Reviewed by: Die Opferung/Bindung Isaaks. Vol. 1: Gen. 22:1–19 im Alten Testament, im Frühjudentum und im Neuen Testament. Vol. 2: Gen. 22:1–19 in frühen rabbinischen Texten Günter Stemberger Die Opferung/Bindung Isaaks. Vol. 1: Gen. 22:1–19 im Alten Testament, im Früh judentum und im Neuen Testament. Vol. 2: Gen. 22:1–19 in frühen rabbinischen Texten, by Lukas Kundert. WMANT 78. Neukirchener Verlag, 1998. 2 vols.; 334, 218 pp. DM 148. These two volumes, based on a doctoral thesis in theology at the University of Basle (1997), are the most comprehensive study ever published of the Aqedah tradition from the Bible to the classical midrashim. The topic has always been popular since Abraham Geiger, who considered the traditional interpretation of this biblical text as reacting against Christian soteriology, a position which has its adherents up to the present. In recent years a number of monographs and important essays have been devoted to the subject (to mention just one book frequently quoted by Kundert: Michael Krupp, Den Sohn opfern? [Gütersloh, 1995]) so that it may seem that hardly anything new can be said on it. But Kundert demonstrates that there is still much to be discovered. After the usual history of research and a rather pedestrian analysis of the Hebrew biblical text, Kundert deals extensively with the reinterpretation of this chapter in the Septuagint: here no longer Abraham, but Isaac is the main actor in the story, which is understood in the light of martyrdom and the Servant of the Lord. Here already several motifs are to be found which became prominent in later rabbinic literature. Further chapters are dedicated to the book of Jubilees and several texts of Qumran, systematically exploited here for the first time. Important is the long chapter on the figure of Isaac in the writings of Philo, who sees Isaac as preexisting logos, son of God, a sage who learned on his own and was taught directly by heaven, and as a symbol of divine joy. These ideas, but also the main lines of Palestinian tradition on Isaac, are the basis for the reinterpretation of Isaac in the New Testament to which Kundert dedicates the second half of the first volume. Here he analyzes not only texts which have become classics in this discussion, such as Romans 8:32, but also texts rarely considered systematically in this context, above all the Gospel of John and the story of the transfiguration of Jesus in Mark’s version. [End Page 161] Here one realizes the advantage of Kundert’s procedure, by which in earlier chapters he did not limit his inquiry to texts dealing directly with Gen. 22 but included all traditions about Isaac. This breadth enables him to see allusions to the theme of the Aqedah in places where others never thought of these traditions. There is a certain tendency to overinterpret the texts and to read too much into them, but this is certainly the smaller disadvantage when compared with the risk of not seeing the connections at all. In the second volume, Kundert analyzes the early rabbinic traditions of the Aqedah, here keeping closely to the interpretation of Gen. 22 and not including other traditions about Isaac. The texts he studies are the Mekhilta, Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds, and most extensively, Genesis Rabbah 55–56. Kundert always offers in parallel columns the Hebrew text and his translation before commenting on the texts. He is to be praised for keeping the traditions separate and not commenting on the rabbinic tradition in general, as is still far too common. He also makes every effort to get the best text possible, always quoting the best available manuscript versions. For Genesis Rabbah, he always presents the version of manuscript Vatican 60 as his basic text, but then also deals briefly with the other important manuscripts of the midrash, which he considers as separate redactions of the text which may not be conflated in search of the original text. This is not the place to discuss this concept of the creative scribe instead of the mechanical copying traditionally assumed; the theory does not really impinge on the...