Harvey, Richard. Mapping Messianic Jewish Theology: A Constructive Approach. Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2009. 316 pp.
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Note: I submitted this review to the editors of Mishkan (of whom Harvey is one) in April 2010. I never received any reply.
Abstract: A useful book, but infused with an excessive bias toward systematization. The author pushes MJ thinkers in a direction that inevitably leads to distorting Truth.
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Richard Harvey's new book organizes and outlines a wide variety of "Messianic Jewish" theological perspectives. It is therefore a very useful reference work. The reader can see at a glance what people as varied as David Stern, Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Mark Kinzer, Baruch Maoz, Tzvi Sadan, John Fischer, Elazar Brandt, and other current "practitioners" have to say about Torah in theory and in practice, the deity of Messiah, and other important topics. Harvey's "Conclusion" furnishes a helpful "typology of eight major streams of thought within Messianic Jewish Theology." [262, 267-277] Readers already familiar with the wide spectrum of Messianic Judaism(s) will not be greatly surprised by this final summation. Nonetheless, even the most experienced can appreciate the way he brings coherence to the sometimes chaotic jumble of contradictory views making up "the movement." This book is one that I would like to keep on my bookshelf as a kind of mini-encyclopedia of selected MJ viewpoints.
In 2008, the journal Mishkan devoted most of Issue 57 to the earlier version of Harvey's work, his Ph.D. dissertation completed at the University of Wales under the direction of Rabbi Dr. Dan Cohn-Sherbok. Excerpts by the author and review articles by others elucidated the main content, questions, and arguments of Mapping Messianic Judaism. Rather than covering the same ground, I'd like to express some additional thoughts stimulated by Harvey's book. My hope is to offer a balancing perspective on some broad, underlying issues regarding how we ought to approach Scripture and our faith.
Mapping comes accompanied by promotional blurbs asserting its "fairness." To a significant degree, they are accurate. In the descriptive part of his book, Harvey treats each school of thought academically, even clinically, without passing judgment. His concern is to present a range of MJ perspectives, from extremely pro-Christian to enthusiastically pro-rabbinic, rather than to push one or another point of view. This apparent objectivity is commendable.
At the same time, Harvey's book is highly biased in one particular way.
