Buber’s “Two Types of Faith” in Hebrew


A new translation in Hebrew of Martin Buber’s classic “Two Types of Faith” (1951) has been published in Hebrew. The book was written during the siege of Jerusalem and under the influence of the liberal Protestant theologians who were Buber’s colleagues in the academia. The book was an important opening to Jewish-Christian dialogue in the post-Shoah period.

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The book, translated by Dr. Haim Mahlev was published by Resling. The book had an important influence on the dialogue between Christians and Jews in the period after the Shoah and constituted an important document of a Jewish thinker who was engaged in a wide dialogue with Christian theologians of his time. Perhaps the Christian reader will find many things in the book with which he does not agree but the book has been written with great respect by someone seeking dialogue with his Christian friends.

We publish here a brief extract from the Foreword where Buber speaks about Jesus of Nazareth:

“From my youth onwards I have found in Jesus my great brother. That Christianity has regarded and does regard him as God and Savior has always appeared to me a fact of the highest importance which, for his sake and my own, I must endeavor to understand. A small part of the results of this desire to understand is recorded here. My own fraternally open relationship to him has grown ever stronger and clearer, and to-day I see him more strongly and clearly than ever before.

I am more than ever certain that a great place belongs to him in Israel's history of faith and that this place cannot be described by any of the usual categories. Under history of faith I understand the history of the human part, as far as known to us, in that which has taken place between God and man. Under Israel's history of faith I understand accordingly the history of Israel's part as far as known to us, in that which has taken place between God and Israel. There is a something in Israel's history of faith which is only to be understood from Israel, just as there is a something in the Christian history of faith which is only to be understood from Christianity. The latter I have touched only with the unbiased respect of one who hears the Word.

That in this book I have more than once corrected erroneous representations of the Jewish history of faith rests upon the fact that these have found their way into works of important Christian theologians of our day who are in other respects authoritative for me. Without sufficient clarification of that which has to be clarified men will continue to speak to each other at cross-purposes.”

Note: It is regrettable that the translator and editors did not think it appropriate to use Jesus’ proper Hebrew name and instead inserted the mutilated name that is the result of Jewish polemics.

 

 

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