Welcome to episode fifty-nine of New Creation Conversations. In today’s conversation I’m thrilled to get a chance to reconnect with a friend and former colleague, Dr. Jen Rosner. During my years serving as a dean at Azusa Pacific University, Jen taught (and continues to teach) for the school as an affiliate faculty member. She was one of those professors who makes a dean’s life easy. Students love Jen’s classes, and I always looked forward to connecting with Jen and hearing about the latest work she was doing, and the great things God was teaching her.
Jen is an alum of Cal Poly University. She earned an MDiv from Yale Divinity School and a PhD in Theology from Fuller Seminary. After living for a couple of years in Israel, she now lives in Lake Tahoe, California and teaches at Fuller, Azusa Pacific, Messianic Jewish Theological Institute, and The King’s University. Her PhD dissertation, on the relationship between Judaism and Christian faith, was published in 2016 by Fortress Press with the title – Healing the Schism: Barth, Rosenzweig and the New Jewish-Christian Encounter.
Our conversation centers primarily on two things. The first is her new book – Finding Messiah: A Journey into the Jewishness of the Gospel (published by IVP) – which can be pre-ordered now but will be released on May 24. I got to read a pre-publication edition of the book and it is such a beautiful combination of theology, biblical study, Christian history, and personal memoir. Secondly, we talk a lot – as does the book – about Jen’s own journey as a Jewish Christian, and specifically how she has come to embody those two traditions in her everyday life. And we reflect on the way her Judaism draws so much of the beauty and significance of Jesus’ and message that we Gentiles often overlook. I was so excited to get a chance to read Jen’s outstanding book, reconnect with a good friend, and I’m delighted to get to bring that conversation to you.