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Jubilees rewrites the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac in Genesis 22 and changes the instigator from God to the adversarial figure Mastema. This was likely done to avoid the reading that God arbitrarily and cruelly asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 22:2
Hebrew Bible
1 Some time after these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am!” Abraham replied. 2 God said, “Take your son—your only son, whom you love, Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah! Offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will indicate to you.” 3 Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants with him, along with his son Isaac. When he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he started out for the place God had spoken to him about. 4 On the third day Abraham caught sight of the place in the distance.
Date: 750–400 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Jubilees 17:16
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
15 And it came to pass in the seventh week, in the first year of it, [2003] in the first month in this jubilee, on the twelfth of this month, there were voices in heaven regarding Abraham, that he was faithful in all that He told him, and that he loved the Lord, and that in every affliction he was faithful. 16 And the prince Mastêmâ came and said before God, 'Behold, Abraham loves Isaac his son, and he delights in him above all things else; tell him to offer him as a burnt-offering on the altar, and You will see if he will do this command, and You will know if he is faithful in everything in which You try him. 17 And the Lord knew that Abraham was faithful in all his afflictions; for He had tried him through his country and with famine, and had tried him with the wealth of kings, and had tried him again through his wife, when she was torn (from him), and with circumcision; and had tried him through Ishmael and Hagar, his maid-servant, when he sent them away.
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The solution to this problem [in James 1:13] appears immediately if one examines the account of Abraham in Jubilees. First, in Jubilees 17:15-18, it is not God who initiates the test of Abraham, but 'Prince Mastema' who challenges God. Thus, while Jubilees does not explain why God went along with the test, the whole testing situation is recast in a form similar to that of Job. Secondly, Abraham is presented as a person who has been faithful through a series of tests ..."
Peter H. Davids, “The Pseudepigrapha in the Catholic Epistles,” in The Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical Interpretation, ed. James H. Charlesworth and Craig A. Evans, JSPSup 14 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), 229.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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