The Ear of the Listener

Sacrifice of Isaac, 1527 (Cleveland Museum)

Eid al-Adha (9/1/2017) is one of Islam's great religious festivals.

Eid al-Adha commemorates the Koranic tale of the Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God. Before he could carry out the sacrifice, God provided a ram as an offering.

In the Christian and Jewish version of the story, Abraham is ordered to kill another son, Isaac.

The Economist ruminates on the differences of each faith's interpretation of the story: [bold added]

the Islamic tradition generally holds that it was not Isaac but Ismail, Ibrahim’s son by the maidservant Hagar. Muslim commentaries on the story often stress that Ismail as well as his father clearly consented to the act of sacrifice; it was not an unpleasant surprise for anybody. These interpreters also emphasise that it was never conceivable that God would want Ibrahim’s son to be killed. Indeed part of the story’s point is to denounce the whole idea of (involuntary) human sacrifice....

Early Christian commentators invariably see the story as a foreshadowing of the death and self-sacrifice of Jesus. This is seen as an act of disinterested service to humanity by both God the Father (who offered up his offspring) and God the Son (who offered his own life). Abraham’s kindling wood is seen as hinting at the wooden cross on which Jesus would die. It is an important aspect of the Christian story that Jesus could have avoided being crucified, but nonetheless freely chose to undergo death so as to break death’s power. In the Genesis narrative, Isaac does not seem to have had much say in his fate....

Many Jewish commentators, like Muslim ones, have seen the story as a tirade against human sacrifice, which had been a feature of many pre-Abrahamic religions. Some Jewish interpreters see the most important words in the story as Abraham’s response to God—“here I am” or in Hebrew “hineni”—an expression which is held up as a model of obedient and attentive listening.

If one's goal is to grasp a 30-second version of the story, the three interpretations are distinctions without a difference. But if one is at all interested in the notions of free will, obedience to the divine, and the meaning of sacrifice, then there is something to learn from each faith's perspective.

(The Genesis passage is below the fold.)



Genesis 22: 1-19
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

“The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.

When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied.

“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.”

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”