{"id":1456,"date":"2007-06-13T09:32:02","date_gmt":"2007-06-13T09:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/06\/the-rabbi-and-the-pope.html"},"modified":"2007-06-13T09:32:02","modified_gmt":"2007-06-13T09:32:02","slug":"the-rabbi-and-the-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/06\/the-rabbi-and-the-pope.html","title":{"rendered":"The Rabbi and the Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sandro Magister on Rabbi Jacob Neusner, whose work Pope Benedict repeatedly cites in JON, reprinting Neusner’s article from the Jerusalem Post from late May:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
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In \u201cJesus of Nazareth,\u201d the pope explains why this book made such a positive impression on him. In it, \u201cthe author takes his place among the crowds of Jesus\u2018 disciples on the \u2018mount\u2019 in Galilee. He listens to Jesus […] and he speaks with Jesus himself. He is touched by the greatness and the purity of what is said, and yet at the same time he is troubled by the ultimate incompatibility that he finds at the heart of the Sermon on the Mount […] again and again he talks with him. But in the end, he decides not to follow Jesus. He remains \u2013 as he himself puts it \u2013 with the \u2018eternal Israel\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

The central issue that prevents the rabbi from believing in Jesus is his revealing himself as God: the same scandal that led Jesus to his death. In Ratzinger\u2019s judgment, it is precisely here that the value of Neusner\u2019s book lies. The imaginary conversation between the Jewish rabbi and Jesus \u201chighlights the differences in all their sharpness, but it also takes place in great love. The rabbi accepts the otherness of Jesus\u2019 message, and takes his leave free of any rancor; this parting, accomplished in the rigor of truth, is ever mindful of the reconciling power of love.\u201d <\/p>\n

For Benedict XVI, this is the path of true dialogue between Jews and Christians. Not to conceal their respective claims to truth, but to bring these to light in reciprocal understanding and respect. <\/p>\n

And this is also Neusner\u2019s attitude: <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past two centuries Judeo-Christian dialogue served as the medium of a politics of social conciliation, not religious inquiry into the convictions of the other. […] In his \u2018Jesus of Nazareth\u2019 the Judeo-Christian disputation enters a new age. We are able to meet one another in a forthright exercise of reason and criticism.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Related: <\/u><\/p>\n

I have been tooling around the Web, looking for reviews of JON by evangelical Protestants. Here are a couple: <\/p>\n

From a North Carolina pastor, Joel Gillespie:<\/a><\/p>\n

(I actually found this rather moving, partly because of the writer’s honesty and open-mindedness, and partly because his general  reading of Ratzinger matches my own experience and so many from whom I’ve heard.)<\/p>\n

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Every so often a book comes along that deeply moves and inspires me as a person, and as a Christian. I can never know when this will happen. Many books disappoint, and many surprise.<\/p>\n

I am right in the middle of one of those amazing books. It is \u201cJesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration\u201d by Joseph Ratzinger, otherwise known as Pope Benedict XVI.<\/p>\n

OK, I am an evangelical Protestant pastor. How can I speak such of a book by the Roman Catholic Pope of all people?<\/p>\n

I remember hearing Johnny Cash commenting on the Nine Inch Nails\u2019 song \u201cHurt.\u201d His words: \u201cWell, a good song is a good song.\u201d<\/p>\n

And a good book is a good book. <\/p>\n

A few words about it…<\/p>\n

snip<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Second, whatever your image may be of Joseph Ratzinger, this book will change it. In it you see deeply into his own heart, and what is there is a humble and gentle spirit, and a deep godliness. He deals gently with those who object to the traditional view of Jesus, and his interaction with the arguments in Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner\u2019s \u201cA Rabbi Talks with Jesus\u201d is worth the price of the book. It should be archetypal for how Christians should interact with their Jewish neighbors, and their Jewish critics. I can\u2019t wait to read Neusner\u2019s book, because, from what I can glean from the sections in \u201cJesus of Nazareth" that relate to Neusner, Neusner understands the message and person of Jesus better than many Christians; he just does not buy it.<\/p>\n

snip<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Fifth, Pope Benedict is a very good writer. He is clear, and he is gentle. He also writes in a way that speaks to the heart. For me personally as a Christian, the manner in which he speaks and makes his points really speaks to me in a personal manner. He draws me into the kind of relationship with God that I desire to have.<\/p>\n

I have always been struck by this observation \u2013 that where we as historically orthodox Catholics and Protestants agree (and that is in a very large number of the most essential matters), the Catholic writers just put it differently. I have found their way of putting things, drawn from their long history, culture, and spiritual temperament, to be refreshing. I even love the Catholic Catechism. Where I disagree with it, say about Mary, or papal authority, or justification, or the Eucharist, or veneration of the saints, or purgatory, I can read respectfully, or just skip over. Where I agree with it, I find I am blessed by the way it puts things.<\/p>\n

Sixth, I think because of the more serious nature of much Catholic spiritual writing, as compared to so much of the mass-market driven Protestant drivel out there, I think this book provides an opportunity for people to see Jesus, the historic and living Jesus, in a new and deeper way. Benedict really is gifted at cutting to the core of the matter.<\/p>\n

Snip<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Eighth, every chapter so far has turned up for me fresh ways of seeing and understanding Jesus, his person and his mission. I by no means think that I am even close to understanding these matters in fullness, but it has been getting hard lately to find writers who open up new vistas. Benedict does that for me. Maybe down the road I will summarize some of those new vistas.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read it all<\/a><\/p>\n

New Testament scholar Scot McKnight has been blogging his way through the book – he wrote six posts, which are accessible here.<\/a> His comments and the comments of his commentors are quite interesting.<\/p>\n

I’m going to (finally) start seriously reading the book today and will be slowly blogging on it – those of you who are ahead of me, get ready to discuss!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sandro Magister on Rabbi Jacob Neusner, whose work Pope Benedict repeatedly cites in JON, reprinting Neusner’s article from the Jerusalem Post from late May: In \u201cJesus of Nazareth,\u201d the pope explains why this book made such a positive impression on him. In it, \u201cthe author takes his place among the crowds of Jesus\u2018 disciples on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Rabbi and the Pope - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/06\/the-rabbi-and-the-pope.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Rabbi and the Pope - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sandro Magister on Rabbi Jacob Neusner, whose work Pope Benedict repeatedly cites in JON, reprinting Neusner’s article from the Jerusalem Post from late May: In \u201cJesus of Nazareth,\u201d the pope explains why this book made such a positive impression on him. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}