There is doubt that the widely held belief that the great prophets of the late seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E. had completely eliminated the scourge of child sacrifice from Israelite culture due to the prominence of this theme of the near-death and miraculous restoration of the first-born son of the late-born son promoted to that exalted rank. The rites and stories that illustrate this topic both imply that, despite the practice’s eventual abolition, the religious idea linked with one specific variation of it—the donation of the firstborn son—remains strong and fruitful.

The sacrifice of the first-born son represents a fundamental yet unexplored point of discussion between Jews and Christians. It has undergone radical transformation but has never been uprooted.

Jesus’ status as a victim of sacrifice, the son who was killed by a loving father, or the lamb who atones for sins committed by all people. Modern people frequently stumble over the idea that the God of justice and kindness should need the first-born of herd and flock. Exodus 22:28’s final paragraph just reiterates the general rule that the first-born son should be offered to God. The specifics of how this is to be accomplished are revealed later, in the distinct legal corpus of Exodus.  It will be accomplished through redemption, perhaps with a sheep standing in for the destined son. They have constructed Baal shrines in order to burn their children as burnt offerings to Baal, something I have never ordered, ordained, or thought to do.  The LORD foretells a time when this place would be known as Valley of Slaughter rather than Topheth or Valley of Benhinnom. (Jer. 19:5-6).

the fact that YHWH did not order his people to make sacrifices to his powerful adversary Baal scarcely needed to be addressed. Instead, it appears that the argument is that child sacrifice is something that YHWH thinks to be abhorrent, and people who engage in it must be worshiping a different deity. Further evidence for our claim that child sacrifice was only condemned as idolatry at a specific point relatively late in the history of Israel may be found in the following text from the book of Ezekiel: “then provided them with unfavorable laws and regulations.  In order to make them know that I am the LORD, I defiled them by their very gifts when they were incapable of living and cast aside every first issue of the womb” (Ezek. 20:25–26).

The first-born son is the most precious offering, according to evidence from biblical story that will be examined in the sections that follow. There is one more aspect in Mic 6:6-8 that should not be overlooked. Micah is similarly ignorant of the redemption of the first-born son through the use of a sheep or any other method as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Exodus 22:28b.

How should we interpret the aqedah, or Isaac’s bound, from Genesis 22? The crux of the story is not found in the directive given to Abraham at the beginning, but rather in its revocation, which is communicated by the angel of YHWH from heaven itself: “Do not lift your hand against the boy or do anything to him. Because you didn’t withhold your son, your preferred one, from Me, I can already tell that you fear God (Genesis 22:12). 

The argument expressed here is clear, and no interpretation of the aqedah can be sufficient if it ignores it: Abraham will only have his numerous descendants because he was willing to sacrifice the son who was meant to bear them. Any reading of the text that downplays that readiness is missing the point.  Both like and unlike Abraham, Jephthah. He is prepared to sacrifice his “only” child, much like the great patriarch. In contrast to Abraham, who received a directive to do so before being spared, Jephthah never received a command but nonetheless committed the heinous deed.

According to the aqedah, YHWH can exercise his right through an oracle, requiring the father to present his son as a burnt offering, which is a sacrifice in which the son is completely consumed by fire, save for the skin. The aqedah’s conclusion raises the possibility that God might change his mind and decide not to exercise his right to the son, substituting a sheep for the human victim. However, nothing in Genesis 22 supports the notion that God could not order the sacrifice of the son or that an animal is always to be replaced.

Although less clearly than the aqedah, the narrative of Jephthah and his daughter illustrates another method a parent can give his firstborn to YHWH: by keeping a vow made under duress. In this story, God might have been asserting his right to the firstborn. Because Jephthah’s commitment was always dependent on success (vv. 30-31), YHWH’s decision to grant the victory doomed anything that would emerge from Jephthah’s home to greet him upon his return from battle.

According to Exodus 22:28b, “You shall give Me the first-born among your sons.” Most fathers were not required to fulfill this abhorrent requirement. But a few did. When Abraham heard God speaking to himself and directing the immolation of Isaac, he realized it was his turn. that Jephthah’s only child arrived at his house on the day that victory turned into tragedy, he was aware of it. Mesha was aware that the siege on Israel was unbreakable and that only the ultimate sacrifice could save the situation.

 Chapter Two

 YHWH versus Molech

The commandment of the first-born exclusively applies to the eldest male, in contrast to the biblical criticisms of the Tophet rituals, which relate to people “burn[ing] their sons and daughters in fire” (e.g., Jer. 7:31).  Furthermore, it seems obvious that sacrificing even the first-born son to Molech would preclude delivering the same victim to YHWH if, as tradition has long held, Molech is the name of a god who is worshiped through child sacrifice. Both entail the sacrifice of children, and both appear to have occurred occasionally in ancient Israel. It is difficult to imagine how these two ancient Israelite rituals of child sacrifice could possibly be related, and it ignores the crucial fact that they share other crucial characteristics.

 The data appears to be better explained by the hypothesis that Molech was originally a divinity. Indirectly speaking to the institution of child sacrifice on the Canaanite motherland, the ruins of Carthage amply illustrate the significance of child sacrifice to its religion and culture.

In the Hebrew Bible, a theophany is frequently linked to a cultic deed. As part of his promise to give his progeny the country of Canaan, Abraham constructs an altar at Shechem that is dedicated “to the LORD who appeared to him” (Genesis 12:7-8). The idea of vision that permeates the heartbreakingly short story known as aqedah is reflected in the name of the area where Abraham sacrifices his sacrifice.

