ABSTRACT
Without sufficient knowledge of the painful history of Jewish-Christian apologetics and polemics, which have their origins in late antiquity and continued on into the medieval period, it is easy to fail to recognise the complexities of current Christian approaches to the Land that is now known as Israel and/or Palestine. Jesper Svartvik here examines the interplay of theology and politics, and, in particular, reflects upon the theology of religions, the discipline that seeks to consider the meaning and value of other religious traditions theologically, not only as a problem, as has often been the case, but also as the promise and the possibility of a renewed self-understanding. Specifically, Svartvik seeks to identify the formative theological patterns underlying Christian interpretations of the Holy Land.
