ABSTRACT
This book traverses territory that arouses political sensitivities, and excites prohibitions or inhibitions on what may be said in public on pain of scholarly excommunication. I therefore need to be clear concerning positions about which some of my most admired friends might be unhappy. With regard to Judaism, I have had a long association in England, America and Israel with Jewish colleagues. In the course of that association I have the impression, no more, that Evangelical Christians, especially maybe those in the philosemitic tradition best known and native to me, immerse themselves in the Hebrew Bible, apart from the Torah, far more than comparably committed Jews. One devout Jew asked me where I had come across the beautiful sentiment about doing justly and loving mercy that Christians regularly quote from the prophet Micah. Another devout Jew commented on his intense dislike of Isaiah, the prophet that Christians call the fifth evangelist. Reading different Bibles differently is only one source of the many misunderstandings between Christians and Jews. We misunderstand each other while seeking with strenuous goodwill to acquire understanding.
