Free The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels by Thomas Cahill Page B

piercing staccato phrases, the narrator begins the Hebrew Bible’s most fearful and piteous story:
        Now after these events it was
        that God tested Avraham
        and said to him
        “Avraham!”
        He said:
        “Here I am.”
        He said:
        “Pray take your son,
        your only-one,
        whom you love,
        Yitzhak,
        and go-you-forth to the land of Moriyya (Seeing),
        and offer him up there as an offering-up
        upon one of the mountains
        that I will tell you of.”
        Avraham started-early in the morning,
        he saddled his donkey,
        he took his two serving-lads with him and Yitzhak his son,
        he split wood for the offering-up
        and arose and went to the place that God had told him of.
        On the third day Avraham lifted up his eyes
        and saw the place from afar.
        Avraham said to his lads:
        “You stay here with the donkey,
        and I and the lad will go yonder,
        we will bow down and then return to you.”
        Avraham took the wood for the offering-up,
        he placed them upon Yitzhak his son,
        in his hand he took the fire and the knife.
        Thus the two of them went together.
        Yitzhak said to Avraham his father, he said:
        “Father!”
        He said:
        “Here I am, my son.”
        He said:
        “Here are the fire and the wood,
        but where is the lamb for the offering-up?”
        Avraham said:
        “God will see-for-himself to the lamb for the offering-up,
        my son.”
        Thus the two of them went together.
        They came to the place that God had told him of;
        there Avraham built the slaughter-site
        and arranged the wood
        and bound Yitzhak his son
        and placed him on the slaughter-site atop the wood.
        Avraham stretched out his hand,
        he took the knife to slay his son.
        But [God’s] messenger called to him from heaven
        and said:
        “Avraham! Avraham!”
        He said:
        “Here I am.”
        He said:
        “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad,
        do not do anything to him!
        For now I know
        that you are in awe of God—
        you have not withheld your son, your only-one, from me.”
        Avraham lifted up his eyes and saw:
        there, a ram caught in the thicket by its horns!
        Avraham went, he took the ram
        and offered it up as an offering-up in the place of his son.
        Avraham called the name of that place: [God] Sees.
        As the saying is today: On [God’s] mountain (it) is seen.
        Now [God’s] messenger called to Avraham a second time from heaven
        and said:
        “By myself I swear”
        —[God’s] utterance—
        “indeed, because you have done this thing, have not withheld your son, your only-one,
        indeed, I will bless you, bless you,
        I will make your seed many, yes, many,
        like the stars of the heavens and like the sand that is on the shore of the sea;
        your seed shall inherit the gate of their enemies,
        all the nations of the earth shall enjoy blessing through your seed,
        in consequence of your hearkening to my voice.”
     
     
    I doubt anyone has ever read this story, either in the original or in any of its many translations, without being transfixed. Many who heard the story as children and know perfectly well how it will end (with tragedy averted at the very last minute) cannot bring themselves to look at it again or consider seriously “the monster god of the Old Testament,” as one woman called him with a shudder. And Fox’s plain translation, so close to the bald rhythm of the original Hebrew, is stunning in its cumulative effect, like repeated blows or wounds.
    Is this God? What are we to make of such a God? Does