Ancient Anglican

The account of Abraham our father binding his son includes two great ideas or principles of our faith. First, it shows us the extent and limit of the fear of God. Moses Maimonides “Guide for the Perplexed”

Why would God make this demand upon Abraham himself, and why doesn’t Abraham protest this request? Below is a series of questions to contemplate as you read through Genesis 22, followed by a series of commentaries on the narrative and its ethical implications.

This coming week, we’ll look at the Binding of Isaac in Genesis 22 from a close reading of the passage and the moral perspective arising from the horrific demands made by God upon Abraham and Isaac.

Ishmael’s mother used to drink water from the water-skin so that her milk would increase for her child. When Abraham reached Mecca, he made her sit under a tree and afterward returned home. – Hadith 4:584

Outline Paul’s allegory in Galatians 4:21-31. In the allegory, what groups of people does Paul say are descended from which mother, and how does this part of Paul’s allegory turn the historical account of Hagar and Sarah upside down?

Paul will use this story in Galatians 4:21-31 in his argument as to how the Church is the true heir of Abraham and successor to God’s promises to him.

For Paul, it isn’t that God makes a covenant with his people through Abraham and in the same way God makes a covenant with his people through Jesus; rather these covenants are the same covenant.

This week we are looking at the Covenant with Abraham and Paul’s use of this Covenant as the foundation for his message. The readings for the discussion this week are Genesis 12:1-3, Genesis 15,  Romans 4:1-5, 13-17, and Galatians 3:6-14, 25-29.

This week we are going to work through the different layers of meaning of the narrative of Abram and Melchizedek found in Genesis 14, Psalm 110, and Hebrews 7 – the literal, allegorical (spiritual), moral, and anagogical (end-times).

Melchizedek is the “king of Salem” and blesses Abram after his victory in battle. Melchizedek only makes this one appearance throughout the Abrahamic narrative, but he will appear again in Psalm 110, Jewish apocalyptic literature, and in the Letter to the Hebrews.

We are told that Abraham took his wife Sarah, and the souls they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth into the land of Canaan. By this is meant the souls that they had brought away from idolatry and brought to the knowledge of the living God.–Gen. Rabba 84.

Genesis tells us very little about who Abram was and why God called him specifically to leave his home. At first reading, the story appears as simply a quaint historical account with little relevance today. The book of Joshua and the oral Torah fills in these gaps.