Children of the Flesh, Children of the Promise: A Rabbi Talks with Paul
Overview
In this follow-up to his influential book, A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, Jacob Neusner, challenges the Apostle Paul to a debate about the true meaning and significance of Judaism. Drawing new boundaries for Jewish-Christian dialogue, Neusner contends that Paul misinterpreted Judaism and that this error has resulted in the widespread perception of Judaism as ethnic and particular while Christianity is understood as universally accessible. Neusner attempts to demonstrate how Judaism, too, may be considered universal. Just as Christianity presents an option to all of God’s faithful, Neusner contends that Judaism’s mediation of the voice of God at Sinai echoes across the entire world.
Top Highlights
“James D. G. Dunn’s allegation that ‘for the Judaism which focussed its identity most fully in the Torah, and which found itself unable to separate ethnic identity from religious identity, Paul and the Gentile mission involved an irreparable breach’?” (Pages 22–23)
“While we may find in the three Judaic systems no distinction between the supernatural and the this-worldly—between holy Israel and ethnic Israel—we do find in Paul an effort to explore precisely that conception of differentiation. When we take for granted that we may distinguish the ethnic from the religious, we replicate the generative categories not of Rabbinic Judaism but of Paul’s system. The Judaism that focused its identity on the Torah recognized no distinct ethnic identity because it formed only a religious identity.” (Pages 18–19)
“The Judaism of the dual Torah2 cannot make the distinction critical to Paul’s thought about Israel—the distinction between children of the flesh and children of the promise. To be a child of the promise for Judaism is to be a child, also, of the flesh, and vice versa.” (Page vii)
“The contrast between the ethnic Judaism and the universalist Christianity derives from the presentation of Israel by the apostle Paul.” (Page 2)
“Both derived from the tradition of Gamaliel, thence from Hillel, his grandfather. Both understood that to enter the covenant God made with Israel, an act of conversion had to take place. Both wanted gentiles to come to the worship of the God who had revealed the Torah at Sinai. Both inherited the distinction between ‘circumcision in the flesh’ and ‘circumcision in the heart’ (Rom. 2:29), since Deut. 30:6 makes the distinction explicit.” (Page 18)
- Title: Children of the Flesh, Children of the Promise: A Rabbi Talks with Paul
- Author: Jacob Neusner
- Publisher: Wipf and Stock
- Print Publication Date: 2005
- Logos Release Date: 2018
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Paul, the Apostle, Saint; Judaism › Apologetic works; Jews › Identity; Rabbinical literature › History and criticism; Christianity › Controversial literature
- ISBNs: 9781597520805, 1597520802
- Resource ID: LLS:CHLDRNFLSHCPRMS
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T22:36:35Z
Jacob Neusner (1932–2016) was a preeminent scholar of ancient Judaism and one of the most published authors ever, with more than 900 original volumes to his name. He was educated at Harvard University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the University of Oxford, and Yale University. He was research professor of theology and senior fellow of the Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College. Neusner’s work has been highly influential, if sometimes controversial. He pioneered applying “form criticism” to Rabbinic texts, and aimed at a humanistic and academic reading of ancient Jewish literature.
Neusner’s works include the Jacob Neusner Jewish Studies Bundle (99 vols.).