PAUL GRIFFITHS’s books are invariably tightly argued, elegantly written, and provocative. British by birth and a former Anglican, he started his long and productive academic career in the United States with a doctorate on Buddhism, before moving into Roman Catholic theology. His many, highly regarded books include several directed towards tightly defined topics, including lying, flesh, and regret.
With Israel, he excels himself, especially in provocation. By that I mean both that every page makes you think, and that it would be an unusual reader who gets through it without disagreement, shock, or disgruntlement.
Griffiths’s style is clear, concise, and sometimes astringent. It is both analytic and poetic, although the eye snags at first over some distinctive phrasing: when we might expect “God”, Griffiths writes “the god”; for “Trinity”, he writes “the Trinity the god is”.
The central conviction is that the idea of Israel is of central importance in Christian theology, and that Israel now consists of the “Synagogue” and the “Church”. Both are God’s people; both share the task of repairing the world; both are “intimate” with God, who is leading both into a deeper understanding of himself. There are also differences. The Synagogue mainly grows and continues by the birth of Jewish children to Jewish mothers. The Church grows and continues only by baptism: being born to Christian parents does not suffice. The Church knows about God as Trinity, and about the incarnation of the Second Person; in parallel, the Synagogue knows things about God which Christians do not.
The Synagogue is no poor relation. The first covenant is older, not weaker, than the New, nor less glorious. Indeed, Griffiths holds that the Synagogue is “more intimate” with God than the Church (and its life with God “richer and fuller”), not least because he holds the old accusation that Judaism is more “fleshy” than Christianity (historically an insult) to be both true and excellent.
Griffiths is forthright and circumspect by turns. Addressing his Christian audience, he writes and recommends with gusto, but he writes only for Christians. No Christian, he thinks, has standing to try to teach the Synagogue anything, whether about itself, the Church, or God. Nor, given the history of Christian violence towards Jews, or collusion in violence, does he think it likely that the Synagogue will be interested in what the Church has to say.
Israel is catholic, conservative, and creative. Griffiths writes that he receives and respects the Christian dogmatic heritage, as expressed in Roman Catholic form. (As a doctrinal aside, that left me surprised to read that all three Persons took flesh in the incarnation.) By the “Church” he means the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, while Jews, as fellow members of an overarching Israel, are treated with the utmost respect, that cannot be said for Christians outside his own Church, who, Griffiths claims, play no part in the work of salvation.
As to creativity, the book is an intellectual ferment. Although short, it offers more that is worthy of careful consideration than many a work of theology five times longer. Indeed, Griffiths frequently offers a thought of greater consequence in two pages than one might be used to in a hundred.
Griffiths is most controversial when he puts his more theoretical discussions to practical work, with chapters on how the Church proselytises, baptises, marries, and represents Jews, all bustling with ideas. Since he thinks that the Synagogue is “more intimate” with God than the Church, he sees little reason to regret Christian conversion to Judaism. Indeed, in certain situations, the Church might recommend it, particularly when a Christian man marries a Jewish woman. He expresses some sense of loss here (of “explicit intimacy with Jesus”), but little sense that the disavowal of Christ and God-as-Trinity is legitimately a matter of grave importance for Christians.
Also controversial is his suggestion that a Jew who wants to become a Christian need not be baptised. So, too, is Griffiths’s suggestion that the Hebrew Scriptures record the “poetry” of God’s address, in comparison with which the New Testament is more of a “paraphrase”. He grounds the latter claim in the sense that the New Testament’s message floats free from any authoritative language (which had me wondering why scriptural passages are given in Latin here, as well as English).
I have read few more controversial works of theology in the past decade. Equally, I have read few that are so consequential, or so worth arguing with. Israel deserves the widest possible readership, but — as they say — buckle up. Paul Griffiths is not afraid to venture something.
Canon Andrew Davison is Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford.
Israel: A Christian grammar
Paul J. Griffiths
Fortress Press £19.99
(978-1-5064-9105-9)
Church Times Bookshop £17.99
