Jewish Messianic Thoughts in an Age of Despair

Cambridge University Press (2012)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Belief in the coming of a Messiah poses a genuine dilemma. From a Jewish perspective, the historical record is overwhelmingly against it. If, despite all the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people, no legitimate Messiah has come forward, has the belief not been shown to be groundless? Yet for all the problems associated with messianism, the historical record also shows it is an idea with enormous staying power. The prayer book mentions it on page after page. The great Jewish philosophers all wrote about it. Secular thinkers in the twentieth century returned to it and reformulated it. And victims of the Holocaust invoked it in the last few minutes of their life. This book examines the staying power of messianism and formulates it in a way that retains its redemptive force without succumbing to mythology.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Jewish Messianism and the History of Philosophy (review).Kenneth Reinhard - 2005 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 43 (3):370-371.
The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Messianic Left.Israel Idalovichi - 2007 - Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies 6 (17):21-33.
Messianism.Judith Wolfe - 2013 - In Nicholas Adams, George Pattison & Graham Ward (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Theology and Modern European Thought. Oxford University Press.
Derrida and the Messianic of Deconstruction.Ken-pa Chin - 2010 - Philosophy and Culture 37 (12):113-137.
Jewish Messianism and the History of Philosophy.Martin Kavka - 2004 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
For the love of God and people: a philosophy of Jewish law.Elliot N. Dorff - 2007 - Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society.
A Secular Alchemy of Social Science: The Denial of Jewish Messianism in Freud and Durkheim.Philip Wexler - 2008 - Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 55 (116):1-21.
Autonomy in Jewish philosophy.Kenneth Seeskin - 2001 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
Messianica ratio. Affinities and Differences in Cohen’s and Benjamin's Messianic Rationalism.Fabrizio Desideri - 2015 - Aisthesis: Pratiche, Linguaggi E Saperi Dell’Estetico 8 (2):133-145.

Analytics

Added to PP
2016-09-10

Downloads
1 (#1,769,934)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Kenneth Seeskin
Northwestern University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references