The Last Trial: On the Legends and Lore of the Command to Abraham to Offer Isaac as a Sacrifice

“We find that the story of Abraham and Isaac rises almost spontaneously in the mind of one generation after another.... Constantly past and present react to and upon each other, and life is given an order, a coherence, by the themes which govern the Holy Scriptures and the reinterpretations of those themes.”
—from the Introduction by Judah Goldin

Shalom Spiegel’s classic examines the total body of texts, legends, and traditions referring to the Binding of Isaac and weaves them together into...