Unbearable - Scholarly Article
Q1: What is being celebrated at the start of this episode?
The episode begins with the celebration of Isaac’s weaning, which was a significant rite of passage in a cultural context that had a high infant mortality rate.
As the Jewish author Dennis Prager explains:
Abraham was a wealthy man who could afford to throw a great party in honor of his son’s weaning. Today, parties are often made on the eighth day, at the time of a child’s circumcision. But in the ancient world, with its very high rate of infant mortality, it was only later – at the time of weaning, for example – that parents felt confident the child would survive and would throw a party in the child’s honor.
Theologian John Goldingay adds that: “In traditional societies mothers nurse children for longer than is customary in the West, in 2 Macc. 7:27 a mother refers to having nursed her son for three years.”
Q2: How old are Ishmael and Isaac in Episode Eight?
In Episode Eight Isaac is two or three years old and Ishmael is about sixteen years old.
According to Genesis 17:24-25: “Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.” (ESV.) Genesis 21:5 says that “Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.” (ESV.) It is worth noting that although there is good reason to think the ages ascribed to Abraham in Genesis 17:24 and 21:5 are honorific rather than literal, it seems that the temporal gap between Abram’s honorific age when Ishmael was circumcised (i.e. 99) and his honorific age when Isaac was born (i.e. 100) is meant literally. If we assume that Ishmael’s given age when he was circumcised is literal (the Jewish concept of boys becoming adults at age thirteen is a late medieval one), and if we reckon that Isaac would have been weaned at age two or three, we can calculate that Ishmael would have been between fifteen and seventeen years old when Isaac was weaned. That would mean that the age gap between Isaac and Ishmael was some twelve to fifteen years. Like many commentators, Jewish author Dennis Prager simplifies this to the conclusion that: “At this point, Ishmael was about sixteen years old and Isaac was about two.”
Genesis 21:14 is sometimes thought to imply that Ishmael must have been a small child rather than a teenager, because it is read as saying that Abraham put him on Hagar’s shoulder along with the provisions of bread and water. However, as the famous nineteenth century German Bible commentators Karl Keil and Franz Delitzsch explain: The words, “he took bread and a bottle of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it (שׂם participle, not perfect) upon her shoulder, and the boy, and sent her away,” do not state the Abraham gave her Ishmael also to carry. For ואת־היּלד does not depend upon שׂם and ויּתּן because of the copula ו, but upon יקּח, the leading verb of the sentence, although it is separated from it by the parenthesis “putting it upon her shoulder.” It does not follow from these words, therefore, that Ishmael is represented as a little child.
Hence the Literal Standard Version translates: “And Abraham rises early in the morning, and takes bread, and a bottle of water, and gives to Hagar (placing [it] on her shoulder), also the boy, and sends her out; and she goes on, and goes astray in the wilderness of Beer-Sheba . . .” The slightly less literal New American Standard Version avoids confusion by translating: “So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba.”
Q3: What was Ishmael “mocking” or just “playing” with Isaac in Genesis 21:9?
Ishmael’s behaviour in Genesis 21:9 was probably a matter of bad taste “sporting,” rather than being a matter of good natured “play.”
Genesis 21: 9 says that “Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.” (WEB.) The final word of this sentence is a play on Isaac’s name that literally means “make to laugh.” Less literally, the word has a range of meaning that includes “play,” “jest” and “mock,” and which can even have a sexual connotation (see Genesis 39:14, Exodus 32:6). Theologian John H. Walton suggests that the verb “describes something that is done ‘in bad taste’ (whether that be sexual, coarse, or in some other way inappropriate).” In the New Testament, the apostle Paul (who was a Jewish scholar), described Ishmael’s behaviour as persecuting Isaac (Galatians 4:29).
Theologian John Goldingay comments that: Ishmael . . . is making people laugh (at baby Isaac?) or is laughing uproariously; the verb is the one associated with Isaac’s name . . . . It’s as if Ishmael is pretending to be Isaac, the boy whose name links him with laughter, as if he’s still threatening to take the place that belongs to Isaac.
Perhaps Ishmael’s bad taste making fun somehow reflected antipathy on Hagar’s part towards Isaac, as children’s behaviour often gives an unfiltered window into the words and/or actions of adults close to them.
Q4: Why did Sarah want Abraham to send away Hagar and Ishmael?
Sarah may have had a mixture of motives, but she clearly wanted to protect the inheritance of her son Isaac.
There may be a combination of factors at work behind Sarah’s desire to have Abraham send away Hagar and Ishmael. Perhaps Ishmael’s mocking play in Genesis 21:9 somehow reflected antipathy on Hagar’s part towards Isaac, as children’s behaviour often gives an unfiltered window into the words and/or actions of adults close to them. According to American Jewish author Dennis Prager, “now that Isaac has survived past the crucial age of weaning, Sarah realized he will have competition for his inheritance, and she sought to eliminate it.” Jewish scholar Nahum M. Sarna, Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies at Brandeis University, comments that:
According to the laws of Hammurabi, the sons of a slave-wife share the inheritance equally with the sons of the free woman, provided the father, at his own discretion, legitimates them. Should he not recognize them as his sons, the slave and her children are given their freedom. We do not know whether legitimation would be required when the wife herself supplied the slave-girl to provide a son and heir, but at any rate, the status and rights of such a son would certainly not have been inferior to those of an ordinary slave; and we have already seen that Abraham had undoubtedly recognized Ishmael as his son. The laws of Lipit-Ishtar, about one hundred and fifty years earlier than Hammurabi, stipulate that the offspring of a slave-wife relinquish their inheritance rights in return for their freedom. In the light of the foregoing we may safely assume that Ishmael, as the legitimated son of Abraham, was entitled to his share of the inheritance.
Consequently, Sarna argues that:
What Sarah demanded was that Hagar and her son be given their freedom, thereby renouncing all claim to a share of the family estate. This being the case, the entire episode can be seen as having taken place according to the social custom and legal procedure of the times. Abraham’s distress would then not be over the legality of the act, which was not in question, but because of both fatherly love and moral considerations.
According to theologian John H. Walton:
A woman of Hagar’s status could be expelled, but not by either husband or wife alone, and she could not be sold. Her son had the status of legitimate heir, and she would generally have to be divorced. By sending Hagar away, both Sarah and Abraham’s claims are being dissolved. This means that she is being given her freedom as well as being divorced. The verb in 21:14 (“send her away”) is the verb for divorce . . .
While the verb for “send her away” is not a technical term for “divorce,” it is a term used with this meaning (indeed, Jewish tradition says that Abraham gave Hagar a certificate of divorce). Professor Rabbi Reuven Firestone adds the hopeful notes that:
The verses announcing Abraham’s death [Genesis 25:9] strike an optimistic chord about the relationship between the brothers . . . . Later we are told that Isaac’s son Esau married Ishmael’s daughter (Gen 28:9, 36:3), further implying that relations were normalized between the brothers and their families.
Q5: Why did God tell Abraham to listen to Sarah on this matter? Does God have something against Hagar and Ishmael?
God told Abraham to listen to Sarah because doing so facilitated His providential plan, not because God endorsed Sarah’s motives or because He has anything against Hagar and Ishmael.
Jewish author Dennis Prager suggests that: God told Abraham to listen to Sarah because she was right, even though her reasoning was ignoble. Though Sarah’s intent was to banish Ishmael to safeguard her son’s inheritance, God nevertheless supported her plan because it coincided with His ultimate purpose: that Isaac carries on Abraham’s mission.
He adds: It is possible that Sarah was also concerned with Isaac’s divine destiny, since she heard the words of the three angels heralding his birth (Genesis 18:10). Still, it is disquieting that she . . . phrased her demand solely in terms of inheritance.
Indeed, Jewish scholar Nahum M. Sarna suggests that readers of Genesis should:
Note the delicate shift from Sarah’s motivation to God’s. The matriarch was solely interested in safeguarding the material patrimony of her son. God is concerned with Abraham’s posterity, with the fulfillment of the divine plan of history.
As theologian John Goldingay suggests, maybe “God appreciates the opportunity to give expression to the important principle that you don’t come first just because you’re born first (cf. Cain and Able, Esau and Jacob, Manasseh and Ephraim).”
Theologian Tammi J. Schneider notes that in the Genesis narrative: “The Deity, all along, has nothing against Ishmael, and even from the announcement of his birth has intended a role for him (16:11-12).)” Although God’s covenant promises to Abraham and Sarah flow through Isaac, God also promises to bless Ishmael “and make him fertile and numerous; he shall be the father of twelve chieftains, and the Deity will make Ishmael a great nation (17:20; fulfilled 25:12-18).”
When Hagar (with Ishmael) is in the arid Negev region (a region which nevertheless contains low vegetation, including brush and dwarf bushes), she receives a second visitation from God, who “not only comforts her with a promise (21:18) but provides for her needs (21:19). Few individuals in the Bible are favoured with two theophanies and can claim to have been rescued by receiving divine instruction.” Professor Rabbi Reuven Firestone adds the happy note that:
The verses announcing Abraham’s death [Genesis 25:9] strike an optimistic chord about the relationship between the brothers . . . . Later we are told that Isaac’s son Esau married Ishmael’s daughter (Gen 28:9, 36:3), further implying that relations were normalized between the brothers and their families.
As Christian minister Rick Richter asks:
Might not Abraham’s deep love for his two sons and his concern for Ishmael as well as for Isaac, and the fact that Isaac and Ishmael came together to bury their father (see Gen. 25:9), be an inspiration for understanding between Jews and Arabs today?
Q6: Why don’t Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael travel together to Mecca in Episode Eight?
The Islamic tradition associating Abraham and Ishmael with Mecca (Makkah) is contradicted by the older narrative in Genesis, and is disconfirmed by all of the available archaeological, cartographic and independent literary historical evidence concerning Mecca.
Professor Reuven Firestone, President of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, observes that:
While some Qur’anic texts such as Suras 11:69-76 and 15:51-60 refer to Abraham in Syria and others such as 2:125-127, 3:97, 14:37 and 22:26 refer to him in Mecca, the Qur’an itself does not explain how he made the transition.
Competing Islamic traditions give different accounts of how this transition took place. According to the most popular tradition, associated with Abdallah Ibn Abbas (d. 687), Abraham did not send Hagar and Ishmael away to “the Wilderness of Beersheba” (Genesis 21:14) in the Negev region of southern Israel, but personally took them to Mecca, where he left them. The Genesis narrative about an angel revealing of a providentially handy well to Hagar after the water-skin provided by Abraham ran out (see Genesis 21:15-19) is transformed by this Islamic tradition into an angel creating the Zamzam well in Mecca. Abraham is then said to have rebuilt the Ka’ba with Ishmael during a later visit to Mecca. However, as Peter Townsend comments:
Abraham’s recorded movements covered an arc from Mesopotamia to Canaan (roughly equivalent to the area covered by the modern state of Israel) and Egypt. To go from there to the middle of Arabia would require a 750-mile trip, mostly through empty desert and we are entitled to ask why on earth Abraham undertook such a journey and why this epic expedition did not leave any trace on the earliest records dealing with his life.
