Jesus Reclaimed (EPUB) von Rabbi Walter Homolka

Foreword
Leonard Swidler

Translators Preface
Ingrid Shafer

Preface

Introduction: The Life of Jesus according to the Sources

• The Sources
• The Early Years
• Public Appearance
• Jesuss Message
• Arrest and Trial
• Death

Chapter 1. Jewish Images of Jesus prior to the Early Modern Period   

• Jesus in the Mishnah and Talmud
• The Toldot Yeshu
• Rabbinic Polemics against Jesus
• Christian Talmud Criticism and Censorship

Chapter 2. The Historical Jesus since the Early Modern Period

• Jesus and the Jewish Enlightenment
• The Christian Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Departure from Dogma
• The Jewish Quest of the Historical Jesus as Repatriation of Jesus to Judaism
• The Berlin Anti-Semitism Debate
• The Jesus Scandal around Max Liebermann
• Leo Baeck and Adolf von Harnack: The Controversy

Chapter 3. The Jewish Quest of Jesus

• From Joseph Klausner to Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich

Chapter 4. Joseph Ratzinger and the Jewish Jesus

• That Jesus Was a Jew: A Cultural Coincidence?
• The Rabbi Jesus: For Christians Only as Important as Christ?
• Reading the Whole Bible in the Light of Christ: Joseph Ratzingers Hermeneutics
• Christian Faith and Historical Reason

Conclusion

Bibliography
Index

After centuries of persecution, oppression, forced migrations, and exclusion in the name of Christ, the development of a Jewish Quest for the Historical Jesus might seem unexpected.  This book gives an overview and analysis of the various Jewish perspectives on the Nazarene throughout the centuries, emphasizing the variety of German voices in Anglo-American contexts. It explores the reasons for a steady increase in Jewish interest in Jesus since the end of the eighteenth century, arguing that this growth had a strategic goal: the justification of Judaism as a living faith alongside Christianity.

Rabbi Walter Homolka is the rector of the Abraham Geiger College, Germanys first rabbinical seminary after the Holocaust, and a professor of Modern Jewish Thought at the School of Jewish Theology of the University of Potsdam in Germany. Active in Jewish-Christian dialogue, he is author of many books, includingThe Gate to Perfection: The Idea of Peace in Jewish Thought (Berghahn 1995),Jewish Identity in Modern Times: Leo Baeck and German Protestantism (Berghahn 1995), co-author with Rabbi Aaron D. Panken ofEngaging Torah: Modern Perspectives on The Hebrew Bible (Hebrew Union College Press), and co-author with Hans Küng ofHow to Do Good& Avoid Evil: A Global Ethic from the Sources of Judaism (Skylight Paths, 2009).