Lamb of the Free: Recovering the Varied Sacrificial Understandings of Jesus’s Death
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
Lamb of the Free analyzes the different sacrificial imagery applied to Jesus in the NT in light of the facts that (a) there is no such thing as substitutionary death sacrifice in the Torah—neither death nor suffering nor punishment of the animal has any place in the sacrificial system—and (b) there are both atoning and non-atoning sacrifices. Surprisingly, the earliest and most common sacrifices associated with Jesus’s death are the non-atoning ones. Nevertheless, when considering the whole NT, Jesus is said to accomplish all the benefits of the entire Levitical system, from both atoning and non-atoning sacrifices and purification.
Moreover, all sacrificial interpretations of Jesus’s death in the NT operate within the paradigm of participation, which is antithetical to notions of substitution. The sacrificial imagery in the NT is aimed at grounding the exhortation for the audience to be conformed to the cruciform image of Jesus by sharing in his death. The consistent message throughout the entire NT is not that Jesus died instead of us, rather, Jesus dies ahead of us so that we can unite with him and be conformed to the image of his death.
- Analyzes the different sacrificial imagery applied to Jesus in the New Testament.
- Explores the atoning and non-atoning sacrifices.
- Argues that Jesus dies ahead of us so that we can unite with him and be conformed to the image of his death.
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Understanding Old Testament Sacrifices, Part 1: What Sacrifice Is Not
- 2 Understanding Old Testament Sacrifices, Part 2: The Non-Atoning Sacrifices
- 3 Understanding Old Testament Sacrifice, Part 3: Ritual Cosmology
- 4 Understanding Old Testament Sacrifice, Part 4: Atonement and the Prophets
- 5 Lamb of the Free: Jesus, Purity, and Non-Atoning Sacrifices
- 6 Jesus, Purgation Sacrifices, and the Day of Decontamination
- 7 When Jesus’s Death Is Not a Sacrifice
- 8 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Drawing especially on important insights from Jacob Milgrom, Andrew Rillera relentlessly critiques faulty assumptions about sacrifice, substitution, and atonement that (mis)inform certain prevalent interpretations of Jesus’s death. Anyone interested in these matters will need to grapple with Rillera’s stimulating and provocative work.
—David M. Moffitt, reader in New Testament Studies, University of St. Andrews
PSA for all Christians: PSA is dead, and Andrew Rillera just killed it. Christians who have been troubled by the implications of penal substitutionary atonement will want to read Lamb of the Free, while those who subscribe to PSA might not want to read it, but absolutely must!
—Matthew Thiessen, associate professor of religious studies, McMaster University
Andrew Rillera provides an essential primer to sacrifices and ritual purity situated within a compelling argument about various misreadings of New Testament texts. It is a great resource for anyone interested in Jewish rituals and concepts of ‘atonement.’
—Madison N. Pierce, associate professor of New Testament, Western Theological Seminary