 I will give the floor now very quickly to my colleague Bart Kuties, Vice Dean Research of our School of Catholic Theology, and he will open this symposium in a more profound way than I can. Bart, please take the floor. I'm not so sure about that. Agibald allowed me to say three sentences. The first one is welcome to the colleagues from abroad, but welcome to all the visitors in this digital world. The COVID pandemic closed many doors, but it also learned us to open new doors. Sentence three. One of the doors opened is this digital conference about one of the most fascinating stories in the Torah, in which the door for sacrifice of children was closed forever. And the door opened for quite a few other interpretations, as we will learn today. Thank you. Jordanoff, Agibald. Yes, I'm very satisfied. Thank you all, Bart, for this very profound and also very adept introduction to this symposium. Very thankful that you will be here today in Ukraine. First of all, I want to give the floor to our first speaker of today, my colleague, Agibald van Wieringen, he's Professor of the Old Testament, the director colleague of Bart Kuties, Tilburg School of Catholic Theology. And he is specialized in Old Testament and in Isaiah and in all the other books and he never stops to amaze me with his very peculiar interpretations of difficult stories of which the Genesis is Genesis 22 is one of. So please, Agibald, start your lecture. I will start your presentation. Okay, thank you so much. Good afternoon everyone. Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, I'm mailed by PowerPoint presentation to you Bart, so you can share it with people. Yes, I see you are starting sharing wonderful. Yes, and I think Bart you see it too just to have a little check to see the PowerPoint now. Yes, very good. Thank you. So I will repeat Genesis 22 verses one to 19. In the Jewish tradition called Akkadot Yitzhak, the banner of Isaac. And in the Christian tradition, mostly called the sacrifice of Abraham has been studied in Old Testament exegesis from various perspectives. Presentation it is simply impossible to discuss all these perspectives. The reason why I have chosen just one single angle. I would like to discuss with you the question why this story is an exciting thrilling story. I do not mean why is Genesis 22 a thrilling story as a psychological question about the real readers of the text, but rather as a psychological question about the text imminent reader of this narrative. In other words, I will focus on the communication taking place within the text itself, which implies that we need a discussion of what thrilling means. While outside of the text you have to communication between a real author and a real reader inside the text we have two levels of communication. The first is at the level of the characters who perform in the story. To copy these characters are Elohim, God, Abraham, Isaac, and the two boys, the two servants who remain silent in the text. However, characters do not perform on the textual states of their own accord. A textual director is responsible for the performance. This is called the text imminent author, who by directing the characters communicates with the text imminent reader. For a neurological definition of thrilling, we have to incorporate these two communication levels, the first of the characters at a second of the text imminent author and text imminent reader. For a neurological definition, I make use of the study by Manfred Priester and titled The Theory and Analysis of Drama, original published in German entitled Does Drama. This is the neurological definition of thrilling I will use. A narrative is an exciting thrilling narrative if there is discrepancy and information between a character and a text imminent reader. I would like to go through the nine scenes our group consists of to demonstrate the discrepancies in information. But in the text imminent reader and the character is clear that discrepancies in information continue to exist even beyond the ending of the narrative. So let's start with the first scene. And it came to pass after this that got put Abraham to the test. He said to him Abraham, and he said here am I, and he said take your son your only one, your beloved one Isaac, and go to the land of Mariah and make him to an ascending offering on one of the mountains, I will say to you. The first important point here is that the text imminent author explains the communication between the characters got an Abraham. God wishes to test Abraham. Abraham does not know that it is about a test that the text imminent reader does. This implies that for the text imminent reader, not only is the question whether Abraham will offer Isaac is that issue, but also whether Abraham will pass the test. The second important point I the final words of first through that character God speaks to the character Abraham, I share Omar, a leg that I will say to you. During this, God announces that you will have further contact with Abraham. The text imminent readers curious about when God will speak to Abraham again, and what exactly he will say then. So we will move on to the second scene. And Abraham rose early in the morning, sell his donkey and took two boys with him, and his son Isaac split the word of the ascending offering stood up and went to the place that God had said to him. In the last clause of her three, I share a more lower Elohim that God had said to him is the most important one regarding the discrepancy and information between the text imminent reader and the characters. This clause says that God gave Abraham information about the exact place able as to go to has got announced in his direct speech to Abraham in the previous verse. The itself of this new contact between God and Abraham, however, is not told in the narrative. It is an ellipsis. The text imminent reader now knows that these two characters were in touch, but he does not know what exactly was said in this context. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place far off. Abraham said to his boys, stay here with the donkey. Me and the boy want to go there to bow down and then return to you. Abraham took the wood for the ascending offering and laid it on his son Isaac and took in his hand the fire and the knife, and they both went together. So on the third day Abraham sees the place where he has to go. He leaves the servants with the donkey at the foot of the mountain. However, the word he says in doing so raise questions for the text imminent reader. Abraham will come back with Isaac. That is not what the text immediately expects based on the test to sacrifice Isaac. Maybe Abraham does not want to upset his servants and neither Isaac. After Isaac speaks to his servants, Abraham takes the things he needs for the sacrifice, wood carried by Isaac and the fire and the knife carried by himself. And Abraham and Isaac go together without any trace of tension or fear. Let's move on to the fourth scene. Isaac said to Father Abraham, he said, my father, and he said, here I am, my son, and he said, okay, here are the fire and the wood, but where is the land for the ascending offering? Abraham said, got himself or sees the land for the ascending offering my son, and they both went together. After the communication between the characters Abraham and