Book Blurb: Abraham’s Curse
February 18th, 2008 by Danny ZachariasDoubleday has sent me two books which I’m happy to blurb. Here’s the first:
Abraham’s Curse: Child Sacrifice in teh Legacies of the West
Bruce Chilton
Doubleday, 2008
259 pages
Purchase from Amazon.COM or Amazon.CA
Here is the TOC:
Part 1: The Test
- Sacrificial Species, Human Offerings
- Martyrdom, the Jewish Invention
Part 2: Blood of the Lamb
- The Son’s Eternal Sacrifice
- Martyrs, in the Flesh
- Gnostic Laughter, Roman Pornography, Blood Payment
Part 3: Taking Leave of Moriah
- Ibrahim’s Sacrificial Vision
- Blood Harvest
- The Long Descent
The Book includes a subject index as well.
Here is the jacket description:
The story of Abraham’s acceptance of God’s command to sacrifice his son Isaac is one of the most disturbing of all biblical stories. Isaac is spared only at the last moment, when an angel stops Abraham’s hand. Theologians and scholars have wrestled with the question of why God asked Abraham to kill his beloved son, why Abraham acquiesced, and why in some interpretations he actually killed his son.
In Abraham’s Curse, Bruce Chilton traces the impact of the story of Abraham and Isaac on the beliefs and teachings of Judaism (where Abraham is regarded as the forefather of Israel), Islam (where he provides the role model for Muhammad), and Christianity (where he is teh ancestor of King David, whose lineage culminates in Jesus). As Chilton examines the story’s significance, he makes the case that, far from only reflecting the violence of an ancient, unenlightened time, the sacrifice of children in the name of religion is still a fundamental part of our lives and culture—from Islamist suicide bombings to militant Zionism and graphic glorifications of the Crucifixion of Christ.
How is that for a weighty subject? I’m interested to see future reviews of this book and interested in reading the portions that relate to the early church.