Insights from Filmmaking for Analyzing Biblical Narrative

Gary Yamasaki

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781451496291
• eBook ISBN: 9781506401171
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Biography

Gary Yamasaki explores how the visual art of filmmaking works to establish perspective and point of view to guide the viewer into a film's story. Biblical story is also shaped by perspectives that frame a point of view. The insights gained from studying the art of filmmaking can help students increase their understanding of biblical narratives.

3

Abraham’s Near Sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22:1–19)

¹ After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ² He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” ³ So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. ⁴ On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. ⁵ Then Abraham said to his young men. “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” ⁶ Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. ⁷ Isaac said to his father Abraham. “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” ⁸ Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together.

⁹ When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ¹² He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” ¹³ And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide”; as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”

¹⁵ The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, ¹⁶ and said, “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies, ¹⁸ and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves, because you have obeyed my voice.” ¹⁹ So Abraham returned to his young men, and they arose and went together to Beersheba; and Abraham lived at Beersheba.

This account—known in Jewish tradition as the Akedah, from the Hebrew word for “binding”—ranks among the leading biblical stories for having generated the most critical attention by biblical scholars. Given the wealth of scholarship on the infamous account of God asking Abraham to offer up his son Isaac as a burnt offering, it is not possible to cover every interpretive insight in a volume such as this. Instead, our examination will focus on selected material to give a sense of the breadth of the field and to bring that into dialogue with a cinematic-story approach.

Looking Behind the Text

Historical-critical approaches to interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures do not have as their focus what the text says. Rather, these approaches look behind the text itself and address such issues as how a text came into existence and whether it reflects actual historical events. This type of work arose in the eighteenth century, but really flourished in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Source Criticism

This branch of historical-critical research involves attempting to identify sources underlying the final form of biblical texts. Source criticism as it relates to Pentateuchal passages like the Akedah is one of the most prominent historical-critical approaches in the study of the Hebrew Scriptures. It does not involve the reading of existing biblical books side by side, as characterizes much of New Testament source criticism (e.g., the Synoptic Gospels). Rather, source critics examine the details of the Pentateuchal books in search of evidence for the existence of sources underlying the composition of these books, and from their findings they posit four sources that are best known simply by the initials J, E, D, and P. For our purposes, it is not necessary to go into a lot of detail, but briefly, only J and E appear in source-critical study of the Akedah. J is the earliest of the four sources, and is most readily identified by the use of the tetragrammaton YHWH (Jehova in German) for God; E is the next earliest, most readily identified by the use of the term Elohim for God.^[1] Equipped with just these few basic details of a very complex hypothesis, we are ready to consider what scholars have written about the sources they hypothesize as underlying the Akedah.

It is generally accepted that the author/redactor of Genesis used E as the source for 22:1–13—a text that uses Elohim for God in verses 1, 3, 8, 9, and 12—and for verse 19, as it flows naturally from verse 13. Verses 15 to 18, which contain Yahweh for God, are understood as coming from J, or J and E having been redacted together. The status of verse 14 is not as clear, for while it fits comfortably with the first thirteen verses, it does contain two references to Yahweh, thus suggesting it may belong with vv. 15–18.

The foregoing covers just some of the basics of a source-critical analysis of Gen 22:1–19, and it is presented for the purpose of providing a sense of what is involved in this field of study. It must be made clear, however, that source critics often go much deeper than just a consideration of the divine name. For example, in support of his position that vv. 15–18 constitute a late insertion into the story, Walter Moberly points to what he sees as a significant change in writing style between vv. 1–14 and vv. 15–18: “The story [in vv. 1–14] is noted for its taut and economic style of telling, heavy with suggestion of background context and meaning which is passed over in silence.”^[2] By way of comparison, he points out that the language of vv. 15–18 is “repetitive and cumulative, with use of synonyms and similes. It is a long address with no reference to any response by Abraham.......”^[3] Further, he sees the content of verse 14 leading naturally into the concluding note of verse 19, with the insertion of vv. 15–18 breaking the natural connection between the content of the two verses.^[4] Hermann Gunkel also sees these verses as a later insertion. Proceeding from the fact that these verses set out rewards for Abraham beyond just being able to keep Isaac, Gunkel suggests that a later redactor may have thought this reward seemed insufficient, and added these further promises.^[5] And Thomas Römer asserts that the patchwork of divine promises presented in these verses comes too late after the denouement.^[6]

