"... What shocks the post-Reformation reader of James 2:21 is 'by works.' James says Abraham was justified — brought into a saving rela­tionship with God or declared righteous by God — on the basis of his works. And James tells us exactly which work (singular) of Abraham's it was that justified him: 'when he offered his son Isaac on the altar.' We need to understand the 'binding' of Isaac in order to understand why James says Abraham was justified 'by works.' 'The extraordinary prominence of the story of the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22:1-19 in rabbinic Judaism,' Jon Levenson observes, 'stands in stark con­trast to the utter absence of direct references to it anywhere else in the He­brew Bible.' James fits somewhere along the line from the rather clear unimportance of the Aqedah to the obvious major significance of the Aqedah in later Judaism. To see where James fits, we need to sketch some of this evidence. It begins with Genesis 22:1-19, known for the haunting question of Isaac, 'Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?' and father Abraham's believ­ing response, 'God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.' Attached to this scene is the angelic commentary on Abraham's faith­ fulness: 'Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you ... because you have obeyed my voice' (22:16-18). The theme of the faithfulness of Abraham is found in Nehemiah 9:8 ('you found his heart faithful before you') but even more completely in Sirach 44:19-20 ..."