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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-Juba 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.
quite different from the expiatory value of the sacrifice of Isaac. Why is this passage cited?
In LAB 32,3, Isaac does speak to his father Abraham, comparing his coming death to that of animals to be killed because of human iniquities:
...pro iniquitatibus hominum pecora constituta sunt in occisionem ... et in me annunciabuntur generationes et per me intelligent populi quoniam dignificavit Dominus animam hominis in sacrificium,
...generations will be instructed by my case and peoples will understand because of me that the Lord has considered the life of a human being worthy [to be offered] in sacrifice.
Here Isaac concludes that his death would have a vicarious, expiatory effect. Similarly perhaps in LAB 40,2, the same might be implied (quis est qui tristetur moriens, videns populum liberatum, ‘and who would be sorry to die, seeing a people freed’), if that liberty means freedom from sins or iniquities.
This text, however, is usually dated between A.D. 70 and 100. Even if it does formulate the sense of Isaac’s meritorious death in at least one passage, on what grounds may one extrapolate that evidence and say that it builds up the ‘pre-Christian skeleton’.
Sixth, in the Mekhilta on Exod 12,13, the words, ‘When I see the blood’ (12,13), are related to Gen 22,
I see the blood of the sacrifice of Isaac (qxcy l# wtdyq( Md). For it is said: ‘And Abraham called the name of that place Adonai-jireh’ (The lord will see), etc. (Gen. 22.14)... . What did he behold? He beheld the blood of the sacrifice of Isaac, as it said: ‘God Himself will see the lamb’, etc. (Gen. 22.8).
Yet even the editor, J.Z. Lauterbach adds in a note that ‘actually no blood of Isaac was offered in sacrifice’ and ‘according to Gen. Rab. on Gen. 22.12 Abraham was not allowed to shed even one drop of Isaac’s blood’33. Consequently, there is in this passage no question of the ‘merit’ of Isaac. Similarly, later on in Mekhilta, the same midrash is repeated34, again without any reference to Isaac’s ‘merit’. Still later, the Mekhilta quotes R. Jose the Galilean as saying:
At the moment when the children of Israel went into the sea, mount Moriah began to move from its place with the altar for Isaac that had been built on it and the whole scene that had been arranged upon it —
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