Genesis 22:2
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.
Jubilees 17:16
15 During the seventh week, in the first year during the first month — on the twelfth of this month — in this jubilee [2003], there were voices in heaven regarding Abraham, that he was faithful in everything that he told him, that the Lord loved him, and that in every difficulty he was faithful. 16 Then Prince Mastema came and said before God: ‘Abraham does indeed love his son Isaac and finds him more pleasing than anyone else. Tell him to offer him as a sacrifice on an altar. Then you will see whether he performs this order and will know whether he is faithful in everything through which you test him.’ 17 Now the Lord was aware that Abraham was faithful in every difficulty which he had told him. For he had tested him through his land and the famine; he had tested him through the wealth of kings; he had tested him again through his wife when she was taken forcibly, and through circumcision; and he had tested him through Ishmael and his servant girl Hagar when he sent them away.
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 ..."
Davids, Peter H. "The Pseudepigrapha in the Catholic Epistles" in Charlesworth, James H., and Craig A. Evans, editors. The Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical Interpretation (p. 229) JSOT Press, 1993
"... a more modest version of this theory is that the changing nature of God in Judaism may have prompted the transference to other heavenly beings of certain actions and attributes now deemed unbecoming of the deity. Efraim Urbach notes several examples in which angels are employed to avoid anthropomorphism in describing God. In addition, angels replace God in various retellings of biblical stories: Satan replaces God in the Chronicler’s retelling of the story of David’s census (1 Chronicles 21:1; compare 2 Samuel 24:1); Mastema replaces God in the account of the binding of Isaac (Jubilees 17:15–18:19; compare Genesis 22) and again in the story of God’s attempt to kill Moses (Jubilees 48:2; compare Exodus 4:24) ..."
Galbraith, Deane "The Origin of Archangels: Idealogical Mystification of Nobility" in Myles, Robert J. (ed.) Class Struggle in the New Testament (pp. 209-240) Fortress Academic, 2019