Redeeming Our Sacred Story, by Mary C. Boys

Mary Boys of Union Seminary in New York, a longtime participant and advocate in Jewish-Christian dialogue, has made a singular and significant contribution to that vexed, urgent conversation. The our in her title concerns the Christian narrative about the crucifixion of Jesus. The book addresses how that story can be told faithfully in the presence of Jewish conversation partners. The key term in Boys’s urging is redeeming.

Her book is divided into two parts: first, about why the story needs to be redeemed, and second, offering specific, concrete steps that can be taken to redeem it.

This symmetrical presentation is introduced by an extended discussion titled “A Trembling Telling” wherein Boys considers “wrong tellings” that have distorted this narrative and others in pernicious ways. She summons readers to move from a “troubled telling” to a “transformed telling” that no longer positions Jews as the villains in the crucifixion narrative.