Jewish Theology Unbound

James A. Diamond is Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Waterloo. His research focuses on medieval Jewish thought and philosophy. His book Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon (2014) won the Canadian Jewish Literary Awards 2015.

• Introduction: Plotting and Subplotting Jewish Philosophical Theology1: Unbinding a Jewish Philosophical Theology Out of the Past2: Biblical Questioning and Divine Astonishment: Philosophy Begins in Anguish3: Naming an Unnameable God: Divine Being or Divine Becoming4: Using God's Name for the Mundane: Halakhic Expressions of Becoming5: The Narrative Hell and Normative Bliss of Biblical Love6: Biblical Knowing Toward Death: The Silent Sound of Dying for Others7: The Original Jewish Debate over Religious Martyrdom8: Angelic Encounters as Metaphysics9: Freedom or Determinism? Constructs of the Slave as Ciphers for Free Will10: A God That Ceased to Become, A Nation that May Have Ceased to ExistConclusion: Looking Beyond Jewish Death toward Rebirth

Whatever one makes of Diamond's approach to theology, his interpretations of texts are powerful and learned. Fair-minded readers of any Jewish denomination or, indeed, of any religion will benefit fromthese novel and compelling approaches to some of the most mysterious and difficult subjects to appear in the Bible-and, as his concluding chapter demonstrates, not only there.