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Isaac Typology in the New Testament

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

J. Edwin Wood
J. Edwin Wood
Affiliation:
Colchester, England
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Type
Short Studies
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , July 1968 , pp. 583 - 589
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

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References

page 583 note 1 Lévi, Israël, ‘Le Sacrifice d'Isaac et la mort de Jésus’, R.E.J. LXIV (1912), 161–84.Google Scholar

page 583 note 2 Schoeps, H. J., ‘The Sacrifice of Isaac in Paul's Theology’, J.B.L. LXV (1946), 385 ff.Google Scholar

page 583 note 3 Ibid. p. 391.

page 583 note 4 Vermes, G., ‘Scripture and Tradition in Judaism’. Studia Post-Biblica (1961), Leiden, pp. 193–226 (p. 219).Google Scholar

page 583 note 5 IV Mace. vii. 14; xiii. 12; xvi. 20; xviii. 11. Philo on Balaam Deborah and Jephthah XVIII, 6; xxxii, 2–4; XL, 2. Also Josephus, J.A. 1, xiii, 1–4, paras. 222–36.

page 583 note 6 Spiegel, S., The Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (New York, 1950), pp. 471–547.Google Scholar

page 584 note 1 G. Vermes, op. cit.

page 584 note 2 G. Vermes, ibid. pp. 200, 202.

page 584 note 3 In Philo: ‘by your seed’ in Gen. xxii. 18 is interpreted as meaning ‘because of the merit of your son’ (G. Vermes, ibid. p. 210).

page 584 note 4 See p. 583, n. 5.

page 584 note 5 Controversy continues as to the precise dating of this work. On the one hand De Jonge, the Dutch scholar, regards it as a post-Christian work, while M. Philonenko believes the work to have emanated from the Essenes (see his Les Interpolations Chrétiennes des Testaments des douze Patriarches et les Manuscrits de Qoumran, 1960). E.J. Bickermann is prepared to date the work a century earlier than R. H. Charles.

page 584 note 6 R. H. Charles regarded the words ‘in the water’ as a Christian interpolation. In E.T. LX, 321, however, M. Black maintained that the allusions to the Christian story are so deliberate that the whole section quoted in the essay should be regarded as entirely Christian. Unfortunately the scraps from the Testament of Levi recovered from among the Dead Sea Scrolls do not appear to include either this particular section or its context. M. Philonenko's latest studies tend to reduce Charles' number of Christian interpolations considerably. The phrases noted by Charles as being later inter-polations do disrupt the rhythm of the whole section, and so perhaps until further information becomes available his rather more cautious excisions are to be preferred. It is not long ago that references to the ‘Messiah of Levi’ in the Testaments were regarded as interpolations since they clashed with references to a ‘Messiah of Judah’. But we now know from the Dead Sea Scrolls that certain Jewish sects did in fact expect two Messiahs. Dr Beasley-Murray's wise caution in J.T.S. XLVIII (1947), 189 f. has therefore been vindicated. It is interesting to note the reference to the Messiah's star rising in the heavens ‘as of a king’ in Levi xviii. 3; cf. Matt. ii. 2. In spite of the fact that there are few priesdy motifs in the synoptic narratives of Christ's baptism, there is much to commend C. K. Barrett's view that the Testament of Levi has helped to shape the synoptic narratives (C. K. Barrett, The Holy Spirit and the Gospel Tradition, p. 44). Josephus records a bath q⊚l uttered over John Hyrcanus, 134–104 B.C, J.A. XIII, x, 3. See also Jer. Talmud Sotah ix. 12.

page 585 note 1 Schoeps, p. 387, n. g. Rabbi Akiba is recorded as commenting on Deut. vi. 5 that the loyal Israelite should love God with all the soul (or life) ‘like Isaac who bound himself upon the altar’. G. Moore, Judaism (Harvard), 1, 536.

page 585 note 2 Schoeps, ibid. p. 387. On the other hand, Rabbi Jehoshua bar Nananya said a quarter of Isaac's blood was shed (ibid. p. 389).

page 585 note 3 Ibid. 389.

page 585 note 4 Ibid. p. 390.

page 585 note 5 G. Vermes, op. cit. pp. 202, 203.

page 585 note 6 Schoeps, op. cit. p. 388.

page 585 note 7 Schoeps, H. J., Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Light of Jewish Religious History (Lutterworth, 1961), p. 145.Google Scholar

page 585 note 8 Mekh. Ex. xiv. 15.

