God's Chosen People

Judaism's Most Divisive Doctrine
Erscheinungsjahr 2027
ISBN: 978-0-19-899430-5
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 464 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 242 mm, Gewicht: 839 g

At the heart of the Jewish religion is a doctrine that has proven to be deeply divisive. It claims that the Jewish people have a special relationship with God, that they have been chosen. This teaching has divided Jews and gentiles because it seems to imply a Jewish supremacism. Even within the Jewish world, thinkers have disagreed about its meaning and value. Some Jewish communities have rejected it outright.

In God's Chosen People, Samuel Lebens seeks to demonstrate that the doctrine is essential to Jewish theology via a wide-ranging journey of original biblical literary analysis, exploration of Midrashic metaphors, Jewish intellectual history, and analytical philosophy. He claims that properly understanding it allows us to articulate what the purpose of Judaism is, according to Judaism itself.

What emerges is a vision of Judaism shorn of religious extremism and xenophobia, a religion that doesn't claim to have a monopoly over religious truth or God's affections. Instead, Lebens claims that Judaism is called upon to play a unique role in the history of the world. The doctrine of the election, so understood, has radical implications for Jewish ritual, inter-faith relations, and the future of Zionism.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lebens, Samuel

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- 1: Choosing a Theory of Chosenness

- Part I. The Biblical Data

- 2: The Narrative Arc of the Bible

- 3: Disarming Difficult Texts

- 4: Chosenness in the Book of Genesis

- 5: God's Bride

- 6: A Kingdom of Priests

- 7: More Biblical Data and Textual Tensions

- 8: Summarizing the Election as It Appears in the Hebrew Bible

- Part II. The Rabbinic Data

- 9: Disarming the Rabbis

- 10: Eternity and History

- 11: Stiff-Necked Arsonists

- 12: Mediation and the Image of Jacob

- 13: Chosenness in Liturgy

- Part III. A Critical History of Chosenness in Jewish Thought

- 14: Medieval Philosophy and Saadya Gaon

- 15: Maimonides

- 16: Rabbi Yehuda Ha-Levi

- 17: Is God a Person?

- 18: Supra-Rationalism: Ibn Pakuda, Crescas, and Albo

- 19: Supra-Rationalism Assessed

- 20: The Mystical Tradition

- 21: Rabbi Lipschutz and the Two-Track Model

- 22: Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and the Two-Track Model

- 23: Scrutinizing the Two-Track Model

- 24: Franz Rosenzweig

- 25: Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Kook

- 26: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson

- 27: Rabbi Sacks and The Dignity of Difference

- Part IV. A Theory of Chosenness

- 28: Reclaiming the Genesis Model

- 29: Reframing the Marriage Model

- 30: A Holy Priesthood

- 31: Revisiting the Rabbis

- 32: 'Radical Then, Radical Now'

Über Autor(innen)

Samuel Lebens is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Haifa. His work spans a wide range of interests from the philosophy of Bertrand Russell to the teachings of the Hassidic Masters. He has published articles on topics ranging from religious epistemology to the ontology of literature. He was the founding chairperson of the Association for the Philosophy of Judaism and is an Orthodox Rabbi.