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² Op.cit., 243.

³ The important feature of the Jerusalem community is not its egalitarianism (Acts 4.32) – a disastrous withdrawal from economic production which seems to have reduced the community to penury, dependent on the ‘collection’ from diaspora churches – but its dedication to Torah observance: ‘You see, brother,’ they tell Paul when he comes to Jerusalem, ‘how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the Law’ (21.20).

⁴ Jervell, J., ‘The Mighty Minority’, Studia Theologica 34 (1980), 13–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar. ‘The Jewish Christians refuse to separate Christianity from the religious, political and cultural fate of Israel – and there is but one Israel’ (21).

⁵ In this sense, the whole issue centres on who ‘our’ refers to in the phrase Nostra Aetate (‘In Our Time’). The most intelligent book on the theological issues remains Thoma, Clemens, A Christian Theology of Judaism (Stimulus Books, 1980)Google Scholar.

⁶ J.Dunn, D.G., ‘Paul: Apostate or Apostle of Israel?’, ZNW 89 (1998), 256–71; 271CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷ Statements like these can properly be made, but they must not be understood as signalling a desire to blur the distinction between the Church and Israel. As will be clear from other remarks in this article, the Catholic Church now takes seriously Jewish otherness.

⁸ The important statement by Jewish scholars in 2000, Dabru Emet, responding to the theological recognition of Judaism by various churches, says that ‘as Jewish theologians we rejoice that, through Christianity, hundreds of millions of people have entered into relationship with the God of Israel’. This generous statement is deeply controversial for many Jews because it seems to commit Jews to developing a Jewish theology of Christianity at odds with Jewish tradition. Does this dialogue distort Jewish identity? Jon Levenson thinks so: J.Levenson, ‘How Not to Conduct Jewish-Christian Dialogue,’Commentary (December 2001), 31–7; ‘Jewish-Christian Dialogue: Jon D.Levenson & Critics,’Commentary (April 2002), 8–21

⁹ Notes on the Correct Way to present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis (1985), 25. Emphasis added.

¹⁰ Ruether, R.R., Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (Search Press, 1975)Google Scholar

¹¹ Imhof, P. & Biallowons, H., Karl Rahner in Dialogue: Conversations and Interviews 1965–1982 (Crossroad, 1982), 126Google Scholar

¹² Op.cit., 129. Rahner's sentence here is grammatically unclear; I transcribe it as it is printed. The issue is the relation of Incarnation to creation. Rahner in other writings will suggest that the Incarnation is not added on to the relation of God and the world, but is an intrinsic feature of that foundational relation: there is no ‘world’ without the ‘Word’. Rabbinic Judaism has analogous theologoumena about the role of Torah in God's act of creation.

¹³ Orthodox Christian faith understands the divine action here to be so intense that Jesus of Nazareth, unreservedly of one reality with the cosmos as we are, can be the divine self-expression, the Logos of God made flesh. It is important that the Greek adverbs which regulate the relation of the natures of Christ in the Chalcedonian Definition – without confusion, without change, without division, without separation – also regulate the relations of God and the world. The ontology of Incarnation respects the ontology of creation.

¹⁴ Mussner, F., Tractate on the Jews: the Significance of Judaism for Christian Faith (SPCK, 1984), 51Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Rosenzweig, F., The Star of Redemption (University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), 415CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶ Against Pope John Paul's statement at Mainz in 1980 (‘…the people of God of the Old Covenant which has never been revoked’), the Jesuit exegete Albert Vanhoye makes a vigorous defence of the idea that, for Paul, the author of Hebrews and orthodox Christian faith, the Sinai covenant is certainly revoked. Cf A.Yanhoye SJ, ‘Salut universel par le Christ et validité de l'Ancienne Alliance’, NRT 116 (1994), 815–35. Vanhoye is attacked by a Catholic layman, Emmanuel Main (NRT 118 (1996), 34–58) and a Jewish scholar, M.R.Macina, who calls on the Pope to enforce theological discipline on this matter (Istina XLI (1996), 347–99. For a lucid exposition of the Papal position, Cf. Lohfink, N. SJ, The Covenant Never Revoked (Paulist Press, 1991)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Lehne, Susanne, The New Covenant in Hebrews (Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series 44: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990), 117Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Newman, J.H., Preface to the Third Edition of The Via Media (London, 1877), xcivGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ Pope John Paul II said things in this area for which the Church's theology is relatively unprepared. But of course it is only right that Popes should take the Church where the Church needs to go – in the direction of dialogical theological thinking – and it is no bad thing for theologians to be pressed to catch up with theologically prophetic Pontiffs.

²⁰ Levering, M., Christ's Fulfilment of Torah and Temple: Salvation According to Thomas Aquinas (University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 28–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. his article, ‘Israel and the Shape of Thomas Aquinas's Soteriology’, The Thomist (1999), 65–82 & Schoot, H. & Valkenberg, P., ‘Thomas Aquinas and Judaism’, Modern Theology 20 (2004), 51–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²¹ Solomon, M., ‘Christ Through Jewish Eyes’ in Goldberg, D. & Kessler, E. (eds.), Aspects of Liberal Judaism: Essays in Honour of John D.Rayner (Valentine Mitchell, 2004), 184–201; 200Google Scholar.

²² Pawlikowski, J., ‘Christian Theology and the Jewish Covenant’ in What are they saying about Christian-Jewish Relations? (Paulist Press, 1980), 33–37Google Scholar

²³ ‘Address on 37^th Anniversay of Nostra Aetate’ quoted in Schoot & Valkenberg, op. cit., 67

²⁴ Solomon, Norman, Judaism and World Religion (Macmillan, 1991), 8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ Ascribing this to Kerygmata Petrou (200CE), Wilson speaks of this ‘remarkable’ account in which ‘Judaism and Christianity are placed on a par, two variants of the same revelation, the same ‘Ur-religion’ that has existed since the creation of the world’. (Wilson, S.G., Related Strangers: Jews and Christians 70-170 C.E. (Fortress Press, 1995), 152Google Scholar.