Salvation is from the Jews (John 4:22): Saving Grace in Judaism and Messianic Hope in ChristianityGrowing up in an ethnic suburb in Cleveland, Aaron Milavec was an impressionable adolescent whose religious and cultural influences made it natural for him to pity, blame, and despise Jews. All of that began to change in 1955 when Mr. Martin, a Jewish merchant, hired Milavec as a stock boy. Milavec's initial anxieties over working for a Jew surprisingly gave way to profound personal admiration. This, in turn, plunged Milavec into a troubling theological dilemma: How could God consign Mr. Martin to eternal hellfire due to his ancestral role in the death of Jesus when it was clear that Mr. Martin would not harm me, a Christian, even in small ways? This book is not for the faint-hearted. Most Christians imagine that the poison of anti-Judaism has been largely eliminated. In contrast, Milavec reveals how this poison has gone underground--disfiguring not only the role of Israel in God's plan of salvation but also horribly twisting the faith, the forgiveness, and the salvation that Christians find through Jesus Christ. This painful realization serves as the necessary first step for our healing. At each step of the way, Milavec's sure hand builds bridges of mutual understanding that enable both Christians and Jews to cross the chasm of distrust and distortion that has infected both church and synagogue over the centuries. In the end, Milavec securely brings his readers to that place where Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity can again be admired as sister religions intimately united to one other in God's drama of salvation. |
From inside the book
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... understanding and healing has been achieved . Official and unofficial dialogues between Jews and Christians have emerged nearly everywhere . After nineteen hundred years , Christians and Jews are again listening attentively to each ...
... understanding of salvation designed to portray Judaism as totally bankrupt and entirely superceded by Christianity . 2. On further reflection , I don't precisely know why I was chosen to write such a book . Was it the isolation and pain ...
... understanding that Christ brings to Catholics the fullness of truth and salvation . The church is " the universal sacrament of salvation " ( Notes 20 ) . Here again I am going to do what Eugene Fisher did and correct Ratzinger's ...
... understanding the overwhelming Jewish " no " to Jesus in a way that strikes me as quite harmonious with what one finds in Paul . In his public dialogue with the Lutheran scholar Jürgen Moltmann , Lapide explained his position as follows ...
... understanding and a relationship of mutual knowledge and reciprocal enrichment , in obedience to the truth and with respect for freedom " ( 2 ) . In dialogue , consequently , my absolutely rooted faith reaches out to encounter your ...
Contents
1 | |
23 | |
The Story of Salvation | 57 |
Parting of the Ways | 84 |
Jesus as Messiah | 116 |
The Unsavory Odor of Christian Evangelization | 152 |
Reflections on Covenant and Mission | 173 |
Bibliography | 183 |
Index | 196 |