Abstract
Nostra Aetate generated what scholars like Gregory Baum have termed a radical shift in Catholicism’s teachings regarding the Jews and other non-Christian religious communities. The document produces a new template for the Catholic Church’s outlook on other religious traditions. On the theological level Nostra Aetate has inspired a new theological vision of Christianity’s links to other religious traditions, Judaism in particular. But in recent years this theological quest has somewhat subsided even though in the field of biblical studies we have seen considerable advancement. This chapter charts some major developments in Jewish-Christian dialogue and identifies theological areas, especially Christology, where the integration of developments in the Jewish-Christian relationship still must bear fruit in contemporary reflection within the Church.
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Notes
- 1.
Archbishop Charles Chaput, “Address to Jewish Leaders,” (Philadelphia, July 11, 2013); www.ccjr.us/news/1247-chaput2013II.
- 2.
For the text of Dabru Emet together with Jewish and Christian commentaries, see Tikva Frymer-Kensky, David Novak, Peter Ochs, David Fox Sandmel and Michael A. Signer, eds. Christianity in Jewish Terms (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000).
- 3.
Most significantly, the former chief rabbi of Milan, Giuseppe Laras, penned an open letter criticizing both Francis and the Italian Biblical Association for a recent conference entitled “Israel, People of a Jealous God.” Il Foglio, March 10, 2017.
- 4.
Cf. Liam Tracey, O.S.M., “Liturgical Reform and Renewal in the Roman Catholic Church and Its Impact on Christian-Jewish Relations,” in Gilbert S. Rosenthal , ed., Jubilee for All Time: The Copernican Revolution in Jewish-Christian Relations (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014), 165–181. In 2015, The Catholic Theological Union devoted its Rabbi Hayim Perelmuter Annual Conference and Shapiro Lecture to this theme; for reflections on those events, see Richard McCarron, with Eileen Crowley and John Pawlikowski, O.S.M., “Worshipping in a Religiously Plural Age—Catholic and Jewish Reflections,” Worship 89, no. 5 (September 2015): 386–393; see also additional articles in the same issue.
- 5.
Gregory Baum, an official expert at Vatican II who had a hand in some of the earliest formulation of what became Nostra Aetate, suggested that this claim could be argued with regard to the Council’s acknowledgement of the spiritual status of Judaism. “The Social Context of American Catholic Theology,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 41 (1986): 87.
- 6.
Monika Hellwig, “Christian Theology and the Covenant of Israel,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 7 (Winter 1970): 37–51; “From the Jesus Story to the Christ of Dogma,” in Antisemitism and the Foundations of Christianity, ed. Alan T. Davies (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 118–136.
- 7.
Franz Mussner, Tractate on the Jews: The Significance of Judaism for Christian Faith, trans. Leonard Swidler (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); also cf. Franz Mussner, “From Jesus the ‘Prophet’ to Jesus the ‘Son,’” in Three Ways to One God: The Faith Experience in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, ed. Abdold Javad Falaturi, Jacob J. Petuchowski, and Walter Stolz, eds., (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 76–85.
- 8.
Clemens Thoma, A Christian Theology of Judaism, trans. Helga Croner (New York: Paulist, 1980).
- 9.
Paul M. Van Buren, A Christian Theology of the People of Israel: A Theology of the Jewish-Christian Reality, Part 2 (New York: Seabury, 1983).
- 10.
Mary Boys, Redeeming Our Sacred Story: The Death of Jesus and the Relations Between Jews and Christians, (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2013); Has God Only One Blessing? Judaism as a Source of Christian Self-Understanding (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2000).
- 11.
R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996).
- 12.
John T. Pawlikowski, O.S.M., Christ in the Light of the Christian-Jewish Dialogue (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2011); Restating the Catholic Church’s Relationship with the Jewish People: The Challenge of Super-Sessionary Theology (Lewiston, NY: Edward Mellen Press, 2013).
- 13.
Cf. K. Hannah Holtschneider, The 1980 Statement of the Rhineland Synod: A Landmark in Christian-Jewish Relations in Germany (Cambridge, UK: CJCR Press, 2002).
- 14.
Leuenberg Church Fellowship, Church and Israel: A Contribution from the Reformation Churches in Europe to the Relationship between Christians and Jews, ed. Helmut Schwier (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Otto Lembeck, 2011).
- 15.
