Did Abraham actually kill Isaac?

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac
>Some scholars also point at the genealogical snippet (verses 20-24) as containing a hint to the question whether Abraham sacrificed Isaac or not. First of all, the description of a rash of newborns placed right after the main story suggests the existence of some direct cause-effect connection between the two. From the perspective of a sacrificial economy, such a numerous progeny could not have been conceived without the preceding payment in an appropriate "currency". Secondly, the said passage is problematic due to its onomastic content. The verses 20-23 list the progeny of Nahor and Milkah while v. 24 adds the offspring conceived with Re’umah, said to be his concubine. However, whereas verses 20-23 have some significant links with other parts of the Hebrew Bible as well as with the historical and cultural entourage of the ancient Near East, such connections are absent in v. 24. The very name of Nahor’s concubine appears here exclusively and in no other place in the Hebrew Bible is Re’umah mentioned. The same applies to her children’s names with the exception of Ma‘akah which is sometimes utilized in the historical books. The extreme rarity of these appellations demands some alternative interpretation with regards to its purpose. Accordingly, the personal list may contain some "coded" explanation concerning the rest of the story: Re’umah (ראומה) – "see what"; Tevah (טבח) – "slaughtering" or "slaughtered"; Gaham (גחם) – "flame" or "burning"; Tahash (תחש) – "skin" often used to cover the tabernacle; Ma‘akah (מעכה) – "blown" or "crushed". In other words, v. 24 begins with an interpretational invitation and continues with the names which seem to explain the cause of the rash of newborns present at the conclusion of the pericope: somebody had been blown, slaughtered, put on the tabernacle and burned.[21]

>abrahamics are human sacrificing ritual slaughterists

they also worship cattle

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24KB, 387x461px

I have a better explanation, E fills in that part and then J takes over. E is known to have short events in the JEPD hypothesis. Though I believe that J and E are done by the same author. It's so simple.

>>2059685

addendum to my previous post


>In contrast to the J source, E prefers the more generic designation of “Elohim” (אְֶלָהִים, elahim). Additional characteristics of E include:

>• The Elohist also seems to hold a decidedly less concrete view of God than the other sources, employing abstract material such as visions and dreams.
>• E’s deity is very anthropomorphic and engages personally with people’s affairs.
>• E’s material is more fragmentary than J and P, which are often seen in continuous narratives.
>• E’s material seems to favor the southern kingdom of Judah.


The Lexham Bible Dictionary

Contrary to the characteristics of the defining E in the binding of Isaac narrative, E still employs YHWH when mentioning the angel that was there, supplementary more like it.

>>2059362
What if Abraham was commanded by Elohim to sacrifice his son and Isaac pleaded YHWH for help, invoking the angel to save him ?

Read the Lesser Key of Solomon.

>>2059748

but that raises questions on WHO Elohim is

>>2059685
that is what I've heard. I'm a little skeptical of our ability to clearly discern individual sources because of stuff like this. personally I more favor the idea of one written tradition that was edited over time rather than different sources. what do you think of the names, though? is there another way to interpret these?

Yes, the evidence is pretty solid, that Abraham killed Isaac

>>2062264
>what do you think of the names, though? is there another way to interpret these?

some will use this to say that this is an ancient near eastern mention of distinguishing the attributes of a deity. They argue that ancient near eastern source also show this similar pattern of literary expression to that of the Torah:

Walton makes an excellent point on this:

If ancient cultures considered something to exist when it had a name and a function, the name of a deity is more than simply a moniker by which he or she can be invoked. It is the god’s identity and frames the god’s “existence.” The announcement to Moses at the burning bush is therefore a singular defining moment. When he asks what name he should give for the God of their fathers (Exod. 3:13), he is not expressing ignorance of the identity of their ancestral deity. It is not unusual for a single deity to have many different epithets or titles. When Marduk ascends to the head of the pantheon, Enuma Elish lists fifty names to delineate all of the functions and attributes that he accumulates. Amun-Re is praised as having names whose number is unknown. The multiplication of names is one way to express the power and station of the deity. So Moses’s question concerns which identity of the deity is pertinent to the mission on which he is being sent. A number of names had been attached to the ancestral Deity in the founding accounts, many given on the basis of an encounter in which a particular attribute was manifest.

