Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation – Marc H. Ellis

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and the influence of Cho’s and Yoido’s socialministries on Korean society. Unfortunately,too many grammatical and stylistic irregulari-ties will distract western readers. Still, this vol-ume provides important self-critical reflectionsand should be read alongside other treat-ments of Yoido Pentecostalism such as that byMenzies, ed., David Yonggi Cho: A Close Lookat His Theology and Ministry, and Kim, Historyand Theology of Korean Pentecostalism: Sun-begeum (Pure Gospel) Pentecostalism.

Amos YongRegent University School of Divinity

Jewish ThoughtTOWARD A JEWISH THEOLOGY OFLIBERATION. By Marc H. Ellis. 3rdexpanded ed. Waco, TX: Baylor UniversityPress, 2004. Pp. xviii + 260. $34.95, ISBN1-932792-00-7.

As university professor of American andJewish studies and director of the Center forAmerican and Jewish Studies at Baylor Univer-sity (since 1999), Ellis continues to expand onhis Jewish theology of liberation, even fromwithin the heart of the evangelical south. Thisvolume combines his earlier Toward a JewishTheology of Liberation: The Uprising and theFuture (Orbis, 1989) and Beyond Innocenceand Redemption: Confronting the Holocaustand Israeli Power (Harper, 1990), revises theearlier work throughout, and adds a new intro-duction and an epilogue titled “The Coming ofConstantinian and Evangelical Judaism.” Aswith his various other books since 1990, Elliskeeps upping the ante, arguing in this thirdexpanded edition that empowered Israelinationalistic ideology has legitimated thenation’s acts of oppression against the Palestin-ian exiles. His proposals include retrieval of thememory of Jewish history in the West (culmi-nating in the Holocaust), appropriation of theJewish tradition of (prophetic) dissent in dia-logue with Christian theologies of liberation,and enactment of an inclusive liturgy ofdestruction in order to enable solidarity withthe oppressed and the practice of justice andcompassion. Forewords by D. Tutu and G.Gutiérrez exemplify the kind of interreligioussolidarity that Ellis champions. The result is amodel of “evangelical theology” at its propheticbest!

Amos YongRegent University School of Divinity

A GUIDE TO THE ZOHAR. By ArthurGreen. Stanford, CA: Stanford UniversityPress, 2004. Pp. xiv + 191. $14.95, ISBN0-8047-4908-6.

This volume is an introduction for the non-specialist to the new Pritzker edition of the

Zohar. In clear language, the author considersfour major aspects of the Zohar. In the intro-duction, he briefly reviews the history of thekabbalistic tradition prior to the Zohar and elu-cidates the Ten Sefirot, the basic symbols ofKabbalah. The second section looks at thenature of the Zohar. Its external form is that ofa Midrash on the Torah, but it is more. It is alsothe narrative of Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai and hisperipatetic band of disciples who discuss andexperience the mysteries of the Zohar. TheZohar’s treatment of basic theological conceptsmakes up the third section. They include cre-ation, good and evil, revelation, and the com-mandments. Other themes discussed includethe life of worship, the holy man (zaddiq), andthe exile of Israel and its redemption. The lastsection considers the questions of authorship ofthe Zohar, its editing and printing history, andthe process of its canonization. There are nofootnotes, but an extensive bibliography pro-vides valuable guidance for further study. Thiswork can stand on its own as an excellent in-troduction to the Zohar, the central text of theJewish mystical tradition. It is highly recom-mended to anyone interested in Jewish mysti-cism and would make an excellent text forundergraduate courses.

Morris M. FaiersteinRockville, MD

CHRISTIANS IN THE WARSAWGHETTO: AN EPITAPH FOR THE UNRE-MEMBERED. By Peter F. Dembowski. NotreDame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,2005. Pp. x + 161. Cloth, $40.00, ISBN 0-268-02572-X; paper, $18.00, ISBN 0-268-02573-8.

In his “microhistory” of the Holocaust,Romance Languages Professor Dembowksi,himself an eyewitness to wartime Warsaw,explores the Jewish Christian communities thatexisted in the Warsaw ghetto. The result is afascinating reflection upon the intersections ofidentity and the consolations of religion forthose living and dying in the doomed ghetto.Dembowski argues that the absolute anti-Semitism inherent in the Nazi definition of“Jew” as a racial rather than religious categorymystified the religious communities of Polandand ultimately helped remove “the last vestigesof the age-old anti-Judaism of the [Catholic]Church.” Both Jewish antipathy to Christianconverts and Polish anti-Semitism are treatedwith nuance and sympathy. Perhaps the mosttouching section, however, is a meditation onforgiveness from one of the Jewish Christians,which suggests that even in the great darknessof the Holocaust, some found that love wasstronger than hate. The book is a valuable con-tribution to Holocaust studies and a worthymemorial to the Jewish Christians of the War-saw ghetto. Recommended for university andseminary libraries.

Glenn M. HardenEscuela Caribe

Judaism: Hellenistic through

Late AntiquityMYSTICAL BODIES, MYSTICALMEALS: EATING AND EMBODIMENTIN MEDIEVAL KABBALAH. By JoelHecker. Detroit, MI: Wayne State UniversityPress, 2005. Pp. x + 282. $44.95, ISBN 0-8143-3181-5.

This study explores the role of eating andthe body in the Zoharic corpus. Hecker beginswith a comprehensive survey of the religioussignificance of eating in Biblical and rabbinicliterature as it developed prior to the thirteenthcentury. The Zohar was ambivalent about eat-ing and the body. Sometimes, the focus waspurely on the spiritual, and other times, theunion of the physical and spiritual was a pre-requisite to spiritual attainment. Satiation wasno longer merely a physical act but was alsounderstood as a spiritual experience. For thekabbalists, the body not only ingested physicalfood but also ingested knowledge. They ideal-ized certain foods and explained how they werespiritually transformed and also raised the spir-itual level of the mystic who consumed them.The setting of the meal was also an occasionfor mystical speculation and fellowship. Thetheurgic aspects of eating and the symbolism ofmeals are important aspects of the Zohar. Thethree Sabbath meals, in particular, are the focusof much mystical speculation and theurgicactivity. The author explores these themes, uti-lizing ritual studies, gender studies, and anthro-pology in addition to the more traditionalphilological methods of analysis. He concludesthat the Zohar was more concerned with therituals and traditions that surround meals thanwith the physical aspects of food and eating.Similarly, regarding the body, the overcomingof physicality was more important than its cel-ebration. This is a valuable study that can berecommended for students of mysticism and ofembodiment in religion.

Morris M. FaiersteinUniversity of Maryland

ANCIENT JEWISH NOVELS: ANANTHOLOGY. Edited and Translated byLawrence M. Wills. New York: Oxford Univer-sity Press, 2002. Pp. x + 298. $24.95, ISBN0-19-5151429.

The Greco-Roman period saw the begin-nings of a new genre of Jewish literature, thepopular novel. The novel in this sense is definedas “written popular narrative fiction, expandedsignificantly beyond a single episode, whichfocuses on character and virtue.” This anthol-ogy collects the ancient Jewish texts that fit thisdescription. Most of them are found in theApocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Among the