In recent years, a new form of Messianic Judaism has emerged that has the potential to serve as a bridge between Jews and Christians. Giving voice to this movement, Mark Kinzer makes a case for nonsupersessionist Christianity. He argues that the election of Israel is irrevocable, that Messianic Jews should honor the covenantal obligations of Israel, and that rabbinic Judaism should be viewed as a movement employed by God to preserve the distinctive calling of the Jewish people. Though this book will be of interest to Jewish readers, it is written primarily for Christians who recognize the need for a constructive relationship to the Jewish people that neither denies the role of Jesus the Messiah nor diminishes the importance of God's covenant with the Jews.

Agues for the irrevocable election of Israel and a bold, bridging role--between Judaism and the Gentile church--for the Messianic Jewish movement.

Richard Harvey, himself a Messianic Jew, maps the diverse theological terrain of this young movement. He makes an original and innovative contribution by clarifying, affirming and constructively critiquing the present state of its theology. The book examines five topics of theological concern: 1. God's nature, activity and attributes (can the one God of Israel and the Christian Trinity be the same?) 2. The Messiah (Messianic Jewish Christologies) 3. Torah in theory (the meaning and interpretation of the Torah in the light of Jesus) 4. Torah in practice (Messianic practice of Sabbath, food laws and Passover) 5. Eschatology (the diverse models employed within the movement to describe the future of Israel). Within each topic Harvey explores the range of Messianic Jewish views and their roots in both Jewish and Christian theological traditions. The author proposes a typology of eight theological tendencies within Messianic Judaism and identifies issues where further theological development is required.

Israel's Messiah and the People of God presents a rich and diverse selection of essays by theologian Mark Kinzer, whose work constitutes a pioneering step in Messianic Jewish theology. Including several pieces never before published, this collectionilluminates Kinzer's thought on topics such as Oral Torah, Jewish prayer, eschatology, soteriology, and Messianic Jewish-Catholic dialogue. This volume offers the reader numerous portals into the vision of Messianic Judaism offered in Kinzer's Postmissionary Messianic Judaism (2005).

The good news (euangelion) of the crucified and risen Messiah was proclaimed first to Jews in Jerusalem, and then to Jews throughout the land of Israel. In Jerusalem Crucified, Jerusalem Risen, Mark Kinzer argues that this initial audience and geographical setting of the euangelion is integral to the eschatological content of the message itself. While the good news is universal in concern and cosmic in scope, it never loses its particular connection to the Jewish people, the city of Jerusalem, and the land of Israel. The crucified Messiah participates in the future exilic suffering of his people, and by his resurrection offers a pledge of Jerusalem's coming redemption. Basing his argument on a reading of the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of Luke, Kinzer proposes that the biblical message requires its interpreters to reflect theologically on the events of post-biblical history. In this context he considers the early emergence of Rabbinic Judaism and the much later phenomenon of Zionism, offering a theological perspective on these historical developments that is biblically rooted, attentive to both Jewish and Christian tradition, and minimalist in the theological constraints it imposes on the just resolution of political conflict in the Middle East.

Since the groundbreaking publication of Postmissionary Messianic Judaism (2005), Mark Kinzer has challenged theologians and religious leaders to consider the essential ecumenical vocation of Jewish disciples of Jesus. Proposing a bilateral ecclesiology in solidarity with Israel, he argued that the overcoming of Christian supersessionism required a robust affirmation of the distinctive calling of Jews within the community of Jesus the Messiah. In this way, Kinzer's work put the issue of Jewish followers of Jesus on the theological agenda for those seeking a reparative reconfiguration of the relationship between the church and the Jewish people. In recent years, Kinzer has attended to the theological implications of this perspective and has widened his focus to include not only the Messianic Jewish movement but also Jews within Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churches. The present collection of essays reflects this wider concern. According to Kinzer, the theological stones of contention are Christology conceived of as Messianology, ecclesiology understood as Israelology, and eschatology imagined as Zionology. Moreover, it is the presence of Jewish disciples of Jesus that concretizes these theological abstractions in the form of Jewish flesh and blood, summoning Jews and Christians to rethink their relationship to one another in ways that express their essential mutual dependence.

Vatican II's Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate) transformed the Catholic view of the Jewish people and the Jewish religious tradition. Asserting that the Church discovers her link to the "stock of Abraham" when "searching her own mystery," Nostra Aetate intimated that the mystery of Israel is inseparable from the mystery of the Church. As interlocking mysteries, each community requires the other in order to understand itself. In Searching Her Own Mystery, noted Messianic Jewish theologian Mark S. Kinzer argues that the Church has yet to explore adequately the implications of Nostra Aetate for Christian self-understanding. The new Catholic teaching concerning Israel should produce fresh perspectives on the entire range of Christian theology, including Christology, ecclesiology, and the theology of the sacraments. To this end, Kinzer proposes an Israel-ecclesiology rooted in Israel-Christology in which a restored ecclesia ex circumcisione--the "church from the circumcision"--assumes a crucial role as a sacramental sign of the Church's bond with the Jewish people and genealogical-Israel's irrevocable election.

Covenant and the People of God gathers twenty-four essays from friends and colleagues of Messianic Jewish theologian and New Testament scholar Mark S. Kinzer, in honor of his seventieth birthday. The essays are organized around two central themes that have animated Kinzer’s work: the nature of the covenant and what it means to be the people of God. The volume includes fascinating discussions of some of the most sensitive areas related to Jewish-Christian dialogue, post-supersessionist interpretation of Scripture, and the theological shape of Messianic Judaism. Among the contributors are scholars working in North America, Europe, and Israel. They include: Gabriele Boccaccini, Douglas A. Campbell, Holly Taylor Coolman, Gavin D’Costa, Jean-Miguel Garrigues, Douglas Harink, Richard Harvey, Vered Hillel, Jonathan Kaplan, Daniel Keating, Amy-Jill Levine, Antoine Lévy, Gerald McDermott, Michael C. Mulder, David M. Neuhaus, Isaac W. Oliver, Ephraim Radner, Jennifer M. Rosner, David J. Rudolph, Thomas Schumacher, Faydra L. Shapiro, R. Kendall Soulen, Lee B. Spitzer, and Etienne Vetö.

Millions of African Christians who consider themselves genealogical descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel—in other words, Jewish by ethnicity, but Christian in terms of faith—are increasingly choosing a religious affiliation that honors both of these identities. Their choice: Messianic Judaism. Messianic adherents emulate the Christians of the first century, observing the Jewish commandments while also affirming the salvational grace of Yeshua (Jesus). As the first comparative ethnography of such "fulfilled Jews" on the African continent, this book presents case studies that will enrich our understanding of one of global Christianity’s most overlooked iterations.

The gospel of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth has healed countless lives over the centuries, but the gospel itself has been wounded through neglect of one of its main components. The books of Luke and Acts reveal that the death and resurrection of Jesus are linked inextricably to the destruction and promised restoration of Jerusalem, the city that personifies the Jewish people as a whole. To highlight this expanded understanding of the gospel, Mark Kinzer and Russ Resnik unpack the Hebrew term for gospel, besorah, as a prophetic message of salvation for Israel and all nations. In Luke's besorah, the death and resurrection of the Messiah are a sign of the coming judgment and restoration of Jerusalem and the Jewish people--a restoration that brings with it the renewal of all creation. This prophetic dimension of the besorah is a key to healing the fractured gospel and restoring its power amidst the strife and tumult of the twenty-first century.