Modern Jews Engage the New Testament Companion Figures

This fifty-two-page manual opens with concise blueprints for teaching six adult education lessons and four full courses based on Rabbi Michael J. Cook's volume, Modern Jews Engage the New Testament: Enhancing Jewish Well-Being in a Christian Environment.

• The lessons are stand-alone sessions on various topics: questions posed by Christians that Jews find hard to answer; the parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity; the Jesus of history; the Last Supper and today's church "seders"; the impact of Passion traditions on the Jews; and whether the New Testament is antisemitic.
• The courses address:
  • New Testament Basics Jews Should Know (5 sessions)
  • How Christian Holy Days Impact the Jews (5 sessions)
  • The Four Gospels: A Concern for Jews from Each (4 sessions)
  • How Early Christians Applied "Gospel Dynamics" (8 sessions)
• Accommodating calendar needs, the courses can be shortened (omitting sessions); expanded (extending sessions); even combined (by stringing courses together).
• Assigned for each lesson and course session are materials from the main text―which pages to read and which "Figures" to examine. The latter―the distinctive diagrams, pictorials, charts―not only aid comprehension, supply key biblical passages, and reinforce recall, but they also can stimulate group discussion. This explains why the manual reproduces all eighty-four! The idea? First, participants do assignments from the main book at home. Then they bring Companion Figures alone to class―or instructors distribute copies as each session begins.
• With these lessons and courses clearly laid out, time-consuming planning by teachers is already accomplished! And instructors preferring to devise their own courses now have models in the structures which Dr. Cook provides.

Rabbi Michael J. Cook, PhD, is professor of intertestamental and early Christian literatures and holds the Sol and Arlene Bronstein Professorship in Judaeo-Christian Studies at Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion. He is author of Modern Jews Engage the New Testament: Enhancing Jewish Well-Being in a Christian Environment (Jewish Lights) and is a leader in the field of Jewish-Christian relations.

Rabbi Michael J. Cook, PhD, is available to speak on the following topics:

• Jews, Jesus and "Gospel Dynamics": Why the Future Is Not What It Used to Be
• From Calvary to Oberammergau 2010: The Impact of Jesus' Death on Jewish Life
• Now That Jesus Hasn't Returned, What Does It Mean for the Jews?
• Jesus Was No Myth, But Who Then Was He?
• "And as They Were at Table Eating" (Mk 14): Could the Last Supper Have Been a Seder?