by Arnold Fruchtenbaum
Don’t buy this beast of a book. That said, I don’t know of any other book that would be better on the subject. It’s a dilemma. Ha!
People have a lot of thoughts about “the Jews,” especially the kind of social-media posters that the algorithm puts in my Twitter timeline. Providentially, Israel and Hamas went to war (this recent round) in-between when I started and when I finished reading this book. But that conflict is only one reason why Israel/Jews are a current concern.
But Israel/Jews are a permanent concern to God, even eternally so. The LORD made multiple covenants with the nation/people of Israel, and He either changed His mind or He still has fulfillments of His Word to bring about.
I am not Jewish. To my knowledge I don’t have any Jewish neighbors. But I do want to care about what God cares about. It’s not obvious to me that a lot of Christians are trying to do that.
Anyway, Israelology is a repetitive book, which is one reason that it’s a thousand pages long. It was originally a doctrinal thesis, and academic things are more academicy if they’re tedious, right? Once Fruchtenbaum gets past his definitions (and demolitions) of what he thinks are erroneous positions things get better.
Premillennial Dispensationalism (which is what Israelology seeks to demonstrate as true) is the red-headed stepchild of the Reformed world. For that matter, the Truly Reformed wouldn’t even allow a Premil-Dispy to identify with Reformed colors. Fine.
As I said, this book is repetitive. For my taste Fruchtenbaum overstates his case on occasion, and that’s coming from someone who likes spicy rhetoric and bitter drinks.
Israel is a subject God cares about. His promises and provisions for the Jews, past and present and future, are all over the Bible. Israeology is indeed an appropriate subject for systematic theology. But that same Bible has a lot to say against dualism/pietism and this-world-is-badism, which Israelology the book misses. So don’t buy it unless you really need to, but if you do need to, you really should.