his servants, we hear about the communication between the characters Isaac and Abraham. Isaac has a question for his father. I will not missing something to make a sacrifice. To make clear what is missing, Isaac enumerates what is not missing the fire and the wood. The text imminent reader notices that Isaac does not mention the knife. The knife seems to be absent in Isaac's perspective. The text imminent reader knows the answer to Isaac's question. He is the alternate land for the sacrifice. However, that is not the answer Abraham gives. Abraham states that God will take care of the sacrificial lamb. For the text imminent reader this answer can be interpreted into ways. Maybe Abraham says so in order not to frighten his son. Maybe Abraham knows more than the text imminent reader knows. After all, there was indeed an extra but untold communication between God and Abraham. At the end, Abraham will turn out to have spoken the truth. God will provide a sacrificial animal. And Abraham and Isaac continue to go on together without any trace of tension or fear. Let's reach the fifth scene. Abraham came to the place that God had said to him. Abraham built the altar there, arranged the wood, bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham put forth his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. For the text imminent reader this scene brings the tension to a climax. Isaac arrived at the place God told Abraham about in the elliptic direct speeds. Abraham prepares everything for the sacrifice, even if son Isaac as the one who has to be sacrificed. First ten forms the three blocks of being. But a flooring is not there. Meanwhile, Isaac is calm. The text imminent reading is nothing about him. After all, in Isaac's perspective, the knife is absent. What could happen to him? Probably nothing. Let's move on to the sixth scene. Then the messenger of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abram, Abram, and he said, here I am. He said, you must not put forth your hand to the boy and do nothing to him. Yes, now I have come to know that you are God fearing and that you have not withheld from me your son, your only one. The messenger of the Lord interferes by calling Abram and saying to him to do nothing to Isaac. However, the content of his direct speech is not only about forbidding to harm Isaac. He also states that Abram has passed the test. It has become clear that Abram is really God fearing because he did not withheld his only son, Isaac, from God. The text imminent reader already knows that it was about the test. But now he also knows that the test has been successfully administered. In this way, it appears to the text imminent reader that for passing the test, it is indeed necessary for Abram to give away his only son on the one hand. But it is prohibited to slaughter him on the other hand. After all, the verb chagat to slaughter was not present in God's direct speech in which he formulated the test to Abram. We go on to the seventh scene. Then Abram lifted up his eyes and saw for sure a ram behind with its horns tangled in a cigarette. And Abram went and took the ram and made it to ascending offering in statorism. Then Abram called the name of that place the Lord foresees. That is why it is said today, on the mountain of the Lord it is foreseen. Verse 13 describes the activities of Abram after the direct speech of the messenger of the Lord. The text imminent reader hears the same verbs as in the previous verses. Now sa et enaim to lift up the eyes, ra'a to see, halach to go, and lahak to take. However, this time these activities are not related to Isaac, but to Orem that appears to be there. The so-called of Mersamkites erreke he nei, for sure, marks this shift to the sacrificial animal. Now the activity of making an ascending offering is present in the text as an event. The moment the ram takes the place of the single and beloved son, Abram can be spoken of as making a sacrifice. Right after the offering, the place be given a name. The place that was introduced in the text by an elliptic direct speech of God to Abram is no longer an anonymous place. Abram calls the name of this place Adonai kirei, the Lord foresees. This is in line with what is said in verse 8 in answer to his son Isaac that God himself provides the lamb of the ascending offering. By the way, in the Hebrew text the verb ra'a means both to see and to provide. And that is the reason why I used the English verb to foresee in my working translation to bring these two meanings of the verb together. For the text-seminant reader, this seventh scene is ambiguous. On one hand, the of Mersamkites erreke he nei, for sure, in verse 13 could imply that Abram too is amazed that there is a sacrificial animal for the ascending offering. On the other hand, the character Abram seemed to know more than the text-imminent reader, and now he appears to be right. In the second part of verse 14, I sheer jea mere ha'yom behar Adonai ye ra'e. That is why it is said today on the mountain of the Lord that is foreseen that text-imminent author steps out of the narrative and discusses the consequences of the narrative for the present day. This ha'yom today connects the text of the narrative to the day of reading by the text-imminent reader. The text-imminent reader, therefore, is hidden in the passive verbal form jea mere, it is said. The text-imminent author thus invites the text-imminent reader to say the name of the place along with the character Abram. In a way, he solves the discrepancy in information between the text-imminent reader and the character Abram. Let's move on to the eighth scene. Then the messenger of the Lord called to Abram a second time from heaven and said, By myself I have sworn that you must not stop from your only one. Yes, therefore, I will surely bless you and make your seat numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the shore of the sea. And may your seat inherit the gate of your enemies. And in your seat, all the nations of the earth will be blessed because you have listened to my voice. Once again, for a second time, the messenger of the Lord speaks to Abram. For the text-imminent reader, the effect of this is to emphasize the heavenly message. The climax of this second time becomes visible in three aspects. Firstly, the direct speech confirms twice that Abram has passed the test at the beginning of the direct speech in verse 17 and at the end of the direct speech in verse 18. Secondly, the direct speech of the messenger of the Lord contains an embedded direct speech of the Lord himself, marked by the formula Um Adonai at runs of the Lord in verse 16. What is said, therefore, is certainly the Lord's opinion. Thirdly, not only is Abram promised descendants, literally Zara seat in the Hebrew text, but verses 17 and 18 also describe the activities of the seat of Abram. They will inherit the gates of their enemies and they will be the instrument of blessing of all the nations. Due to these described activities, the seat of Abram is present like a textual character, although it is not yet present on the textual stage on which the characters perform. However, if the text-imminent reader can relate himself to this future character, the text-imminent reader himself is the fulfillment of this climactic promise of the