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The Vatican II Council of 1965 signaled a new era in the relationship of the Jewish and Christian faiths. Determined to free the Church of the anti-Jewish polemic which led to such widespread suffering of the innocent, Catholic authorities completely revised their conceptions of Jews and Judaism. Soon, many mainstream Protestant churches also issued a series of official statements that affirm the eternal nature of God's ancient covenant with Israel. An entirely new category of theology emerged as part of the developing Jewish-Christian dialogue, and gradually Jewish theologians began to respond. Opening the Covenant represents a significant advance in Jewish thinking about Christianity. Michael Kogan delves deep into the theologies of the two faiths to locate precise points of difference and convergence. He sees Christianity as the breaking open of the original Covenant to include Gentile peoples. God has brought this about, says Kogan, through the work of Jesus and his interpreters. If Christianity is a divinely inspired movement, then Judaism must reevaluate its truth-claims. This will in no way compromise the truth of Judaism itself but will cause Jews to understand their own faith more fully by locating it in the larger context of God's universal redemptive plan. Kogan calls for each tradition to receive the wisdom of the other as a means of self-understanding. Once each faith is freed to find God's purpose in the other, the way will be open to a liberating pluralism in which Jews and Christians come to see each other as Israelite siblings sharing a universal role as God's witnesses, the builders of God's Kingdom on Earth. Neither faith can do this world-redemptive work alone. Kogan argues that an affirmation of one's own religion can still provide space for the truth of the "other," and presents a theory of multiple revelations of truth flowing from the one God of all.
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Opening the Covenant
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Opening the Covenant A Jewish Theology of Christianity
michael s. kogan
1
2008
1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Copyright # 2008 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kogan, Michael S. Opening the covenant : a Jewish theology of Christianity / Michael S. Kogan. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-19-511259-7 (cloth) 1. Judaism—Relations—Christianity. 2. Christianity and other religions—Judaism. 3. Judaism—Doctrines. 4. Judaism (Christian theology) I. Title. BM535.K614 2007 296.3'96—dc22 2007014739 ‘‘Jews and Christians: Taking the Next Step,’’ Journal of Ecumenical Studies 26, no. 4 (Fall, 1989): 703–713. # 1990. ‘‘Toward a Jewish Theology of Christianity,’’ Journal of Ecumenical Studies 32, no. 1 (Winter, 1995): 89–106, 152. # 1995. ‘‘Into Another Intensity: Christian-Jewish Dialogue Moves Forward,’’ Journal of Ecumenical Studies 41, no. 1 (Winter, 2004): 1–17. # 2006. ‘‘Toward a Pluralist The