9781422281123

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Father of Three Faiths

T he knife glittered as Abraham, following the patterns of ancient ritual, prepared to make a sacrifice to his God. However, the creature lying bound on the altar before Abraham was no ordinary bull or sheep, such as might have been sac- rificed as a burnt offering to one of the many pagan deities worshiped in the region known as the Fertile Crescent approximately 4,000 years ago. Abraham was spiritually different from the other people of his polytheistic culture; as a young man he had decided to obey a sin- gle God. Now, God had told Abraham to go into the mountains and sacrifice his young son. It seems impossible that as Abraham raised the knife, he did not feel anxious at what he was about to do. Yet the sources that describe the events of Abraham’s life indicate that he was fully prepared to submit to the demands of his deity without question—even if that meant killing his own child. This willingness to obey pleased God, who sent a messenger to stop Abraham before he could swing the knife downward. The

Opposite: A painting by Rembrandt shows an angel intervening to stop Abraham from sacrificing his son. Muslims, Christians, and Jews revere Abraham as the first monotheist.

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