person narrative.
But is Abraham’s reply really an answer? ‘God will see to it’ could
still mean anything and surely the least plausible meaning would be
that Abraham knew for certain, rather than hoped or trusted, that
he was going to retain Isaac or was going to get him back. Strictly
speaking, Abraham is ‘not telling an un-truth’ but he is not telling
the truth either—for he is concealing what he intends to do.
The category here is hiddenness and the ethical demands its dis-
closure. De Silentio makes this clear again by contrasting the tragic
hero Agamemnon to Abraham. The former speaks openly, announc-
ing Iphigenia’s fate to her, but Abraham does not speak in a simi-
lar way to Isaac. For as soon as he would express himself he would
have to refer in some way or other to the universal and the uni-
11
That one may be rationally justified in believing oneself to be in such a conflict
is convincingly argued by P.L. Quinn. Cf. his ‘Moral Obligation, Religious Demand’,
in: (eds.) R. Audi & W.J. Wainwright, Rationality, Religious Belief, & Moral Commitment,
Ithaca/London 1986, 195–212.
versally acceptable, the moral law. He ought to speak but if he would

disclose his secret, doubt and calculation would start and the whole
endeavour would collapse. De Silentio puts the question thus: How
is he to explain that although he loves Isaac more than anything
else in the world, he also feels bound by his absolute duty to God?
If he were to express his anxiety, obviously, his family might say to
him ‘Why do you want to do it then? After all, you can abstain’
(FT 114).
So Abraham cannot speak, he cannot express himself in a way
that someone else could understand (cf. FT 115). Emigrating from
the sphere of the ethical to that of the strictly personal, he is mak-
ing what De Silentio calls ‘the double movement of faith’. Like the
tragic hero he gives up his child in resignation, but then he makes
a further movement: in faith he fastens all his hope—in fear and
trembling—that he will nevertheless get Isaac back. Though he could
not be understood and had to suffer in silence, he achieved the high-
est, that is, faith. This is how Johannes de Silentio puts it near the
end of Fear and Trembling:
And yet what did he achieve? He remained true to his love. But any-
one who loves God needs no tears, no admiration; he forgets the
suffering in the love. Indeed, so completely has he forgotten it that
there would not be the slightest trace of his suffering left if God him-
self did not remember it, for he sees in secret and recognizes distress
and counts the tears and forgets nothing. (FT 120)
Notice the allusion to Matthew where the phrase ‘your Father who
sees in secret will reward you (openly)’ appears three times.12 The
passage clearly suggests that God saw what Abraham could not speak
about and had to keep secret but there is no mention at all of com-
pensation: Abraham retained Isaac not as a reward for his obedi-
ence, but as a matter of mercy. The beauty of the passage, as I
read it, is that it would still be a portrayal of Abraham’s faith even
if Isaac had in fact been sacrificed. The whole weight of the picture
is on the patriarch’s interiority, his suffering, his love and his for-
getting—of which God forgets nothing.
So far my all too brief retelling of Fear and Trembling as an inter-
pretation of Genesis 22:1–19. I think it is clear that it reinscribes
the story of ‘the binding of Isaac’ into a Pauline-Lutheran space,
12
Cf. Mt 6:4, 6, 18.
178 a.f. sanders
demarcated theologically by the concepts of faith and grace. Focussing

almost exclusively on the person of Abraham as involved in a hor-
rendous conflict between moral and religious duty, it is undoubtedly
a major effort to understand and portray him as a model both of
and for a man of faith. Its affirmation of the suspension of the eth-
ical may be regarded as ‘a compelling rejection of modern ethical
thought from Kant to Hegel’.13 Its deliberate employment of con-
ceptions from the sphere of the personal invites one to read it as
an attempt not only to redefine the traditional ideas of faith, duty
and love and their relations but also to reclaim a legitimate sphere
of the religious at a time when modernity had already discarded that
sphere.14 But Fear and Trembling is certainly also an internal critique
of Christian life and practice far beyond its nineteenth century man-
ifestations in North Western Europe. Whether it fulfilled its author’s
endeavour to raise the price of Christian discipleship, is a question
I will not venture to answer. As Kierkegaard’s classical work has set-
tled itself firmly in the history of the interpretation of the Abraham
narrative, let us rather have a look at one of the ways in which it
is still projecting its world into Western culture of today.
4. A Deconstructionist Reading of Fear and Trembling
Recently, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida published a philo-

sophical reinterpretation of Fear and Trembling in an essay called
‘Giving Death’.15 He sides with Kierkegaard-de Silentio’s account of
the sacrifice of Isaac by affirming the call for a suspension of the
ethical and by positing an absolute duty to the wholly other. In
doing so he shows himself not only to be a biblical theologian but
also a reinterpreter of Fear and Trembling.
Pointing out the similarities between the notion of the mysterium
tremendum, De Silentio’s title and its allusion to Paul’s letter to the
13
H. Ferguson, Melancholy and the Critique of Modernity. Søren Kierkegaard’s Religious
Pychology, London 1995, 108.
14
Cf. C.O. Schrag, ‘The Kierkegaard-Effect in the Shaping of the Contours of
Modernity’, in: (eds.) M.J. Matu“tík & M. Westphal, Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity,
Bloomington/Indianapolis 1995, 1–17.
15
J. Derrida, ‘Donner la mort’, in: (eds.) J.M. Rabaté & M. Wetzel, L’éthique du
don. Jacques Derrida et la pensée du don, Paris 1992, 11–107, esp. 56–107. References
to the text are abbreviated by DM, translations are mine, AFS.
Philippians, Derrida focusses first on the question of Abraham’s silence

over against Sarah, Isaac and Eliezer. He detects a double secrecy:
one between Abraham and God and one between Abraham and his
nearests. Abraham cannot speak: ‘he is reduced to silence because
he is let in a secret’ (‘Il est tenu au secret parce qu’il est au secret’,
DM 60). That is to say, he doesn’t know why God is demanding
him to do this horrible thing, this mysterium tremendum, common to
the three religions of the Book. So he suspends the ethical and, in
doing so, betrays the common moral order. He does not intend to
save Isaac by his silence, he doesn’t know the rationale of the divine
command, but he obeys as a matter of absolute duty to the wholly
other.
As in Fear and Trembling, common morality or the ethical is a temp-
tation and in order to resist it he has to hate it—putting someone
to death who one hates isn’t a real sacrifice: ‘I have to sacrifice
whom I love’ (‘Je doit sacrifier ce que j’aime’, DM 64). However,
at this point Derrida reinterprets de Silentio’s text in a very deci-
sive but also interesting way by reconstruing the paradox of faith
into the paradox of responsibility. Consider:
The story of the sacrifice of Isaac could be read like the narrative
meaning of the paradox inherent in the concept of duty or absolute
responsibility. This concept brings us in rapport (without rapport and
within the double secrecy) with the absolute other, with the absolute
singularity of the other, of which God is the name here. (DM 66)
What we see is that the Kierkegaardian sphere of absolute duty to
God is reconstructed as the sphere of the absolute duty that any
human being has to every other. Like de Silentio, Derrida suggests
that common moral duty has to be sacrificed in the name of a higher
and absolute duty to the wholly other. But as God is the name of
the absolute other, he is now able to make a surprising move: the
other is the wholly other in the sense that every other is wholly other
(‘tout autre est tout autre’, DM 68). This, it seems, is not suspend-
ing the ethical into the religious, but into a hyper-morality (‘une
moralité de la moralité’, DM 67).
Introducing a new kind of knight, ‘the knights of good conscience’,
Derrida criticises them for not recognizing that the sacrifice of Isaac
illustrates the most daily and most common experience of respon-
sibility. One cannot respond to the appeal, to the demand, the oblig-
ation, not even to the love of another, without sacrificing to him the
180 a.f. sanders
other other (‘sans lui sacrifier l’autre autre’, DM 68). The Abraham
narrative is horrifying (tremendum) not because it portrays something
unique but because it exhibits the universal:
I give death, I commit perjury, I don’t need to raise the knife over
my son at the top of mount Moriah for that. Day and night, in every
instant, on all the mounts Moriah of the world, I’m doing that, rais-
ing the knife over those whom I love and ought to love, over the
other, this or that other to whom I ought to be absolutely and incom-
mensurably faithful. (DM 68f.)
One cannot respond to someone without sacrificing the other other
to him or her. As in the case of Abraham, such a sacrifice can never
be justified and one will always have to keep silent about it. Derrida
not only agrees with de Silentio that ‘[o]nly in the moment when his
act is in absolute contradiction with his feelings, only then does he
sacrifice Isaac’ (DM 65, FT 74), but he also sides with his account
of the silence of Abraham—that he could not speak and had to keep
his secret. In reply to Isaac’s question, Abraham replies without reply-
ing (‘il répond sans répondre’, DM 73). The most we can say is that
he has decided to give death but that he prefers not to. Still, even
though he doesn’t know what will happen, he doesn’t hesitate.
If every other is the wholly other, then Fear and Trembling tells the
truth. In each moment of decision in our relationships with every
other, we all ought to act like the knight of faith (cf. DM 77). But
Derrida also admits that he deplaces Kierkegaard’s reading to some
extent: we do not know who Abraham is any more. Though we all
share his secret, this secret is a mysterium of which neither he nor we
know anything about. And we cannot distinguish as easily between
the ethical and the religious spheres, we cannot distinguish between
the infinite alterity of God and the otherness of every human being
any more (FT 81).16
Derrida then goes on to elaborate de Silentio’s allusion (cf. FT
120, see above) to Matthew 6 in the final section of his essay.
Comparing the return of Isaac as a pure gift of God with the infinite
treasures that await those who seek neither earthly recognition nor
returns for their deeds, he detects in Matthew a secret, celestial econ-
omy of sacrifice. One can count on this economy provided that one
16
Comparing Kierkegaard with Lévinas (‘whose ethics is already religion’), Derrida
suggests that their distinctions between the ethical and the religious are more than
problematic, cf. DM 81.
knows how to sacrifice the terrestrial one.17 The presupposition is

that ‘God is watching me, that he is seeing the secret in me but
that I do not notice this secret nor him watching me’ (‘Dieu me
voit, it voit dans le secret en moi, mais je ne le vois pas, je ne le
voit pas me voir’, DM 87). Derrida suggests that we shouldn’t take
the sentence ‘Your father who sees into the secret will reward you’
as a descriptive statement. Rather than thinking of God as a some-
body, out there, transcendent, and being able to see into the most
secret and most inner places, it would be better to say ‘God is the
name of the possibility for me to keep a secret that is visible from
the inside but not from the outside’ (DM 101). Calling this the struc-
ture of conscience, a ‘being-with-you’ it is also the sphere of the
divine: God is in me, He is “me” in an absolute sense, i.e., ‘He is
that structure of invisible interiority which is called subjectivity in a
Kierkegaardian sense’ (DM 102).
In sum, Derrida’s reappropriation of Fear and Trembling turns the
paradox of faith into the paradox of human responsibility, it turns
Abraham’s singularity and silence into a radical human subjectivity
that encompasses the ‘divine’ mystery that I am myself as well as
every other. Absolute duty to God becomes the absolute duty to the
radical alterity of every other and the suspension of the ethical by
the singular individual becomes the suspension of common morality
as the safe haven of the knight of good conscience. This morality
has to be sacrificed in the name of every other as the wholly other
for whom we are absolutely responsible. So the sacrifice of Isaac
continues every day—but who now counts the tears and forgets
nothing?
17
In what sense and to what extent Derrida is criticizing the Christian religion
is a question I will not consider here. But cf. J.D. Caputo, ‘Instants, Secrets, and
Singularities. Dealing Death in Kierkegaard and Derrida’, in: Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity,
228ff.
THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM AS A (TEMPORARY)
RESOLUTION OF A DESCENT CONFLICT?
A GENDER-MOTIVATED READING OF GEN 22
Heleen Zorgdrager
1. Introduction1
An important characteristic of gender-motivated reading of biblical

narratives is its attention to knots, tensions, fractures and silences in
the text. Questions arise such as: Who is speaking in this story? From
whose point of view the story is written, whose voice might have
been erased in the process of redaction of the text? Whose interests
(M/F)2 are being served by the transmission of this story, and can
any countervoices be heard in the story or in its context?
In order to find an answer to these questions it is important to
lay open the relief of the text, to listen to the joint voices, the oppos-
ing voices and the complementary voices arising from tradition. For
that purpose, feminist exegesis uses literary approaches such as the
deconstructivistic reading and the narrative model of analysis.
However, the more ‘classical’ method of splitting up the sources
can also be useful in enlightening gender issues in the Pentateuch.
Discerning of the different layers in the text can be very helpful
in discovering the different voices and traditions which still resonate,
still evoke a lot of tension, even in the ‘Letztgestalt’ of the text be-
fore us. Ed Noort refers to this critical method of splitting sources
when he says that the naming and ‘labelling’ of the sources need
not lead to annoyance only: ‘These labels do represent voices, voices
1
With special thanks to Wieteke van der Molen for her first concept of the trans-
lation.
2
The codes F and M (female/feminine, male/masculine) are introduced by
Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes in her study on traces of women texts in the Hebrew
Bible. They are theoretically useful in the labelling of texts as products of ‘women’s
culture’ or ‘male culture’. They do not designate the sex of the texts’ authors, but
might offer insights on the question of whether the dominant speaker or narrator
in these texts can be identified either as a female/feminine voice or a male/mas-
culine voice. See Athalya Brenner & Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, On Gendering Texts,
Leiden 1993.
a gender-motivated reading of genesis 22 183
which theologize, each in their own specific way, in a dispute with

their tradition at hand and the situation in their own era. One who
speaks about contextual theology may not pass over this.’3
In this contribution I would like to present a gender-motivated
reading of Gen 22 in which in the background discerning text sources
in the Abraham cycle has an important function. Central to my
approach of Gen 22 is a theory of Nancy Jay, an American researcher
in Religious Studies, about the function of the (blood-)sacrifice in
the identification, legitimation and maintenance of enduring struc-
tures of intergenerational continuity between males. In her pioneer-
ing study Throughout Your Generations Forever. Sacrifice, Religion and Paternity
(1992), she also wrote a chapter on the analysis of descent conflicts
in the Pentateuch. In this chapter she uses the method of splitting
sources.
She illustrates her hypothesis also with the (nearly) sacrifice of
Isaac in Gen 22.4 I would like to explore her insights further and
link them to other results of women’s studies research on Gen 22.
But first, let us try to clearly point out the questions concerning
Gen 22 from the gender-motivated point of view. This will be our
very first step. Our second step, will contain several approaches from
women’s studies, which have tested their strength on this narrative.
In a third step I will further examine the theory of Nancy Jay and
analyse its applicability for a renewed interpretation of this narra-
tive from a gender-motivated point of view.
2. Questions From a Gender-perspective
A superficial reading of Gen 22 shows that the main characters are

a father and his son. The wife/mother is not mentioned in Gen 22,
nor does she act or speak. She is absent. We are kept in ignorance
of whether she knew all along about Abraham’s plan when he left
3
Ed Noort, article in Gereformeerd Theologisch Tijdschrift 1988, cited by Henk
Leene in: ‘Wereldbeeld en geschiedenis. Honderd jaar Oude Testament in het
GTT’, in: Wessel Stoker & Henk C. van der Sar (eds), Theologie op de drempel van
2000, anniversary edition GTT 1999/3 and 4, Kampen 1999, 82, and also cited
by Kune Biezeveld in: ‘Strepen’, in: GTT 100 (2000) 1, 14–18.
4
Nancy Jay, Throughout Your Generations Forever. Sacrifice, Religion and Paternity,
Chicago/London, 1992. In the chapter ‘Sacrifice, Descent and the Patriarchs’,
(94–103) she discusses descent conflicts in the Pentateuch. This chapter, somewhat
revised, was previously published in Vetus Testamentum 38 (1988) 52–70.
184 heleen zorgdrager
with their son. We also do not hear a word about her reaction to
the event when they turn back home.
The father is the one who, in action and words, is the initiator,
even though his initiative is presented as embedded in obedience to
an order from God/Elohim. The son just follows and obeys his
father. Only once does he put a question (22:7). At the end of the
story (22:19) we are, remarkably, not told that he also returns home,
together with his father Abraham and the servants. He has remained
‘nowhere’. The (simple) questions after a first reading are:
Where is the mother in this story? What happened to the son at
the end of the story? What about the relations of power in this nar-
rative, between the characters of God (presented as JHWH, as
Elohim)—Abraham—Isaac and the absent mother?
3. Survey: Women’s Studies Interpreting the Narrative
Though not really part of women’s studies, but nevertheless relevant

for the gender-perspective interest, is the midrash which the rab-
binical tradition transmitted regarding this story.5 It throws light on
the role of Sarah. The midrash tells us how Abraham fools Sarah.
He tells her that he wants to take Isaac with him to teach him reli-
gious lessons ‘at a place not far from here’. He asks Sarah to pre-
pare some food and drink. He leaves very early in the morning
(22:3) just in case Sarah might change her mind. After the event on
Mount Moriah, Satan, disguised as Isaac, visits Sarah (read: Sarah
sees an apparition of Isaac). Sarah asks: ‘What did your father do
to you?’ When Isaac/Satan tells her all about it, Sarah cries out
loud, seven times, and then drops dead. The midrash makes a con-
nection here between the sacrificial narrative and Gen 23:1f.: the
death of Sarah.
The narrations of the story of Gen 22 by Søren Kierkegaard
in the first chapter of Fear and Trembling (1843),6 are written from a
feminist perspective as little as the midrash.
5
In: Samuel A. Berman (ed.), Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu, New Yersey 1996.
See also the contribution of Wout van Bekkum in this volume.
6
Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (published together with Repetition) (eds.
Howard V. Hong & Edna H. Hong), Princeton 1983. See for a lengthy review of
Fear and Trembling the contribution by Andy Sanders in this volume. The remarks
of Sylvia Walsh in her book: Living Poetically, Kierkegaards Existential Aesthetics, Pennsylvania
Kierkegaard’s interpretation is even very harshly criticized by some

