“The Learning of the Jews”: What Latter-day Saints Can Learn from Jewish Religious Experience

Gary A. Rendsburg · Ben Spackman · Peter Haas · Peter Knobel · Loren D. Marks · David C. Dollahite · Ellen Lasser LeVee · Camille Fronk Olson · Byron L. Sherwin · Ashley Brocious · Dean Phillip Bell · Andrew C. Reed · Shawn Tucker

Aug 2021 · Greg Kofford Books

About this ebook

This volume is about Latter-day Saints learning from Jews and the Jewish experience. This book is unique. It is not a traditional interfaith dialogue where the goal is to learn from each other. Rather, Latter-day Saints seek to give Jews the microphone, so to speak, and let them talk about themselves on their own terms. Only then do Latter-day Saint respond, and not with the goal of establishing areas of agreement or disagreement but as an opportunity to learn from Jews. This book turns to the wisdom of Jews and Judaism to inform, inspire, and enhance the lived religious experience of Latter-day Saints.

The Learning of the Jews brings together fifteen scholars, seven Jewish and eight Latter-day Saint, with a combined academic experience of over four hundred years. The volume is structured around seven major topics, two chapters on each topic. A Jewish scholar first discusses the topic broadly vis-à-vis Judaism, followed by a response from a Latter-day Saint scholar. The seven topics include scripture, authority, prayer, women and modernity, remembrance, particularity, and humor. The intention is that the reader will not only learn a great deal about Judaism and the Jewish experience while reading this volume but also use what they learn to enhance their own cultural and religious experience.

Contents:

Introduction

-   Trevan G. Hatch and Leonard J. Greenspoon

1a. Approaching Scripture: Insights from Judaism

-   Gary A. Rendsburg

1b. Maturing Latter-day Saint Approaches to Scripture

-   Ben Spackman

2a. Neither Prophet nor Priest: Authority and the Emergence of the Rabbis in Judaism

-   Peter Haas

2b. What’s the Church’s Official Position on Official Positions? Grappling with “Truth” and “Authority”

-   Trevan Hatch

3a. Approaching God: A Jewish Approach to Prayer

-   Peter Knobel

3b. Approaching God: Jewish and Latter-day Saint Prayer and Worship

-   Loren D. Marks and David C. Dollahite

4a. Women and Judaism in the Contemporary World: Tradition in Tension

-   Ellen Lasser LeVee

4b. Modern Mormon Women in a Patriarchal Church

-   Camille Fronk Olson

5a. Faith as Memory: Theologies of the Jewish Holidays

-   Byron L. Sherwin

5b. Memory in Ritual Life9

-   Ashley Brocious

6a. Sacrality and Particularity: Jews in an Early Modern Context9

-   Dean Phillip Bell

6b. Building Sacred Community: A Response to Dean Phillip Bell

-   Andrew C. Reed

7a. It’s Funny, But Is it Jewish? It’s Jewish, But Is It Funny? An Understated Overview of Jewish Humor

-   Leonard Greenspoon

7b. Why We’ll Probably Never Have Grouchos of Our Own (But Maybe a Seinfeld)

-   Shawn Tucker

About the author

Trevan G. Hatch, PhD, is the Bible, Religious Studies, and Middle East specialist in the Lee Library at Brigham Young University, and is also adjunct professor in the Department of Ancient Scripture. Trevan’s academic training is primarily in Bible and Jewish Studies, and his current research interests are on the Jewish context of the Gospels and Jesus traditions, Messianic expectations of Jews and Christians, and pilgrimage & religious tourism in Israel-Palestine. Trevan is the author of A Stranger in Jerusalem: Seeing Jesus as a Jew (Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2019).

Leonard J. Greenspoon, PhD, holds the Klutznick Chair in Jewish Civilization at Creighton University, where he is also Professor of Theology and of Classical & Near Eastern Studies. Greenspoon is the editor of the 32-volume Studies in Jewish Civilization series. He has also written six other books, including his most recent one on Jewish Bible translations: Jewish Bible Translations: Personalities, Passions, Politics, Progress (JPS & University of Nebraska Press, 2020).