The Salvation of Israel: Jews in Christian Eschatology from Paul to the Puritans
The Salvation of Israel investigates Christianity's eschatological Jew: the role and characteristics of the Jews at the end of days in the Christian imagination. It explores the depth of Christian ambivalence regarding these Jews, from Paul's Epistle to the Romans, through late antiquity and the Middle Ages, to the Puritans of the seventeenth century. Jeremy Cohen contends that few aspects of a religion shed as much light on the character and the self-understanding of its adherents as its expectations for the end of time. Moreover, eschatological beliefs express and mold an outlook toward nonbelievers, situating them in an overall scheme of human history and conditioning interaction with them as that history unfolds.

Cohen's close readings of biblical commentary, theological texts, and Christian iconography reveal the dual role of the Jews of the last days. For rejecting belief and salvation in Jesus Christ, they have been linked to the false messiah—the Antichrist, the agent of Satan and the exemplary embodiment of evil. Yet from its inception, Christianity has also hinged its hopes for the second coming on the enlightenment and repentance of the Jews; for then, as Paul prophesized, "all Israel will be saved."

In its vast historical scope, from the ancient Mediterranean world of early Christianity to seventeenth-century England and New England, The Salvation of Israel offers a nuanced and insightful assessment of Christian attitudes toward Jews, rife with inconsistency and complexity, thus contributing significantly to our understanding of Jewish-Christian relations.

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The Salvation of Israel: Jews in Christian Eschatology from Paul to the Puritans
The Salvation of Israel investigates Christianity's eschatological Jew: the role and characteristics of the Jews at the end of days in the Christian imagination. It explores the depth of Christian ambivalence regarding these Jews, from Paul's Epistle to the Romans, through late antiquity and the Middle Ages, to the Puritans of the seventeenth century. Jeremy Cohen contends that few aspects of a religion shed as much light on the character and the self-understanding of its adherents as its expectations for the end of time. Moreover, eschatological beliefs express and mold an outlook toward nonbelievers, situating them in an overall scheme of human history and conditioning interaction with them as that history unfolds.

Cohen's close readings of biblical commentary, theological texts, and Christian iconography reveal the dual role of the Jews of the last days. For rejecting belief and salvation in Jesus Christ, they have been linked to the false messiah—the Antichrist, the agent of Satan and the exemplary embodiment of evil. Yet from its inception, Christianity has also hinged its hopes for the second coming on the enlightenment and repentance of the Jews; for then, as Paul prophesized, "all Israel will be saved."

In its vast historical scope, from the ancient Mediterranean world of early Christianity to seventeenth-century England and New England, The Salvation of Israel offers a nuanced and insightful assessment of Christian attitudes toward Jews, rife with inconsistency and complexity, thus contributing significantly to our understanding of Jewish-Christian relations.

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The Salvation of Israel: Jews in Christian Eschatology from Paul to the Puritans

The Salvation of Israel: Jews in Christian Eschatology from Paul to the Puritans

by Jeremy Cohen
The Salvation of Israel: Jews in Christian Eschatology from Paul to the Puritans

The Salvation of Israel: Jews in Christian Eschatology from Paul to the Puritans

by Jeremy Cohen

Overview

The Salvation of Israel investigates Christianity's eschatological Jew: the role and characteristics of the Jews at the end of days in the Christian imagination. It explores the depth of Christian ambivalence regarding these Jews, from Paul's Epistle to the Romans, through late antiquity and the Middle Ages, to the Puritans of the seventeenth century. Jeremy Cohen contends that few aspects of a religion shed as much light on the character and the self-understanding of its adherents as its expectations for the end of time. Moreover, eschatological beliefs express and mold an outlook toward nonbelievers, situating them in an overall scheme of human history and conditioning interaction with them as that history unfolds.

Cohen's close readings of biblical commentary, theological texts, and Christian iconography reveal the dual role of the Jews of the last days. For rejecting belief and salvation in Jesus Christ, they have been linked to the false messiah—the Antichrist, the agent of Satan and the exemplary embodiment of evil. Yet from its inception, Christianity has also hinged its hopes for the second coming on the enlightenment and repentance of the Jews; for then, as Paul prophesized, "all Israel will be saved."

In its vast historical scope, from the ancient Mediterranean world of early Christianity to seventeenth-century England and New England, The Salvation of Israel offers a nuanced and insightful assessment of Christian attitudes toward Jews, rife with inconsistency and complexity, thus contributing significantly to our understanding of Jewish-Christian relations.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781501785368
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Publication date: 01/15/2026
Series: Medieval Societies, Religions, and Cultures
Pages: 344
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Jeremy Cohen is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of six books, including A Historian in Exile, and a four-time winner of the National Jewish Book Award.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I: All Israel Will Be Saved
1. Paul and the Mystery of Israel's Salvation
2. The Pauline Legacy: From Origen to Pelagius
3. The Latin West: From Augustine to Luther and Calvin
Part II: The Jews and Antichrist
4. Antichrist and the Jews in Early Christianity
5. Jews and the Many Faces of Antichrist in the Middle Ages
6. Antichrist and Jews in Literature, Drama, and Visual Arts
Part III: At the Forefront of the Redemption
7. Honorius Augustodunensis, the Song of Songs, and Synagoga Conversa
8. Jewish Converts and Christian Salvation: Pablo de Santa María, Bishop of Burgos
9. Puritans, Jews, and the End of Days
Afterword

What People are Saying About This

Sara Lipton

The Salvation of Israel is an impressively clear, deeply informed, and well-written overview of the role of Jews in Christian eschatology by one of the world's leading scholars of medieval Jewish-Christian relations. Cohen explicates a noteworthy and eclectic range of texts with sensitivity and intelligence, making a significant contribution that will appeal to a broad, interdisciplinary readership.

Brett E. Whalen

The Salvation of Israel offers a masterful analysis of nearly two millennia of Christian eschatology to demonstrate that Jews occupied a central and inescapable place in Christian theorizing about the course of history in the past, present, and apocalyptic future. Throughout, Jeremy Cohen resists easy answers and generalizations, carefully teasing out Christianity's complex end-times ambivalence toward Judaism.

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