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.

Qumran text and, apart from the least-relevant elements of the Temple Mount and Passover, which are mentioned in Jubilees, the others are not attested in any pre-Christian writing, or even in a writing of the first century A.D. The six extra elements, which may have some pertinence to the later tradition about the Aqedah, provide only a camouflage for the understanding of the Qumran text, in which we still have not even found the term Aqedah.

        Although one must agree with the methodological principle with which Vermes interprets these texts, as he expressed it in his book, ‘to follow the development of exegetical traditions by means of historical criticism’³⁷, one must also heed the criticism of Vermes’ application of that methodology given by A.F. Segal:

We must take his arguments much more slowly, so as to see exactly what the tradition of the Akedah was just prior to the time of Jesus, to define what were the Christian additions to that text, and finally to define what may have been the Jewish reaction to the Christian interpretation³⁸.

        Or again,

Although he [Vermes] notes where important themes are missing in each document, in sum he operates as if the whole constellation is always present once the parts of the tradition are attested³⁹.

        That is why one must try to distinguish clearly just what elements of the Aqedah tradition are indeed pre-Christian and what may have been contemporary with the rise of Christianity and its New Testament