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Abstract
Judaism has been defined as many things: "religion," "culture," "ethnicity," "race," "nation," and (for Mordecai Kaplan) "civilization." Each definition, including Kaplan's, poses ethical challenges by positing explicitly (or implicitly) a hierarchical ordering where Judaism is "religiously true," "culturally advanced," or otherwise "better than" other religions. This article therefore suggests reconceiving Judaism as a "conversation," a more expansive term with no ethical hierarchy, and (as it happens) fully congruent with human nature, in that human beings are not so much "rational creatures" (Aristotle), "religious creatures" (Eliade), or "working creatures" (Marx), as they are "conversational creatures." It further introduces the concept "cultural caricature" to project ultimate ethical outcomes of the various definitions (e.g., the caricature of "ethnicity" is "ethnic cleansing"). The caricature of "conversation" is a Museum of the Human Condition, where each religious tradition gets its own room and where religious adherents meet in the corridors to converse together—what we nowadays call interfaith dialogue.

This insightful volume represents the "hands-on" experience in the world of academia of two Jewish scholars, one of Orthodox background and the other a convert to the Jewish faith. As a series of separate but interrelated essays, it approaches multiple issues touching both the historical Jesus (himself a pious Jew) and the modern phenomenon of Messianic Judaism. It bridges the gap between the typically isolated disciplines of Jewish and Christian scholarship and forges a fresh level of understanding across religious boundaries. It delves into such issues as the nature and essence of Jesus' message (pietistic, militant or something of a hybrid), and whether Messianic Jews should be welcome in the larger Jewish community. Its ultimate challenge is to view sound scholarship as a means of bringing together disparate faith traditions around a common academic table. Serious research of the "great Nazarene" becomes interfaith discourse.

The differing beliefs that emerged between Christianity and Judaism, especially in the first two centuries AD, were mainly caused by the introduction of heavenly beings in the Jewish religion. This resulted in the predominance of a messiah, who will be sent by God as salvator mundi. Mainly Paul preached and practiced the conversion of pagans to Christianity, without obligating them to practice the Jewish law. In the course of time the baptized pagans represented the mainstream of Christianity which caused a conflict between them and those Jews who practiced the Jewish law but also believed in