ABSTRACT
This chapter revolves around a thought experiment and alternative questioning: if Isaac could speak, what would he say? and what would his words mean to the contemporary reader? The author's purpose is to elicit the ethical questions that arise by virtue of the reader's empathy with the victim's plight. It suggests that focusing on the victim's point of view both questions and deconstructs the official story of sacrifice. The chapter deconstructs it by revealing the workings of power that set it into motion and it questions its validity by refusing to glorify the sanctified violence as a positive or necessary social force. Unfortunately, recourse to a common understanding of the term sacrifice itself is fraught with difficulties. In particular, Genesis 22:1–19 has been attributed to source E and this alone has important consequences for any modern interpretation. Interpreting Genesis 22 from the margins necessarily begins with a hermeneutic of rejection.
