Join TU’s Department of Philosophy and Religion for a lecture featuring Amy Jill Levine.

Numerous Christians regard Jesus as rejecting a Judaism—influenced by legalistic, elitist Pharisees—incorrectly characterized as obsessed with ritual purity, misogynistic, vengeful and xenophobic.  Understanding Jesus in his Jewish context corrects false stereotypes, brings new meaning to his parables, politics and piety, and opens new paths for Jewish-Christian relations.

Amy Jill Levine (“AJ”) is Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace and University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies Emerita and Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies Emerita at Vanderbilt University.

Levine is the first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute, an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the first winner of the Seelisberg Prize for Jewish-Christian Relations. Levine describes herself as an unorthodox member of an Orthodox synagogue and a Yankee Jewish feminist who works to counter biblical interpretations that exclude and oppress.

Her publications include: The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus; Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi; six children’s books (with Sandy Sasso); The Gospel of Luke (with Ben Witherington III, the first biblical commentary by a Jew and an Evangelical); The Jewish Annotated New Testament (co-edited with Marc Brettler); The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (with Marc Brettler); The Pharisees (co-edited with Joseph Sievers); and thirteen edited volumes of the Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Literature. Her Beginner’s Guide series includes Sermon on the Mount, Light of the World, Entering the Passion of Jesus, The Difficult Words of Jesus, Witness at the Cross and Signs and Wonders.