This volume is about Latter-day Saints learning from Jews and the Jewish experience. This book is unique. It is not a traditional interfaith dialogue where the goal is to learn from each other. Rather, Latter-day Saints seek to give Jews the microphone, so to speak, and let them talk about themselves on their own terms. Only then do Latter-day Saint respond, and not with the goal of establishing areas of agreement or disagreement but as an opportunity to learn from Jews. This book turns to the wisdom of Jews and Judaism to inform, inspire, and enhance the lived religious experience of Latter-day Saints.
The Learning of the Jews brings together fifteen scholars, seven Jewish and eight Latter-day Saint, with a combined academic experience of over four hundred years. The volume is structured around seven major topics, two chapters on each topic. A Jewish scholar first discusses the topic broadly vis-à-vis Judaism, followed by a response from a Latter-day Saint scholar. The seven topics include scripture, authority, prayer, women and modernity, remembrance, particularity, and humor. The intention is that the reader will not only learn a great deal about Judaism and the Jewish experience while reading this volume but also use what they learn to enhance their own cultural and religious experience.
Praise for "The Learning of the Jews":
- “This is a ground-breaking book that provides much needed knowledge on Judaism. Members of The Church of Jesus of Latter-day Saints, as well as Christians of other groups, and Jews as well, will greatly benefit from it. The book also serves as means of intellectual exchange and interaction based on good will between members of the two faiths: Jewish and Mormon. It points to elements that both communities share, and where they differ. The editors gathered a particularly strong group of scholars, and the book chapters offer brilliant and instructive analyses. I highly recommend the book.” — Yaakov Ariel, Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- “The Learning of the Jews is a landmark in Latter-day Saint embrace of modern Jewish scholarship. It represents an understanding that the knowledge and experience of the Jewish people is the key to a more meaningful, relevant future for the Restoration in America and throughout the globe.” — Jason M. Olson, Ph.D., co-author of The Burning Book: A Jewish-Mormon Memoir
Trevan G. Hatch, Ph.D., is the Bible, Religious Studies, and Middle East specialist in the Lee Library at Brigham Young University, and is also adjunct professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture. Trevan's academic training is primarily in Bible and Jewish Studies, and his current research interests are on the Jewish context of the Gospels and Jesus traditions, Messianic expectations of Jews and Christians, and pilgrimage & religious tourism in Israel-Palestine. Trevan is the author of A Stranger in Jerusalem: Seeing Jesus as a Jew (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2019).
Leonard Greenspoon holds the Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization at Creighton University, where he is also Professor of Theology and of Classical & Near Eastern Studies. Greenspoon is the editor of the 32-volume Studies in Jewish Civilization series. He has also written six other books, including his most recent one on Jewish Bible translations: Jewish Bible Translations: Personalities, Passions, Politics, Progress (JPS & University of Nebraska Press, 2020).
