Overview

In this study, Steven Kepnes constructs a 'positive' Jewish theology, one that gives expression to God's nature and powers and that opposes 'apophatic' Holocaust and postmodern theologies that deny the ability of language to express God's nature. Drawing from the Pentateuch, Prophets, and Jewish prayer, Kepnes also uses methods from medieval philosophy, analytic philosophy, and hermeneutics. From medieval philosophy and the Bible, Kepnes develops what he calls a 'soft' metaphysics with principles of God and the revealed Torah at its center. Identifying a fundamental contradiction between the transcendent God of philosophy and the personal God of the Bible, he demonstrates how analytic philosophy, Jewish hermeneutics, and Jewish liturgy offer constructive strategies to negotiate this contradiction. Kepnes also argues that Jewish theology can neither remain in the domain of metaphysics nor the nature of God, but must turn toward the practical and ethical. He concludes with a call for a prophetic theological ethics to address the pressing issue of climate change.

Full Product Details

Author:   Steven Kepnes (Colgate University, New York)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Weight:   0.572kg
ISBN:  

9781009399708

ISBN 10:   1009399705
Pages:   318
Publication Date:   04 December 2025
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Part I. Introductions: 1. The immanent frame and the need for Jewish metaphysics; 2. Post-holocaust theology: the passive God and the apotheosis of evil; 3. Radical apophatic Jewish theologies from Boyarin to derrida to Wolfson; Part II. Reviving Jewish Theology: 4. A soft metaphysics for Jewish theology; 5. Two methods for Jewish theology: analytic philosophy and Hermeneutics; Part III. Program For a Positive Jewish Theology: 6. A new natural Jewish theology: probability and the recovery of teleology; 7. Seeing and not-seeing, saying and not saying, 'God': two approaches to the contradiction between the God of absolute being and the personal God; 8. A theological hermeneutics of Jewish liturgy; Part IV. Prophetic Jewish Theological Ethics: 9. Retrieving Cohen and Heschel on prophetic ethics; 10. The climate crisis and prophetic Jewish theology: a Jewish theology of sustainability.

Reviews

'Steven Kepnes has long been one of the most thoughtful voices in the Jewish theology, and in this masterful book, he brings together a deep wisdom about Jewish thought, a wide-ranging perspective on the history of theology, and an urgent call a new theological discourse, one that can allow us to repair the world.' Laurie Zoloth, Margaret E. Burton Professor of Religion and Ethics, University of Chicago

Author Information

Steven Kepnes is Professor of World Religions and Jewish Studies at Colgate University and author of The Future Of Jewish Theology (2013), Jewish Liturgical Reasoning, (2007) and The Text As Thou (1993), and editor of The Cambridge Companion To Jewish Theology  (2021).

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