women’s studies researchers, because it extols Abraham’s faith ‘in
virtue of the absurd’. Kierkegaard’s interpretation would justify on
religious grounds that there can be circumstances that simply demand
giving up reason and breaking the body of the powerless (for instance:
the child, the woman).7 Nevertheless, I would like to mention the
meditations of Kierkegaard here, because they emphazise the char-
acter of the mother Sarah, and even all four narrations are framed
within the perspective of maternal emotions and commitment dur-
ing this horrible event. It is true, the imagery of motherhood in
every closing paragraph reaches far beyond the ‘actual’ mother Sarah
at the beginning of the meditations. This mother ‘who blackens her
breasts and hides them in order to wean the child’ seems to be more
a metaphor of God and of (the transformation of ) the religious bind-
ing, but nevertheless there is a textual link between the actual mother
at the beginning and the metaphorical mother at the end. This con-
nection shows that Kierkegaard has at least seen or has searched for
the ‘inscription’ of a feminine/maternal presence in the narrative,
however we should interpret or evaluate this.
From a feminist point of view, Carol Delaney offers a cultural-
historical interpretation in her article ‘The Legacy of Abraham’
1994, 137, are interesting. She writes: ‘In the “Exordium” with which the book
begins, Johannes imaginatively explores several responses Abraham might have made
with respect to the command from God (. . .) What might have happened if Abraham
would not have had faith?’ This imaginative playing or experimenting with different
possibilities or roles, is for Kierkegaard part of the ‘aesthetic’. Different from many
other Kierkegaard-interpreters, Sylvia Walsh states that the aesthetic and poetic
dimension in religious existence is still preserved and integrated in a new way of
affirming finite reality. In this sense, the first chapter, which contains the four nar-
rations, has an integrated place in the book as a whole, in which in various imag-
inative ways the author ‘Johannes de Silentio’ attempts to come near to Abraham’s
‘absurd’ leap into faith.
7
So Jonneke Bekkenkamp, ‘Breaking the Waves: Corporeality and Religion in a
Modern Melodrama’, in: Jonneke Bekkenkamp & Maaike de Haardt (eds.), Begin
with the Body. Corporeality, Religion and Gender, Leuven 1998, 134–156. More nuanced
evaluations of the gender question in Kierkegaard’s oeuvre in: Sylvia Walsh, Living
Poetically (see note 5); Sylvia Walsh, ‘On “Feminine” and “Masculine” Despair’, in:
Robert L. Perkins (ed.), International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Sickness unto Death,
Macon Ga: Mercer University Press 1987, 121–134: Gepke Louise Hameete,
Kierkegaard, van exemplaar naar de enkeling, Delft 1990: Alison Leigh Brown, ‘God,
Anxiety and Female Divinity’ and Wanda Warren Beaty, ‘Kierkegaard and Feminism:
Apologetic, Repetition, and Dialogue’, in: Martin J. Matustik & Merold Westphal
(eds.), Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity, Indiana University Press, 1995.
(1977).8 She asks herself whether this story, which has paradigmatic
relevance for the faith in the Jewish and Christian traditions, can
have the same meaning for both women and men. ‘Is this the kind
of model we need?’ Or is the narrative symptomatic of masculine
culture? She compares Gen 22 with a Greek mythological story, the
Theogony by Hesiod, and discovers that the motives in both stories
are interwoven in a comparable way: child murder/sacrifice is asso-
ciated with the establishment of the father’s authority; he also becomes
the father of a new religion. For example: Zeus swallows his daugh-
ter Athena, whom Metis gave birth to, and gives her a new birth
from out of his head. Even though Isaac in Gen 22 is not actually
sacrificed due to the saving intervention of the angel who points to
the ram—and in this way the narrative maintains liberating poten-
tials—that does not alter the fact that the appropriate sacrifice in
the narrative is the child.
Delaney states: The relevance of Gen 22 is not to be found in
the elimination of the practice of child sacrifice, but in the symbolic
establishment of the father’s rights and his primary role in the repro-
ductive process. The narrative symbolically demonstrates the father’s
power over life and death, and the loss of power and status of the
mother, of female fertility and of a woman-centered religion. Elements
from this interpretation return later on, in Nancy Jay’s approach.
The in-depth psychological reading of Gen 22 by Naomi H.
Rosenblatt and Joshua Horwitz moves in a very different direction.9
They read the story of this ‘heartbreaking test’ Abraham is put to
as a dream, a nightmare which reveals Abraham’s deepest and most
unconscious fears. The narrative, with its dreamlike structure, is
‘Traumarbeit’ of a father confronted with his deepest fears and
desires, who is struggling with his own ambitions and narcissism, but
who simultaneously loves his son deeply.
On the one hand, they see this psychological struggle as origi-
nating from the universal complexity of the parent-child dynamics,
on the other hand, Abraham’s religious zeal plays tricks on him. ‘In
his dream, Abraham is wrestling with his doubts and anxieties about
8
Carol Delaney, ‘The Legacy of Abraham’, in: Rita M. Gross (ed.), Beyond
Androcentrism, Missoula Montana 1977, 217–236.
9
Naomi H. Rosenblatt & Joshua Horwitz, Wrestling with Angels. What Genesis Teaches
Us about our Spiritual Identity, Sexuality and Personal Relationships, New York 1995,
192–201.
the vulnerability of his young son, about the demands of his covenant
with God, and about the possible risks to Isaac of inheriting this
weighty commitment. By conjuring his worst fear—that his covenant
with God would compel him to sacrifice his son, that the promise
of the covenant could be arbitrarily reversed by the God of justice
and compassion—Abraham is able to work through his anxieties and
discover the comforting power of faith’.10 According to these authors,
Sarah’s ‘unnatural’ absence in the narrative can also be explained
as an element of dream: her absence marks the loneliness of Abraham’s
internal struggle.
A psychoanalytical approach such as the above does, however,
abstract the narrative from its historical and social context.11 The
essential weakness of this interpretation is, as far as I can see, the
assumption it is based on, the assumption that this story is about a
dream. The text does not mention this dream at all, although the
Hebrew Bible contains more than one dream story and always points
that out, very explicitly.
Of greater theological interest is Irmtraud Fischer’s study: Die
Erzeltern Israels (1994).12 She would like to understand Gen 22 in the
context of the ‘women texts’ in the Abraham cycle. These ‘women
texts’,—including the wife-/sister stories in Gen 12 and 2013 and the
‘chasing stories’ in Gen 16 and 2114—tell how Abraham is willing
10
Ibidem, 197.
11
For another kind of psycho-analytical approach: see the contribution of Patrick
Vandermeersch in this volume.
12
Irmtraud Fischer, Die Erzeltern Israels. Feministisch-theologische Studien zu Genesis
12–36, Berlin/New York 1994. Also see her contribution on Gen 22 in: Anzgar
Franz (ed.), Streit am Tisch des Wortes? Zur Deutung und Bedeutung des Alten Testaments
und seiner Verwendung in der Liturgie, (Pietas Liturgica 8), St. Ottilien 1997. Fischer’s
study is the only contribution from women’s studies reviewed by Hans Dieter Neef
in his survey: Die Prüfung Abrahams. Eine exegetisch-theologische Studie zu Gen 22, 1–19,
Stuttgart 1998, 20.
13
Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes offers a critical-feministic reading of these stories:
‘Sarai’s Exile: a Gender-Motivated Reading of Genesis 12.10–13.2’ in: Athalya
Brenner (ed.), A Feminist Companion to Genesis, Sheffield Academic Press 1993, 222–234.
14
Feminist exegesis of these narratives are offered by, among others, Mieke Bal
& Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes & Grietje van Ginneken, En Sara in haar tent lachte . . .
Patriarchaat en verzet in bijbelverhalen, Utrecht 1984, 27–46; Phyllis Trible, ‘Hagar- de
eenzaamheid van de afwijzing’, in: Verhalen van verschrikking. Een literair-feministische
lezing van bijbelverhalen, Kampen 1986, 19–46 (translation of: Texts of Terror. Literary-
Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives, Philadelphia 1984); Savina J. Teubal, ‘Sarah
and Hagar, Matriarchs and Visionaries’, in: Athalya Brenner (ed.), A Feminist Companion
to Genesis (note 12), 235–250; Arie Troost, ‘Reading for the Author’s Signature:
Genesis 21.1–21 and Luke 15.11–32 as Intertexts’ in: idem, 251–272: Ellen van
to sacrifice, to give up his wife (this time Sarah, the next time Hagar)
in his own best interest. Fischer points to strong textual links between
Gen 22 and the preceeding narrative Gen 21, the chasing of Hagar
and Ishmael.
Thematically speaking both stories are also variations on the same
theme: a son has to leave the house for good, and in both stories
the son is saved at the last moment by an angel. The textual sim-
ilarities not only show parallels between the stories, there are also
three key-words (jlv, acn, dy) that make the stories each other’s
antitheses. The mother in Gen 21—Hagar—resigns to her fate and
has to see how her son dies, while the father—Abraham—in Gen
22 actively supports the sacrifice of his own son. It makes one sus-
pect that both stories were written by the same author, but it is also
possible that the second story was deliberately written closely after
the first one by a different author. What might be the theological
meaning of this parallel?
For Fischer, the connection is not that both cases tell about a
‘sacrifice of Abraham’, an interpretation that would affirm the image
of the ‘sacrosanct patriarch’. There is more to this case. Abraham’s
whole conduct up until this moment is being questioned here. He
showed cowardice in supporting the chasing of Ishmael and his
mother in Gen 21, because Ishmael was a threat to the inheritance
of Sarah’s son. Now only Isaac is left to carry on all hope, being
Abraham’s only link to the future. And this is precisely whom God
demands for a sacrifice in Gen 22.
‘Die parallele Gestaltung von Gen 22 zu Gen 21 weist darauf hin,
dass Gott dem Erzvater zumutet, die Trennung, die er von seinem
Erstgeborenen leichtfertig vollzogen hat, nun vom einzig verbliebe-
nen Sohn, vom gehätschelten Isaak (22:2), selber zu vollziehen. Der
eine Sohn wurde leichten Herzens preisgegeben, der andere muss
schweren Herzens geopfert werden.’15
All his life Abraham has chosen the easiest way, cf. the ‘women
stories’ in Gen 12, 16, 20 and 21. That is why Fischer views his
‘test’ in Gen 22 as follows: Will Abraham also be prepared to sacrifice
Wolde, ‘Leven in de marge’, in: Bettine Siertsema (ed.), Aartsmoeders, Kampen 1994,
21–34: Jeannet Schut-Klunder, ‘Hagar, de vrouw in de woestijn. Genesis 16:1–16’,
in: Jopie Siebert-Hommes (ed.), De vrouw van de nacht en andere verhalen uit de bijbel,
Zoetermeer 1998, 11–26.
15
Fischer, Die Erzeltern Israels, 337.
his own future—and so himself—in his son? That Sarah is missing

in Gen 22 is a deliberate move of the author. Sarah has already felt
what it means to be sacrificed (Gen 12 and 20). While in Gen 21
she still played the double role of both victim and perpetrator, here
in Gen 22 any form of co-perpetration is missing on her side. Here
Abraham has to solve his problem on his own.
Fischer is convincing, in my opinion, when pointing out the par-
allels between Gen 21 and 22. I support her acknowledgement of
the idea that both cases are about the sacrifice of a son, in which
both times the mother (Hagar/Sarah) has a different role to play
than the father. But the opposition she creates between the ‘light-
hearted’ sacrifice, in the first case, and a sacrifice ‘with a troubled
mind’, in the second case, I consider too much a psychological
‘hineininterpretieren’ into the psyche of Abraham. Abraham has a
lesson to learn: to sacrifice himself. But why should a vulnerable per-
son, Isaac, be handed over to this existential ordeal of Abraham?
And is not the mother—Sarah—handed over again in this threat to
her son?
4. Nancy Jay: Sacrifice as Remedy for having been Born of Woman
The most promising gender-motivated reading is, as far as I can see,

the theory of Nancy Jay, on descent relations and the function of
sacrifice. Nancy Jay focusses on gender-related features of sacrifice
which are analyzed in the field of comparative religious studies.16
She notices that around the world, ordinarily only adult males (fathers,
real and methaphorical) may perform sacrifice. Where women do so
it is as virgins, as consecrated unmarried women, or as post-menopausal
women. It is never women as mothers (as childbearers or as poten-
tial childbearers) who perform sacrifice. Sacrificing and childbearing
seem to be opposites. Why this opposition? In order to find an
answer to this question, Jay investigates the social contexts of sacrifi-
cial rituals. In what manner do sacrificial rituals connect to family
16
Nancy Jay, Throughout Your Generations Forever, (note 4). She has written before
on the same theme ‘Sacrifice as Remedy for having Been Born of Women’, in:
C.W. Atkinson et al. (eds), Immaculate and Powerful, Boston 1985. See for a critical
application of Nancy Jay’s theory: Anne-Marie Korte, ‘Ontvreemding en ontferming:
het raadsel van Rachels ‘godenroof ’ (Gen 31)’, in: Bert Blans (ed.), Stapstenen: Opstellen
over spiritualiteit en filosofie, aangeboden aan Ilse N. Bulhof, Best 1997, 41–67.
structures, the organized social relationships in which women pro-

duce children? Sacrifice occurs in societies where families are inte-
grated into extended kin groups of various kinds, where agriculture
provides the means of living and where family-life and the system
of inheritance is organized around important productive property
such as farmland and herds. Jay’s hypothesis is that the sacrificial
ritual plays a central role in identifying and maintaining intergener-
ational continuity between males. The most important function of
the sacrificial ritual, and especially the sacrifices in which blood is
shed, is to legitimate and affirm the relations between males and
thereby to constitute their line of descent outside or above the ‘nat-
ural’ female shedding of blood during childbirth. The sacrifice’s sym-
bolic function is a ‘remedy for having been born of woman’. ‘The
only action that is as serious as giving birth, which can act as a
counterbalance to it, is killing’.17 Sacrifice symbolically expiates the
descent from women and integrates a ‘pure and eternal’ patriliny.
Patrilineal descent has no naturalness at all, but is conquered at the
cost of other structures of descent in which the position of women
as mothers and sisters is more or less evidently acknowledged.18
Jay’s research investigates also sacrificial rituals in the Pentateuch.
The book of Genesis shows many traces of an ideological battle to
establish only the patrilineal descent and to religiously sanctionize it.
The communion sacrifices of the patriarchs are directly linked to the
constitution of their patrilineal relationship.19 But most interesting is
that the Genesis narratives also show many traces of rival systems
of descent, in which the role of women/mothers is acknowledged.
Cultural anthropology acknowledges the extremely important role
of the lineage principle. Some descent theorists even consider the
lineage principle ‘primary and determining’ for every sphere of social
life: economic and ecological relationships, and religion, cult and
morals are seen as deriving from lineal social organization.20 I doubt
17
Jay, ‘Sacrifice as Remedy for Having Been Born of Women’, 294.
18
For the anthropological terms about kinship I consulted Ira R. Buchler &
Henry A. Selby, Kinship and Social Organization. An Introduction to Theory and Method,
New York 1968 and Jan N. Bremmer, ‘Fosterage, kinship and the circulation of
children in ancient Greece’, in: Dialogos 6 (1999) 1–20.
19
Example: the communion sacrifice of Jacob and Laban in Gen 31, 46–54.
Through this sacrifice, invoking the ‘God of Abraham, the God of Nahor, the God
of their father’, Jacob patrilineally reconstitutes his descent-relations with Laban.
See: Jay, ‘Sacrifice as Remedy for Having Been Born of Women’, 298f.
20
Buchler & Selby, Kinship and Social Organization, 72f.
whether the connection is this causal and unambiguous. More recent

research, including gender studies, has revealed the complexity of
determining ‘the’ lineage principle and ‘the’ character of kinship rela-
tions for a distinct historical society. One should in any case differ-
entiate between the ruling ideology of a community and the everyday
practice of its members.21 In the case of the patriarchal narratives,
the issue of the prevailing rule of descent is of extreme importance—
especially from a religious point of view—because the line of descent
is the means, the ‘channel’ by which the divine promise in history
is fulfilled, by which the blessing is transmitted from generation to
generation. The question is: what links (M/F) are entitled to a posi-
tion in this chain?
Jay points to the different concerns the three sources, J, E and P,
have with regard to sacrifice: P is the most concerned about sacrifice
and cult, and P is, of all three sources, also the most concerned
about a ‘pure and eternal’ patrilineal descent. The genealogy of P is
perfectly patrilineal. J is the least interested in sacrifices and also the
least interested in patrilineal descent. A comparison between J’s genea-
logy in Gen 4 and P’s genealogy in Gen 5, for example, shows that
J’s genealogy includes women who become pregnant and give birth,
while in P’s genealogy it is always the man who ‘begets’ a son.
What is happening here? According to Jay, these differences point
to an ongoing tension in the patriarchal narratives, a tension between
the descent of fathers and the descent of mothers, and the three
sources J, E and P all deal with it in different ways. P mostly denies
that such a problem exists. P cannot use sacrifice to remedy it, for
it is not in P’s interest to sanction sacrificial practices without a priest.
E and J both acknowledge the descent problem. J is willing to let
it be, while E tries to offer a resolution for it by means of sacrifice.
All sacrificial narratives in the patriarchal stories descend from E
and all solve the problem of ambiguous descent in favor of the pure
patrilineal descent. J tolerates the bilateral descent. J, with its acknowl-
edgement of the female descent, can be heard as a ‘countervoice’
in the Pentateuch.
The culture that J and E both reflect on shows clear traces of
matrilineage.22 The marriage system as practiced in this culture is
21
Bremmer, ‘Fosterage, kinship and the circulation of children in ancient Greece’,
11.
22
Matrilineage is defined as the collective membership of a corporate matrilineal
the agnatic endogamy, more precisely: matrilateral cross-cousin mar-

riage. This means that sons marry a daughter of the brother of their
mother. A fine example of this in the Pentateuch is Jacob marrying
Leah and Rachel, both daughters of his mother’s brother Laban. In
this way he also inherits the property of his mother’s family. The
preference of the mother’s family is obvious: the cousin inherits from
the uncle, the brother on the mother’s side. This organization of
inheritance recognizes the fact that the descent/birth from the mother
is indisputable, while the descent from the father, this father, is uncer-
tain. The descent/birth from the mother is fully acknowledged and
recognized in the Jacob cycle.
In Isaac’s case, matters are a little less clear. To what extent is
there an acknowledgement of the matrilineal descent in his marriage
to Rebekka? Rebekka is, according to the story, not a relative of
Sarah, but of Abraham: Rebekka is the granddaughter of Abraham’s
brother Nahor. Or should we assume that Abraham is telling the
truth to king Abimelech in Gen 20:12 (E) and Sarah really is his
half-sister?23 In that case, a half-sister relationship also exists between
Sarah and Nahor, and then the marriage of Isaac and Rebekka and
their claim of inheritance is also structured according to the princi-
ple of matrilateral cross-cousin marriage. An argument supporting
this is that J’s description in Gen 24 presents Rebekka’s family as
‘matrilineal’, as organized around the mother and her brother. The
brother (Laban) is in the position of authority concerning her mar-
riage, the wedding gifts go to her brother and her mother, and both
give their blessing to Rebekka’s fertility.
The system of agnatic endogamy does seem to solve the dilemma
of how to maintain unilineal descent from fathers while recognizing
descent group. It should be noticed that even in the matrilineal system ‘men ordi-
narily hold the major positions of authority. It is the descent from authority, and
of property, that differs: in patrilineages descent is from father to son, in matrilin-
eages from mother’s brother to sister’s son, from uncle to nephew.’ The main
difference is that dependence on women’s powers of reproduction for intergenera-
tional continuity is structurally recognized in matrilineal descent, but ideologically
transcended in patrilineal descent. See: Jay, ‘Sacrifice as Remedy for Having Been
Born of Women’, 286ff.: see also Buchler & Selby, Kinship and Social Organization, 73.
23
See for Jay’s approach to the wife/sister stories in the Pentateuch (in discus-
sion with Ephraim Speiser’s and Samuel Greengus’ interpretation of the Nuzi texts):
Jay, Throughout Your Generations Forever, 99. According to her, P remains silent on the
half-sisterly relationship between Abraham and Sarah in Gen 12, 29, for recogniz-
ing this fact is assumed not to be in P’s interest.
descent from mothers. But it conceals a conflict at the same time:

