Neither Christianity nor Judaism is actually a “religion of the Book”—both regard scripture as a secondary witness to something infinitely greater, namely, the presence of God with his people. Continue Reading »
The Ninth of Av commemorates the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem, catastrophes whose repercussions are still endured by Jews today. Continue Reading »
Something resembling a real religion-and-society debate is finally emerging in Israel. Continue Reading »
This great country has come a long way from when Jews had to choose between their jobs and the Ten Commandments. Let us not let the Trump media frenzy take us back to that unpleasant time. Continue Reading »
The Jewish community has a great deal more experience than the Christian community at operating independently of many of society’s boundaries. Continue Reading »
When I think of the generation of survivors—not only of the horror they endured during the Holocaust and its recollection, not only of the nobility or heroism many of them achieved, but of the virtually impossible small and great steps they were compelled to make to rehabilitate their lives and ours—it is Wiesel’s voice that underlies and often amplifies theirs. Continue Reading »
Michael Chabon once wrote a novel titled Jews with Swords, then re-titled something tamer (Gentlemen of the Road). Explaining his initial choice, he said: “The story of the Jews centers around—one might almost say that it stars—the hazards and accidents, the misfortunes and disasters, the feats of inspiration, the travail and despair, and intermittent moments of glory and grace, that entail upon journeys from home and back again.” Continue Reading »
In one of its more famous passages, the Talmud records a debate about the mundane (but important) issue of whether a certain oven can be used to cook kosher food. All of the rabbis except one, Rabbi Eliezer, rule that the oven cannot be used because it is impure. To prove that he is correct and that the oven is pure, Rabbi Eliezer calls on God to perform miracles in the presence of his colleagues—a carob tree is uprooted and moves across a field, a river reverses its course, and the walls of the rabbis’ study hall magically begin to cave in—but the rabbis remain unmoved. Continue Reading »
It was, on the face of it, a minor theological gesture, yet it brought about one of the greatest revolutions in religious history. Nostra Aetate, the Catholic Church’s 1965 statement of relationships with non-Christian faiths, declared that “the Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or . . . . Continue Reading »
Critics of Christian Zionism usually dismiss it for one or more of three reasons: 1. They say it makes mincemeat of the New Testament, where (it is alleged) the Old Testament focus on a particular land is replaced by the vision of a whole world; 2. They think it is the exclusive concern of premillennial dispensationalists, whose theology supposedly uses Jews to advance its own role in presumptuous schedules of End Time events; 3. It is said to be more political than theological, attached to right-wing American and Israeli political parties that wrongly identify the current Israeli state with the eschaton.Scholars at a recent conference at Georgetown made the case for a “new” Christian Zionism that takes a fresh approach to all three of these problems. Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
