Finding Messiah: A Journey into the Jewishness of the Gospel

In this uneven blend of the personal and theological, Rosner (Healing the Schism), a theology professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, details her path to becoming a Messianic Jew, someone who accepts Christ as the Messiah and considers themselves Jewish. Rosner grew up in a Jewish home in California, and in college most of her friends were Christian, which led her to consider Christianity and, “through a series of powerful events,” to the belief that the claims of Jesus were “undeniable.” After enrolling in divinity school, Rosner writes that her “Jewish identity started clamoring for attention,” and she identified as a Messianic Jew. Her account of her relationships, marriage, motherhood, and spiritual life alternates with deep dives into Jesus’s Jewishness and the origins of the schisms between the two faiths. Rosner, though, only lightly addresses the “checkered history of the Messianic Jewish movement” and does little to advance the conversation. She also struggles to prove that the dividing lines between Christianity and Judaism “are not quite as stable as we might assume,” as she doesn’t confront the apparent constancy of the central theological difference: whether Jesus was the Messiah. Rosner’s sincerity and passion shine, but she is unlikely to change minds. (May)