The Passover Haggadah and The Gospels (Prof. Israel J. Yuval)

26/03/2020 | Na stronie od 25/03/2020

Prof. Israel J. Yuval is currently the Academic Head of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is teaching

Prof. Israel J. Yuval is currently the Academic Head of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is teaching at the Department of Jewish History at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is holding the Teddy Kollek Chair for Cultural Studies of Vienna and Jerusalem at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Israel Jacob Yuval, “‘Let Us Recite Before Him A New Song’: The Passover Haggadah and The Gospels,” (2017)

„The Passover Haggadah promises much but deliveres little. Tha Haggadah was born of the duty to recount the deliverance and exodus fom Egypt, a duty accompainded by the promise that „whoever enlarges on the telling of the Exodus is praiseworthy”. But the greater the expectatnion and promise, the geater the disappointment. The Passover Haggadah is a collection of passages that do not blend together and merge into a proper story. While the story of the exodus is meant to be the focal point of the Seder night, the redactors of the Haggadah seem to have made every possible effort to avoid telling it at all....”

„The expanation offered below is an attempt at a partial response. The underlying argument is that the Passover Haggadah is designed not merely for the purpose of telling the story of the exodus, but also to ensure that story retains its supremacy in the face of a difficult, threatening religious challenge: Christianity.”

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