Modern Jews Engage the New Testament: Enhancing Jewish Well-being in a Christian Environment

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 374 pages
• Published by: Jewish Lights Publishing May 2008
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1580233139
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1580233132
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches
• Weighs: 1.5 pounds

From Publishers Weekly
This arcane treatise aims to familiarize Jews with the New Testament. According to Cook, Jews shortchange themselves by failing to learn about the New Testament since they live in a Christian environment where their ignorance is a handicap. He wrote this manual to help Jews overcome this limitation, which he contends is a departure from the value Jews place on knowledge. At Hebrew Union College, where Cook teaches Judeo-Christian studies, rabbinical students have to learn the New Testament, a requirement that he feels should be mandated for all Jewish seminarians and college students. His handbook lays out the content for such courses for the benefit of non-Jews and secularists as well as Jews. Unfortunately, instead of presenting a primer, Cook offers a complicated text, replete with esoteric diagrams. His assumption of a base of knowledge contradicts his assertion that Jews know little about the New Testament. He looks at the Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Revelation, discussing their abstruse and often contradictory meanings. Most beginning readers will get lost in Cook's perplexing consideration of minutiae, despite his comprehensive expertise. (June)
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Reader Reviews
The Jewish and Christian faiths share a common origin, and have been bound closely through the ages. "Modern Jews Engage the New Testament: Enhancing Jewish Well-Being in a Christian Environment" shows how several rabbis and other Jewish leaders view the Holy Bible's New Testament. Touching on New Testament topics that are critically important to the Jewish people, such as how Jewish traditions are entwined within Christianity, and how the New Testament regards the Jewish people, "Modern Jews Engage the New Testament" is a thoroughly accessible work of scholarship. "Modern Jews Engage the New Testament" is highly recommended for anyone interested in a look at the New Testament from another perspective.