Introduction To Messianic Judaism

This book is the go-to source for introductory information on Messianic Judaism. Editors David Rudolph and Joel Willitts have assembled a thorough examination of the ecclesial context and biblical foundations of the diverse Messianic Jewish movement. Unique among similar works in its Jew-Gentile partnership, this book brings together a team of respected Messianic Jewish and Gentile Christian scholars, including Mark Kinzer, Richard Bauckham, Markus Bockmuehl, Craig Keener, Darrell Bock, Scott Hafemann, Daniel Harrington, R. Kendall Soulen, Douglas Harink and others. Opening essays, written by Messianic Jewish scholars and synagogue leaders, provide a window into the on-the-ground reality of the Messianic Jewish community and reveal the challenges, questions and issues with which Messianic Jews grapple. The following predominantly Gentile Christian discussion explores a number of biblical and theological issues that inform our understanding of the Messianic Jewish ecclesial context. Here is a balanced and accessible introduction to the diverse Messianic Jewish movement that both Gentile Christian and Messianic Jewish readers will find informative and fascinating.

"A revision of Messianic Jewish manifesto."

In recent years, a new form of Messianic Judaism has emerged that has the potential to serve as a bridge between Jews and Christians. Giving voice to this movement, Mark Kinzer makes a case for nonsupersessionist Christianity. He argues that the election of Israel is irrevocable, that Messianic Jews should honor the covenantal obligations of Israel, and that rabbinic Judaism should be viewed as a movement employed by God to preserve the distinctive calling of the Jewish people. Though this book will be of interest to Jewish readers, it is written primarily for Christians who recognize the need for a constructive relationship to the Jewish people that neither denies the role of Jesus the Messiah nor diminishes the importance of God's covenant with the Jews.

This book is a history, an indictment, a lament, and an appeal, focusing on the messianic trend in Lubavitch hasidism. It records the shattering of one of Judaism's core beliefs and the remarkable equanimity with which the standard-bearers of Orthodoxy have allowed it to happen. This is a development of striking importance for the history of religions, and it is an earthquake in the history of Judaism. David Berger describes the unfolding of this historic phenomenon and proposes a strategy to contain it.

Is God tugging your heart to learn more about the Jewish roots of the Christian faith and the Jewishness of the Bible? This is a class that will cover all the basics while also feeding and blessing your soul at the same time. It is written by Rabbi Jim Appel who has been teaching this course in ongoing Tuesday night sessions for more than two decades. There are many astounding revelations and "Aha!" moments for the students. Your attitude toward your Savior and His Word will never be the same after studying this course! After all, He was born and lived as a Jew and all His disciples and apostles were Jewish.

An internationally respected expert on the Second Temple period provides a fully up-to-date introduction to this crucial area of Biblical Studies. This introduction, by a world leader in the field, provides the perfect guide to the Second Temple Period, its history, literature, and religious setting. Lester Grabbe magisterially guides the reader through the period providing a careful overview of the most studied sources, the history surrounding them and the various currents within Judaism at the time. This book will be a core text for courses on the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, as well as Qumran, Intertestamental Literature and Early Judaism.

A new approach to understanding Jewish thought since the eighteenth century Is Judaism a religion, a culture, a nationality—or a mixture of all of these? In How Judaism Became a Religion, Leora Batnitzky boldly argues that this question more than any other has driven modern Jewish thought since the eighteenth century. This wide-ranging and lucid introduction tells the story of how Judaism came to be defined as a religion in the modern period—and why Jewish thinkers have fought as well as championed this idea. Ever since the Enlightenment, Jewish thinkers have debated whether and how Judaism—largely a religion of practice and public adherence to law—can fit into a modern, Protestant conception of religion as an individual and private matter of belief or faith. Batnitzky makes the novel argument that it is this clash between the modern category of religion and Judaism that is responsible for much of the creative tension in modern Jewish thought. Tracing how the idea of Jewish religion has been defended and resisted from the eighteenth century to today, the book discusses many of the major Jewish thinkers of the past three centuries, including Moses Mendelssohn, Abraham Geiger, Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Zvi Yehuda Kook, Theodor Herzl, and Mordecai Kaplan. At the same time, it tells the story of modern orthodoxy, the German-Jewish renaissance, Jewish religion after the Holocaust, the emergence of the Jewish individual, the birth of Jewish nationalism, and Jewish religion in America. More than an introduction, How Judaism Became a Religion presents a compelling new perspective on the history of modern Jewish thought.

Over the centuries, the messianic tradition has provided the language through which modern Jewish philosophers, socialists, and Zionists envisioned a utopian future. Michael L. Morgan, Steven Weitzman, and an international group of leading scholars ask new questions and provide new ways of thinking about this enduring Jewish idea. Using the writings of Gershom Scholem, which ranged over the history of messianic belief and its conflicted role in the Jewish imagination, these essays put aside the boundaries that divide history from philosophy and religion to offer new perspectives on the role and relevance of messianism today.