From the moment I first read Michael Wyschogrod as a grad-uate student studying Christian theology at Yale University, I knew that I had encountered an exceptionally powerful and engrossing theologian. At the time I had no idea that Wyscho-grod would end up shaping my research for the next half dozen years, and still less, of course, that I would eventually edit and introduce a volume of his essays.

At first, all I knew was that Wyschogrod had a tremendous gift for making the obvious seem strange. While that may seem like an odd compliment, I mean it quite sincerely. The Swiss Re-formed theologian Karl Barth once spoke of "the strange new world of the Bible." Barth meant that when we cease fitting the Bible into our customary view of the world, and instead allow the Bible to scramble and refocus our vision of reality, the Bible gives us the world afresh, showing us paths and vistas we had not dreamt of before. Wyschogrod's writing is like that.

Wyschogrod has an uncanny ability to express central insights of the Jewish tradition in a way that conveys the electricity and shock power of "the strange new world of the Bible," and, I should add, "of the sages and rabbis." He brings the familiar affirmations of Jewish tradition alive and makes them speak to us as if for the first time. He redescribes our familiar reality in the light of the God of Israel, and startles us into fresh thinking and perception. At least, that is how I have always experienced Wyschogrod's work, and I have the same sense of discovery reading him today as I did twenty years ago. What is more, I have seldom met anyone, Christian or Jew, who has had the good fortune to read Michael Wyschogrod and who has failed to experience something quite similar.

Readers will understand, therefore, why I was happy to agree to edit Abraham's Promise: Judaism and Jewish-Christian Rela-tions. Another reason is that Michael Wyschogrod is one of those frequently cited authors who in my opinion is not read as much as he should be. The obstacle is not his prose style, which is admirably clear and direct, but rather the simple fact that much of what he has published over the years has appeared in journals and anthologies that are not easily accessible to the public.

Up till now, Wyschogrod's best known work has been The Body of Faith: God and the People Israel, a comprehensive theology of Judaism that has remained in print since its original publica-tion in 1983. While The Body of Faith is generally regarded as one of the most important works of Jewish theology to have appeared in recent decades, readers who know Wyschogrod only through that work are missing out on a lot. Wyschogrod excels as a writer of pungent, thought-provoking essays on theological themes as well as contemporary books and affairs.

Abraham's Promise gathers many of his most interesting works on topics such as Judaism and the Land, a Jewish view of the Incarnation, the theological significance of the Six Day War, the Holocaust, Paul and the Jewish Law, Karl Barth, and much more. It also includes several previously unpublished works, including a fascinating autobiographical essay set in post-war Heidelberg. It tells of how well-meaning Christians and Jews came into conflict over where to bury an Auschwitz survivor whose final wish was to rest alongside his Gentile lover, and of how Wyschogrod by forging friendships helped to provide a resolution.

There is a final reason I was eager to be involved in this proj-ect. I think that Michael Wyschogrod is able to think about both the continuities and discontinuities between Christianity and Judaism with a candor and creativity that is unequalled among contemporary theologians. Affiliated with the modern Orthodox movement, Wyschogrod is unapologetic about under-scoring the humanly unbridgeable chasm that separates Judaism and Christianity on central points of faith and prac-tice. But he is also suspicious of the tendency of historic Judaism and Christianity to engage in forms of negative self-definition, where faithfulness has been equated with maximizing the contrast with the rejected other. Wyschogrod believes that an exaggerated tendency toward negative self-definition has been costly for both Jews and Christians. Eager to reject anything that smacks of the Incarnation, Jews have often minimized one of the Bible's most prominent themes, namely, God's personal, indwelling relationship to the people Israel. And Christians, eager to proclaim that Christ is the Savior of Jews as well as Gentiles, have repeatedly overshot the mark by air-brushing Israel out of the God of Israel's rela-tion to humankind.

What makes Wyschogrod so stimulating is that he doesn't just bemoan past weaknesses. He takes the lead in thinking through what a more confident and faithful Judaism would look like, and he calls Christians to do the same, suggesting important and challenging avenues of thought for their consid-eration. And that makes Wyschogrod a very thought-provoking theologian indeed.

Dr. R. Kendall Soulen is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and teaches Systematic Theology at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. He received his B.A. from Yale University, his M.Div. from Candler School of Theol-ogy (Emory University), and his Ph.D. from Yale University.

Dr. Soulen's publications include: The God of Israel and Chris-tian Theology (Fortress Press, 1996); Handbook of Biblical Criticism, 3rd Edition, co-authored with his father, Richard N. Soulen (Westminster John Knox, 2001); and God and Human Dignity, co-edited with Linda Woodhead (forthcoming).

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