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Religion 506
Studies in Theology: Israel and the Nations
Spring 2019, Wednesday, 1:30-4:20PM

Professor Leora Batnitzky Professor Eric Gregory

batnitzk@princeton.edu, Rm. 237 gregory@princeton.edu, Rm. 236

Description:
Much of recent Jewish and Christian thought has focused on arguments defending the
respective particularity of the Jewish and Christian traditions. With special attention to
debates about God’s people, the problem of election, the relation between religious and
national identities, and the significance of the Apostle Paul, this seminar examines the
historical and theological contexts of these arguments as well as their philosophical,
ethical, and political implications.

Reading/Writing Assignments: Twenty-page paper, due on Dean’s Date. Careful

preparation for and participation in seminar discussion. One or more class presentations.
Apart from books for purchase, most readings can be found on Reserves (R) or Course
Materials (CM) through Blackboard or online at the University library website (PUL).

Books for Purchase:

Michael Wyschogrod, The Body of Faith: God in the People of Israel
R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology
Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations
Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens
Jacob Taubes, The Political Theology of Paul
Giorgio Agamben, The Time that Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans
Mark Kinzer, Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism

Recommended:
Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson, eds. Jews and Christians: People of God
Michael Wyschogrod, Abraham’s Promise: Judaism and Jewish-Christian Relations
Gerald McDermott, The New Christian Zionism
John Howard Yoder, The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited
Tikva Frymer-Kensky, et. al., Christianity in Jewish Terms

Course Schedule:

Week One (2/6):

Paula Fredkriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle, introduction and chapters 1, 3, 4, 5 (PUL)

Krister Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,”
Harvard Theological Review 56.3 (July 1963): 119-215 (R)

Susannah Ticciati, “The Future of Biblical Israel: How Should Christians Read Romans
9-11 Today,” Biblical Interpretation 25 (2017): 497-518 (R)
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Selected further reading on Paul: Paula Fredriksen, When Christians Were Jews: The
First Generation (Yale 2018); John Gager, Reinventing Paul (Oxford 2002); N.T.
Wright, Paul: A Biography (Harper 2018); Beverly Gaventa, When In Romans: An
Invitation to Linger with the Gospel According to Paul (Baker Academic 2016); James
Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul (Eerdmans 2008), Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew:
Paul and the Politics of Identity (California 1997); Mark Nanos and Magnus
Zetterholdm, Paul Within Judaism (Fortress 2015); Annette Yoshiko Reed and Adam H.
Becker, The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the
Early Middle Ages (Fortress 2007); Terence Donaldson, Paul and the Gentiles (Fortress
1997): Todd Still, ed., God and Israel: Providence and Purpose in Romans 9-11 (Baylor
2017); John Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Eerdmans 2017), L.L. Welborn, Paul’s Summons
to Messianic Life: Political Theology and The Coming Awakening (Columbia 2015)

Week Two (2/13, with Professor Rosen-Zvi):

Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi, Goy: Israel’s Multiple Others and the Birth of the
Gentile, chapters 1, 4, and 5 (PUL)

Michael Wyschogrod, “Paul, Jews, and Gentiles,” Abraham’s Promise, 188-202 (R)

John M.G. Barclay, “An Identity Received from God: The Theological Configuration of
Paul’s Kinship Discourse,” Early Christianity 8 (2017): 354-372 (R)

Elaine Pagels, “The Social History of Satan, Part Three: John of Patmos and Ignatius of
Antioch: Contrasting Visions of ‘God’s People,’” Harvard Theological Review 99.4
(2006): 487-505 (R)

Recommended: Ishay Rosen-Zvi and Adi Ophir, “Paul and the Invention of the Gentile,”
Jewish Quarterly Review 105.1 (Winter 2015): 1-41 (R); Philippa Townsend, “Who
Were the First Christians? Jews, Gentiles, and the Christianoi,” in Heresy and Identity in
Late Antiquity, ed. E. Iriscinshi and H. Zellentin (Mohr Siebeck 2008), 212-230; Annette
Reed, “After ‘Origins’,” in Jewish-Christianity and the History of Judaism (Mohr
Siebeck 2018), 390-420

Week Three (2/20):

Michael Wyschogrod, The Body of Faith

Bruce Marshall, “Christ and Cultures: The Jewish People and Christian Theology,” in
The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine (1997): 81-100 (R)

Recommended: Michael Wyschogrod, “Jewish Death in Heidelberg,” in Abraham’s

Promise, 131-148 (R); Alex Ozar, “Michael Wyschogrod’s Messianic Zionism: A Non-
Fanatical Interpretation,” Journal of Religious Ethics 43.4 (2015): 606-628 (R)

Week Four (2/27):