 Chapter Three

 The Sacrifice of the Son as the Imitation of God

As one might anticipate, Tertullian had a very different perspective on the offering of children to Saturn. Tertullian regarded child sacrifice—which was still occurring in his time, though “in secret”—as no different from plain murder. Infants were sacrificed to Saturn in Africa, and this practice was quite open all the way up to the proconsulate of Tiberius, who took the priests themselves and hung them alive like votive offerings on crosses on the very trees of their temple, under whose shadow their crimes had been committed.

The mythological allusions in the Joseph story are even more significant because a significant portion of the story’s suspense depends on whether Jacob is willing to “give up the most beloved of [his] children” in order to ease the severe crisis brought on by the famine, or, as Philo of Byblos puts it, “to avert the common ruin.” lone because Jacob, like his grandfather Abraham, demonstrated a willingness to relinquish the lone son of his favorite wife, the people of Israel have survived. The people would have perished if not for the father’s readiness to offer his beloved son as a sacrifice.

 At birth, Solomon served as both a replacement for the unnamed children of David’s adulterous union who had perished shortly after birth and the lone son still living through Bathsheba, his favorite wife. Some academics have connected these events to his name, understanding Shlomo to be “his replacement.”  In David’s case, the tragedy that YHWH pronounced as punishment for his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of her husband Uriah was temporarily alleviated by the passing of his first-born son by Bathsheba.

That son was the firstborn of his father’s favorite wife, just like Isaac and Joseph.  The connection to Isaac, the other beloved son, is undoubtedly intended when a heavenly voice is heard in the synoptic gospels saying, “You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11 and parallels), soon after Jesus’ baptism. And a Jewish audience familiar with the Torah and probably even the Septuagint would have understood the tragic aspect of the celestial announcement: that the boy so beloved and so favored would eventually die symbolically at the hands of his devoted father.

Nowhere is the concept of the only begotten and loving son’s life-giving death at the hands of his almighty father more eloquently expressed than in the fourth gospel: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16) “Gave” follows the typical terminology of child sacrifice found in the Hebrew Bible, starting with Exod. 22:28b, where our own discussion got started.

 Chapter Four

 El and the Beloved Son

El is described as the “Creator of Creatures,” the “Father of Man,” the “Eternal King,” the “Ancient of Days,” “the kindly One, El the Compassionate,” and a figure of limitless wisdom in the tablets found at ancient Ugarit, near the Syrian coast. El also appears as the father of the gods, the “Creator of Creatures” and “Father of Man.” El is acknowledged as the biological father of Baal. The Hebrew Bible has no polemic against El, whereas Baal eventually emerges as YHWH’s greatest opponent and the subject of ferocious prophetic vitriol. at reality, according to Genesis 33:20, Jacob calls the altar he constructs at Shechem El, God of Israel.

It is incorrect to link YHWH, the El of Israel, with the Ugaritic El of the hunt, feast, and sexual escapade. But the God of Israel carries on El’s legacy as the wise, gentle, and compassionate creator and father of the gods and humanity. On the basis of the information currently available, it is still unclear how exactly the biblical law of the firstborn, the Molech religion, and the myth of Ell are related and may never be understood. The legislation at issue, however, is merely a small portion of a much wider biblical worldview regarding the first-born son and his relationship to his father, it is abundantly obvious. The wider theologies of the people of Israel and the Church, in turn, are more concerned with that theology than has previously been acknowledged.

 Chapter Five

 The People Israel as the Son of God

How should we interpret the mysterious sentence in Exodus 22:28, “You shall give Me the first-born among your sons”? The Hebrew Bible’s treatment of child sacrifice elsewhere and the context of this particular clause both support a literal interpretation: The Israelite parent is required to offer his firstborn son to YHWH in sacrifice.

  The fact that the majority didn’t necessarily imply widespread impiety in ancient Israel; rather, it just showed that this commandment, like others from the same area, set forth an ideal that not everyone would be expected to fulfill. A few prophets used their persuasive rhetorical tools to condemn all child sacrifices, not only those made to the obscure Molech, at the close of the seventh and beginning of the sixth century B.C.E. As a result, the act began to be seen as a symbol of idolatry. Thankfully, it has remained that way ever since.

The Hebrew Bible tells the tale of both YHWH and Israel, his people, as well as the complex bond that exists between them. Israel’s status as YHWH’S son and as his firstborn son is crucial to that relationship. The Exodus is a story of one nation’s emancipation, the release of the first-born son to reunite and serve his heavenly father, not the liberation of all people. This is because of Israel’s unique status as God’s son, which explains why it is not at all a story of universal liberation. He is not a biological son of God, as some biblical texts claim. It conveys his status as God’s favorite and the titular ancestor of the chosen people.

Isaac was not a man born out of his parents’ natural yearning for children; rather, he was a man born out of God’s solemn covenantal promise to make Abraham “the father of a multitude of nations” (Genesis 17:3). The announcement of Isaac’s birth to his parents’ shock (Genesis 18:9–15) foreshadowed his impending birth. Although God disobeys the biological restrictions that have painfully prohibited his conception for year after painful year, Abraham is his biological father.

It also applies to Joseph, the son of Rachel, who was also barren before God recalled her and opened her womb (Gen 30:22), as well as to Jacob/Israel, the son of Rebekah, who was infertile until God granted her husband’s prayer, and she became pregnant (Gen 25:21). Despite none of Isaac, Jacob, or Joseph being their father’s oldest son, they are all given the exquisite distinction of being the first-born by the hand of Providence.

 Chapter Six

 The Sacrifice of the First-Born Son: Eradicated or Transformed?

In addition to materials that are typically dated in the 500s B.C.E. (like P, the Priestly Source in the Pentateuch), there is great significance to the myth associated with it, the myth of the death (and frequently the resurrection as well) of the beloved son, even in Christian materials from the late first century C.E.

