Overview

"Did Jesus really call the Jews of his day children of the devil? Would he label Jews of today the same way? Did the Jews kill Jesus and then violently expel from the synagogue anyone who accepted him as a promised Messiah? The Christian church has found answers to these and other similar questions in the Gospel of John. But Jewish readers are justifiably offended by many of John's answers. The eleven essays offered here present facts everyone should know. They are written by a modern Jewish scholar responding to troubling questions about John raised over a period of more than forty years by his university students, by congregants in synagogues he has served as spiritual guide (rabbi), and by Christian colleagues with whom he has worked throughout his long career. Designed to engage thoughtful readers from every religious background, these essays encourage questions and suggest plausible answers to the problems in John by illustrating the difference between the answers of John and the facts of history. They also compare John's Jesus with the teachings of the modern church about the treatment of """"others,"""" love for all humanity, and the wholeness of body and spirit."

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9781666797015

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Isbell takes the challenge of the 'anti-Jewish' language in the Gospel of John with utmost seriousness, engaging critical scholarship broadly and with an even hand. But the most notable characteristic of his study is its pastoral sensitivity. It deserves to be taken seriously itself, by Jewish and Christian readers alike. --Randy L. Maddox, Divinity School, Duke University, emeritus From a Jewish perspective, Charles Isbell wades into the hard problems of anti-Jewish polemics in the Fourth Gospel. He joins sharp issue with major Christian interpreters of that Gospel and finds Christian 'solutions' to the anti-Jewishness quite inadequate. . . . Isbell is a careful, knowledgeable scholar who does not shrink from the hard issues we all face in these texts. Attention must be paid! --Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary This provocative yet eminently accessible book confronts head-on John's defamatory depiction of Jews and its painful, centuries-long legacy in Christian-Jewish relations. Isbell's forthright treatment invites Christian and Jewish readers alike to wrestle with the Fourth Gospel in new and promising ways. --Joshua D. Garroway, Hebrew Union College--Jewish Institute of Religion Isbell, as a biblical scholar and a Jewish rabbi, is well qualified to write this book. It makes a significant contribution to Jewish-Christian dialogue. It brings into sharp focus the toxic anti-Jewish sentiment that permeates the Gospel of John, a sentiment that is troubling for the Jewish reader and should be troubling for Christians. --Delbert Burkett, Louisiana State University

Author Information

Charles David Isbell holds four university degrees, including a PhD from Brandeis University. During his fifty-year career (University of Massachusetts, Ecumenical Theological Seminary [Detroit], Louisiana State University), Isbell has taught Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Aramaic, and Akkadian; Bible (history, literature, theology), rabbinic thought, and anti-Semitism. He has published 250+ journal and encyclopedia articles and ten books, including How Jews and Christians Interpret Their Sacred Texts (Resource Publications). For more information, see cdisbell.online and LivingLargeLate.com.

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