Lord. Let's go on to the last scene. Then Abram returned to his boys and they stood up and went together to Beersheba and Abram stayed in Beersheba. The last scene, too, trackers the text-imminent reader. It is Abram who returns, he alone, whereas Isaac, according to the text, on the mountain. After all, Isaac has been given away to God. The text-imminent reader has heard this in the direct speeches of the Messenger of the Lord a couple of times. Because Isaac has indeed been given away to God, but not sacrificed, Isaac cannot possibly return. This, however, implies that on the one hand, the words Abram spoke to his servants in verse 5 that he and the boy, after bowing down on the mountain, would return, now appear to be not true. Although, on the other hand, Abram did speak the truth that he was not going to sacrifice his son Isaac. At the end of the narrative, therefore, it still remains unclear what exactly the discrepancy and information between the character Abram and the text-imminent reader involves. In other words, even in the ending of the story, the narrative remains partly thrilling and exciting. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Archibald, for your presentation. So I will give the floor then to my colleague and friend from Lviv, Ukraine. Archibald and I, we went together to your beautiful country and your city. And you showed us much hospitality and enough humor, as you already expressed to us. You are Pavlo Smucnuk, if I say it correctly, but please correct me. He is the director of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies at the Ukraine Catholic University in Lviv. Again, Ukraine and the floor is all yours. Yes, thank you very much for the presentation, Frank. And also grateful to Archibald and you for the initiative of this conference. And I think that's important that we resist COVID in such a way and cooperate together. So in my paper, I would like to draw on the Genesis 22 story and the exegesis of the passage by a Jewish scholar, Martin Buber and a Russian Orthodox, think Vladimir Solovio, in order to reflect on the question of discernment. Now, in a certain sense, the choice put before Abraham is a choice put before all of us. Not that it is asked of us to sacrifice our children or fatherhood or family for God, although some may feel that way, but in terms of discernment of the voice of God. In his fear and trembling, Zoran Kierkegaard says that Abraham's dilemma made him difficult, sleepless. And one could wonder whether for Kierkegaard the problem was purely of a theoretical nature or whether it was directly linked to his personal situation. Almost certainly it was a personal question, but so it should be personal question for us. Now, I have chosen Martin Buber to lead me in my reflection, not only because he is very helpful in thinking about the Akheda and discernment, but also because he is connected to Lviv, the city where our faculty is based. Buber, who was born in Vienna, spent his youth in Lemberg, in Austrian Lviv, when his grandfather Solomon Buber raised him. And I think that we should also start and promote him more. So on several occasions, Martin Buber responds to Kierkegaard's reflection on Akheda. Buber's point is that Kierkegaard took for granted that Abraham had the voice of God. Now, this assumption of the argument goes should be tested, for Molov imitates the voice of God. Buber in his essay on the suspension of the ethical gives the following summary of Kierkegaard's argument. Kierkegaard sets forth the idea that there is a teleological suspension of the ethical, that the validity of a moral duty can be at times suspended in accordance with the purpose of something higher. When God commands one to murder his son, the immorality of the immoral is suspended. In the place of the universally valid step something which is founded exclusively in a personal relation between God and the single one, the Abraham. There are three aspects in relation to Abraham action, which are worth emphasizing here. First is the immorality of the act. Second, the personality of the one who transcends ethics. And third, the modality of this action. The first point is the act intrinsic immorality. We call it sacrifice, but what we have in fact is a command to murder. The second point is that the suspension of the ethical is not a universal dispensation, but something that is entrusted to the single one. Which means somebody who has a special relationship with God which overshadows all other relationships. The third aspect is that the reason for the action for the command reminds unknown. And thus the action needs to be kept in secret, in isolation. In fact, Abraham does not explain what he is doing to Sarah, nor to Isaac. I would suggest that three aspects reinforce each other. The silence is needed to allow the relationship with God to remind the priority relationship, which transcends responsibility, in very literal sense of the term. Abraham does not need to respond to anybody about what he's going to do. As Jacques Derrida puts it, by keeping the secret, Abraham's betrays ethics. He doesn't care about the others. He and God is what matters. Martin Buber rightly criticizes this Kierkegaardian dichotomy between the relationship with God and with other human beings. I quote, that is sublimely to misunderstand God. Creation is not a hurdle on the road to God. It is the road itself. We are created along with another, and directed to a life with one another. Creatures are placed in my way so that I, their fellow creature, by means of them, and with them find the way to God, and quote. But if you reject the very possibility of the dichotomy between God and others, or if you want between theocracy and ethics, as Buber seems to advise, then how do we interpret the Akedah? Buber evades a direct answer to this question, but suggests some possible approach. Buber argues, and this is a key moment for my argument, that Kierkegaard takes for granted something that cannot be taken for granted. He does not take into consideration the fact that the problematics of the decision of faith is preceded by the question of hearing itself. Who is it whose voice one hears? Buber says that for Kierkegaard it is self-evident because of the Christian tradition in which he grew up, that he who demands the sacrifice is known other than God. But for the Bible, at least for the Old Testament, it is not without further question self-evident, end quote. Buber cites the case of the census of Israel by David, by King David, while in the second book of Samuel the instigation for the counting is ascribed to God in the first chronicles it is ascribed to Satan. Buber then makes more complex the choice with which Abraham is faced. The problem is not only whether or not to sacrifice his son, but whether or not the command comes from God. Therefore, knowing that Moloch imitates the voice of God, the primary question should be, are you really addressed by the absolute or one of his aims? The complexity of this discernment is pointed in a different way by Russian Orthodox Vladimir Salavio. He implies that in order to discern the view of God, one needs a bit of ethical formation. Salavio suggests that Abraham would have benefited from a better understanding, which actually implies the discernment not exclusively as a