Who is the ‘real’ parent through whom unilineal descent flows?
Whose son is it, the father’s or the mother’s? The descent/birth from
the mother is very clear, the descent from the father is awkwardly
insecure. In what way does the father confirm his status? That is
the main problem which Jay sees as a leading thread running through
the patriarchal narratives. She wants to read these narratives as deal-
ing with an ongoing ideological conflict about descent. Through
whose line of descent is the divine blessing transmitted, the pater-
nal or maternal? Is the role and part of women in the transmission
of the divine blessing acknowledged or obscured in the stories? In
what way do the men/fathers claim their status and authority in the
line of descent (and thereby in the divine blessing), and how do the
voices of the sources J, E and P sound as counterparts on this point?
Jay writes: ‘Biblical scholars have not recognized the descent conflict
in their interpretations of the patriarchal narratives because they
bring to the stories a presupposition of established certainty of patri-
lineal descent not to be found in the text, except in P’.24
5. Who is Sacrificed on Mount Moriah?
We will now look at Gen 22 and let the above direct our choice of
questions.
My question is: Is it possible to read the story of the sacrifice of Abraham
as a narrative that (also) tells about a descent conflict, in other words, whose
son is Isaac actually, through whose line of descent does the divine blessing
proceed?
I will make myself clear: The descent issue plays an undeniable
role in the Abraham-Sarah cycle. For example, the ‘double’ bless-
ing in Gen 17—first on Abraham as ‘father of many nations’ (17:5)
and then on Sarah: ‘kings of people shall be of her’ (17:16)—points
this out very obviously. How do both blessings relate? Several codices,
including the Septuagint, read 17:16: wnmm, ‘shall be of him (Isaac)’.
The rivalry between Ishmael and Isaac also proves the importance
of the descent issue in the Abraham-Sarah cycle. The story on their
rivalry can be read as a conflict about priority in descent, between
a ‘father’s son’ and a ‘mother’s son’.
24
Jay, Throughout Your Generations Forever, 101.
In Gen 16:2, Sarah wishes a son by means of Hagar, her slave

woman. She wants to be ‘built’ by her. But Ishmael does not and
cannot become Sarah’s son. He is ‘only’ a father’s son, a descen-
dant from an exogamic relationship, unqualified for inheritance. In
Gen 16, a J-narrative, Sarah tries everything she possibly can to
claim Hagar’s child for herself in her line of descent (she literally
places her slave woman into Abraham’s lap, as a way of symbolic
appropriating of the child to be begotten), but without success. Hagar
must leave with her—still unborn—child. In Gen 21, an E-narra-
tive, the conflict focusses on the two boys. Ishmael has to leave, even
though he is the firstborn. Only Isaac can be the true heir, for he
can perpetuate his mother’s line of descent.
The theme of the two rival descendants appears over and over
again in the patriarchal stories. Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau,
Josef and Benjamin all are variations on the same theme. The fact
that the theme plays an important role in each generation proves
that no definitive resolution for the descent conflict is found in the
stories of the patriarchs and matriarchs.
Whose son is Isaac actually? The texts ( J/E) are everything but
clear about it. Of course, he is Sarah’s son, without any question.
But it looks like the patrilineal descent is deliberately kept unsure.
If we compare the begetting of Ishmael with the begetting of Isaac,
it is absolutely clear that in the first case, Abraham is the father. In
Gen 16:4 it says: ‘and he went in unto Hagar, and she conceived’.
In Gen 21:1, the birth narrative of Isaac, it is surprisingly left open.
Here it is not Abraham, but JHWH who visits Sarah, ‘and JHWH
did unto Sarah as he had spoken and she conceived’. In the fertil-
ity issues in Tenach it is a known theme that JHWH himself begets
the child and gives descendants to the childless couple. But this is
not the only place where the text questions Abraham’s role in the
begetting. The text also (naughtily) plays with the possibility that
king Abimelech could be the begetter of Isaac: Sarah’s stay in
Abimelech’s harem (Gen 20) directly precedes the story of Isaac’s
birth.
However it may be: Abraham’s position is insecure. What link
does he have with Isaac, the child of the promise? In what possible
way can Isaac be placed into patriliny?
Gen 22 might offer a resolution for this problem. At least, this is
how the narrative can be read, as a (temporary) resolution to a
descent conflict.
Nancy Jay attributes the text to E. She states that here, as in the
rest of E, the sacrifice has the function of (re-)constituting the pure
patrilineal descent. But Old Testament research disagrees vehemently
about attributing Gen 22 to one of the sources of the Pentateuch. Some
say it is E (including H. Gunkel, H.C. Schmidt), others think it is
a J-narrative (including J. van Seters, H. Gese). Many researchers, how-
ever, do not answer this question, for there is not enough evidence
for either E nor J.25 I agree with their arguments, and think that
some reserve on this point need not interfere with a valid interpreta-
tion of this narrative from the point of view of rivaling lines of descent.
To be clear: This gender-perspective reading does not pretend to
offer an exhaustive interpretation of Gen 22. But focussing on the
issue of rivaling lines of descent does touch on a certain dimension
of the narrative. I’d like to plead that this approach be taken along
in the critical research whenever the (theological) meaning(s) of this
narrative is asked for. It broadens the perspective which generally
dominates the exegesis, a perspective that does not reach beyond
the triangle father-son-JHWH/Elohim. In this gender-perspective
reading, the position of the mother is explicitly brought into play.
Let us try to find an interpretation: In Gen 22 Abraham is asked
to sacrifice his son, his ‘only one’ (the only one who is still left to
pass the heritage, the blessing unto). At the final moment his hand
is stayed by an angel of JHWH and he sees the ram which he
sacrifices as a substitute for Isaac. What happens here—according
to Jay—is that Isaac, on the brink of death, receives his life, not by
birth from his mother, but from the hand of his father, as directed
by JHWH. It is a ‘spiritual birth’, accomplished without female assist-
ance. Sarah is totally absent here. Her remarkable absence in the
narrative is appropriate, for she has no role whatsoever in this his-
tory; she literally vanishes from the stage.
Abraham, in his turn, is amply rewarded for his willingness to
sacrifice his son: he is promised a prodigious offspring (Gen 22:16–18).
This promise emphasizes, Abraham saved the pure patrilineal descent
by not hesitating to sacrifice his son. He is (re-)affirmed as the father
of countless offspring.
Isaac might have been saved by the bell from the sacrifice; Sarah is, sym-
bolically speaking, sacrificed as the mother of this child.
25
Neef, Die Prüfung Abrahams, (note 12), 8f.
I read the announcement of Sarah’s death immediately following

this narrative (Gen 23:3) as a well-chosen narrative strategy, in which
the story-teller points out the (symbolic) consequences of the event
on Mount Moriah. The principle of patrilineal descent has (for the
moment) defeated the matrilineal. Isaac is now, finally and without
doubt, his ‘father’s son’. The line of descent in which Sarah had a
crucial position is now put aside.26
6. Countervoices
However, in the margins of the text subtle countervoices can be

heard. I hear them as a silent protest within the text; they under-
mine the mainstream outcome of the story, they question the ‘vic-
tory’ of Abraham and also the ‘divine’ command in Gen 22:1. I
already pointed out the strange silence surrounding Isaac in Gen 22:
19. He, though saved, is not present when Abraham and his ser-
vants return from Mount Moriah. Where did he go? Maybe he does
not want to take part in the outcome of this history? Does he not
want to be an accomplice in the victory of patriliny?
Another remarkable fact is that Isaac is the only patriarch who
does not sacrifice; he even refuses to eat meat from sacrifice. His
preference for game (Gen 27:3f.) should not (only) be taken as a
culinary preference, it could imply an aversion to (blood-)sacrifice
and its symbolic function as well, for in the Pentateuch the difference
between game and domestic animals is a sacrificial difference.27
Especially Gen 24:67 ( J) shows how Isaac wants to stay linked to
his matrilineal descent: When they first meet, he brings Rebekka
into his mother Sarah’s tent (wma hrc hlhah) and takes her to be his
wife in this meaningful place: ‘Thus Isaac was comforted after his
mother’s death’. This is the first time after the report of her death
that Sarah’s name is mentioned again in the Pentateuch. It looks
like a rehabilitation of her position in the history of the patriarchs
and matriarchs.
26
But even after her death her role in the realization of the divine promises is
not yet over: Abraham can realize not only the promise of offspring, but also the
promise of land only with Sarah’s help: the one piece of land he acquires is the
land on which he buries her. See Ellen van Wolde in: Aartsmoeders, (note 14), 19.
27
Jay, Sacrifice, Descent and the Patriarchs, 104.
Isaac’s choice to remain a mother’s son too, not to erase his

descent from Sarah, has great consequences for the remainder of
the history. The ambiguity in the issue of descent remains. Isaac
opens up the possibility for new matrilineal and patrilineal descent
conflicts.28 With Esau and Jacob, again a ‘father’s son’ and a ‘mother’s
son’, the conlict flares up again.
In this case, the text of Gen 25:19 is curious and meaningful. It
starts with: ‘These are the generations (begettings) of Isaac, Abraham’s
son’. One would expect, according to P’s genealogical order, a list
of patrilineal offspring to follow this verse. But after mentioning the
name of Isaac, the list breaks down. What follows is the long story
of the internecine fraternal struggle between Jacob and Esau. This
narrative about the twin brothers—with their different bonds and
interests—shows that the descent conflict is still far from being solved.
The struggle to let women/mothers maintain their role as active co-
actresses in the story of the transmission of the divine blessing from
generation unto generation still continues at full strength.
28
Jay, Throughout Your Generations Forever, 104: ‘Isaac’s refusal to sacrifice led to his
loss of control of his line of descent.’
ISAAC THREATENED BY THE KNIFE
OF PSYCHOANALYSIS?
Patrick Vandermeersch
This discussion of psychoanalysis and the Bible begins by differentiating

three types of such enterprises with their corresponding difficulties.
Before addressing the specific topic of the sacrifice of Isaac, or the
Aqedah, I briefly outline these discussions.
The first type, typical of the early period of psychoanalysis, was
to point to certain peculiar motives that psychoanalysts were accus-
tomed to observing in the unconscious of their patients, which they
happened to also recognize in the Bible. Having experienced, e.g.,
that fantasies about castration played an important part in many
people’s minds, they were pleased to find the same topic—somewhat
hidden—in Exod 4:24–26, when Sipporah cuts her son’s prepuce
and with the bleeding skin touches someone’s (whose?) ‘feet’. This
comforted psychoanalysts’ conviction that what they found in the
mind of people lying on the couch was not just a product of sug-
gestion, but something actually existing, for it was also to be found
in the unviolated forests of biblical writers’ minds. The problem with
this type of interpretation is that it was made mainly for the psy-
choanalysts themselves. It reassured their own minds, while often one
cannot see how it would bring more insight to a scholar (or even
just a reader) of biblical texts.
The second type of psychoanalytical interpretation, modelled along
the lines of B. Bettelheim’s study on the efficacy of fairy tales, lim-
its itself to biblical stories that can be seen as the expression of typ-
ical conflicts reflecting the development of the human psyche. In this
way, Joseph’s dreams can be interpreted in line with the fairy tale
of Humpty Dumpty, both typical stories able to capture the mind
of a little brother who is unconsciously invited to identify with the
hero and to dare to imagine: ‘Yes, I’m the little boy, but a day will
come that I will oversee my brothers.’ In a way, this type of psy-
choanalytical interpretation comes nearer to the enterprise of exe-
gesis, as it focuses on the question: ‘What does this text mean to
me?’ On the other hand, the interest in biblical text is restricted to
isaac threatened by the knife of psychoanalysis? 199
those parts reflecting the psychological structure of frequently occur-

ring conflicts. The peculiarity and individuality of the biblical mes-
sage disappear, and might even be eliminated from the beginning
by the choice of a particular type of biblical story. There is not
much room for historical or legal texts in such an analytical approach.
The third type of interpretation focuses on the interaction between
the reader and the text. This approach is mainly in favour today,
and not without reason. It provides the opportunity to keep the gains
of both previous approaches, but lays its critical emphasis upon the
motives that sustain the reader’s interest in the given text—and the
interest in psychoanalysis. This approach does not claim its identity
by competing with the other, commonly used methods of biblical
research. It is not so much a method as it is a critical reflex of self-
observation acquired by a journey of many years ‘on the couch’.
Someone who has undergone psychoanalytic treatment is not con-
stantly applying psychoanalytical categories while, e.g., reading a
menu in a restaurant or enjoying the pleasures of love; one does not
make interpretations unless they are needed. An analyzed person
has, to speak in the terminology of Microsoft, a second window in
the background, scanning for unwanted viruses. In the same way,
such a person keeps watch for interfering unconscious motives.
Psychoanalytic experience can accompany the Bible reader or bib-
lical scholar as a technique of self-observation.
This psychoanalytical scanning from the background of one’s mind
operates at the personal, as well as the professional, level. Our per-
sonal psychology can determine our choice of certain themes and
passages in the text. When one is fascinated by the sons of God lov-
ing human women in the Flood story or by the heroism of Masada,
it can reflect a very personal motivation. I immediately add that this
is a personal matter, and should not lead to psychoanalysis in pub-
lic, which is always impolite. But psychoanalytically informed self-
reflection can also accompany professional daily work on texts. When
trying to explain, e.g., Gen 32:23–33 ( Jacob’s struggle at the Jabbok),
upon distinguishing two layers in the story, the critical voice of self-
reflection could ask: ‘When I say that there is, on the one hand, the
old and universal motive of a demon dwelling on rivers and killing
travellers and, on the other hand, the motive to provide an aetiol-
ogy for a temple at Pniel, am I not making use of the classical psy-
chological mechanism of isolation, known to me from my analysis?
What are the consequences of my attempt to ‘understand’ when I
200 p.m.g.p. vandermeersch
focus on the foundation of an eighth-century cult?’ In this way the

experience of psychoanalysis becomes an auxiliary to self-reflection,
addressing critical questions to the prevalence given to certain cues
for interpretation. Why do we distinguish sources, genres, reception,
formation of the canon, etc., and why does it give us the impres-
sion that we grasp a text better? To return to the previous exam-
ple: do we feel better when our mind is dealing with primitive demons
or when we imagine ourselves building a temple that marks a cer-
tain phase in the evolution toward monotheism?
In the case of the sacrifice of Isaac, I was first inclined to go
directly to the third model of psychoanalytical behaviour and to
remain at the reader-response level. The story of the sacrifice seems
such a typical story that it is easily predictable how people are
inclined to react. The shocking experience is obvious: suddenly, in
the Bible, God appears aggressive without any reason. As this con-
tradicts the current image of God, one can imagine several attempts
to save this image. A first attempt could be to seek a hidden sin, as
in this way the representation of God is brought back within the
boundaries of the well-known psychology of an Oedipal conflict, of
a father punishing a competing child for well-defined reasons. This
is less threatening than aggression experienced on a pre-Oedipal
level, where the distinction of good and bad is only a matter of irra-
tional power and violence. A God behaving aggressively within the
boundaries of a world where right and wrong are clearly distin-
guished and where there are well-defined rules is less threatening
than a God dominating a world of mere chaos and irrational destruc-
tion. Consequently, one can expect that the tradition-process of the
text, and even present day readers, will be inclined to find a sin that
could account for God’s anger; this would at least keep the image
of God within the limits of that of a creator of an organised world.
Another attempt to save the customary image of God could make
use of the isolation-mechanism previously mentioned. One could say
that this story combines older memories of human sacrifices and
superadds to them the warning that they do not please Israel’s God.
One can imagine yet other exegetical strategies meant to preserve
an image of God in agreement with that represented in mainstream
biblical understanding. Are these procedures wrong? Not necessar-
ily. For religious commitment as well as intellectual interest, it can
be legitimate to construct a coherent concept of divinity from what
emerges from texts, interpretations and cultural history. Nevertheless,
in applying these streamlining exegetical manoeuvres we should be

aware that we possibly erase certain marginal, irrational and dark
sides of the sacred from the complex representation of the divinity
and from our understanding. The representation of God is not nec-
essarily without contradiction, in history as well as in our own minds.
And are we sure we would be better off if we could overcome the
conflicting elements?1
From a psychoanalytical point of view, this would be an essential
point in the interpretation of the sacrifice of Isaac. I was pleased to
learn that some rabbis went in the same direction, insisting in their
exegeses that Isaac had really been sacrificed, and that the ram was
offered ta˙at, after him.2 Thus, as I said, I was first inclined to carry
on this way, as a psychoanalytic companion to exegetical practice.
However, I then realised that I would have needed the time to make
an overview of the existing exegetical literature, and that other mate-
rial was lying at my disposal, my use of which would avoid the
reproach: ‘As a biblical scholar, you begin with asking a psychoan-
alyst what he thinks of a text, but very soon you are yourself lying
on the couch’. The material I discuss here is that of psychoanalysts
having themselves made an interpretation of the sacrifice of Isaac.
Without any shame, they display their own motivation in dealing
with the text. This can be the mirror that asks us, in a way not
entirely different from the mirror in Snow White: When we see these
psychoanalysts making exegetical errors do we simply correct them?
Or are we inclined to see therein proof that we dislike their moti-
vation? Inviting the reader to this exercise, I take two psychoana-
lysts who have dealt with the Aqedah, coming from very different
backgrounds: S. Gioara Shoham, interested in criminology, belong-
ing to the Jewish tradition and clearly influenced by American psy-
choanalysis, and Marie Balmary, the most well-known author on
psychoanalysis and the Bible in France, a typical representative of
Lacanian influence and Catholic past.
1
I felt uneasy when a few years ago, someone asked me bluntly: ‘Are we really
sure that monotheism is better—or more true—than polytheism?’
2
S. Giora Shoham, ‘The Isaac Syndrome’, American Imago 33 (1976) 329–349.
The author refers on p. 333, notes 7–10, to Genesis Rabba 22, 13, to Talmud
Zevachim, p. 62, side 1 and to the following scholars: S. Spiegel, ‘Meagadot
Ha’akedad’, Festschrift for A. Marx, New York 1940, M. McNamara, The New Testament
and the Palestinian Targum to the Pentateuch, Rome 1966, 164ss, G. Vermes, Scripture
and Tradition in Judaism, Leiden 1961, 205–207.
Shoham’s Isaac Syndrome
With Shoham’s study (1976), we enter clearly into the American

