Valley Beit Midrash

Professor Ra‘anan Boustan, Research Scholar in the Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University, presents his Valley Beit Midrash lecture "Collective Sin and Vicarious Atonement in Rabbinic Martyrology" before an audience at Temple Chai (www.templechai.com/) in Phoenix, AZ. ABOUT THIS SPEAKER: What makes Jews different from Christians, and Christians different from Jews? What elements (if any) made Jewish and Christian identities irreconcilable with one another, already in the ancient world? The Story of the Ten Martyr from Byzantine Palestine (fifth to seventh centuries CE) presents a narrative in which the blood of the rabbinic martyrs executed by Rome is presented as a medium of vicarious atonement for the sins of the Jewish people. The martyrology challenges conventional assumptions about Jewish attitudes toward atoning human blood and thereby illuminates the dynamics of Jewish self-definition in a Christian world. DONATE: www.bit.ly/1NmpbsP For more info, please visit: www.facebook.com/valleybe