A Jewish View of Contemporary Ideas of The Trinity

Abstract

AbstractCan Jews get beyond treating the Trinity as tri‐theism? The essay reviews the relationship between Jewish theological notions of God and Christian understandings of the doctrine of the Trinity to move beyond the seeming impasse. Recent scholarship shows that Jews do not possess a pristine monotheism. Instead, Jewish theology often included complex views of God. In addition, currently Jews and Christians, especially at the highest levels of academic discourse, are in a “post‐polemical” era in which they read each other’s theological texts seriously for their own work and readily share and borrow from each other. The core of the article examines the Trinitarian thought of German Catholic theologians Karl Rahner and Jürgen Moltmann to evaluate similarities and differences between the two religions. The conclusion is that the Jewish concept of God and the Christian concept of the Trinity are not diametrically opposed in a zero‐sum way; nevertheless, actual differences between the religions should not be elided or minimized.