Sherwood Y. Abraham in London, Marburg-Istanbul and Israel: Between Theocracy and Democracy, Ancient Text and Modern State

Biblical Interpretation 16 (2008) 105-153.The binding of Isaac in Genesis 22 has been re-used to describe the actions of governments upon citizens. In these three very different cases the biblical narrative undergoes a theological-political translation and calls forth critical responses in which the core question becomes the relationship of divine monarchy/state authority to freedom, or, to put it another way, of democracy or would-be ‘democracy’ to ‘theocracy’ and its various modern political correlates. By analyzing these translations and responses, this essay explores how the questions as it was forced on us by Genesis 22 are not just religious, but looking outward to questions of religion, politics, and ethics.