This week, Paul Luckraft reviews three more short booklets from Christian Friends of Israel.

Patterns and Principles of Jewish Prayer (Dr Dwight Pryor, 16 pages, available from CFI for £2)

This brief booklet is adapted from a lecture given by Dr Pryor in 1993. Its aim is spiritual, namely to encourage us to pray more frequently and with greater focus, rather than academic, to provide us with interesting information.

Some time is spent discussing our Hebrew heritage and what constitutes a Hebraic perspective before Pryor settles to his main theme, asserting that "perhaps no greater treasure has been bestowed on us than the prayer life of Israel" (p4). He encourages us to see how our Christian worship can draw deeply from the ancient patterns and principles of Jewish prayer and worship in the synagogue.

Pryor goes on to examine the Siddur, the Jewish Prayer Book and common guide to prayer in the time of Jesus, which contained many beautiful prayers and blessings covering all elements of life, individual and communal. We are reminded that Jesus would have known and used these ancient prayers. Pryor suggests that the charm of the Siddur is that it "allows us to 'feel' Judaism, including the Jewish spirituality that so much a part of Jesus' world" (p8).

Finally, the principles of Jewish prayer are outlined, including that prayer is essentially an outpouring of the soul and that its main focus is the Kingdom of God. Jewish prayer was a daily duty but it had to go beyond mere ritual; it had to have a sense of devotion or direction (kavannah) which would create an intensity and undivided attention upon the One being prayed to. The use of the prayer shawl and the physical activity of repeated bowing or swaying are explained within this context.

Overall, this short account achieves its aim and may encourage those who want to know more to seek out other books on this theme.

Jesus the Rabbi, Was He Orthodox? (David Bivin, 13 pages, available from CFI for £2)

This booklet is also based on a talk, one given in Jerusalem in 1987. The title is deliberately framed as a question but it seems to be used as a vehicle to discuss more whether Jesus was observant or orthodox as a Jew, rather than just as a rabbi. In fact, information about being a rabbi is rather sparse. It is soon shown that Jesus was recognised as a rabbi by many different people but that this was often purely a courtesy title based upon the Hebrew 'rav' meaning 'great'.

As for Jesus' teaching methods, Bivin correctly asserts that "the most convincing proof that Jesus was a practising rabbi was his style of teaching" and that "he used the same method of instruction that was characteristic of the other rabbis of his day" (p4), However, further discussion is restricted to his use of parables, and only a few lines at that.

Anyone wanting more on the theme of rabbi will have to look elsewhere, but this booklet does provide interesting information on the Jewishness of Jesus, and could be a useful introduction for those yet to begin to explore the Jewish background of Christianity.

The Synagogue in the Time of Jesus (Derek White, 34 pages, available from CFI for £3)

This is an excellent study booklet full of fascinating details that every Christian would benefit from knowing. Once again, it was originally given as a talk (in 2004), but this time it was either a very long session or it was extended later when put into written form, being twice as long as similar booklets in this series, including four pages of black-and-white pictures and eight pages of endnotes and sources.

After a brief account of the development of the synagogue and its function in the time of Jesus, seven topics are covered starting with the origin of the synagogue and a discussion of where a synagogue would be built. We then learn about its nature and function, and the role of women in the 1st Century synagogue, as well as the roles of its various officers.

Then follows a lengthy section on its liturgy, which includes more on Jewish prayers (see above), and finally an intriguing brief account of 'the Christian synagogue'. For those not aware of how the early Church followed the synagogue pattern, here are important insights into how Christian worship meetings had some strong parallels with the existing Jewish liturgy.

This very thorough and well-written booklet makes an important contribution to showing how much the roots of Christianity are firmly embedded in its Hebraic heritage. Highly commended.

CFI has a large range of booklets on a variety of subjects – click here to browse their selection.