Foreword by Scott Hahn In Many Religions, One Covenant, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger spans the deep divides in modern Catholic scholarship to present a compelling biblical theology, modern in its concerns yet classical in its breadth. It is his classical mastery, his ressourcement, that enables the Cardinal to build a bridge. Cardinal Ratzinger seeks to deepen our understanding of the Bible's most fundamental principle. The covenant defines religion for Christians and Jews. We cannot discern God's design or his will if we do not meditate upon his covenant. The covenant, then, is the principle that unites the New Testament with the Old, the Scriptures with Tradition, and each of the various branches of theology with all the others. The covenant does more than bridge the gaps between these elements; it fills in the gaps, so that biblical scholarship, dogmatic theology, and magesterial authority all stand on common ground - solid ground.

Revisiting the important topic of covenant fulfillment, Reformed theologian David Holwerda argues that God's promises to Old Testament Israel cannot be understood apart from Jesus Christ. Holwerda maintains that the Old Testament promises of God find their complete fulfillment in Jesus Christ and the church.

In the twenty-first century, Jews and Christians are challenged to reconsider their theological assumptions by two inescapable truths: the moral tragedy of the holocaust demands that Christian thinkers acknowledge the violent effects of theologically delegitimizing Jews and Judaism, and the pervasive reality of cultural and religious pluralism calls both Christian and Jewish theologians to rethink the covenant in the presence of the Other. Two Faiths, One Covenant? Jewish and Christian Identity in the Presence of the Other is a breakthrough work that embraces this contemporary challenge and charts a path toward fruitful interfaith dialogue. The Christian and Jewish theologians in this book explore the ways that both religions have understood the covenant and reflect on how it can serve as a reservoir for a positive theological relationship between Christianity and Judaism-not merely one of non-belligerent tolerance, but of respect and theological pluralism, however limited.

"The Book of Exodus may be the most consequential story ever told. But its spectacular moments of heaven-sent plagues and parting seas overshadow its true significance, says Jan Assmann, a leading historian of ancient religion. The story of Moses guiding the enslaved children of Israel out of captivity to become God's chosen people is the foundation of an entirely new idea of religion, one that lives on today in many of the world's faiths. The Invention of Religion sheds new light on ancient scriptures to show how Exodus has shaped fundamental understandings of monotheistic practice and belief." --

Covenant and Hope centers around two main themes in Jewish-Christian dialogue: "Covenant, Mission, and Relation to the Other" and "Hope and Responsibility for the Human Future." In the first section scholars from both faiths analyze the idea of covenant, how it determines their religious commitments, behavior, and theology, and how their covenantal theology shapes their relations with people outside their religious communities. The second section focuses on the foundation for religious hope, how belief in the future can be nourished, and on our practical and philosophic responsibility to work for a better human future.

What does Jesus have to do with Buddha? What does Muhammad have to do with Krishna? One of the most important tasks for theology in the twenty-first century is interreligious dialogue. Given the rapid process of globalization and the surge of information via the Internet, travel, and library networking today, interreligious dialogue has become a necessary element within Christian theology that no longer can be avoided. Evangelization as Interreligious Dialogue features eleven essays, plus an extensive introduction, that exercise a live conversation between religious others. Divided into four thematic sections—(1) Catholic approaches to interreligious dialogue, (2) dialogues between Judaism and Christianity, (3) dialogues between Islam and Christianity, and (4) dialogues between Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity—this volume conducts a sustained theological reflection on the current state of interreligious dialogue by signaling its hopeful promises and unrelenting challenges. The reader will be invited to encounter the religious other firsthand and put his or her most cherished theological assumptions to the test. This book aims to provoke an expansion of horizons for theological imagination as it exposes the basic dialectic of identity and difference as played out in the interaction between diverse religious beliefs, practices, and experiences.

When people of different cultures and religious traditions are being constantly drawn closer together, interreligious dialogue becomes not only a strategy to understand the "Others," but also an attitude to deepen one's faith. Christian faith acknowledges other religious traditions as genuine "ways" and "channels" of salvation for their adherents and that religions have a place in God's universal plan of salvation for humankind. The plausibility of this assertion can be exemplified by the concept of "inclusive pluralism," a theological model developed by the Belgian-born Jesuit theologian Jacques Dupuis. This book expounds that concept and reflects on its implication for the Catholic Church's unwavering commitment to interreligious dialogue.

The Gospel of John presents its readers, listeners, and interpreters with a serious problem: how can we reconcile the Gospel’s exalted spirituality and deep knowledge of Judaism with its portrayal of the Jews as the children of the devil (John 8:44) who persecuted Christ and his followers? One widespread solution to this problem is the so-called “expulsion hypothesis.” According to this view, the Fourth Gospel was addressed to a Jewish group of believers in Christ that had been expelled from the synagogue due to their faith. The anti-Jewish elements express their natural resentment of how they had been treated; the Jewish elements of the Gospel, on the other hand, reflect the Jewishness of this group and also soften the force of the Gospel’s anti-Jewish comments. In Cast out of the Covenant, this book, Adele Reinhartz presents a detailed critique of the expulsion hypothesis on literary and historical grounds. She argues that, far from softening the Gospel’s anti-Jewishness, the Gospel’s Jewish elements in fact contribute to it. Focusing on the Gospel’s persuasive language and intentions, Reinhartz shows that the Gospel’s anti-Jewishness is evident not only in the Gospel’s hostile comments about the Jews but also in its appropriation of Torah, Temple, and Covenant that were so central to first-century Jewish identity. Through its skillful use of rhetoric, the Gospel attempts to convince its audience that God’s favor had turned away from the Jews to the Gentiles; that there is a deep rift between the synagogue and those who confess Christ as Messiah; and that, in the Gospel’s view, this rift was initiated in Jesus’ own lifetime. The Fourth Gospel, Reinhartz argues, appropriates Jewishness at the same time as it repudiates Jews. In doing so, it also promotes a “parting of the ways” between those who believe that Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God, and those who do not, that is, the Jews. This rhetorical program, she suggests, may have been used to promote outreach or even an organized mission to the Gentiles, following in the footsteps of Paul and his mid-first-century contemporaries.

There is no single standard textbook that outlines the official Roman Catholic theological position in relation to other religions which then explicates this orientation theologically and phenomenologically in relation to the four main religions of the world and the flowering of new religious movements in the west. The present project will cover this serious gap in the literature. After outlining the teaching of Vatican II and the magisterium since then (chapter one), each subsequent chapter will be divided equally between (a) an exposition of the history and features of the religion or movement being studied; and (b) a serious theological analysis of these features, showing how these religions do have elements in common, as well as how they differ in fundamental ways from Catholicism.

In these pages Benedict XVI shares his reasons for retiring from the papacy in 2013 in an interview with the author. Many saw his astonishing retirement as a sign of the Church's decline, but he intended it as a seed sown in the hope of bringing the Church a younger, more vigorous leadership in the face of daunting challenges. Among those challenges are the financial and sexual scandals that continue to undermine the Church's mission. When Ratzinger was elected Pope in 2005, he opened a path of purification for the Church, while calling upon the Western world to return to its Christian roots and to build a new humanism for the twenty-first century, and his call for renewal is still relevant. Widely recognized as one of the most important theologians and spiritual leaders of our time, Joseph Ratzinger served throughout the papacy of John Paul II as the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Both men had witnessed how atheistic philosophies and war had ravaged twentieth-century Europe, and they shared in the effort of revealing to modern man his need for God, for redemption in Jesus Christ.