ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Shi'i beliefs in the Bible Lecture 4: The Sacrifice of Abraham (as), What Is All the Fuss? There is a traditional approach to the problem of the sacrifice of Abraham of one of his sons. Most commentators agree that the story represents a divine test, whereby Abraham’s faithfulness was proven.

The idea is that God gave him a command to sacrifice his beloved son, and in showing himself willing to do so, he showed his extraordinary faithfulness and obedience to God. Muslims, Jews and Christians agree on this point. The traditional point of contention is in that the Bible reports the sacrifice for Isaac (as), whereas the Qur’an reports it for Ishmael.

The result has been disagreement between Muslims on one hand, and Christians and Jews on the other, on the question of which son was supposed to be sacrificed as a test of obedience. There are a few alternative suggestions, but the most novel one I have discovered is that of Rabbi Ben-Yehuda. Rabbi Ben-Yehuda has suggested that Isaac was actually sacrificed according to the story in Genesis 22, and later resurrected to marry Rebecca.

In this essay, I examine this theory in detail, and offer an anthropologically based alternative. Ben-Yehuda’s evidence is carefully weighed here and found wanting. The fact that Isaac is called Abraham’s only son suggests a different interpretation of the events altogether, one which takes into account the rite of passage as an explanation of redemption ritual for the first-born of every woman. In The Institute of Judaic-Christian Researcher, Volume 1, November 1986, Rabbi E.

Ben-Yehuda published an article entitled The Sacrifice of Isaac. The author gives only one stated purpose for the examination of this issue. “All Jewish responses have come up short before the Christian claim that the enormity of the sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross makes it absolutely necessary for all Jews to accept his Messianic role as well as his divinity.

The following dissertation tries to show that the Jews had an incident in their history long predating the Passion which had a similar impact upon the Jewish outlook” (page 1). The only stated motive is “coming to grips” with that issue. The point of departure is the idea that there is a weakness in Jewish faith if there is no sacrifice for sin by which God may grant grace to humankind. “Since sacrifices are no longer offered in Judaism, where do you expect to find God’s grace?” (page 2).