THE BODMER AQEDAH POEM

Amongst the Greek verse of the Bodmer papyri is a classicizing acrostic poem of 30 hexameters entitled “To Abraham” (Πρὸς ᾽Αβραάμ), which treats the biblical story of Abraham’s binding of Isaac (Genesis 22:1–19), the Aqedah.¹ The precise date of the text is uncertain, but it probably belongs to the middle of the fourth century AD.² The Aqedah narrative was evidently a popular subject amongst early Jewish and Christian authors,³ and inspired late antique poetic treatments in a wealth of linguistic traditions including Greek, Latin, Syriac, Aramaic, and Hebrew. The Bodmer poem therefore stands as part of a deep and