"Based on years of archival research, The Aryan Jesus examines the membership and activities of this controversial theological organization. With headquarters in Eisenach, the Institute sponsored propaganda conferences throughout the Nazi Reich and published books defaming Judaism, including a dejudaized version of the New Testament and a catechism proclaiming Jesus as the savior of the Aryans. Institute members - professors of theology, bishops, and pastors - viewed their efforts as a vital support for Hitler's war against the Jews."--BOOK JACKET.
Who Do You say that I am? was the question Jesus asked the disciples. This book looks at some contemporary Jewish answers to that question (and answers to those answers). It also examines the history of anti-Semitism and how that has influenced people in our modern era. Whether Jewish or non-Jewish, The Messiah Factor brings many vital issues to the table challenging us all to answer that question, Who do you say that I am? Issues raised include: Why has the professing church often persecuted Jewish People? Where was God when the six million perished? If Jesus is the Messiah, why is there no peace in the world? Do events in the Middle East today tie in with the prophecies of the Bible, and if so, how will they end? What clues do the Hebrew Prophets give to Messiah s identity?
Current scholarship in the study of ancient Christianity is now available to nonspecialists through this collection of essays on anti-Judaism in the New Testament and in New Testament interpretation. While academic writing can be obscure and popular writing can be uncritical, this group of experts has striven to write as simply and clearly as possible on topics that have been hotly contested. The essays are arranged around the historical figures and canonical texts that matter most to Christian communities and whose interpretation has fed the negative characterizations of Jews and Judaism. A select annotated bibliography also gives suggestions for further reading. This book should be an excellent resource for academic courses as well as adult study groups.
An analysis that challenges the conventional Christian hierarchy of John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth While the Christian tradition has subordinated John the Baptist to Jesus of Nazareth, John himself would likely have disagreed with that ranking. In this eye-opening new book, John the Baptist in History and Theology, Joel Marcus makes a powerful case that John saw himself, not Jesus, as the proclaimer and initiator of the kingdom of God and his own ministry as the center of God's saving action in history. Although the Fourth Gospel has the Baptist saying, "He must increase, but I must decrease," Marcus contends that this and other biblical and extrabiblical evidence reveal a continuing competition between the two men that early Christians sought to muffle. Like Jesus, John was an apocalyptic prophet who looked forward to the imminent end of the world and the establishment of God's rule on earth. Originally a member of the Dead Sea Sect, an apocalyptic community within Judaism, John broke with the group over his growing conviction that he himself was Elijah, the end-time prophet who would inaugurate God's kingdom on earth. Through his ministry of baptism, he ushered all who came to him—Jews and non-Jews alike—into this dawning new age. Jesus began his career as a follower of the Baptist, but, like other successor figures in religious history, he parted ways from his predecessor as he became convinced of his own centrality in God's purposes. Meanwhile John's mass following and apocalyptic message became political threats to Herod Antipas, who had John executed to abort any revolutionary movement. Based on close critical-historical readings of early texts—including the accounts of John in the Gospels and in Josephus's Antiquities—as well as parallels from later religious movements, John the Baptist in History and Theology situates the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism and compares him to other apocalyptic thinkers from ancient and modern times. It concludes with thoughtful reflections on how its revisionist interpretations might be incorporated into the Christian faith.
The book traces the role of Judaism and the Jewish people in God's plan for the salvation of mankind, from Abraham through the Second Coming, as revealed by the Catholic faith and by a thoughtful examination of history. It will give Christians a deeper understanding of Judaism, both as a religion in itself and as a central component of Christian salvation. To Jews it reveals the incomprehensible importance, nobility and glory that Judaism most truly has. It examines the unique and central role Judaism plays in the destiny of the world. It documents that throughout history attacks on Jews and Judaism have been rooted not in Christianity, but in the most anti-Christian of forces. Areas addressed include: the Messianic prophecies in Jewish scripture; the anti-Christian roots of Nazi anti-Semitism; the links between Nazism and Arab anti-Semitism; the theological insights of major Jewish converts; and the role of the Jews in the Second Coming. "Perplexed by controversies new and old about the destiny of the Jewish people? Read this book by a Jew who became a Catholic for a well-written, provocative, ground-breaking account. Some of the answers most have never heard before." Ronda Chervin, Ph.D., Hebrew-Catholic
During the period from 1933-1945 Jewish people throughoutEurope were persecuted by the Nazi regime in Germany, andsome six million were murdered. About half of those murderedwere from Poland.What is not so well known is that there were tens of thousandsof Jewish people in Europe who were associated with the Churchin one form or another. These Jewish or Hebrew Christians(officially 'non-Aryan Christians') suffered like all other Jewishpeople due to the Nazi race laws.The Jocz family from Poland fell into that category.This narrative follows the lives of Bazyli and Anna Jocz fromwhen they were born in 1880. Bazyli was murdered in 1944 andAnna was severely injured and suffered for the remainder of herlife. It also follows the lives of their sons, and in particular Jakoband Pawel.Considerable background information is provided in orderto better understand the historical and geographical contextin which the family lived, as well as the various phases of theHolocaust.What happened to the Jocz family was quite typical of whathappened to many of the Jewish or Hebrew Christians ofPoland and Europe. Many were murdered by the Nazi's and theirallies, while some survived. This book is an attempt to tell the collectivestory of this sub-group of Jewish victims of the Holocaust."Kelvin has a reputation for rigorous research and leaves no stone unturned. He uncovers another dimension to the Holocaust and one that many have missed. The Nazi fury unleashed against non Aryan Christians." (Marquess of Reading).
In this first book to focus on the myth that the Jews were responsible, directly and indirectly, for the death of Jesus Christ, Cohen explores the fascinating career of this myth, as he tracks the image of the Jew as the murderer of the messiah and God from its origins to its most recent expressions. 30 halftones.
This book is a collection of letters from a religious Jew in Israel to a Christian friend in Barcelona on life as an Orthodox Jew. Equal parts lighthearted and insightful, it's a thorough and entertaining introduction to the basic concepts of Judaism.
May God Avenge Their Blood: a Holocaust Memoir Triptych presents three memoirs by the Yiddish writer Rachmil Bryks (1912–1974). In "Those Who Didn't Survive," Bryks portrays inter-war life in his shtetl Skarżysko-Kamienna, Poland with great flair and rich anthropological detail, rendering a haunting collective portrait of an annihilated community. "The Fugitives" vividly charts the confusion and terror of the early days of World War II in the industrial city of Łódź and elsewhere. In the final memoir, "From Agony to Life," Bryks tells of his imprisonment in Auschwitz and other camps. Taken together, the triptych takes the reader on a wide-ranging journey from Hasidic life before the Holocaust to the chaos of the early days of war and then to the horrors of Nazi captivity. This translation by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub brings the extraordinary memoirs of an important Yiddish writer to English-language readers for the first time.
