The Patriarch Isaac - Orthodox-mitropolitan-of-antinoes-panteleimon ...

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Jewish views: In rabbinical tradition the age of Isaac at the time ofbinding is taken to be 37 which contrasts with common portrayals ofIsaac as a child. The rabbis also thought that the reason for the death ofSarah was the news of the intended sacrifice of Isaac. The sacrifice ofIsaac is cited in appeals for the mercy of God in later Jewish traditions.The post-Biblical Jewish interpretations often elaborate the role of Isaacbeyond the Biblical description and largely focus on Abraham's intendedsacrifice of Isaac, called the aqedah ("binding"). According to a versionof these interpretations, Isaac died in the sacrifice and was revived.According to many accounts of Aggadah, unlike the Bible, it is Satanwho is testing Isaac and not God. Isaac's willingness to follow God'scommand at the cost of his death has been a model for many Jews whopreferred martyrdom to violation of the Jewish law.According to the Jewish tradition Isaac instituted the afternoonprayer. This tradition is based on Genesis chapter 24, verse 63 ("Isaacwent out to meditate in the field at the eventide").Isaac was the only patriarch who stayed in Canaan during hiswhole life and though once he tried to leave, God told him not to do so.Rabbinic tradition gave the explanation that Isaac was almost sacrificedand anything dedicated as a sacrifice may not leave the Land of Israel.Isaac was the oldest of the Biblical patriarchs at the time of his death, andthe only patriarch whose name was not changed.Rabbinic literature also linked Isaac's blindness in old age, as statedin the Bible, to the sacrificial binding: Isaac's eyes went blind because thetears of angels present at the time of his sacrifice fell on Isaac's eyes.Western scholarly views: Some scholars have described Isaac as "alegendary figure" while others view him "as a figure representing tribalhistory, though as a historical individual" or "as a seminomadic leader."The stories of Isaac, like other patriarchal stories of Genesis, aregenerally believed in liberal Western scholarship to have "their origin infolk memories and oral traditions of the early Hebrew pastoralistexperience." Conservative Western scholarship believes the stories ofIsaac, and other patriarchal stories in Genesis, to be factual. TheCambridge Companion to the Bible makes the following comment on theBiblical stories of the patriarchs:Yet for all that these stories maintain a distance between theirworld and that of their time of literary growth and composition, theyreflect the political realities of the later periods. Many of the narratives
deal with the relationship between the ancestors and peoples who werepart of Israel’s political world at the time the stories began to be writtendown (eighth century B.C.E.). Lot is the ancestor of the Transjordanianpeoples of Ammon and Moab, and Ishmael personifies the nomadicpeoples known to have inhabited north Arabia, although located in theOld Testament in the Negev. Esau personifies Edom (36:1), and Labanrepresents the Aramean states to Israel’s north. A persistent theme is thatof difference between the ancestors and the indigenous Canaanites… Infact, the theme of the differences between Judah and Israel, as personifiedby the ancestors, and the neighboring peoples of the time of the monarchyis pressed effectively into theological service to articulate the choosing byGod of Judah and Israel to bring blessing to all peoples.”According to Martin Noth, a scholar of the Hebrew Bible, thenarratives of Isaac date back to an older cultural stage than that of theWest-Jordanian Jacob. At that era, the Israelite tribes were not yetsedentary. In the course of looking for grazing areas, they had come incontact in southern Palestine with the inhabitants of the settledcountryside. The Biblical historian, A. Jopsen, believes in the connectionbetween the Isaac traditions and the north and in support of this theoryadduces Amos 7:9 ("the high places of Isaac").Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth hold that, "The figure of Isaac wasenhanced when the theme of promise, previously bound to the cults of the'God the Fathers' was incorporated into the Israelite creed during thesouthern-Palestinian stage of the growth of the Pentateuch tradition."According to Martin Noth, at the Southern Palestinian stage of the growthof the Pentateuch tradition, Isaac became established as one of theBiblical patriarchs, but his traditions were receded in the favor ofAbraham.
Page 1 and 2: The Patriarch IsaacIsaac (Hebrew:
Page 3: chapter 2, verses 21-24 states that

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