Jean-Pierre Jossua was born in 1930 to Jewish parents from Salonica. After living in Argentina and Nice, and having been a civil servant, he became a Christian when he entered the Dominican order. According to his biographer P. Charles Chauvin, the forty years of Jossua’s adult life can be divided in two stages: twenty years of teaching and twenty years of writing. For Jossua, Chauvin writes, transcendence is at the same time a confidence in and a transgression of language (Chauvin, Une Vie, 2001).

In addition to his own writings, Jossua has served as sole or contributing editor for many volumes. His own works are all in some measure concerned with the mystery, complexity and gift of faith. Some works like Condition of the Witness (1985) and Seul avec Dieu: l’Aventure Mystique (1996) consider faith from the perspective of overwhelming personal experience. Others like La Foi de Jour en Jour (1988) and La Foi en Questions (1989) pursue faith as a common and daily experience. With great sensitivity Jossua writes not only for the Christian wrestling with profound questions of corporate practice, but also for the reflective Christian asking the deepest questions of personal experience.