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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
To speak of Jewish-Christian relations at the present time requires one to immediately recognise how different these relations are in this more secular period of the history of Western Civilisation than they were in earlier, more religious periods of that history. Jewish-Christian relations today are certainly different in character from the way they were during much of the past two millennia, when ‘Western Civilisation’ was very much a ‘Christian’ civilisation. Throughout this very long, earlier period of history, Jews related to Christians as the masters of the world in which we were continually struggling to survive and maintain our communal life.
page 1 note 2 Nevertheless, one must take notice of the recent impressive argument for ‘Christendom’ made by the Anglican theologian, O'Donovan, Oliver in The Desire of the Nations (Cambridge, 1996)Google Scholar. Even though he eschews religious compulsion (p. 220), his is still a vision of ‘a state that [gives] entrenched, constitutional encouragement to Christian mission not afforded to other religious beliefs, and [expects] of its office-holders deference to diese arrangements as to constitutional law’ (p. 224). For some other issues of greater commonality in the Jewish-Christian relationship raised by this book, see Novak, David, ‘Response to The Desire of the Nations’, Studies in Christian Ethics 11 (1998), 62–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page 2 note 3 Along these lines, see Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method, trans. Barden, G. and Cumming, J. (New York, 1982), 274–278Google Scholar.
page 2 note 4 See After Virtue (Notre Dame, 1981), 139, 201Google Scholar; Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame, 1988), 126–141Google Scholar.
page 3 note 5 See Novak, David, Natural Law in Judaism (Cambridge, 1998), 16–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
page 5 note 6 See Berkovits, Eliezer, Faith After the Holocaust (New York, 1973), 25, 36Google Scholar; and more recently and famously, Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah, Hitler's Willing Executioners (New York, 1996), 41–43, 49–53, for this common viewGoogle Scholar.
page 5 note 7 See Fackenheim, Emil L., Encounters Between Judaism and Modern Philosophy (New York, 1973), 192–195Google Scholar.
page 5 note 8 Originally published by Beacon Press, Boston, in 1950, and again in 1960 under the tide, Europe and the Jews, and lastly published under die title, Thy Brother's Blood: The Roots of Christian Anti-Semitism, by Hart Publishing Co., New York, in 1975Google Scholar.
page 8 note 9 Babylonian Talmud: Baba Kama 92b.
page 11 note 10 Thus both Jews and Christians recognise the authority of human law, even when promulgated by nonjews or non-Christians, as long as it does not directly contradict the law of God. See Babylonian Talmud: Baba Batra 54b and parallels; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2/1, q. 95, a. 2 and q. 96, a. 4.
page 11 note 11 See Carter, Stephen L., The Culture of Disbelief (New York, 1993), 44–66, 105–23Google Scholar.
page 11 note 12 Babylonian Talmud: Nedarim 11a.
page 13 note 13 Babylonian Talmud: Shabbat 88a. See Novak, David, Jewish Social Ethics (New York, 1992), 27–29Google Scholar.
page 13 note 14 See Mishnah: Avot 6.11.
page 15 note 15 See Amos 7:10–17.
page 16 note 16 See Katz, Jacob, Tradition and Crisis (New York, 1971), 79–111Google Scholar.
page 17 note 17 Note Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 1, intro., sec. 2 (reprint: Chicago, 1979), pp. 42–3: ‘The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found in the holy scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found upon comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man's felicity.… Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these … human laws are only declaratory of, and act in subordination to, the former. To instance in the case of murder: this is expressly forbidden by the divine, and demonstrably by the natural law; and from these prohibitions arises the true unlawfulness of this crime. Those human laws, that annex a punishment to it, do not at all increase its moral guilt, or superadd any fresh obligation in foro conscientiae to abstain from its perpetration. Nay, if any human law should allow or enjoin us to commit it, we are bound to transgress that human law, or else we must offend both the natural and divine’. For the recognition of precedent from English Common Law in United States law, see Hall, K. L., Wiecek, W. M., Finkelman, P., American Legal History, 2nd ed. (Oxford and New York, 1996), 24Google Scholar.
page 17 note 18 See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah: Melakhim, 8.11–9.1; Nahmanides, Commentary on the Torah: Gen. 6:2, 13; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, 2/1, q.94, a. 4 ad 1; John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2.7.10 and 4.20.16.
page 18 note 19 Thus it is recognized in the Babylonian Talmud: Ketubot 40a and parallels, that the reasoning pertaining to civil matters (mammona) is to be distinguished from the more purely theological reasoning connected with ritual law.
page 18 note 20 De Jure Belli ac Pacis, prol. 11 (reprint: Cambridge, 1953), xlvi. For further elaboration of this point, ibid., 1.10, pp. 12–13.
page 18 note 21 See Neuhaus, Richard John, The Naked Public Square (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1984), 261Google Scholar.
page 19 note 22 Commentary on the Mishnah: Avodah Zarah 4.7.
page 19 note 23 Babylonian Talmud: Yoma 67b re Lev. 18:4.
page 19 note 24 Romans 1:18–2:16.
page 20 note 25 God in Search of Man (New York, 1955), 412Google Scholar.
page 20 note 26 Understanding Media (Cambridge, Mass., 1994), 7–21Google Scholar.
page 20 note 27 For the ontology behind this assertion, see Novak, David, Jewish-Christian Dialogue (New York, 1989), 129–138Google Scholar.
page 21 note 28 Babylonian Talmud: Yoma 83a and parallels.
page 21 note 29 Ibid.: Berakhot 19b and parallels.
page 21 note 30 See Jonah 3:4–10; cf. Deut. 30:15, 19.