Reading Ephesians and Colossians after Supersessionism, by Lionel J. Windsor
Reviewed by Lindsay John Kennedy Lionel Windsor’s Reading Ephesians and Colossians after Supersessionism, along with a volume by Christopher Zoccali on Philippians, is a flagship of a new series published by Cascade books and edited by J. Brian Tucker, David Rudolph, and Justin Hardin.1 This series, which strangely provides no description by the editors, examines…
Read MoreThe Love of God: Divine Gift, Human Gratitude, and Mutual Faithfulness in Judaism, by Jon D. Levenson
Reviewed by Russ Resnik Jon Levenson is a world-class biblical scholar, Professor of Jewish Studies at Harvard, and a writer gifted in engaging his readers on issues that might at first seem antiquated or esoteric. His latest offering, The Love of God, opens with “one of the most familiar passages in the Bible,” Deuteronomy…
Read MoreSpirit Hermeneutics: Reading Scripture in Light of Pentecost, by Craig Keener
Spirit Hermeneutics: Reading Scripture in Light of Pentecost,by Craig Keener Reviewed by Daniel Juster, ThD If I had the capacity to write a book on hermeneutics, I would have written Spirit Hermeneutics. I know of no book that so fully represents my own thinking on this topic. The book is broadly rooted in Pentecostalism, but…
Read More“Remain in Your Calling”: Paul and the Continuation of Social Identities in 1 Corinthians, by J. Brian Tucker
The primary aim of this in-depth study is to show how Paul negotiates and transforms existing social identities of Messiah-followers in order to extend his mission in Corinth.1 It attempts to accomplish this through a study of 1 Corinthians that builds on the author’s previous doctoral findings in 1 Corinthians 1–4 published in monograph…
Read MorePaul: The Pagans’ Apostle, by Paula Fredriksen
Paul persists as a polarizing and puzzling figure today. Judging by the New Testament, this was no less true in the first century! But are we stumbled by the same things as his contemporaries? Paula Fredriksen, author of Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle, insists that we misread Paul if we neglect the thorough Jewishness and…
Read MoreHealing the Schism: Barth, Rosenzweig, and the New Jewish-Christian Encounter, by Jennifer M. Rosner, and Converging Destinies: Jews, Christians, and the Mission of God, by Stuart Dauermann
In 1965, Nostra Aetate, the Roman Catholic statement on relationships with non-Christian faiths, declared that “the Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed as if this followed from Holy Scripture.” On the fiftieth anniversary of Nostra Aetate, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks noted, “Today as a result, Jews and Catholics meet not as enemies…
Read MoreElliot Wolfson’s Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson
Elliott Wolfson’s Open Secret offers valuable insights for those able to penetrate the book’s abstruse style. In the final chapter (coined “Postface”), Wolfson finally reveals his method and hypothesis. (Incidentally, he also reveals that this was the first part he wrote, which was supposed to be the introduction, but in the middle of writing he…
Read MoreRabbi Ethan Tucker and Rabbi Micha’el Rosenberg’s Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law
In Gender Equality and Prayer in Jewish Law, Rabbis Ethan Tucker and Micha’el Rosenberg explore the complex history of the discourses of gender and halakha in Jewish prayer. They provide enough data to challenge what is often the dominant narrative in traditionalist halakhic settings and they offer new ways of framing the discussion of gender…
Read MoreEli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg’s The Jewish Gospel of John: Discovering Jesus, King of all Israel
Though geared for a Christian audience, the question motivating the author is a deeply Messianic Jewish one. The challenge of the Gospel of John for a Jewish follower of Yeshua is this: if the Fourth Gospel is anti-Semitic, how can any Jew embrace its message? The author reveals to us the existential problem which motivated…
Read MoreBook Review: Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament by Peter Enns
Several years ago, a number of my friends confessed to me that they no longer identified with the Messianic Jewish movement. Each of them highlighted their encounter with modern biblical criticism as a significant factor in their decision. The pre-scientific features of the Bible’s origins stories, the presence of human agendas in biblical histories are…
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