Comment: To get an unusual angle on their story, storytellers sometimes take on the persona of someone in or close to the event they are describing. The following look at the story of Abraham's sacrifice of his son Isaac comes from a neighbor who lived in that region, a practitioner of religion and life as it was understood by the indigenous inhabitants. Dramatically, the pastor can read it out loud as if he were writing it, as I did. Or he can introduce it and let someone from the congregation read it.

Commentator: Our character telling the story is one of the local landowners who has lived in northern Canaan all his life. He is a good son as well, as you will hear in a moment, for he tells the story of Abraham and Isaac to his father. But even this non-Hebrew cannot tell the story wi…