In The Unbinding of Isaac Stephen J. Stern upends traditional understandings of this
controversial narrative through a phenomenological midrash or interpretation of Genesis 22 from
the Dialogic and Jewish philosophies of Franz Rosenzweig Martin Buber and most notably
Emmanuel Levinas. With great originality Dr. Stern intersects Jewish studies Biblical studies
and philosophy in a literary midrashic style that challenges traditional Western philosophical
epistemology. Through the biblical narrative of Abraham Sarah Isaac and Rebecca Dr. Stern
explains that Rosenzweig Buber and Levinas Judaically exercise and offer an alternative
epistemic orientation to the study of ethics than that of traditional Western or
Hellenic-Christian philosophy. The Unbinding of Isaac makes the works of these three thinkers
accessible to those outside philosophy and Jewish studies while also introducing readers to the
playfulness of how Jewish tradition midrashically addresses the Bible.
