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Reading Jewish Theology and World Religions from the Perspective of a Dialogical Theology from a Jewish Vantage Point

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Abstract

The article discusses the volume Jewish Theology and World Religions, edited by Alon Goshen-Gottstein and Eugene Korn. It depicts its core contents, presenting them in light of the relatively new discipline of interreligious or dialogical theology that challenges exclusivist and inclusivist approaches to other religions. The lines between a nonexclusivist theology of religions present in the volume and a pluralist, dialogical world theology described in the article are not clear-cut. In fact, many ideas and concepts found in Jewish Theology and World Religions lead in the direction of a pluralist theology of religions. I argue that what is needed today is not only a revisited confessional Jewish theology, but also and foremost a dialogical theology from a Jewish vantage point that values the uniqueness of the religious Other and promotes a religiosity based on human rights and a shared humanity.

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Notes

  1. For a review of the book, see Meir (2013).

  2. Goshen-Gottstein (2012a, 325) notes that the messianic perspective perhaps "also relativizes our own hold on the truth."

  3. For a concept of dialogical theology, in which religious truth is associated with ethical deeds, see Meir (2019a).

  4. Goshen-Gottstein (2012a, 326).

  5. The title of P.C. Phan's book expresses this idea in a clear way: Being Religious Interreligiously. Asian Perspectives on Interfaith Dialogue, Phan 2004.

  6. But see Krajewski 2012, 147.

  7. Working with the idea of Brahman as equally present in all, Anantanand Rambachan has written an admirable Hindu theology of liberation (Rambachan 2015).

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Meir, E. Reading Jewish Theology and World Religions from the Perspective of a Dialogical Theology from a Jewish Vantage Point. Cont Jewry 40, 121–136 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-020-09322-6

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