R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology
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Robert Jenson, “Toward a Christian Theology of Judaism,” in Jews and Christians, 1-13
(R)

George Lindbeck, “The Church as Israel: Ecclesiology and Ecumenism,” in Jews and
Christians, 78-94 (R)

Recommended: Derek Woodard-Lehman, “Saying ‘Yes’ to Israel’s ‘No’: Barth’s

Dialectical Supersessionism and the Witness of Carnal Israel,” in George Hunsinger, ed.,
Karl Barth: Post-Holocaust Theologian?, 67-84

Week Five (3/6):

Franz Rosenzweig, The Star of Redemption, part 2, book 2; part 3, books 1, 2, and 3
(PUL)

Michael Wyschogrod, “Star of Redemption,” in Abraham’s Promise, 121-131

Eugene Rogers, “Supplementing Barth on Jews and Gender: Identifying God by Anagogy
and Spirit,” Modern Theology 14:1 (January 1998): 43-81

Recommendation: Steven Kepnes, “Rosenzweig’s Liturgical Reasoning as Response to

Augustine’s Temporal Aporias,” in Randi Rashkover and C.C. Pecknold, eds., Liturgy,
Time and the Politics of Redemption, 112-126; Leora Batnitzky, Idolatry and
Representation, chapters 3, 8, and conclusion

Week Six (3/13):

Oliver O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations, chapters 1-4, 6-7
Stanley Hauerwas & William Willimon, Resident Aliens

Recommended: Stanley Hauerwas, “Remaining in Babylon: Oliver O’Donovan’s Defense

of Christendom,” in Wilderness Wanderings; Scott Bader-Saye, “Haunted by the Jews:
Hauerwas, Milbank, and the Decentered Diaspora Church,” in Unsettling Arguments;
Scott Bader Saye, Church and Israel After Christendom; Wolfram Kinzig, “The Idea of
Progress in the Early Church until the Age of Constantine,” Studia Patristica XXV
(1993): 119-134; Robert Jenson, “The Hauerwas Project,” Modern Theology 8 (1992):
285-295; Gene Outka, “The Particularist Turn in Theological and Philosophical Ethics,”
in Christian Ethics: Problems and Prospects; Martin Kavka and Randi Rashkover,
“Revisioning the Jewish Philosophical Encounter with Christianity,” in Jewish
Philosophy for the 21st Century, 172-204; Eric Gregory, Politics & The Order of Love:
An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship; Jeffrey Stout, Democracy and Tradition

SPRING BREAK

Week Seven (3/27):

Joel Teitelbaum, Introduction to Vayoel Moshe (And Moses Agreed, reference to Exodus
2:21), pp. 1-39, and “On Redemption and Exchange,” 1-41
Meir Kahane, “Eretz Yisroel” in Time to Go Home, 259-274
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Meir Kahane, The Jewish Idea, vol. 2, chapters 18-21, pp. 543-657

Zvi Yehuda Kook, Yom ha-Azma'ut (Israel Independence Day) speech1967

Recommended: Shaul Magid, “Introduction to the Introduction of ‘Al Ha-Geulah ve al

Ha-Temurah: Yoel Teitelbaum’s Jewish Theology of the Anti-Christ,” pp. 1-17; Zvi
Jonathan Kaplan, “Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, Zionism, and Hungarian Ultra-Orthodoxy”
Modern Judaism, Vol. 24, No. 2 (May, 2004), pp. 165-178

Week Eight (4/3):

Samuel Goldman, God’s Country, introduction, 1, 6, and conclusion

Carys Mosely, “Reinhold Niebuhr and the Postliberals: The Fate of Liberal Protestant
Zionism,” in Nationhood, Providence and Witness, 32-74

Gerald McDermott, “A History of Christian Zionism,” 45-75, and Mark Kinzer,

“Zionism in Luke-Acts,” in The New Christian Zionism, 45-75 and 141-165

Reccommended: Anthony Smith, Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity

(2003); Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and
Nationalism (Cambridge 1997); Munther Isaac, From Land to Lands, from Eden to the
Renewed Earth (Langham 2015); Naim Ateek, A Palestinian Theology of Liberation
(Orbis 2017); Mitri Aheb, Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible Through Palestinian
Eyes (Orbis 2014)

Week Nine (4/10):

Nostra Aetate, section 4, and Lumen Gentium, section 16

Eugene Rogers, “Selections from Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on Romans,” in

Stephen Fowl, ed., The Theological Interpretation of Scripture: Classic and
Contemporary Readings 320-338

Matthew Tapie, “Rival Versions of Christ’s Fulfillment of the Law,” in Aquinas on

Israel and the Church: The Question of Supersessionism in the Theology of Thomas
Aquinas, 156-182 (PUL)

