Jewish Evangelism: The Religion of Israel as Preparatory, Not Final

In my last blog post I looked at the patristic project of commending the Christian Faith to one’s Jewish neighbour, and concluded that the project, though fraught with potential for misunderstanding, was still worthwhile. Here I would like to suggest that the religion of Israel was clearly preparatory, and was never meant to be God’s final word to Israel or to mankind. In discussing Israel’s religion it is important to differentiate the…

Jewish Evangelism: ā€œTo the Jew Firstā€

I have just finished reading a wonderful book by the late scholar Louis Feldman (d. 2017) entitled Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian. In it, he mentions the patristic attempts to convince the Jews of the truth of Christianity by citing examples of Old Testament prophecy fulfilled in Jesus, and he remarks that Jews in those days could hardly have found such Christian arguments…