"I grew up in the time of struggle between church and state."Rendtorff begins his memoirs with this sentence to show the repeating ambivalence during his life time. The professor for Old Testament and student of Gerhard von Rad cofounded the German-Israelic Society and was head of the German-Israelic working group for peace in the Near East. In 2002 he received the Buber-Rosenzweig-Medal in appreciation of his achievements in the Christian-Jewish and German-Israelic dialogue.