Ask god. When you have the answer, realise that no one else can trust that you have the answer… there is no way for you to prove you have the answer.
These days, that has become “Hey, I won the election.”
Nor can you go to Heaven
With Superman.
'Cause the Great Great Lord
Is a Batman fan!
He didn’t* look *Jewish.
[hijack]
He would’ve been too late with that. Sarah’s death immediately follows the akedah (binding of Isaac). The midrash I heard once was that an angel went and told Sarah about the sacrifice just before Abraham’s hand was stayed and the ram substituted for Isaac. This caused her death from grief.
Sarah is 127 years old when she dies, which makes Isaac 27 or 28 at the time, which is crazy. What’s always struck me is how bloody passive Isaac is throughout his life. He’s the patriarch for the anonymous everyman, it seems to me.
[/hijack]
Thanks Rick, you’ve spoiled a great joke! 
My own hijack:
I used to be a Methodist, and when I was a kid I got into trouble at Sunday school. When the teacher referred to “little Issac”, I pointed out that if he was carrying the firewood, he couldn’t be little.
What are some sources for this? I’ve tried to make this argument before, to some of my fellow Christians, and the idea kind of works up until you read what God said right after the incident. It’s hard to read it as in any way disappointed with Abraham.
Still I insisted that Abraham’s decision displayed a kind of immaturity. My friends weren’t convinced.
RickG:
- Sarah was 90 when Isaac was born, it was Abraham who was 100.
D’oh! Thanks for the correction. Memory is the second thing to go, as they say.
So, yeah, Isaac was no child at the time of the akedah.
It makes for “better storytelling” at Sunday School, though. And disturbingly adorable Precious Moments pictures.