In fact, there was complete opposition. Jeremiah forbids the burning of any children and makes no allowance for the first-born son. As we’ve seen, Ezekiel goes even further. In Ezek. 20:25–26, he included the gift of “the first issue of the womb” under “the laws that were not good” that YHWH gave Israel in the wilderness, meaning that it was no better than offering infants to Molech. The viewpoint of Deuteronomy, which is typically dated to the end of the seventh century, is very certainly connected to this unyielding prophetic opposition.

Deuteronomy points out that those nations “perform for their gods every abominable act that the LORD detests; they even offer up their sons and daughters in fire to their gods” (Deut. 12:31) when urging Israel not to serve YHWH in the same manner as the Canaanites serve their gods.

 The sources that condemn child sacrifice the most forbid the use of a sheep in place of the cursed son. Their theology does not appear to account for the paschal lamb’s substitutionary genesis.

 If they are correct and the substitutionary etiology is old, Exodus 12–13 offers unmistakable evidence of the failure of the kind of reform exemplified by the Holiness Code, Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel: despite the first-born son sacrifice being outlawed, the myth that accompanied it persisted and continued to shape religious practice. inside the Pentateuch. Scholars disagree about the exact date of P, but the majority still date it to the sixth or fifth century B.C.E.

The character known only as “the Destroyer” who inflicts the tenth and final plague on the Egyptians is unknown. Because of David’s census in 2 Samuel 24:16, The Destroyer may be the same person as “the angel who was destroying” the citizens of Jerusalem. In the Hebrew Bible, it frequently occurs that the distinction between God and his angel is so blurry that the two might be used interchangeably without meaning to.

The firstborn’s redemption is required today. By contrast, there does appear to have been a method for providing the youngster for true cultic duty in Biblical times.   This was made possible by the odd Nazirite organization. But the fact that Joseph, Samson, Samuel, and John are all the first-born sons of a woman who had previously been infertile is unquestionably an amazing coincidence.

In the case of Samuel, the text makes it clear that the boy’s mother Hannah gave him as a cultic officiant as a result of a vow she made at the old Temple in Shiloh. No substitution was required in the case of a firstborn male who was sworn as a Nazirite. The child entered YHWH’s service like a Levite would. The claim that the first-born son sacrifice was abolished in Israel is refuted by the persistence and development of so many ritual sublimations. It would have made no sense to base these ceremonies on child sacrifice if the practice had been completely and universally despised in ancient Israel.

Part II

The Beloved Sons in Genesis

 Chapter Seven

 First-Born and Late-Born, Fathers and Mothers

If a man has two wives, one loved and the other unloved, and both of them have given birth to him sons, but the first-born is the son of the unloved one, he may not treat the son of the loved one as firstborn in disregard of the older son of the unloved one as he distributes his property to his sons.  (Deut. 21:15-17)

For instance, Abraham agrees to Sarah’s request that he remove his first-born son Ishmael, but not without trepidation. Similarly, Jacob “loved Rachel more than Leah,” who was “unloved,” in language that is eerily similar to Deut. 21:15-17. The cases of Isaac and Joseph demonstrate that, contrary to initial impressions, the preference of a father for a later-born son over his first-born may have occasionally violated the concept of primogeniture.

For both Isaac and Joseph were the first children born to their mothers, Sarah and Rachel, rather than their fathers. More than just an adoring father’s innocent (though tragically inappropriate) act of affection, Jacob chose Joseph as his main recipient when he presented him with the decorated garment. If so, it is clear why Joseph’s brothers “hated him so that they could not speak a friendly word to him” (Genesis 37:4). With that one act of investiture, Jacob’s biological tenth son overcame Leah’s first-born son as well as the first-born children of the two slaves, Bilhah and Zilpah, to become his legal first-born.

The narrative of Joseph provides compelling proof of the kind of fratricidal jealousy that the rule of Deuteronomy 21:15–17 forbids. There can only be one first-born son, and he is described in reference to the father, not the mother, in verse 15. The chronological first-born is protected by the law of the birthright, which also eliminates the father’s ability to demonstrate partiality while dividing up his assets. The main argument of this study is that stories that are the fictional equivalent of these ritual substitutions—stories in which the first-torn or cherished son experiences a symbolic death—are fundamental to Jewish identity as well as Christian identity.

That the death is only symbolic, that the son returns alive, is the narrative equivalent of the ritual substitutions that prevent the gory offering from being made.  Justice is not done to the complicated role of the first-born son if we fail to note both his exalted status and the precariousness of his very life. The beloved son is marked for both exaltation and for humiliation. In his life the two are seldom far apart.

 Chapter Eight

 The Loved and the Unloved

In Deuteronomy 21:15–17 the birthright provision is specific to a scenario where the father has two wives, each of whom is the mother of one son. The purpose is to ensure that the “unloved” wife’s children, if they are the father’s oldest sons, do not bear the brunt of their mother’s bad circumstances.  We also have a Deity who, like them, disregards the rule of birth order, even choosing the cunning trickster over the impolite first-born.  It decides the elevation of Israel, the Jacobite people, and the denigration of Edom, the Esauite country.

Jacob will always be the adored son, and the House of Jacob will always have that position, according to what is said. Jacob experiences shame as the first-born and adored son before learning about the exaltation connected to his unique status. Jacob, the beneficiary of Abraham’s blessing, discovers that he resembles his grandfather more than he anticipated.

Because just as soon as Abraham is given the promise of the land of Canaan, he is compelled to flee to Egypt (Genesis 12), so too is Jacob compelled to flee to Paddan-Aram out of fear of the retaliation of the very brother he is supposed to rule over. As soon as a promise is made, it is put to the test severely; as soon as the beloved son is elevated, his humiliation starts.

It is possible to see the difficulties of that travel as retribution for his act of fraud, and in some ways they are. But they can also be seen as the outcome of the transfer of paternity from the divine father, whose enigmatic designs for the trickster have only now started to take shape, to the human father, whose preference has now been irrevocably refused.

