The Sacrifice of Jesus: Understanding Atonement Biblically

Exploring nonviolent images of atonement-- The sacrifice of Jesus is one of the most central doctrines in Christianity--and one of the most controversial especially in contemporary debate (and after the appearance of films such as The Passion of the Christ). The implications of a violent parent and the necessity of innocent suffering are profoundly troubling to many people. Are they nevertheless necessary elements of Christian theology? Christian A. Eberhart makes a decisive contribution to these debates by carefully and clearly examining the Old Testament metaphors of sacrifice and atonement and the ways these metaphors were taken over by early Christians to speak of the significance of Christ. Eberhart shows that these New Testament appropriations have been misunderstood as requiring a logic of necessary violence; rather they speak to larger Christological themes concerning the whole mission and life of Jesus. Dr. Christian A. Eberhart is Professor and Program Director of Religious Studies at the University of Houston. He graduated from Harvard University Divinity School (Cambridge MA) and has a doctorate in Hebrew Bible studies from the University of Heidelberg (Germany) as well as a second doctorate (Habilitation) in Early Christian literature from the University of Mainz (Germany). Dr. Eberhart is a seminar founder and convener for the Society of New Testament Studies. He has published various books in English and German among them What a Difference a Meal Makes: The Last Supper in the Bible and in the Christian Church (2016). He edited the volume Ritual and Metaphor: Sacrifice in the Bible (2011) and co-edited the volume Sacrifice Cult and Atonement in Early Judaism and Christianity: Constituents and Critique (2017).