About
Christian and Jewish Documents
About us
The Jewish-Christian dialogue has changed the relationship between church and Judaism as well as the perception of Christianity on the Jewish side. The Documents Churches and Judaism project is part of this process and has been documenting church and Jewish statements on the relationship between the Church and Israel since 1945, from Christianity and Judaism to the present day. These texts are now also available online and edited for your research by a Christian-Jewish editorial team.
Two extensive print documentaries already show the efforts for a new culture of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism:
Rolf Rendtorff / Hans Hermann Henrix (Hg.), Die Kirchen und das Judentum. Band I: Dokumente von 1945 bis 1985, Paderborn / Gütersloh 2001.
Hans Hermann Henrix / Wolfgang Kraus (Hg.), Die Kirchen und das Judentum. Band II: Dokumente von 1986 bis 2000, Paderborn / Gütersloh 2001.
These volumes have proven to be an important source work for the scientific processing of questions relating to the relationship between the Church and the Jewish people and Judaism, but also for reassurance in matters relating to schools, education and pastoral care. They remain indispensable as a basic work and are consulted on an ongoing basis.
Efforts to cultivate, reflect on and further develop the relationship of the churches to Judaism have now continued after the year 2000. The process of reorientation and consolidation of a new culture of Christian-Jewish relations is not complete. Sometimes disturbances and irritations can also strain this relationship. Nevertheless, one can speak of a vital and forward-looking liveliness in the relationship between the Catholic Church and Judaism and the Jewish people. The same applies to the relationship of the churches of the Reformation to Judaism. The access to the documents offered here since 2000 is continuously updated and expanded.
Also in focus are the efforts of the Anglican Church and Old Catholicism as well as Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy to redefine their relationship to Judaism. It is very gratifying that thanks to the Jewish participation in this source work, more Jewish texts can now be presented in more depth.
Background
With the Second Vatican Council and its declaration on the relationship between the Church and non-Christian religions Nostra aetate of October 28, 1965, the Catholic Church and theology have become aware that clarifying the relationship between the Church and the Jewish people and Judaism is one of the major challenges of the Church matters.
Nostra Aetate was also an inspiration and impetus for the Protestant Church to clarify the theological relationship between the Church and Israel. The Selisberg theses played just as fundamental a role as the founding of the comittee Christians and Jews at the German Protestant Church Congress in Berlin in 1961. From then on, the search for a new theological definition of the relationship to Israel under the premise of permanent election and rejection of missions to the Jews determined the debate. This work was significantly influenced by the Christian-Jewish dialogue. Learning from one another about God, the God of Israel and Father of Jesus Christ, opened up spaces for dialogue that were based on the conviction that a godly and humane life is only possible in cooperation and exchange.
Even if the past decades could not exclude moments of irritation and confrontation, the Jewish statement on Christians and Christianity under the title Dabru Emet - Speak Truth of September 10, 2000 has good reasons for its declaration of confidence in the Jewish-Christian relationship: " In recent years, there has been a dramatic and unprecedented shift in Jewish and Christian relations…. An increasing number of official Church bodies, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, have made public statements of their remorse about Christian mistreatment of Jews and Judaism. These statements have declared, furthermore, that Christian teaching and preaching can and must be reformed so that they acknowledge God‘s enduring covenant with the Jewish people and celebrate the contribution of Judaism to world civilization and to Christian faith itself.“
Selection criteria
The plan to offer the most reliable possible access to the documents online in digital form since 2000 follows the same selection criteria as in the document volumes mentioned. Official and semi-official announcements by church bodies and church officials are made accessible. Elaborations or drafts by commissions or study groups are only included if they have been carried out and published with a mandate. A concentration in terms of subject and content is carried out, insofar as documents are preferred in which theological statements are made on the relationship between the churches and Judaism. It is a justified exceptional case when a statement on anti-Semitism, the situation in the Middle East and other political and social problems is made available in which a theological reflection remains in the background or is not explicitly made at all. The collection of documents made accessible here is therefore only a matter of relative completeness. Nevertheless, a meaningful insight into the updating of the positions on the Christian-Jewish relationship and beyond should be made possible. Points of view hostile to dialog should not be given a forum with this service, however.
Attachment of the documentation
The requirement that an online database must be "searchable" led to the reorganization of the structure of the texts. Since the working group wanted to provide users with a clear overview of which texts can be found where, it was necessary to revise the structure of the printed volumes. In addition to a clear structure, the proper naming of the denominational groups was particularly important.
On the Jewish side, therefore, the classification into J.N non-Orthodox and J.O orthodox pronouncements was made. Add to that J.D with interdenominational documents.
On the evangelical side it seemed important not to simply divide the pronouncements into ecumenical, German and non-German, but to pay attention to denominational differences and similarities. E.I continues to include the non-denominational texts. E.II offers those texts of the authored evangelical, reformed and united churches as well as the pre-reformation churches. Statements from free churches, charismatic groups and Pentecostal communities then gather in E.III. The texts of the Anglican Church and the Old Catholic Church can be found under E.IV. Orthodoxy now has its own category O., which is subdivided again into O.I Eastern Orthodoxy and O.II Oriental Orthodoxy.
Restructuring was also carried out on the Catholic side. Vatican, German and non-German texts are no longer separated, but the Catholic world is divided into K.I with Vatican pronouncements and K.II, which includes the international and national pronouncements of bishops, synods and dioceses. K.II is therefore subdivided again into K.II.DE Germany; K.II.EU Europe; K.II. AM North and South America and K.II.WK Other continents. In this way, the Catholic world is represented in its entirety and its global significance is perceived more appropriately. After all the new chapters had been sorted alphabetically in the working group, we were delighted to see a successful structure that puts the Christian-Jewish texts in front and presented category J in the middle flanked by E and K and O. The work on the documents since 1945 therefore not only reflects the movements that have taken place within the Church and within the Jews, but is itself a reflection of this change and also its result.
Construction
The structure of the individual sections and the individual document adopts the proven structure of the two print documentations "Die Kirchen und das Judentum". Each document is presented with a four-part scheme:
- Headline stating the responsible body or person, the title of the document and the date of publication.
- Editorial introductory text, which gives details of how it came about, possibly the prehistory, position in the historical and theological context and relationships to other documents, as well as a brief characterization of the content.
- Text of the document in German.
- Editorial credits, which indicate the language (if not German) and the place of the first publication (in the case of previously unpublished documents, the source that was available to us, e.g. the corresponding manuscript) and, if applicable, the origin of the translation.
Working group
The online documentation is constantly updated by an oecumenical and interreligious working group.
Prof. em. Dr. Hans Hermann Henrix
Prof. Dr. Reinhold Boschki – Universität Tübingen
Rabbiner Dr. Jehoschua Ahrens – Universität Salzburg
Valesca Baert-Knoll – Universität Tübingen
Pfarrerin Jennifer Ebert – Theologische Hochschule Augustana
Dr. Axel Töllner – Theologische Hochschule Augustana
Funding
We would like to thank the Deutsche Bischofskonferenz (DBK) and the Evangelischen Kirche Deutschland (EKD) for their generous funding.
