Dr. Nadav Shifman Berman

UCSIA/IJS Chair for Jewish-Christian Relations 2023-24

Philosophies of Love between Judaism and Christianity

public lecture by dr. Nadav Shifman Berman, with response by prof. dr. Willem Styfhals, on 5 March 2024

This lecture aims to provide a basic scheme for examining philosophies of love in Judaism, vis-à-vis Christianity, and Abrahamic religions more broadly (i.e. Islam). Here we address the influential typology provided by Anders Nygren (1890-1978) in his magnum opus Agape and Eros. Nygren, a prominent theologian and Bishop of Lund, Sweden, ultimately contended that the fundamental motif of Judaism is Nomos, of Hellenism – Eros, and of Christianity – Agape or love that is universal, impartial, and disinterested. After presenting Nygren’s thesis, and reviewing critical Christian responses to it, we ask how his model may help in thinking about modern Jewish philosophies of love, and about pre-modern Jewish tradition (Biblical, Rabbinic, and Medieval), and especially its early formations.

Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber on Divine and Human Love

reading seminar on 7 March 2024

After presenting the Nomos/Eros/Agape scheme, and asking how it may shed light on early Judaism, we move in this reading seminar into the modern era. Here we consider the views of Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber, both explicit and implicit, about Agape. We will read select sections from Rosenzweig’s book The Star of Redemption, and from Buber’s book Two Types of Faith. Discussing them, we will see how Rosenzweig and Buber were concerned, though in different ways, about strict or non-pragmatist versions of Agape. We hence ask if there could be found a Jewish-Christian (and broader Abrahamic, or even pan-religious or humanistic) common cooperative ground, and whether such pragmatist religious understanding may help humanity in searching constructively for a better future.

Organizers