Searching Her Own Mystery

Nostra Aetate, the Jewish People, and the Identity of the Church

Mark S. Kinzer

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781498203319
  9781498203333
• eBook ISBN:
  9781498203326
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Vatican II's Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra Aetate) transformed the Catholic view of the Jewish people and the Jewish religious tradition. Asserting that the Church discovers her link to the "stock of Abraham" when "searching her own mystery," Nostra Aetate intimated that the mystery of Israel is inseparable from the mystery of the Church. As interlocking mysteries, each community requires the other in order to understand itself. In Searching Her Own Mystery, noted Messianic Jewish theologian Mark S. Kinzer argues that the Church has yet to explore adequately the implications of Nostra Aetate for Christian self-understanding. The new Catholic teaching concerning Israel should produce fresh perspectives on the entire range of Christian theology, including Christology, ecclesiology, and the theology of the sacraments. To this end, Kinzer proposes an Israel-ecclesiology rooted in Israel-Christology in which a restored ecclesia ex circumcisione--the "church from the circumcision"--assumes a crucial role as a sacramental sign of the Church's bond with the Jewish people and genealogical-Israel's irrevocable election.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1: The Ecclesiological Challenge of Nostra Aetate
• Chapter 2: A Stranger in a Strange (Yet Familiar) Land
• Chapter 3: Lumen Gentium, Gloriam Israel
• Chapter 4: Priesthood, Apostleship, and the People of Israel
• Chapter 5: Israel’s Eschatological Renewal in Water and Spirit
• Chapter 6: The Last Supper, The Eucharist, and the Jewish People
• Chapter 7: Praying for Jerusalem, Feasting with the Messiah
• Chapter 8: Jewish Life as Sacrament
• Chapter 9: The Task of Mutual-Indwelling
• Appendix 1: Nostra Aetate 4
• Appendix 2: Documents of the Helsinki Consultation on Jewish Continuity in the Body of Christ
• Appendix 3: The Jewishness of the Apostles and Its Implications for the Apostolic Church
• Appendix 4: Finding our Way through Nicaea: The Deity of Jesus, Bilateral Ecclesiology, and Redemptive Encounter with the Living God
• Bibliography