Rethinking the Messianic Idea in Judaism - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0253014697 ISBN 13: 9780253014696

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2014

Synopsis

Over the centuries, the messianic tradition has provided the language through which modern Jewish philosophers, socialists, and Zionists envisioned a utopian future. Michael L. Morgan, Steven Weitzman, and an international group of leading scholars ask new questions and provide new ways of thinking about this enduring Jewish idea. Using the writings of Gershom Scholem, which ranged over the history of messianic belief and its conflicted role in the Jewish imagination, these essays put aside the boundaries that divide history from philosophy and religion to offer new perspectives on the role and relevance of messianism today.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael L. Morgan is the Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Jewish Studies at Indiana University.

Steven Weitzman, the Abraham M. Ellis Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literature at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, is a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and early Judaism whose most recent publications include Solomon: The Lure of Wisdom and a second revised edition of The Jews: A History.

Review:

the messianic is a difficult concept in both Christianity and Judaism, but it is also of central importance to both religions. The originating difference between Judaism and Christianity often turns on the question or status of the massianic. (Claire Elise Katz Texas A&M University)

Invites exploration of a number of significant issues including but not limited to: Jewish-Christian relations, post-Holocaust Jewish thought, Judaism and the political, the future of Zionism, Judaism and naturalism, biblical hermeneutics, and Jewish ethics. (Randi Rashkover George Mason University)

About this edition

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0253014697
• ISBN 13: 9780253014696
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 442
• Editor: Morgan Michael L., Weitzman Steven