Jesus and the Holocaust: Reflections on Suffering and Hope

by Joel Marcus, Ellen T. Charry (Foreword by)

Overview

Jesus was a Jew. Yet nineteen centuries after his death, hatred inspired in part by the long-standing tradition of Christian anti-Judaism played a significant role in the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust.

How are Christians and Jews to deal with this jarring historical incongruity?

In Jesus and the Holocaust Joel Marcus—a Jew by birth, a Christian by choice—offers stirring meditations on the relationship between the deaths of six million Jews at the hands of the Nazis and the death of one innocent Jew on the cross. Basing his work on sermons he originally preached on Good Friday 1995, a date that also corresponded with the fifty-year anniversary of the end of the Holocaust, Marcus weaves reflection on Bible passages together with poetry and narratives about the Holocaust. He shows how the hope that Christians have always found hidden in Christ's darkest hour can shed light on one of the most tragic events of our recent history—and vice versa.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802874351
Publisher:	Eerdmans, William B. Publishing Company
Publication date:	05/26/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	153
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Joel Marcus is professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Duke Divinity School and author of the two-volume Anchor Bible Commentary volume on Mark.

Table of Contents

Illustrations ix

Foreword Ellen T. Gharry x

Preface to the 2017 xiv

Edition xiv

Preface xx

Acknowledgments xxiii

I The Suffering Servant 1

The Secret Mission (Yaffa Eliach) 3

Homily 6

II "You Are Being Dehumanized" 17

Isaac (Amir Gilboa) 19

Homily 21

III An Atheist in Five Minutes 31

There's a Certain Slant of Light (Emily Dickinson) 33

Homily 35

IV "Father, Forgive Them" 45

"This Cruelty Too Will End" (Anne Frank) 47

Homily 49

V The Dying of the Light 59

I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died (Emily Dickinson) 61

Homily 63

VI It Is Finished! 71

A Hill in Bergen-Belsen (Yaffa Eliach) 73

Homily 76

VII The Earthquake 87

The Holy Feat (Emmanuel Levinas) 89

Homily 91

Final Thoughts 109

The Gravestones in the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague (Joel Marcus) 111

Homily 112

Notes 119

Permissions 128

Editorial Reviews

Ellen T. Charry
— from the foreword
"By giving authentic voice to the dead voices of the Holocaust refracted through the agony of the original crucified Jew, Joel Marcus brings Christians into the suffering of his people that Jews and Christians may weep together. He has blessed all the people of God, both the Jewish people and the Christian church."

From the Publisher