Supervisors info:
Νικόλαος Ολυμπίου, Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Θεολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Χρήστος Καραγιάννης, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Θεολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Αλεξάνδρα Παλάντζα, Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Θεολογίας, Εθνικό και Καποδιστριακό Πανεπιστήμιο Αθηνών
Summary:
My Masters project refers to the biblical narration on the sacrifice of Isaac with the title: “Moriah Land – Mount Moriah and the sacrifice of Isaac” and collocates the various versions of the text. In addition, an attempt is made on the interpretation of the narrative, under the scope of various aspects, such as: A) the research and the research findings, B) the sources of the Hellenistic and Judean writings, C) the Aramaic paraphrases of the biblical text, D) the Church Fathers, E) the historic texts, F) the art.
While an attempt to identify the mount of sacrifice with the mount where the Temple was to be founded later on is made in the in targumin and rabbinic literature, nevertheless, in their majority the Church Fathers with their distinguishing divine inspiration, as well as the Church writers, keeping the relevant tradition, almost accept that the sacrifice of Isaac was the preface of the Lord’s sacrifice on the cross. Moreover, many of them interpret symbolically and allegorically its parameters, namely the Patriarch’s three-day march to “the high land”, the way of identification of the final destination and the prophetic name given to it by Abraham, and others explicitly identify the mount of the ancient sacrifice with the horrendous Golgotha.
Finally, the Christian art establishes the tangibleness of the tradition, according to which, the God-sent events occurred at the same place over time by Divine Providence, namely the offering of Adam’s sacrifice and his burial, Noah’s offering after the flood, Abraham’s sacrifice and the Lord’s crucifixion.
Due to the fact that the contrite narration of Abraham’s sacrifice has a special and marvellous significance for the Orthodox Christians, since the mount of that sacrifice is linked to the horrendous Golgotha, despite whichever contrary opinions and theories that serve certain purposes, I cordially undertook the research of the matter, in particular under the wish, counselling and blessing of His Beatitude the Patriarch of Jerusalem and our Father, Theophilos. In addition to these, this bold undertaking was also imposed on the underwriter by emotional reasons, influenced by noble thoughts, namely that through this project he may pay a debt long due to the Holy Land, where the Holy God guided his steps since the prime of his youth, and made him their humble servant, especially at the all-sacred Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Horrendous Golgotha and the Church of the Finding of the Cross.
Keywords:
Theology, Religiion, History, Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre, Old Testament, Bible