Joseph A. Fitzmyer, «The sacrifice of Isaac in Qumran literature», Vol. 83 (2002) 211-229

Gen 22,1-19 the account of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, is discussed first in its Hebrew and Old Greek form; then as it was developed in the Book of Jubilees 17,15–18,16, and especially in the form of Pseudo-Jubilees, as it is preserved in 4Q225 2 i and ii (4QPs-Jub^a 2 i 7-14, 2 ii 1-14), in order to ascertain how much of the development of the account can be traced to pre-Christian Palestinian Jewish tradition prior to the New Testament. Finally, building on such evidence, the article traces the development in other texts of the first Christian century and in the later targumic and rabbinic tradition about the Aqedah.

        In Jub 18,13, ‘Mount Zion’ is named by Abraham as the place where he sacrifices the ram. In Ant. 1.224, 226 Josephus records that Abraham went ‘with his son alone to that mount, on which king David [sic] afterwards built the temple’, which has already been identified as ‘the Morian Mount’³¹. In any case, the identification of Mt. Moriah with the Temple Mount is a minor detail and of little significance for the developing doctrine of the Aqedah. One wonders why Vermes has introduced it into the discussion of the Qumran text? The same has to be said about element 11 (relation of the sacrifice of Isaac to the lamb sacrificed in the Temple as Tamid), and element 12 (Isaac’s blood/ashes).

        Fifth, the crucial element in the Table is the so-called merit of Isaac. Vermes claims that it is attested in Pseudo-Philo, LAB. In LAB 18,5, however, the sacrifice of Isaac is said to be ‘acceptable’ to God, and for that reason God ‘has chosen’ Israel to be His people (facta est oblatio eius in conspectu meo acceptabilis, et pro sanguine eius elegi istos)³². The divine decision about Israel as the Chosen People is