Roots of Faith

Restoring Abrahamic Faith – About the Book

I am sending this note to my mailing list to announce the release of the thoroughly revised book by Dr. James D Tabor – Restoring Abrahamic Faith. 

Many of you who have listened to my teachings will recognize the name of the author as well as the title of this book. The initial work published in 1991 by the name Restoring Abrahamic Faith was a major catalyst in my own personal quest for the “true Biblical Faith”. I subsequently became close friends with James Tabor and am pleased that nearly 17 years later, the book is being published as a thoroughly revised trade book.

I would highly recommend the book to any who desire to uncover the foundational truths of a Biblical Faith. The following note about the work is from the author, James Tabor.
James D. Tabor on Restoring Abrahamic Faith

Back in 1993 I self-published a 100 page book called Restoring Abrahamic Faith. It was distributed to a few thousand people, given away free, funded by a non-profit I had formed called Genesis 2000. Over the years I have gotten an amazingly positive response to that little book and many thousands of copies were made by others and further distributed.

The book was a kind of “manifesto” of my own personal faith, but subject wise I would say it was an exposition of what I would call the ancient “Hebrew faith” based on the texts of the Hebrew Bible. It covered most of the great Questions of Biblical Faith: Who is God? What are the Holy Scriptures? How does one know the will of God? What does salvation mean? What about the so-called “Lost Tribes” of Israel? Is the present return of Jews to the Land of Israel significant? What about the coming of the Messiah? Who was Jesus and what was his message?

I have decided to republish a new edition of Restoring Abrahamic Faith. It is a thoroughly revised version, 180 pages, professionally designed and attractively printed as a self-published trade book through Genesis 2000. You can go to genesis2000.org for full information on how to order either on-line or by check. I wanted here to offer a prepublication peek at the Preface. I think it gives a good sense of what this book is about:

Preface

I began thinking seriously about the contents of this book back in the late 1960s. I had graduated from college with majors in Greek and Bible, fired by a passion for discovering the historical Jesus. It was that Quest that led me to the insights and concepts represented herein. The more I learned about Jesus the more I realized how vital it was to see him as a Jew who put his faith in the God of Abraham, who upheld the Torah, and who lived and died for his ancestral faith.

As a Christian I had grown up with a strong emphasis on the New Testament. The “Old Testament,” as we called it, was looked on as mere “background” to the superseding revelation brought by Jesus and the apostle Paul. I had never taken the “Jewishness” of Jesus very seriously—at least not in terms of its implications.

I presented the results of my forty years of academic work on the historical Jesus in a previous book, The Jesus Dynasty (Simon & Schuster, 2006). This book goes quite a few steps beyond. It is a personal manifesto of my own biblical faith, informed by my historical work, while at the same time moving outside its strict academic parameters.

I am enamored with the Hebrew Bible—Torah, Prophets, and Writings—and it has riveted me like nothing else over these many years. In its pages I find compelling testimony to the experiences of those who have sought to “walk with God,” and a program of hope for our troubled planet. The idea and the ideal of the Kingdom of God—that is, God’s will being done on earth as in heaven, is one that beckons us across the ages. This book is about that ancient Hebrew faith and what it might mean to us in the 21st century.

Pentecost, June 15, 2008
Mevasseret Zion, Israel

Go to genesis2000.org for more information.

James D. Tabor