(and perhaps Americanised) psychoanalysis of the International Psycho-
analytical Association. One characteristic of this area of psychoanalytic
thought and practice is that it has laid the emphasis upon the mother,
whereas for Freud himself the father was the predominant issue. This
appears especially in the interpretation of the Oedipus complex. For
Freud, this was essentially a problem of identification with the father
(the boy identifies very early with the father, but observes at a cer-
tain age that the father is also his rival for the possession of the
mother, resulting in ambivalence and guilt in his relation to the
father); the Oedipus complex later became mainly understood as an
incestuous clinging to the mother. In this way, we can understand
that for this branch of psychoanalysis, a different concept was intro-
duced for the psychological mechanism that produces separation from
the mother. This is the point at which Shoham introduces the term
‘Isaac Syndrome’.3
The Isaac Syndrome refers to the interaction between father and
son, whereby the father severs the ties between mother and child
and introduces the latter into the normative system of society. Readers
accustomed to European psychoanalytical style would be inclined to
recognize in such a statement analogous ideas, as in J. Lacan’s ‘instau-
ration de la métaphore paternelle et l’accession à l’ordre symbolique’, but one
should not ignore the differences, which become manifest in Balmary’s
view on the same topic, from a biblical as well as a psychoanalyti-
cal point of view. The basic question of identification is lacking in
3
A similar approach to the Aqedah story is to be found in E. Wellish, Isaac and
Oedipus. A Study in Biblical Psychology of the Sacrifice of Isaac, London 1954. The book
is as valuable for the many cultural parallels it provides on infanticide as for the
overview of Judaic use of the theme. The psychoanalytical part sees in the ‘Aqedah
experience’ the representation of a basic psychological process that can follow the
introjection into the super-ego of the moral precepts of parents and ancestors. Some
aggressive impulses are experienced as being in line with the super-ego, which pro-
vides anxiety. ‘The moral code developed in Abraham’s super-ego by his call from
God overcame the aggressive and incestuous tendencies of his ego. This stage was
suddenly altered by the command to sacrifice Isaac. This command emanated from
the same source which formerly imposed the powerful repression of aggressive
impulses but now apparently coincided with them. It cruelly allowed Abraham to
re-enact his primitive infanticidal wishes but at the same time it forbade him to
indulge in them. Abraham is described as being in an acute agonizing stage of
moral masochism. The indications of this in Genesis were taken up and elaborated in
legends and commentaries’ (82).
Shoham’s conception, as one could expect from his American psy-

choanalytical background. According to Shoham’s view, the father
simply severs the ties between child and mother, ejecting him from
the family cocoon and compelling him (Shoham refers mostly to
boys) to become a responsible person. ‘The making of the “respon-
sible person”, the “stable human being” is achieved by constant
indoctrination by the various socialization agencies, family, school,
church, etc. These convey to him the harsh realities of life and urge
him to “grow up” with the help of some rigorous initiation rites. In
due course, the scar tissue of human experience and learning cov-
ers the sores and wounds. The child becomes less vulnerable, but
also less sensitive, and he is more reluctant to expose himself with
loving embraces to his environment. This is the lore of the rape of
innocence by life. The end product is separation of the alienated
man who is basically lonely.’4 It is the task of the father to perform
this separation. ‘The Freudian Oedipal pressures have been peren-
nially associated with the acquisition of morality and social indoc-
trination by the (male) children. I claim, however, that the actual
process of normative separation is initiated by the father or his sur-
rogate by a dynamic that is diametrically opposite to the Oedipal
pressures. This dynamic initiates deprivational pressures from the
father towards the son and is meant to effect the normative sepa-
ration of the adolescent from the family fold into loneliness and social
responsibility. The pressures to expel the groaning child from the
family are initiated by covert dynamics within the family, which stem
from the father. These pressures may aptly be called the Isaac
Syndrome after the biblical myth of the offering of Isaac by his
father. As we have pointed out elsewhere, myths are personal real-
ities insofar as they constitute, many times, a projection of personal
developmental history. The myth of the offering of Isaac may, there-
fore, be taken in its psychological context as a basic family dynamic
which counteracts the oedipal pressures postulated by Freud.’5
In his definition, Shoham tells immediately how he conceives the
biblical story: it is a myth, and a myth reflects psychological processes
and even teaches the listener how to handle them.6 This is clearly
in the second model of psychoanalytical explanation, that of Bettelheim,
4
P. 331.
5
P. 332.
6
‘If myths are a projection of personal history which we indeed hold them to
be, then the Aqedah myth is of prime importance as a psychological source-mate-
as mentioned in the beginning of this text. Consequently, Shoham

says that it does not matter if the sacrifice actually happened, although
he lists a number of rabbis who assert Isaac was really slaughtered.7
He continues by mentioning several cross-cultural parallels in which
the firstborn is sacrificed to the gods. His statement is clear: the myth
of the sacrifice of Isaac reflects a basic and quite universal pattern
of psychological growth: in the interaction between father and son,
the father should be seen as he who kills the child in the boy, mean-
ing that he compels the boy to leave home and join adult society.8
This is only one side of the Isaac Syndrome, however; the other
side has to do with the reaction of the boy. There are boys who
readily accept the process of separation and even seem to pose as
acquiescent victims. In his description, Shoham clearly demonstrates
his ambivalence before such a behaviour. On one hand, he clearly
dislikes people who try to escape the separation from the family fold
by seeking surrogates. Thereby he refers to phenomena flourishing
at the time he wrote: ‘The love-ins, the group drug rites; the Woodstock
Nation, the Flower People and now the diffuse, multi-mothered com-
mune family’.9 On the other hand, he seems much harsher against
those who accept too easily ‘the pigeon holes of social norms and
the Sisyphean drudgeries of socio-economic duties’.10 He even ful-
minates against the ideology that leads children to sacrifice them-
selves for the Fatherland, the Party or the Cause, and that honours
fathers who lost their sons to such a cause. Referring to Israel’s wars,
he writes bitterly: ‘The ultimate rationalization of the grieving father
might then be that his son, the dying God, has been projected unto
eternity with the halo of perfect beauty and permanent youth. Yet,
this rationalization may not save the father from the abysmal guilt
which may plague him for the rest of his days for having partaken
in the reincarnation of the ever-recurring Aqedah episode’.11 And more
rial irrespective of its historical truth. Consequently, the Aqedah myth may serve
as an archetype of covert father-son relations both in its version as a temptation
of Abraham or its interpretation as a consummated burnt offering of Isaac.’ (334).
7
See note 2.
8
‘Well, the Aqedah myth with its universal analogies ranging from the Indian
myth of the offering of Cunacepha to the God Varuna, to the slaughter of Icelandic
princes at the shrine of Odin in the Ynglinda Saga show that a deprivational atti-
tude of father towards son is an archetypical dynamism of the human family.’ (335).
9
P. 339.
10
P. 340.
11
P. 343.
explicitly: ‘we suggest cautiously that the Isaac Syndrome may be

linked to society’s need for holy martyrs, for mystic heroes to boost
its ideologies and group goals. The Isaac Syndrome may, therefore,
underlie and covertly legitimise the mass destruction, slaughter and
pain inherent in wars and political strife.’12 Obviously, Shoham is
more sympathetic with the devil, who according to the Midrash, said
to Abraham when he was about to kill his son: ‘What happened to
you, old-timer, you seem to have lost your heart. A son is given to you
when you are hundred years old and now you are about to slaugh-
ter him.’13
At the end of his text, Shoham addresses the classical parallel
made between Isaac’s and Jesus’ sacrifices. In both cases are young
men having victimized themselves to an archetypical perfection. In
each case, the myth presents the story as if the boy was revived by
a divine miracle, and it was said that the sacrifice was redeeming:
the sacrifice of the Passover lamb was linked to the Messianic redemp-
tion through ‘the blood of the binding of Isaac’.14 Thus the sacrifice
of Isaac, the ‘tame dove’, redeemed the sins of all Israel and was
remembered by the sounding of a ram’s horn on the day of atone-
ment. The sacrifice of Jesus, the Agnus Dei, redeemed the sins of all
mankind.
What is the message addressed to us by Shoham after this expose?
In the last lines of his text, he states briefly that the idea of a redeem-
ing sacrifice only reflects the psychological urges of the Isaac Syndrome
but is nonsense to the rational thinker. Giving the floor to Nietzsche,
he summarises the latter’s views as follows: ‘Who, but the Antichrist—
the Devil, could have sensed the sinister vicissitudes of the Isaac
Syndrome?’15 Obviously, he warns us against the biblical message
or, at least, against the way it can be understood.
Marie Balmary’s forbidden sacrifice
Marie Balmary makes Isaac’s sacrifice central: It provides the title

for her book on Bible and psychoanalysis.16 We enter a completely
12
P. 344.
13
Genesis Rabbah 22, 12, quoted by Shoham p. 347.
14
Shoham p. 345 referring to the Melkhilta of Rabbi Ishmael 1, 57–58.
15
P. 349.
16
M. Balmary, Le sacrifice interdit. Freud et la Bible, Paris 1986.
different atmosphere, of psychoanalytical approach as well as the

accuracy in respecting details of the biblical text. Clearly influenced
by J. Lacan and F. Dolto, Balmary has a much more positive view
on the role of the father or, more precisely, of cultural valuation of
fatherhood, for a growing child.17 Surely, the father has his function
in separating mother and child, but he does so by giving recogni-
tion to the child. This recognition is basically performed by utiliz-
ing and respecting the name of the child and, further on, by teaching
him or her to circumscribe inner drives by linking them to words;
in this way, drives acquire differentiation. The father separates mother
and child not by ruthless power, but by introducing language as an
intermediary between desire and fulfilment. This cornerstone of Laca-
nian psychoanalysis results in Balmary’s attention to the peculiar mes-
sage addressed by the biblical texts in its most concrete formulation.
As a consequence of this sensibility, Balmary (being primarily a
psychoanalyst), found it necessary to learn Greek and Hebrew in
order to undergo a real exposure to the text closest to its original
form. Once she did this, she was astonished at how much of the
Bible was in line with her ethical convictions as a psychoanalyst. She
especially noted the recurrence of the sequence lier, délier, allier (to
tie, to release, to unite) as the key processes operating in her psy-
choanalytic practice as well as in the biblical message. 18 In both
cases, it is said that a human being is initially in a state of fusion
and dependency, and that the next step to individuality and free-
dom consists of separation. Separation, with the pain and, some-
times, aggression this process implies, is not a final stage. In a third
phase, human beings must recognize that they actually need each
other. This does not mean regression to the previous stage, but a
new type of relationship—the relationship or alliance of people who
are truly individuals.
Before displaying Balmary’s method in the case of the sacrifice of
Isaac, I list three objections raised to her approach, so as to move
beyond them in the discussion.
First, Balmary’s novice status with the Greek and the Hebrew
likely meant that she gave some expressions a weight that they do
17
In order to overcome frequent misunderstanding: for the development of this
psychological structure, a child does not need a particular physical father, but a
culture wherein fatherhood is represented as being symbolically important.
18
P. 188.
not necessarily have for someone accustomed to the daily use of the
language. Her emphasis on lekh lekha, interpreted as ‘go for yourself ’
or ‘go to yourself ’, is said to be more banal than she thought. D.
Stein, one of her more pertinent critics, says it would be as if you
could give a very peculiar meaning to va-t-en! as different from pars!,
which indeed is questionable.19 The same can probably be said of
her interpretation of 'alah, which she understands only as ‘to ele-
vate’, refusing to acknowledge that the idea of sacrifice could also
be a common meaning.
Secondly, Balmary reads the text in a synchronic way, paying no
attention to the different layers in the text and making no specific
issue of the etiologic function of some stories. This is questionable
from not only an exegetical, but also a psychoanalytical, point of
view as the idea of an après-coup, the function of giving meaning in
retrospect, is a crucial issue in psychoanalysis.20 This is truly a crit-
ical issue, as I will argue at the end of this text. However, in favour
of Balmary, I should add that this criticism rebounds upon who is
speaking. Actually, one should also ask which type of understanding
is provided by the contemplation of distinct sources operating their
dialectics in one text.
The third objection could be that of a too easy concord. Mary
Balmary has her own psychoanalytic experience and recognizes the
same findings in her reading of the Bible. But here also, the criti-
cism rebounds upon the critic, for fundamentally she does nothing
different from a believer who tries to grasp the real message of the
Bible. Both are in the hermeneutical circle and must ask why they
look at that passage in the Bible with that particular, often uncon-
scious, expectation.
But let us now look more closely to the exegesis of Marie Balmary.
She starts by putting the story of the sacrifice of Isaac, or the Aqedah—
she clearly prefers the latter term—in its context. Let us begin, very
psychoanalytically, with what happens afterwards, while this often
sheds light upon the hidden dimension in the story. Immediately
after the story, it is said that Milkah, the niece of Abraham and wife
of his brother Nahor, gave birth to children, one of whom (Betuel)
19
D. Stein, ‘Une lecture psychanalytique de la Bible. Le sacrifice interdit de
Marie Balmary’, Revue de Sciences philosophiques et théologiques 72 (1986) 95–108, esp.
100–101.
20
P. 104.
has a daughter, Rebecca, who will become Isaac’s wife. Immediately

