General information

• Study points: 4.00
• Language: English
• Category: lecture - interactive lecture
• Duration: 26.0 hours 
• Periodicity: Taught next academic year in the first semester
• POC: Facultaire onderwijscel Godgeleerdheid

Taught by

Pollefeyt Didier

Aims

1. Students learn the basic facts of the history of Jewish-Christian relations and its connection with the Holocaust.
2. Students learn the theological challenges and perspectives raising from the religious encounter between Jews and Christians.
3. Students learn the basic documents and recent developlments in Jewish-Christian dialogue.

Content

We reflect in this course on the relation between Christianity and Judaism. We study the history, the theology and the actuality of Jewish-Christian relations.

• The historical approach focuses on the biblical, theological and ecclesiastical roots of Christian appreciation of Judaism. We deal with the question of the responsibility of Christianity and Christian anti-Judaism for the Shoah (holocaust). We retrace the road travelled by the Christian churches from apology and intolerance to respect, repentance and interreligious dialogue.
• The theological approach deals with the theology of Jewish-Christian relations, both past and present. We tackle questions such as how Christians think about Judaism and how Jews think about Christianity. We search for continuity and discontinuity between both religions. The crucial question is: How can Christians proclaim Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God and at the same time appreciate the abiding validity of Judaism? We give attention to the contribution of contemporary Jewish and Christian theologians, and to the teaching of the Church. The need of such fundamental reflection follows especially from the historical responsibility of Christianity in general and of Christian theology in particular for the suffering of the Jewish people.
• The course also aims at making a contribution to the ever rising need for interreligious dialogue in our pluralistic world. This course will make the student aware of the opportunities and problems of the Jewish-Christian encounter and will show how interreligious dialogue needs an interdisciplinary approach. The course deals with topics of exegesis (e.g. typology), dogmatics (e.g. uniqueness of Jesus in relation to the Jewish people), moral theology (e.g. ethics and grace, remembrance and reconciliation), church history (e.g. the role of Pius XII during World War II) and pastoral theology (e.g. catechesis and the teaching of contempt). Special attention is given to the latest Church documents on Jewish-Christian Relations (We Remember: a Reflection on the Shoah and Dabru Emet) and to the historical and theological meaning of the visit of John Paul II to Israel in the year 2000 and the visit of Benedict XVI to Auschwitz in 2006.

Course Material

Required:
Syllabus provided by the professor
Recommended:

• D. POLLEFEYT (ed.), Jews and Christians: Rivals or Partners for the Kingdom of God? In Search of An Alternative for the Christian Theology of Substitution (Louvain Theological and Pastoral Monographs), Leuven, Peeters, 1998.
• E. FISCHER, Faith without Prejudice: Rebuilding Christian Attitudes Towards Judaism, New York, Crossroad, 1993.
• H. FRY (ed.), Christian-Jewish Dialogue. A Reader, Exeter, University Press, 1996.
• L. KLENICKI & G. WIGODER (ed.), A Dictionary of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue. Expanded Edition (Studies in Judaism and Christianity), New York, Paulist Press, 1995.
• P. LAPIDE & K. RAHNER, Encountering Jesus-Encountering Judaism: A Dialogue, London, 1987.
• B. KRONDORFER, Remembrance and Reconciliation. Encounters between Young Jews and Germans, New York, Yale University Press, 1995.
• J. PAWLIKOWSKI, Christ in the Light of the Christian-Jewish Dialogue, New York, Paulist Press, 1992.
• Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, Vatican, Vatican City, March 12, 1998.
• S. WIESENTHAL & H.J. CARGAS, The Sunflower: on the Possilities and Limits of Forgiveness, New York, Schocken Books, 1997.
• NATIONAL JEWISH SCHOLARS PROJECT, Dabru Emet. A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity, Baltimore, The Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies, 2000.

Course activities

Evaluation description

Examination type:
    oral with written preparation
When?: final examination during examination period
Evaluation type:
    Closed book

Explanation

The exam gauges for the developed capacity to deal in a nuanced and critical-scientific way with the possibilities and problems of the Jewish-Christian dialogue.