The dominant interpretation in the reception of this biblical narrative is that Cain did not sacrifice the best of his flock, whereas Abel offered God the best fruits of the land.

God accepts Abel’s sacrifice, but rejects that of Cain. Sacrifice plays an important role in this story. Cain is the villain who kills his brother. Together with his brother Abel, Cain is the main character in the story of Gen 4:1-16. Most of the unlockable characters are derived from the Bible. We then analyse the three-fold narrative structure of the game which enhances and nuances the criticism the game directs at religion. In this article, we analyse the narrative of The Binding of Isaac by performing an intertextual comparison with the Biblical narrative of Genesis 22:1-19. The game describes both the dark creativity and the mental and physical abuse associated with religion. McMillen’s inspiration came from his own experiences with his family, which was made up of both Catholics and born-again Christians. Multiple critical references to Christianity can be found in addition to the narrative: hostile embodiments of the seven deadly sins, rosaries, Bibles, and crucifixes, and unlockable characters, such as Mary Magdalene, Judas Iscariot, Samson, and Cain, who are all depicted negatively in both Jewish and Christian traditions. Both from the perspective of narrative and of game design, McMillen built The Binding of Isaac around the Biblical story of Genesis 22:1-19, which has the same name in Jewish and Christian tradition, but he placed it in a modern-day setting in which a young boy is endangered by a mentally disturbed mother who hears “voices from above” that instruct her to sacrifice her only child. Isaac is a roguelike dungeon crawler with randomly generated dungeons. The game The Binding of Isaac is an excellent example of a game that incorporates criticism of religion.

The binding of isaac 7 deadly sins