Lev Gillet Communion in the Messiah

There are two main themes in Gillet's challenging book: substitution of a "dialogue" for the one-sided "mission to the Jews," and communion of Jews and Christians in the one Messiah. Without compromising the Christian position, Gillet shows how much Christians have to learn from Jews before they can hope to communicate their own faith that Jesus is the Christ. After a historical analysis of the intellectual relations between Christianity and Judaism, Gillet eruditely draws out the common element, challenging and correcting misconceptions about Rabbinism and Jewish life and teaching generally, which overlook the two millennia of Jewish thought between the Old Testament and modern times. He shows how close is this connection, and how deeply spiritual is much of Jewish theology. There is, he claims, nothing in Jewish belief that a Jew become Christian ought to reject, while Christianity is the completion and fulfilment of Judaism.