Exaltation has turned into humiliation as the trickster has been duped, the younger has been made to work for the older, and the master has been subjected to servitude. The fact that Jacob/Israel, the man about whom this story is told, is the nation’s namesake cannot be emphasized enough.

The story of Jacob is more than just a biography; at its core, it is also the nation’s history, which speaks to the identity of the Israelites. The pattern of Jacob’s life will be repeated in the tale of his son Joseph, another younger son who was adored by his parents, elevated above his brothers, and banished into exile and slavery due to their fratricidal jealousy.

The cherished son of God, who was facing fratricide, banishment, and severe slavery, has not been lost. If he has experienced a symbolic death, it has simply been that—symbolic—and he has emerged from it a greater man, prepared to take on the patriarchal position bestowed upon him just before his departure for his life to Paddan-aram.

Chapter Nine

Favor and Fratricide

The tale of Jacob and Esau illustrates a time in Israelite law and religion when the position of the first-born son was a significant but less fixed issue. The significance is shown in how God’s deeper love for Jacob is understood. It would be oversimplified to imply that YHWH preferred and picked the younger son above the older. Instead, he switched their positions and made the one he preferred the first-born. 

 One of the oldest beliefs held by Christian theologians is that the God of Israel prefers the later-born sons than the first-born sons. In certain circles, the observation illustrates the concern of the Church, the self-declared “new Israel,” in relation to the Jewish people, the “old Israel” it claims to have replaced. The apostle Paul elaborates on that in his Epistle to the Galatians.

The Hebrew Bible has too many instances of divine favor for late-born boys to be a mere coincidence. Isaac, Jacob, Levi, Judah, Joseph, Ephraim, Moses, Eleazar, Ithamar, Gideon, David, and Solomon are among the non-first-born individuals who achieve unique eminence. It is significant that the royal and priestly lineages of the southern kingdom both trace their genealogy through late-born sons: Solomon, David, and finally Judah for the royal family, and Eleazar, Ithamar, and ultimately Levi for the priesthood.  Because Abel is the son that God preferred, his sacrifice is completely rejected, and he perishes as a result. Abel is humiliated in the field as a result of his exaltation at the altar.

 The Jewish and Christian continuing traditions were deeply offended by Abel’s sad death, which was neither avenged nor overturned. How could the just God allow such a great injustice to go unpunished? And how could the God of redemption have failed to atone for the heinous crime that put an end to Abel’s honorable and beatified life? We must comprehend the more recent traditions that accord the victim of the first murder a particularly high status in the above realm in light of the insult to Israel’s faith that Abel’s death symbolizes.

Seth represents Abel redivivus, the murdered son brought back to his parents. His birth demonstrates that the son God’s incomprehensible grace preferred was not lost forever. Even if the beloved son’s death cannot be prevented, it can still be prevented. The same premise holds true for humanity as a whole as well as for the chosen family: humankind is descended not from Cain but from Seth, not from Adam and Eve’s first son but from their third. The dead brother’s line does, in fact, come into reality, Seth.

If so, Abel’s humiliation in the field was not definitive and irrevocable because he afterwards rose to the elevated position of being the ancestor of all living things. More than fratricide results from God’s favor at the altar because of Cain’s younger brother; it also results in the survival of the human family.

 Chapter Ten

 “Let me not look on as the child dies.”

No less than Noah himself, Abram, the tenth generation from Noah and tenth in lineage from Adam, represents the realization of the hoped-for reversal of the curses on Adam. The man without a country will inherit the entire world, the man with a barren wife will produce an abundance of children, and the man who has severed his ties to his family will be hailed as a blessing by all human families.

Abram returns to Egypt without having children. God promised to make of Abram “a great nation” that will possess the land to which he, like the people Israel, returns after a difficult and humiliating journey in Egypt, but he has yet to fulfill this promise. The Israelites’ first-born sons were to be spared.

As soon as it appears that the promise would be fulfilled, another series of obstacles, including Sarai’s humiliation and subsequent jealousy as well as Abram’s perplexing nonchalance, threaten to derail it. Genesis 16 is the first explicit incidence of the motif that is the focus of our research, the avoided loss of the promised son, assuming Hagar’s unborn child is a boy, which it turns out to be.

The reader who is familiar with the larger Pentateuchal narrative will recognize a remarkable inversion of the Exodus story in Genesis 16: The mother of Israel is abusing an Egyptian slave, and the God who appears to the runaway bondswoman in the desert commands her there to return to the mistress of her oppression rather than giving her a charter of freedom. Only those who attribute the Exodus to the “preferential option for the poor” can see the unsettling discrepancy between God’s attitude to Hagar’s tyranny on the one hand, and to that of the Israelites on the other.

God’s desire for justice and sympathy with the oppressed, which were undoubtedly thought to involve far more people than the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are not the driving forces behind the Exodus. It actually refers to the covenant made with the patriarchs, a part of which—as you may remember—included the gift of the Canaanite land. But in the greater providential drama of the Pentateuch, Sarai’s mistreatment of her Egyptian bondswoman is not entirely justified. The brothers of Joseph, who are the namesake forefathers of the tribes of Israel, are Sarai’s great-grandchildren in Genesis 37, and they feel toward their preferred younger brother much like Sarai did when Hagar became pregnant while she was unable to.

 The Ishmaelites, or the ancestors of the kid whose conception resulted in the maltreatment of Hagar and nearly tore the family of Abram apart, are the ones who purchase Joseph from his envious siblings. And the place where the Ishmaelites take Sarai’s great-grandson is none other than Egypt, the country of their own matriarch. The exaltation of the chosen sibling has a price: it requires the selected to endure the harrowing reality of the unchosen’s existence (Isaac over Ishmael, Joseph over the tribes). Such is the humiliation that follows the cherished son’s elevation.

