Ellis Rivkin has written a book that confronts head-on the erroneous perception that the Jews crucified Jesus. This would be a surprise to most Christians. It was to me. With a reasoned and enlightened style, Rivkin takes us back to the historical, religious and political context of the New Testament, with special analysis of what it was like to be an observant Jew living in Israel under total Roman domination at a time when Jews, as today, were doctrinally divided on key interpretations of Scripture, such as the resurrection from the dead, temple worship, and messiah. Essentially what Rivkin does for us is to provide the vital historial, religious, and political context to the New Testament (NT) narratives, a context that is missing or out of focus for most Christians, who, wanting to focus mainly on the Gospel message, also absorb the palpable anti-Jewish tone throughout the narratives. Rivkin points out repeatedly that the anti-Jewish tone must be understood in the right context and cannot be construed as being anti-semitic in intent or interpreted as some kind of justication for the Christ-killer libel that has been propagated against Jews for centuries. In other words, for Christians, there is no justification based on NT Scripture that the Jews crucified Jesus; and, for Jews, there is no justification for slandering the writers of the NT by saying that they hated the Jewish people and thereby have spread their presumed hatred to the world through the NT Gospels, Letters, and histories. There is much more to this book, and it is worth the inexpensive price. It should be read by itself for the analysis and style, although it is repetitive in places because it is apparently an edited compilation of speeches by the author on the topic of Christian anti-semitism. An if any Christian doubts the extent of Christian anti-semitism in Church history and today, let him or her also read another seminal title, "The Anguish of the Jews" by the eminent and scholarly priest-author Edward Flannery, who died in 10/98 in his 80's. These books deal with a topic that is as current as today's headlines, on an issue that is at the heart of peace and justice in the world today, and at the heart the prophetic stories in the Bible. Importantly, Rivkin's book can give Jews and Christians another reason to understand and even trust each other a little bit more because of their common heritage and their G-d, in spite of doctrinal differences.

The author uses a unique style of analysis to bring new meaning to the documents and events we have read about for years. His understanding of the need for adaptation of social organism, imitation of structure and the need occasionaly in the crisis of survival to mutate old belief is crucial to an understanding of both historical Judaism and the subsequent development of Judaism's most powerful idea: monotheism. The reader will under stand all of historical religious development when the central question of religious history is kept in the foreground: How do we explain that the one God of the universe will take care of the covenant that was revealed to Abraham. Each stage of faith is a result of any answer to that question.