While a major issue in the previous category was how and whether Christians and Jews can read together a (mostly) common biblical text, the issue facing the dialogue with respect to the New Testament is how Christians can handle its often polemical portraits of Jews and Judaism from the pulpit and in the classroom. The official Church mandates to do so are already in place, as the documentation discussed above will amply illustrate. But how is the official mandate to be translated into practical language and insights? An attempt to provide background material for Christian preachers and teachers has been co-edited by David Efroymson, myself and Leon Klenicki of the Anti-Defamation League as Within Context: Essays on Jews and Judaism in the New Testament (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993). The contents define the range of issues that Christian educators need to take up. Mary Boys, S.N.J.M., offers an alternative vision to ancient supersessionism. Anthony Saldarini outlines the characteristics of "The Judaism Contemporary with Jesus." Philip Cunningham and Urban von Wahlde deal with the positive and negative presentations of Judaism in the Synoptic gospels and St. John, respectively. Terrance Callan treats Paul and the Law, Efroymson Jesus and Opponents, and Fisher the Passion Narratives. The book includes discussion questions and bibliography and can be used as a text and in teacher formation programs. A short book on the Gospel of John also designed to combat the old "teaching of contempt" by providing reflective material, this time for use in adult education classes, is Philip S. Kaufman osb, The Beloved Disciple: Witness Against Anti-Semitism (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991).

Two popular level volumes from the American Midwest, one Catholic and one Protestant, complement one another in approaching with admirable directness the polemical strata of the New Testament. George M. Smiga of St. Mary Seminary in Cleveland has produced in Pain and Polemic: Anti- Judaism in the Gospels (Mahwah: Paulist/Stimulus, 1992) the more systematic work, taking the reader book by book through the four Gospels and using the latest research to explain how one may understand the ancient polemics today. Clark Williamson and Ronald Allen of Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis have written a very handy volume, Interpreting Difficult Texts: Anti-Judaism and Christian Preaching (London: SCM and Philadelphia: Trinity 1989). The work defines the problem in general, sets it in historical context in the early church, offers "case studies in selected texts," and will help the reader to develop sermons and other liturgical strategies to address the problem responsibly.

Traveling back across the Atlantic and to a more academic plane James D.G. Dunn, professor of Divinity at the University of Durham, has produced a magisterial study of The Parting of the Ways Between Christianity and Judaism and their Significance for the Character of Christianity (London: SCM and Philadelphia: Trinity, 1991) that may rival in impact the works of E.P. Sanders that almost single-handedly put the issues of the dialogue on the agenda of mainstream Christian biblical scholarship. Dunn surveys the literature "from Baur to Sanders" as the basis for his own reflections, summarizing what he calls the "four pillars of second temple Judaism" and the relationship to them of Jesus' teaching and that of the early Church. Dunn has something useful to say on just about every major issue. For example, it has long been the fashion among Christians following J. Jeremias' work to see in Jesus' use of the term "abba, Father" a proof not only of Jesus' intimacy with God but that of all Christians vis-a-vis Jews who were not seen to be on such close terms with the divine. Dunn affirms that the early Church saw this in its remembrance of Jesus' use of the term but goes on to comment that "it often comes as something of a shock to realize that it was not the same pre-Nicaea, not at any rate at the time of Jesus. In Jewish thinking of the first century, 'son of God' was ... a way of characterizing someone who was thought to be commissioned by God or highly favored by God ... but did not necessarily imply any overtones of divinity" (pp. 170-171). Thus, Dunn neatly preserves what is valid in the abba hypothesis while (if I may use the term) "deconstructing" it of its modern polemical edge.

Protestant scholar E.P. Sanders' Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah: Five Studies (London: SCM and Philadelphia: Trinity, 1990) deals with "The Synoptic Jesus and the Law"; "Did the Pharisees Have Oral Law?"; "Did the Pharisees Eat Ordinary Food in Purity?"; "Purity, Food and Offerings in the Diaspora"; and last (but by no means least!) "Jacob Neusner and the Philosophy of the Mishnah." Whatever one may say about individual judgments of Sanders, he has succeeded admirably, as I indicated above, in bringing to the center of the Christian biblical discussion the key issues of Jewish-Christian dialogue. Sanders has collaborated with Margaret Davies of the University of Bristol, England, in a textbook for advanced theology students, Studying the Synoptic Gospels (London: SCM and Philadelphia: Trinity, 1989) teaching the various methodologies of New Testament criticism.