after this genealogy, the length of Sarah’s life is given and her death
is mentioned. Thus, after the story of the Aqedah, Isaac loses his
mother and gains a wife. To this remark, I would add that Isaac,
when he has sexual intercourse with Rebecca, does so in his mother’s
tent in order to gain consolation.21
And let us turn now to what happened before the Aqedah. Isaac
is born and his name refers to laughing: the laughing of Abraham
when it was said that he would have a child (Gen 17:17), the laugh-
ing of Sarah when she heard that she would become pregnant (Gen
18:12), and the laughing of Isaac playing with Ismael (Gen 21:9).
Laughing is a primitive expression of autonomy. We can understand
that it is a problem for Sarah when Isaac is weaned and a huge
feast is given by Abraham on this occasion (the verse repeats two
times: when Isaac is weaned—gamal ) and she sees her son Isaac
laughing with Ismael,22 the son of Abraham and Hagar. It is then
that she urges that Hagar and Ismael be sent away to the desert,
where they obviously were expected to die. Abraham, the ‘father of
a multitude’ obeys and is not strong enough to protect Ismael, one
of his two sons. When we read carefully, we see that Sarah obvi-
ously has difficulties recognizing that both Isaac and Ismael are
Abraham’s children. She speaks of ‘the maidservant and her son’ who
should not inherit together with ‘my son’ (Gen 21:10). Thus, she is
unable to recognize that her son, whose weaning has been celebrated
by Abraham, is an autonomous being. Neither is she capable of rec-
ognizing Abraham in his very function of a father; Abraham him-
self fails to take his position as such.
Then, after the episode in which Abraham shows his ability to
calmly and justly handle public affairs in making a treatise with
Abimelek, we come to the story of the Aqedah. Elohim begins to ask
Abraham to ‘elevate’ ('alah) Isaac, and calls the latter with insistence
21
This appeared so shocking for J. Wellhausen that he supposed the text was
corrupted and originally must have been ‘his father’s tent’—which was difficult to
conceive if Isaac’s father was still alive, so he decided to let Abraham die earlier
in the text. Actually, you could ask if Wellhausen was demonstrating his own Oedipal
conflicts in his biblical scholarship. See T. Reik, ‘Unbewusste Faktoren in der wissen-
schaftlichen Bibelarbeit’, Imago 5 (1917–1919) 358–363, reprint in: J. Spiegel,
Psychoanalytical Interpretationen biblischer Texte, Munich 1972, 29–35.
22
Balmary sees no reason to find something indecent in the laughter of Ismael,
as has been supposed by some interpreters in order to justify the fact that he is
sent away.
your son, your only son. Balmary insists upon the Hebrew formula:
‘Go for yourself and elevate him in elevation’. The formula ‘go for
yourself’ is the same as in the beginning of Abraham’s story, when
God asks him to leave his family, and thus carries a heavy empha-
sis for Abraham. But is the sacrifice of Isaac the special thing God
will now ask for? Does the sentence contain a word referring to a
sacrifice, or to a holocaust, as most translations suggest? Balmary
says she was not able to find such a word, and was pleased to read
in the commentary of Rashi in the tenth century: ‘God does not
say: “sacrifice him”. The Holy, hallowed be His name, did not want
it. He wanted only that he would be elevated on the mountain so
that Isaac would get the character of a sacrifice. Then, once he
would be elevated, the Lord would have said: “Let him now come
down”.’ Balmary notices also that the Greek translation of the
Septuagint, although it speaks explicitly of a sacrifice demanded by
God, does not use the word holocaustum, but olokarposis, a term refer-
ring to the offering of fruit. Thus even the Septuagint did not sup-
pose that God was asking for Isaac’s death.23
Nevertheless, as Abraham takes wood with him, he seems con-
vinced that God asks him to sacrifice Isaac. According to Balmary,
this is the tension in the text: Abraham not being able to conceive
that God is asking for something other than a sacrifice. The reason
for this is that Abraham does not consider Isaac a separate indi-
vidual. Twice, the text repeats about Abraham and Isaac: ‘They
went together’, (literally: ‘two being one’: Gen 22:6 and 8), and
Balmary notes that what is repeated twice generally points to some-
thing conflicting or repressed. Thus, Abraham considers that giving
his child away is killing him. Therefore, he binds his child and is
ready to sacrifice him.
At this moment, Balmary says, we should note two essential changes
in the terminology. God, who has been indicated until now by the
term Elohim, appears suddenly under the vocable YHWH, the unmis-
takable God of Israel. At the same time Abraham sees an animal
that he can sacrifice—not the sheep Isaac spoke of when they were
climbing on the mountain, but a ram, a fatherly animal. This must
be sacrificed. Abraham sacrifices his possessive paternity and recog-
nizes that his son is a free man with his own destiny. Indeed, after
23
P. 197.
the Aqedah story, Sarah dies, Isaac marries, Abraham dies and is
buried by Isaac and Ismael.
This is, in brief, the core of Balmary’s psychoanalytic reading. It
is clear—she does not hide it—that her perspective has been deter-
mined by her psychoanalytic training and practice. This experience
made her free from an authoritarian and narrow-minded Catholicism,
and she acknowledges very openly that she felt happy when she
found in the Bible arguments confirming her new belief. But does
she do something different from most believers who read and study
the Bible to check something important to them? Is there such a
difference from those who, as they cannot accept that the God of
the Bible asks for human sacrifices, split the text into a Jahwist and
an Elohist, and seek their truth in the Jahwist’s emending of the
more primitive Elohistic religiosity? Quite bluntly, Balmary demon-
strates what we all generally do: trying to understand the Bible from
our point of view, putting some parts in perspective so that we can
position ourselves on a comfortable point in a reconstructed history.
Balmary simply accepts that there is always a personal motivation
in the study of the Bible, as in any research, and it is better to be
conscious of this than to cultivate the illusion of pure science. Every
reading of texts is part of a hermeneutical circle, and the criterion
of validity is the progress made in the mutual elucidation of the
text and the reader during the process. This is not mere relativism:
the existence of the hermeneutical circle is no obstacle to realize
that you sought in a text something different from what is actually
there!
A subsequent question deals with the explanatory categories one
uses in this hermeneutical circle. Balmary reads the text synchroni-
cally, while generations of biblical scholars have taught us to read
diachronically. They make source criticism, form criticism and tra-
dition analysis. This approach invokes no less complicated psychologi-
cal mechanisms than a synchronic reading, although we have not
learned to become conscious of them. To advance in the issue of
the Bible and psychoanalysis, the next step should be to enter into
the psychology of historical research and investigate how the expe-
rience of our identity—and the identity of our belief—motivates us
to delve into the past.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RECENT STUDIES
M. PopoviÆ
Bibliography Genesis 22 (1990‒2001)

Human Sacrifice
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D.J.A. Clines & P.R. Davies (eds.), The Bible in Human Society: Essays in Honour of
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J. Ebach, ‘Moloch’, Neues Bibel-Lexikon 10 (Solothurn/Zürich, 1995) 829–831.
H.-P. Müller, ‘Genesis 22 und das mlk-Opfer: Erinnerung an einen religions-
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K. Koch, ‘Molek astral’, A. Lange, H. Lichtenberger & D. Römheld (eds.), Mythos
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51 (1999) 30–47.
W. Zwickel, ‘Menschenopfer’, Neues Bibel-Lexikon 10 (Solothurn/Zürich, 1995) 765f.
Exegesis
H.H. Abramovitch, ‘The Relations between Fathers and Sons in Biblical Narrative;
toward a New Interpretation of the Akedah’, WCJS 11,A (1994) 31–36.
E. Auerbach, Mimesis: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Literatur (Tübingen/Basel,
19949) 5–27.
Y. Avishur, ‘The Narratives of the Binding of Isaac and Abraham’s Exodus from
Haran—Structure, Style and Language’, in M. Heltzer, A. Segal & D. Kaufman
(eds.), Studies in the Archaeology and History of Ancient Israel: In Honour of Moshe Dothan
(Haifa, 1993) *91–*106.
W. Bader, ‘The Agents in Gen 22:1–14’, in Actes du Troisième Colloque International
Bible et Informatique: Interprétation, Herméneutique, Compétence Informatique: Tübingen 26–30
août 1991 (Travaux de Linguistique Quantitative 49; Paris/Genève, 1992) 49–76.
W.F. Bakker, ‘Thysia tou Avraam, ameses skenikes hodegies’, Cretan Studies 3 (1992)
1–19.
K. Baltzer, ‘Jerusalem in den Erzväter-Geschichten der Genesis?: Traditions-
geschichtliche Erwägungen zu Gen 14 und 22’, in E. Blum, Ch. Macholz & E.W.
Stegemann (eds.), Die Hebräische Bibel und ihre zweifache Nachgeschichte: Festschrift für
R. Rendtorff zum 65. Geburtstag (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1990) 3–12.
B.L. Bandstra, ‘Word Order and Emphasis in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: Syntactic
Observations on Genesis 22 from a Discourse Perspective’, in W.R. Bodine (ed.),
Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew (Winona Lake IN, 1992) 109–123.
212 m. popoviÆ
W. Berg, ‘Siebenerreihen von Verben und Substantiven’, BN 84 (1996) 11–15.

R.D. Bergen, ‘The Role of Genesis 22:1–19 in the Abraham Cycle: A Computer-
Assisted Textual Interpretation’, Criswell Theological Review 4 (1990) 313–326.
D.R. Blumenthal, ‘Confronting the Character of God’, in T. Linafelt & T.K. Beal
(eds.), God in the Fray: A Tribute to Walter Brueggemann (Minneapolis, 1998) 38–51.
L. Bodoff, ‘The Real Test of the Akedah; Blind Obedience versus Moral Choice’,
Judaism 42 (1993) 71–92.
L. Bodoff, ‘God tests Abraham, Abraham tests God’, Bible Review 9 (1993) 53–56.62.
L. Cardellino, ‘Jahweh contro gli Elohim per il sacrificio di Isacco’, Bibbia e Oriente
38 (1996) 91–110.
J.J. Collins, ‘Faith Without Works: Biblical Ethics and the Sacrifice of Isaac’, in
S. Beyerle, G. Mayer & H. Strauß (eds.), Recht und Ethos im Alten Testament—Gestalt
und Wirkung: Festschrift für Horst Seebass zum 65. Geburtstag (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1999)
115–131.
O. Davidsen, ‘Og Gud sagde til Abraham’, Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift 26 (1995)
79–118.
E.F. Davis, ‘Self-Consciousness and Conversation: Reading Genesis 22’, Bulletin for
Biblical Research 1 (1991) 27–40.
K.A. Deurloo, ‘The Way of Abraham: Routes and Localities as Narrative Data in
Gen. 11:27–25:11’, in M. Kessler (ed.), Voices from Amsterdam: A Modern Tradition
of Reading Biblical Narrative (SBL Semeia Studies 22; Atlanta, 1994) 95–112.
K.A. Deurloo, ‘Omdat ge gehoord hebt naar mijn stem (Gen 22)’, ACEBT 5 (1984)
41–60; ‘Because You Have Hearkened to my Voice’ (Genesis 22)’, in M. Kessler
(ed.), Voices from Amsterdam: A Modern Tradition of Reading Biblical Narrative (SBL
Semeia Studies 22; Atlanta, 1994) 113–130.
B.J. Diebner, ‘Was sich auf dem Berg im Land Moriyah abspielte: Gen 22 erklärt
als Teil der »israelitischen« Torah’, Dielheimer Blätter zum Alten Testament 28
(1992/1993) 47–57.
B.J. Diebner, ‘Noch einmal zu Gen 22,2: “Eretz ha-Moriah”’, Dielheimer Blätter zum
Alten Testament 29 (1998) 58–72.
B.J. Diebner, ‘. . . dass Abraham nur einmal »im Lande« war und ansonsten zumeist
in Idumäa lebte’, Dielheimer Blätter zum Alten Testament 29 (1998) 73–91.
J. Doukhan, ‘The Center of the Aqedah: A Study of the Literary Structure of
Genesis 22:1–19’, Andrews University Seminary Studies 31 (1993) 17–28.
J. Ebach, ‘Isaak wird immer wieder geopfert’, JK 54 (1993) 95–97.
J. Ebach, ‘Theodizee: Fragen gegen die Antworten: Anmerkungen zur biblischen
Erzählung von der »Bindung Isaaks« (1 Mose 22)’, in J. Ebach, Gott im Wort: Drei
Studien zur biblischen Exegese und Hermeneutik (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1997) 2–25.
W.D. Edgerton, The Passion of Interpretation: Literary Currents in Bible Interpretation,
Louisville 1992.
B. Ego, ‘Abraham als Urbild der Toratreue Israels: Traditionsgeschichtliche Über-
legungen zu einem Aspekt des biblischen Abrahambildes’, in F. Avemarie &
H. Lichtenberger (eds.), Zur theologischen Begriffsgeschichte in alttestamentlicher, frühjüdi-
scher und urchristlicher Tradition (WUNT 92; Tübingen, 1996) 25–40.
D.E. Fass, ‘Unbinding mother Rebekah’, Judaism 41 (1992) 361–376.
I. Fisher, ‘Die Lebensprobe des Abraham: Gen 22 im Kontext der Frauentexte der
Erzeltern-Erzählungen’, Bibel und Liturgie 72 (1999) 199–207.
T.E. Fretheim, ‘God, Abraham, and the Abuse of Isaac’, Word and World 15 (1995)
49–57.
F. García López, ‘Le sacrifice d’Isaac: Étude littéraire et théologique de Gn 22,1–19’,
RICP 62 (1997) 199–217.
F. García López, ‘Gen 22, entre la interpretacion historico-critica y la literario-teo-
logica’, in F. García López & A. Galindo Garcia (eds.), Biblia, literatura e Iglesia
(Salamanca, 1995) 47–62.
bibliography of recent studies 213
P. Gilbert, ‘Le sacrifice d’Abraham: Lecture du livre de la Genèse 22,1–13.15–19’,

Bulletin de l’Institut Catholique de Lyon 122 (1998) 46–54.
R. Gilboa, Intercourses in the Book of Genesis: Mythic Motifs in Creator-Created Relationships,
Sussex 1998.
H. Gossai, ‘Divine Vulnerability and Human Marginality in the Akedah: Exploring
a Tension’, Horizons in Biblical Theology 19 (1997) 1–23.
Y. Hocherman, ‘Notes to Several Passages in Genesis [Gen 4,1; 6,3; 22,6; 27,40]’,
BetM 36 (1990–1991) *20–*28.
S. Japhet, ‘The Trial of Abraham and the Test of Job: How do They Differ?’,
Henoch 16 (1994) 153–172.
W.S. Johnson, ‘God’s Ordering, Providing, and Caring for the World: Grace as
»Gift of Death«’, Theology Today 54 (1997/1998) 29–42.
O. Kaiser, ‘Isaaks Opferung: Eine biblische Besinnung über einen schwierigen Text’,
HoLiKo-N.F. 10 (1992/1993) 428–441.
I. Kalimi, ‘The Land of Moriah, Mount Moriah, and the Site of Solomon’s Temple
in Biblical Historiography’, HThR 83 (1990) 345–362.
K.J. Kaplan, ‘Isaac and Oedipus: A Re-Examination of the Father-Son Relationship’,
Jdm 39 (1990) 73–81.
M.J. Kohn, ‘The Trauma of Isaac’, JBQ 26 (1991/1992) 96–104.
H.A.J. Kruger, ‘God Test Abraham: The Command to Sacrifice Issac’, NGTT 32
(1991) 187–200.
S.D. Kunin, ‘The Death of Isaac: Structuralist Analysis of Genesis 22’, BiSe 39
(1996) 319–343; Studium biblicum Franciscanum Analecta 41 (1995) 35–58; JSOT
64 (1994) 57–81.
P.K. Kurz, ‘Abraham: Wegsucher—Gottessucher: Literarische Annäherungen’, US
51 (1996) 266–276.
C. Leviant, ‘Parallel Lives: The Trials and Traumas of Isaac and Ishmael’, Bible
Review 15 (1999) 20–25.
H. Mbachu, Abraham, Offer Your Only Beloved Son as Holocaust!: Narrative-Inculturation
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S. Mittmann, ‘ha-Morijja—Präfiguration der Gottesstadt Jerusalem (Genesis 22,1–14.19).
Mit einem Anhang: Isaaks Opferung in der Synagoge von Dura Europos’, in
M. Hengel, S. Mittmann, A.M. Schwemer (eds.), La cité de Dieu: Die Stadt Gottes:
3.Symposium Strasbourg, Tübingen, Uppsala 19–23. September 1998 in Tübingen (WUNT
129; Tübingen, 2000) 67–97.
R. Mizuno, ‘The binding of the “Akedah”; the literary working of Gen 22’, Kwansei
Gakuin University Annual Studies 44 (1995) 1–10.
S. Mleynek, ‘Abraham, Aristotle, and God: The Poetics of Sacrifice’, JAAR 62 (1994)
107–121.
H.-D. Neef, ‘«Abraham! Abraham!»: Gen 22, 1–19 als theologische Erzählung’,
JNWSL 24 (1998) 45–62.
H.-D. Neef, Die Prüfung Abrahams: Eine exegetisch-theologische Studie zu Gen 22,1–19 (AzTh
90; Stuttgart, 1998).
E. von Nordheim, Die Selbstbehauptung Israels in der Welt des Alten Orients: religions-
geschichtlicher Vergleich anhand von Gen 15/22/28, dem Aufenthalt Israels in Ägypten, 2Sam
7, 1Kön 19 und Psalm 104 (OBO 115; Fribourg (Switzerland)/Göttingen 1992).
W. Oswald, ‘Text segmentation and pragmatics’, in Actes du Quatrième Colloque
International Bible et Informatique: ‘Matériel et Matière’: Amsterdam 15–18 août 1994:
l’Impact sur les Études Bibliques (Travaux de Linguistique Quantitative 57; Paris
1995) 140–153.
C. Palacios, ‘El sacrificio de Isaac, una parábola de la vida religiosa’, Confer 32,123
(1993) 359–375.
J.D. Pleins, ‘Son-Slayers and Their Sons’, CBQ 54 (1992) 29–38.
214 m. popoviÆ
S. Prolow & V. Orel, ‘Isaac unbound’, BZ 40 (1996) 84–91.

