Learning Messiah: Israel and the Nations: Learning to Read God's Way Anew

Israels election calling and history make up a big part of Scripture. It could be said that they belong to the DNA of the Bible. But why is it then that the Christian narrative about the Messiah Israel and the nations often seemed to have and sometimes even still has a different genetic structure? Does Israel--together with its election and promises--leave Gods stage through a side door when Jesus appears on stage? Does a changing of roles take place within a different story? Does the Messiah function within it as some kind of black hole in which the eternal election and calling of Israel disappear? How do we read Gods way? The Holocaust made us realize that our de-Jew-ized reading and preaching of Scripture contributed in various ways to this catastrophe. And we find ourselves confronted by the question: How does the narrative of the Bible then look when the whole of Scripture plays a decisive role and the faithfulness of God toward Israel stays in the center? This book presents an answer to these questions calling us to learn to read Gods way anew and to walk in it. Learning Messiah by Edjan Westerman is a full scale biblical theology that is passionately Christian and passionately post-supersessionist in equal measure . . . the contents of the book have impressed me as accessible engaging detailed and often profound. --R. Kendall Soulen Emory University Atlanta E. J. Westerman has written a very important book that revolutionizes our understanding of both Israel and the church. In the case of the latter a more deeply rooted biblical identity of the church arises on the basis of a new canonical approach to biblical theology. This new canonical approach restores the ongoing meaning of Israel to Gods purpose in creation and consummation and hence the unity of purpose for Israel and the church. --Daniel Juster director of Tikkun Ministries International Ever since the Holocaust Christian theologians have reexamined previous Christian thinking about Israel. Most have rejected one aspect of supersessionism that which posited an end to Gods covenant with the Jewish people . . . EJ Westerman provides us with a retelling of the biblical story in which Israel and her Messiah are at the center. This retelling sheds much new light on not only the Bible but the meaning of Israel and the nations. This is an important and helpful book for Christian theology the Church and Israel today. --Gerald R. McDermott Beeson Divinity School/Samford University Birmingham Alabama Learning Messiah is an important book. Edjan Westerman reads the Bible as a co-reader with deep respect for Israel the first reader. Starting from the belief that we received the Tenach and the New Testament from the beloved and elected people of Israels God he overviews and corrects the common Christian Biblical theology with his own integral canonical approach . . . He wrote this book for the common interested reader and invites them to react and to take a position. If we receive the Bible in modesty and in acceptance of the priority of God to Israel--what does this mean for our faith and our relation to the people of the Messiah? --Bas Plaisier and former Vice President of the World Communion of Reformed Churches E. J. Westermans book sets the standard for a new genre of theological literature--a post-supersessionist biblical theology which re-casts the biblical metanarrative along the lines of R. K. Soulens The God of Israel and Christian Theology. His proposals will not be accepted by all as they challenge a deep-rooted and prevailing paradigm. But anyone interested in a renewed biblical understanding of Gods ongoing purposes through Jesus the Messiah with both Israel and the Church and all nations and a detailed exposition of the whole of Scripture in support of such an understanding will take serious note of this exciting and radical approach. --Richard Harvey author of Mapping Messi