Abstract
We saw in Chapter 8 that religion involves very much more than formal creeds. In so far as a religion binds people together in a society, purges emotions, teaches morals, comforts the lonely or heals the sick, there is no necessary contradiction between religions, no puzzle as to why God has ‘permitted’ or even inspired different religions in different societies, no damper or restraint on a relativist view of religion according to which each religion harmonises with a particular time, place, individual or society. Of course, there would still be the possibility of conflict between religious people, because people are quarrelsome; but there would be no logic in the quarrel.
The first version of this chapter, under the title ‘Judaism and World Religions’, was the 1985 Sir Francis Younghusband Memorial Lecture for the World Congress of Faiths, published in World Faiths Insight (London), 1985, and reprinted as Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations, no. 3 (Birmingham: Centre for the Study of Judaism and Jewish-Christian Relations, Selly Oak Colleges, 1985).
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Notes
See John Hick, God and the Universe of Faiths (London: Collins, 1977), God Has Many Names (London: Macmillan, 1980; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982), and An Interpretation of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1989). There has been much discussion of Hick’s pluralist views; see for instance Gavin D’Costa, Theology and Religious Pluralism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).
Keith Ward, ‘Truth and the Diversity of Religions’, Religious Studies xxvi (1990) 1–18.
J.H. Hertz, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs 2nd edn (London: Soncino Press, 1960) p. 759, commenting on Deuteronomy 4:19, suggests that the words ‘which he apportioned to them’ indicate a biblical recognition that it is acceptable for the nations to worship their own gods. This is disingenuous.
Chaim Tchernowitz, Toldot ha-Halakhah (New York, 1934; 2nd edn, New York: Jubilee Committee, 1945) i, 62ff. and 335ff.
Louis Finkelstein, Pharisaism in the Making (New York: Ktav, 1972) p. 226.
B Avodah Zarah 64b. See S. Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1942) pp. 81–2.
Michael Guttman, Das Judenthum und seiner Umwelt (Berlin: Philo Verlag, 1927).
Novak cites Jacob Agus’s The Evolution of Jewish Thought (New York and London: Abelard Schuman, 1959) and Jewish Identity in an Age of Ideologies (New York: Frederick Unger, 1978). Agus’s most searching examination of the relationships between Judaism an other faiths is perhaps his Dialogue and Tradition (London, New York and Toronto: Abelard-Schuman, 1971) – though he offers no comment on the relations between Judaism and Hindu and Buddhist religion.
Nahum Rakover, ‘The “Law” and the Noahides’, Jewish Law Association Studies Iv (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990) 169–80, explores the differences between Noahide and Jewish law, and finds it helpful to understand Noahide law as ‘a sort of natural human law’ (p. 172).
Moses Mendelssohn, Gesammelte Schriften (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1929; facsimile repr. Stuttgart: Frommann Verlag, 1971-) xvi, 178–80. I have used Novak’s translation in Image of the Non-Jew p. 370, to which reference should be made.
Diogenes Laertius, 1.33. See Martin Hengel, Jews, Greeks and Barbarians (London: SCM, 1980) p. 78 and ch. 7, for an exploration of the idea of racial superiority in the Hellenistic world.
See P. Joyce, Divine Initiative and Human Response in Ezekiel, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement 51 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989).
See William Schoedel ‘Theological Norms and Social Perspectives in Ignatius of Antioch’, in E. P. Sanders (ed.), Jewish and Christian Self-Definition (London: SCM, 1980) 1, 31f, where Schoedel refers to inter alia the Christian observance of Sunday rather than Saturday as part of the Church’s deliberate policy of ‘separation’ from Jews and Judaism.
See Norman Solomon, ‘The Political Implications of a Belief in Revelation’, Heythrop Journal, xxv (1984) 134ff.
See Bat Yé or, The Dhimmi: Jews and Christians under Islam (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1985), for a passionate but well-documented account of the dhimmi peoples and the realities of their life under Muslim rule. The book first appeared in French as Le Dhimmi: Profile de l’Opprimé en Orient et en Afrique du Nord depuis le Conquête Arabe (Paris: Editions Anthropos, 1980).
See H. Maccoby, Judaism on Trial: Jewish Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1982).
Judah Halevi, The Kuzari, tr. H. Hirschfeld, 2nd edn (New York: Schocken Books, 1964) v.23.
Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance (London: Oxford University Press, 1961).
See Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973) ch. 3. Altmann thinks (p. 203) that Lavater was ‘put up to the job’ by Spalding.
Joseph P. Schultz, Judaism and the Gentiles (London and Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1981), esp. chs 2 and 3.
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Solomon, N. (1991). The Plurality of Faiths. In: Judaism and World Religion. Library of Philosophy and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12069-7_9
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