Abstract

Leo Baeck described the cornerstones of a true Jewish-Christian dialogue: the knowledge and the acceptance of the differences and similarities of religions; in order to understand those, one has to be aware of one's own religious identity. This study will concentrate on the Jewish aspect of the phenomenon "Liberal theology" in the Germany of the early decades of this century as a way to find "identity". Therefore Christianity will serve mainly as a backdrop to Jewish theological development at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and is not a main subject in its own right. Details of Leo Baeck's biography will provide the basis for further investigation . Afterwards, I shall sketch the historical background of the rapid changes which German Judaism had to experience in the 19th century . I will then discuss into depth the essence debate in its Christian and Jewish aspects. After an examination of modern Jewish theology , I shall try to outline a theological system of Baeck's thinking . Then I shall have a close look at Baeck's perception of central themes in Luther's thought. I will evaluate this understanding, assess it with regard to the intellectual environment we had discussed in the chapters before and try to come to a conclusion on the validity of Baeck's interpretation of Luther, the aim and function of Baeck's peculiar way to present his opponent and an assertion on the actual problem that Baeck has in mind when challenging Luther . In conclusion I will discuss the trend towards a genuinely Jewish systematic theology . This study does not intend to correct Baeck's--often polemic and problematical--view of Christianity and above all of Luther's theology. Rather, we shall attempt to show in which particular way both Christian and Jewish scholars at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century tried to formulate what they understood to be the very 'essence' of their religions. It is hoped that a picture emerges which illuminates the situation of Jewish thought between the emancipation of post-enlightenment age and the dawn of a pluralistic society, a problem for Judaism and Christianity alike