Unsettled Christianity

As a Jew and a leading American New Testament scholar, Amy-Jill Levine is unique. Kansas Citians will have a chance to glean insights from her next weekend when she serves as visiting scholar for Village Presbyterian Church.

Amy-Jill Levine

Levine, a professor of New Testament studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School is author of “The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus” (2006, HarperOne).

Levine will also lead a seminar for local clergy members Friday morning, April 24, on the topic: “How to Avoid Bearing False Witness — I Didn’t Mean to Sound Like a Bigot.”

Rabbi Alan Cohen, who now does interfaith work for the Jewish Community Relations Bureau/American Jewish Committee, said he hopes the clergy session will build on a similar one held in conjunction with the local display of “A Blessing to One Another,” the exhibit on Pope John Paul II and the Jewish people

Rabbi Cohen said the purpose of such meetings is “increasing understanding among faiths and building better bridges for future interfaith dialogue, engagement and action.”

Levine, he said, “will continue the teaching of texts from both Tanakh and New Testament in an attempt to create better understanding and less misuse of the texts. … We had 100 people at the first Institute, and I hope to surpass that number on the 24th.”

In preparation for her visit, The Chronicle posed a series of questions to Professor Levine via e-mail. The questions and her responses follow.

Q. How and why did a Jewish woman with a traditional religious background (as I am told you have) become a New Testament scholar?

A: Growing up in a predominantly Roman Catholic neighborhood, I was fascinated by my friends’ traditions and stories, and I was shocked when a girl on the school bus accused me of having killed her Lord. I wanted to understand this tradition that had both beautiful and problematic aspects.

Q: Everyone knows Jesus was a Jew. But it seems that, in the last decade or so, the Christian church (in America, anyway) is acknowledging this ever more readily and devoting more and more serious study to the implications of that fact. Do you agree? If so, why has this been the case?

A: Churches are increasingly recognizing Jesus’ Judaism, in part in response to and repentance for centuries of anti-Jewish preaching, and in part to recover the depth of meaning of his words and actions, to hear him as his first followers, all Jews, heard him.

Q: What does Jesus’ Judaism imply for Christians today?

A: Taking the incarnation — the divine becoming human — seriously should lead to a serious consideration of the time and place where this event occurred. To take Jesus out of his historical context will both distort his teachings and lead to anti-Jewish misconceptions.

Read the rest here.

Joel Landon Watts is a Masters of Theological Studies student with a focus in Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark. His interests include exploring the role of mimesis in human civilization, specifically in the study of religion and media, as well as science fiction and the way in which it has allowed mythology to be explored in light of scientific ideals of the past century. Currently, he is a TA for Old Testament at United Theological Seminary under Dr. Vivian Johnson, Associate Professor of Old Testament. His first book, Rhetorical Strategies of the Evangelist: Mimetic Criticism of the Gospel of Mark, is expected to be published by Wipf and Stock early next year. He is currently co-editing a book on moving from Fear to Faith (Energion, 2013).

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