 Chapter Eleven

 The Aqedah as Etiology

The account of Isaac’s almost-sacrifice in Genesis 22:1–19, also referred to as the “binding” in Jewish tradition, fits into both of the categories of the metamorphosis of child sacrifice: the ritual and the narrative.  The myth of the first Passover, in which the Israelites’ firstborn are saved from the Destroyer by the blood of a yearling lamb (Exodus 12:1-28), and the aqedah are clearly related. In fact, Gen 22:1–19 provides the greatest biblical support for the idea that the Passover account serves as a supplementary explanation for a more ancient and widespread substitutionary rite.

In conclusion, Gen 22:1–14 is not likely to be the cause of the change from child sacrifice to animal sacrifice. The story depicts a circumstance in which the sacrifice of a sheep in place of the preferred son can win God’s blessing, which is the most that can be said on the subject. Abraham “went and took,” while Hagar “went and filled,” but in either case, what the parent sees and goes to appears with such perfect timing that one must presume supernatural involvement.

The angel’s reassuring prophecy that came before it was confirmed for Hagar in the vision of the well: God had heard the boy’s cries and was determined to make a great nation out of him (Gen 21:17–18). Abraham’s vision of the ram confirms the message the angel had just delivered: the sacrifice is no longer necessary because God is aware of Abraham’s unwavering devotion (22:12). It is unlikely that what is suddenly observed in either situation was intended to have been developed there and then.

However, in both instances, the act of seeing both validates the promise and involves the father in a gesture that represents the son’s sudden release from death. It is no coincidence that the aqedah (Genesis 22:1–19) and the two tales of Hagar’s banishment (16:4–16 and 21:9–21) are similar.  In each, Abraham is blamed for his son’s near-death experience, an angel steps in to avert the crisis, and a vision brings the story to a climax. Additionally, the angel makes a large number of progenies in each chapter.

Although each of the three storylines has its own etiological characteristics, none of them can be reduced to etiological function. Each narrates the tale of the beloved son’s symbolic demise and unexpected rebirth, a tale with much greater meaning than merely etiological ones.

 Chapter Twelve

 Isaac Unbound

The terrifying command is preceded by a summons: “He said to him, ‘Abraham,’ and he answered, ‘Here I am.'” When Isaac confronts his father in verse seven and when the angel retracts the first mandate in verse eleven, the sequence will be repeated with notable differences. The first command’s structure reveals a lot about the passage’s underlying theology: And He commanded, “Take your son, your beloved, Isaac, and go forth to the land of Moriah, and there offer him as a burnt offering on one of the heights that I will point out to you.” Abraham is given the command to kill the one person who now has the paradoxically exalted and humiliated status of the beloved son, not just to carry out an act of radical obedience or to sacrifice his own kid.

 Abraham’s exceptional adherence to the divine command is made all the more admirable by the fact that he sets out on each journey with no idea of its destination. In the case of the aqedah, Abraham’s lack of knowledge of the location serves as a metaphor for the surprise that awaits him on that knoll in the land of Moriah when the command of 22:2 is overturned and he, like the people of Israel in Exodus 12, is permitted to substitute a sheep for the beloved son who had been designated for destruction. 

For instance, in Israelite culture, a sacrificed victim was in no way comparable to a criminal receiving the death penalty. In Genesis 18, Abraham questions God’s adherence to his own principles, which are reaffirmed in the divine monologue in which God announces the test. In contrast, contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence to suggest that the child sacrifice prescribed in chapter 22 is incompatible with what the law of Moses requires.

If Gen 22:68’s purpose is to reveal Isaac’s unwavering acceptance of his fate, then these verses mark the beginning of a lengthy journey that will eventually lead to the medieval Jewish idea that the aqedah is as much an examination of Isaac as it is of Abraham, making Isaac the archetypal martyr in a race renowned for its martyrs.  The gospel’s assertion that Jesus of Nazareth died voluntarily had a significant impact on that course. In Genesis 22:12, God makes it quite clear why He is canceling the sacrifice: Because you didn’t keep your son, your favorite, from Me, I now know that you fear God.

Abraham’s fear of God or his love for Isaac will therefore be put to the test in verse 1, and once the result is known, the sacrifice demanded therein may be canceled.  The sole argument is that Abraham’s obedience is unequivocal and unwavering, which is what the entire trial seeks to establish.

 Abraham gives his cherished son to the God who enabled his miraculous conception through the aqedah. The natural father gives the divine father, to whom the son is due, custody of the son born against the laws of nature. Isaac is given life, the almighty father exercises his right to reject the sacrifice he had required, and a sheep takes Isaac’s place in front of the fire.

But the Isaac who makes it through the aqedah isn’t the same “boy” (Gen 22:5) who went to Moriah with his father on that terrible journey. Instead, he is a man who is prepared for marriage. The Isaac who emerges from the aqedah is less his father’s son than a patriarch in his own right. He is about to get married and have children after experiencing years of childlessness similar to that of his father (25:20–21). These children will serve as a further fulfillment of the irrevocable promise.

One of the paradoxes of the aqedah is that Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice Isaac ensures the fulfillment of the Isaac-dependent promise. The second paradox is this: although Abraham does not sacrifice his son, he yet hands him up to the God who created Isaac, commanded that he be killed, and ultimately awards him his high position in the divine scheme. The rejection of a child sacrifice is merely one aspect of the aqedah. The cultic standard that the cherished son belongs to God also has a profound and exalted meaning, as it states, “You shall give Me the first-born among your sons” (Exod. 22:28b).

