The sabbath service and lecture is free and open to the public. A father's near or actual sacrifice of his beloved son is a major and recurring theme in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, one that continues to reverberate in Jewish and Christian liturgy and preaching. This set of two lectures explores this theologically rich but morally troubling theme through a close textual explication of its most sustained and influential exemplar, the Binding of Isaac in Genesis 22, and the associations that develop with Passover in Second Temple and rabbinic Judaism and with Good Friday and Easter in early Christianity. Dr. Jon D. Levenson is the Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies at Harvard Divinity School and professor of Near Eastern languages and civilizations at Harvard University. The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity.
Registration is required.