Islamic tradition “holds that Muhammad led prayers towards Jerusalem until the 16th or 17th month after his migration from Mecca to Medina [in 622 CE], when Allah directed him to instead turn towards the Kaaba in Mecca” (see Sura 2:144, 149-50):
Yet the earliest archaeological evidence from mosques built at the beginning of the 8th century suggests their sanctuary was located a long way north of Mecca . . . . The Qibla of the first mosque in Kufa, Iraq, constructed in 670 AD, pointed west instead of due south. Likewise, floor plans from two later Umayyad (650-750 AD) mosques in Iraq, demonstrate their Qiblas were oriented too far north. The Wasit mosque is off by 33 degrees, the Baghdad mosque by 30 degrees. The ‘Amr b. al ‘As mosque near Cairo, again pointed too far north . . . Jacob of Odessa . . . was a contemporary eye-witness writing in Egypt around 705 AD. His letter in the British Museum maintains the “Mahgraye” (Greek term for Arabs) in Egypt prayed facing east, towards their Ka’ba, the place of their patriarchal origin – in other words towards Palestine, not Mecca.
Peter Harremoës, a mathematician who is also trained in archaeology, explains that:
Typically a mosque has a long qibla wall with a mihrab, a prayer niche, in the middle and the Muslims are praying facing the qibla wall . . . . Many early mosques have a qibla that appear to be inconsistent with a direction towards Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Harremoës considers the “theory is that the early Muslims did not know the exact direction towards Mecca.” However, he argues that “Given their ability to navigate through the desert this is seems less likely” than that these qibla are deliberately facing an alternative location or locations. In a journal article on this very subject, Professor Walter R. Schumm notes that:
The point of contention is not that some early mosques do not appear to point toward the city of Mecca (most scholars seem to agree on that) but on how to explain that issue, especially with respect to technological limitations at that earlier time.
Schumm’s own analysis suggests: “that most mosques in the first two centuries of Islam could have had a fairly high degree of qibla accuracy . . .” As the abstract of a paper by Shumann and Zvi Goldstein published in the Open Access Journal of Archaeology & Anthropology observes:
Dan Gibson has argued that the first holy city of Islam was Petra. David King has disputed Gibson’s conclusions. Using data from Gibson’s website, the two theories are tested and contrasted statistically. While King’s theory works well for most mosques and other sites after 900 C.E., Gibson’s theory seems to work well for sites prior to 900 C.E., especially for sites constructed before 725 C.E. In summary, many early mosques and related structures do appear to face Petra geographically rather than towards Mecca. However, later structures may be related to today’s Mecca in a variety of ways other than simple geographical alignment.
There is some dispute about exactly where some of the early (seventh-early eight century CE) qibla’s are facing (e.g. some may face Jerusalem), and as to why they are facing where they do, but the key point is that long after Islamic tradition says they are supposed to face towards the Kaaba in Mecca, none do. In fact, the first qibla facing Mecca has been dated to 727 CE!
Harremoës uses statistics based on Gibson’s data to highlight a “descriptive confidence region” of early qibla’s that is “closely confined around the ancient city of Petra,” as well as a secondary “descriptive confidence region” over the Ruwafa temple in northern Arabia. Harremoës reaches the “temporary conclusion that early Muslims [outside of a few outliers] used Petra as qibla.” Indeed, according to Harremoës: “There are a lot of indications that Islam has its origin in north western Arabia rather that in the area around Mecca . . .” Professor of religious studies Stephen J. Shoemaker, a specialist on the beginnings of Islam, comments that:
The Islamic historical tradition claims to know a lot about pre-Islamic Mecca. Yet scholars of early Islam have long recognised that these much later memories of Muhammad’s Mecca are not historically reliable and cannot be taken at face value. These canonical narratives about the beginnings of Islam are instead pious reminiscences, which have little if any connection with the actual events of the seventh century or the history of ancient Arabia.
For example:
The quaranic community is described as being busy with various forms of agriculture including growing crops and tending sheep, goats, cattle, camels, horses, mules and donkeys, taking them out to pasture and bringing them back each day. The Messenger keeps telling his audience to contemplate their crops, orchards and livestock, and consider the goodness of Allah to them . . . . None of this makes any sense in Mecca or Medina. Furthermore, in the Qur’an the Messenger is criticized by his opponents for not having a garden. When he was preaching about the garden that will come in the next life, some of his audience mocked him for not even owning a garden here on earth. Such a charge could only make sense in a context where cultivation of gardens was possible, but Mecca is not such a place.
Indeed, the Islamic portrait of Mecca simply isn’t reflected in the historical and archaeological evidence, as one would expect it to be if that portrait was accurate:
According to the Qur’an, Mecca was the first and most important city in the world. Adam placed the black stone in the original Ka’ba (sanctuary) there, while Abraham and Ishmael rebuilt the Meccan Ka’ba centuries later (Sura 2:125-127). Mecca was allegedly the centre of Arabian trading routes before Muhammad’s time. Yet there is no archeological corroboration for this . . . . Mecca is certainly not on the natural overland trade routes – it is a barren valley requiring a one hundred mile detour.
Peter Townsend reports that “this supposedly great historical city, indeed ‘the mother of all cities’, is entirely absent from the historical record until long after the advent of Islam.” He also notes that:
The first map on which Mecca appears dates from approximately 900 CE or about 300 years after Muhammad is supposed to have lived there . . . . Mecca is entirely absent from the ancient cartographic record until long after the advent of Islam.
This disconfirming data cannot be dismissed as an invalid argument from ignorance, for an absence of evidence does count as evidence against a hypothesis when that evidence is to be expected if the hypothesis in question were true. As Townsend argues:
detailed historical records for many other towns and cities dotted up and down the Arabian Peninsula. These include Yathrib (later Medina, “second city” of Islam), Sana’a and Petra. We can even . . . point to detailed sources confirming the pre-Islamic existence of the city of Ta’if. At 70 miles from Islam’s holy city, Ta’if is practically on modern Mecca’s doorstep. It is presented in the Islamic record as very much in the shadow of its much more illustrious neighbor. We would be justified in thinking, considering this, that there would be plenty of sources from which to reconstruct the pre-Islamic history of Mecca with scanty evidence for Ta’if. Instead we have much to draw upon for Ta’if and precisely nothing for Mecca . . . . If Mecca existed in ancient times, the scribes and kings of Arabia and Northeast Africa would have noticed. They clearly did not. It is entirely absent from the historical record and the implications of this should be abundantly obvious. To draw an analogy, the silence of the Arabian documentary and archaeological record regarding Mecca would be akin to studying the early medieval records of Naples, Florence, Venice, Pisa, Genoa and Milan and not finding even a single mention of the city of Rome. It simply beggars belief that Mecca could have existed as the most important city of mid-Arabia and then not make it into any kind of historical record . . . . When we study the inscriptions, documents and archaeological evidence produced by Mecca’s Arab near-neighbors and the imperial powers that dominated the ancient Near-East (Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian and Roman), we do not find a single reference to Mecca. This despite the fact that we can produce historical evidence trails for even relatively insignificant Arabian cities.
Q7: Wasn’t it Ishmael, rather than Isaac, that was nearly sacrificed by Abraham?
Despite claims to the contrary by some Muslims, the son who was almost sacrificed by Abraham was Isaac.
The Qur’an features the following conversation between Abraham and an un-named son:
. . . he said, “O My son, I see in a dream that I am sacrificing you; see what you think.” He said, “O my Father, do as you are commanded; you will find me, God willing, one of the steadfast.” (Sura 37:102.)
Many Muslims believe the son in this exchange is Ishmael, and consequently assume (without any textual evidence) that Jewish scribes corrupted the original text of Genesis, which states that Isaac is the nearly sacrificed son of Abraham. However, “the earliest Islamic commentators were divided over which son was intended.” After discussing Abraham leaving behind idol worship, Surah 37 gives its own account of the narrative in Genesis 22:
99. He [i.e. Abraham] said, “I am going towards my Lord, and He will guide me.” 100. “My Lord, give me one of the righteous.” 101. So We gave him good news of a clement boy. 102. Then, when he was old enough to accompany him, he said, “O My son, I see in a dream that I am sacrificing you; see what you think.” He said, “O my Father, do as you are commanded; you will find me, Allah willing, one of the steadfast.” 103. Then, when they had submitted, and he put his forehead down. 104. We called out to him, “O Abraham! 105. You have fulfilled the vision.” Thus We reward the doers of good. 106. This was certainly an evident test. 107. And We redeemed him with a great sacrifice. 108. And We left with him for later generations. 109. Peace be upon Abraham. 110. Thus We reward the doers of good. 111. He was one of Our believing servants. 112. And We gave him good news of Isaac, a prophet, one of the righteous. 113. And We blessed him, and Isaac. But among their descendants are some who are righteous, and some who are clearly unjust to themselves.
The “good news” of a child to be given by God to Abraham in verse 101 is picked up by verse 112’s reference back to “good news of Isaac . . .” Consequently, contemporary Islamic historian Al-Tabari argues that the son in Genesis 22 is indeed Isaac. The description of Isaac as Abraham’s “only son” in Genesis 22:2 is not contradicted by the existence of Ishmael. In the first place, it may simply reflect that fact that, since Abraham sent away Ishmael with Hagar, Isaac is the only son left to Abraham. Moreover, the Hebrew used for “only” in Genesis 22:2 is yachiyd, which has a range of meanings, including “‘unique’ or ‘only begotten’ (special). So the Hebrew clarifies that Isaac is indeed the special, unique, only begotten son of Abraham. Isaac was the son of promise.” As Norman L. Geilser and Thomas Howe note: “the phrase ‘only son’ may be equivalent to . . . a special son.” Indeed, in stating that “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered Isaac – he who had received the promises was about to offer his unique son in sacrifice,” the New Testament book of Hebrews (11:17) uses the Greek term monogenē, a word traditionally translated as “only begotten” and that literally means “one (monos) of a class, genos” (the only of its kind)” (see also John 1:18 ). Hence, the International Standard Version translation of Genesis 22:2 reads: “God said, ‘Please take your son, your unique son whom you love – Isaac – and go to the land of Moriah.’” Isaac was certainly a unique, one-of-a-kind son of Abraham, being the only son miraculously conceived with his first wife Sarah, and being the subject of God’s covenant with Abraham.
Q8: Why did God ask Abraham to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice?
God put Abraham through this “trial” in order to strengthen and demonstrate his trust in God, and to give an enacted prophecy about Jesus.
In the first place, as Jewish scholar Nahum M. Sarna writes:
When “God put Abraham to the test” it was obviously not a trial, the outcome of which was meant to add to the sum of God’s knowledge. Such an idea would obviously be incompatible with the biblical concept of the omniscience of God. If the story is included in biblical literature it is doubtless due to its didactic value for man.