The tale of the death and resurrection of the beloved son in Genesis 37–50 is not only the longest and most complex Israelite example, but it is also the most clear. Nearly every variety of the topic, which first surfaced in the brief Cain and Abel story and developed throughout the rest of the Book of Genesis, is focused on it.

 Chapter Thirteen

 The Beloved Son as Ruler and Servant

Thus, the story of Joseph not only serves as the book’s epilogue and establishes a connection between the Patriarchal narratives and the histories of the Israelites in Egypt, for which they serve as archetypes, it also serves as the climax to the topic of the beloved son, which is presented in exceptionally well-crafted literary form. It is perhaps the most complex story in either the Jewish or Christian Bibles. The story thus opens with a puzzling and dubious inversion: the slave-women have demoted the son of a free woman—nay, Jacob’s/Israel’s son by his favorite wife and the only one he is ever claimed to love (29:18)—to a position below even that of his half-brothers.

However, the lofty significance of Joseph’s pastoral work contradicts this shame. In reality, the title “shepherd*” was frequently used in the ancient Near East to refer to the monarch. Mesopotamian monarchs had already referred to themselves as the “shepherds” of their people before this story was written. Moses and David, two particular shepherds in the Hebrew Bible, stand out for how they turn their profession from a literal to a figurative one. Moses is currently taking care of his father-in-law Jethro’s sheep.

 The remarkable parallels in the lives of the two shepherds-turned-rulers—both of whom are separated from their families at a young age, who endure conspiracies to have them killed, who endure exile, who both marry foreign priests’ daughters and have two sons—confirm that the similarity in wording is not accidental (Exod. 13:19). But most importantly, God has given both of them the responsibility of providing for a rebellious people who have a strong tendency to reject their leaders.

Thus, the story of Joseph not only serves as the book’s epilogue and establishes a connection between the Patriarchal narratives and the histories of the Israelites in Egypt, for which they serve as archetypes, it also serves as the climax to the topic of the beloved son, which is presented in exceptionally well-crafted literary form. It is perhaps the most complex story in either the Jewish or Christian Bibles. The story thus opens with a puzzling and dubious inversion: the slave-women have demoted the son of a free woman—nay, Jacob’s/Israel’s son by his favorite wife and the only one he is ever claimed to love (29:18)—to a position below even that of his half-brothers.

However, the lofty significance of Joseph’s pastoral work contradicts this shame. In reality, the title “shepherd*” was frequently used in the ancient Near East to refer to the monarch. Mesopotamian monarchs had already referred to themselves as the “shepherds” of their people before this story was written. Moses and David, two particular shepherds in the Hebrew Bible, stand out for how they turn their profession from a literal to a figurative one. Moses is currently taking care of his father-in-law Jethro’s sheep.

 The remarkable parallels in the lives of the two shepherds-turned-rulers—both of whom are separated from their families at a young age, who endure conspiracies to have them killed, who endure exile, who both marry foreign priests’ daughters and have two sons—confirm that the similarity in wording is not accidental (Exod. 13:19). But most importantly, God has given both of them the responsibility of providing for a rebellious people who have a strong tendency to reject their leaders.

The story of Joseph

In this tale, the lowest brother rises to the highest rank and the literal shepherd becomes the metaphorical one. In the process, not only will he, but also his brothers, father, and the entire world, change in ways that are both surprising and unforeseeable at the beginning of the story. David is introduced as the youngest sibling of the family, just as Joseph in Genesis 37. The brothers’ anger of Joseph in verse 4 alludes to Cain’s fury at Abel, foreshadowing the terrible death of the younger son who was unfairly favored.

Though there are several significant inversions in the relationship, the similarities between the narrative and the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22 are startling. Abraham had the intention of killing the boy, but just in time, his son is saved. Jacob plans to send his son away and pick him up again soon, but instead discovers that the boy appears to have been killed.

 In Isaac’s case, Abraham voluntarily offers the ram as a substitute; the animal stands in for the child and represents the renewal of his life. In Jacob’s case, the goat’s blood stands in for Joseph because the son was murdered rather than spared, as far as Jacob is aware. The slain animal represents the loss of the cherished son. The father in Genesis 22 intends to lose his son but is joyfully unable to do so. The father in chapter 37 wants to keep the boy but has to deal with the horrific tragedy of his demise.

 Joseph’s metaphorical demise takes the shape of a threefold falling motion. His descent into the pit that his brothers dumped him into at Reuben’s request is where the movement starts. Joseph’s journey to Egypt, where he is bought and sold on the slave market, is the second decline in his prolonged symbolic death. Joseph’s imprisonment following his false accusation of sexual misconduct by Potiphar’s wife is the final component of his triple metaphorical death. He is no longer just a slave; he is now a prisoner, abandoned by his family, sentenced by his master, and forced to live years of his life underground.

The price of being selected has never been more obvious: the chosen son became the rejected brother, his life became a living death, and the elevation he dreamed of changed into a nightmare of humiliation from which it seems unthinkable that he will ever awaken. In opposition to these three ascents—out of the pit, out of slavery in Egypt, and out of prison—stand a sequence of ascents that lead ultimately—after Joseph’s death—out of Egypt and up to the promised land where his life first took root.

The process of ascent

Joshua reinters Joseph’s bones in Shechem: at last, the beloved son reaches the destination to which his father sent him on that fateful day in his youth The source of these ascents, the text goes out of its way to tell us, is YHWH. At the end of chapter 42, the brothers, with the exception of Joseph’s stand-in, Benjamin, have returned to their father.

Ironically, Simeon and even Joseph, whom he had left for dead, are both returned to Jacob when he ultimately gives up his beloved son Benjamin. Benjamin is brought back to life by his brave decision to put himself in danger in order to save Benjamin. Joseph has also undergone a significant shift that makes one wonder if the man the brothers kneel down to is still the same child with lofty aspirations.

