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Author : Mordecai M. Kaplan Publisher : Wayne State University Press Page : 416 pages File Size : 54,9 Mb Release : 1995-01-01 Category : History ISBN : 9780814339923
The Meaning of God in Modern Jewish Religion by Mordecai M. Kaplan Pdf
In this book, Kaplan enlarges on his notion of functional reinterpretation and then actually applies it to the entire ritual cycle of the Jewish year-a rarity in modern Jewish thought. This work continues to function as a central text for the Reconstructionist movement, whose influence continues to grow in American Jewry.
Originally published in 1951, it explores the ways in which the Jewish religion relates to our society and to us as individuals, and how we can draw this knowledge into our everyday lives.
With clarity and passion, noted theologian Neil Gillman explores the importance of community, symbol and myth in evolution of Jewish thought and reveals extraordinary insights into the purpose of religion, our relationship with God and Jewish identity.
God in Search of Man by Abraham Joshua Heschel Pdf
Abraham Joshua Heschel was one of the most revered religious leaders of the 20th century, and God in Search of Man and its companion volume, Man Is Not Alone, two of his most important books, are classics of modern Jewish theology. God in Search of Man combines scholarship with lucidity, reverence, and compassion as Dr. Heschel discusses not man's search for God but God's for man--the notion of a Chosen People, an idea which, he writes, "signifies not a quality inherent in the people but a relationship between the people and God." It is an extraordinary description of the nature of Biblical thought, and how that thought becomes faith.
In these three lectures, the eminent British rabbi and theologian Louis Jacobs defines and defends his position as a liberal supernaturalist and halakhic nonfundamentalist in those areas where the religious Jew is confronted with the conflicting truth claims of modern knowledge and traditional belief. Jacobs begins by contrasting the theistic belief in a personal God with some of its alternatives; he argues that the liberal supernaturalist's position is both the closest in approximation to the traditional Jewish view and still the most coherent way to deal with the fundamental mysteries of the universe, even after Freud, Darwin, Marx, and modern technology have replaced a God-centered universe with a universe the center of which is man. The second lecture explores the impact of modern science and scholarship on the doctrine of Torah min hashamayim, divine revelation of the Written and Oral Torah. Acknowledging the influence of geology, astronomy, anthropology, comparative religion, Wissenschaft des Judentums, and Textual Criticism on the development of the Torah, Jacobs argues that one can be objective without any sacrifice of piety if one accepts the premise that "the totality we call Torah is human imbued with the divine." Finally, in the third lecture, Jacobs discusses traditional interpretations of the doctrine of the Chosen People and examines some of the tensions it generates today in terms of interreligious tolerance, the Jewish people and the Jewish state, and the demands of the group versus the needs of the individual. In addition, he contrasts fundamentalist and nonfundamentalist attitudes toward various eschatological idead, advocating a position of "reverent agnosticism" with regard to belief in the Messiah and resurrection of the dead but affirming acceptance of the immortality of the soul as a basic principle of modern Jewish faith.
Contemporary Jews. The book is at once a beginner's invitation to the profundity of Jewish spirituality and a rich rethinking of texts and positions for those who have already walked some distance along the Jewish path.
The author, confronting head-on the disparate fragments of Jewish life in America, has illuminated a new kind of meaningful life-style that will be of utmost importance to every Jew in America today. He portrays the entire spectrum of Jewish archetypes in anecdotal, novelistic terms: the Orthodox, the Conservative, the Reform, the agnostic Zionist, the atheistic Yiddishist, the prodigal son, and finally, young Daniel S., whose parents rejected their Jewish roots, but who himself hungers for a meaningful identity. Originally published in 1969 by the Macmillan Company, this edition contains a new introduction by Jacob Neusner
Modern Jewish Theology by Samuel J. Kessler,George Y. Kohler Pdf
Modern Jewish Theology is the first comprehensive collection of Jewish theological ideas from the pathbreaking nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, featuring selections from more than thirty of the most influential Jewish thinkers of the era as well as explorations of Judaism’s identity, uniqueness, and relevance; the origin of ethical monotheism; and the possibility of Jewish existentialism. These works—most translated for the first time into English by top scholars in modern Jewish history and philosophy—reveal how modern Jewish theology developed in concert with broader trends in Jewish intellectual and social modernization, especially scholarship (Wissenschaft des Judentums), politics (liberalism and Zionism), and religious practice (movement Judaism and the struggles to transcend denominational boundaries). This anthology thus opens to the English-language reader a true treasure house of source material from the formative years of modern Jewish thought, bringing together writings from the very first generations, who imagined biblical and rabbinic texts and modern scientific research would produce a synthetic view of God, Israel, and the world. A general introduction and chapter introductions guide students and nonspecialists through the key themes and transformations in modern Jewish theology, and extensive annotations immerse them in the latest scholarship.
The Case for Religious Naturalism by Jack J. Cohen Pdf
How can religion speak to the millions of men and women who have irretrievably lost their belief in a supernatural God? This is the fundamental challenge that all of the great religions of mankind face in the twentieth century. Rabbi Cohen responds to the challenge with a carefully reasoned analysis. Cohen also lays to rest some popularly held misconceptions about the nature of religion and treats the concept of God with a clarity altogether lacking in current theological writings. He demonstrates that religion, far from being identified with supernaturalism, must now function with a naturalist view of reality and of human existence.
No one, no matter how brilliant, saintly or charismatic, ever has or ever will prove the existence – or non-existence -- of God. If the infinite God posited by Judaism since ancient times does, in fact, exist, then that God is by definition beyond human comprehension. And so this book does not attempt to prove the existence of God but rather takes an instinctual leap of faith, along with Moses, the Psalmists, Job, Maimonides and, yes, Albert Einstein, passing over the question of God’s existence and asking instead the questions that have fueled the authentic religious enterprise for more than a hundred generations: What can we know of God and what does God require of us? A religion for adults seeks to probe the meaning and purpose of life. The very same may be said of science. Both reject pious platitudes and seek truth. Albert Einstein phrased it very nicely: “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.” What the author seeks to do, honoring both religion and science, is to introduce the reader to a God for Grown-ups.
"In this book Peter Schäfer casts light on the common assumption that Judaism from its earliest formulations was strictly monotheistic. Over and over again in the Hebrew Bible the biblical writers insist upon the idea that there is one and only one God. But the biblical text is multifarious and contains many sources that subvert from within the strong monotheistic thesis. Old Canaanite deities such as Baal and El, although pushed to the edges, prove stubbornly persistent. They come to the forefront in, for example, the famous "Son of Man" of chapter 7 of the Book of Daniel. In sum, Schäfer argues that monotheism was an ideal in ancient Judaism that was consistently aspired to, but never fully achieved. Through close textual analysis of the Bible and certain key post-biblical sources, Schäfer tracks the long history of a second, younger, subordinate God next to the senior Jewish God YHWH. One might expect that with early Christianity's embrace of this idea (in the form of Jesus Christ), Judaism would have abandoned it utterly. But the opposite was the case. Even after Christianity usurps the original Jewish notion of a second, younger God, certain post-biblical Jewish circles-in particular early Jewish mystical circles-maintained and revived it with the archangel "Metatron," a controversial figure whose very existence is questioned and fiercely debated by the rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud. This book was originally published in Germany by C.H. Beck Verlag in 2016"--
