Podcast: Jon Levenson on Understanding the Binding of Isaac as the Bible Understands It

By Jon D. Levenson, Tikvah Podcast at Mosaic

The temptation is overwhelming to excuse or soften the drama of Genesis 22. A leading professor of Jewish thought explains how to get past that, and what meaning lies beyond it.

Podcast: Jon Levenson

Tonight begins Rosh Hashanah, when Jewish communities celebrate the new year and, as part of this celebration, read chapter 22 of Genesis. This contains the famous story in which God asks Abraham to take his son Isaac to a mountain and offer him there as a sacrifice.

What is this passage all about? What does it mean? What can be learned about Abraham, about Isaac, or about God by reading it carefully? Joining Mosaic’s editor Jonathan Silver today to discuss these questions is Jon D. Levenson, a professor of Jewish studies at Harvard Divinity School and frequent Mosaic contributor. Levenson has written about this episode in several books, including The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son published in 1993 by Yale University Press, and also in Inheriting Abraham, published in 2012 by Princeton University Press.

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