Endnote 2 – The Binding or Sacrifice of Isaac

See the discussion in Geza Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 1961), pp. 206–208, 213; Erwin R. Good enough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, 13 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press, 1953–69), vol. 4, p. 173; Philip R. Davies and Bruce Chilton, “The Aqedah: A Revised Tradition History,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 (1978), pp. 534–535; and Shalom Spiegel, The Last Trail, transl. and introduction by Judah Goldin (New York: Behrman House, 1967), pp. 471–547. According to Judah Goldin (Last Trial introduction, p. xix), the noun form of the Hebrew word akedah never occurs in scripture and the verbal root only occurs seven times in the Bible some form (six times as a passive participle). The verb as active—wayaakod, meaning “and he bound”—occurs only once in the Bible, the story of Abraham’s “binding” of Isaac (Genesis 22:9).