The Bible has tons of edits like this, it’s fun to spot them—and even more so to guess the intent behind them. Often when a seemingly irrelevant detail (or an entire chapter) is inserted in the middle of a story, that’s an edit (although there are also genuine errors). In general, the Bible is not as well put-together as people tend to think. In this case, whoever wrote this wanted to make clear that Judaism does not condone human sacrifice, in contrast to other contemporary religions.
Others (chiefly those who consider the text to be holy) interpret the pronoun change as indicative of an emotional separation between Abraham and his son, as if following these events they don’t want to walk together any more.
whoever wrote this wanted to make clear that Judaism does not condone human sacrifice, in contrast to other contemporary religions.
I suspect that the addition of the lamb(goat?) Was a latter addition to distance Judaism from child sacrifice but that Judaism did evolve out of a religious tradition that practiced child sacrifice (and idolatry). But I’m also aware of how antisemites would love to slander modern Judaism with accusations in a similar vein, so it’s a kinda difficult line to walk.
The Bible has tons of edits like this, it’s fun to spot them—and even more so to guess the intent behind them. Often when a seemingly irrelevant detail (or an entire chapter) is inserted in the middle of a story, that’s an edit (although there are also genuine errors). In general, the Bible is not as well put-together as people tend to think. In this case, whoever wrote this wanted to make clear that Judaism does not condone human sacrifice, in contrast to other contemporary religions.
Others (chiefly those who consider the text to be holy) interpret the pronoun change as indicative of an emotional separation between Abraham and his son, as if following these events they don’t want to walk together any more.
I suspect that the addition of the lamb(goat?) Was a latter addition to distance Judaism from child sacrifice but that Judaism did evolve out of a religious tradition that practiced child sacrifice (and idolatry). But I’m also aware of how antisemites would love to slander modern Judaism with accusations in a similar vein, so it’s a kinda difficult line to walk.