Ancient Egyptian Papyrus Tells A Different Story About Biblical Isaac’s Fate

[The Reverend Bob]

Doesn't the stories of Isaac continue on after this event?

It does but is mostly a retelling of the Abraham stories

 

[David T]

Oh yes.. I agree. Its just a curiosity... but take a look ..


NEW YORK — When he first came to believe he had discovered how the Biblical forefather Isaac died, Bible scholar Tzemah Yoreh says he went into mourning.

“I literally sat shiva for him, for the forefather I had lost, and for the Abraham who could perpetrate such a thing,” said Yoreh, who was then just 21.

The Biblical story we have inherited is not the original story, Yoreh believes. Using a variation of a well-known approach to Biblical scholarship, he sees hints of a bloodier version of Isaac’s binding that he finds too convincing to ignore.

In the earliest layer of the Biblical text, Yoreh believes, Isaac was not rescued by an angel at the last moment, but was in fact murdered by his father, Abraham, as a sacrifice to God.

One eye-opening hint at what he believes is the original story lies in Genesis 22:22. Previously, in verse 8, Abraham and Isaac had walked up the mountain together. But in verse 22, only Abraham returns.

“So Abraham returned unto his young men [waiting at the foot of the mountain], and they rose up and went together to Beersheba,” the text relates.

That strange contradiction, Yoreh says, may be why a few ancient midrashim, or rabbinic homilies, also assumed Isaac had been killed.

In one homily quoted by Rashi, the revered 11th-century French rabbi and commentator, “Isaac’s ashes are said to be suitable for repentance, just like the ashes of an [animal] sacrifice.”

“That’s a very weird midrash,” Yoreh says, “since Isaac is clearly alive in the next chapter. But that’s the way midrash works. It analyzes episodes without looking at the larger context. That’s why you can have midrashim about Isaac dying, because it doesn’t have to notice that he’s alive in the next chapter.”

There are many hints of Isaac’s untimely demise. The sacrifice story itself contains strange contradictions and clues that are best resolved, he believes, by assuming a very different, earlier narrative.


Tzemah Yoreh hopes his books will inspire fresh debate about how the Bible was assembled. (Courtesy of Tzemah Yoreh)
In verse 12, after staying Abraham’s knife-wielding hand in mid-air, the angel of God tells the father of monotheism, “I now know you fear God because you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

That phrase, “have not withheld your son,” “could indicate Abraham was merely willing to sacrifice his son, or that he actually did so,” Yoreh says.

One hint that it may have been the latter is contained in the names for God used in the story. The Biblical text calls the God who instructs Abraham to sacrifice his son “Elohim.”

Only when the “angel of God” leaps to Isaac’s rescue does God’s name suddenly change to the four-letter YHWH, a name Jews traditionally do not speak out loud.

Elohim commands the sacrifice; YHWH stops it. But it is once again Elohim who approves of Abraham for having “not withheld your son from me.”

These sorts of variations, rampant throughout the Bible, have led scholars to conclude that different names for God are used by different storylines and editors.

Indeed, Isaac is never again mentioned in an Elohim storyline. In fact, if you only read the parts of Isaac’s life that use the name Elohim, you don’t have to be a Bible scholar to see the story as one in which Isaac is killed in the sacrifice and disappears completely from the Biblical story.

“Not that the YHWH portions make much of an effort to bring him back to life either,” Yoreh notes. Indeed, Isaac seems to fade after the sacrifice, with his life story told in just one chapter, compared to more than a dozen chapters for both Abraham and Jacob.

Worse yet, Isaac’s chapter “is all recycled from Abraham’s life.” Just as Abraham signs a pact with the king Avimelech, so does Isaac. And just as Abraham passes off his wife, Sarah, as his sister to avoid being killed by Avimelech, so does Isaac with his own wife, Rebecca.

“It’s hard to characterize [Isaac’s life after the sacrifice] as distinct stories,” says Yoreh. “They’re just repeated elements, a recycling of the material.”

In the earliest Biblical narrative, Yoreh believes, Isaac died that day on Mt. Moriah. Far from setting an example in which God intervenes to end human sacrifice, Abraham, the father of monotheism, is revealed as a man who can walk his own son to the altar and even wield the blade himself.

A Gentler Explanation
It’s not easy to produce new readings of a text that has been read, reread, deconstructed and reconstructed as many times and in as many ways as the Hebrew Bible. Then again, few texts have yielded as many layers and spurred as much intellectual innovation.

In a new book series titled “Kernel to Canon,” Yoreh, an Israeli-American dual citizen who now lives in New York, is attempting to add his own voice to the vast ancient bookshelf of Biblical commentary.

A surprisingly young 34, Yoreh’s love for the Bible has only grown since his discovery of what was hidden in its layers. He earned his PhD in Bible from Hebrew University in 2004, and has taught at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Ben-Gurion University, and elsewhere.

