Posts by Jonathan Kaplan
Daniel Gruber, The Separation Of Church & Faith, Volume 1:Copernicus And The Jews
(Hanover, Nh: Elijah, 2005. 332 PP.) Reviewed by Jonathan Kaplan, M.Div., M.A., A.M. and Noel Rabinowitz, Ph.D. Daniel Gruber’s recent work, The Separation of Church & Faith, Volume 1: Copernicus and the Jews, provides us with a fascinating and controversial discussion of a subject that the vast majority of Christians take for granted as an…
Read MoreSay to the Cities of Judah, “Behold your God” – The Hebrew Bible, Outreach and Messianic Judaism
Messianic Judaism[1] is currently undergoing a reappraisal of its modes and philosophy of outreach. In some sectors of the movement, traditional paradigms of evangelistic outreach are being reaffirmed.[2] In other sectors new paradigms about the nature of Messianic Judaism and outreach are being developed.[3] This climate of reevaluation provides an opportunity to revisit old biblical…
Read MoreA Synopsis of Mark Kinzer’s Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism
This issue of Kesher is dedicated to fostering discussion about Mark S. Kinzer’s new work Postmissionary Messianic Judaism: Redefining Christian Engagement with the Jewish People. Kinzer, an ordained rabbi of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations (UMJC), serves as spiritual leader of Congregation Zera Avraham in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and as president of Messianic Jewish…
Read MoreImperialism And Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. To 640 C.E. by Seth Schwartz
(Princeton University Press © 2001 Princeton, NJ.) In Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E., Seth Schwartz, the Gerson D. Cohen Professor of Rabbinic Culture and Professor of History at Jewish Theological Seminary, offers a challenging blow to regnant reconstructions of Judaism and Jewish life in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Schwartz’s compelling…
Read MoreFor Every Generation: Preaching As Imaginative Mediation Of Rabbinic Tradition
Though the history of preaching1 is rooted in the liturgical life of the ancient synagogue (which is amply evidenced in the Gospels and Acts), preaching does not play a prominent role in the worship of the modern synagogue.2 The synagogue service is a service of the heart, Avodah, in which prayer and the recitation of…
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