Common Differences Revisited: A cultural and comparative study of Jewish and Christian practices and representations

Common Differences Revisited is a work of comparative religion. It compares Judaism and Christianity and is written from an unusual viewpoint. This book of essays shows that Christian and Jewish meanings derive and differ from one another through common, and underlying cultural distinctions and structure such as spirit/flesh and male/female. These common differences are the key to the book. The book looks at religious ideas and practices within Judaism and Christianity from an anthropology of religion or semiological point of view and discovers a similar deep structure in the Trinity, the God of mystical Judaism, the union of Israel, Torah and God with the structures underlying the social relationships in the Western family. It explains these similarities by way of common, deeply structured, differences. The book is a collection of essays, and these include: "Distinction and Structure in our Religious Culture", "Christianity/Judaism: a study in cultural contrasts", "The Trinity - its cultural definition", "Storied Triads of the Bible", and "The Eucharist, The Passover and the Word". Readers with an interest in religion, with an interest in the Bible as literature, or even in philosophy of religion might enjoy reading the book's uncluttered, pithy but serious prose.