Fire in the Ashes: God, Evil, and the Holocaust

Sixty years after it ended, the Holocaust continues to leave survivors and their descendants, as well as historians, philosophers, and theologians, pondering the enormity of that event.This book explores how inquiry about the Holocaust challenges understanding, especially its religious and ethical dimensions. Debates about God's relationship to evil are ancient, but the Holocaust complicated them in ways never before imagined.Its massive destruction left Jews and Christians searching among the ashes to determine what, if anything, could repair the damage done to tradition and to theology. Since the end of the Holocaust, Jews and Christians have increasingly sought to know how or even whether theological analysis and reflection can aid in comprehending its aftermath.Specifically, Jews and Christians, individually and collectively, find themselves more and more in the position of needing either to rethink theodicy -- typically understood as the vindication of divine justice in the face o