He knows 15 languages, 13 of them self-taught. They range from modern Italian and Dutch to Akkadian and Hellenistic-era Greek. He is an avid enthusiast of the invented language of Esperanto.

And the Bible is not a new love. He was the Diaspora champion of Israel’s prestigious International Bible Contest as a teenager.

His Bible commentaries (the second volume will be published next week) are audacious and surprising. Yet, in his search for the earliest layer of the Biblical story, a layer he describes in the title of his first book as simply “The First Book of God,” he is actually a more sympathetic critic of the Biblical text than most of his colleagues.

There is nothing new about scholars pointing out differences in vocabulary or style, or contradictions in the Biblical narrative, to attempt to sift out one historical author from another. Indeed, such observations make up much of what has been taught about the Bible in the Western world’s universities for the past two centuries.

In the past, scholars have used such techniques to suggest the Pentateuch, or Five Books of Moses, is actually composed of four distinct documents stitched together by a later editor. This is called the documentary hypothesis.

As a teenager, Yoreh was the Diaspora champion of Israel’s prestigious International Bible Contest

continued

"The Biblical story we have inherited is not the original story"

That isnt uncommon and not surprising. I have mentioned that noahs ark no doubtly is way way older than writing and boy do i get push back on that.

Again not suprising if you understand music history actually. Somehow people think these are old news linear stories. Whacko.

 

[sooda]

"The Biblical story we have inherited is not the original story"

That isnt uncommon and not surprising. I have mentioned that noahs ark no doubtly is way way older than writing and boy do i get push back on that.

Again not suprising if you understand music history actually. Somehow people think these are old news linear stories. Whacko.

I am amazed that anyone in this century would give pushback on the Noah myth.

 

[sooda]

Not that I know anything but it would make sense that the later Hebrews who decided that human sacrifice was a bad thing would want to alter the story.

Doesn't the stories of Isaac continue on after this event? Kind of weird to make up an entire lifetime that never existed.

If the stories were altered and redacted how can they be considered sacred or the word of God??

 

[Nakosis]

If the stories were altered and redacted how can they be considered sacred or the word of God??

Shouldn't be. Fictional stories created convey a moral ideology. These are stories, not commandments from God. The entire Bible being the "Word of God" is just a religious narrative. Being a Christian doesn't require one to accept this narrative.

 

[sooda]

Shouldn't be. Fictional stories created convey a moral ideology. These are stories, not commandments from God.

The entire Bible being the "Word of God" is just a religious narrative.

Being a Christian doesn't require one to accept this narrative.

I am so glad you said that.

 

[The Reverend Bob]

Shouldn't be. Fictional stories created convey a moral ideology. These are stories, not commandments from God. The entire Bible being the "Word of God" is just a religious narrative. Being a Christian doesn't require one to accept this narrative.

Or they could be fictional stories that convey political propaganda. Some stories in the Bible convey no moral ideology whatsoever

 

[David T]

I am amazed that anyone in this century would give pushback on the Noah myth.

I would say that story is history becomes legend becomes myth. The push back i have gotten is the incapacity to understamd fllod stories most lilely go back to actual historucall huge monumemtal floods of the ice age. If thats true good luck understanding noah. They simply are at times reapplied in upadated versions but the "melody" is the same while just the lyrics will change. .

Btw i understand term myth differently i dont really think narrative stories as was science now its not science and its now a myth.

 

[sooda]

I would say that story is history becomes legend becomes myth. The push back i have gotten is the incapacity to understamd fllod stories most lilely go back to actual historucall huge monumemtal floods of the ice age. If thats true good luck understanding noah. They simply are at times reapplied in upadated versions but the "melody" is the same while just the lyrics will change. .

Btw i understand term myth differently i dont really think narrative stories as was science now its not science and its now a myth.

The Ice age floods were millions of years earlier and didn't cover the whole earth.

1. Ice Age Floods Institute – Oregon – Washington, – Idaho – Montana
   iafi.org
   Ice Age Floods Institute (IAFI) News and Information about: Cataclysmic Ice Age Floods across the Pacific Northwest during recent geologic time; Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail – regional travel routes to interpretive Floods sites
   
   
2. Missoula Floods - Wikipedia
   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_Floods
   The Missoula Floods (also known as the Spokane Floods or the Bretz Floods) refer to the cataclysmic floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the last ice age. The glacial flood events have been researched since the 1920s.
   

 

[David T]

The Ice age floods were millions of years earlier and didn't cover the whole earth.

Uh no. Look up missoula floods..10 15 k ago. Not that long ago.
Now if you say but but but that in the united states and noah happened in the middle east i am going to give you an eye roll.

 

[sooda]

Uh no. Look up missoula floods..10 15 k ago. Not that long ago.
Now if you say but but but that in the united states and noah happened in the middle east i am going to give you an eye roll.

