Sherman, Franklin

Book Review

Has God Only One Blessing?
Judaism as a Source of Christian Self-Understanding

by Mary C. Boys. Paulist Press, New York and Mahwah, NJ, 2000
393 pp., $29.95, paper

In this magisterial book, Mary Boys distills the fruits of a generation of Christian biblical, liturgical, and systematic theology, blends in the sharp piquancy of Jewish-Christian dialogue, and produces a vintage worthy to savor as we welcome the new millennium....Boys’ achievement is as remarkable as it is timely.

Contents

Preface
Introduction

PART I: PARABLES

1. Sion"s Story
2. Tales of Two Texts
3. Synagoga and Ecclesia

PART II: PARABLES IN CONTEXT

4. Jews and Christians in Historical Perspective
5. A Revised Story for the Church: Supersessionism Replaced

PART III: CHRISTIAN ORIGINS IN CONTEXT

6. The Complex World of First-Century Judaism
7. Jesus" World: "A Composition of Place"
8. "Jesus" Renewal Movement" Becomes "Christianity"
9. The Partings: Christianity"s Prolonged and Polemical Break with Judaism
10. The Emergence of a Distinctive Christian Theology

PART IV: CHRISTIAN ORIGINS IN THE CHURCH"S LIFE

11. A New Lens on Scripture
12. The Liturgy: A Call to Conversion
13. The Cross as a Christian Symbol

PART V: ECCLESIA CHANGING

14. Ecclesia"s New Posture: The Transformation in Church Teaching
15. Re-educating Ecclesia

Appendix – God"s Mercy Endures Forever: Guidelines on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching

Notes
Bibliography

In her new book, Has God Only One Blessing?, Mary Boys presents an overview of the church’s troubled relations to and distorted image of the Jews and Judaism over the centuries, together with proposals for a theological and practical reconstruction of the relationship. "The fruit of years of personal experience, dialogue, and research, this is a ground-breaking work in every way," says Elizabeth Johnson, C.S.J., Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University. "With a wealth of examples and argument, it challenges the inherited idea that Christianity has fulfilled or superseded Judaism as God’s favored religion, and crafts an alternative vision of the church and synagogue as partners rather than rivals. Preachers, educators, pastoral ministers, and thoughtful persons of all stripes will be stunned by this mirror held up to their assumptions and moved to translate insight into action."

Rabbi A. James Rudin, Senior Interreligious Advisor for the American Jewish Committee (New York), has described Has God Only One Blessing? as "one of the most important books I have ever read" (see full text of his review), and Rabbi Michael Signer, Abrams Professor in the Department of Theology of Notre Dame University, has stated: "In these pages Jews can discern the true fruits of more than twenty years that Mary Boys has spent in dialogue with them."

Sister Mary C. Boys, S.N.J.M., is the Skinner and McAlpin Professor of Practical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and is the author of three previous books. Has God Only One Blessing? includes 64 pages of notes and a 25-page bibliography, and as an appendix, the full text of the 1988 publication of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, "God"s Mercy Endures Forever: Notes on the Presentation of Jews and Judaism in Catholic Preaching."

Franklin Sherman

Introduction to the book, including a definition of key terms.