Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 2 - What is Jewish Theology?

  • Edited by Steven Kepnes, Colgate University, New York
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Companion to Jewish Theology
    Published online:
    03 December 2020
    Print publication:
    17 December 2020, pp 20-38

  • Summary

    This essay advocates that “theology” as “God-talk” is endemic to Jewish discourse throughout the ages. Jewish theology is a dialectic between prescriptive halakhah or law on one side, and descriptive aggadah or narration on the other side. While the term “theology” itself is usually taken to mean human talk about God, Jewish “theology” as the explication of God’s revealed word (dvar Adonai) means, as Abraham Joshua Heschel (the foremost 20th century Jewish theologian) put it, “God’s anthropology.” Thus Jewish theology is the explication of what Jews have accepted as revealed truth, namely, what God wants humans to know of God’s concern for them as evidenced in history, and what God wants humans to do in response to God’s concern for them.