As Stephen M . Coleman observes:
God did not test Abraham to discover something about the patriarch that He did not know . . . . But God tested Abraham to reveal, strengthen, and prove the reality of his faith when he was called to trust God’s word of promise . . .
Catholic writer Fr. Vincent Serpa O.P. comments that:
In asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, God was not testing him for his own information but for that of Abraham. Up until this point Abraham did not know that he had such faith within himself. In making such a difficult request, God actually drew the best out of Abraham.
In the second place, from the Christian point of view, the story of Genesis 22 takes on aa additional significance as an example of enacted prophecy. As Andy Patton explains:
The story of Abraham and Isaac takes on a larger significance when you place it in the context of prophetic reenactment. Throughout the Bible, God asked prophets to act out things that he said he would do (e.g., Ezek. 5:1-4). The acts themselves are a lot less strange when we see them in this light. Then we start asking [What] did God intend for us to learn through this? Just as God . . . told Ezekiel to lie on his side for over a year to symbolize the siege of Jerusalem (Ezek. 4), so God asked Abraham to play the part of God in the sacrifice of his own son . . . . Both Isaac and Jesus are long-awaited “beloved sons” who are born in miraculous circumstances (Gen. 22:1). Both sons carry the wood that is to be the instrument of their deaths on their backs (Gen. 22:6; John 19:17). In both stories, the father leads the son up a mountain, and the son follows obediently toward his own death (Gen. 22:3; Matt. 26:39). And in both scenarios, God provides the sacrificial substitute, which Abraham says will be a ram (a male lamb) and the New Testament authors identify as Jesus, “the lamb of God” (Gen. 22:8; John 1:29).
Q9: Where is the land of the Moriah (Genesis 22:2)?
It isn’t clear what location is referred to in Genesis 22:2 as the “land [or ‘region’] of the Moriah.” Jewish tradition associates “the land of the Moriah” with that part of Jerusalem where the temple was later built.
God tells Abraham to go to “the land of the Moriah” (Genesis 22:2). On the one hand, theologian Victor P. Hamilton points out: “The only other Old Testament use of this name is in 2 Chr. 3:1. There Moriah is connected with Jerusalem, specifically that part of Jerusalem where Solomon built the temple.” In Abraham’s time, this area had not yet been built upon, although it was near to the city walls. However, on the other hand, theologian John H. Walton argues that “the reference in Chronicles is most likely a coincidence of the same name.” Jewish scholar Nahum M. Sarna objects that the identity of locations between Genesis 22 and the later temple mount “cannot possibly be maintained” because “Jerusalem is not a three-days’ journey from Beer-sheba . . .” However, theologian A.E. Steinmann responds that:
this is a misunderstanding of the phrase the third day in verse 4. It does not denote a three-day journey. Instead, the first day is the first day of the narrative – the day when God commanded the sacrifice; the second day marked the beginning of the journey (v. 3); and the third day was the day of arrival at the mountain and the sacrifice on it. Therefore, the journey occupied only parts of two days, and we ought not doubt that Mount Moriah in Chronicles is the mountain in the region of Moriah where Abraham sacrificed to God.
Moreover, as theologians Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn observe:
Reference to three days/third day appears frequently in the OT to designate a significant segment of time necessary for the preparation of important events (see, for example, Gen 31:22; Exod 3:18; 5:3; Num 10:33; Jonah 3:3; Esth 5:1).
Sarna also objects that since “the hills of Judea would have amply supplied” wood for a sacrifice, the fact that Abraham took wood on the journey shows he must have had a different destination in mind, one where an ample supply of wood could not be relied upon. Varughese and Bohn offer the alternative conjecture that: “Taking enough wood for the offering indicates Abraham’s intent to carry out the sacrifice without any delay upon arrival at the destination.” Robert Harris (Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages at Jewish Theological Seminary) urges caution in identifying “the land of the Moriah” with “Mount Moriah”:
At first glance, the reference to Moriah seems clear enough: our tradition associates it with the place that Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac . . . and, later on, with the site of Solomon’s Temple . . . . however [2 Chronicles 3:1] mentions “Mount Moriah,” not “the land of (the) Moriah.” While it does seem evident that by the later biblical books, Moriah was a place–name identified with Jerusalem, it is less clear that this site is necessarily the same one to which Abraham led Isaac. To make a long story short, an exact understanding of the name (or word) “Moriah” will likely always elude us.
Perhaps “Mount Moriah” in Jerusalem is “one of the mountains [or ‘hills’]” in “the land of the Moriah” mentioned in Genesis 22:2, and perhaps Jewish tradition named this hill “Mount Moriah” on the basis of an accurate tradition linking it to the Genesis 22 narrative, but it is hard to have much confidence here. In sum, the identification of Mount Moriah in Jerusalem with the location of the “binding” of Isaac in Genesis 22 is “far from certain . . .”
Q10: In Episode Eight Sarah says that “in the city . . . they sacrificed their children” and expresses horror at the memory. Is this historically accurate?
Human sacrifice was a feature of ancient near eastern culture, though child sacrifice was probably a less common practice than adult sacrifice. Sarah’s horror at child sacrifice in Episode Eight, which does not feature in the Genesis narrative, is a piece of artistic license that may be anachronistic. We do have literary and archaeological evidence for the practice of human sacrifice in the ancient near east, including in the city of Ur (which is presumably “the city” to which Sarah refers in this episode). Some of the literary and archaeological evidence pertains to child sacrifice, although there’s no specific evidence of child sacrifice taking place in Ur. That said, Isaac was actually a young man rather than a child at this point in the Genesis narrative.
Human sacrifice was a reoccurring if fairly rare feature of ancient near eastern culture, and child sacrifice seems to have been a less common practice than that of adult sacrifice. As Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn observe: “Human sacrifice was a religious practice in the ancient world. . . This practice is attested among the Phoenicians, the Ammonites, the Moabites (2 Kgs 3:27), the Egyptians, and the Canaanites . . .” Besides multiple references reporting and condemning the practice of child sacrifice in the Old Testament literature (e.g. Leviticus 18:21, Deuteronomy 12:31 & 18:10, 2 Kings 3:27, Jeremiah 32:35):
The practice of child sacrifice is attested in other sources throughout the ancient Mediterranean world, particularly in Carthage [a Phoenician colony that thrived from c. 800 BC until 146 BC]. In the city, a sacred grove and a temple were dedicated to one such cult. Carthage was founded by Phoenician colonists which gives them a connection to the Canaanites. It has been suggested that there is also a connection between the child sacrifices practiced in Carthage and similar practices in Canaan and Judah such as the cult of Moloch.
Danish archaeologist Laerke Recht observes that: “In terms of the archaeological evidence, human sacrifice can be very difficult to detect, and may at times be indistinguishable from other practices.” However, she notes that:
The prime archeological example of human sacrifice in the ancient Near East is the Early Dynastic “Royal Cemetery” at Ur. Dug in the early twentieth century by Leonard Woolley, this cemetery contains at least 16 “royal” graves and “death pits” with human sacrificial victims.
The Early Dynastic “Royal Cemetery” at Ur (dated c. 2600-2450 BC, about seven or eight centuries before Abraham lived) features a so-called “retainer sacrifice,” whose victims were adults intended to accompany their masters into the afterlife. Another example of retainer sacrifice occurred during Egypt’s early history:
Human sacrifices have been found by the graves of early pharaohs at Abydos, a city in southern Egypt that served at times as Egypt’s capital and was the cult center for Osiris, the god of the underworld. The practice appears to have become less common or completely phased out by the time the Giza pyramids were built around 4,500 years ago.
Archaeology testifies to other forms of human sacrifice in the ancient world, and children sometimes feature in this evidence. For example, a team led by Dr Brenna Hassett:
Examined burial practices at Başur Höyük, a Bronze Age cemetery in Turkey. It contains a series of individuals who were buried between 3100 and 2800 BCE. The site dates to 500 years before the famous Royal Cemetery of Ur . . . . In three graves were found the remains of at least 11 people, male and female, ranging from age 11 to young adults.
According to Hassett: “There are various pieces of evidence which suggest that these young people did not die accidentally or naturally – rather they were sacrificed.” As for Sarah’s reaction to child sacrifice, we should heed the note of caution struck by Dr Josephine Quinn of Oxford University’s Faculty of Classics when she comments that “We should not imagine that ancient people thought like us and were horrified by the same things.” As Recht observes: “the ancient people of the Near East may not have understood human, or indeed animal, sacrifice as a violent, repulsive act.” The “test” set before Abraham (and Sarah and Isaac) in Genesis 22 is not the “horrific” concept of child sacrifice as such, but the “test” of how they will to respond to God’s request in light of everything else they think they know about God’s character and covenant agenda. As theologian John H. Walton comments: the command to sacrifice his son would not have been as shocking to Abraham as it is to us. In the Canaanite worldview, the god who provided fertility (El) was also entitled to demand a portion of what had been produced . . . . in Abraham’s day it was considered a deity’s right to ask for such a sacrifice, and Abraham does not question that right.
What Abraham (along with Sarah and Isaac) has to wrestle with is the baffling, paradoxical nature of God’s request “in light of the covenant promises.”
Q11: Why did Abraham follow God’s command?
Abraham had an active faith in God (i.e. he gave God his allegiance and placed his trust in Him) and was confident that God would be true to his covenantal word. Consequently, Abraham seems to have thought that God would either prevent the sacrifice of Isaac (and provide an alternative victim), or that God would bring Isaac back from the dead.
There are several deliberate ambiguities in the Genesis narrative about “the binding of Isaac” which suggest Abraham may have been unsure whether or not God wanted him to sacrifice Isaac; but Abraham was sure that one way or another, as he told his servants before he headed up the mountain with Isaac: “We will worship and then we will come back to you.” (Genesis 22:5, NIV, emphasis added). According to Genesis 22:2, God asks Abraham to take Isaac to “the land of Moriah” and to “offer him there as [or “for” ] a burnt offering on one of the mountains [hills] of which I shall tell you.” Philosopher Paul Copan explains that:
The Hebrew word Moriah is derived from the Hebrew word ra’ha, “provide, see, show.” . . . . So in the very word Moriah (“provision”) we have a hint of salvation and deliverance.
Moreover, the Hebrew translated as “offer him up there as a sacrifice” literally means “cause him to ascend there as [for] a thing that ascends.” According to the medieval Jewish exegete Rashi, God gave Abraham an ambiguous command, omitting any explicit instruction to “slaughter” Isaac (which would’ve required the Hebrew word shachtehu ):
because the Holy One . . . did not desire that he should slay him, but he told him to bring him up to the mountain to prepare him as a burnt offering. So when he had taken him up, God said to him, “Bring him down.”
In other words, God asked Abraham to offer Isaac as an offering, but He didn’t actually ask Abraham to kill or “slaughter” Isaac. The ambiguity of God’s request sets the scene for Abraham’s own apparent uncertainty about what would happen. Hence Rabbi Binny Freedman asks the rhetorical question: “What if Abraham actually was not sure what [God] really wanted of him?” Likewise, Paul Copan writes that: “Abraham knew that God would fulfill his promise regarding Isaac, but he didn’t know what God would do in the end.”
