REL 107 - Jews & Christians in the Twenty-first Century

1 course unit

Students will study the distinctive relationship between these two religious traditions in recent decades. Topics will be drawn from the current public discourse of Judaism and Christianity. Among the many factors shaping the self-understandings and mutual understandings of the two communities we will consider particularly the legacy of the Holocaust, increased religious diversity in Europe and North America, the State of Israel, and the postmodern critique of religious claims. Both Jews and Christians ground their religious self-understandings in biblical revelation - however conceived. Both receive that revelation mediated through an interpretive tradition - however explicit. This opens an avenue to introduce the ideas of revelation, hermeneutics, tradition, social location, and identity politics in relation to significant theological and communal factors in both traditions.
Meets general academic requirement R and effective Fall 2013 HU.