So many great thinkers, painters, and artists, from Augustine to Kierkegaard, Rembrandt to Chagall, Bob Dylan to Leonard Cohen, have struggled to make sense of the “binding of Isaac” in Genesis 22 in the Old Testament. They all understand the words of God to Abraham as an absolute command that must be obeyed. As Dylan has God say to a reluctant Abraham in his song, “Highway 61,” “You can do what you want Abe, but the next time you see me coming, you better run.”
