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

A Review by Professor Eric L. Friedland Jewish studies in the New Testament have been going on for some time, whether for polemical purposes or for the sake of interfaith amity. What distinguishes Modern Jews Engage the New Testament by Dr. Michael J. Cook, who is Professor of Intertestamental and Early Christian Literatures, and holds the Sol and Arlene Bronstein Professorship in Judaeo-Christian Studies at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, is threefold. First and foremost, he is a master in the field of modern New Testament scholarship and acknowledged as such by colleagues in the discipline, Catholic and Protestant. He is well-versed in the critical theories that have been in vogue in the past and abreast of the latest developments. Moreover, he has the text itself down cold. So girded, he is able to form fresh, persuasive hypotheses of his own. Secondly, he sees it as essential for informed, committed Jews in today's society to be conversant in the foundational scripture of Christianity, including rabbis and the laity. Thirdly, Cook's approach to that scripture is bracingly candid and blissfully free of the old-time fear of inciting an auto-da-fe or a pogrom. He says it decisively as he sees it. That kind of explicitness and frankness is no doubt in large part due to the remarkable confidence and maturation characterizing a highly-integrated Jewish community in twenty-first century America. American Jews are far less timorous of taking on controversial issues in the public realm than perhaps anywhere else in the Diaspora or at any other time. Cook's brave book is clearly a byproduct of that welcome transformation of Jewish life in this land. What then is so brave, fresh and explicit about Modern Jews Engage the New Testament? Cook has come up with a handy explanatory designation that sums up the rationale and method of the book: Gospel Dynamics. He has provided Jews of today with a vehicle towards understanding and confronting the pervasive anti-Judaism in the New Testament and the Church's Antisemitism that evolved therefrom. Our author does this by bringing to light the Tendenz, theological agenda and the particular bias of each of the Four Gospels and the mindset of Paul in his letters (Epistles). We are shown how the Evangelists' (Gospel-writers') accounts of Jesus' life and preaching written four to six decades after his death reflect the rivalrous and increasingly hostile attitudes of the Church of their day towards the Synagogue. By examining and comparing the differing reports provided by each of the Four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), but primarily the first three (the Synoptics), one can determine what has been added or modified in the basic narrative line. Cook illustrates for us how the divergent treatments of the life and missionary journeys of Paul in Luke and Acts, on the one hand, and as reflected in Paul's own letters, on the other, help highlight the Evangelist's central theme, namely, that o

Michael Cook's book is a great introduction for Jews interested in the New Testament and the study of Christianity. Speaking for an average Jewish reader, and a beginning student of comparative religions, I feel this book provides a great starting point to begin a study of the New Testament. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, and especially to Jewish and Christian lay leaders interested in starting interfaith dialogue.

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.

Modern Jews Engage the New Testament: Enhancing Jewish Well-being in a Christian Environment Rabbi Michael Cook's new book, Modern Jews Engage the New Testament is a fantastic introduction to some of the most valuable information in the field. It not only contains some of the basic information in the field of New Testament study, but it also offers an abundance of new ideas and insights. Gospel Dynamics is perhaps the most creative and appropriate term for the approach that Rabbi Cook takes in dealing with this sensitive subject matter. My 30-year rabbinate has been filled with so many conversations of meaningful and respectful dialogue with people of other faiths that focused on the topics of this book long before it was written. Those conversations would have been so much richer had I had this as a resource then. I am grateful that it will inform future discussions. This book is intended not only for Jews or for rabbis. Cook makes it easy to use his writings in a variety of settings. The layout and helpful directions makes this accessible for Gentiles as well as Jews, lay readers in addition to scholars, secularists and religionists, young and old. The book has multidirectional reading options. Those for whom this is a first venture into these subjects will find it easy to navigate from the beginning, while those who have ample background can select those chapters that most interest them to read first. My guess is that any reader will eventually read it from cover to cover again and again. Our synagogue is planning a joint adult education program with a neighboring church. We have done a variety of things with them over the past two decades. Rabbi Cook's writings will enable us to do some serious study and dialogue about a subject that is too often avoided because of fear and anxiety. It is a process that promises ample rewards. Michael Cook has provided a welcoming doorway through which those who enter will be changed forever for the better. I am purchasing this book two and three at a time. There are many people to whom I want to give it as a gift. But the real gift is the one that Rabbi Cook has provided for all people who care about knowledgeable interfaith dialogue and respect.

Rabbi Michael Cook's book, Modern Jews Engage the New Testament: Enhancing Jewish Well-being in a Christian Environment, is a wonderful, very readable insight into the New Testament. He rightly explains why Jews have shied away from reading the Christian's New Testament, but his book allows all Jews to read it, and understand it from a truly Jewish viewpoint, one of respect for the text of another faith, but that it is not our Holy Scripture. In this day and age, when Jews are asked questions about our faith in comparison with that of Christianity, Jews need to know the issues, and have a familiarity with the Christian's New Testament to be able to discuss those issues intelligently. The Talmud teaches us, "Da mah l'hasheev," to know how to respond to such questions. Rabbi Cook's book enables all Jewish readers to do just that. On the other hand, Christians who read this book will find very interesting how Jews can come to understand Christian Scriptures in light of history, and how it has been used, and misused, through the history of Jewish and Christian relations. Rabbi Cook truly wrote this book in a way that makes all people of all backgrounds and faiths feel welcome to read it. Rabbi Cook uses plenty of graphs and diagrams to explain the New Testament that help the reader understand how it was constructed. Of equal importance, there are words that both Jews and Christians use that have different meanings to each group. Rabbi Cook goes out of his way to explain the different uses of these words. Jews and Christians cannot really communicate when they use words that they each think the other understands the same way, when we do not understand them in the same way. At the end of each chapter, Rabbi Cook has a summary which he titled, 'The Most Valuable Ideas In This Chapter May Be:' This means that the reader can use this summary to help understand the chapter, and go back and re-read the chapter looking for the original explanation of these main important points. Furthermore, at the end of each chapter is another section which Rabbi Cook titled, 'Loose Ends Worth Tying:' in which he further explains issues raised in the chapter. Finally, Rabbi Cook includes different indexes of his book that are quite useful. They dont appear to be computer generated, and they appear to give every citation of the use of the indexed words or ideas. One is an index of other authors cited or quoted and where they are cited or quoted, an impressive list of scholars. Other indexes are of the Biblical verses used in his book, an index of the subjects covered in his book of course, as well as an index of the concepts he is trying to convey, the core of his book. Each one helps the reader to better understand the Christian's New Testament, and to better and more easily grasp the points Rabbi Cook makes. This book is an important book because it covers information that all Jews need to live in a world where our paths cross more and more with Christians, and when Ch