Judaism and Other Faiths

193 Pages·1994·9.462 MB·English

by  Dan Cohn-Sherbok (auth.)

Judaism and Other Faiths
Dan Cohn-Sherbok
JUDAISM AND OTHER FAITHS
By the same author
THE JEWS OF CANTERBURY
ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAV EN: Jews, Christians and
Liberation Theology
THE JEWISH HERITA GE
JEWISH PETITIONARY PRA YER: A Theological Exploration
HOLOCAUSTTHEOLOGY
RABBINIC PERSPECTIVES ON THE NEW TESTAMENT
ISSUES IN CONTEMPORARY JUDAICA
THE BLACKWELL DICTIONARY OF JUDAISM
A DICTIONARY OF JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY
THE CRUCIFIED JEW: Twenty Centuries of Christian
Anti-Semitism
EXODUS: An Agenda for Jewish-Christian Dialogue
ISRAEL: The History of an Idea
NOT A JOB FOR A NICE JEWISH BOY
AN ATLAS OF JEWISH HISTORY
THE JEWISH FA ITH
EXPLORING REALITY (editor)
THE CANTERBURY PAPERS: Essays on Religion and
Society (editor)
THE SALMAN RUSH DIE CONTROVERSY IN
INTERRELIGIOUS PERSPECTIVE (editor)
TRADITION AND UNITY: Sermons Published in Honour of
Robert Runeie (editor)
THE SA YINGS OF MOSES (editor)
ISLAM IN A WORLD OF DIVERSE FAITHS (editor)
TORAH AND REVELA TION (editor)
WORLD RELIGIONS AND HUMAN LIBERATION (editor)
A TRADITIONAL QUEST: Essays in Honour of Louis Jacobs
(editor)
RELIGION AND PUBLIC LIFE (co-editor)
GOD: Experiencing the Divine (editor)
PROBLEMS IN CONTEMPORARY JEWISH THEOLOGY (editor)
MANY MANSIONS: Interfaith and Religious Intolerance (editor)
DIVINE INTERVENTIONS AND MIRACLES (editor)
BEYOND DEAT H (co-editor)
J
udaisln and
Other Faiths
Dan Cohn-Sherbok
Lecturer in ]ewish Theology
University of Kent at Canterbury
M
St. Martin' s Press
© Dan Cohn-Sherbok 1994
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover Ist edition 1994978-0-333-57523-9
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First published in Great Britain 1994 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-39090-8 ISBN 978-0-230-37306-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230373068
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First published in the United States of America 1994 by
Scholarly and Reference Division,
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
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ISBN 978-0-312-10384-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cohn-Sherbok, Dan.
Judaism and other faiths / Dan Cohn-Sherbok.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-312-10384-2
1. Judaism-Relations-History. 2. Religious pluralism-Judaism
-History. 3. Religious tolerance-Judaism-History. l. Title.
BM534.C64--1994
296.3'872---D.c20 93-26260
CIP
Für Lavinia, Herod and Didü
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Contents
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
1 The Challenge of Religious Pluralism 7
Judaism and the World's Religions 7
Exclusivism 11
Inclusivism 14
Pluralism 18
Models of Judaism and Other Faiths 20
2 Biblical and Early Rabbinic Views 25
The Bible and Idolatry 25
The Noahide Laws and Idolatrous Practices 29
Rabbenu Tarn and the Kabbalists 32
Moses Maimonides 36
~~H~~ ~
3 Medieval Conflict between Jews and Christians 43
Christian Massacre and Murder 44
The Paris Disputation of 1240 47
The Barcelona Disputation of 1263 50
The Black Plague and the Jewish Reaction 54
The Tortosa Disputation of 1413-14 57
4 Persecution and Apostasy in the Early Mqdem Period 61
Marranos 62
The Inquisition and the Marranos 64
Torture and Exile 67
The Dispersion of the Marranos 70
The Shabbatean Movement 72
5 The Impact of the Enlightenment 75
The Emancipation of Jewry 75
Baruch Spinoza 78
Moses Mendelssohn 81
vii
viii Contents
Joseph Salvador 84
Abraham Geiger 89
6 Jewish Reflections in the Age of Emancipation 93
Samuel Hirsch 93
Solomon Formstecher 96
Solomon Ludwig Steinheim 99
Hermann Cohen 103
Claude Montefiore 107
7 Modem Jewish Thought 113
Max Brod 114
Franz Rosenzweig 117
Leo Baeck 120
Martin Buber 125
Jacob Klausner 129
8 Post-Holocaust Jewish Thinkers 133
Hans Joachim Schoeps 134
Richard Rubenstein 137
Emil Fackenheim 141
Ignaz Maybaum 145
Arthur A. Cohen 148
9 Jewish Religious Pluralism 153
Judaism and Other Religions 154
A Pluralistic Model 157
A Theology of Religious Pluralism 161
Ranking Judaism and Other Faiths 164
Theological Implications of Jewish Pluralism 167
Conclusion 173
Bibliography 179
Index 183
Acknowl edgements
In writing this study I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness
to a number of important works which have provided information as
weIl as source material: Walter Jacob, Christianity through Jewish Eyes.
Cincinnati, 1974; Hyam Maccoby, Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian
Disputations in the Middle Ages, London, 1982; Leon Poliakov, The
History of Anti-Semitism, 2 vols, London, New York, 1965, 1973;
David Novak, Jewish Christian Dialogue, Oxford, 1989. I would also
like to thank Mollie Roots, Justine Clements, Jane Wrench, and
Barbara Duce of the Rutherford College Secretarial Office for typing
the manuscript.
IX