How to identify your hermeneutic:
1. What assumptions to you make about the text?
2. What questions do you ask about the text?
3. What other texts* do you look at to help find an answer?
* can be things other than texts, like experiences and oral traditions. In the examples we’re looking at, it’s always a text.
text + hermeneutic = meaning
And there are those who ask, how could Abraham say: "And we will return"? And others answer that it was his intention to bring back his bones, and Abraham was deceiving them with words so that they would not move until his return, and so that Isaac would not understand and run away. And our sages say, when Isaac was bound (to be sacrificed) he was thirty-seven years old. If you say that this is an authoritative tradition I will accept it, but by reason this is not correct, since if it were Isaac's greatness should have been made known, and his reward double that of his father, since he gave himself over willingly to be killed, and the text says nothing about Isaac. Others say that he was five, but this also does not make sense because he carried the wood for the offering. What makes most sense is that he was around thirteen years old, and his father forced him and bound him against his will, and the proof is that his father hid the secret from him and said "God will find the lamb", because if he had said "you are the lamb" he would have been likely to run away.
Glossa Ordinaria on Genesis 22:1 (based on Augustine)
Aug. Jacobus dicit quod neminem tentat deus sed usualiter tentare pro eo quod est probare dicimus. Jacobus autem dicit de ea tentatione qua quisque peccato implicatur. Unde ne forte tentaverit vos is que tentat. Alibi enim scriptum est: Tentat vos deus vester, ut sciat si diligantis eum, id est, vos scire faciat. Vires enim dilectionis suae homo ignorat nisi experimento cognoscat.
Augustine. James says that God does not test anyone (James 1:12) but usually we say “to test” when what we mean is “to prove.” James, however, speaks only about a test in which someone is implicated in a sin. Whence: Lest by chance he who tests should test you (1 Thess. 3:5). Elsewhere it is written: Your God may test you, that he may know if you love him. (Deut. 13:3) That is, that he may cause you to know. A man is unaware of the strength of his love for him, unless he should know it through experience.
The Glossa Ordinaria on Genesis 22.5 (based on Alcuin)
Alc. Ego et puer etc. Indubitanti animo mactare filium volebat. Laudandus in constantia offerendi, et in fide suscitandi. Sciebat enim certissime deum fallere non posse, et licet puer occideretur, promissionem tamen dei salvam permanere. Unde apostolus: Fide abraam non hesitavit, cum unicum offeret, in quo acceperat repromissionem, quia a mortuis potens est suscitare deus.
5.3m Alcuin. He was willing to sacrifice his son with an undoubting soul, praiseworthy in the constancy of offering and in the faith of resurrecting. For he knew with greatest certainty that God could not fail, and although the boy were sacrificed, God's saving promise yet endures. Whence the Apostle: Abraham did not hesitate in his faith, when offering his only son, in whom he received the promise, believing because God is able to revive him even from death. (Hebrews 11:17-19)
והאמת כי הנסיון הזה להראות לבני עולם אהבת אברהם השלמה, ולא נעשה לאותם הדורות אלא לדורות הבאים המאמינים בתורה שכתב משה רבינו מפי האל ובספוריה שיראו עד היכן הגיע אהבת אברהם לאל; וילמדו ממנה לאהבה את ה' בכל לבבם ובכל נפשם, כי אברהם היה אוהב את יצחק יותר מנפשו כי הוא היה זקן, ואם ימות הוא, ימות בטבעו בשיבה טובה זקן ושבע ימים אבל בנו היה נער ועדיין לא היה לו אשה ובנים ולא נהנה מן העולם, ואם ימות הוא יהיה הדבר קשה לאברהם מאד. ועוד שהיה לו בן זקונים, וכשאמר לו האל שיעלהו שם לעולה היתה כל אהבה והחבה כאין בעיניו, ולא שאל ולא נסה, הלא אמרת כי ביצחק יקרא לך זרע, אלא כיון שאמר לו האל עשה כך, מיד השכים ומהר לעשות רצון האל, ולא חשב שום אהבה כנגד אהבתו, ובאמת קודם שנכתבה התורה וספוריה היה הדבר הגדול הזה מסור לזרע אברהה יצחק ויעקב כי יצחק מסר ליעקב ויעקב לבניו, ואחר שנכתבה התורה לבני יעקב נתפרסם הדבר בעולם יש מאמינים ויש שאינם מאמינים. והיום כמה שנים מיום שבטלה עבודת הצלמים והאלילים מאמינים רוב העולם בתורת משה רבינו ובספוריה, אלא שחולקים עלינו על המצות, שאומרים כי דרך משל נאמרו. ובהאמין רוב בני העולם הספור הגדול הזה הוא עדות גדולה על אברהם אבינו שהיה אוהב האל אהבה שלמה ותמה וראוי לאדם ללמוד הימנו דרך אהבתו.
And the truth is that this test was to make known to the people of the world Abraham's complete love for God, and was not done for that generation but rather for future generations who believe in the Torah that Moses our teacher wrote by God's word, and in its stories, that they will see to what extent Abraham loved God and will learn from it to love God with all their hearts and with all their souls.
...
And truly, before the Torah and its stories were written down this great thing was passed on to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because Isaac told it to Jacob and Jacob to his children, and after the Torah was written for the children of Jacob the thing was made known in the world, and there were those who believed and those who did not believe. Today, some years after the worship of idols and statues has been abolished, most of the world believes in the Torah of Moses our teacher and in its stories. They only disagree with us about the commandments in that they say that they were given to us by way of parable. And the belief of most of the world in this great story is a great proof of Abraham, that he loved God with a whole and overwhelming love, and a person should learn from him the way of his love.
For more on Jewish and Christian medieval approaches to the akedah, see my article "Akedah: How Jews and Christians Explained Abraham’s Faith" on TheTorah.com
http://thetorah.com/akedah-how-jews-and-christians-explained-abrahams-faith/