Jews and Christians: Getting Our Stories Straight

by Michael Goldberg

This fascinating volume offers bold new insights into what it means to be a Christian or a Jew. We are Christians or Jews, Michael Goldberg maintains, not principally because we embrace different creeds, but because we have gained an understanding of the world from one of two distinct master stories - for Jews, the Exodus; for Christians, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The author demonstrates what each master story ultimately reveals about who God is, what humanity is, and how humanity should therefore act in God's world.

Genres: Theology, Judaism

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Michael Goldberg is a nationally-acclaimed writer and speaker. He has held two university chairs in religious studies, worked with an international strategic management consulting firm, served as a professional ethicist with the Georgia Supreme Court as well as with various hospital ethics committees, and as an ordained rabbi, provided support to religiously-diverse patients and their families as an ICU and hospice chaplain.

Goldberg completed his undergraduate studies in philosophy at Yale received his Ph.D. in systematic theology and philosophy of religion from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

Reviews

[Matt Goldberg]

I think this author is going places.

[Graham]

Fascinating exploration of the passover story and the gospel of Matthew. Fresh insights in every chapter. Very readable. Should be better known. A very good read, never dull.

[Daisy]

I dont know if it was the book it self that i love so much but I had to read this for my intro to theology at my college and it just open up so many new information to me that i have never considered. The way Goldberg wrote his book it is very easy to follow and its very interesting. I had thought about the differences before but never really thought about it alot other than they dont believe in jesus and they went through the holocaust so after reading this book i have to say that i have been enlighten.

[Robert Fischer]

Although Michael Goldberg has an overly-Jewish reading even of the admittedly very Jewish Matthew, this book does an excellent job of highlighting real areas of difference and similarity between Christian and Jewish understandings of faith. It works well to counteract the idea that at the heart of all religions is "the same thing", and so apparent differences are actually simply superficial (and, by implication, vestigial) ornamentation. Very well written, very interesting, and definitely recommended.