![]() ![]() Functioning like a dramatic subplot, it renders the Akedah's veiled emotions accessible, even as it gives a measure of their greater complexity and ideational significance. ![]() The Ishmael narrative expresses feelings very straightforwardly. One is a pathetic story about characters subordinate to nature the other concerns heroic transcendence of nature in a divine quest. But the contrast between Ishmael's posture under a naturally occurring shrub and Isaac's on top of hewn wood crystallizes the difference between them. In both, a parent and child set out into the unknown the child nearly dies, and is saved by angelic intervention. The two stories are structurally similar. The other is by comparing the preceding story of the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, focusing on a hitherto unexamined motif: Hagar casts the stricken Ishmael 'under one of the shrubs', while Abraham places Isaac 'upon the wood'. One is through certain cues in the Akedah story itself. How should we relate to this story of near-filicide by divine command? In this essay, I seek to demonstrate that the narrative has a subtext that guides us towards emotional and theological understanding. The perceived lack of emotional expression in the Akedah (Binding of Isaac) episode in Genesis accounts for much of its difficulty. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |