Professur Geschichte und Gegenwart des christlich-jüdischen Verhältnisses
The Jewish-Christian relationship is one of the most complex relationships in our history, and its longstanding impact on society transcends the boundaries of Western civilization. Characterized by a profound intimacy on the one hand and by inherent tensions on the other, Jewish-christian relations changed their form time and again, responding and adapting to cultural, political, and social transformations.
This new chair's teaching and research explore the transformation of jewish-Christian relations from their intra-Jewish beginnings to the present, when both Christians and Jews reconsolidate their relationship after the destruction of European Jewry in the Holocaust. How do different exegetical strategies influence the readers' perception of their others? In what sense the Jewish-Christian relationship is one of rupture and difference, and in what sense it is more one of a common heritage and of continuity? How deep are the roots of anti-Judaism within the Christian tradition, and can established religious traditions rid themselves of mutual hostility and start on a new path?
These themes which characterize the field of Jewish-Christian studies also open windows to broader questions, regarding processes of secularization and postsecularism, religion and politics, and the internal dynamic of established traditions within modern and postmodern societies.