The Promise of Eternal Life

"Israel" lived twice, once in the patriarchs and matriarchs, a second time in the life of the heirs as the descendants relived those earlier lives. The stories of the family were carefully reread to provide a picture of the meaning of the latterday events of the descendants of that same family.
- Jacob Neusner, "'Israel': Judaism and Its Social Metaphors"

When one meets a Jew in New York or New Orleans or Paris or Melbourne, it is remarkable that no one considers the event remarkable. What are they doing here? But it is even more remarkable to wonder, if there are Jews here, why are there not Hittites here?
- Walker Percy, The Message in the Bottle

Living again through one's seed is the Jewish promise of immortality, in contrast to the Christian promise of resurrection of the body. The eternity of Israel is in the past, not the future: the word reinterpreted in an endless hermeneutical spiral.

The Jewish promise of immortality - through genealogy and tradition, rather than apocalypse and salvation - has the disadvantage of being less individualistic and less dramatic than the Christian promise of immortality. But it has the advantage of being true.

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