Abstract
Despite unimportance within the Pentateuch, the Binding of Isaac (the Aqedah) became central to later Rabbinic Jewish theology. In this essay, my goal was to identify early literary developments of that change in the Aqedah narratives of Jubilees, Philo and Josephus using the methodological premise that where sources of disparate backgrounds and rhetorical goals thematically overlap, they are more likely to represent more widely held beliefs – what I call “historical, cultural, and theological development in post-biblical self conception”. Was the Aqedah connected to the institution of the temple or Passover? Was Isaac thought to prefigure later Jewish martyrs? Was the Aqedah considered a shameful remnant of Israelite child-sacrifice? These and other interpretations of the Aqedah have been made, but are they present at this early stage? To address this, I attempted to sketch, in broad strokes, the early interpretive development of the Aqedah based upon thematic overlap between Jubilees, Philo, and Josephus.
Included in
Interpretive Development in the Binding of Isaac
Despite unimportance within the Pentateuch, the Binding of Isaac (the Aqedah) became central to later Rabbinic Jewish theology. In this essay, my goal was to identify early literary developments of that change in the Aqedah narratives of Jubilees, Philo and Josephus using the methodological premise that where sources of disparate backgrounds and rhetorical goals thematically overlap, they are more likely to represent more widely held beliefs – what I call “historical, cultural, and theological development in post-biblical self conception”. Was the Aqedah connected to the institution of the temple or Passover? Was Isaac thought to prefigure later Jewish martyrs? Was the Aqedah considered a shameful remnant of Israelite child-sacrifice? These and other interpretations of the Aqedah have been made, but are they present at this early stage? To address this, I attempted to sketch, in broad strokes, the early interpretive development of the Aqedah based upon thematic overlap between Jubilees, Philo, and Josephus.