Missions to and defence of jews

Hermann Leberecht Stracks view on Judaism is marked by his intense, long-term involvement with the Jews, as their public advocate and a zealous missionary. Characterising Jews and Judaism, Strack surprisingly talks of the Jews as having an aristocratic pride in being the elected with a monopoly on the absolute truth, and as overstating their election and holding that all that is good in Christianity emanates from Judaism. Strack does not major on historiography but keeps a salvation-historical approach, although he sometimes interprets this in supersessionist terms. As for continuity or discontinuity between Judaism and Christianity, there is a certain continuity, since the Jews and Christians have the Old Testament in common. Stracks symbolic world brings nothing new in relation to his teacher Delitzschs. The two share the view of Christian superiority and the Christian state as the only option, and here, too, the symbolic Jew is ambivalent.Keywords: Christianity; Hermann Leberecht Strack; Jews; Old Testament