THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL

This is a study of Judaism as a system of religious belief in its Old Testament manifestations. The author's approach-premise is that, since both the Israelite religion and Christianity have sprung from the same soil, it is possible for Christianity to acquire, by a study of the religion of ancient Israel, a deeper knowledge of the origin and essence of Christianity and an insight into many aspects of the Christian faith, as well as an understanding of the concrete historical forms in which revelation has been expressed. Renckens writes simply and with clarity, and his work is, in effect, of value in understanding the origins of some of our Christian values and practices in a civilization built, to a certain extent, upon Hebrew monotheism; yet, the reader would wish that the author had taken more cognizance of the effect upon Israelite beliefs of certain extraneous factors, such as pro-Mosaic Egyptian religious reforms, and especially of that other cornerstone of civilization, Greek culture. Nonetheless, even with those deficiencies -- if deficiencies they are, in the light of the author's approach -- the book may be recommended as an unusual and competent study of Old Testament Judaism both as the foreshadowing and as the immediate source of many Christian beliefs.