Philip Cunningham et al., eds., Christ Jesus and the Jewish People Today: New Explorations of Theological Interrelationships (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013).
- 16.
For the text of A Sacred Obligation with commentaries by members of the Christian Scholars Group, cf. Mary C. Boys, ed., Seeing Judaism Anew: Christianity’s Sacred Obligation (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).
- 17.
United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the National Council of Synagogues, “Reflections on Covenant and Mission,” Origins 32 (September 5, 2002): 218–224.
- 18.
Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., “Evangelization and the Jews,” with a response by Mary C. Boys, Philip Cunningham and John T. Pawlikowski, O.S.M., America 187 (October 21, 2002): 8–16.
- 19.
For the text of Pope Benedict XVI’s address at the synagogue in Rome, cf. AAS 102, no. 2 (2010): 100–106.
- 20.
The USCCB’s “A Note on Ambiguities Contained in ‘Reflections on Covenant and Mission’,” the letter from the combined Jewish leadership (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform) to the bishops expressing deep concern, and the bishop’s response and clarification can be found in the Dialogika section of the website of the Council of Centers for Christian-Jewish Relations, www.ccjr.us. This exchange took place in the Summer and Fall of 2009.
- 21.
The two principal Vatican statements on mission and dialogue, Pope St. John Paul II’s Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Missio and the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue’s Dialogue and Proclamation can be found in William R. Burrows , ed., Redemption and Dialogue: Reading Redemptoris Missio and Dialogue and Proclamation (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1993). I have addressed this question in “Mission and Dialogue in Contemporary Catholicism,” Modern Believing 51, no. 3 (July 2010): 47–55.
- 22.
Robin Scroggs, “The Judaizing of the New Testament,” Chicago Theological Seminary Register 76, no. 3 (Winter 1986): 36–45.
- 23.
Anthony J. Saldarini, “Jews and Christians in the First Two Centuries: The Changing Paradigm,” Shofar 10 (1992): 32–43; “Christian Anti-Judaism: The First Century Speaks to the Twenty-First Century,” The Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Jerusalem Lecture 1999 (Chicago: Archdiocese of Chicago, the American Jewish Committee, Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, and the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Community Relations Council, 1999).
- 24.
Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiro Reed, eds., The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Texts and Studies in Judaism #95 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003); also cf. Matt Jackson-McCabe, ed., Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts (Minneapolis: Augsburg/Fortress, 2007); Dabian Udoh, ed., Redefining First Century Jewish and Christian Identities: Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008); Herschel Shanks, ed., Partings: How Judaism and Christianity Became Two (Washington: Biblical Archeology Society, 2013); and Zev Garber, ed., Teaching the Historical Jesus: Issues and Exegesis (London: Routledge, 2015).
- 25.
John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus. Volume 3: Companions and Competitors (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 251.
- 26.
David Frankfurter, “Beyond Jewish Christianity: Continuing Religious Subcultures of the Second and Third Centuries and Their Documents,” in Becker and Reed, The Ways That Never Parted, 132.
- 27.
Paula Frederiksen, “What Parting of the Ways? Jews, Gentiles , and the Ancient Mediterranean City,” in Becker and Reed, The Ways That Never Parted, 35–64.
- 28.
Wesley Ariarajah, “Towards a Fourth Phase in Christian-Jewish Relations: An Asian Perspective,” unpublished paper, Conference on Christian-Jewish Dialogue, Temple Emmanuel, New York, co-sponsored by the Center for Interreligious Understanding and the Office of Interreligious Affairs of the World Council of Churches, November 2003. For a rather different Asian perspective, cf. Peter Phan, “Jews and Judaism in Asian Theology: Historical and Theological Perspectives,” Gregorianum 86 (2005): 806–836.
- 29.
On Jesus as Jew, cf. Hans Hermann Henrix, “The Son of God Became Human as a Jew: Implications of the Jewishness of Jesus for Christology,” in Cunningham et al., Christ Jesus and the Jewish People Today, 114–143; Barbara Meyer, “The Dogmatic Significance of Christ Being Jewish,” in Cunningham et al., Christ Jesus and the Jewish People Today, 144–163.
- 30.
On new perspectives on Paul and Judaism, cf. various essays in Reimund Bieringer and Didier Pollefeyt, eds., Paul and Judaism: Crosscurrents in Pauline Exegesis and the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations (London: T&T Clark International, 2012).
- 31.
