Israel: A Christian Grammar

Israel: A Christian Grammar proposes an understanding of Israel for Christians. The book's central claim is that Israel properly includes both the synagogue and the church, which is the same as to say that Israel properly includes both Christians and Jews. This, the book proposes, makes better sense of twentieth- and twenty-first-century developments in Christian doctrine about the Jewish people than other, rival construals of the same matter: if Christians and Jews share a lineage, worship the same God, have the same purpose, and are each given an irrevocable promise by that God of the continuation of their condition as God's beloved community--then they share a form of life, and that form of life is Israel. Such an understanding requires addressing what separates church and synagogue (theologically, liturgically, halakhically), how the differences between them came about, and the condition and meaning of those differences now. That address is provided. Central to it is a depiction of the correct way for Christians to understand the nature of the separation between themselves and Jews, and of the part the church has played in bringing it about. Central to that, in turn, is a detailed depiction of the ways in which the church and the synagogue respectively are and are not intimate with God. On that last point, the book argues that the best working assumption for Christians is that Jews are, in general, more intimate with God than Christians themselves are. From this in turn follow recommendations as to how Christians should now behave with respect to proselytizing Jews, depicting Jews, baptizing Jews, and marrying Jews.