M. Prudkÿ, ‘Der prüfende Gott—Genesis 22: Was Abrahan eigentlich opfern sollte’,
in H. Pavlincová & D. Papou“ek (eds.), The Bible in Cultural Context (Brno, 1994)
247–254.
W.R. Renninger, ‘Seeing and Believing: A Study of Gen 22,1–19’, in M.W. Pretorius
(ed.), The Secret of Faith: In Your Heart—In Your Mouth: In Honour of Donald Moreland
(Heverlee-Leuven, 1992) 133–146.
C.S. Rodd, ‘What kind of God is this?’, ET 103 (1991/1992) 18–19.
M. Roshwald, ‘The meaning of faith’, Modern Theology 7 (1991) 381–401.
C. Savasta, ‘Schemi e strutture in Gen 22,1–19’, RivBib 42 (1994) 179–192.
H. Schmid, Die Gestalt des Isaak: ihr Verhältnis zur Abraham- und Jakobtradition (EdF 274;
Darmstadt, 1991).
H. Schult, ‘Eine Glosse zu »Moriya«’, Dielheimer Blätter zum Alten Testament 29 (1998)
56–57.
M. Schwantes, ‘»Lege deine Hand nicht an das Kind.«: Überlegungen zu Gen 21
und 22’, in F. Crüsemann, Ch. Hardmeier & R. Kessler (eds.), Was ist der
Mensch. . . . ? Beiträge zur Anthropologie des Alten Testaments: Hans Walter Wolff zum 80.
Geburtstag (München, 1992) 164–178.
M. Schwantes, ‘»Era un niño«’, Ribla 14 (1993) 41–52.
E. Starobinski-Safran, ‘Moriyya [Gn 22,1; 2 Chr 3,1]’, in Ph. Borgeaud et al. (eds.),
Le Temple lieu de conflit: actes du colloque de Cartigny 1991 (Centre d’Étude du Proche-
Orient Ancien 7; Leuven, 1994) 171–179.
G. Steins, Die »Bindung Isaaks« im Kanon (Gen 22): Grundlagen und Programm einer
kanonischintertextuellen Lektüre: mit einer Spezialbibliographie zu Gen 22 (Herders bibli-
sche Studien 20; Freiburg im Breisgau, 1999).
G. Steins, ‘Die Versuchung Abrahams (Gen 22,1–19). Ein neuer Versuch’, in
A. Wénin (ed.), Studies in the Book of Genesis. Literature, Redaction and History (BETL
155; Leuven, 2001) 509–520.
G.G. Stroumsa, ‘Herméneutique biblique et identité: L’example d’Isaac’, RB 99
(1992) 529–543.
X. Tilliette, ‘Bible et Philosophie: Le sacrifice d’Abraham’, Gregorianum 77 (1996)
133–146.
A. Torres Queiruga, ‘El sacrificio de Isaac; de la muerte por la letra a la plenitud
del simbolo’, in F. García López & A. Galindo Garcia (eds.), Biblia, literatura e
Iglesia (Salamanca, 1995) 115–130.
P. Trible, ‘Genesis 22, the Sacrifice of Sarah’, in J.P. Rosenblatt & J.C. Sitterson,
Jr. (eds.), ‘Not in Heaven’: Coherence and Complexity in Biblical Narrative (ISBL; Bloomington,
1991) 249–253.
M. Vervenne, ‘«To Bind or Not to Bind, That is the Question»: Een exegetische
oefening over Genesis 22’, in L. Leijssen, H. Lombaerts & B. Roebben (eds.),
Geloven als toekomst: Godsdienstpedagogische visies en bijdragen aangeboden aan Professor Jozef
Bulckens bij zijn emeritaat (Leuven, 1995) 79–94.
D. Vetter, ‘Die Bindung Jizchacks: das sprachliche Werk—»ein mit den Lippen
geschlossener Bund«’, in L. Hagemann & E. Pulsfort (eds.), “Ihr alle aber seid
Brüder”: Festschrift für A.Th. Khoury zum 60. Geburtstag, Würzburg 1990) 263–284;
D. Vetter, Das Judentum und seine Bibel: gesammelte Aufsätze (Religionswissenschaftliche
Studien 40; Würzburg, 1996) 430–453.
D. Volgger, “Es geht um das Ganze—Gott prüft Abraham (Gen 22, 1–19)”, BZ
45 (2001) 1–19.
A.L.H.M. van Wieringen, ‘The Reader in Genesis 22:1–19’, EstB 53 (1995) 289–304
M.M. Wilfong, ‘Genesis 22, 1–18’, Interpretation 45 (1991) 393–397.
I. Willi-Plein, ‘Die Versuchung steht am Schluss: Inhalt und Ziel der Versuchung
Abrahams Gen 22’, in K. Seybold (ed.), Das universale Gebet: Studien zum Unservater:
Jan Milic Lochman gewidmet zum 70. Geburtstag von der theologischen Fakultät Basel, ThZ
48 (1992) 100–108.
M.J. Yeres, ‘The meaning of Abraham’s test; a reexamination of the Akedah’, JBQ
19 (1990) 3–10.
D.J. Zucker, ‘Conflicting Conclusions: the Hatred of Isaac and Ishmael’, Judaism 39
(1990) 37–46.
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G. Abrahamson, ‘The Reinterpretation of the Akedah in Modern Hebrew Poetry’,
JJS 41 (1990) 101–114.
Y. Azuelos, ‘Toward the Significance of the Term ma’akelet (Gen 22:6)’, BetM 37
(1991/1992) *199–*201.
W. Balke, ‘Calvins Auslegung von Genesis 22’, in I. Backus & F. Higman (ed.),
Théorie et pratique de l’exégèse: actes du troisìeme colloque international sur l’histoire de l’exégèse
biblique au XVI e siècle (Genève, 31 août—2 septembre 1988) (Études de philologie et
d’histoire 43; Genève, 1990) 211–229.
L.M. Barth, ‘Introducing the Akedah: A Comparison of Two Midrashic Presentations’,
in P.R. Davies & R.T. White (eds.), A Tribute to Geza Vermes: Essays on Jewish and
Christian Literature and History ( JSOTS 100; Sheffield, 1990) 125–138.
L.M. Barth, ‘Textual Transformations: Rabbinic Exegesis of Genesis 22:14’, in S.F.
Chyet & D.H. Ellenson (eds.), Bits of Honey: Essays for Samson H. Levey (SFSHJ 74;
Atlanta, 1993) 3–23.
A. Barugel, The Sacrifice of Isaac in Spanish and Sephardic Balladry (American university
studies. Series 2, Romance languages and literature 116; New York, 1990).
F. Bejaoui, ‘L’intervention divine et le sacrifice d’Abraham sur la sigillée africaine:
deux coupes inédites de Tunisie’, RivAC 67 (1991) 325–336.
C.J. Bekker, S.J. Nortjé, ‘Die gebruik van die ‘offer’ van Isak as ’n motief vir die
verkondiging van Jesus as die lydende Christus’, HTS 51 (1995) 454–464.
L.A. Berman, The Akedah: The Binding of Isaac (Livingston St. Northvale, NJ, 1997).
M.J. Bernstein, ‘Angels at the Aqedah: A Study in the Development of a Midrashic
Motif ’, DSD 7 (2000) 263–291.
M. Bieber, ‘Religiöser Wahn oder Urerfahrung des Glaubens?: Die Deutung des
Abraham-Opfers im neuzeitlichen Denken’, US 51 (1996) 316–328.
M.B. Bourgine, ‘Das Opfer Abrahams in jüdischer und christlicher Auslegung; Gen
22,1–19 im Midrasch Bereschit Rabba und in den Genesis-Homilien des Origenes’,
US 51 (1996) 308–315.
G. Braulik, ‘Das Opfer Abrahams, wie die Liturgie es sieht: Zur liturgischen Her-
meneutik von Genesis 22 als Lesung der Ostervigil’, Bibel und Liturgie 72 (1999)
155–163.
M.R. Bredin, ‘The Influence of the Aqedah on Revelation 5.6–9’, IBSt 18 (1996)
26–43.
M. Bregman, ‘The Riddle of the Ram in Genesis Chapter 22: Jewish-Christian
Contacts in Late Antiquity’, in F. Manns (ed.), The Sacrifice of Isaac in the Three
Monotheistic Religions: Proceedings of a symposium on the interpretation of the Scriptures held
in Jerusalem, March 16–17, 1995 (Studium biblicum Franciscanum Analecta 41;
Jerusalem 1995) 127–145.
P.M. van Buren, ‘Das Evangelium und die Bindung Isaaks’, KuI 11 (1996) 74–81.
P.M. van Buren, According to the Scriptures: The Origins of the Gospel and of the Church’s
Old Testament (Grand Rapids MI/Cambridge, U.K., 1998).
M.M. Caspi & S.B. Cohen, The Binding (AQEDAH) and Its Transformations in Judaism
and Islam: The Lambs of God (Mellen Biblical Series 32; Lewiston NY, 1995).
L. Cignelli, ‘The Sacrifice of Isaac in Patristic Exegesis’, in F. Manns (ed.), The
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Franciscanum Analecta 41; Jerusalem, 1995) 123–126.
E. Cortese, ‘Gen 22,1–19: History and Theology of the Narrative’, in F. Manns
(ed.), The Sacrifice of Isaac in the Three Monotheistic Religions: Proceedings of a symposium
on the interpretation of the Scriptures held in Jerusalem, March 16–17, 1995 (Studium
biblicum Franciscanum Analecta 41; Jerusalem, 1995) 11–23.
I. Craps, ‘Het offer van Isaak (Gn 22,1–19): Een ambivalent maar hoopgevend ver-
haal: Lezing van een offertekst in het spoor van René Girard’, Ter Herkenning 26
(1998) 114–124.
J.R. Davila, ‘The Name of God at Moriah: An Unpublished Fragment from
4QGenExoda’, JBL 110 (1991) 577–582.
E. Dirscherl, ‘Die Bindung Isaaks und die Bindung an Gott: Abraham und die
Intrige des Opfers im Dialog mit S. Kierkegaard und E. Lévinas’, Bibel und Liturgie
72 (1999) 208–223.
J. Doukhan, ‘The Akedah at the “Crossroad”: Its Significance in the Jewish-Christian-
Muslim Dialogue’, AUSS 32 (1994) 29–40; in F. Manns (ed.), The Sacrifice of Isaac
in the Three Monotheistic Religions: Proceedings of a symposium on the interpretation of the
Scriptures held in Jerusalem, March 16–17, 1995 (Studium biblicum Franciscanum
Analecta 41; Jerusalem, 1995) 165–176.
M. Dulaey, ‘La grâce faite à Isaac: Gn 22,1–19 à l’époque paléochrétienne’, RechAug
27 (1994) 3–40.
L.H. Feldman, ‘Josephus’ portrait of Isaac’, RSLR 29 (1993) 3–33.
Y.S. Feldman, ‘Isaac or Oedipus?: Jewish Tradition and the Israeli Aqedah’,
in J.Ch. Exum & S.D. Moore (eds.), Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies: The Third
Sheffield Colloquium ( JSOTS 266. Gender, Culture, Theory, 7; Sheffield 1998)
159–189.
R. Firestone, ‘Merit, Mimesis, and Martyrdom: Aspects of Shi‘ite Meta-Historical
Exegesis on Abraham’s Sacrifice in Light of Jewish, Christian, and Sunni Muslim
Tradition’, JAAR 66 (1998) 93–116.
R. Firestone, ‘Comparative studies in Bible and Qur"an; a fresh look at Genesis 22
in light of Sura 37’, Judaism and Islam (2000) 169–184.
B.N. Fish, ‘Offering Isaac Again and Again Pseudo-Philo’s Use of the Aqedah as
Intertext’, CBQ 62 (2000) 481–507.
J.I. Gellman, The Fear, the Trembling, and the Fire: Kierkegaard and Hasidic Masters on the
Binding of Isaac (Boston, 1994).
J.I. Gellman, Abraham! Abraham! Abraham!: Kierkegaard and the Hasidim on the binding of
Isaac (forthcoming 2002).
C.T.R. Hayward, ‘The Sacrifice of Isaac and Jewish Polemic against Christianity’,
CBQ 52 (1990) 292–306.
C. von Heijne, ‘Aqedat Isak: Judisk tolkning av Genesis 22:1–19’, SEÅ 62 (1997)
57–86.
F. Higman, ‘Calvin polémiste’, ETR 69 (1994) 340–365.
S. Japhet, ‘Rashbam’s Commentary on Genesis 22: ›Peshat‹ or ›Derash‹?’, in
S. Japhet (ed.), The Bible in the Light of its Interpreters: Sarah Kamin Memorial Volume
( Jerusalem, 1994) *349–*366.
D. Jasper, ‘‘The Old Man Would Not So, But Slew His Son’: A Theological
Meditation on Artistic Representations of the Sacrifice of Isaac’, RL 25 (1993)
122–130.
R.M. Jensen, ‘The Binding or Sacrifice of Isaac: How Jews and Christians See
Differently’, BibleReview 9 (1993) 42–51.
R.M. Jensen, ‘The Offering of Isaac in Jewish and Christian Tradition: Image and
Text’, Biblical Interpretation 2 (1994) 85–110.
I. Kalimi, ‘Zion or Gerizim? The Association of Abraham and the Aqeda with
Zion/Gerizim in Jewish and Samaritan Sources’, in M. Lubetski, C. Gottlieb &
S. Keller (eds.), Boundaries of the Ancient Near Eastern World: A Tribute to Cyrus
H. Gordon ( JSOTS 273; Sheffield, 1998) 442–457.
E. Kessler, ‘The Exegetical Encounter between the Greek Church Fathers and the
Palestinian Rabbis’, in M.F. Wiles & E.J. Yarnold (eds.), Studia Patristica Vol. 34 –38:
Papers Presented at the Thirteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford
1999 (Leuven, 2001) 395–412.
M. Krupp, Den Sohn opfern?: Die Isaak-Überlieferung bei Juden, Christen und Muslimen
(Gütersloh, 1995).
M. Krupp, ‘Die Bindung Isaaks nach dem Midrasch Bereshit Rabba’, TeKo 65/66
(1995) 3–59.
L. Kundert, « . . . der seinen eigenen Sohn nicht verschont hat » (Röm 8,32a): Die Opferung/Bindung
Isaaks im Alten Testament, frühjüdische, neutestamentliche und rabbinische Texten (Basel,
1997).
L. Kundert, Die Opferung/Bindung Isaaks: Bd. 1: Gen 22,1–19 im Alten Testament, im
Frühjudentum und im Neuen Testament (WMANT 78; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1998).
L. Kundert, Die Opferung/Bindung Isaaks: Bd. 2: Gen 22,1–19 in frühen rabbinischen Texten
(WMANT 79; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1998).
L. Kundert, ‘Die »Bindung Isaaks« im frühen Judentum und ihre Wirkung auf das
Neue Testament’, Bibel und Liturgie 72 (1999) 135–154.
J.D. Levenson, ‘Abusing Abraham: Traditions, Religious Histories, and Modern
Misinterpretations’, Judaism 47 (1998) 259–277.
J.D. Levenson, The Death and Ressurection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child
Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity (New Haven, 1993).
M.A.H. Maltz, ‘The Dynamics of Intertextuality: The ‘Akedah’ and Other Biblical
Allusions in Henry Abramovitch’s Psalms of the jealous God and Matti Megged’s
The Akedah’, Journal for Semitics 8 (1996) 79–95.
F. Manns (ed.), The Sacrifice of Isaac in the Three Monotheistic Religions: Proceedings of a
Symposium on the Interpretation of the Scriptures Held in Jerusalem, March 16–17, 1995
(Studium biblicum Franciscanum Analecta 41; Jerusalem, 1995).
F. Manns, ‘The binding of Isaac in Jewish liturgy’, in F. Manns (ed.), The Sacrifice
of Isaac in the Three Monotheistic Religions: Proceedings of a Symposium on the Interpretation
of the Scriptures Held in Jerusalem, March 16–17, 1995 (Studium biblicum Franciscanum
F. Manns, ‘The Targum of Gen 22’, in F. Manns (ed.), The Sacrifice of Isaac in the
Three Monotheistic Religions: Proceedings of a Symposium on the Interpretation of the Scriptures
Held in Jerusalem, March 16–17, 1995 (Studium biblicum Franciscanum Analecta
41; Jerusalem, 1995) 69–80.
S. Meißner, ‘Paulinische Soteriologie und die »Aqedat Jitzchaq«: Alan Franklin
Segal zum 50. Geburtstag’, Judaism 51 (1995) 33–49.
Th. Meurer & Chr. Uhrig, ‘»Was sagst du dazu, was denkst du, Abraham?«: Woody
Allen und Origenes als Leser von Gen 22’, Bibel und Liturgie 72 (1999) 187–198.
R.W.L. Moberly, ‘Christ as the Key to Scripture: Genesis 22 Reconsidered’, in R.S.
Hess, G.J. Wenham & Ph.E. Satterthwaite (eds.), He Swore an Oath: Biblical Themes
From Genesis 12–50 (Grand Rapids MI, 19942) 143–173.
R.W.L. Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith: A Study of Abraham and Jesus (Cambridge
Studies in Christian Doctrine 5; Cambridge, 2000).
O. Millet, ‘Exégèse évangélique et culture littéraire humaniste: entre Luther et Bèze,
l’Abraham sacrifiant selon Calvin’, ETR 69 (1994) 367–389.
Y. Milman, ‘The sacrifice of Isaac and its subversive variations in contemporary
Hebrew protest poetry’, RL 23 (1991) 61–83.
M.R. Niehoff, ‘The Return of Myth in Genesis Rabbah on the Akedah’, JJS 46
(1995) 69–78.
M. Paczkowski, ‘The Sacrifice of Isaac in Early Patristic Exegesis’, in F. Manns
(ed.), The Sacrifice of Isaac in the Three Monotheistic Religions: Proceedings of a symposium
218 m. popoviÆ
on the interpretation of the Scriptures held in Jerusalem, March 16–17, 1995 (Studium
biblicum Franciscanum Analecta 41; Jerusalem, 1995) 101–121.
M.F.G. Parmentier, ‘Der Satzteil “Jetzt habe ich erkannt . . .” (Gen 22:12) in jüdi-
scher und christlicher Überlieferung’, Bijdragen 56 (1995) 362–368.
M.F.G. Parmentier, Isaak gebonden—Jezus gekruisigd: oudchristelijke teksten over Genesis 22
(Christelijke Bronnen 9; Kampen 1996).
M. Pérez Fernández, ‘The Akedah in Paul’, in F. Manns (ed.), The Sacrifice of Isaac
D. Petit, ‘Entre singulier et pluriel: La foi d’Abraham chez Martin Luther (Commentaire
de la Genèse) et Søren Kierkegaard (Crainte et tremblement)’, PosLuth 45 (1997) 227–239.
Y.T. Radday, ‘Bibel, Torá, Genesis, Väter und Abraham: Eine jüdische Sicht’, US
51 (1996) 277–282.
C. Raynaud, ‘Le sacrifice d’Abraham dans quelques représentations de la fin du
Moyen Age’, Journal of Medieval History 21 (1995) 249–273.
H. Reintjes-Anwari, ‘Im Feuer des Rosengartens: Ibrahim. Freund des Einzigen
Gottes, im Quran’, US 51 (1996) 283–293.
B. Rojtman, ‘Le récit comme interprétation (à partir de Gen 22 et du Midrach Rabba)’,
RThPh 122 (1990) 157–169.
M. Rosenak, ‘The Akedah—and What to Remember’, in M. Cogan, B.L. Eichler
& J.H. Tigay (eds.), Tehillah le-Moshe: Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Moshe
Greenberg (Winona Lake, 1997) 307–314.
A.F. Segal, ‘The Akedah: Some Reconsiderations’, in H. Cancik, H. Lichtenberger
& P. Schäfer (eds.), Geschichte—Tradition—Reflexion: Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum
70. Geburtstag: Band I: Judentum (Tübingen, 1996) 99–116.
G. Stemberger, ‘Biblische Darstellungen auf Mosaikfüßboden spätantiker Synagogen’,
JBTh 13 (1998) 145–170.
G. Steins, ‘Auf Sinnsuche: Abrahams Opfer in der Exegese des 20. Jahrhunderts’,
BiLi 72 (1999) 124–134.
V. Sussman, ‘The Binding of Isaac as Depicted on a Samaritan Lamp’, IEJ 48
(1998) 183–189.
T. Thordson, ‘The Sacrifice of Isaac in Samaritan Tradition’, in The Sacrifice of Isaac
F. Torralba Rosello, ‘Santo Tomás y Kierkegaard ante el dilema abrahámico’, Pens.
50 (1994) 75–94.
P. Tschuggnall, Und Gott stellte Abraham auf die Probe: Das Abraham-Opfer als Glaubensparadox:
Bibeltheologischer Befund—literarische Rezeption—Kierkegaards Deutung (diss. Innsbruck,
1989; EHS.T 399; Frankfurt a.M./Bern/New York/Paris, 1990).
P. Tschuggnall, ‘Der gebundene Isaak: «Isaaks Opferung» in der modernen jüdi-
schen Literatur’, ZKTh 114 (1992) 304–316.
P. Tschuggnall, ‘Abrahams Opfer, eine anstössige Erzählung über den Glauben?
Dichterische Varianten—philosophische und psyhologische Rezeption—Literatur-
wissenschaftliche und theologische Befragung’, ZRGG 46 (1994) 289–318.
J.L. Vaccaro, Early Jewish and Christians Interpretations of the Character of Isaac in Genesis
22 (Notre Dame, 1998).
J.L. Vaccaro, ‘Digging for Buried Treasure: Origen’s Spiritual Interpretation of
Scripture’, Communio 25 (1998) 757–775.
J.C. VanderKam, ‘The Aqedah, Jubilees, and Pseudojubilees’, in C.R. Evans &
S. Talmon (eds.), The Quest for Meaning: Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of
James A. Sanders (Biblical Interpretation Series 28; Leiden/New York/Köln, 1997)
241–261.
G. Vermes, ‘New Light on the Sacrifice of Isaac from 4Q225’, JJS 47 (1996)
140–146.
D. Vetter, ‘Rechtfertigung im Gericht: die Bedeutung von Genesis 22 für Rosch
Ha-Schana und Jom Kippur’, in D. Vetter, Das Judentum und seine Bibel: gesam-
melte Aufsätze (Religionswissenschaftliche Studien 40; Würzburg, 1996) 364–368.
B.Z. Wacholder, ‘Patterns of biblical dates and Qumran’s calendar; the fallacy of
Jaubert’s hypothesis’ with an appendix ‘Date of the Akedah, the binding of Isaac’,
HUCA 66 (1995) 1–40 at 38–40.
G.J. Wenham, ‘The Akedah: A Paradigm of Sacrifice’, in D.P. Wright, D.N.
Freedman & A. Hurvitz (eds.), Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish
and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom (Winona Lake,
1995) 93–102.
I. Wollaston, ‘«Traditions of Remembrance»: Post-Holocaust Interpretations of
Genesis 22’, in J. Davies, G. Harvey & W.G.E. Watson (eds.), Words Remembered,
Texts Renewed: Essays in Honour of John F.A. Saywer ( JSOTS 195; Sheffield 1995)
41–51.
D. Yanow, ‘Sarah’s Silence: A Newly Discovered Commentary on Genesis 22 by
Rashi’s Sister, Introduced and Presented with Additional Commentary’, Judaism
43 (1994) 398–408.
A. Yunis, ‘The Sacrifice of Abraham in Islam’, in F. Manns (ed.), The Sacrifice of
Isaac in the Three Monotheistic Religions: Proceedings of a symposium on the interpretation of
the Scriptures held in Jerusalem, March 16–17, 1995 (Studium biblicum Franciscanum
Selected Bibliography Genesis 22 ante 1990

