Theology

The Vatican II Council of 1965 signaled a new era in the relationship of the Jewish and Christian faiths. Determined to free the Church of the anti-Jewish polemic which led to such widespread suffering of the innocent, Catholic authorities completely revised their conceptions of Jews and Judaism. Soon, many mainstream Protestant churches also issued a series of official statements that affirm the eternal nature of God's ancient covenant with Israel. An entirely new category of theology emerged as part of the developing Jewish-Christian dialogue, and gradually Jewish theologians began to respond.

Opening the Covenant represents a significant advance in Jewish thinking about Christianity. Michael Kogan delves deep into the theologies of the two faiths to locate precise points of difference and convergence. He sees Christianity as the breaking open of the original Covenant to include Gentile peoples. God has brought this about, says Kogan, through the work of Jesus and his interpreters. If Christianity is a divinely inspired movement, then Judaism must reevaluate its truth-claims. This will in no way compromise the truth of Judaism itself but will cause Jews to understand their own faith more fully by locating it in the larger context of God's universal redemptive plan.

Kogan calls for each tradition to receive the wisdom of the other as a means of self-understanding. Once each faith is freed to find God's purpose in the other, the way will be open to a liberating pluralism in which Jews and Christians come to see each other as Israelite siblings sharing a universal role as God's witnesses, the builders of God's Kingdom on Earth. Neither faith can do this world-redemptive work alone.

Kogan argues that an affirmation of one's own religion can still provide space for the truth of the "other," and presents a theory of multiple revelations of truth flowing from the one God of all.

A fresh and daring take on ancient apocalyptic books. The year 167 b.c.e. marked the beginning of a period of intense persecution for the people of Judea, as Seleucid emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted — forcibly and brutally — to eradicate traditional Jewish religious practices. In Apocalypse against Empire Anathea Portier-Young reconstructs the historical events and key players in this traumatic episode in Jewish history and provides a sophisticated treatment of resistance in early Judaism. Building on a solid contextual foundation, Portier-Young argues that the first Jewish apocalypses emerged as a literature of resistance to Hellenistic imperial rule. She makes a sturdy case for this argument by examining three extant apocalypses, giving careful attention to the interplay between social theory, history, textual studies, and theological analysis. In particular, Portier-Young contends, the book of Daniel, the Apocalypse of Weeks, and the Book of Dreams were written to supply an oppressed people with a potent antidote to the destructive propaganda of the empire — renewing their faith in the God of the covenant and answering state terror with radical visions of hope..

In this powerful book, David Blumenthal maintains that having faith in a post-Holocaust world means admitting that while God is often loving and kind, fair and merciful, God is also capable of acts so unjust they can only be described as abusive. Grounding his argument in Scripture and in the experience of Holocaust survivors and of survivors of child abuse, Blumenthal grapples with how to face a God who has worked "wondrously through us" and who has worked "aw(e)fully against us." Delving into Jewish literary and theological traditions, the author articulates a theology of protest which accepts God as God is, yet defends the innocence of those who are utterly victimized.

Gerbern Oegema has long been drawn to the noncanonical literature of early Judaism — literature written during the time between the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament (300 b.c.e.–200 c.e.). These works, many of which have been lost, forgotten, and rediscovered, are now being studied with ever-increasing enthusiasm by scholars and students alike. Although much recent attention has been given to the literary and historical merits of the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and other deutero- and extracanonical writings, Early Judaism and Modern Culture shows that it is also important to study these literary works from a theological perspective. To that end, Oegema considers the reception of early Jewish writings throughout history and identifies their theological contributions to many issues of perennial importance: ethics, politics, gender relations, interreligious dialogue, and more. Oegema demonstrates decisively that these books — more than merely objects of academic curiosity — have real theological and cultural relevance for churches, synagogues, and society at large today. “Through engaging words, Gerbern Oegema invites his readers to appreciate the vibrant and advanced world of the early Jews and how they have left us insights and visions for modern culture.” — James H. Charlesworth Princeton Theological Seminary “In an era when biblical theology is commonly approached from a narrow canonical perspective, Oegema’s demonstration of the theological and historical significance of the noncanonical writings of ancient Judaism is refreshing and important.” — John J. Collins Yale Divinity School

"This subtle and nuanced study is clearly Fackenheim's most important book." —Paul Mendes-Flohr

"... magnificent in sweep and in execution of detail." —Franklin H. Littell

In To Mend the World Emil L. Fackenheim points the way to Judaism's renewal in a world and an age in which all of our notions—about God, humanity, and revelation—have been severely challenged. He tests the resources within Judaism for healing the breach between secularism and revelation after the Holocaust. Spinoza, Rosenzweig, Hegel, Heidegger, and Buber figure prominently in his account.

While Jews in ancient Israel had much in common, in fact there existed no such thing as an orthodox Judaism. Diverse Judaisms, each with its own way of life, world view, and definition of the social entity (or Israel) to whom it spoke, flourished. Since there was no single Judaism, there was no single Messiah-idea or Messianic doctrine. Various readings of the Messiah theme reached definition in the various unrelated religious systems or Judaisms produced by those Jews--hence "Judaisms" and "their Messiahs." In this book, distinguished specialists in late antiquity Judaisms, including Christian scholars, take up the differing place and role of the Messiah-idea. Dealing with the best-documented Judaic systems--the Essene community at Qumran, Christian Judaisms represented by Matthew and Mark, the nascent rabbinic Judaism portrayed in the Mishnah, the Judaic system implicit in the writings of Philo--each author works out how a given system treats the Messiah theme.

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Abraham Heschel's classic work, originally published in 1965, now with a new Introduction by noted Jewish theologian David Hartman, examines questions of faith, divinity, self-sufficiency, and other basic tenets of Judaism, confirming Reinhold Niebuhr's belief that Heschel is "a commanding and authoritative voice not only in the Jewish community but in the religious life of America".

This paperback edition brings to a wide audience one of the most innovative and meaningful models of God for this post-Auschwitz era. In a thought-provoking return to the original Hebrew conception of God, which questions accepted conceptions of divine omnipotence, Jon Levenson defines God's authorship of the world as a consequence of his victory in his struggle with evil. He traces a flexible conception of God to the earliest Hebrew sources, arguing, for example, that Genesis 1 does not describe the banishment of evil but the attempt to contain the menace of evil in the world, a struggle that continues today.