page 585 note 9 G. Vermes maintains that no association can be traced between the Binding of Isaac and the Day of Atonement (op. cit. pp. 214, 215). However, Schoeps quotes the third-century R. Abbahu who says: ‘The Holy One, praised be His name, said: “Blow before me a ram's horn so that I may remember in your behalf the sacrifice of Isaac and that I may reckon it to your credit as if you let yourselves be bound for my sake”.’ Schoeps, ‘The Sacrifice of Isaac in Paul's Theology’, p. 388.

page 585 note 10 Schoeps, Paul, p. 147, n. 2. The Book of Jubilees dated the binding on Nisan 14, however (Vermes, op. cit. p. 215).

page 586 note 1 Vermes, op. cit. p. 209.

page 586 note 2 The earliest reference in which Isaac on Moriah is a type of Christ on Calvary is in Barnabas vii. 3. Thereafter the idea is frequent (Schoeps, op. cit. p. 386).

page 586 note 3 Op. cit. p. 220.

page 586 note 4 Cf. Mark i. 11 Σὺ ε׀ ⋯ υ׀⋯ς μου ⋯ ⋯γαγητ⋯ς.Cf. also Col. i. 13 τοũ υἱοũ τ⋯ς ⋯γ⋯πης

page 587 note 1 C. K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St John (S.P.C.K.) on John i. 29, 36. Also in J. T. S. XLVIII (1947), 155 f. In Jewish worship Isaac is still called ‘the lamb that was bound’. H.J. Schoeps, Paul, p. 145.

page 587 note 2 B. Lindars adds that ἒθνη in Gal. iii. 6 is drawn from Gen. xviii. 18 and xxii. 18. New Testament Apologetics (S.C.M. 1961), p. 226.

page 587 note 3 Schoeps, op. cit. p. 390. Origen, Ambrosiaster and Chrysostom are among the authorities quoted.

page 587 note 4 In Rom. i. 13 and Eph. i. 9 the word does have the connotation of ‘intention’, but not that of actual provision.

page 587 note 5 Rom. viii. 32 τοῡ ׀δ⋯ου υἱοũ οὐκ ⋯φε⋯σατο.Cf. Gen. xxii. 16 οὐκ ⋯φε׀σω τοũ υἱοũ σου.

page 588 note 1 I am indebted to M. Black for pointing me to the Targum on this particular verse, where no specific extent of time is in view, but where there is a strong eschatological conviction expressed:

אננימיקי איתימ תויחא סויכ יתימל ןיריתער אתמחנ ימןיל אננײחי

He will cause us to live again for the days of Consolation about to come, on the Day of Resurrection He will make us stand up' Martin-Achard, in his book From Death to Life (Oliver and Boyd), refutes the view that mere recovery from sickness is in view in Hos. vi. 1, 2, and he draws parallels from the cults of Osiris, Attis and Inanna to show that the Israelites were here expecting Yahweh to behave like any Baal and automatically to restore the nation to life from the dead after a short while. This Hosea repudiates. ‘Yahweh is not some sort of Baal—a blind and brutal natural force, as the Israelites superficially believed.’ Deut. Rab. vii. 6 and Esther Rab. ix. 2 connect the three days of Hos. vi. 2 with the three days during which Jonah was in the whale's belly. See M. E. Dahl, The Resurrection of the Body (S.C.M. 1962), pp. 20–2. In E.T. LXXVIII, p. 266, Canon Douglas Hill associates I Cor. xv. 4 with Ps. xvi. 9–11 on the basis of the Jewish belief that ‘a state of death beyond the third day’ was a state of ‘absolute dissolution’, i.e. ‘corruption’.

page 589 note 1 H. J. Schoeps says of Rom. iv. 25, v. 8, g, Gal. i. 4 and II Thess. v. 10 that they bear a ‘strong resemblance to the atoning sacrifice Abraham was prepared to make’ (Paul, p. 146). But the verbal similarities of these passages suggest that Isa. liii is the immediate source of such ideas. On the other hand, Oscar Cullmann seems justified in saying: ‘it seems to me unquestionable that John iii. 16 like Rom. viii. 32 alludes to the sacrifice of Isaac.’ The Christology of the New Testament (S.C.M. 1959), pp. 57, 293, 301. It is intriguing to note that if the best attested reading in Philem. 9 is correct (‘Paul the Aged’), then Paul is here speaking of Onesimus as the son he has begotten in his old age, and whom he is now sending back to Philemon ‘with his own heart’, hinting most delicately that perhaps the converted slave might be returned to him. Philem. 9, 10, 12, 14.