A student perceptively suggests that first-century Jews had become so attached to waiting for the Messiah that they could not bring themselves to acknowledge the fulfillment of their hopes. Against all that the prophets had taught, they had become tragic, and unfulfilled longings had become (and still remain) the essence of a profound faith. And so on to Levinas and Derrida and the endless deferral both lamented and celebrated in postmodernism.
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