We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
The last time we heard from Isaac was in his ‘Testament of Isaac’ (c. first century CE). That letter showed how he had absorbed the cultural obsessions of Jewish Egyptian and, later, Christian Coptic communities. This latest missive comes after a time lapse of two thousand years. This Isaac – clearly a fraud – has absorbed the skeptical, over-complicating literature so typical of the modern world. Unlike his namesake in the ‘Testament of Isaac’, he now refuses to submit himself to the ‘holy height’ of God and become ‘like the silver that is burned, smelted, purified in the fre’ (cf. Testament of Isaac 6.1–5; 8.3,4). He represents the defiance of secular modernity, and the sad loss of the knowledge that God never actually allows the son to be harmed, and that the one who submits to God is saved.
In the interests of textual integrity we are publishing the letter in the form that it was passed to us. We are resisting the temptation to cut (sacrifice?) the more offensive parts to make it better. Readers are encouraged to consult our own careful annotations and footnotes. These are at least as important as the letter.
The Editors Europe, December 2003Abraham,
I won't, if you'll excuse me, call you ‘Father’, or even ‘Dearest Father’, as Franz Kafka does in his love-hate epistle to his father.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
