In Defense of Conservative Judaism Dr. Joel Roth return Register to subscribe to Luminaries for free. Send this to a friend This piece first appeared in the Spring 1999 issue of JTS Magazine .
Most people know that there is a branch of theology called apologetics.
But its name gives it a bum rap. Apologetics, in fact, has a glorious history. The word comes to us from Latin through the Greek apologia . Apologetics, then, is a branch of theological inquiry that defends a belief system against those who question it or revile it. In the early first century in Alexandria, there was a philosopher named Philo who wrote a work entitled Apology on Behalf of the Jews .