Abraham versus Abraham: The Real Story Behind the Story of the Sacrifice of Isaac

Abstract

ABSTRACT The innovative, even provocative, scholarly nature of this article consists of its “mission” to contest all previously known interpretations of the Biblical story of the sacrifice (korban, aqeda/binding) of Isaac. Accordingly, this article plausibly proves that as a matter of fact, there is not only one Abraham in this “aqeda” story, but rather two conflicting, contradicting Abrahams: one is the pious believer who is always in haste to obey God's atrocious command, and one is the devoted, loving father who invests all his efforts to disregard God's atrocious command, or at least to delay, as much as he can, its execution. All the above is feasibly displayed in a non verbal fashion, but rather by the actions (or lack of actions) of the two conflicting Abrahams .The way to tell the difference between Abraham the pious believer and Abraham the devoted, loving father, is to decipher insight-fully the nature of their actions, or the nature of their avoiding executing actions . What they do, and what they don’t do, is a mirror that reflects their contradictory characteristics and attitudes to both God and Isaac. Hence, only a careful, penetrating reading can unearth what was concealed until now: not one Abraham, but rather two contradictory Abrahams, act in this story. This is the real story of the sacrifice (almost sacrifice) of Isaac : the story that has not been told so far.