Human Sacrifice
A.I. Baumgarten, The “Phoenician History” of Philo of Byblos: A Commentary (EPRO 89;
Leiden 1981).
J. Day, Molech: A God of Human Sacrifice in the Old Testament (UCOP 41; Cambridge
1989).
J. Ebach & U. Rüterswörden, ‘ADRMLK, »Moloch« und BA’AL ADR: Eine Notiz
zum Problem der Moloch-Verehrung im alten Israel’, UF 11 (1979) 219–226.
O. Eißfeldt, ‘Menschenopfer’, RGG3 Bd. IV (Tübingen, 1960) 868.
A.R.W. Green, The Role of Human Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East (Dissertation Series
of the American Schools of Oriental Research 1; Missoula/Montana, 1975).
G.C. Heider, The Cult of Molek: A Reassessment ( JSOTS 43; Sheffield, 1985).
F.J. Hinkelkammert, Der Glaube Abrahams und der Ödipus des Westens: Opfermythen im
christlichen Abendland (Münster, 1989).
O. Kaiser, ‘Den Erstgeborenen deiner Söhne sollst du mir geben: Erwägungen zum
Kinderopfer im Alten Testament’, in O. Kaiser (ed.), Denkender Glaube: Festschrift:
Carl Heinz Ratschow zur Vollendung seines 65. Lebensjahres am 22. Juli 1976 gewidmet
von Kollegen, Schülern und Freunden, Berlin/New York 1976, 24–48; in O. Kaiser,
Von der Gegenwartsbedeutung des Alten Testaments: Gesammelte Studien zur Hermeneutik und
zur Redaktionsgeschichte (Göttingen, 1984) 142–166.
P. Maiberger, ‘Genesis 22 und die Problematik des Menschenopfers in Israel’, BiKi
41 (1986) 104–112.
H.-P. Müller, ‘Molæk’, ThWAT IV (Stuttgart, 1984) 957–968.
M. Smith, ‘A Note on Burning Babies’, JAOS 95 (1975) 477–479.
M. Weinfeld, ‘The Worship of Molech and of the Queen of Heaven and its Back-
ground’, UF 4 (1972) 133–154.
M. Weinfeld, ‘Burning Babies in Ancient Israel: A Rejoinder to Morton Smith’s
Article in JAOS 95 (1975) 477–479’, UF 10 (1978) 411–413.
220 m. popoviÆ
Exegesis
T.D. Alexander, ‘Genesis 22 and the Covenant of Circumcision’, JSOT 25 (1983)
17–22.
E. Blum, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte (WMANT 57; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1984)
320–331.
F. Bovon & G. Rouiller (eds.) Exegesis: Problems of Method and Exercises in Reading
(Genesis 22 and Luke 15) (Pittsburgh, 1978).
S. Brock, ‘Where was Sara?’, ET 96 (1984/1985) 14–17.
G.W. Coats, ‘Abraham’s Sacrifice of Faith. A Form-Critical Study of Genesis 22’,
Interpretation 27 (1973) 389–400.
J. Crenshaw, ‘Journey into Oblivion: A Structural Analysis of Gen 22:1–19’, Soundings
58 (1975) 243–356.
P.R. Davies & B.D. Chilton, ‘The Aqedah: A Revised Tradition History’, CBQ 40
(1978) 514–546.
C. Delaney, ‘The Legacy of Abraham’, in M. Bal (ed.), Anti-Covenant. Counter-Reading
Women’s Lives in the Hebrew Bible ( JSOTS 81; Sheffield, 1989) 25–41.
C. Delaney, Abraham on Trial: The Social Legacy of Biblical Myth (Princeton NJ, 1998)
J.-L. Duhaime, ‘Le sacrifice d’Isaac (Gn 22,1–19): L’héritage de Gunkel’, ScEs 33
(1981) 139–156.
J.P. Fokkelman, ‘«On the Mount of the Lord There is Vision»: A Response to
Francis Landy concerning the Akedah’, in J.C. Exum (ed.), Signs and Wonders:
Biblical Texts in Literary Focus (SBL Semeia Studies, 1989) 41–57.
A. Galy, ‘Une lecture de Genèse 22’, in L’Ancien Testament: Approches et Lectures: présenté
par A. Vanel (PoTh 24; Paris 1977) 117–133.
O. Genest, ‘Analyse Sémiotique de Gn 22,1–19’, ScEs 33 (1981) 157–177.
D.C. Hopkins, ‘Between Promise and Fulfilment: Von Rad and the ›Sacrifice of
Abraham‹’, BZ 24 (1980) 180–193.
K. Jaros, Die Stellung des Elohisten zur kanaanäischen Religion (OBO 4; Freiburg,
Switzerland/Göttingen, 1974) 283–349.
R. Kilian, Isaaks Opferung. Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte von Gen 22 (SBS 44; Stuttgart,
1970).
R. Lack, ‘Le sacrifice d’Isaac—Analyse structurale dans Gn 22’, Bib 56 (1975)
1–12.
F. Landy, ‘Narrative Techniques and Symbolic Transactions in the Akedah’, in J.C.
Exum (ed.), Signs and Wonders: Biblical Texts in Literary Focus (SBL Semeia Studies,
1989) 1–40.
Y. Mazor, ‘Genesis 22: The Ideological Rhetoric and the Psychological Composition’,
Bib 67 (1986) 81–88.
D. Michel, ‘Überlieferung und Deutung in der Erzählung von Isaaks Opferung (Gen
22)’, in P. von der Osten-Sacken (ed.), Treue und Thora: Beiträge zur Mitte des christlich-
jüdischen Gesprächs: Festschrift für Günther Harder zum 75. Geburtstag (VIKJ 3; Berlin
1977) 13–16.
R.W.L. Moberly, ‘The Earliest Commentary on the Akedah’, VT 38 (1988) 302–323
J.B.Moster, ‘The testing of Abraham’, Dor le Dor 17 (1989) 237–242.
G. von Rad, Das Opfer Abrahams: Mit Texten von Luther, Kierkegaard, Kolakowski und
Bildern von Rembrandt (KT 6; München, 1971).
H. Graf Reventlow, Opfere deinen Sohn: Eine Auslegung von Gen 22 (BSt 53; Neukirchen-
Vluyn, 1968).
L. Ruppert, ‘Das Motiv der Versuchung durch Gott in vordeuteronomischer Tradition’,
VT 22 (1972) 55–63.
J.D. Safran, ‘Balaam and Abraham’, VT 38 (1988) 105–113.
O. Sarda, ‘Le sacrifice d’Abraham (Gn 22), Le déplacement des lectures attestée’,
in L’Ancien Testament: Approches et Lectures: présenté par A. Vanel (PoTh 24; Paris, 1977)
135–146.
H.-C. Schmitt, ‘Die Erzählung von der Versuchung Abrahams Gen 22,1–19* und
das Problem einer Theologie der elohistischen Pentateuchtexte’, BN 34 (1986)
82–109.
J.L. Ska, ‘Gn 22,1–19: Essai sur les niveaux de lecture’, Bib. 69 (1988) 324–339.
O.H. Steck, ‘Ist Gott grausam?: Über Isaaks Opferung aus der Sicht des Alten
Testaments’, ThG(B) 21 (1978) 65–75.
J. Unterman, ‘The Literary Influence of »The Binding of Isaac« (Genesis 22) on
»The Outrage at Gibeah« ( Judges 19)’, HAR 4 (1980) 161–165.
T. Veijola, ‘Das Opfer des Abraham—Paradigma des Glaubens aus dem nachex-
ilischen Zeitalter’, ZThK 85 (1988) 129–164.
T. Veijola, ‘Abrahams offer (Gen 22)—tid och budskap’, SEÅ 54 (1989) 236–244
W. Vogels, ‘Dieu éprouva Abraham (Gen. 22,1–19)’, SémBib 36 (1982) 25–36.
J.D. Walters, ‘Wood, Land and Stars. Structure and Theology in Gen 22,1–19’,
TJT 3 (1987) 301–330.
A. Wénin, ‘Abraham à la rencontre de YHWH: Une lecture de Gn 22’, RTL 20
(1989) 162–177.
H.C. White, ‘The Initiation Legend of Isaac’, ZAW 91 (1979) 1–30.
P. Zerafa, ‘The Land of Moriah’, Ang. 44 (1969) 84–94.
Reception history
A.R. Agus, The Binding of Isaac and Messiah: Law, Martyrdom and Deliverance in Early
Rabbinic Religiosity (Albany, 1988).
D. Ben-Amos, ‘The Akedah: A Folklorist’s Response’, in R. Polzin & E. Rothman
(eds.), The Biblical Mosaic: Changing Perspectives (Philadelphia, 1982) 166f. .
S. Brock, ‘Genesis 22 in Syriac Tradition’, in P. Casetti, O. Keel & A. Schenker
(eds.), Mélanges Dominique Barthélemy: Études Bibliques Offertes à l’Ocassion de Son 60 e
Anniversaire (OBO 38; Fribourg (Switzerland)/Göttingen 1981) 1–30.
M. Brown, ‘Biblical Myth and Contemporary Experience: The Akedah in Modern
Jewish Literature’, Judaism 31 (1982) 99–111.
D.L. Christensen, ‘The Akedah in Genesis 22:1–19: An Invitation to a Jewish-
Christian Dialogue’, American Baptist Quarterly 4 (1985) 340–346.
J. Cohen, ‘Philosophical Exegesis in Historical Perspective: The Case of the Binding
of Isaac’, in T. Rudavsky (ed.), Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy
(Dordrecht, 1985) 135–142.
R. de Déault, ‘Le Targum de Gen 22,8 et Ipt. 1,20’, RSR 49 (1961) 103–106.
S. Feldman, ‘The Binding of Isaac: A Test-Case of Divine Foreknowledge’, in
T. Rudavsky (ed.), Divine Omniscience and Omnipotence in Medieval Philosophy (Dordrecht,
1985) 105–133.
R. Firestone, ‘Abraham’s Son as the Intended Sacrifice (al-Dhabih, Qur’an 37:99–113):
Issues in Qur’anic Exegesis’, JSSt 34 (1989) 95–131.
R. Gordis, ‘Faith of Abraham: A Note on Kierkegaard’s Teleological Suspension
of the Ethical’, Jdm 25 (1976) 414–419.
A. Green, Devotion and Commandment: The Faith of Abraham in the Hasidic Imagination,
Cincinnati 1989.
R.M. Green, ‘Abraham, Isaac, and the Jewish Tradition: An Ethical Reappraisal’,
Journal of Religious Ethics 10 (1982) 1–21.
J. Gutmann, ‘The Sacrifice of Isaac: Variations on a Theme in Early Jewish and
Christian Art’, in D. Ahrens (ed.), Thiasos Ton Mouson: Studien zu Antike und Christentum:
Festschrift für Josef Fink (Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 20; Köln, 1984)
115–122.
M. Harl, ‘La »ligature« d’Isaac (Gen 22,9) dans la Septante et chez les pères grecs’,
in A. Caquot, M. Hadas-Lebel & J. Riaud (eds.), Hellenica et Judaica: hommage à
Valentin Nikiprowetzky (Leuven, 1986) 457–472.
222 m. popoviÆ
R. Hartmut, ‘Die Erzählung von Abrahams Opfer (Gen 22) und ihre Deutung bei
Kant, Kierkegaard und Schelling’, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und
Religionsphilosophie 27 (1985) 251–261.
R. Hayward, ‘The Present State of Research into the Targumic Account of the
Sacrifice of Isaac’, JJS 32 (1981) 127–150.
A. van der Heide, ‘Aqeda; de beproeving die verzoening bewerkte; de middeleeuws-
joodse exegese van Genesis 22’, in W. Zuidema et al. (eds.), Betekenis en verwerk-
ing; het offer van Isaak en de holocaust (Baarn, 1982) 19–59.
P.W. van der Horst, ‘Korte notities over vroeg-joodse epiek’, NTT 39 (1985) 102–109.
R. Kartum-Blum, ‘Where Does This Wood in My Hand Come From?: The Binding
of Isaac in Modern Hebrew Poetry’, Prooftexts 8 (1988) 293–310.
H. Lenowitz, ‘The Binding of Isaac: A View of Jewish Exegesis’, Dialogue (Mormon)
20 (1987) 90–99.
D. Lerch, Isaaks Opferung christlich gedeutet: Eine auslegungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (BHTh
12; Tübingen, 1950).
Z. Levy, ‘The Sacrifice of Isaac in Modern Jewish and General Philosophy’, in
A. Goldberg, B.M. Bokser, I.J. Mandelbaum, et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Ninth
World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, August 1986 ( Jerusalem, 1986) *167–*174.
R. Martin-Achard, ‘La figure d’Isaac dans l’Ancien Testament et dans la tradition
juive ancienne’, BFCL 66 (1982) 5–10.
J. Milgrom, The Binding of Isaac: The Akedah: A Primary Symbol in Jewish Thought and
Art (Berkeley, CA, 1988).
C. Nauert, ‘Zweifelhafte Isaak-Bilder in der koptischen Kunst’, in G. Koch (ed.),
Studien zur frühchristlichen Kunst II (Göttinger Orientforschungen 2. Reihe, Studien
zur spätantiken und frühchristlichen Kunst 9; Wiesbaden, 1986) 1–5.
F. Neubacher, ‘Isaaks Opferung in der griechischen Alten Kirche’, Amt und Gemeinde
37 (1986) 72–76.
A. Rippin, ‘Saadya Gaon and Genesis 22: Aspects of Jewish-Muslim Interaction
and Polemic’, in W. Brinner & S. Ricks (eds.), Studies in Islamic and Judaic Traditions:
papers presented at the Institute for Islamic-Judaic Studies, Center for Judaic Studies, University
of Denver (Brown Judaic Studies 110; Atlanta GA, 1986) 33–46.
L. Sabourin, “Isaac and Jesus in the Targums and the N.T.” Religious Studies Bulletin
1 (1981) 37–45.
A.J. Saldarini, ‘Interpretation of the Aqedah in Rabbinic Literature’, in R. Polzin &
E. Rothman (eds.), The Biblical Mosaic: Changing Perspectives (Philadelphia, 1977)
149–165.
R.-P. Schmitz, Aqedat Jishaq: Die mittelalterliche jüdische Auslegung von Genesis 22 in ihren
Hauptlinien ( JTSt 4; Hildesheim, 1979).
A. Soetendorp, ‘Lege deine Hand nicht an den Knaben! Jüdische Erfahrung—
Midrasch, Maimonides, Franz Kafka, Elie Wiesel’, in W. Zuidema (ed.), Isaak
wird wieder geopfert: Die »Bindung Isaaks« als Symbol des Leidens Israels: Versuche einer
Deutung (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1987) 70–103.
S. Spiegel, The Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham to Offer
Isaac as a Sacrifice: The Akedah (New York, 1979).
E. Starobinski-Safran, ‘Sur le sense de l’épreuve (Interprétations juives de Genèse
22)’, RThPh 114 (1982) 23–35.
W.R. Stegner, ‘The Baptism of Jesus and the Binding of Isaac’, in H.O. Thompson
(ed.), The Answers Lie Below: Essays in Honor of Lawrence Edmund Toombs (Lanham,
1984) 331–347.
J. Swetnam, Jesus and Isaac: A Study of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the Light of the Aqedah
(AnBib 94; Rome, 1981).
R.L. Wilken, ‘Melito, the Jewish Community at Sardis, and the Sacrifice of Isaac’,
Theological Studies 37 (1976) 53–69.
R.L. Wilken, ‘The Authenticity of the Fragments of Melito of Sardis on the Sacri-
fice of Isaac (Genesis 22): Comments on Perler’s Edition’, in F. Paschke (ed.),
Uberlieferungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen: A Tribute to Marcel Richards (Texte und Unter-
suchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur 125; Berlin, 1981) 605–608.
A. Zeltzer, ‘An Existential Investigation: Buber’s Critique of Kierkegaard’s »Teleological
Suspension of the Ethical«’, Church Divinity (1987) 138–154.
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Israels: Versuche einer Deutung (Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1987).
REFERENCES TO ANCIENT TEXTS
I. JEWISH TEXTS
1. Hebrew Bible 22:1–19 61, 63, 64, 65, 66,