matter of individual and God, but presence of the community. Salavio doesn't question the opportunity that Abraham should sacrifice something or announce. Salavio says that it's important to distinguish between the natural love and relationship on the one hand, and what he calls divine human life, but the Chelević's territory. So, Salavio in a way as Kierkegaard argues that in order to become the true ancestor of divine human life, Abraham needs to and other people need to renounce in spirit their natural relationships and attachments. In fact, Salavio says that Abraham gives his son to God and receives Isaac back as the son of Abraham and of God, the prototype of Jesus. However, elsewhere, Salavio underlines the complexity. He argues, I quote, Abraham who had the greatest moral receptivity, but an insufficient knowledge of what is contained in the idea of the good decided to kill his son. He was fully conscious of the imperative of the higher will, but was lacking in the conception of what may and what may not be the object of God's will. A clear proof that even saints stand in need of moral philosophy, end quote. If Buber suggests the need for discernment with regard to whether the voice one hears is from God or of Morlov, Salavio insists that even if the voice is that of God, it should be properly understood and interpreted. I suggest that there is an important lesson to be learned from this. Dissermant is a process that ought to happen on every level in the life of the church and individual Christian. And I would like in what follows to focus on a couple of issues. First, on the complexity of discernment in the modern world of fake news and post-true. Second, on the theological discernment of good, which transcends, as I will argue, the border between the religious and the secular world. According to Buber, although the Bible gives some suggestions regarding discernment, for example, God speaks with the voice of a thin silence while Morlov speaks with the mighty roaring. In modernity, it appears to be extremely difficult to distinguish one from another. Our is an age in which the suspension of the ethical feels the world in a caricaturized form. The result is the confusion of the relative is the absolute, a life of illusion. The idea of the difficulty of modernity is expressed by another Jewish thinker, Emmanuel Levinas, who also in his youth lived in Ukraine, in Harkov, in Eastern Ukraine, in the modern world, no one is identical to himself. Nothing gets said for no word has its own meaning. All speech is a magical whisper. No one listens to what you say. Everyone suspects behind your words and not said a conditioning and ideology. And this resonates with Buber's point about that, what he says, epidemic sickening of the world in our time by which every world is at once covered with the leprosy of routine and changed into a slogan. And perhaps contemporary populism, populism, Ukraine is a country run by a comedian, and religious fundamentalism, yes, with the politicization of religion and cultural wars, they serve appropriate illustration of what Buber and Levinas are speaking about. This leads us to the question of the post-truth, yes, the mixture of truth and appearance mentioned by the Buber and Levinas. Yes, they are probably the essence of what today we call post-truth, a recent document on post-truths, launching for the truth that makes us free, produced by a group of Ukrainian scholars under the leadership of Miroslav Marinovich, which is here in Mangas, points out the extent to which post-truth in the modern world is linked to illusion. The problem is that today fake news appears. The question, of course, is whether in this context of modernity and illusion there is any place for the sacrifice. I expected from Buber to lament the lack of sacrifice in the modern world. Yes, the world that we say is full of hedonism and greed. But actually, he goes in a completely different direction. He says that in modernity, people are too easily prone to sacrifice. They give their integrity for some ideals, be it freedom or equality. One could see in this a criticism of modern ideologies of nationalism, perhaps the count of progress. But we are also allowed to see here a question of the sacrifice, perhaps, to which the Church has been encouraging to make its members. It's not the fight for the so-called traditional family values, a new crusade in which we are called to fight or die. Deus won't, freshman. This leads me to my final point, the discernment within the Church and the secular. In the reflection on the effects of post-Constantinian situation of the Church, Solovio asks, as Christians have renounced the spirit of Christ in their exclusive dogmatism, one-sided individualism and spiritualism, where has the spirit concealed itself, the spirit of God? Of character, religious tolerance, justice, as the work of the spirit, as God's action within the secular society, I quote, if Christians in name have betrayed the purpose of Christ, why can't those who are not Christians in the name and who renounced Christ in their words serve a purpose of Christ? In the Gospel we read of two sons. One said to the Father, I will go and doesn't go, and the other said I will not go and went. Which of the two did the will of his father ask Solovio? I think that the implication of this is that obedience or rejection of the will of God doesn't coincide with the division between the Church and the secular. On the one hand theology should be willing to and capable of discerning God's action outside the institutional and sacramental borders of the Church. As Jean Danielou suggests, it is through the modern signs of time that God challenges the Church, so that the dialogue of the Church and the modern world is at the end of the day a dialogue of God with God, since it is God who speaks to the Church and it is God who speaks to the world. On the other hand, the memory of the sinfulness of the Church as the customary tricks which appears when we think about the sexual scandals etc. should be in front of our eyes every time we engage in the discernment. Joseph Ratzinger, whose best day is tomorrow, has often commented on the deconious African theological writer of the 4th century who pointed out the fact that the Church's body is bipartite, blessed and sinful, that of Christ and that of antichrist, which co-exist in history and can be separated only in the eschatology. To conclude, theology, particularly Eastern Christian theology, has often taken for granted that the Church acts as the force for good and needs to resist the secular world. The akanda, the way Bubra and Solovyov reflect upon it, help us to challenge such an approach. Our icons and Taras will be speaking of icons later on, after icons should not be black and white. The condemnation of the secular world should not be absolute, unable of discerning the good outside the Church and the evil within. We should not forget that God can speak to and through the world, while more of sacrificial voice can be taken for the real of God in the Church. For I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Thank you for your attention. Thank you, for your inspirational talk about Genesis 22. I have a pleasure now to introduce Frank Bosman, who is a cultural theologian at the Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, specialized in religion and digital games. He will be presenting on the unbinding of Isaac, religion criticism in the digital game, The Binding of Isaac. Please, Frank. Yes, thank you, Taras so much. Thank you all for being in our would be very welcome to introduce you in the wondrous world of video games. But for this, I will share my screen again. And it would be very nice if someone would say, EA, we see YouTube here, then I know. Yes, very good. Well, The Binding of Isaac is a 2011 top down dungeon crawler video game made by Edmund McMillan. He's a very famous video game developer also responsible for a super meat boy. And for the end this night, this case he has made for us in 2011, The Binding of Isaac. What I'm going to do, I'm going to show you the introduction of the game. I will show you some gameplay and I will give you the epilogue of the game. And after that some of the endings of the game. And you will see that the game, The Binding of Isaac has a intertextual relationship with the story of the same by the same name introduced to us by my colleague Archibald van Wieringen. But the text imminent author of this video game has a very typical, a very different view compared to the traditional ones concerning the story of The Binding of Isaac. So we will have a very dynamic intertextual relationship. I will show it to you and then together we will work our way through it. First of all the introduction to The Binding of Isaac. Isaac and his mother lived alone in a small house on a hill. Isaac kept to himself drawing pictures and playing with his toys as his mom watched Christian broadcasts on the television. Life was simple and they were both happy. That was until the day Isaac's mom heard a voice from above. Your son has become corrupted by sin. He needs to be saved. I will do my best to save him my lord. Isaac's mother replied rushing into Isaac's room removing all that was evil from his life. Again the voice called to her Isaac's soul is still corrupt. He needs to be cut off from all that is evil in this world and confess his sins. I will follow your instructions lord. I have faith in thee. Isaac's mother replied as she locked Isaac in his room away from the evils of the world. One last time Isaac's mom heard the voice of God calling to her. You've done as I've asked but I still question your devotion to me to prove your faith. I will ask one more thing of you. Yes lord anything Isaac's mother begged. To prove your love and devotion I require a sacrifice. Your son Isaac will be this sacrifice. Go into his room and end his life as an offering to me to prove you love me above all else. Yes lord she replied grabbing a butcher's knife from the kitchen. Isaac watching through a crack in his door trembled in fear scrambling around this room to find a hiding place. He noticed a trapped door to the basement hidden under his rug. Without hesitation he flung open the hatch just as his mother burst through his door and threw himself down into the unknown depths below. Yes this introduction to the vining of Isaac I will now show you a little bit of random gameplay of the game we see here little Isaac and he cries all the time and with the help of his tears he can throw balls at enemies that primarily consists of feces blood and tears. Okay I don't I don't like Dingle's little comrades here. I mean there's no big deal I guess. Okay this is the worst part when he rushes at you. He has the runs! Oh dear that almost got me. There we go look at that. Well I guess I gotta get Dingle's Monstros, Monstros Tooth. I missed what it said. Monstros Tooth. Well as you can imagine I could watch it for three hours at a time but I'm not sure that you could I could do that too so let's wrap this game up at the end of the game you will have to defeat this little Isaac has to defeat the mother monster like a monstrous version of his own mother and when you succeed in overcoming the mother monster you will get the epilogue. And that is the epilogue so as you already have noticed of course is that we see here a not only a version of the story of the binding of Isaac in which the textbook author has to cope with all the blanks and the gaps in the original biblical texts and has to give Abraham and gave Isaac a body with eyes and a collar and hair whatever but the textbook author did so much more he recontextualizes this to a contemporary setting not on a mountain two or three thousand years ago but on on the house still on the hill but nevertheless a house in contemporary well perhaps America of the United Kingdom. We have a gender reversal we not have a father but we have a mother the mother does not have a name in in a comparison Abraham did have a name when in the original biblical text the the the architects it was the main character was Abraham he was the hero of the story he his faith in God was so great that he would even sacrifice his only son and that would prove how much Abraham loved God Abraham is the hero of the biblical story here it is reversed Isaac here is the is the hero of the game story and he is the one who has to overcome his murderous parents in order to survive in the biblical text the voice of God is just there well in the game the voice of God can only be heard by the mother the mother who watches christian broadcast television the whole day and the game story clearly indicates that this woman is a little bit mad so on the first glance you would say that this video game gives a religion critical approach to the story of the binding of Isaac which has done by so many critics critics and atheists alike the last decades so from the top of our mind we could say this is a religion critical interpretation of the binding of Isaac in which the text imminent imminent author suggests that you have to be crazy to think that there is a god who wants you to sacrifice his only son and that such a thing would be good would be morally right to do so so the game problematizes in the first the obedience of the father or the mother which was exactly the thing in the biblical context that made Abraham the hero he was but the game is more complex than meets the eye we can see here that these are drawings in black and white but there is like a a a desk at the back at the pencil and a little thumb sometimes a fly comes over the paper and then at the end of the prologue let's go to that we see Isaac and then we see just not not the black and white drawings but now we see a pink Isaac in his room there's a door there are some pictures behind him on the wall he is holding a paper in his hand presumably the one we just saw and the same happens at the end I'm so sorry at the end of the epilogue so we see a triumphant Isaac triumphant over the mother monster and we see again Isaac as he is the the the the drawer of the drawings we just witnessed but then the silhouettes of the mother appears in the door with a sharp knife in her hand presumably suggesting that Isaac did not escape his mother but he only thought he escaped his mother so now we get a second communication scheme we get a second narrative layer in this game that is that Isaac is confronted with a murderous parent murderous murderous mother and he tries to psychologically cope with that fear how is it possible that your mother from all people