Religious Genius

Alon Goshen-Gottstein is the founder and director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute, headquartered in Jerusalem. He is acknowledged as one of the foremost theoreticians of interreligious relations, with a special focus on Jewish theology of religions. He has published over a dozen authored and edited volumes in the field. A scholar of rabbinic literature and Jewish thought, he previously taught at Tel Aviv University and directed the Center for the Study of Rabbinic Thought at Bet Morasha, Jerusalem.

“The volume … not only mirrors the scrupulous reflection processes that preceded its emergence but provides also much-valued insights into the kitchen of interreligious encounters. … In addition to being a ‘must read’ for everybody interested in interreligious issues, the volume provides also valuable philosophical and methodological insights.” (Dirk-Martin Grube, NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion, Vol. 73 (1), 2019)

• 1. Introduction .- 2. Religious Genius - An Overview .- 3. “Religious Genius” - Choosing a Category.- 4. A Methodology for Studying Religious Genius : Constructing a Model.- 5 Religious Genius in the Real Life of Community.- 6. Religious Genius and Interreligious Reality.- 7. Studying “Saints” - an overview of methods and approaches to the study of saints .- 8. Religious Genius - History of a Category.- 9. Sample Teaching on Religious Genius.- 10. Saints and Religious Geniuses as Inspiration for Character Formation.- 11. Response by Robert Cummings Neville.- 12. Response by Jerome Yehuda Gellman.