Reviving Jewish Theology - Metaphysics, Hermeneutics, Ethics

In this study, Steven Kepnes constructs a 'positive' Jewish theology, one that gives expression to God's nature and powers and that opposes 'apophatic' Holocaust and postmodern theologies that deny the ability of language to express God's nature.

List of contents

Part I. Introductions: 1. The immanent frame and the need for Jewish metaphysics; 2. Post-holocaust theology: the passive God and the apotheosis of evil; 3. Radical apophatic Jewish theologies from Boyarin to derrida to Wolfson; Part II. Reviving Jewish Theology: 4. A soft metaphysics for Jewish theology; 5. Two methods for Jewish theology: analytic philosophy and Hermeneutics; Part III. Program For a Positive Jewish Theology: 6. A new natural Jewish theology: probability and the recovery of teleology; 7. Seeing and not-seeing, saying and not saying, 'God': two approaches to the contradiction between the God of absolute being and the personal God; 8. A theological hermeneutics of Jewish liturgy; Part IV. Prophetic Jewish Theological Ethics: 9. Retrieving Cohen and Heschel on prophetic ethics; 10. The climate crisis and prophetic Jewish theology: a Jewish theology of sustainability.

About the author

Steven Kepnes is Professor of World Religions and Jewish Studies at Colgate University and author of The Future Of Jewish Theology (2013), Jewish Liturgical Reasoning, (2007) and The Text As Thou (1993), and editor of The Cambridge Companion To Jewish Theology  (2021).

Product details

• Authors: Steven (Colgate University Kepnes, Kepnes Steven
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 31.10.2025
• EAN: 9781009399708
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0939970-8
• No. of pages: 350
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; RELIGION / Theology, Ethics & moral philosophy, Judaism: life & practice, Ethics and moral philosophy, Judaism: life and practice, Relating to Jewish people and groups, Judaism: sacred texts and revered writings, Judaism: Sacred Texts