Searching Her Own Mystery

"The implications of Nostra Aetate lay dormant for a decade or so until the Pontificate of John Paul II. Since then, Catholic thinkers have begun to probe more deeply how the mystery of Israel is related to that of the Church. Mark Kinzer has thought long and hard about these issues and the reader will be the beneficiary of his learning on this important issue."

--Gary A. Anderson, Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Theology, University of Notre Dame, Indiana



"This is another beautifully written and powerful theological work from leading Messianic Jewish theologian Mark Kinzer. Kinzer, who is not a Catholic but whose life has been marked by rich dialogue with Catholics, urges the Catholic Church to open up explicitly Jewish ecclesial environments for Torah-observant Messianic Jews within the Catholic Church. While I differ from him in significant ways, I agree with him that Catholics must attend ever more deeply to the implications of God's covenantal election of the Jewish people and to the enduring spiritual value, in God's plan, of the Jewish people's observance of the Torah."

--Matthew Levering, Perry Family Foundation Professor of Theology, Mundelein Seminary, Mundelein, Illinois



"Mark Kinzer has written a deeply thought-provoking and significant book on furthering the communion between Messianic Jews and the Catholic Church. He presents clearly and creatively his scriptural and theological arguments, and the interweaving of his personal pilgrimage to faith in Jesus. His subsequent journey in that faith adds poignancy and eloquence to his theological project. The theological academy, and especially the Catholic scholars within it, ought seriously to engage this book, and Catholic bishops ought to read it with a sympathetic eye and a discerning spirit."

--Thomas G. Weinandy, Dominican House of Studies, Washington, DC



"Mark Kinzer's new book Searching her own Mystery is his most important work so far. Building on his presentation of a bilateral ecclesiology (Jews and Gentiles united as Jews and Gentiles in one body) in Post-Missionary Messianic Judaism, Kinzer now develops what he calls a 'hermeneutic of dialectical ecclesial continuity' to be applied to all Christian and Messianic Jewish theology. Simply put, Kinzer is saying that the biblical revelation to Israel and through Israel to the Church of Jew and Gentile has come down to us through two quite separate traditions that really belong together. Thus the theological task facing the Christian Church and the Jewish believers in Yeshua requires a profound listening to and sifting of both traditions, the Christian with its variety and the Jewish also in its own variety. Kinzer utilizes this hermeneutic in several key areas - e.g. baptism, eucharist, ministry - delving into the Roman Catholic and the Jewish traditions. An adequate theology today cannot be constructed from one tradition alone, least of all a Christian theology that ignores the Jewish heritage from both before and after Christ. This message is clearly of huge ecumenical relevance."

--Monsignor Peter Hocken, author of The Challenges of the Pentecostal Charismatic and Messianic Jewish Movements (Ashgate, 2009) and Pentecost and Parousia (Wipf & Stock, 2013).