Talking with Christians: Musings of a Jewish Theologian (review)

Abstract

Talking with Christians: Musings of a Jewish Theologian, by David Novack. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2005. 269 pp. $25.00. Over the past few decades, there has been a dramatic and improved shift in Christian and Jewish visions of the other nurtured in the main by scholars in dialogue seeking common religious ground between them. Religious loyalists, traditionalists and progressive alike, go beyond acquiring bits of information to a critical exchange of ideas, in the sequential steps of a learning exchange: confrontation, where the participant experiences the new idea superficially; analysis, where the participant seriously probes the occasion or text in light of previous experience and knowledge; interaction, where the participant's encounter with others helps him or her benefit from their feelings, ideas, and experiences with the religious topic(s) discussed; and internalization, where by turning the new experience and sharing of ideas upon oneself the participant reacts meaningfully to the new reality as it relates to him or her as an individual and as a member of a faith-bound community. For strict adherents to the covenants at Sinai and Calvary, Jewish-Christian theological dialogue carries the potential of a partial or total transformation of their religious beliefs, and so they confirm dialogue on their own literalist agenda (e.g., salvation is offered by the Father through Jesus Christ, and sealed in the Holy Spirit [Ephesians 1:3-14]) or oppose it completely (fear of missionary intent). David Novack (Shiff Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto) thinks otherwise, and the reprint of fifteen philosophical and theological essays, written over a period of twenty-five years, argues why. Novack's contemplative ingathering is a reflective reservoir that is fed by a wide range of sources, biblical, rabbinic, and contemporary. Feeding the depths (to continue the aquatic metaphor) are tributaries of sacred and secular semantics, as well as old-new currents, such as the importance of revelation and theological discussion without relativism. The author's perspective on the dynamics of Jewish-Christian dialogue, with all its wisdom and wrangle, is evenhanded. His conviction that the Dual Torah, more than any other ideological course or trend, was the bulwark against Judaism's demise in the previous millennia of disputation, and continues to be so in the current era of reconciliation with the Church and its doctrinal teachings, is defensible and persuasive. In bridging the alienation between Church and Synagogue and providing a justification for Jewish gain, not loss, in interfaith dialogue, Novack begins his book by informing the reader what to seek (Judaism and on their own terms) and what to avoid (disputation, proselytization, syncretism, relativism, triumphalism) in Jewish-Christian dialogue. His chapters on supersessionism and parallelism, legalism and antinomianism, and eschatology set for the Christian reader a difficult but commendable task: proclaim core Christian dogma and dicta without anti-Judaism. Likewise, to the Jewish reader, it is suggested to be aware and sensitive to claims of Christian identity that are derived from the Christian scriptural inspiration and tradition. Though recognizing necessary differences between Jewish and Christian truth claims, Novack does penetrate the abyss of separation and suspicion (e.g., overcoming the legacy of law and grace by emphasizing the Pharasaic foundation of Jesus and the early Jewish believers) by positing interdependence, not penetration, between opposing revelatory assertions. In the author's words, Christianity today need look to Judaism today as its source no more than Judaism today need look to today as its outcome. The centuries-old teaching of contempt is not doable for Christians in dialogue with Jews, where a shared biblical tradition is the surest sign that stumbling blocks of religious intolerance can be overcome. …