is the one who's trying to murder you and then Isaac concentrates a a a narrative a world a framework in which it makes sense for him that his mother is the one trying to kill him not because it is his fault in the first place but we got she believes that God asks this from her and of course he is called Isaac so he will have knowledge of the christian bible his mother watches christian broadcast television he will know the biblical story of his namesake of the old testament so with all the knowledge of the biblical story he has a recreates a narrative around himself in which it makes sense that his mother is the one who's trying to murder him so from a straight on religion critical approach to the biblical story we now go to a psychological coping mechanism but there is even more when you walk through the different endings there are 11 endings in this game or even more but we won't go into that and then we see just a moment yes late let's take this one you have multiple unlockable characters in the game he switches to all the unlockable characters you have in the game like Mary Magdalene Eva Judah Samson all characters from the Old and New Testament which are not without some problem so to say devil now we see him in the chamber again room again and he locks himself into the chest now the other ends give you a combined vision of what happened one time you see Isaac drawing on his uh on his desk and you'll hear you can hear two people a man and a woman scream to one another they fight with one another and then you see him turning very sad he looks into the mirror he sees his own image changed into that of a devilish version of himself he's reading in the bible he's hiding in this chest you see his mother walking outside with a wanted poster to see if if someone has seen her child and eventually she opens the the chest and she finds her own son dead also in the other ending you'll see pictures pictures of the parents the father and the mother of Isaac and a daughter a daughter who is never ever mentioned anywhere in the whole game but then you see that the mother and father have a crawler with one another in on the pictures you see the mother with a knife high up to the father you see the father leaving the house on the hill and then you can understand the third narrative layer in this game the third communication level in this game that is Isaac's parents were in a terrible fight with one another probably a divorce probably a very violent and disturbing divorce in which the mother raises her arm against her husband and the husband the father of Isaac leaves the house then you see that Isaac tries to find a psychologically satisfying framework for himself to cope with the image of his two parents fighting and as many children of the fourth parents do he eternalizes the the the cause of the separation of his father he blames himself for the divorce of his parents so he sees himself as the devil he sees himself as the culprit he sees himself as the one who did eventually causes the separation of his parents and for this he has to die so on the first level we we see a story of religion criticism how can someone believe that it is morally okay to murder your child because a voice from above tells you to do so then on the second level we have a psychological coping mechanism by which someone can try to come to terms with a murderous parents and we have a third level in which we see that the in which we see the the emotional and psychological trauma that is cast for children by the violent divorce of their parents well this is an example one of the many examples but one of the more interesting examples of a rendering of the biblical story of the binding of Isaac a modern contemporary culture we see here in in very complex very complex intertextual relationship with the biblical story which appears to be a destructive one in the first layer which becomes more difficult more complex and we are deconstructive as we pass on to the next narrative level and this is what I wanted to share with you thank you all for your attention I will stretch but let me give you the honor to us to introduce introduce you and and like you did with me and Timo is the device dean of international relations of the ukraine catholic university also in the beef he's a very famous theologian and specialized in early christianity patristics and the theology of the icon it is an honor for me to announce his lecture and sacrificed but not killed go ahead thank you very much Frank the very famous part is overstated but everything else is is correct okay I will take I will take a more positive approach I would say to this story after those quite dramatic presentations and correctly so because the story is really disturbing and even in the text of the story we can see this dramatizing feature especially expressed in the question of which is actually very essential detail is central to the story at least this is central to the reading of the story in early christian in jewish in early christian and in the Byzantine patristic tradition and in my presentation I will try to look at this story precisely through the lens of those traditions at the beginning few words of apology is our view for the patristic approach to the interpretation of the holy scripture because this is not what we are used to sometimes the link between the primary event or the primary story that is the interpretation for the believing community is not obvious for us and sometimes it can be perceived by us as artificial and stretched we have to understand and I'm sure you do that patristic exegesis is not built on the foundation of historical critical method to which we are used and fathers the church which can interpret the center of the characters do not ask themselves the primary question of what actually happened historically in the text of what was in the mind of the author that wrote that this text but their concern was more with the interplay between the text and the community for which they interpreted this text this approach is quite evident even in the new testament references to this text to the genesis text and the first explicit reference to the akedah in the new testament is in the 11th chapter chapter of the letter to the Hebrews verse 19 saying Abraham considered that God was able to raise men even from the dead hence figuratively speaking he did receive Isaac his son back this quote is central for my presentation for two reasons first of all it alludes to the idea that despite Abraham's fears his son did not die he was as if risen from the dead which for the author of the Hebrews has obviously Christological connotation as certain prophetic image of the resurrection of Christ so again sacrifice but not killed second wise quote representation is because of the use of this mysterious phrase and paravoli or and parable in another pronunciation translated here as figuratively speaking but there are there is a number of ways you can translate this phrase into English it's it's a pretty unconventional way of expressing this idea that the story has typological or symbolical significance and is not to be read and understood at face value but has to be penetrated under the surface of it it's literary meaning and understood in some kind of prophetic sense as I said before the approach