Abstract
Shaul Magid Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), xiii + 288 pp. Inspired both by frequent interaction with Catholic monastic communities and an important Protestant teacher (Howard Thurman at Boston University), this onetime hasid of the Lubavitcher rebbe was committed to a deep ecumenism that pushed the borders between sacred languages and faith communities, viewing all of human religion as engaged in a quest for a single truth. [...]once Paul preached Jesus to the Gentiles, that little group of Galilean fishermen was quickly overwhelmed by Romans and others who fell in love with the messenger more than with the message, transforming him into a Hellenistic deity whose body was to be regularly ingested in a new mystery rite.