Binding of Isaac
In the biblical narrative, God orders Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac on the mountain called Jehovah-jireh in the region of Moriah.
In addition to being addressed by modern scholarship, this biblical episode has been the focus of a great deal of commentary in traditional sources of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
[10] In The Binding of Isaac, Religious Murders & Kabbalah, Lippman Bodoff argues that Abraham never intended to actually sacrifice his son, and that he had faith that God had no intention that he do so.
Citing the Prophet Jeremiah's exhortation against child sacrifice (Chapter 19), they state unequivocally that such behavior "never crossed God's mind," referring specifically to the sacrificial slaughter of Isaac.
First, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac demonstrates the limit of humanity's capability to both love and fear God.
[13] In Glory and Agony: Isaac's Sacrifice and National Narrative, Yael Feldman argues that the story of Isaac's binding, in both its biblical and post-biblical versions (the New Testament included), has had a great impact on the ethos of altruist heroism and self-sacrifice in modern Hebrew national culture.
It was also to show proof to the world that Abraham is a true God-fearing man who is ready to fulfill any of God's commands, even to sacrifice his own son: When God commanded the father to desist from sacrificing Isaac, Abraham said: "One man tempts another, because he knoweth not what is in the heart of his neighbor.
"Jacob Howland has pointed out that "Ginzberg's work must be used with caution, because his project fabricating a unified narrative from multiple sources inevitably makes the tradition of rabbinic commentary seem more univocal than it actually is."
The narrative of the sacrifice and binding of Isaac is traditionally read in synagogue on the second day of Rosh Hashanah.
The practice of the Kabbalists, observed in some communities but not all, is to recite this chapter every day immediately after Birkot hashachar.
As further support to the view of early Christians that the binding of Isaac foretells the Gospel of Jesus Christ, when the two went up there, Isaac asked Abraham "where is the lamb for the burnt offering" to which Abraham responded "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son."
In the New Testament, John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!"
Søren Kierkegaard describes Abraham's actions as arising from the zenith of faith leading to a "teleological suspension of the ethical".
[26][better source needed] The next two verses state God also granted Abraham the righteous son Isaac and promised more rewards.
The binding also figures prominently in the writings of several of the more important modern theologians, such as Søren Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling and Shalom Spiegel in The Last Trial.
Jewish communities regularly review this literature, for instance the 2009 mock trial held by more than 600 members of the University Synagogue of Orange County, California.
As Auerbach observes, this narrative strategy virtually compels readers to add their own interpretations to the text.
On that view, the second angelic appearance to Abraham (v. 14–18), praising his obedience and blessing his offspring, is in fact a later Jahwist interpolation to E's original account (v. 1–13, 19).
Coats argues that Abraham's obedience to God's command in fact necessitates praise and blessing, which he only receives in the second angelic speech.
[35] Likewise, Terence Fretheim wrote that "the text bears no specific mark of being a polemic against child sacrifice".
For example, Martin S. Bergmann stated "The Aggadah rabbis asserted that "father Isaac was bound on the altar and reduced to ashes, and his sacrificial dust was cast on Mount Moriah.
[39] Barker also said that wall paintings in the ancient Dura-Europos synagogue explicitly show Isaac being sacrificed, followed by his soul traveling to heaven.
[43] The Binding of Isaac has inspired multiple pieces of music, including Marc-Antoine Charpentier's Sacrificium Abrahae (H.402, oratorio for soloists, chorus, doubling instruments, and bc; 1680–81), Benjamin Britten's Canticle II: Abraham and Isaac, later adapted for inclusion in the War Requiem, Igor Stravinsky's Abraham and Isaac, Leonard Cohen's "Story of Isaac" from the 1969 album Songs from a Room,[44] and ”You want it darker” from the 2016 album ''You Want it Darker, eponymous "Highway 61 Revisited" from Highway 61 Revisited (1965) by Bob Dylan, Sufjan Stevens' "Abraham" from the album Seven Swans (2004), Gilad Hochman's "Akeda for Solo Viola" (2006), and Anaïs Mitchell's "Dyin' Day" from the album Young Man in America (2012).
At the annual Samian festival called the Toneia, the "binding", the cult image of Hera was ceremonially bound with lygos branches, before being carried down to the sea to be washed.
