This booklet reviews the life of the patriarch Jacob. While looking at his story, abundant proof becomes evident of a divine proto-Messiah in the Torah.

All the fundamental tenents of Judaism as expressed in the Thirteen Principles of Faith laid down by Maimonides are subjected to a brilliant, courageous interpretation--a major work.

In these three lectures, the eminent British rabbi and theologian Louis Jacobs defines and defends his position as a liberal supernaturalist and halakhic nonfundamentalist in those areas where the religious Jew is confronted with the conflicting truth claims of modern knowledge and traditional belief. Jacobs begins by contrasting the theistic belief in a personal God with some of its alternatives; he argues that the liberal supernaturalist's position is both the closest in approximation to the traditional Jewish view and still the most coherent way to deal with the fundamental mysteries of the universe, even after Freud, Darwin, Marx, and modern technology have replaced a God-centered universe with a universe the center of which is man. The second lecture explores the impact of modern science and scholarship on the doctrine of Torah min hashamayim, divine revelation of the Written and Oral Torah. Acknowledging the influence of geology, astronomy, anthropology, comparative religion, Wissenschaft des Judentums, and Textual Criticism on the development of the Torah, Jacobs argues that one can be objective without any sacrifice of piety if one accepts the premise that "the totality we call Torah is human imbued with the divine." Finally, in the third lecture, Jacobs discusses traditional interpretations of the doctrine of the Chosen People and examines some of the tensions it generates today in terms of interreligious tolerance, the Jewish people and the Jewish state, and the demands of the group versus the needs of the individual. In addition, he contrasts fundamentalist and nonfundamentalist attitudes toward various eschatological idead, advocating a position of "reverent agnosticism" with regard to belief in the Messiah and resurrection of the dead but affirming acceptance of the immortality of the soul as a basic principle of modern Jewish faith.

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.

Jacob and Esau is a profound new account of two millennia of Jewish European history that, for the first time, integrates the cosmopolitan narrative of the Jewish diaspora with that of traditional Jews and Jewish culture. Malachi Haim Hacohen uses the biblical story of the rival twins, Jacob and Esau, and its subsequent retelling by Christians and Jews throughout the ages as a lens through which to illuminate changing Jewish-Christian relations and the opening and closing of opportunities for Jewish life in Europe. Jacob and Esau tells a new history of a people accustomed for over two-and-a-half millennia to forming relationships, real and imagined, with successive empires but eagerly adapting, in modernity, to the nation-state, and experimenting with both assimilation and Jewish nationalism. In rewriting this history via Jacob and Esau, the book charts two divergent but intersecting Jewish histories that together represent the plurality of Jewish European cultures.

'Probably the most important analytical study of the Hasidic movement ... can be read by anyone seriously interested in Jewish history.' - Jewish Historical Studies

Jewish Messianism and the History of Philosophy contests the ancient opposition between Athens and Jerusalem by retrieving the concept of meontology - the doctrine of nonbeing - from the Jewish philosophical and theological tradition. For Emmanuel Levinas, as well as for Franz Rosenzweig, Hermann Cohen and Moses Maimonides, the Greek concept of nonbeing (understood as both lack and possibility) clarifies the meaning of Jewish life. These thinkers of 'Jerusalem' use 'Athens' for Jewish ends, justifying Jewish anticipation of a future messianic era as well as portraying the subjects intellectual and ethical acts as central in accomplishing redemption. This book envisions Jewish thought as an expression of the intimate relationship between Athens and Jerusalem. It also offers new readings of important figures in contemporary Continental philosophy, critiquing previous arguments about the role of lived religion in the thought of Jacques Derrida, the role of Plato in the thought of Emmanuel Levinas and the centrality of ethics in the thought of Franz Rosenzweig.