Walton, J. H. (2006). Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible (p. 92).

>>2062264
>>2062880
>I'm a little skeptical of our ability to clearly discern individual sources because of stuff like this.

/2

You're not alone, many scholars have become frustrated of the JEPD hypothesis no matter how its proponents espouse it. Multiply theories of how it Torah came to be is vast, the alternatives are the supplementary hypothesis means that it went through multiple hands whether at the same time or at different times (D is a prime example of it) or the fragmentary in which multiple fragments of a story were compiled together. Fragmentary is likely hinges upon the E source, though it's imo too unconvincing. All the hypothesis fall short in one way or another. The documentary hypothesis (JEPD) biggest problems is some of the passage unknown morphology and linguistic found in Genesis around chapters 30-40 that were clearly not part of their four author system, and bizarre use of YHWH vocab in some P sources.

>personally I more favor the idea of one written tradition that was edited over time rather than different sources

Redactions are a valid way of arguing the point, my position which is oral tradition to supplementary writing can obviously fit the redaction of certain parts of the text, especially the death of Moses, phrases like to this day and the changing of locations and reminding the readers about the older locations name, though I don't believe in mass conspiracy done by the priestly or deuteronomy authors because there they could have redacted previous passages in which contradict their view of YHWH. I know scholars who will use the redaction excuse to dismiss any evidence against their position.

"Actually" presupposes that there was a real Abraham to begin with. There was a myth about Abraham killing Isaac, which was supplanted by a myth where he spares him.

>>2062880
I'm not talking about the different names of YHWH, I meant what I posted here>>2059363
I should have been more clear.

>>2063141

I checked it out and I don't see any reason to believe that it supposes something else or demand an alternative explanation to the source, it sounds rather conspiratorial to my ears, I haven't really studied up on these names. I'll look more into it. Here's a sample of an explanation a commentator gave on it

As a concubine Reumah is reminiscent of Hagar’s role and the concubines of Jacob, Bilhah, and Zilpah, who contributed to the households of the patriarchs. Reumah’s etymology is unknown, perhaps Ug. reʾum (“wild ox”; cf. Hb. rĕʾēm, “wild bull”), or Ug. rimt (“coral”; cf. Hb. rāʾmôt, “corals”), or Akk. rāmu (“to love”); her four sons, Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah, are associated with sites in Aram and northern Transjordan (cf. E. Hostetter, “Reumah,” ABD 5.694.)


Mathews, K. A. (2005). Genesis 11:27–50:26 (Vol. 1B, p. 310)

>>2059362
>>2059363
This is so dumb. If Abraham killed Isaac, then who was Jacob's father?

>>2063515
thanks. I'm glad I was was able to get a response on this from someone more knowledgeable about the subject than myself. I'm trying to learn more about the OT but I'm pretty limited since I don't know hebrew and it doesn't seem like my university has subscriptions to any publications that give modern analysis of old testament texts.

>>2063571

Logos is usually the best program to buy. But it's expensive. It gets the job done. Also I looked up more info on the passage. The four names could refer to the names of tribes and location found in the OT, for example Makkah (Maacah) is found later in the histories.

Of the remaining names, Bethuel was not the founder of a tribe, but the father of Laban and Rebekah (Gen. 25:20). The others are never met with again, with the exception of Maachach, from whom probably the Maachites (Deut. 3:14; Josh. 12:5) in the land of Maacah, a small Arabian kingdom in the time of David (2 Sam. 10:6, 8; 1 Chron. 19:6), derived their origin and name; though Maachah frequently occurs as the name of a person (1 Kings 2:39; 1 Chron. 11:43; 27:16).

Keil, C. F., & Delitzsch, F. (1996). Commentary on the Old Testament (Vol. 1, p. 162)

Mazar maintains that the origin of Maacah may be found in the genealogical record of the four sons of Nahor by his concubine Reumah (Gen 22:24), where the last name mentioned is Maacah. According to this perspective, this list of sons probably “represents a territorial and ethnic unit in southern Syria,” in which Maacah is the “most southerly of the lands” (Mazar, “Geshur and Maacah,” 21).

Rodrigues, A. M. (2016). Maacah, Place. The Lexham Bible Dictionary