If the Jews were the target of the Nazis’ extermination project, we must ask: Why the Jews? Who are the Jews? What makes them Jews? One premise for this investigation, as already stated, is that Judaism is the key to the connections between antisemitism and the Holocaust that it spawned. Therefore these reflections on the connections among Judaism, antisemitism, and the Holocaust begin with the Judaism that makes Jews Jewish, which is the focus of the first chapter. The key to the matter of who is a Jew is Judaism. Whether a particular Jew is reform, orthodox, or atheist, his or her identity as a Jew ultimately stems from Judaism, from the Covenant of Torah: Without the Torah, there would be no Jews. The Covenant of Torah comes with certain categories of thought, beginning with the categories of creation, revelation, and redemption. It comes with a certain teaching and testimony concerning God, world, and humanity. The Jewish people signify that teaching and testimony by their very presence in the world.

At the heart of Judaism is the most frequently repeated commandment of the Torah, namely the care and the concern for the stranger, for the one who is deemed “the other.” Judaism is the religion of “otherness,” as one can see in the notion of the Jews as “a people apart” (see Leviticus 20:24), as well as in the view that that the non-Jew, the “other,” may be counted among the righteous as readily as any Jew. The basis for this view is that the other is not so “other”: the other, too, is a ben adam, a “child of Adam,” regardless of his or her beliefs, ethnicity, or color. Fundamental to an understanding of the Covenant is an understanding of Jewish teachings on the importance of the stranger or the ger: According to Jewish teaching, there is no Covenant with God without an embrace of the stranger. Next, the chapter notes the commandments regarding the treatment of the stranger, with a closer look at the meaning of the word stranger, in contrast to other words that mean “strange.” Finally, the chapter explores the teachings from the Jewish oral tradition regarding the stranger and the notion of the Righteous among the Nations.

The introduction opens with the claim that essence of Jew hatred is critical to an understanding of the extermination of the Jews. If the Jews were the target of the Nazis’ extermination project, we must ask: Why the Jews? Who are the Jews? What makes them Jews? What, exactly, were the Nazis attempting to annihilate in the extermination of the Jews? If the Event is driven by antisemitism, what is antisemitism anti-? It explains that the investigation is guided by the categories of Jewish thought. It explains the the book begins with Judaism as the key to making connections between antisemitism and the Holocaust. The introduction also states how this book differs from others, and contains a brief summary of each of the chapters.

Chapter 5 analyses the different forces working against the ‘abortive reformation’ discussed in Chapter 4. It begins with the Scottish commissioners, seeing their significance less in propelling a Presbyterian agenda than in their more circumspect undermining of the calls for reduced episcopacy. The chapter then discusses the various parliamentary forces working against episcopacy, along with the role played by more radicalizing religious discourses beyond Parliament’s immediate control. To explain why more marginal ideas were able to gain traction in public discourse about religious change, attention turns to the prestige of anti-Laudian martyrs and the disproportionate public importance of prominent Congregationalists, the format and distribution of the tracts themselves, but also the ways in which the language of religious change was also developing in this period, which opened up areas of ambiguity in which radical solutions could flourish. Here discussion centres on the languages of reformation, anti-Laudianism, apocalypse, eschatology and covenant, with detailed attention to the role played by the 1641 Protestation in particular in polarizing religious opinion. Importance is also attached to the conservative backlash that this radicalization provoked, which undermined conformist support for further reform and empowered more conservative and even Laudian figures.

Chapter 6 outlines a political theology of monotheism using Assmann’s concepts of the Mosaic distinction, supplemented by other scholars like Mark S. Smith, Robert Gnuse, Rainer Albertz, et al. We dwell closely here on Israel’s political conditions of sovereignty, subjugation, and exile that all help illuminate – as we saw in Gans’ critique – what historical peculiarities constitute the Hebrew discovery of monotheism. I explore how monotheism could be composed of polytheistic building blocks – first in state-based religion and political symbols, like monolatry and despotic vassal treaties – but transform among an exiled people into a division of God from political representation.

Too little scholarly attention has been paid to the paradox that those from the southern kingdom of Judah wrote, collected, and edited a foundational narrative not of Judah but of Israel, the ethnonym more closely associated with the northern kingdom even within the biblical narratives. This chapter argues that, rather than staking their claim to be the sole heirs to the heritage of the covenant with YHWH, the Judahite biblical editors constructed a biblical narrative that emphasizes that Judah is only one portion of a larger Israel that is presently—from the perspective of the editors and their implied audience—incomplete and awaiting reunion and restoration. By constructing an Israel of the past and rhetorically situating the reader in exile, the editors of the Primary History (Genesis–2 Kings) and 1–2 Chronicles establish a perspective of restoration eschatology in which an idealized biblical Israel (of course under the leadership of Judah) does not presently exist, having lost its status due to covenantal disobedience and disunity, but remains a social and theological aspiration.

This chapter traces foundations for the organizing framework of the modern nation-state to post-Conquest England. Feudalism was essential, as institutionalized in the royal prerogative, administrative kingship, and covenantal social bonds. I focus on the historical factors that made England distinctive, in this period, both in the intensity of its feudal structures and in the strength of royal, prerogative powers. I argue that a unique combination of Anglo-Saxon legal legacies with the Norman Conquest's imposition of powerful rulership facilitated the coalescence of a regime involving new levels of social power. Roman law, canon law, and English common law each played vital roles in this coalescence, with new levels of economic growth fueled by new types of legal privileges. Development of new technologies, for example the windmill, was one result.

