Bruce Chilton's "Abraham's Curse"

I found Bruce Chilton's Rabbi Jesus and Rabbi Paul to be fascinating. I loved the historical scholarship.

However, this book, while deeply scholarly, just didn't hold my attention. The winding narrative about how Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac and how the three Semitic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have adopted and bend and re-shaped again and again the "moral" of the story left me cold. I just have a hard time "appreciating" stories of butchery and "sacrifice" no matter how fascinating the historical details. Instead of enjoying Chilton's finesse of tying these themes together across time and religions, I kept picturing all the horrors of religious persecution. Sure, Chilton argues that secular horrors outweigh religious horrors. I'm not so sure. For me, the reason why the numbers are higher for killings in the 20th century secular horrors is simply the luck of the draw. If the 20th century had put religions into the catbird seat they would have produced the big numbers and if you look at secular horrors of hundreds of years ago they are smaller scale than the 20th century horrors. For me the difference is one of technology and communication.

I continue to be impressed by Chilton's mastery of his religious material. But in this book he picked up a theme which just doesn't hold my interest. For scholars, this book is probably of great interest. For the general reader, it is a tough slog for a poorly defined "reward". What did I learn? A lot of historical detail, but no great insights.