Akedah – Meanings and Interpretations in the Dialogue between Christianity and Judaism (original) (raw)
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The Ethical and Religious Revelation of the Akedah
This paper first advances a Kantian, and then a Levinasian critique of Johannes de Silentio's admiration for Abraham's faith in his Fear and Trembling. Kant and Levinas fear that Silentio's praise for Abraham may be misdirected. However, I propose that Kierkegaard's authored text, Works of Love, helps us to understand the story more fully. One goal of this paper is to advance a critical rereading of Silentio, Kierkegaard, Kant, and Levinas and their understandings of the first and second great commandments, in terms of loving God and loving the neighbor. Another goal of this paper is to critically engage nineteenth century Christian (Kierkegaard) and contemporary Jewish (Levinas) philosophies and theologies, and to explore their terrains of convergence, specifically that to love God in the proper way is equivalent to loving one's neighbor.
A Conversation with Abraham: Part I
Message of Thaqalayn
The patriarch Abraham has a special place as a central figure in all three monotheistic religions. Although essentially the “One” God that all monotheistic religions consider as their Lord, the God of Abraham in the Old Testament, Bible, and the Qur’an are arguably very different Gods. In all of the Abrahamic religions, at the most fundamental level, God is ‘the maker of heaven and earth’. Despite many other shared elements, the image of God and His characteristics diverge on other points. As the father of monotheism, Abraham’s perception of God in each text serves as an important portal into the image of God in each. In this part, God’s image and characteristics in both the Old Testament and the Qur’an will be compared and contrasted in regards to “seeing” God, His knowledge, His all-hearing quality, and His justice, and how these aspects contribute to an image of Him.
A Conversation with Abraham: Part II
Message of Thaqalayn
The patriarch Abraham has a special place as a central figure in all three monotheistic religions. Although essentially the “One” God that all monotheistic religions consider as their Lord, the God of Abraham in the Old Testament, Bible, and the Qur’an are arguably very different Gods. Part I of this series included God’s image and characteristics in both the Old Testament and the Qur’an as compared and contrasted in regards to “seeing” God, His knowledge, His all-hearing quality, and His justice, and how these aspects contribute to an image of Him. This part expounds on the rionship between God and Abraham. Throughout these stories, we get an interesting look into the nature of the relationship between God and Abraham. Although we have touched on this briefly in some of the previously-mentioned characteristics of God, the nature of the relationship between Abraham/Ibrahim and God has not been discussed in detail. Abraham’s relationship with God seems to be defined by two things: 1. His complete submission to God and lowliness in front of Him, and 2. His recognition of God’s power as the ultimate provider.
“Abraham in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Friend of God and Father of Fathers”
Abraham in Jewish and Early Christian Literature. Library of Second Temple Studies Volume 93., 2019
This chapter will review how the Jewish and Christian authors of the Pseudepigrapha discuss Abraham or use Abrahamic imagery, both in the transmission of Abraham traditions and in the creation of new tales. The episodes and characteristics of Abraham from Genesis form the basis of some Pseudepigraphic accounts, but in the characteristic fashion of Pseudepigrapha texts, new stories are created to fill in gaps or expand on the canonical record. New accounts about his youth and afterlife status are most noteworthy, and create a type of panegyric, lauding Abraham’s hospitality and righteousness which result in Abraham’s immortal, heavenly status where he can serve as an intermediary for his descendants and a model for God’s covenant people to aid them in receiving the same heavenly destination he did. In such a role, Abraham becomes the definitive friend of God and father of fathers.
Edukacja Filozoficzna
The Akedah is haunting. All three Abrahamic religious traditions take the story as foundational; it establishes Abraham as the father of these faiths, even the father of faith. It is not, though, a story one would read to a child before bedtime. A sensitive child might shiver at the apparent moral horror. Israeli author 1 This paper is based on talks given over the years at a number of institutions. An earlier version was made available on Academia.com. Thanks to all those who commented, especially to Jeff Helmreich and Joseph Almog for illuminating discussions and to Shaul Seidler-Feller for comments on the current version.
Other Abrahams: Sacrificing Faith
Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society
This article analyses the complex intermingling of positivity and negativity in the circular definition of faith, as well as the different sacrifices deemed necessary to keep the “circle” intact. The analysis departs from the first paragraph of Saint Augustine’s The Confessions, Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and two short excerpts by Franz Kafka: a reflection on “other Abrahams” in a letter to Robert Klopstock in 1921, and a fragment named “Die Prüfung”. Kafka being one of the most original interpreters of modernity’s drastic implications for religion, the aim of the article is to display and reflect upon both a continuity and discontinuity from Augustine and Kierkegaard. In Kafka, the structurally dynamic tension inherent in humanity’s relation to the divine has been stretched all the way to its breaking point, leaving us with a religious structure but without access to a living core, a faith without a possible life form.
"Willing Obedience with Doubts: Abraham at the Binding of Isaac", VT 60 (2010)
Among biblical commentators and scholars, the accepted view of Abraham in the story of the Binding of Isaac is of a one-dimensional, almost superhuman figure whose entire consciousness, on the way to sacrifice his son, is focused solely on fulfilling the Divine will. According to this view there is no textual evidence of any deliberation or hesitation in Abraham's mind, and he is to be viewed as praiseworthy for fulfilling God's will without any doubt or misgiving.