Question:  Dear Greg,

            We are having a debate on the age of Isaac when his father took him to Mt. Moriah to be sacrificed.  The Amplified Bible quotes the scholar Josephinas (sp), saying that Isaac was around 25 years old.

            Thank you,

            Deborah

Answer:  Dear Deborah,

            I believe the Jewish scholar you have in mind would be Josephus.  I am not familiar with any specific biblical proof that would provide an age for Isaac.  The only comment I would add is that this example, from a Christian perspective, seems to have relevance as we understand what John 3:16 (that great summary of the gospel) tells us.  “God so loved the world…”  Abraham and Isaac are acting out/portraying what God the Father and God the Son did for us, that we might be saved.  While there is no reason to conclude that there is a one for one correlation between everything that Abraham and Isaac did, to all of the exact details of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, it seems reasonable to conclude that Isaac might have been the same general age as Jesus Christ was.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht