Rethinking the Messianic Idea in Judaism

by Michael L. Morgan (Editor), Elisheva Carlebach (Contributor), Emily Kopley (Contributor)

Over the centuries, the messianic tradition has provided the language through which modern Jewish philosophers, socialists, and Zionists envisioned a utopian future. Michael L. Morgan, Steven Weitzman, and an international group of leading scholars ask new questions and provide new ways of thinking about this enduring Jewish idea. Using the writings of Gershom Scholem, which ranged over the history of messianic belief and its conflicted role in the Jewish imagination, these essays put asside the boundaries that divide history from philosophy and religion to offer new perspectives on the role and relevance of messianism today.

442 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 2014

Reviews

[A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of essays is ostensibly tied together by the influence of Gershom Scholem's famous 'The Messianic Idea in Judaism' (hence the title). The introduction, however, is at pains to point out that this influence is more a matter of context, subterranean, and that the essays (with one exception) do not center around reading Scholem's essay itself. Rather, the point is to attempt to understand the messianic idea in new ways, to pick up where Scholem left off, as it were. All the essays seemed to me to be of good quality - as someone who is primarily interested in philosophy and religion, a few of the essays lay a bit out of my field of competence. I recommend especially the essay on Levinas and Part IV on contemporary Jewish messianism.