What Every Christian Needs to Know About the Jewishness of Jesus
A New Way of Seeing the Most Influential Rabbi in History
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
If you were to ask ten people, Who started Christianity? you might hear ten voices giving the same quick response: Jesus. But those ten people would be wrong. Jesus wasn’t a Christian. Jesus lived and died as a Jew. Understanding the Jewishness of Jesus is the secret to knowing him better and understanding his message in the twenty-first century.
Walking through Jesus’ life from birth to death, Rabbi Evan Moffic serves as a tour guide to give Christians a new way to look at familiar teachings and practices that are rooted in the Jewish faith and can illuminate our lives today. Moffic gives fresh insight on how Jesus’ contemporaries understood him, explores how Jesus’ Jewishness shaped him, offers a new perspective on the Lord’s Prayer, and provides renewed appreciation for Jesus’ miracles.
In encountering his Jewish heritage, you will see Jesus differently, gain a better understanding of his message, and enrich your own faith.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rabbi Moffic, spiritual leader of Congregation Solel in suburban Chicago, opens up for Christians the world of the historical Jesus as he is depicted in the synoptic Gospels. Though "addressed" to Christians, Moffic intends that Jews, too, will benefit from fresh insight into the Jewishness of Jesus, whose teachings reflect the issues that were alive in pre-rabbinic Judaism. To show full respect to Christianity's view of Jesus, the book does not give space to refuting the Gospels' theological claims, nor does it skirt them, an approach that may take some Jewish readers aback; readers are left to rest assured that the author is firm in his own Jewish beliefs and in his commitment to Jewish practices. That being said, Moffic does explore the possibility that Jews might, in different ways, see the historical Jesus as part of the Jewish story as well (short of believing him the son of God). As the book makes clear, much of what Jesus taught is already part of an authentically Jewish conversation. Accessible and powerful, this book is a valuable contribution to interreligious understanding.
