Now a question to the Bible, how old was Ishmael when he went to Agar?
The Bible tells that Ishmael was about 16 years old when he went with Agar:
See, the chapter goes as if Ishmael was a baby whom his mother lifts then puts, and all that he is silent, which doesn’t match with a 16 yr old lad, it may be said that in Genesis 21:14, it says ” putting it on her shoulder, and gave her the child”, so it doesn’t mean that she really lifted him up, the case is that the Septuagaint tells it very clearly:
21:14 And Abraam rose up in the morning and took loaves and a skin of water, and gave [them] to Agar, and he put the child on her shoulder, and sent her away, and she having departed wandered in the wilderness near the well of the oath.
http://ecclesia.org/truth/septuagint-hyperlinked.html
I think that the reason for this is what is said in the next chapter:
Gen 22:1 And it came to pass after these things, that God did prove Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham. And he said, Here am I. Gen 22:2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, even Isaac, and get thee into the land of Moriah. And offer him there for a burnt-offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
We as Muslims believe that Ishmael was the one offered, and we believe that the Jews altered the word Ishmael to Isaac, and the above difficulty is the evidence, since the scripture tells “after these things”, which are supposed to be happened when Ishmael was a baby, and since it is supposed that Ishmael was the firstborn son of Abraham, then it will mean that the only son here means him not Isaac, so for the Jews to get rid of this problem, they rearranged the chapters, and put the story of Isaac birth before that chapter, but it yielded that difficulty.
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