![]() How did the ancient Israelites, and the later rabbis of classical Judaism, understand this story? A midrash tells us That includes a rebuke of pagan child sacrifice. The Torah is a rebuke and transmogrification of the surrounding pagan ideologies. We should focus on the peshat, and that requires reading it light of the ancient near-east where it was written. “Unlike the cruel heathen deities, it was the spiritual surrender alone that God required.” Hertz (Chief Rabbi of the British Empire) wrote that child sacrifice was “rife among the Semitic peoples,” and suggests that “in that age, it was astounding that Abraham’s God should have interposed to prevent the sacrifice, not that He should have asked for it.” Hertz interprets the Akedah as demonstrating to the Jews that human sacrifice is abhorrent. King Mesha offered the crown prince as a burnt offering on top of the city wall in full view of the enemy forces (2 Kings 3:26–27). when the alliance besieged the Moabite capital of Kir-Hareseth, the Moabite king Mesha, in desperation, sacrificed his eldest son to the god Chemosh. Consider the story of King Mesha of Moab, 9th century BCE. Our Bible tells us that even centuries after the time of Abraham, pagans, including kings, practiced child sacrifice. ![]() They even burned their sons and daughters for their gods. Indeed, the Torah itself tells usĭo not act this way toward the Lord your God, for these people performed for their gods all manner of abominations that the Lord hates. It is a fact that in that time and place some cultures that sacrificed human beings to their gods – sometimes even their own children. But Abraham and Isaac from the Bronze age of history, in a region that historians call the ANE, Ancient Near East. Modern readers – and even medieval Bible commentators – often misunderstand Biblical stories and commands, as they tend to read the text in the light of their own present-day culture. The story ends with God stopping Abraham at the last minute and making Isaac’s sacrifice unnecessary by providing a goat to be sacrificed, which had become caught in some bushes nearby.Ĭontext matters: Where and when did Abraham and Isaac live? What was the culture of this time and place? According to the text, God does not want Abraham to actually sacrifice his son it states from the beginning that this is only a test. Abraham agrees to this command without arguing. The Bible states that God tests Abraham, by asking him to present his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice on Mount Moriah. In many readings this is one of the most ethically challenging parts of the Bible. In our annual liturgical reading of the Torah this story is found in parasha Vayera, Genesis 18:1–22:24. The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio (1603) ![]() ![]() God tests Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah.Ībraham “bound Isaac, his son” before placing him on the altar, giving the story it’s Hebrew name – the Akedah – הָ)עֲקֵידָה) – the binding. The Binding of Isaac – עֲקֵידַת יִצְחַק – is a story in the Hebrew Bible. ![]()
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