Book excerpt: Chs. 1-3 are based on the Sherman Lectures delivered in Manchester, November 1987. Discusses Christian and Jewish readings of the Old Testament after the Holocaust, noting that it is apparently still too early for thinkers of either religion to cope with the subject. Criticizes Christian (especially German) theologians who continue to teach that Israel's "spiritual children" (Christian believers) have replaced the "flesh-and-blood children" (present-day Jewry). Christians reading the Old Testament fear that the Jews may still be the Chosen People; it was this fear that drove the Nazis to exterminate the Jews. After the Holocaust, Jews must question many statements of the Bible: that God never slumbers; that salvation always comes; that the dry bones will rise and live. The dead cannot be replaced, even by the new life in the State of Israel. What has been resurrected perhaps is hope, but a hope infused by doubt. Jews may yet praise divine Goodness, in the hope that in praising they may awaken it from its slumber.