Redeeming Our Sacred Story: The Death of Jesus and Relations between Jews and Christians by Mary C. Boys, and: Toward the Future: Essays on Catholic-Jewish Relations in Memory of Rabbi León Klenicki ed. by Celia M. Deutsch, Eugene J. Fisher, James Rudin, and: Restating the Catholic Church’s Relationship with the Jewish People: The Challenge of Super-Sessionary Theology by John T. Pawlikowski (review)

Klenicki, of blessed memory, Pawlikowski, and Boys have all been long-term, valiant, and effective warriors in the struggle to end Christian anti-Judaism and for the amelioration of Jewish-Christian relations. All three books manifest an awareness of a radical revolution in our relationship that could not have been anticipated at the time of Vatican II’s watershed Nostra aetate and are equally aware of how much remains to be done. All three deserve more ink than this review can provide.

Pawlikowski insists, as do all critical scholars, that supersessionism must be rejected permanently. In addition to the harm caused to Jews over the centuries, Christianity, in its claim to supersede Judaism and its neglect of its Jewish roots, “lost an important revelatory dimension rooted in Torah which Jesus himself had maintained” (p. 98). In this valuable and critical account of the diverse theological efforts to supplant supersessionism, he leads the reader through earlier single- and double-covenant theories to contemporary attempts at a newer, reformulated “incarnational” Christology as the centerpiece of a more adequate conception of our relationship. His own conviction is that a vision of two distinct but linked paths is necessary; that Judaism and Christianity must be accepted as standing on an equal footing; and that, for Christians, significant newness and universality somehow must be seen as having broken through in Christ. Pawlikowski’s review of the scholarship on this issue—he refers to some fifty scholars along the way, mostly briefly, but more fully for a few—is extensive, trustworthy, and generally clear. He is fully aware that it is too early in the game for a completely satisfactory theology of religious pluralism, including his own, to gain universal acceptance, but he is rightly adamant that we have a continuing obligation to pursue the issue.

“Incarnational” Christology, which for Pawlikowski holds great promise, needs further clarification and elaboration. Regrettably, the publisher’s proofreading is careless: I counted twenty-five typographical errors and misspellings in a book of this small size and high price; I noted only one in the other two books.

If Pawlikowski’s focus on models and theories argues for an intended audience of scholars and those with some competence in the field, the Klenicki memorial volume is for anyone with an interest in Jewish-Christian relations. The emphasis of this somewhat disparate group of essays tends toward liturgy and spirituality, as well as the global context of the problem. The “future” of the title is satisfied in essays by Deutsch, David Gordis, and Peter Phan, and by Philip Cunningham’s recommendation for a reformed revival of the Catholic observance of the Feast of the Circumcision of Jesus (with healthy suggestions for a new set of lectionary readings and homily). Hillel Cohn and Jacqueline Hidalgo raise awareness of Catholic-Jewish relations among Latinos/as. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi’s valuable essay examines the Hebrew Bible’s diverse positions on “the other,” including positive attitudes toward those outside the covenant. Equally worthwhile are Shira Lander on Jewish understandings...