of this kind of interpretation is not historical critical but symbolic and deeply relational it establishes the relationship it's it's not in the text in itself it's not asking the question whether Abraham being a Mesopotamian a Chaldean man of his time could possibly have an idea of the resurrection of the dead from the point of view of biblical history and biblical theology this is not possible because we are told by biblical scholars that the idea of the resurrection is very late and it's might have a Hellenistic origin and so on so the author of the letter to the Hebrews referring to the notion of resurrection in inference to Abraham seems to be speaking complete nonsense from a dual biblical theology but what he's interested in is not in the mind of Abraham he's not interested in the story in itself in its proper historical context but he's interested in the symbolic meaning of the story for his believing community and as you know the the word symbolic comes from symbolic bringing together coming together quite similar this keyword of this passage parabolic it's it can be rendered differently but again etymologically it means to put something next to something else to compare something or to correspond correlate between two things so again the idea in this story is to correlate the experience of Abraham and Isaac to the experience of believing Jew or believing early Christians and to their sacramental and liturgical lives so I will be looking at various aspects of this story specifically how Jews and much more in much more detailed early Christians understood this and liturgical story the two key concepts of the akedah that tied them tied this story to the community are faith and sacrifice faith does not need more explanation because Abraham is referred to traditionally in Jewish and in Christian and I think even in Muslim traditions as the father of all who believed or the father of the faithful and the sacrifice is the climax point of his faithfulness when he actually decides to sacrifice his son who is the the essence of his life the essence of all promises of God to sacrifice him to God but the sacrifice although as if summoned by God is turned away is rejected by God and is vicariously as we might say substitute with the animal sacrifice this story is is traditionally viewed as a positive story not as the story of malicious God who is demanding blood sacrifice of children as a matter of fact this cult of sacrificing the children or human beings in general is harshly rebuked and rejected throughout the Old Testament but this story is viewed as a positive example of turning turning point away from the practice of human sacrifice exclusion of human sacrifice from the proto-Israelite religion if we look at the Abraham story it has three highlight points the call the promise of the son and the in which Abraham is kind of manifest in his hierarchy of values by placing God over his own interests and even over the life of his own son so this that would be like traditional reading of that story here I illustrate the sixth century mosaic from ravina from Italy which actually combines the two doesn't have the call of Abraham but it has the visitation of Abraham by the three men and the sorrow to whom the promise of of the son was made and then this happy part of the story is kind of counterbalanced by the dramatic tragic story of the sacrifice of Abraham in which he is prepared to slain his only son but the hand from heaven that represents this voice of God or the angel of God is stopping him and replacing the prepared sacrifice of his son with the sacrificial ram or lamb um the story the Abraham figure is contested by several religions Judaism Christianity and Islam and same with the akedah story um we know that Jews and Samaritans had dispute over whose is the and that dispute was expressed in the um in the controversy over the place the location of the akedah because in the Jewish tradition the the mountain mentioned in the Genesis story the mountain of Morita was identified with Zion the mountain in Jerusalem on which the temple of God was built and in the Samaritan story alternatively this mountain was identified as their holy mountain to Gerasim also this fresco we are seeing here from this synagogue was made in the mid second third century it's the earliest representation of akedah one of the earliest in visual art and certainly the the rare representation in the Jewish art and it was made in the holiest place in the synagogue in a niche in the wall in which Torah is placed so this central place in the synagogue was decorated with with this story of as you can see it's rather roughly made from artistic point of view uh Abraham holding his son as if he was a baby although we know the story that he was an older boy uh grown up boy and uh scholars suggest that the placing of this akedah uh visual representation in this central place in the synagogue points to certain controversy between Christians and Jews uh in this location in Duraevrop was there was a Jewish community with the synagogue and the Christian community which also left us some remnants of the baptisterium and and the church and due to the closeness of two communities this contested story was represented by the Jews to emphasize that it is their own story not the Christian one um so back to my point that Isaac is sacrificed but not killed it's important I think it's actually the central central idea to the story because the whole story is speaking about the liberation it's the liberation of Isaac it's unbinding of Isaac as a friend just spoke on the material of this computer game but in the biblical story the unbinding of Isaac is exactly precisely the message of the whole story and the story was read as such not only by early Christian commentators but also by Jews themselves and hence the Exodus pass over and then in the early Christian tradition with the Easter with the resurrection of Jesus and the connection is built on the fact that this story of the sacrifice of Abraham is actually the manifestation of his ultimate faithfulness towards God and fulfillment of all the promises that God gave him and then the happy ending of the story that Isaac is not actually slain but substituted with the rem points to the fact that he was eventually unbound from his feathers he was actually freed and his life was preserved and the community of Jews celebrated this freedom of freeing up of Isaac in the same line as it was celebrating the freedom the liberation of people from the captivity from the slavery in Egypt and possession of the holy land and then Christians obviously added on the top of that their own reading their own association of this liberation with the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus at which we will look just in a minute. Also we have to make a correction that sometimes in the tradition this story is called the sacrifice of Abraham and sometimes sacrifice of Isaac and we have to be explicit that absolute majority of the traditional sources if we speak of the fathers of the church of early period make the emphasis that it is the sacrifice of Abraham again because Isaac was not sacrificed he was not slain but it does not diminish the dignity of the sacrifice of Abraham because he actually made this final step into the abyss so