This chapter examines Josephus' views of exile and eschatology, arguing that although he is careful in how he communicates his views in this area, Josephus continued to hold to a traditional view of exile and restoration, repeatedly indicating that Rome's dominance would be temporary and that a restored Israel will eventually rule the world. The chapter argues that Josephus' restoration eschatology informs his use of the term "Israel," as he distinguishes between the Jews under Roman rule and the whole of Israel, particularly the ten tribes, who remain beyond the Euphrates and are now a "boundless multitude" (Antiq. 11.133) simply awaiting the time when God initiates the promised restoration.

In addition to treating the critical issues that are peculiar to Luke-Acts—for example, the birth narrative, the distinctive parables, and the relationship between Lukan and Pauline traditions—this chapter discusses Luke's reconfiguration of Israel's history.

Central to current Pauline scholarship is the desire to do right by Paul’s Jewish heritage and the first-century Judaism that formed him. To do right by Judaism historically is, however, not the same as doing right by Israel theologically. Exegetes continue to think of Israel’s existence as subvenient to the wellbeing of the nations. This chapter argues that the narrative substructures assumed in contemporary approaches form the building blocks of a different reading. This account should be centered on the nonfunctional nature of God’s relationship with Israel as witnessed by the Torah, the prophets, and Paul. It is a relationship motivated by divine love for this people. Read through the lens of the incarnational vision of Colossians and Ephesians, it is a relationship born of God’s desire to give Godself in incarnation. If Christ is the embodiment of the first divine intention vis-à-vis all that is not God; and if human embodiment is essentially particular, located in a particular history, culture, tribe, and family, Israel is the very particularity created to receive God’s presence. In Christ, God’s first decision is to be a God for others; those others are Abraham’s family.

This chapter contrasts the traditional Protestant understanding of justification with two rival ways in which contemporary exegetes conceive of the anatomy of God’s justifying act: the salvation-historical proposal of N. T. Wright and the apocalyptic reading of Douglas A. Campbell. Like the reformers, N. T. Wright understands justification as a forensic event. Unlike them, Wright thinks about justification primarily in ecclesiological and eschatological categories. Justification is to be declared a member of the eschatological covenant family. Douglas A. Campbell thinks of justification as a saving rather than a juridical account. To be justified is to be set free and delivered. The chapter argues that, on close analysis, Wright is not as far from Campbell’s position as is usually thought - not least by Wright himself. Wright’s description of what actually happens in justification goes far beyond a juridical declaration. On both the salvation-historical and the apocalyptic account, justification is centered on resurrection and thereby the result of an eschatological divine intervention.

Puritan theology was distinctly literary. Defined in relation to the Bible and asserting a scriptural standard for faith and religious practice, it was firmly anchored in reading and interpretation. Conversely, puritan theology shaped puritan literature. Puritans considered the Bible as they read it and heard it taught, and they interpreted and wrote about their own experiences in light of the Bible and other textual models of religious experience. Puritan texts were shaped by theology, both because theories of reading and writing were central to puritan faith and because puritan faith was central to the lives and experiences of many puritan writers. Puritan writers – both ministers and laypeople – addressed the complexities of their beliefs and their religious experience in various genres, including theology manuals, sermons, spiritual autobiographies and conversion narratives, and poetry. Puritan writers also addressed theoretical questions about what kinds of textual expression were most appropriate and most spiritually efficacious for their communities. As ministers, political leaders, and laypeople wrestled with the challenges of their faith and its consequences for individuals and communities, they created a varied body of illuminating and moving texts that reveal the rich complexity of puritan belief and puritan literary practice.

This chapter examines passages in Hebrews where the Son is portrayed as the speaker of Scripture quotations (Heb 2:10–18; 10:1–10). In Hebrews 2, the Son, perhaps responding the Father in Hebrews 1, pledges to praise God among his human siblings. He likewise expresses his own faith in the Father. In Hebrews 10, the Son presents himself as a willing offering who has entered the world to do the Father’s will. In each case, Jesus speaks to the Father and demonstrates his status as an exemplary representative among humanity.

Chapter 3 explores divine responses to the ways God responds to the ruptures wrought by violence in the physical world, especially as presented in Genesis 8-9. In Gen 8:22, God assures humanity that he would uphold the cycles of creation in the face of human corruption, such that it would not sustain the impact of violence as it did before the flood. Psalm 74 portrays an analogous world in which God’s ongoing power over creation subdues the chaotic ruin that violence unleashes in the world. I also suggest that God’s promise to never again curse the land reverses the land curse arising from Cain’s act of violence (4:12). This chapter also addresses the ‘laws’ of Gen 9:1-6. Some understand Gen 9:1-6 to address humanity’s bloodlust for violence. God tolerates a modicum of violence against animals, but restrains it. I suggest by contrast that the ‘fear and dread’ reflects the fractured relationship between humans and animals. Also, the so-called ‘laws’ only point toward the need for law, and in the world of the story, indicate only what God himself will do. Moreover, the text restricts humanity’s power over the life(blood) of animals. Finally, the creation covenant (9:7-18) reflects ways that God restricts the use of divine violence in the post-flood world. This creation covenant anticipates God’s later covenants with Israel and the land.

Biblical and non-Biblical prophecy from the ancient Near East, in all its manifestations, is an equivalent form of divination translated through human words and gestures. Prophets do not need to be members of a guild of religious practitioners or operate within a cultic context based on learned skills. They are measured by the perceived veracity of their message and their strict adherence to the god they serve. The recording of these messages in letters or collected sayings becomes the basis for what we term “prophetic literature,” a diverse body of literary forms that at its heart demonstrates to devotees the active interest of the god(s) in human activities and endeavors. To comprehend the basic characteristics of prophetic literature in the Hebrew Bible, this study examines the social and cultural setting contributing to its development as well as the prophetic traditions that are found in documents from ancient Mesopotamia.