On the other hand, John Van Seters understands these verses as original to the story. He argues that they are an essential component of the account in that without them, “the whole purpose of testing would have no real consequence. Nothing would be changed. It is only with the inclusion, in the second speech, of the divine confirmation of the patriarchal promises, vv. 15–18, that the ultimate aim of the testing becomes clear. Because of Abraham’s obedience his children will be blessed.”^[7]

Verses 11–12 of the passage have also come under scrutiny as perhaps being a later addition to E’s version of the account. Many have noted that Abraham’s ready acquiescence to God’s request to sacrifice his son is inconsistent with the picture of Abraham in Genesis 18, where he is depicted as bargaining with God for the lives of the righteous in Sodom; these scholars suggest that Genesis 22 without vv. 11–12 brings the Abraham of the Akedah more in line with the Abraham of Genesis 18. Omri Boehm explains that in the Sodom story, Abraham is shown insisting that God not exceed ethical norms, and the Akedah without vv. 11–12 would depict him again opposing God’s presumptive superiority over ethics.^[8]

The erudite work of source critics over the generations has yielded numerous insights that prove helpful in exploring how the Akedah might have come into being, but these have come at the expense of attention to the narrative proper. Being aware of the sources—that is, the details of the work product underlying the final form—may be interesting, but just as the Orphan Black featurette on the making of the four-clone dance sequence (see pp. 81–82, above) in no way addresses the narrative workings of that particular scene, so also a source-critical analysis of our passage does not address the narrative working of the passage.

Original Basis of the Akedah

While source-critical work addresses the issue of what written sources were used in the formulation of the final form of the account, it does not address the more basic question, “What is the original basis of this story, going back beyond simply the work of J and E?” Pentateuch scholars have not developed any theories as elaborate as the Documentary Hypothesis to address this question, but there has been some work in this area.

There are, of course, scholars who would maintain the traditional view that the original basis of this story is an actual historical Abraham who really did experience the events reported in Genesis 22. Critical scholars, however, have tended to dismiss the Genesis 22 account as legendary and, with that as a starting point, they dig behind the story for clues that will help in reconstructing the prehistory of the account.

There has been considerable skepticism about how much can be known regarding the earlier history of the Akedah. Karl Deurloo represents an extreme when he writes, “We know nothing about earlier stages of the story. It is purely hypothetical to claim that in an oral tradition there was a story preceding this one.”^[9] Other scholars, however, find in the final form of Genesis 22 clues that suggest the existence of earlier stages of the story. For example, Gerhard von Rad asserts that the fact this passage is only loosely connected with the preceding suggests that it existed for a long time as an independent unit before its inclusion in E.^[10]

On what constituted the nature of this earlier form of the story, Hermann Gunkel makes a case that it was an etiological legend. In support of his position, he notes that the Jephthah narrative of Judges deals with a similar motif,^[11] and points specifically to a brief addition in Judg 11:40 of a lament festival celebrated in memorial of the Jephthah story. He sees this as marking the account as originally having been an etiological myth, thus lending support to the similar Akedah as having been an etiological myth as well.^[12] Specifically, Gunkel sees this earlier account as a legend of child sacrifice at Jeruel: “It narrated how at this site the deity actually wanted the firstborn son as a sacrifice, but how the deity accep...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Series Foreword
• The Intersection of Bible and Film: An Introduction
• A Cinematic-Story Paradigm for Analyzing Biblical Narrative
• Abraham’s Near Sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22:1–19)
• The Feeding of the Five Thousand (Matthew 14:13–21)
• Conclusion
• Selected Bibliography
• Film Index