to speak he actually agreed to the fact that he can sacrifice his son for God and he made his ultimate sacrifice which was appreciated and recognized by God and returned as the ultimate blessing on Abraham. This line of thinking about sacrifice is picked up in a number of New Testament texts probably most significant of which is John 316 what has allowed the world so much as to sacrifice his son for the sake of humankind and so the story of the sacrifice of Abraham is clearly on the background of this Johannine saying then a number I will not tire you with numerous patristic quotations that would take just way too long time but just will refer to a few familiar names like Irenaeus and some other early church fathers who draw explicit connection between the story of the sacrifice of Abraham and read it as a prophetic prefiguration prophetic symbol all testament symbol of the sacrifice of the divine son of God in the New Testament I will not read the quotes they are here on on the screen you can see them for yourself again the emphasis in all those early patristic commentaries on the sacrifice of Abraham is moral sacrifice so to speak not the physical death of Isaac other church fathers such as Ephraim the Syrian and Gregory the Nazian Zen refer to the sacrifice of Abraham as the great symbol or the prototype of the great sacrifice obviously meaning by the great sacrifice be death and resurrection of Jesus why death and resurrection we will see again in a minute on the following slides it's not only death and not only resurrection but the two are brought together in this Genesis story so the sacrifice and passion of Jesus is seen in this story not in the death of Isaac which did not happen but it's seen in the various circumstances of the story as they are described the patristic exegesis is often built on small features of the text that might seem insignificant to us but they served as markers for tracing certain theological ideas throughout the bible the same technique was used by the rabbis in their midrash tradition sometimes they would pick up one word and and spin off from that word many uh unexpected theological ideas in this in this text it's the word taxis translated and understood as firewood needed for making fire and for the sacrifice but it's in the at least in the Septuagint tradition of the bible the the xelon is often read as the again prophetic symbol of the cross in the old testament and in the later christian greek speaking christian tradition i have to i'm so sorry but i have to remind you that we only have five minutes before we have to give the floor to your colleague jury yeah i'm i'm i'm finishing i'm finishing um so uh there is explicit i explicit link with the passion of jesus signaled as if in some keywords in this uh in this story on which abraham seen the uh mount to which he was uh heading and the figure of the lamb or the ram uh of god that will be killed so the killing of the ram is actually the old testament prefiguration or prophetic symbol of the death of jesus not the killing of isaac um also this story is seen in the early church as a kind of digmatic sacrifice in ancient liturgies the three sacrifices are mentioned that of abel of abraham and of melchizedek and this is reported by ambrose but it can be seen in various ancient anaphras um okay i will just skip it and the isaac in the story is not the type of is the type of jesus resurrection the unbinding or losing of isaac from his bonds and saving him from death serves for the church fathers as a type of jesus being eventually free from death or in later patrician interpretations the ram is identified with the human nature of christ that suffered and died on the cross and isaac is identified with his divinity that could not suffer because of its divine nature and remained alive and remained the source of the resurrection of jesus humanity after his death so just to summarize the traditional patrician and liturgical reading of the story of abraham is extremely optimistic it's the reading that emphasizes the rejection on the part of god of human sacrifice um it emphasized the trial the probation of abraham but not the wish on the part of god that any human being should become victim to his grandeur his majesty and resurrection the story of abraham abraham's sacrifice is always read predominantly in the light of the resurrection of christ and not just of passion thank you okay uh i would like to invite the dean of our theology faculty father yuri shukko who is himself a biblical scholar to say a few words in conclusion of this seminar father yuri yeah i'm here new trust thank you very much on behalf of all participants let me be thank you for organizers of that beautiful conference for that beautiful presentations to sum up i would like i would like to say a couple words that what i'm looking at is the bible i'm always taken on account that in most cases in the whole testament where israel was tested the context shows the testing estimate from concern over the nations obedience to god's command laws or ways we may conclude that god wanted to test abraham to know his heart and to see if he was sardir there are tests a term in which men that tries god the meaning is altogether different such a test flows from the an attitude of doubt and a sinful heart on man's part in this situation men wants to determine whether god's power will be adequate the effect of which is to tempt god but when used of god there is no connotation of doubt or desire to trick or deceive the the one place it under the test his testing was only concerned with obedience or with the fear of god that is to say and present the same spirit of obedience to god that brings his creatures into circumstances of special testing not for the purpose of supplying information for himself but in order to manifest to individuals and others the disposition of their hearts the relationship of father and son that existed between abraham and isek was exactly the same relationship that existed between god and abraham abraham's test was indeed a qualifying test that had as much evidential value for abraham abraham's the point is that the test was not a temptation to do evil or a test that was meant to trap the helpless patriarch instead it had an opposite purpose god intended to strengthen abraham and to build him up as in he the numerous tests in the desert as used here the ideas of tempting testing or trying religious concepts and sometimes people who for example are great in such games as was presented today do not take on account this issue and it is god testing the partner of the count and to see if he is keeping his side of the agreement god never tests the heathen he tests his own people exclusively thus the test is ever a test of god's own in order to know whether they will love fear obey worship and serve him thank you very much again for your beautiful presentation and participation thank you yes thank you uh all thank you taras thank you uh pafer thank you archibald but kud yuri like once here the quarter for his attendance thank all participants for attendance as i said i will remain here in this room until the very last because someone has to do it and i wish you all a very uh last week and a very good weekend see you all next time thanks bye thank you very much thank you