As they were walking up the mountain:
Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. (Genesis 22: 7-8, ESV.)
Note the ambiguity of Abraham’s answer, which leaves it open as to whether Abraham is saying that God will provide “my son” (i.e. Isaac) as the metaphorical “lamb,” or whether Abraham is saying to his son (i.e. Isaac) that God will provide his own literal “lamb” for sacrifice. Jean E. Jones points out that:
In Abraham’s birthplace Ur, religious rituals included human sacrifice. One of the most startling excavations from Ur is the so-called “Royal Cemetery” with its pits containing human sacrifices . . . . Abraham moved to Haran, not far from other sites where human sacrifices have been uncovered from the same age . . . . Although there were also infant sacrifices in the regions, these are mostly adult sacrifices. This is significant because at the time God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice Isaac, Isaac was not a child . . .
Indeed, the term Genesis 22:5 uses for both Isaac and the servants is used in Genesis 14:24 to describe a young man of military age. Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn report that:
The word na‘ar (meaning “boy,” “youth,” “servant”) is used in v 5 for both the servants and Isaac . . . . the term is only indirectly related to age; it often indicates one’s status as a “person under the authority and protection of his father” or “his superior or commander” . . .
Jewish Old Testament scholar Isaac Kalimi explains that:
Some rabbis consider the Aqedah not only a test of Abraham but also of Isaac . . . he was aware that his father was leading him to death, yet willingly followed and obeyed him. This is the intention of the repeated phrase, “and they went both of them together” (Gen. 22:6b, 8b) . . . The willingness of Isaac to be sacrificed is stated already by Josephus [Antiquities 1.232], Pseudo-Philo (Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 32:1-3), and 4 [Maccabees] 7:13-14
Another textual clue within the Genesis narrative that points in this direction is the fact that Isaac was strong enough to carry the firewood for the sacrifice, and therefore could probably have resisted Abraham had he minded to do so:
The tying up then simply means that Abraham acts in conformity to the rite of a burnt offering. The hints in this chapter that Isaac is complicit in what is happening provide a basis for Jewish interpretation’s focus on Isaac’s willingness to be sacrificed.
This Jewish understanding of Genesis 22 makes sense against the cultural background of the ancient near east. As Jones observes:
The people of Abraham’s day would not have thought there was anything immoral about human sacrifices. In fact, they considered it an act of great piety . . . in cultures that believed in gods that give blessings in return for sacrifices, sacrificing offspring would be considered a moral good . . . . the Lord God provided a ram to show that this God was different: This God did not want humans sacrificing humans.
Danish archaeologist Laerke Recht comments that “the ancient people of the Near East may not have understood human, or indeed animal, sacrifice as a violent, repulsive act.” This Jewish interpretation of Genesis 22 influenced the Qur’an, where Abraham and his un-named son have this exchange:
[Abraham] said: “O My son, I see in a dream that I am sacrificing you; see what you think.” He said, “O my Father, do as you are commanded; you will find me, God willing, one of the steadfast.” (Sura 37:102)
While contemporary Muslims often think that the son in this exchange is Ishmael, “the earliest Islamic commentators were divided over which son was intended.” See Episode Eight: Question Seven for more details about this. Finally, note what Abraham told his servants before he headed off with Isaac: “We will worship and then we will come back to you.” (Genesis 22:5, NIV, emphasis added). The New Testament book known as Hebrews observes that because Abraham “had received the promises [of God]” (Hebrews 11:17) – including the miraculous reversal of Sarah’s menopause and the subsequent conception of Isaac himself – he “considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:19). In other words, given his life experience following God, Abraham was confident that “the judge of the whole earth [would] deal justly,” (see Genesis 18:25) and that in some way, God would fulfill His covenant promises (Genesis 17:19). Hence, if God did want Abraham to actually sacrifice Isaac, then God would bring Isaac back from the dead, because that would be the only way for God to keep his covenant promise to Abraham, centered as it was upon Isaac’s descendants.
Recommended Resources for Episode 8
YouTube Playlist, “Mecca & Islam” https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQhh3qcwVEWiVEG4kjvd_6N44cxBRX2i6 YouTube Playlist, “Zamzam Well & Islam” https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQhh3qcwVEWgbXNtKVO0QLrXwm_R49JP1 YouTube Playlist, “Islam” www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQhh3qcwVEWjhD84EB0jEG5PswCOcDsmJ Kyle Butt, “Does God Accept Human Sacrifice?” https://apologeticspress.org/does-god-accept-human-sacrifice-2775/ Reuven Firestone, “Abraham Visits Ishmael and His Wives: Between Jewish and Islamic Tradition” https://www.thetorah.com/article/abraham-visits-ishmael-and-his-wives-between-jewish-and-islamic-tradition Reuven Firestone, “Abraham’s Journey to Mecca in Islamic Exegesis: A Form-Critical Study of a Tradition” Studia Islamica, No. 76 (1992) https://www.academia.edu/4069216/Abrahams_Journey_to_Mecca_in_Islamic_Exegesis_A_Form_Critical_Study_of_a_Tradition Dan Gibson, “Suggested Solutions for Issues Concerning The Location of Mecca in Ptolemy’s Geography” https://www.ancientportsantiques.com/wp-content/uploads/Documents/ETUDESarchivees/Ptolemy/PtolemyMecca-Gibson2013.pdf Peter Harremoës, “Rate Distortion Theory for Descriptive Statistics” Entropy 25, no. 3 (2023), https://nabataea.net/media/01explore/08FoundingIslam/Rate_Distortion_Theory_for_Descriptive_Statistics.pdf Carol A. Hill, “Making Sense of the Numbers in Genesis” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 55, no. 4 (2003) https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Hill.pdf Isaac Kalimi, “Mitigating the Akedah” https://www.thetorah.com/article/mitigating-the-akedah Ian D. Morris, “Mecca and Macoraba” https://www.middleeastmedievalists.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/UW-26-Morris.pdf Robin Ngo, “Did the Carthaginians Really Practice Infant Sacrifice?” www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/did-the-carthaginians-really-practice-infant-sacrifice/ Christianity Stack Exchange, “What evidence is available that Mt. Moriah is actually the Temple Mount?” https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/19258/what-evidence-is-available-that-mt-moriah-is-actually-the-temple-mount Craig Olsen, “How Old was Father Abraham? Re-examining the Patriarchal Lifespans in Light of Archaeology” www.academia.edu/33972456/How_Old_was_Father_Abraham_Re-examining_the_Patriarchal_Lifespans_in_Light_of_Archaeology Craig Olsen, “How Old was Father Abraham? Part 2 A Symbolic Interpretation of the Patriarchal Lifespans” file:///Users/peterwilliams/Downloads/How_Old_was_Father_Abraham_Part_2_A_Symb.pdf Keith Paterson, “Did The Canaanites Really Sacrifice Their Children?” https://biblereadingarcheology.com/2016/05/13/did-the-canaanites-sacrifice-their-children/ Katie Pavid, “New evidence of ancient child sacrifice found in Turkey” https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2018/june/new-evidence-of-ancient-child-sacrifice-found-in-turkey.html University of Oxford, “Ancient Carthaginians really did sacrifice their children” https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-01-23-ancient-carthaginians-really-did-sacrifice-their-children Laerke Recht, “Human sacrifice in the ancient Near East” Trinity College Dublin Journal of Postgraduate Research, 2010, https://www.academia.edu/1561457/Human_sacrifice_in_the_ancient_Near_East Justin Rodgers, “The Integrity of the Biblical Text (Part 3): Text of the Old Testament” (2022) https://apologeticspress.org/the-integrity-of-the-biblical-text-part-3-text-of-the-old-testament/ Walter R. Schumm, “How Accurately Could Early (622-900 C.E.) Muslims Determine the Direction of Prayers (Qibla)?” Religions, 11: 102 (2020), https://nabataea.net/media/01explore/08FoundingIslam/religions-11-00102-v2.pdf Walter R. Schumm and Zvi Goldstein, “A Statistical Assessment of Early Islamic History and the Qibla: Comparing the Theories of David King and Dan Gibson” Open Access Journal of Archaeology & Anthropology, Volume 3 – Issue 1 (2021), https://nabataea.net/media/01explore/08FoundingIslam/SchummJuly2021.pdf Sam Shamoun, “Abraham and the Child of Sacrifice – Isaac or Ishmael?” https://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/sacrifice.htm Sam Shamoun, “Was Abraham commanded to sacrifice Isaac or Ishmael?” https://www.judaism-islam.com/was-abraham-commanded-to-sacrifice-isaac-or-ishmael/ Sam Shamoun, “Reply to Mohamed Ghounem’s: Was Isaac or Ishmael to be sacrificed?” https://www.answering-islam.de/Responses/Ghounem/isaac.htm Hershel Shanks, “Human Sacrifice to an Ammonite God?” www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/first-person-human-sacrifice-to-an-ammonite-god/ Stephen J. Shoemaker, “The making of Mecca” The Spectator (June 2023) https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-making-of-mecca/ Patricia Smith et al, “Cemetery or sacrifice? Infant burials at the Carthage Tophet” Antiquity 87 (338):1191-1199 (December 2015) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273293693_Cemetery_or_sacrifice_Infant_burials_at_the_Carthage_Tophet Rafat Amari, Islam in Light of History (Religion Research Institute, 2004) https://ia801001.us.archive.org/20/items/IslamInLightOfHistoryDrRafatAmari/Islam%20in%20Light%20of%20History%20-Dr%20Rafat%20Amari.pdf Ellis R. Brotzman and Eric J. Tully. Old Testament Textual Criticism: A Practical Introduction (Baker Academic, 2016) Paul Copan. Is God A Moral Monster? (Baker, 2011), Chapter Five. Dan Gibson et al. Let the Stones Speak: Archaeology Challenges Islam (Canbooks, 2023), https://www.academia.edu/109022281/Archaeology_Challenges_Islam John Goldingay. Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Pentateuch: Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020) Josh McDowell & Sean McDowell. Evidence That Demands A Verdict (Thomas Nelson, 2017), Chapter Four. Ruth J. Nicholls, ed. Understanding & Answering Islam (Melbourne School of Theology Press, 2018) Dennis Prager. The Rational Bible: Genesis (Regnery Faith, 2019) N.M. Sarna. Understanding Genesis Through Rabbinic Tradition and Modern Scholarship (The Heritage of Biblical Israel). (The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2014) Tammi J. Schneider. Sarah: Mother of Nations (Continuum, 2004) Peter Townsend. The Mecca Mystery: Probing the Black Hole at the Heart of Muslim History (2018) Dan Wickwire. Has The Bible Been Changed? The Reliability Of The Scriptures According To Jewish, Christian, And Islamic Sources (Aneko Press, 2016)
The episode begins with the celebration of Isaac’s weaning, which was a significant rite of passage in a cultural context that had a high infant mortality rate.