Another major Protestant New Testament scholar working in the field is James H. Charlesworth of Princeton Theological Seminary whose Jesus Within Judaism (Doubleday, 1988) I recommended in In Our Time. Since then, in addition to putting out the newsletter, Explorations, Charlesworth has begun editing a series of volumes under the sponsorship of Philadelphia's American Interfaith Institute. The volume Jesus' Jewishness: Exploring the Place of Jesus in Early Judaism (New York: Crossroad, 1991) includes essays on the New Testament by Jewish and Christian scholars Harvey Cox, David Flusser, Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., Hans Küng, John P. Meier, Alan F. Segal, Ellis Rivkin and Geza Vermes. My own Faith Without Prejudice: Rebuilding Christian Attitudes Towards Jews and Judaism (Crossroad: Revised and expanded edition, 1993) is designed as a primer for teachers and general educated readers in the Jewishness of Jesus' teaching and in how to handle difficult texts such as the Passion Narratives. Appended are relevant documents and bibliography.

A major Catholic scholar in the field is Daniel Harrington, whose Sacra Pagina commentary on The Gospel of Matthew (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press/Michael Glazier Books, 1991) illustrates again the pervasive influence of Jewish-Christian dialogue on materials designed not just for the dialogue but for general use by Christian clergy and educators. Similarly, The Catholic Study Bible for The New American Bible (Oxford University Press, 1990) edited by Donald Senior, et al., is destined for widespread general use in the community for years to come. Most of its authors have been involved, in one form or another, in Jewish-Christian dialogue and reflect its concerns as they take up their commentaries on the books of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament alike.

A resource in English from Israel is the special issue (24/25, 1990) of the journal, Immanuel, edited by Malcolm Lowe, The New Testament and Christian-Jewish Dialogue: Studies in Honor of David Flusser (Ecumenical Fraternity, POB 249, 91002 Jerusalem, Israel). The 18 articles by Jewish and Christian scholars living in Israel reflect the breadth of the honoree's own studies. A Christian disciple of Flusser, Brad H. Young, has utilized the master's techniques to produce a very thorough and useful study, Jesus and His Jewish Parables (Mahwah: Paulist Press, Theological Inquiries Series, 1989). Clemens Thoma and Michael Wyschogrod have edited for the Stimulus series Parable and Story in Judaism and Christianity (Paulist, 1989).

Highlighting the ten essays are the paired studies of the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen by David Stern of the University of Pennsylvania and Aaron Milavec of the University of Cincinnati. I liked especially also Flusser on "Aesop's Miser and the Parable of the Talents"; Frank Kermode of King's College, Cambridge on "New Ways with Bible Stories"; Romano Penna of Lateran University in Rome on "Narrative Aspects of the Epistle to the Romans"; and Lawrence Boadt, C.S.P., on "Understanding the Mashal and Its Value for Jewish-Christian Dialogue in Narrative Theology."
Revising Christian understanding of the writings of St. Paul has been a major agenda item since the Second Vatican Council relied so heavily on Romans 9-11 to advance its more positive appreciation of the role of Judaism and the Jewish people in God's plan of salvation. In a short but provocative book, Jesuit scholar Norbert Lohfink of the University of Frankfurt sets forth twelve New Testament "theses" in The Covenant Never Revoked: Biblical Reflections on Christian-Jewish Dialogue (Mahwah: Paulist, 1991). Fellow Jesuit Daniel J. Harrington of Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, MA, undertakes a general survey of the literature on the Pauline corpus in his masterful and concise (103 pages including index) Paul on the Mystery of Israel (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, Michael Glazier Books, 1992).

Again, I am struck with how much work has been done by Christian scholars on these issues, to the point where someone like Harrington can discern some consensus emerging, even where I might personally hope for a different result on a specific passage. A thought-provoking fresh look at Paul from a Jewish perspective is taken by Alan F. Segal in Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). Even where Christian scholars disagree with Segal's analysis of the Pauline letters and the psychology of their author, they will profit from working through his theories.

A significant service has been done for the dialogue by Orbis Press in publishing the volume, Bursting the Bonds? A Jewish-Christian Dialogue on Jesus and Paul (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, Faith Meets Faith Series, 1990). The volume brings together in truly dialogical fashion Leonard Swidler (Catholic) and Lewis John Eron (Jewish) on Jesus/Yeshua as a "Torah-true Jew" and Gerard Sloyan (Catholic) and Lester Dean (Jewish) on Paul, the Law, and Hope for the Jews. It is a delightful exchange highlighted by the thoughtful insights of Father Sloyan.

Hayim Goren Perelmuter's Siblings: Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity at Their Beginnings (Mahwah: Paulist, 1989) is an excellent introduction for Christians not only into rabbinic/New Testament parallels but even more so into some of the great figures of early rabbinism. Perelmuter presents in readable fashion what is known of, and translates sayings and tales ascribed to and about such seminal teachers as Simeon teen Shetah, Hillel, Johanan teen Zakkai the Talmudic "odd couple" Eliezer and Joshua, Akiba, and Meir and Elisha teen Abuya.

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