AAS 78 (1986): 1117–1123; for an English translation, see John Paul II, Spiritual Pilgrimage: Texts on Jews and Judaism 1979–1995 (New York: Crossroad and ADL, 1995).
- 32.
Pope Francis, Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, AAS 105, no. 12 (2013): 1019–1137, no. 247; for an English translation, see The Joy of the Gospel (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2013).
- 33.
Johannes Baptist Metz, “Facing the Jews: Christian Theology After Auschwitz,” in Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza and David Tracy, eds., The Holocaust as Interruption. Concilium 175 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1984), 27.
- 34.
Cf. note 19 above.
- 35.
- 36.
John Pawlikowski, O.S.M., “Rethinking Christianity: A Challenge to Jewish Attitudes,” Moment 15, no. 3 (August 1990): 36–39; A Response by Irving Greenberg, “Jews have thought little about the spiritual dignity of other faiths,” 39.
- 37.
Cf. note 12 above.
- 38.
Cf. note 7 above.
- 39.
Liam Tracey, O.S.M., “The Affirmation of Jewish Covenantal Vitality and the Church’s Liturgical Life,” in Cunningham et al., Christ Jesus and the Jewish People Today, 268–286; and “Liturgical Reform and Renewal in the Roman Catholic Church and Its Impact on Christian-Jewish Relations,” in A Jubilee for All Time: The Copernican Revolution in Jewish-Christian Relations, ed. Gilbert Rosenthal (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014), 165–181.
- 40.
John T. Pawlikowski, O.S.M., Jesus and the Theology of Israel (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989); and Christ in the Light of Christian-Jewish Dialogue (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2001).
- 41.
Famed for his association with the 1960s “Death of God” movement and such works as The Secular Meaning of the Gospel: Based on Analysis of Its Language (New York: Macmillan, 1966) and his later, if lesser known, three volume work, A Theology of the Jewish Christian Reality: A Christian Theology of the People Israel, (New York: Seabury, 1980).
- 42.
Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds., The Jewish Annotated New Testament: New Revised Standard Version (Oxford: University Press, 2011).
- 43.
Cf. Note #11.
- 44.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, “The Good Tree,” America 185, no. 7 (September 17, 2001); “Christians, Jews and the Thorny Question of Mission,” Origins 32, no. 28 (December 19, 2004); and “Foreword,” in Cunningham et al., Christ Jesus and the Jewish People Today, x–xvii.
- 45.
Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scripture in the Christian Bible (Vatican City: Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 2002). For a discussion of the document, including my own reflections, see the special issue of The Bible Today 41, no. 3 (May/June 2003).
- 46.
Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scripture, 60.
- 47.
Cardinal Walter Kasper’s 2002 address given at Boston College can be found on the website of the College’s Center for Christian-Jewish Learning, as well as the site for the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/research_sites/cjl/texts/cjrelations/resources/articles/Kasper_6Nov02.htm
- 48.
Elliot Wolfson, “Gazing Beneath the Veil: Apocalyptic Envisioning the End,” in Reinterpreting Revelation and Tradition: Jews and Christians in Conversation, ed. John Pawlikowski, O.S.M., and Hayim G. Perelmuter (Franklin, WI: Sheed & Ward , 1997), 77–103.
- 49.
Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
- 50.
Zev Garber, ed., Teaching the Historical Jesus: Issues and Exegesis (London: Routledge, 2015).
- 51.
Shaul Magid, Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2015).
- 52.
There have been critics of these developments in the Christian-Jewish Relationship. Examples include Marc Ellis, Marck Braverman, and certain scholars connected with the World Council of Churches who argue that these developments have undermined justice for the Palestinians and strongly critiqued the scholars, including myself, who have promoted these developments in the Christian-Jewish Relationship. Such critics have usually ignored some of the critical essays on the Israeli-Palestinian political situation penned by scholars in the dialogue, including myself. To take one example, I served as guest editor and contributed an article to a special issue devoted to the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict in a major interdisciplinary journal of peace studies. See Peace and Change 36, no. 4 (October 2011); for my essay, “Ethics in a Globalized World: Implications for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” 541–555.
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Pawlikowski O.S.M., J.T. (2018). Nostra Aetate: Where It Has Taken Us; Where We Still Need to Go. In: Latinovic, V., Mannion, G., Welle, O.F.M., J. (eds) Catholicism Engaging Other Faiths. Pathways for Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98584-8_5
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