As the Jewish author Dennis Prager explains:
Abraham was a wealthy man who could afford to throw a great party in honor of his son’s weaning. Today, parties are often made on the eighth day, at the time of a child’s circumcision. But in the ancient world, with its very high rate of infant mortality, it was only later – at the time of weaning, for example – that parents felt confident the child would survive and would throw a party in the child’s honor.
Theologian John Goldingay adds that: “In traditional societies mothers nurse children for longer than is customary in the West, in 2 Macc. 7:27 a mother refers to having nursed her son for three years.”
Q2: How old are Ishmael and Isaac in Episode Eight?
In Episode Eight Isaac is two or three years old and Ishmael is about sixteen years old.
According to Genesis 17:24-25: “Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.” (ESV.) Genesis 21:5 says that “Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.” (ESV.) It is worth noting that although there is good reason to think the ages ascribed to Abraham in Genesis 17:24 and 21:5 are honorific rather than literal, it seems that the temporal gap between Abram’s honorific age when Ishmael was circumcised (i.e. 99) and his honorific age when Isaac was born (i.e. 100) is meant literally. If we assume that Ishmael’s given age when he was circumcised is literal (the Jewish concept of boys becoming adults at age thirteen is a late medieval one), and if we reckon that Isaac would have been weaned at age two or three, we can calculate that Ishmael would have been between fifteen and seventeen years old when Isaac was weaned. That would mean that the age gap between Isaac and Ishmael was some twelve to fifteen years. Like many commentators, Jewish author Dennis Prager simplifies this to the conclusion that: “At this point, Ishmael was about sixteen years old and Isaac was about two.”
Genesis 21:14 is sometimes thought to imply that Ishmael must have been a small child rather than a teenager, because it is read as saying that Abraham put him on Hagar’s shoulder along with the provisions of bread and water. However, as the famous nineteenth century German Bible commentators Karl Keil and Franz Delitzsch explain: The words, “he took bread and a bottle of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it (שׂם participle, not perfect) upon her shoulder, and the boy, and sent her away,” do not state the Abraham gave her Ishmael also to carry. For ואת־היּלד does not depend upon שׂם and ויּתּן because of the copula ו, but upon יקּח, the leading verb of the sentence, although it is separated from it by the parenthesis “putting it upon her shoulder.” It does not follow from these words, therefore, that Ishmael is represented as a little child.
Hence the Literal Standard Version translates: “And Abraham rises early in the morning, and takes bread, and a bottle of water, and gives to Hagar (placing [it] on her shoulder), also the boy, and sends her out; and she goes on, and goes astray in the wilderness of Beer-Sheba . . .” The slightly less literal New American Standard Version avoids confusion by translating: “So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba.”
Q3: What was Ishmael “mocking” or just “playing” with Isaac in Genesis 21:9?
Ishmael’s behaviour in Genesis 21:9 was probably a matter of bad taste “sporting,” rather than being a matter of good natured “play.”
Genesis 21: 9 says that “Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, mocking.” (WEB.) The final word of this sentence is a play on Isaac’s name that literally means “make to laugh.” Less literally, the word has a range of meaning that includes “play,” “jest” and “mock,” and which can even have a sexual connotation (see Genesis 39:14, Exodus 32:6). Theologian John H. Walton suggests that the verb “describes something that is done ‘in bad taste’ (whether that be sexual, coarse, or in some other way inappropriate).” In the New Testament, the apostle Paul (who was a Jewish scholar), described Ishmael’s behaviour as persecuting Isaac (Galatians 4:29).
Theologian John Goldingay comments that: Ishmael . . . is making people laugh (at baby Isaac?) or is laughing uproariously; the verb is the one associated with Isaac’s name . . . . It’s as if Ishmael is pretending to be Isaac, the boy whose name links him with laughter, as if he’s still threatening to take the place that belongs to Isaac.
Perhaps Ishmael’s bad taste making fun somehow reflected antipathy on Hagar’s part towards Isaac, as children’s behaviour often gives an unfiltered window into the words and/or actions of adults close to them.
Q4: Why did Sarah want Abraham to send away Hagar and Ishmael?
Sarah may have had a mixture of motives, but she clearly wanted to protect the inheritance of her son Isaac.
There may be a combination of factors at work behind Sarah’s desire to have Abraham send away Hagar and Ishmael. Perhaps Ishmael’s mocking play in Genesis 21:9 somehow reflected antipathy on Hagar’s part towards Isaac, as children’s behaviour often gives an unfiltered window into the words and/or actions of adults close to them. According to American Jewish author Dennis Prager, “now that Isaac has survived past the crucial age of weaning, Sarah realized he will have competition for his inheritance, and she sought to eliminate it.” Jewish scholar Nahum M. Sarna, Emeritus Professor of Biblical Studies at Brandeis University, comments that:
According to the laws of Hammurabi, the sons of a slave-wife share the inheritance equally with the sons of the free woman, provided the father, at his own discretion, legitimates them. Should he not recognize them as his sons, the slave and her children are given their freedom. We do not know whether legitimation would be required when the wife herself supplied the slave-girl to provide a son and heir, but at any rate, the status and rights of such a son would certainly not have been inferior to those of an ordinary slave; and we have already seen that Abraham had undoubtedly recognized Ishmael as his son. The laws of Lipit-Ishtar, about one hundred and fifty years earlier than Hammurabi, stipulate that the offspring of a slave-wife relinquish their inheritance rights in return for their freedom. In the light of the foregoing we may safely assume that Ishmael, as the legitimated son of Abraham, was entitled to his share of the inheritance.
Consequently, Sarna argues that:
What Sarah demanded was that Hagar and her son be given their freedom, thereby renouncing all claim to a share of the family estate. This being the case, the entire episode can be seen as having taken place according to the social custom and legal procedure of the times. Abraham’s distress would then not be over the legality of the act, which was not in question, but because of both fatherly love and moral considerations.
According to theologian John H. Walton:
A woman of Hagar’s status could be expelled, but not by either husband or wife alone, and she could not be sold. Her son had the status of legitimate heir, and she would generally have to be divorced. By sending Hagar away, both Sarah and Abraham’s claims are being dissolved. This means that she is being given her freedom as well as being divorced. The verb in 21:14 (“send her away”) is the verb for divorce . . .
While the verb for “send her away” is not a technical term for “divorce,” it is a term used with this meaning (indeed, Jewish tradition says that Abraham gave Hagar a certificate of divorce). Professor Rabbi Reuven Firestone adds the hopeful notes that:
The verses announcing Abraham’s death [Genesis 25:9] strike an optimistic chord about the relationship between the brothers . . . . Later we are told that Isaac’s son Esau married Ishmael’s daughter (Gen 28:9, 36:3), further implying that relations were normalized between the brothers and their families.
Q5: Why did God tell Abraham to listen to Sarah on this matter? Does God have something against Hagar and Ishmael?
God told Abraham to listen to Sarah because doing so facilitated His providential plan, not because God endorsed Sarah’s motives or because He has anything against Hagar and Ishmael.
Jewish author Dennis Prager suggests that: God told Abraham to listen to Sarah because she was right, even though her reasoning was ignoble. Though Sarah’s intent was to banish Ishmael to safeguard her son’s inheritance, God nevertheless supported her plan because it coincided with His ultimate purpose: that Isaac carries on Abraham’s mission.
He adds: It is possible that Sarah was also concerned with Isaac’s divine destiny, since she heard the words of the three angels heralding his birth (Genesis 18:10). Still, it is disquieting that she . . . phrased her demand solely in terms of inheritance.
Indeed, Jewish scholar Nahum M. Sarna suggests that readers of Genesis should:
Note the delicate shift from Sarah’s motivation to God’s. The matriarch was solely interested in safeguarding the material patrimony of her son. God is concerned with Abraham’s posterity, with the fulfillment of the divine plan of history.
As theologian John Goldingay suggests, maybe “God appreciates the opportunity to give expression to the important principle that you don’t come first just because you’re born first (cf. Cain and Able, Esau and Jacob, Manasseh and Ephraim).”
Theologian Tammi J. Schneider notes that in the Genesis narrative: “The Deity, all along, has nothing against Ishmael, and even from the announcement of his birth has intended a role for him (16:11-12).)” Although God’s covenant promises to Abraham and Sarah flow through Isaac, God also promises to bless Ishmael “and make him fertile and numerous; he shall be the father of twelve chieftains, and the Deity will make Ishmael a great nation (17:20; fulfilled 25:12-18).”
When Hagar (with Ishmael) is in the arid Negev region (a region which nevertheless contains low vegetation, including brush and dwarf bushes), she receives a second visitation from God, who “not only comforts her with a promise (21:18) but provides for her needs (21:19). Few individuals in the Bible are favoured with two theophanies and can claim to have been rescued by receiving divine instruction.” Professor Rabbi Reuven Firestone adds the happy note that:
The verses announcing Abraham’s death [Genesis 25:9] strike an optimistic chord about the relationship between the brothers . . . . Later we are told that Isaac’s son Esau married Ishmael’s daughter (Gen 28:9, 36:3), further implying that relations were normalized between the brothers and their families.
As Christian minister Rick Richter asks:
Might not Abraham’s deep love for his two sons and his concern for Ishmael as well as for Isaac, and the fact that Isaac and Ishmael came together to bury their father (see Gen. 25:9), be an inspiration for understanding between Jews and Arabs today?
Q6: Why don’t Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael travel together to Mecca in Episode Eight?
The Islamic tradition associating Abraham and Ishmael with Mecca (Makkah) is contradicted by the older narrative in Genesis, and is disconfirmed by all of the available archaeological, cartographic and independent literary historical evidence concerning Mecca.
Professor Reuven Firestone, President of the International Qur’anic Studies Association, observes that:
While some Qur’anic texts such as Suras 11:69-76 and 15:51-60 refer to Abraham in Syria and others such as 2:125-127, 3:97, 14:37 and 22:26 refer to him in Mecca, the Qur’an itself does not explain how he made the transition.
Competing Islamic traditions give different accounts of how this transition took place. According to the most popular tradition, associated with Abdallah Ibn Abbas (d. 687), Abraham did not send Hagar and Ishmael away to “the Wilderness of Beersheba” (Genesis 21:14) in the Negev region of southern Israel, but personally took them to Mecca, where he left them. The Genesis narrative about an angel revealing of a providentially handy well to Hagar after the water-skin provided by Abraham ran out (see Genesis 21:15-19) is transformed by this Islamic tradition into an angel creating the Zamzam well in Mecca. Abraham is then said to have rebuilt the Ka’ba with Ishmael during a later visit to Mecca. However, as Peter Townsend comments:
Abraham’s recorded movements covered an arc from Mesopotamia to Canaan (roughly equivalent to the area covered by the modern state of Israel) and Egypt. To go from there to the middle of Arabia would require a 750-mile trip, mostly through empty desert and we are entitled to ask why on earth Abraham undertook such a journey and why this epic expedition did not leave any trace on the earliest records dealing with his life.
