Common Ground: A Priest and a Rabbi Read Scripture Together

by Andrew M. Greeley, Jacob Neusner

Overview

This title shows what happens when two prolific religious scholars sit dow and, together, read sacred texts of their different religions?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773534476
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	08/18/2008
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	354
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jacob Neusner is Distinguished Service Professor of the History and Theology of Judaism and Senior Fellow, Institute of Advanced Theology, Bard College.

Editorial Reviews

What happens when two of the most prolific religion scholars in America sit down and, together, read sacred texts (some of which they have in common) of their different religions? Will they engage in a genuine dialogue? Or will their readings devolve into a kind of one-upsmanship in which each scholar shows off his own intellectual capacities in defending his traditions? In Common Ground, a revised and updated edition of their The Bible And Us (Warner, 1990), Catholic sociologist and novelist Greeley and Jewish rabbinical scholar Neusner do a little of both. The book is structured like a conversation in which one scholar introduces a topic and the other responds to the former's reading. Thus, Greeley explores the life of Jesus through a reflection on His words, deeds, historicity, etc. Neusner then responds by demonstrating the traditional Christian misreadings of Jesus' Jewishness that have fostered anti-Semitism. Greeley's readings, as in his Harold Robbins-like novels, are preoccupied with sexuality, while Neusner's are more balanced and reflect a more sophisticated interpretative mind. While there are moments of significant dialogue here, the overall impression is one of two showmen barking their wares at a religion sideshow. (Mar.)

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