Articles
 Justice for All
 Church in Decline
 Striking Similarity
 The Efficacy of Prayer
 Are You Ready for Change?
 A Question of Vocation
 The Challenge of Change
 Elul 24
 Elul 23
 Elul 22

Series [All]
 Administration
 Elul 5777 (9)
 Exploring Translation Theories (25)
 Live Like You Give a Damn
 Memory and Identity
 The Creative Word (19)
 The Cross-Cultural Process (7)
 The Old Testament is Dying
 The Oral Gospel Tradition (4)
 We the People (8)

Archive

Sunday, 13 March 2016

Recent Reconsiderations

Seeing Judaism Anew: Christianity's Sacred Obligation,
Ed. Mary C. Boys, Rowman and Littlefield, 2002
Chapter 14, "Covenant and Conversion" (pp. 163-174), page 166-167

Spillman points out that in the last fifty years there have been quite a few public curch statements about Jewish-Christian relations, some stressing partnership, some intimacy.

Many factors have prompted these recent reconsiderations: Christian scholars, in the last fifty years, have given much attention to the Hebrew Scripture and have come to better appreciate this scripture. As more Christians seriously study Judaism, they have a better understanding of Jewish teaching and a greater appreciation of the power and beauty of the tradition. Christiand have come to an increasing awareness of how the teaching of contempt helped lay the groundwork for the Shoar. The recognition that many Christians were perpetrators in the Shoah as well as bystanders has given urgency to this reconsideration. In addition to these considerations, a growing number of theologians anf church leaders have come to see the relationship between Judaism and Christianity as a central theological question, at the very heart of faith.

That's all very well and good, but I hear nothing in this of the Messianic Jewish movement, Jews who are and remain Jews but embrace faith in Yeshua; I hear nothing of E P Sanders and the "New Perspective on Paul" that sprang from his groundbreaking work, let alone the "Paul in Judaism" movement that is gathering pace in these days (admittedly, to be fair, after Seeing Judaism Anew was written). Joann Spillman still sees Judaism and Christianity as distinct, however closely related and fails to grasp that they are really one.

Posted By Jonathan, 9:01am Comment Comments: 0