Islamic tradition “holds that Muhammad led prayers towards Jerusalem until the 16th or 17th month after his migration from Mecca to Medina [in 622 CE], when Allah directed him to instead turn towards the Kaaba in Mecca” (see Sura 2:144, 149-50):
Yet the earliest archaeological evidence from mosques built at the beginning of the 8th century suggests their sanctuary was located a long way north of Mecca . . . . The Qibla of the first mosque in Kufa, Iraq, constructed in 670 AD, pointed west instead of due south. Likewise, floor plans from two later Umayyad (650-750 AD) mosques in Iraq, demonstrate their Qiblas were oriented too far north. The Wasit mosque is off by 33 degrees, the Baghdad mosque by 30 degrees. The ‘Amr b. al ‘As mosque near Cairo, again pointed too far north . . . Jacob of Odessa . . . was a contemporary eye-witness writing in Egypt around 705 AD. His letter in the British Museum maintains the “Mahgraye” (Greek term for Arabs) in Egypt prayed facing east, towards their Ka’ba, the place of their patriarchal origin – in other words towards Palestine, not Mecca.
Peter Harremoës, a mathematician who is also trained in archaeology, explains that:
Typically a mosque has a long qibla wall with a mihrab, a prayer niche, in the middle and the Muslims are praying facing the qibla wall . . . . Many early mosques have a qibla that appear to be inconsistent with a direction towards Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Harremoës considers the “theory is that the early Muslims did not know the exact direction towards Mecca.” However, he argues that “Given their ability to navigate through the desert this is seems less likely” than that these qibla are deliberately facing an alternative location or locations. In a journal article on this very subject, Professor Walter R. Schumm notes that:
The point of contention is not that some early mosques do not appear to point toward the city of Mecca (most scholars seem to agree on that) but on how to explain that issue, especially with respect to technological limitations at that earlier time.
Schumm’s own analysis suggests: “that most mosques in the first two centuries of Islam could have had a fairly high degree of qibla accuracy . . .” As the abstract of a paper by Shumann and Zvi Goldstein published in the Open Access Journal of Archaeology & Anthropology observes:
Dan Gibson has argued that the first holy city of Islam was Petra. David King has disputed Gibson’s conclusions. Using data from Gibson’s website, the two theories are tested and contrasted statistically. While King’s theory works well for most mosques and other sites after 900 C.E., Gibson’s theory seems to work well for sites prior to 900 C.E., especially for sites constructed before 725 C.E. In summary, many early mosques and related structures do appear to face Petra geographically rather than towards Mecca. However, later structures may be related to today’s Mecca in a variety of ways other than simple geographical alignment.
There is some dispute about exactly where some of the early (seventh-early eight century CE) qibla’s are facing (e.g. some may face Jerusalem), and as to why they are facing where they do, but the key point is that long after Islamic tradition says they are supposed to face towards the Kaaba in Mecca, none do. In fact, the first qibla facing Mecca has been dated to 727 CE!
Harremoës uses statistics based on Gibson’s data to highlight a “descriptive confidence region” of early qibla’s that is “closely confined around the ancient city of Petra,” as well as a secondary “descriptive confidence region” over the Ruwafa temple in northern Arabia. Harremoës reaches the “temporary conclusion that early Muslims [outside of a few outliers] used Petra as qibla.” Indeed, according to Harremoës: “There are a lot of indications that Islam has its origin in north western Arabia rather that in the area around Mecca . . .” Professor of religious studies Stephen J. Shoemaker, a specialist on the beginnings of Islam, comments that:
The Islamic historical tradition claims to know a lot about pre-Islamic Mecca. Yet scholars of early Islam have long recognised that these much later memories of Muhammad’s Mecca are not historically reliable and cannot be taken at face value. These canonical narratives about the beginnings of Islam are instead pious reminiscences, which have little if any connection with the actual events of the seventh century or the history of ancient Arabia.
For example:
The quaranic community is described as being busy with various forms of agriculture including growing crops and tending sheep, goats, cattle, camels, horses, mules and donkeys, taking them out to pasture and bringing them back each day. The Messenger keeps telling his audience to contemplate their crops, orchards and livestock, and consider the goodness of Allah to them . . . . None of this makes any sense in Mecca or Medina. Furthermore, in the Qur’an the Messenger is criticized by his opponents for not having a garden. When he was preaching about the garden that will come in the next life, some of his audience mocked him for not even owning a garden here on earth. Such a charge could only make sense in a context where cultivation of gardens was possible, but Mecca is not such a place.
Indeed, the Islamic portrait of Mecca simply isn’t reflected in the historical and archaeological evidence, as one would expect it to be if that portrait was accurate:
According to the Qur’an, Mecca was the first and most important city in the world. Adam placed the black stone in the original Ka’ba (sanctuary) there, while Abraham and Ishmael rebuilt the Meccan Ka’ba centuries later (Sura 2:125-127). Mecca was allegedly the centre of Arabian trading routes before Muhammad’s time. Yet there is no archeological corroboration for this . . . . Mecca is certainly not on the natural overland trade routes – it is a barren valley requiring a one hundred mile detour.
Peter Townsend reports that “this supposedly great historical city, indeed ‘the mother of all cities’, is entirely absent from the historical record until long after the advent of Islam.” He also notes that:
The first map on which Mecca appears dates from approximately 900 CE or about 300 years after Muhammad is supposed to have lived there . . . . Mecca is entirely absent from the ancient cartographic record until long after the advent of Islam.
This disconfirming data cannot be dismissed as an invalid argument from ignorance, for an absence of evidence does count as evidence against a hypothesis when that evidence is to be expected if the hypothesis in question were true. As Townsend argues:
detailed historical records for many other towns and cities dotted up and down the Arabian Peninsula. These include Yathrib (later Medina, “second city” of Islam), Sana’a and Petra. We can even . . . point to detailed sources confirming the pre-Islamic existence of the city of Ta’if. At 70 miles from Islam’s holy city, Ta’if is practically on modern Mecca’s doorstep. It is presented in the Islamic record as very much in the shadow of its much more illustrious neighbor. We would be justified in thinking, considering this, that there would be plenty of sources from which to reconstruct the pre-Islamic history of Mecca with scanty evidence for Ta’if. Instead we have much to draw upon for Ta’if and precisely nothing for Mecca . . . . If Mecca existed in ancient times, the scribes and kings of Arabia and Northeast Africa would have noticed. They clearly did not. It is entirely absent from the historical record and the implications of this should be abundantly obvious. To draw an analogy, the silence of the Arabian documentary and archaeological record regarding Mecca would be akin to studying the early medieval records of Naples, Florence, Venice, Pisa, Genoa and Milan and not finding even a single mention of the city of Rome. It simply beggars belief that Mecca could have existed as the most important city of mid-Arabia and then not make it into any kind of historical record . . . . When we study the inscriptions, documents and archaeological evidence produced by Mecca’s Arab near-neighbors and the imperial powers that dominated the ancient Near-East (Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian and Roman), we do not find a single reference to Mecca. This despite the fact that we can produce historical evidence trails for even relatively insignificant Arabian cities.
Q7: Wasn’t it Ishmael, rather than Isaac, that was nearly sacrificed by Abraham?
Despite claims to the contrary by some Muslims, the son who was almost sacrificed by Abraham was Isaac.
The Qur’an features the following conversation between Abraham and an un-named son:
. . . he said, “O My son, I see in a dream that I am sacrificing you; see what you think.” He said, “O my Father, do as you are commanded; you will find me, God willing, one of the steadfast.” (Sura 37:102.)
Many Muslims believe the son in this exchange is Ishmael, and consequently assume (without any textual evidence) that Jewish scribes corrupted the original text of Genesis, which states that Isaac is the nearly sacrificed son of Abraham. However, “the earliest Islamic commentators were divided over which son was intended.” After discussing Abraham leaving behind idol worship, Surah 37 gives its own account of the narrative in Genesis 22:
99. He [i.e. Abraham] said, “I am going towards my Lord, and He will guide me.” 100. “My Lord, give me one of the righteous.” 101. So We gave him good news of a clement boy. 102. Then, when he was old enough to accompany him, he said, “O My son, I see in a dream that I am sacrificing you; see what you think.” He said, “O my Father, do as you are commanded; you will find me, Allah willing, one of the steadfast.” 103. Then, when they had submitted, and he put his forehead down. 104. We called out to him, “O Abraham! 105. You have fulfilled the vision.” Thus We reward the doers of good. 106. This was certainly an evident test. 107. And We redeemed him with a great sacrifice. 108. And We left with him for later generations. 109. Peace be upon Abraham. 110. Thus We reward the doers of good. 111. He was one of Our believing servants. 112. And We gave him good news of Isaac, a prophet, one of the righteous. 113. And We blessed him, and Isaac. But among their descendants are some who are righteous, and some who are clearly unjust to themselves.
The “good news” of a child to be given by God to Abraham in verse 101 is picked up by verse 112’s reference back to “good news of Isaac . . .” Consequently, contemporary Islamic historian Al-Tabari argues that the son in Genesis 22 is indeed Isaac. The description of Isaac as Abraham’s “only son” in Genesis 22:2 is not contradicted by the existence of Ishmael. In the first place, it may simply reflect that fact that, since Abraham sent away Ishmael with Hagar, Isaac is the only son left to Abraham. Moreover, the Hebrew used for “only” in Genesis 22:2 is yachiyd, which has a range of meanings, including “‘unique’ or ‘only begotten’ (special). So the Hebrew clarifies that Isaac is indeed the special, unique, only begotten son of Abraham. Isaac was the son of promise.” As Norman L. Geilser and Thomas Howe note: “the phrase ‘only son’ may be equivalent to . . . a special son.” Indeed, in stating that “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered Isaac – he who had received the promises was about to offer his unique son in sacrifice,” the New Testament book of Hebrews (11:17) uses the Greek term monogenē, a word traditionally translated as “only begotten” and that literally means “one (monos) of a class, genos” (the only of its kind)” (see also John 1:18 ). Hence, the International Standard Version translation of Genesis 22:2 reads: “God said, ‘Please take your son, your unique son whom you love – Isaac – and go to the land of Moriah.’” Isaac was certainly a unique, one-of-a-kind son of Abraham, being the only son miraculously conceived with his first wife Sarah, and being the subject of God’s covenant with Abraham.
Q8: Why did God ask Abraham to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice?
God put Abraham through this “trial” in order to strengthen and demonstrate his trust in God, and to give an enacted prophecy about Jesus.
In the first place, as Jewish scholar Nahum M. Sarna writes:
When “God put Abraham to the test” it was obviously not a trial, the outcome of which was meant to add to the sum of God’s knowledge. Such an idea would obviously be incompatible with the biblical concept of the omniscience of God. If the story is included in biblical literature it is doubtless due to its didactic value for man.
As Stephen M . Coleman observes:
God did not test Abraham to discover something about the patriarch that He did not know . . . . But God tested Abraham to reveal, strengthen, and prove the reality of his faith when he was called to trust God’s word of promise . . .
