Exploring the link between German biblical interpretation and anti-Semitism, this book is a fresh, comprehensive study of leading German exegetes, concluding that although Nazism brought anti-Semitic exegesis to a head, age-old thought structures provided powerful legitimation for oppression.

Since the Nazi holocaust took the lives of a third of the Jewish people of the world, the Christian Church has been engaged in a self-examination of its own historical role in the creation of anti-semitism. In this major contribution to that search, theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether explores the roots of anti-semitism from new perspectives.

Although the roots of Christianity run deep into Hebrew soil, many Christians remain regrettably uninformed about the rich Jewish heritage of the church. Our Father Abraham delineates the vital link between Judaism and Christianity, exemplified by the common ancestry of the two faiths traceable back to Abraham. Marvin Wilson calls Christians to reexamine their Semitic heritage to regain a more authentically biblical understanding of what they believe and practice. Wilson, a trusted voice among both Jews and Christians, speaks to both past and present, first developing a historical perspective on the Jewish origins of the church and then discussing how the church can become more attuned to the Hebraic mindset of Scripture. Drawing from his own extensive experience, he also offers valuable practical guidance for salutary interaction between Christians and Jews. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter make this book especially suitable for use in groups—Christian, Jewish, or interfaith—as readers strive to make sense of their own faith in connection with the other. The second edition of Our Father Abraham features a new preface, an expanded bibliography of recent relevant works, and two new chapters: one that discusses Jewish-Christian relations after the Holocaust and another that reflects on Wilson’s own fifty-plus-year career as an evangelical Christian deeply committed to interfaith dialogue. As Christians and Jews feel a growing need for mutual support in an increasingly secular Western world, Wilson’s widely acclaimed book will offer encouragement and wise guidance toward this worthy end.

The literature about anti-Semitism is vast. However, much of what has been written about it takes the existence of this phenomenon for granted, giving us a history of anti-Semitism without explaining what it really is. Carmichael's treatise is different. It is not primarily a history of atrocities--it goes to the roots, thus clearing the confusion about the distinction between mystical anti-Semitism and other forms of racism. Mystical anti-Semitism is a singular idea which culminated in the Holocaust and is still alive today. Carmichael contends that it has nothing to do with a personal hatred of the Jews. He argues that the view of anti-Semitism as being directed against real-life Jews has in fact helped objectify the irrational hatred that is at its core. Anti-Semitism received its mystical element when the Church Fathers transformed historical theory into theology. St. Paul believed in the imminence of the Kingdom of God which would be the end of history and reverse the injustice done to the Jews. To him, God's reentering history was delayed only until the God-forces in this world had finally defeated the Devil-forces. Yet the world did not end, and in the wake of Rome's crushing victory over Judea in the Roman-Jewish War, the idea of the Kingdom of God was postponed indefinitely. Instead, the Universal Church took over God's place in the world, and the Devil's role was assigned to those who rejected Jesus and have since been blamed for his death: the Jews. The rise of Christianity established anti-Semitism politically; it finally gained a broad, popular basis during the Crusades, eventually leading to international prosecutions. Ghettoes were established as a consequence of theReformation. Carmichael describes the waning of theology's influence during the 18th century, which only caused the concepts of "Jew" and "Jewish" to become abstract and ultimately being equated with Pure Evil; the development of the concept of race in the 19th century, which turned anti-Semitism from a theological notion into a biological one, as exemplified most radically and horribly by Hitler; and Communism's contribution to the perseverance of anti-Semitism. In an epilogue Carmichael distinguishes mystical anti-Semitism from the Arab opposition to the State of Israel, and examines what the future has in store for the Jews.

In this book Eric W. Gritsch, a Lutheran and a distinguished Luther scholar, faces the glaring ugliness of Martin Luther's anti- Semitism head-on, describing Luther's journey from initial attempts to proselytize Jews to an appallingly racist position, which he apparently held until his death. Comprehensively laying out the textual evidence for Luther's virulent anti-Semitism, Gritsch traces the development of Luther's thinking in relation to his experiences, external influences, and theological convictions. Revealing greater impending danger with each step, Martin Luther's Anti-Semitism marches steadily onward until the full extent of Luther's racism becomes apparent. Gritsch's unflinching analysis also describes the impact of Luther's egregious words on subsequent generations and places Luther within Europe's long history of anti-Semitism. Throughout, however, Gritsch resists the temptation either to demonize or to exonerate Luther. Rather, readers will recognize Luther's mistakes as links in a chain that pulled him further and further away from an attitude of respect for Jews as the biblical people of God. Gritsch depicts Luther as a famous example of the intensive struggle with the enduring question of Christian-Jewish relations. It is a great historical tragedy that Luther, of all people, fell victim to anti-Semitism -- albeit against his better judgment.

Traces the beginnings of modern antisemitism to romantic anti-rationalism in Germany. Notes how early antisemitism was not only anti-Jewish but also anti-Christian in its rejection of monotheism and morality, as viewed by Wilhelm Marr and others. Only a Christianity that rejected its Jewish roots and favored Aryan Germans was acceptable to antisemites. In the 1870s-80s German intellectuals saw antisemitism as a general attack against religion, especially Roman Catholicism. The contradiction between the racist view of Judaism and the Christian view that conversion could save the Jews was partly resolved by the Darwinian racial ideology espoused by Eugen Dühring, among others. The Third Reich introduced a new antisemitism, that of a pseudo-religion, a redemptive political messianism with an anti-theological structure, a pseudo-gospel with Hitler replacing Jesus and a new apocalypse. To determine the relation between antisemitism and the Church, one has to study the latter not in terms of a static essence but in terms of its history. Christianity inherited pagan elements that continued to exist as anti-Jewish attitudes within the Church, culminating in the destructive force of Nazism, directed not only against Judaism, but through Judaism against humanity, including Christianity. One strong anti-Jewish element in Christianty was the concept of collective guilt, which was secularized and used by the Nazis against the Jews and against Christians.