Part III

The Beloved Son Between Zion and Golgotha

 Chapter Fourteen

 The Rewritten Aqedah of Jewish Tradition

We have had the opportunity to see that certain events in the Genesis account of Abraham presage what would happen to the Israelites during their time in Egypt. Jubilees has made one of these explicit instances clear: Abraham sacrificed a sheep on the night following the fourteenth day of the first month in lieu of his first-born and his son. Passover becomes credited to Abraham as its inception, and it also serves as a sizable postscript to the world’s first Jew’s obedient obedience.

The notion that a father’s willingness to give up his kid should determine the nation’s salvation harkens back to Canaanite and Israelite concepts that were already ancient antiquity at the time Jubilees was penned. It most obviously brings to mind the narrative of Joseph, in which Simeon is saved from a life of slavery in Egypt and the family from starvation by Jacob’s willingness to give up his beloved son Benjamin.

 The blood of the lamb that dies to rescue the Israelites from slavery in Egypt has been replaced in this instance by the blood of Isaac. There is, of course, a huge difference between Abraham’s beloved son and the paschal lamb he now replaces, as the biblical text itself would have it, for Isaac’s blood was never spilt in contrast to the blood of the lamb because the sacrifice was postponed just in time.

 The Maccabees and other works of literature like it have both weakened and maintained the association of Abraham’s beloved son with the sacrificial lamb by retelling the aqedah as the tale of Isaac as a prototype of the Jewish martyr. The lamb’s inability to choose a sanctifying death over an unclean life and its ignorance of what lies ahead are clear weakening factors. The more subdued reinforcement comes from another crucial element of Jewish martyrology, which views the martyr’s death as a sacrificial and redemptive act. The theology of martyrdom, which most likely functioned as its nucleus, was quickly eclipsed by the notion that Isaac was bound over the altar by his own free choice.

 Chapter Fifteen

 The Displacement of Isaac and the Birth of the Church

The Synoptic Gospels begin with the comparison of Jesus of Nazareth to “the beloved son” that has been the subject of our discussion. The first is a heavenly declaration made to Jesus as he is being baptized by John the Baptist: “You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased.”

He was like a sheep being brought to the slaughter or an ewe that is dumb before being sheared. The comparison of Isaac to the afflicted servant follows a persuasive midrashic logic. Because if the binding of Isaac hadn’t already been reinterpreted as a precursor to the paschal lamb’s slaughter and the liberty and redemption it signifies. They were suddenly covered in shade by a cloud, and a voice said, “This is my darling son. Attend to him.

 The concept of the family of the one who is mysteriously selected to reign being met with doubt, contempt, and violent enmity is something that the Joseph story more than any of the other tales of the beloved son provides to the Gospels. This idea is particularly prominent in the Christian narrative when Judas betrays Jesus in return for thirty pieces of money.

The idea that heroic figures are born to barren mothers against the laws of nature is not exclusive to the genesis story of Israel. Additionally, it appears in the narratives of Samson and Samuel. The tale of Jesus’ virgin birth is the New Testament equivalent of this Israelite idea of the birth of the favored son to a barren woman.  The notion of the virgin birth is connected to Jesus’ claims to the Davidic throne and the titles “Son of the Most High” and “Son of God” in Luke.

The date of Jesus’ killing would appear to be what accounts for the Gospels’ comparison of him to the cherished son. He died during the Passover season, one of the few things that all four canonical Gospels concur on. Thus, in John’s mind, Jesus’ body has quite literally replaced the lamb that was eaten by worshipers at the holy Passover supper. In the Johannine perspective, the crucifixion of Jesus was a sacrifice, the offering of the son of God in place of the paschal lamb, regardless of the motives of the Romans and Jews who carried it out.

We shouldn’t be shocked to learn that Paul associated his Christ with Isaac, the most beloved son in all of the Hebrew Bible (the only Bible Paul knew), in addition to the Passover lamb, the beloved son, and Jesus that we discovered lurking beneath the surface of the Gospel of John.

Indeed, Paul’s audacious projection of Jesus (and the Church) into the Abrahamic narrative is a midrashic masterwork that has had an impact on Jewish-Christian relations ever since: Christ became a curse for us in order to save us from the curse of the law since it is written, “Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree.” Through Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might be extended to the Gentiles, enabling us to have faith in the Spirit’s promise and thus receive it. Abraham and his offspring both received promises. The phrase “And to descendants” does not imply that there are many but rather that there is just one, and that is Christ.

From the Book of Genesis, we know that the collective “offspring” and the unique Isaac are related. When Sarah demands that Hagar and Ishmael be banished, God assures Abraham that he should follow Sarah’s instructions: “Whatever Sarah tells you, do as she says, for it is through Isaac that offspring will be continued for you.” Isaac is no longer the Israelite patriarch in whom the future of the Jewish nation is foreshadowed, but Jesus, the Messiah of Christian theology, whose mystical body is the Church. Jesus is now the cherished son to whom and about whom the old promises were made.

This association of Hagar’s enslavement with Torah is the first significant shift in Paul’s interpretation of Genesis. Sarah, the freeborn lady whom Paul equates with a heavenly Jerusalem that is not required by the Torah, is undoubtedly the second mother in Paul’s allegory. Paul equates Sarah’s son Isaac with hope and spirit because of the way in which her infertility was miraculously resolved in accordance with God’s promise.

As a result, Ishmael, Hagar’s son, who was born via the entirely natural process of surrogate motherhood, is now referred to as a “child of the flesh.” In this way, the conflict between Ishmael and Isaac, as well as between Hagar and Sarah (Genesis 21:9–10), is compared to a striking contrast between freedom, promise, and spirit on the one hand, and enslavement, Torah, and flesh on the other. Thus, Isaac’s persecution by Ishmael, confirmed in ancient Jewish interpretation of Gen. 21:9, becomes a symbol for Jewish Christians who rejected Paul’s message of a Torah-less Gospel and attempted to convert the Galatians to Torah-observant Christianity instead. Paul warned his Galatian correspondents to stay away from this because he saw it as a distortion of the gospel.