Catholic writer Fr. Vincent Serpa O.P. comments that:
In asking Abraham to sacrifice his son, God was not testing him for his own information but for that of Abraham. Up until this point Abraham did not know that he had such faith within himself. In making such a difficult request, God actually drew the best out of Abraham.
In the second place, from the Christian point of view, the story of Genesis 22 takes on aa additional significance as an example of enacted prophecy. As Andy Patton explains:
The story of Abraham and Isaac takes on a larger significance when you place it in the context of prophetic reenactment. Throughout the Bible, God asked prophets to act out things that he said he would do (e.g., Ezek. 5:1-4). The acts themselves are a lot less strange when we see them in this light. Then we start asking [What] did God intend for us to learn through this? Just as God . . . told Ezekiel to lie on his side for over a year to symbolize the siege of Jerusalem (Ezek. 4), so God asked Abraham to play the part of God in the sacrifice of his own son . . . . Both Isaac and Jesus are long-awaited “beloved sons” who are born in miraculous circumstances (Gen. 22:1). Both sons carry the wood that is to be the instrument of their deaths on their backs (Gen. 22:6; John 19:17). In both stories, the father leads the son up a mountain, and the son follows obediently toward his own death (Gen. 22:3; Matt. 26:39). And in both scenarios, God provides the sacrificial substitute, which Abraham says will be a ram (a male lamb) and the New Testament authors identify as Jesus, “the lamb of God” (Gen. 22:8; John 1:29).
Q9: Where is the land of the Moriah (Genesis 22:2)?
It isn’t clear what location is referred to in Genesis 22:2 as the “land [or ‘region’] of the Moriah.” Jewish tradition associates “the land of the Moriah” with that part of Jerusalem where the temple was later built.
God tells Abraham to go to “the land of the Moriah” (Genesis 22:2). On the one hand, theologian Victor P. Hamilton points out: “The only other Old Testament use of this name is in 2 Chr. 3:1. There Moriah is connected with Jerusalem, specifically that part of Jerusalem where Solomon built the temple.” In Abraham’s time, this area had not yet been built upon, although it was near to the city walls. However, on the other hand, theologian John H. Walton argues that “the reference in Chronicles is most likely a coincidence of the same name.” Jewish scholar Nahum M. Sarna objects that the identity of locations between Genesis 22 and the later temple mount “cannot possibly be maintained” because “Jerusalem is not a three-days’ journey from Beer-sheba . . .” However, theologian A.E. Steinmann responds that:
this is a misunderstanding of the phrase the third day in verse 4. It does not denote a three-day journey. Instead, the first day is the first day of the narrative – the day when God commanded the sacrifice; the second day marked the beginning of the journey (v. 3); and the third day was the day of arrival at the mountain and the sacrifice on it. Therefore, the journey occupied only parts of two days, and we ought not doubt that Mount Moriah in Chronicles is the mountain in the region of Moriah where Abraham sacrificed to God.
Moreover, as theologians Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn observe:
Reference to three days/third day appears frequently in the OT to designate a significant segment of time necessary for the preparation of important events (see, for example, Gen 31:22; Exod 3:18; 5:3; Num 10:33; Jonah 3:3; Esth 5:1).
Sarna also objects that since “the hills of Judea would have amply supplied” wood for a sacrifice, the fact that Abraham took wood on the journey shows he must have had a different destination in mind, one where an ample supply of wood could not be relied upon. Varughese and Bohn offer the alternative conjecture that: “Taking enough wood for the offering indicates Abraham’s intent to carry out the sacrifice without any delay upon arrival at the destination.” Robert Harris (Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages at Jewish Theological Seminary) urges caution in identifying “the land of the Moriah” with “Mount Moriah”:
At first glance, the reference to Moriah seems clear enough: our tradition associates it with the place that Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac . . . and, later on, with the site of Solomon’s Temple . . . . however [2 Chronicles 3:1] mentions “Mount Moriah,” not “the land of (the) Moriah.” While it does seem evident that by the later biblical books, Moriah was a place–name identified with Jerusalem, it is less clear that this site is necessarily the same one to which Abraham led Isaac. To make a long story short, an exact understanding of the name (or word) “Moriah” will likely always elude us.
Perhaps “Mount Moriah” in Jerusalem is “one of the mountains [or ‘hills’]” in “the land of the Moriah” mentioned in Genesis 22:2, and perhaps Jewish tradition named this hill “Mount Moriah” on the basis of an accurate tradition linking it to the Genesis 22 narrative, but it is hard to have much confidence here. In sum, the identification of Mount Moriah in Jerusalem with the location of the “binding” of Isaac in Genesis 22 is “far from certain . . .”
Q10: In Episode Eight Sarah says that “in the city . . . they sacrificed their children” and expresses horror at the memory. Is this historically accurate?
Human sacrifice was a feature of ancient near eastern culture, though child sacrifice was probably a less common practice than adult sacrifice. Sarah’s horror at child sacrifice in Episode Eight, which does not feature in the Genesis narrative, is a piece of artistic license that may be anachronistic. We do have literary and archaeological evidence for the practice of human sacrifice in the ancient near east, including in the city of Ur (which is presumably “the city” to which Sarah refers in this episode). Some of the literary and archaeological evidence pertains to child sacrifice, although there’s no specific evidence of child sacrifice taking place in Ur. That said, Isaac was actually a young man rather than a child at this point in the Genesis narrative.
Human sacrifice was a reoccurring if fairly rare feature of ancient near eastern culture, and child sacrifice seems to have been a less common practice than that of adult sacrifice. As Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn observe: “Human sacrifice was a religious practice in the ancient world. . . This practice is attested among the Phoenicians, the Ammonites, the Moabites (2 Kgs 3:27), the Egyptians, and the Canaanites . . .” Besides multiple references reporting and condemning the practice of child sacrifice in the Old Testament literature (e.g. Leviticus 18:21, Deuteronomy 12:31 & 18:10, 2 Kings 3:27, Jeremiah 32:35):
The practice of child sacrifice is attested in other sources throughout the ancient Mediterranean world, particularly in Carthage [a Phoenician colony that thrived from c. 800 BC until 146 BC]. In the city, a sacred grove and a temple were dedicated to one such cult. Carthage was founded by Phoenician colonists which gives them a connection to the Canaanites. It has been suggested that there is also a connection between the child sacrifices practiced in Carthage and similar practices in Canaan and Judah such as the cult of Moloch.
Danish archaeologist Laerke Recht observes that: “In terms of the archaeological evidence, human sacrifice can be very difficult to detect, and may at times be indistinguishable from other practices.” However, she notes that:
The prime archeological example of human sacrifice in the ancient Near East is the Early Dynastic “Royal Cemetery” at Ur. Dug in the early twentieth century by Leonard Woolley, this cemetery contains at least 16 “royal” graves and “death pits” with human sacrificial victims.
The Early Dynastic “Royal Cemetery” at Ur (dated c. 2600-2450 BC, about seven or eight centuries before Abraham lived) features a so-called “retainer sacrifice,” whose victims were adults intended to accompany their masters into the afterlife. Another example of retainer sacrifice occurred during Egypt’s early history:
Human sacrifices have been found by the graves of early pharaohs at Abydos, a city in southern Egypt that served at times as Egypt’s capital and was the cult center for Osiris, the god of the underworld. The practice appears to have become less common or completely phased out by the time the Giza pyramids were built around 4,500 years ago.
Archaeology testifies to other forms of human sacrifice in the ancient world, and children sometimes feature in this evidence. For example, a team led by Dr Brenna Hassett:
Examined burial practices at Başur Höyük, a Bronze Age cemetery in Turkey. It contains a series of individuals who were buried between 3100 and 2800 BCE. The site dates to 500 years before the famous Royal Cemetery of Ur . . . . In three graves were found the remains of at least 11 people, male and female, ranging from age 11 to young adults.
According to Hassett: “There are various pieces of evidence which suggest that these young people did not die accidentally or naturally – rather they were sacrificed.” As for Sarah’s reaction to child sacrifice, we should heed the note of caution struck by Dr Josephine Quinn of Oxford University’s Faculty of Classics when she comments that “We should not imagine that ancient people thought like us and were horrified by the same things.” As Recht observes: “the ancient people of the Near East may not have understood human, or indeed animal, sacrifice as a violent, repulsive act.” The “test” set before Abraham (and Sarah and Isaac) in Genesis 22 is not the “horrific” concept of child sacrifice as such, but the “test” of how they will to respond to God’s request in light of everything else they think they know about God’s character and covenant agenda. As theologian John H. Walton comments: the command to sacrifice his son would not have been as shocking to Abraham as it is to us. In the Canaanite worldview, the god who provided fertility (El) was also entitled to demand a portion of what had been produced . . . . in Abraham’s day it was considered a deity’s right to ask for such a sacrifice, and Abraham does not question that right.
What Abraham (along with Sarah and Isaac) has to wrestle with is the baffling, paradoxical nature of God’s request “in light of the covenant promises.”
Q11: Why did Abraham follow God’s command?
Abraham had an active faith in God (i.e. he gave God his allegiance and placed his trust in Him) and was confident that God would be true to his covenantal word. Consequently, Abraham seems to have thought that God would either prevent the sacrifice of Isaac (and provide an alternative victim), or that God would bring Isaac back from the dead.
There are several deliberate ambiguities in the Genesis narrative about “the binding of Isaac” which suggest Abraham may have been unsure whether or not God wanted him to sacrifice Isaac; but Abraham was sure that one way or another, as he told his servants before he headed up the mountain with Isaac: “We will worship and then we will come back to you.” (Genesis 22:5, NIV, emphasis added). According to Genesis 22:2, God asks Abraham to take Isaac to “the land of Moriah” and to “offer him there as [or “for” ] a burnt offering on one of the mountains [hills] of which I shall tell you.” Philosopher Paul Copan explains that:
The Hebrew word Moriah is derived from the Hebrew word ra’ha, “provide, see, show.” . . . . So in the very word Moriah (“provision”) we have a hint of salvation and deliverance.
Moreover, the Hebrew translated as “offer him up there as a sacrifice” literally means “cause him to ascend there as [for] a thing that ascends.” According to the medieval Jewish exegete Rashi, God gave Abraham an ambiguous command, omitting any explicit instruction to “slaughter” Isaac (which would’ve required the Hebrew word shachtehu ):
because the Holy One . . . did not desire that he should slay him, but he told him to bring him up to the mountain to prepare him as a burnt offering. So when he had taken him up, God said to him, “Bring him down.”
In other words, God asked Abraham to offer Isaac as an offering, but He didn’t actually ask Abraham to kill or “slaughter” Isaac. The ambiguity of God’s request sets the scene for Abraham’s own apparent uncertainty about what would happen. Hence Rabbi Binny Freedman asks the rhetorical question: “What if Abraham actually was not sure what [God] really wanted of him?” Likewise, Paul Copan writes that: “Abraham knew that God would fulfill his promise regarding Isaac, but he didn’t know what God would do in the end.”
