The Bible story called the “Akedah,” in Hebrew, tells of the ending of ritual child sacrifice. It is frequently translated as the “Sacrifice of Isaac,” but the correct translation is the “Binding of Isaac.” Although the word “Akedah,” in Hebrew, denotes the bound limbs of an animal prepared for ritual sacrifice, Isaac is not sacrificed.
The events of the Akedah are well known. God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Isaac and Abraham climbed Mount Moriah together and approached the killing place. Abraham carried the knife, really a cleaver used for butchering animals, and the sacrificial fire. Isaac carried the wood to be used later to burn his body in an offering to God. Although Isaac asked Abraham where the sacrificial animal was, he knew that he was doomed; he did not resist when his father bound his hands with ropes, placed him on the funeral pyre, and reached out to slit his throat. Isaac’s feet were not bound – he could have run away.
Isaac submitted to his father’s...
Bibliography
Arieti, S. (1981). Abraham and the contemporary mind. New York: Basic Books.
Benjamin, J. (2002). Terror and guilt. Psychoanalytic dialogues, 12(3), 473–484.
Bergman, M. S. (1992). In the shadow of Moloch: The sacrifice of children and its impact on Western religions. New York: Columbia University Press.
Freud, S. (1919). A child is being beaten. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.), The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (24 Vols., pp. 1953–1974). London: Hogarth Press.
Klein, M., & Riviere, J. (1964). Love, hate and reparation. New York: Norton.
Miller, A. (1981). Prisoners of childhood. New York: Basic Books.
Rashi. (1970). Commentaries on the Pentateuch: The B’nai B’rith Commission on Jewish Education. Tr. Chaim Pearl., 39–52.
Shengold, L. (1989). Soul murder. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Wiesel, E. (1976). Messengers of God: Biblical portraits and legends. New York: Random House.
Winnicott, W. D. (1965). Maturational processes and the facilitating environment. New York: IUP.
Winnicott, W. D. (1989). Playing and reality. London: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Somerstein, L. (2014). Akedah. In: Leeming, D.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_17
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6085-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6086-2
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science