Here’s a fourth swing many critics try to make at the Bible. One verse states that Abraham only
had one son (Genesis 22:2). But if you read Genesis, you’ll know that he had a child by Hagar
(Ishmael, Genesis 16:15), a child by Sarah (Isaac, Genesis 21:3), and six children by Keturah (Genesis
25:1-2). Let’s examine this:
Genesis 22:2 states that God told Abraham, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you
love, and go…” So Abraham only has one son, right? Right?
What about the other verses? What about Ishmael, (the rest are Keturah’s children) Zimran,
Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishback, and Shuah? There are many, many explanations, and I will go
through some of them:
1) God puts a qualifier on “your only son” by saying “whom you love.” This deals with the
contradiction because God was saying Isaac was the only son that Abraham loved. This does
away with the problem, but it seems a little too pat (like the third answer in my last post), so I will give
a couple more explanations.
2) One explanation I will mention is given by Answers in Genesis here. The Hebrew word for
“only” is yachiyd, which can mean “special” and “unique.” If understand the article correctly, when
God said Isaac was Abraham’s “only son”, he was saying Isaac was Abraham’s “special, unique son.”
Through Isaac came Israel and the world’s savior, Jesus. Isaac, indeed, was unique.
3) When God said, “your only son,” He was referring to the fulfillment of an earlier promise to
Abraham in Genesis 15:4, “This man (talking about someone else) shall not be your heir; your very
own son shall be heir.” Ishmael was also Abraham’s son, yes, but he was not meant to fulfill this
promise. Isaac was.
How does this deal with the contradiction? Well, that means that, when God said “your only
son,” He meant “the only son that fulfilled my promise to you,” not “the only son that you have ever
had.” Hopefully this makes sense.
4) The next answer deals with context. Isaac was special (duh). He, like Moses and David,
were prototypes for the life of Christ. In this episode, Isaac represented Christ’s death on the cross.
Genesis 22:1-19 was about the story of Isaac's (almost) sacrifice. Abraham was to sacrifice Isaac
to show his faithfulness to the Lord. He went to do it, but the Lord stopped him. He had demonstrated
his faithfulness, and that was enough.
What does this have to do with the contradiction? If this option is correct, it means God wasn’t
talking about Isaac when He said, “your only son”. He was alluding to Jesus, God’s only son. Jesus
was going to be sacrificed; Isaac was going to be sacrificed. Isaac was a type of Christ, and Christ was
God’s “only Son.” This was probably an imperfect explanation, so here is a source that explains it
much better.
Number one will do in a conversation. It is basically a quick deflection, a quick answer. If it is
not satisfactory, number two is best. Three and four are… okay, but unless you can communicate them
succinctly, the first two are best. Also, Creation Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM) is another
great place for (duh) apologetics and sources.
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