As they were walking up the mountain:
Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” Abraham said, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they went both of them together. (Genesis 22: 7-8, ESV.)
Note the ambiguity of Abraham’s answer, which leaves it open as to whether Abraham is saying that God will provide “my son” (i.e. Isaac) as the metaphorical “lamb,” or whether Abraham is saying to his son (i.e. Isaac) that God will provide his own literal “lamb” for sacrifice. Jean E. Jones points out that:
In Abraham’s birthplace Ur, religious rituals included human sacrifice. One of the most startling excavations from Ur is the so-called “Royal Cemetery” with its pits containing human sacrifices . . . . Abraham moved to Haran, not far from other sites where human sacrifices have been uncovered from the same age . . . . Although there were also infant sacrifices in the regions, these are mostly adult sacrifices. This is significant because at the time God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice Isaac, Isaac was not a child . . .
Indeed, the term Genesis 22:5 uses for both Isaac and the servants is used in Genesis 14:24 to describe a young man of military age. Alex Varughese and Christina Bohn report that:
The word na‘ar (meaning “boy,” “youth,” “servant”) is used in v 5 for both the servants and Isaac . . . . the term is only indirectly related to age; it often indicates one’s status as a “person under the authority and protection of his father” or “his superior or commander” . . .
Jewish Old Testament scholar Isaac Kalimi explains that:
Some rabbis consider the Aqedah not only a test of Abraham but also of Isaac . . . he was aware that his father was leading him to death, yet willingly followed and obeyed him. This is the intention of the repeated phrase, “and they went both of them together” (Gen. 22:6b, 8b) . . . The willingness of Isaac to be sacrificed is stated already by Josephus [Antiquities 1.232], Pseudo-Philo (Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 32:1-3), and 4 [Maccabees] 7:13-14
Another textual clue within the Genesis narrative that points in this direction is the fact that Isaac was strong enough to carry the firewood for the sacrifice, and therefore could probably have resisted Abraham had he minded to do so:
The tying up then simply means that Abraham acts in conformity to the rite of a burnt offering. The hints in this chapter that Isaac is complicit in what is happening provide a basis for Jewish interpretation’s focus on Isaac’s willingness to be sacrificed.
This Jewish understanding of Genesis 22 makes sense against the cultural background of the ancient near east. As Jones observes:
The people of Abraham’s day would not have thought there was anything immoral about human sacrifices. In fact, they considered it an act of great piety . . . in cultures that believed in gods that give blessings in return for sacrifices, sacrificing offspring would be considered a moral good . . . . the Lord God provided a ram to show that this God was different: This God did not want humans sacrificing humans.
Danish archaeologist Laerke Recht comments that “the ancient people of the Near East may not have understood human, or indeed animal, sacrifice as a violent, repulsive act.” This Jewish interpretation of Genesis 22 influenced the Qur’an, where Abraham and his un-named son have this exchange:
[Abraham] said: “O My son, I see in a dream that I am sacrificing you; see what you think.” He said, “O my Father, do as you are commanded; you will find me, God willing, one of the steadfast.” (Sura 37:102)
While contemporary Muslims often think that the son in this exchange is Ishmael, “the earliest Islamic commentators were divided over which son was intended.” See Episode Eight: Question Seven for more details about this. Finally, note what Abraham told his servants before he headed off with Isaac: “We will worship and then we will come back to you.” (Genesis 22:5, NIV, emphasis added). The New Testament book known as Hebrews observes that because Abraham “had received the promises [of God]” (Hebrews 11:17) – including the miraculous reversal of Sarah’s menopause and the subsequent conception of Isaac himself – he “considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead” (Hebrews 11:19). In other words, given his life experience following God, Abraham was confident that “the judge of the whole earth [would] deal justly,” (see Genesis 18:25) and that in some way, God would fulfill His covenant promises (Genesis 17:19). Hence, if God did want Abraham to actually sacrifice Isaac, then God would bring Isaac back from the dead, because that would be the only way for God to keep his covenant promise to Abraham, centered as it was upon Isaac’s descendants.
Recommended Resources for Episode 8
YouTube Playlist, “Mecca & Islam” https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQhh3qcwVEWiVEG4kjvd_6N44cxBRX2i6 YouTube Playlist, “Zamzam Well & Islam” https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQhh3qcwVEWgbXNtKVO0QLrXwm_R49JP1 YouTube Playlist, “Islam” www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQhh3qcwVEWjhD84EB0jEG5PswCOcDsmJ Kyle Butt, “Does God Accept Human Sacrifice?” https://apologeticspress.org/does-god-accept-human-sacrifice-2775/ Reuven Firestone, “Abraham Visits Ishmael and His Wives: Between Jewish and Islamic Tradition” https://www.thetorah.com/article/abraham-visits-ishmael-and-his-wives-between-jewish-and-islamic-tradition Reuven Firestone, “Abraham’s Journey to Mecca in Islamic Exegesis: A Form-Critical Study of a Tradition” Studia Islamica, No. 76 (1992) https://www.academia.edu/4069216/Abrahams_Journey_to_Mecca_in_Islamic_Exegesis_A_Form_Critical_Study_of_a_Tradition Dan Gibson, “Suggested Solutions for Issues Concerning The Location of Mecca in Ptolemy’s Geography” https://www.ancientportsantiques.com/wp-content/uploads/Documents/ETUDESarchivees/Ptolemy/PtolemyMecca-Gibson2013.pdf Peter Harremoës, “Rate Distortion Theory for Descriptive Statistics” Entropy 25, no. 3 (2023), https://nabataea.net/media/01explore/08FoundingIslam/Rate_Distortion_Theory_for_Descriptive_Statistics.pdf Carol A. Hill, “Making Sense of the Numbers in Genesis” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 55, no. 4 (2003) https://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Hill.pdf Isaac Kalimi, “Mitigating the Akedah” https://www.thetorah.com/article/mitigating-the-akedah Ian D. Morris, “Mecca and Macoraba” https://www.middleeastmedievalists.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/UW-26-Morris.pdf Robin Ngo, “Did the Carthaginians Really Practice Infant Sacrifice?” www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/did-the-carthaginians-really-practice-infant-sacrifice/ Christianity Stack Exchange, “What evidence is available that Mt. Moriah is actually the Temple Mount?” https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/19258/what-evidence-is-available-that-mt-moriah-is-actually-the-temple-mount Craig Olsen, “How Old was Father Abraham? Re-examining the Patriarchal Lifespans in Light of Archaeology” www.academia.edu/33972456/How_Old_was_Father_Abraham_Re-examining_the_Patriarchal_Lifespans_in_Light_of_Archaeology Craig Olsen, “How Old was Father Abraham? Part 2 A Symbolic Interpretation of the Patriarchal Lifespans” file:///Users/peterwilliams/Downloads/How_Old_was_Father_Abraham_Part_2_A_Symb.pdf Keith Paterson, “Did The Canaanites Really Sacrifice Their Children?” https://biblereadingarcheology.com/2016/05/13/did-the-canaanites-sacrifice-their-children/ Katie Pavid, “New evidence of ancient child sacrifice found in Turkey” https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2018/june/new-evidence-of-ancient-child-sacrifice-found-in-turkey.html University of Oxford, “Ancient Carthaginians really did sacrifice their children” https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-01-23-ancient-carthaginians-really-did-sacrifice-their-children Laerke Recht, “Human sacrifice in the ancient Near East” Trinity College Dublin Journal of Postgraduate Research, 2010, https://www.academia.edu/1561457/Human_sacrifice_in_the_ancient_Near_East Justin Rodgers, “The Integrity of the Biblical Text (Part 3): Text of the Old Testament” (2022) https://apologeticspress.org/the-integrity-of-the-biblical-text-part-3-text-of-the-old-testament/ Walter R. Schumm, “How Accurately Could Early (622-900 C.E.) Muslims Determine the Direction of Prayers (Qibla)?” Religions, 11: 102 (2020), https://nabataea.net/media/01explore/08FoundingIslam/religions-11-00102-v2.pdf Walter R. Schumm and Zvi Goldstein, “A Statistical Assessment of Early Islamic History and the Qibla: Comparing the Theories of David King and Dan Gibson” Open Access Journal of Archaeology & Anthropology, Volume 3 – Issue 1 (2021), https://nabataea.net/media/01explore/08FoundingIslam/SchummJuly2021.pdf Sam Shamoun, “Abraham and the Child of Sacrifice – Isaac or Ishmael?” https://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/sacrifice.htm Sam Shamoun, “Was Abraham commanded to sacrifice Isaac or Ishmael?” https://www.judaism-islam.com/was-abraham-commanded-to-sacrifice-isaac-or-ishmael/ Sam Shamoun, “Reply to Mohamed Ghounem’s: Was Isaac or Ishmael to be sacrificed?” https://www.answering-islam.de/Responses/Ghounem/isaac.htm Hershel Shanks, “Human Sacrifice to an Ammonite God?” www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/daily-life-and-practice/first-person-human-sacrifice-to-an-ammonite-god/ Stephen J. Shoemaker, “The making of Mecca” The Spectator (June 2023) https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-making-of-mecca/ Patricia Smith et al, “Cemetery or sacrifice? Infant burials at the Carthage Tophet” Antiquity 87 (338):1191-1199 (December 2015) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273293693_Cemetery_or_sacrifice_Infant_burials_at_the_Carthage_Tophet Rafat Amari, Islam in Light of History (Religion Research Institute, 2004) https://ia801001.us.archive.org/20/items/IslamInLightOfHistoryDrRafatAmari/Islam%20in%20Light%20of%20History%20-Dr%20Rafat%20Amari.pdf Ellis R. Brotzman and Eric J. Tully. Old Testament Textual Criticism: A Practical Introduction (Baker Academic, 2016) Paul Copan. Is God A Moral Monster? (Baker, 2011), Chapter Five. Dan Gibson et al. Let the Stones Speak: Archaeology Challenges Islam (Canbooks, 2023), https://www.academia.edu/109022281/Archaeology_Challenges_Islam John Goldingay. Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Pentateuch: Genesis (Baker Academic, 2020) Josh McDowell & Sean McDowell. Evidence That Demands A Verdict (Thomas Nelson, 2017), Chapter Four. Ruth J. Nicholls, ed. Understanding & Answering Islam (Melbourne School of Theology Press, 2018) Dennis Prager. The Rational Bible: Genesis (Regnery Faith, 2019) N.M. Sarna. Understanding Genesis Through Rabbinic Tradition and Modern Scholarship (The Heritage of Biblical Israel). (The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2014) Tammi J. Schneider. Sarah: Mother of Nations (Continuum, 2004) Peter Townsend. The Mecca Mystery: Probing the Black Hole at the Heart of Muslim History (2018) Dan Wickwire. Has The Bible Been Changed? The Reliability Of The Scriptures According To Jewish, Christian, And Islamic Sources (Aneko Press, 2016)