67, 70, 71, 72, 75
Genesis 22:1–14, 19 3, 5
6:9 68 22:1–4a 15
12 3, 6 22:1 2, 5, 14, 15, 72, 73,
12:1 6, 15 194, 196
12:2 6, 69 22:2 2, 5, 6, 11, 15, 27,
12:3 4 81
12:4 66 22:2–3 15
12:6 6 22:3 14, 118
12:8 66 22:5 118
12:11 60 22:6 51
12:16 66 22:7 51, 184
13:2, 4 66 22:8 14, 70
13:16 47, 48, 69 22:9 14, 120
13:17 59 22:10 5, 52
14:14 66 22:11 5, 14, 54, 55, 64
15 15, 66 22:12 14, 16, 17, 54, 59,
15:1 4, 72, 92 60, 67, 69, 80, 81, 118
15:4 6 22:13 120, 121, 122
15:4–5 15 22:14 14, 16, 17
15:5 47, 69 22:15–18 3, 4, 5, 6
15:6 48, 49 22:15 54
16:2, 4 194 22:16 3, 81
17:1 68 22:16–18 195
17:1–27 67 22:17 3, 47, 56, 70
17:2–5, 16 69 22:18 4, 5, 70
17:5, 16 193 22:19 4, 5, 6, 118, 184,
18:25 60 196
20:12 192 22:20 4
20:15 5 22:20–24 6
21 4, 5, 6 23:1f. 184
21:1–21, 22–34 3 23:3 196
21:8–21 5 24 192
21:15f.; 17f. 5 24:14 68
21:17 17 24:35 66
21:18 5 24:67 196
21:20 72 25:8 70
21:32 5 25:19 197
21:33 4, 5, 66 25:27 68
21:34 4, 5 26 4
22 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 26:24 68
14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 27:3 196
46, 49, 62, 69, 71, 27:41 49
183 39:7 4, 72, 73
226 references to ancient texts
40:1 72 1 Kings
42:18 67 9:4 68
48:1 72 16:34 13
17:17 72
Exodus 18:3, 12 67
1:17 16 18:36 18
13:13, 15 9 21:1 72
14:22 101
14:31 68 2 Kings
15:25 16 3:27 13
16:4 16 9:7 68
22:28b 7, 8 13:23 18
22:29 9, 14 16:3 8
32:13 68 17:13, 23 68
34:19 7 20:12–19 15
34:20 8 21:6 8
23:10 10, 11
Leviticus
15:18 11 Isaiah
18:21 8, 10 1:16 68
20:2–5 8, 10 20:3 68
23:6–8 75 30:33 10, 13
41:8f. 18
Numbers 51:2 18
12:7 68 53:7 120
14:24 68 59:15 68
22:32 2 63:16 18
28:16–25 75
Jeremiah
Deuteronomium 7:31 8, 9
8:2 15 7:32 9
8:2.16 16 19:5 8
9:24 68 19:6, 12, 13, 14 9
12:5 17 25:9 68
12:29ff. 8 32:35 8, 10, 11
13:4 16
33:8–10 16 Ezekiel
34:54 68 14:12, 20 58
16:20f. 7
Joshua 20:11 7
24:2, 3 18 20:25 8
24:29 72 20:26 7, 8
20:31 7
Judges 33:24 18
2:22 16
3:1, 4 16 Hosea
11:31 13 11:8f. 20
12 19
1 Samuel
10:24 68 Micah
30:14 4 6:7 13
2 Samuel Zechariah
7:5, 8 68 3:1–2 85
references to ancient texts 227
Psalms 1 Chronicles
22:21 91 16:13 68
25:21 68 21:1 85
26:2 15
34:15 68 2 Chronicles
37:27, 37 68 3:1 17, 82
46:7 20 32:31 15
47:10 18
105 18 2. Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha
105:6, 42 68
Judit
Job 8:26 55
1:1–2:13 62, 63, 71
1:1–2:13; 42:10–17 61, 63 4 Maccabees
1:1 59, 60, 13:12 106
67, 68 14:20 53
1:6–12 64, 66 16:20 107
1:7 59 18:11 107
1:8 16, 59, 63,
67, 68 Ben Sira
1:9 67 49:9 58
1:13–17; 18–19; 21 69
1:21–22 70 1 Enoch
2:1–7a 64, 66 40:7 85
2:1 2 65:6 85
2:3 16, 67,
68 Jubilees
2:7 69, 84 2:1 80
2:8; 9–10 70 2:29–30 74
2:10 69 10:1–14 85
7:9 60 14:1 72
9:22 60 16:15 74
16:9 49 17:1 74
28:28 68 17:15–18:19 62, 63, 71
30:21 49 17:15–18 62, 71, 72, 73, 76,
31:9 60 79, 84
42:10–17 70 17:15 50, 73, 74
42:11 69 17:16 50
17:17 49
18:1–17 76–85
Proverbs 18:2 81
2:7, 21 68 18:3 74, 75
3:7 68 18:9 73, 79, 80, 84
4:7 68 18:10 79, 80
13:19 68 18:11 79, 80, 81
14:16 68 18:12 55, 79, 84
16:6 68 18:13 82
28:10 68 18:14 54, 80
29:10 68 18:15 81
18:16 73, 84
Esther 18:18 74, 75
2:1 72 18:18–19 71, 76
3:1 72 19:8 49
7:1 72 39:5 73
39:14 72 6. Pseudo-Philo
48:1–19 85
48:13 85 Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum
49:1 75 32:1–4 50, 73
40:2 53
Testament of Abraham
15:14–15 58 7. Rabbinic Texts
3. Qumran Texts Gen. Rab. 39:9 88

49:9 60
1QapGen 21:13 48 55:4 51, 73,
4Q213 1:17 85 74
4Q225 2 45–57, 55:7 82
73, 74 56:1–2 52
4Q226 7:1 55 56:5 54
56:7 53, 54
4. Targumim 56:10 82
Lev. Rab. 29:10 90
Tg. Onq. Gen 22:9 91 Num. Rab. 17:2 89, 90
Tg. Neof. Gen 13:16 48 Sifre Deut 32 53
Tg. Ps.-J. Gen 22:4 52 M Avot 5:9 89
Tg. Ps.-J. Gen 22:9 91 T Sotah 6:1 59
BT Ber 62b 82
5. Josephus BT Pes 88a 82
BT Sotah 31a 59
Antiquities BT Baba Batra 15b–16b 59
I.222, 224 103 BT Sanh 89b 50–51,
I.225 104 73, 74,
I.232 53 87
PT Sotah 5 (20d) 59
Pesiq. R 47:3 60
Pirqe R. El. 105 52
II. CHRISTIAN TEXTS

1. New Testament Gregory of Nazianzus Oratio
15, 10 106
Matt 27:44 118 Origen Hom. in Gen 8 120, 147
Luke 23:39–43 118
3. Syriac Texts
John 1:29 120
Acts 5:30 120 ‘Abdisho’ Catalogue 110
Acts 8:32 120 Anonymous Commentary
Acts 10:39 120 on Gen-Exod 9:32 116, 121,
Rom 4:39 48 122
Gal 3:6 48 Apocalypse of
Gal 3:13 121 Pseudo-Methodius 113
James 2:23 48 Cave of Treasures 120
Cave of Treasures XXIX 5,9 123
2. Early Christian and Patristic Texts Disputation 109–124
Ephrem Syrus Commentary
The Shepherd of Hermas 102 on Genesis 121
Vision of Dorotheus 97, 102 Ephrem Syrus De Nativitate 119
Eusebius, H.E. 5.1.3–2.8 106 Ephrem Syrus Commentary
Gregory of Nyssa De deitate 104 on the Diatessaron XVI 27 122
references to ancient texts 229
Gannat Bussame 115, 116, Isho’dad of Merv 116, 122

118, 120, Theodore bar Koni Scholion 112, 116,
122 118, 119,
Isho’ bar Nun Selected 120, 122
Questions 116
III. GREEK AND LATIN PAGAN TEXTS
Alcmaeonis 26 Lucretius
1.85 24
Antoninus Liberalis
25 27 Neanthes
27.4 40 FGrH 84 F 16 27
Apollodorus Pausanias
Epitome 3.16 22–23 1.41.3 36
Epitome 3.20–1 38 1.43.1 25, 31
2.22.6 37
Demaratos 2.35.1 37
FGrH 42 F 4 31 4.9.1 27
6.22.10–11 25
Euripides 7.19.3–4 27
Electra 15 24 7.21.1–5 27
Iphigeneia in Aulis 21, 23 7.26.5 36
Iphigeneia in Aulis 20–21 27 9.17.1 28
Iphigeneia in Aulis 1555 30
Iphigeneia in Tauris 21 Philo of Byblos
Iphigeneia in Tauris 131, FGrH 790 F3b 28
1153 41
Iphigeneia in Tauris 1462–7 40 Philodemus
Phoenissae 28 De Pietate 36–37
Phoenissae 934 27
Herodotus Pindar
4.103.2 31 Pythian Ode XI.22 34
Homer Plutarch
Iliad Mor. 314 C 27
I.69 26 Aristides 9.1 27
I.320 29 Themistocles 13.2 27
II.299–332 26
II.305ff. 25 Proclus 22
V.449–53 43
IX.141 29 Pseudo-Hesiod
IX.145 24 Catalogue F 23a, 16–7 24
XXIII.175–6 34 Catalogue F 23a, 17–24 43
Odyssey
3.430–63 31 Pythokles
6.66; 20.74 106 FGrH 833 F 1 31
Julianus Sophocles
Contra Galileos fr. 83 Antigone
Masaracchia 21 1199 31
Electra Stesichorus
157 24 F 192–3 43
F 215 31, 37
Stasinos
Cypria 21–22,
24–25, 27,
29, 31
IV. QUR"AN
Sura 12 127
Sura 37:100–113 125–126, 127,
128, 136
ILLUSTRATIONS
ABRAHAM’S SACRIFICE IN EARLY JEWISH AND EARLY CHRISTIAN ART
by E. VAN DEN BRINK
1. San Callisto catacomb, Rome, c. 200

2. Via Latina catacomb, Rome, c. 350
3. Doura Europos, synagogue, upper panel of Tora-shrine, 244
4. Beth Alpha, synagogue, floor mosaic, c. 525
5. Podgoritza patera, Petersburg, Ermitage Oo 73, after 300

6. Passion sarcophagus, Rome, Museo Pio Cristiano, rep. 42, c. 325
7. Brethren sarcophagus, detail, Rome, Museo Pio Cristiano, rep 45, c. 325
8. Ravenna, San Vitale, north wall of sanctuary, 547
9. Ravenna, Sant’Apollinare in Classe, south wall of apse, c. 675

10. San Pedro de la Nave near Zamora, capital of sanctuary, after 650
THREE ITALIAN SACRIFICES.
LORENZO GHIBERTI, ANDREA DEL SARTO, MICHELANGELO MERISI
DA CARAVAGGIO by J.L. DE JONG
1. Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, c. 359, Rome, Vatican Museums

2. Abraham and Isaac; Christ Carrying the Cross; The Widow of Sarefta; woodcut from a Biblia
pauperum-blockbook, c. 1460, Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek
3. Abraham Sacrificing Isaac; The Crucifixion of Christ; Moses with the Brass Serpent; woodcut
from a Biblia pauperum-blockbook, c. 1460, Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek
4. Lorenzo Ghiberti, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, 1401, Florence, 5. Filippo Brunelleschi, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, 1401, Florence,
Museo del Bargello Museo del Bargello
6. Andrea del Sarto, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, 1529, Dresden, 7. Marco Dente, engraving after the Laocoon-group by
Gemäldegalerie Hagesandros, Polydoros en Athenodoros of Rhodes, c. 1520
(B. XIV, 268, 353)
8. Titian, St Sebastian, detail of 9. Michelangelo, Rebellious Slave, 1513 – 1516, Paris, Louvre 10. Michelangelo, Victoria, c. 1520,
the Averoldi-altarpiece, 1519 – Florence, Palazzo Vecchio
1522, Brescia, Ss. Nazzaro e
Celso
11. Giorgio Vasari, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, 1545–1546, Naples, Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte
12. Caravaggio, Abraham Sacrificing Isaac, 1603, Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi

The Sacrifice of Isaac - The Aqedah (Genesis 22) and Its Interpretations - Ed Noort & Eibert Tigchelaar

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The Sacrifice of Isaac - The Aqedah (Genesis 22) and Its Interpretations - Ed Noort & Eibert Tigchelaar

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PHILIP S. ALEXANDER – GERARD P. LUTTIKHUIZEN

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

© Copyright 2002 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal

printed in the netherlands

List of Illustrations .................................................................... vii

Genesis 22: Human Sacriﬁce and Theology in the

Sacriﬁcing a Child in Ancient Greece:

The Sacriﬁce of Isaac in 4Q225 ............................................ 44

Abraham, Job and the Book of Jubilees: The Intertextual

The Aqedah and Its Interpretations in Midrash and Piyyut .... 86

The Bodmer Poem on the Sacriﬁce of Abraham .................. 96

The Lamb on the Tree: Syriac Exegesis and Anti-Islamic

Ibràhìm’s Sacriﬁce of His Son in the Early Post-Koranic

Abraham’s Sacriﬁce in Early Jewish and Early

Three Italian Sacriﬁces: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Andrea Del Sarto,

Kierkegaard’s Reading of the Sacriﬁce of Isaac .................... 166

The Sacriﬁce of Abraham as a (Temporary) Resolution of

Isaac Threatened by the Knife of Psychoanalysis? .................. 198

Bibliography of Recent Studies .................................................. 211

References to Ancient Texts ...................................................... 225

Illustrations .................................................................................. 231

Abraham’s Sacriﬁce in Early Jewish and Early Christian Art

1. San Callisto catacomb, Rome, c. 200 (André Grabar, Christian

Three Italian Sacriﬁces: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Andrea Del Sarto,

1. Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, c. 359, Rome , Vatican Museums

woodcut from a Biblia pauperum-blockbook, c. 1460, Dresden,

The yearly conference of the research group “Early Jewish and

TWAT Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament, ed. G.J.

Prof. dr. W.J. van Bekkum, w.j.van.bekkum@let.rug.nl

In Honour of Karel A. Deurloo, on the Occasion of His Retirement

The exegete desiring to study the narrative of the Aqedah in Genesis

In one the most inﬂuential Jewish commentaries on Genesis, pub-

– The position of Gen 22 within the context;

2. The Position of Genesis 22 within the Context

A few remarks may be suﬃcient to describe the location and sig-

41 (1987) 176–182; H.-P. Müller, ‘1 Mose 22,1–13’, GPM 47 (1993) 164–170;

the other Genesis texts. The additional commentary makes it still

ytrkh.16 A variant of the last possibility is oﬀered by B. Jacob, who

opens future after a deathly threat. Gen 22 expresses this on a compo-

3. The Problem of Human Sacriﬁce and Gen 22

One of the central items in the discussion concerning Gen 22 is the

be consumed. Were your harlotries so small a matter that you (also)

ﬁrstborns to the deity, whereas a later modiﬁcation replaced the

Secondly the Hebrew Bible relates child sacriﬁce to ˚lm appear-

It means that we must look again at the character of the mlk-

to a foreign god and bringing in a clean YHWH-religion. But even

The harsh polemics in Jeremiah argue that YHWH had to destroy

background for child sacriﬁce, the terminology used, “having passed

4. The Date of the Narrative

During the time that source-criticism was the dominant method in

such a narrative masterpiece possible within the literary horizon

5–27. Cf. R. Lack, ‘Le sacriﬁce d’Isaac—Analyse structurale de la couche élohiste

represents a later stage in the development of the heavenly beings.

Jerusalem and the royal ideology,57 motifs come in which deﬁnitely

child sacriﬁce itself. It is not a story telling that YHWH is a God

The story of Abraham and Isaac is not often mentioned in pagan

according to tradition, Stasinos in Cyprus around 650 BC.3 It is a

oracle, Agamemnon sent Ulysses and Talthybius to Clytaemnestra and

1. Before the Kill

(Hesychius, s.v. Iphianassan), the name Iphigeneia becomes generally