Gavin D’Costa, “Supersessionism: Harsh, Mild, or Gone for Good?,” European Judaism
50.1 (Spring 2017): 99-107 (R)

Erik Peterson, “Church from Jews and Gentiles,” in Theological Tractates

Recommended: Michael Wyschogrod, “A Jewish Reading of St. Thomas on the Old

Law,” in Understanding Scripture; Gavin D’Costa, “The Mystery of Israel: Jews,
Hebrew Catholics, Messianic Judaism, the Catholic Church, and Mosaic Ceremonial
Laws,” Nova et Vetera 16.3 (2018); Doug Farrow, “Jew and Gentile in the Church
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Today,” Nova Et Vetera 16.3 (2018); Joseph Ratzinger, The Unity of the Nations: A
Vision of the Church Fathers (Catholic University Press of America 2015); Matthew
Levering, “Aquinas and Supersessionism One More Time: A Response to Matthew A
Tapie’s Aquinas on Israel and the Church,” Pro Ecclesia XXV.4 () 395-412; Mark
Kinzer, Searching Her Own Mystery; Paula Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews; Gregory
Lee, “Israel Between the Two Cities: Augustine’s Theology of Jews and Judaism,”
Journal of Early Christian Studies 24:4 (2016): 523-551

Week Ten (4/17):

Willie Jennings, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race,
introduction, 1, 5, 6

J. Cameron Carter, Race: A Theological Account, 2

Susanna Heschel, Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany, 1

Timothy P. Jackson, “The Evils of Supersessionism,” in Mordechai Would Not Bow

Down: Anti-Semitism, The Holocaust, and Christian Supersessionism (manuscript), 77-
100

Recommended: Gregory Baum, Nationalism, Religion, and Ethics; Paula Fredriksen and
Adele Reinhartz, eds., Jesus, Judaism, and Christian Anti-Judaism: Reading the New
Testament after the Holocaust; Willie Jennings, Acts; Leora Batnitzky, “Jesus in Modern
Jewish Thought,” in Neta Stahl, ed., Jesus Among the Jews, 159-170; Nicholas Brown
and Joel Willitts, For the Nation: Jesus, the Restoration of Israel and Articulating a
Christian Ethic of Territorial Governance; Tommy Givens, We the People: Israel and
the Catholicity of Jesus

Week Eleven (4/22):

Jacob Taubes, The Political Theology of Paul

Giorgio Agamben, The Time that Remains

Martin Kavka, “The Politics of Negative Theology,” in Michael Fagenblat, ed., Negative
Theology as Jewish Modernity, 335-355

Recommended: Paul Griffiths, “The Cross as the Fulcrum of Politics: Expropriating

Agamben on Paul,” in Douglas Harink, ed., Paul, Philosophy and the Theopolitical
Vision, 179-197; Ward Blanton and Hent De Vries, Paul and the Philosophers; Mark
Lilla, “A New, Political Saint Paul?,” The New York Review of Books 55:16, October 23,
2008; Adam Hirsch, “The Deadly Jester,” The New Republic, December 3, 2008; Slavoj
Zizek, “Disputations: Who Are You Calling Anti-Semitic?,” The New Republic, January
7, 2009, Slavoj Zizek, The Fragile Absolute; Ward Blanton, “Disturbing Politics: Neo-
Paulinism and the Scrambling of Religious and Secular Identities,” Dialog 46:1 (Spring
2007): 3-13
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Week Twelve (4/24):

Mark Kinzer, Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism, chapter 5, 8, and 9

John Howard Yoder, “See How They Go With Their Face to the Sun” and “Paul the
Judaizer,” in The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited, 93-102 and 183-204

Shaul Magid, “Christian Supersessionism, Zionism, and the Contemporary Scene,”

Journal of Religious Ethics, 45.1 (2017): 104-141 (R)

Peter Ochs, “The Limits of Postliberalism: John Howard Yoder’s American Mennonite
Church,” in Another Reformation: Postliberal Christianity and the Jews (Baker
Academic 2011), 127-163 (R)

David Novak, “From Supersessionism to Parallelism in Jewish-Christian Dialogue,” in

Jews and Christians, 95-113 (R)

Recommended: Travis Kroeker, Messianic Political Theology and Diaspora Ethics; John
C. Nugent, “The Politics of YHWH: John Howard Yoder, the Old Testament, and the
People of God”; George Hunsinger, “Karl Barth and the Politics of Sectarian
Protestantism: A Dialogue with John Howard Yoder,” in Disruptive Grace: Studies in
the Theology of Karl Barth, 114-128; Mathew Levering, Jewish-Christian Dialogue and
the Life of Wisdom: Engagements with the Theology of David Novak; Paul Martens, The
Heterodox Yoder