See post 29..........

 

[David T]

See post 29..........

Post 29? And back to my point many of the stories often times are rooted way way back in pre literate history thus good luck understanding them.

 

[sooda]

Post 29?

Above.. about the Missuola flood.

 

[David T]

Above.. about the Missuola flood.

And what 10 15 k ago. Like i said.

 

[sooda]

And what 10 15 k ago. Like i said.

Noah's flood was in 2900 BC in the Euphrates River Basin and it lasted four days. It was 150 miles wide and 350 miles south to the Persian Gulf and there is a flood sediment footprint.

 

[David T]

Noah's flood was in 2900 BC in the Euphrates River Basin and it lasted four days. It was 150 miles wide and 350 miles south to the Persian Gulf and there is a flood sediment footprint.

Wow misoula flood was 2000 feet deep and was like 500 feet deep 1000 miles away. Never mind that there are pre literate fllood narratives all around the world. Like i said good luck understanding them due to morphology.

 

[sooda]

Wow misoula flood was 2000 feet deep and was like 500 feet deep 1000 miles away. Never mind that there are pre literate fllood narratives all around the world. Like i said good luck understanding them due to morphology.

Noah's flood was not that deep. The Euphrates river basin is quite flat and starts at about 30 feet above sea level running down to sea level where it enters the Persian Gulf.

It also had nothing to do with the collapse of a glacial dam. It was caused by spring snowmelt from the mountains combined with heavy rains.

 

[sooda]

A closer look

Another problem with the Ark story arises becausethere is no evidence for a global flood. Creation stories from many different religions and cultures include flood stories, and Feder notes that if a worldwide flood had occurred,

"The archaeological record of 5,000 years ago would be replete with Pompeii-style ruins — the remains of thousands of towns, villages and cities, all wiped out by flood waters, simultaneously. ... It would appear that the near annihilation of the human race, if it happened, left no imprint on the archaeological record anywhere."

The lack of physical evidence of the great flood hasn't stopped modern believers from searching for Noah's Ark itself. But the boat is conspicuously missing. It has never been found despite repeated claims to the contrary.

Forty years ago, Violet M. Cummings, author of "Noah's Ark: Fable or Fact?" (Creation-Science Research Center, 1973) claimed that the Ark had been found on Mount Ararat in Turkey, exactly as described in Genesis 8:4, which states, "and on the 17th day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat."

continued

The Ark: Could Noah's Tale Be True?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

The Ice age floods were millions of years earlier and didn't cover the whole earth.

1. Ice Age Floods Institute – Oregon – Washington, – Idaho – Montana
   iafi.org
   Ice Age Floods Institute (IAFI) News and Information about: Cataclysmic Ice Age Floods across the Pacific Northwest during recent geologic time; Ice Age Floods National Geologic Trail – regional travel routes to interpretive Floods sites
   
   
2. Missoula Floods - Wikipedia
   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula_Floods
   The Missoula Floods (also known as the Spokane Floods or the Bretz Floods) refer to the cataclysmic floods that swept periodically across eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge at the end of the last ice age. The glacial flood events have been researched since the 1920s.

Major regional flooding from the last glacial period would have taken place between 12 and 20 thousand years ago. Lake Missoula flooding took place over a 2,000 year period between 13 and 15 thousand years ago. Essentially, the ice dam that was holding the lake in would periodically rupture and massive amounts of water would race cross country to the west coast of Oregon, creating the scablands of the Pacific Northwest.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

A closer look

Another problem with the Ark story arises becausethere is no evidence for a global flood. Creation stories from many different religions and cultures include flood stories, and Feder notes that if a worldwide flood had occurred,

"The archaeological record of 5,000 years ago would be replete with Pompeii-style ruins — the remains of thousands of towns, villages and cities, all wiped out by flood waters, simultaneously. ... It would appear that the near annihilation of the human race, if it happened, left no imprint on the archaeological record anywhere."

The lack of physical evidence of the great flood hasn't stopped modern believers from searching for Noah's Ark itself. But the boat is conspicuously missing. It has never been found despite repeated claims to the contrary.

Forty years ago, Violet M. Cummings, author of "Noah's Ark: Fable or Fact?" (Creation-Science Research Center, 1973) claimed that the Ark had been found on Mount Ararat in Turkey, exactly as described in Genesis 8:4, which states, "and on the 17th day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat."

continued

The Ark: Could Noah's Tale Be True?

If a single global flood took place, there should be a layer that contains all the human artifacts of the time and nothing like that has ever been found. Additionally, there is no explanation for cultures that existed prior to and just after the proposed date of this flood. They can only be explained if they were wiped out by a flood and the magically recreated and repopulated immediately after the flood. If that were a realistic option, there would have been no need for Noah and his crew at all. Just recreate from scratch.