Paul’s connection of Sarah and Isaac with a Torah-less religion—that is, with a version of Judaism in which the injunctive dimension of the Torah has been voided—is the second important modification in his allegory of Hagar and Sarah, Ishmael and Isaac. Paul creates a surprising inversion with his interpretation of Genesis 21 that has profound implications for the Church’s future identity as well as, obviously, for how it will interact with Jews in the modern era.

The moral and spiritual offspring of Hagar and Ishmael have replaced the actual descendants of Sarah and Isaac. The first significant link in the vast chain that will connect Abraham with salvation in the promised land has been replaced by Isaac. In contrast, Paul now reinterprets the Torah as fleshly and enslaving rather than spiritual and liberating, as the rabbinic tradition would continue to imagine it. He has instead become a model for the potential of a spiritual life of freedom separate from the Torah—more than that, in contrast to the Torah. The dynamics of the patriarchal family in Genesis, which sought to establish a dominant lineage in the face of an unanticipated and unsettling segmentation, are necessarily replicated in Judaism and Christianity.

 Chapter Sixteen

 The Revisioning of God in the Image of Abraham

As Jesus supplants Isaac in Paul’s theology, and the Church, the Jews, so does God supplant Abraham in the role of the father who did not withhold his own son from death itself:

The idea that “He who did not spare his own Son,” a clear reworking of the angel’s words to Abraham at the conclusion of the aqedah: “since you have not withheld your son, your favored one, from Me” and “because you have done this and not withheld your son, your favored one” (Gen 22:12, 16), is a key component of the prominence of God’s love in Rom 8:28–39.

The Greek word for “spare” in Paul’s text is the same one that the Septuagint uses for “withheld” in these two passages. The reason everything works out for Abraham is not because he finds a compromise between his two great loves, hedging his bets, but rather because God respects and honors the unwavering obedience—even obedience to death—that he asks from those he has chosen. In the case of the crucified and risen Jesus, according to the new aqedah in which Paul believes, God’s willingness to give up his son takes place not in Jesus’ physical death but in his afterlife.

In fact, Paul contends that only because God the Father follows in the footsteps of Father Abraham and refuses to spare his son from being sacrificed and offered is such life possible. Jesus lives, proving that God is faithful to the ancient commandment to kill one’s first-born son. Because God loved the world so much, he gave his one and only Son, granting eternal life to everyone who trusts in him. We must not overlook the manner in which God is likely to have “given” (edoken) his son. The terrible order, “you shall give Me the first-born among your sons,” brings us full circle to the beginning of our inquiry.

Of course, an orthodox Christian will object at this point and say that Jesus’ death is to be distinguished from those of Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph because it was literal and not symbolic, and from those of Abel because it was reversed and not final. As long as the uniqueness of the tale of Jesus is not emphasized, the objection can be easily upheld.

No assertion is made that the Christian understanding of the alleged resurrection of Jesus as the turning point in all of history, the point at which the aeon irrevocably changes, is explained by the Jewish narrative of the beloved son’s miraculous return after being almost lost. The Jewish apocalyptic tradition, which has been properly dubbed “the mother of all Christian theology,” is where this key Christian assertion finds its closest parallels.

 The evil plan of the brothers really resulted in the blessing of the chosen family, much as Abraham’s failed attempt to kill Isaac. The cherished son’s reconciliation with his potential killers serves as evidence for this wonderful conclusion. Joseph finally refrained from blaming and taking revenge because he saw that, despite their ignorance, his brothers were carrying out God’s will. A Joseph Christology, which is a pattern in which the emphasis is on the evil of the assailants rather than the good intentions of the father who gave up his beloved son, can be found in early Christian literature in addition to what we might refer to as the Isaac Christology.

The caveat is that there isn’t any reconciliation with the Jews who are falsely accused of doing Jesus in in this school of early Christology; instead, there is a lot of accusation and enraged talk of revenge. If the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen is based on the battle between Ishmael and Isaac, it stands to reason that the “beloved son” would be the victim of the climactic murder, which was committed so that the tenants might take his inheritance.

 The similarities between Paul’s metaphor of Hagar and Sarah, Ishmael and Isaac (Gal 4:21–51) and our allegorical decoding of the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen are apparent. Because in each instance, the goal is to establish the Church’s title to Israel’s patrimony and the new community’s claim to the old community’s legacy. This is achieved in Paul’s allegory by comparing the Church to Isaac and the Jews (and any Gentile Christians who join them) to Ishmael, the son of the slave woman who Paul compares to Mount Sinai. As a result, the Pauline Gospel community becomes the legitimate heirs to the Abrahamic heritage, while the community of the Torah is reduced to usurpers.

 These two parables, one Jewish and the other Christian, share a common language of sonship that reveals a crucial insight into how the two traditions interact. That relationship, which is typically perceived as being between a parent and a child, is actually better understood as a competition between two siblings for their father’s special favor. Both Judaism and Christianity are largely midrashic religions with the Hebrew Bible as their common text. Their beginnings can be found in the internal methods of interpretation of their shared texts as well as in the rich tradition of late Second Temple Judaism. It is not unexpected that both Judaism and Christianity have demonstrated the ability to affirm the spiritual dignity of individuals who stand outside of their own communities given the universalistic aspect of that legacy (e.g., Gen 9:117).

But when that universalistic affirmation overpowers the age-old, mutable, and oddly resilient tale of the death and resurrection of the beloved son, the two traditions become blurred and lose their distinction.