Amy-Jill Levine | |
---|---|
Born | 1956 (age 67–68) |
Nationality | American |
Other names | A. J. Levine |
Spouse | Jay Geller [1] |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | |
Thesis | The Matthean Program of Salvation History (1984) |
Doctoral advisor | D. Moody Smith |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Biblical studies |
School or tradition | Feminism |
Institutions | |
Notable works |
|
Amy-Jill Levine (born 1956) is Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. She works in biblical studies and is a self described "critic of antisemitic,sexist,and homophobic theologies". [2]
Amy-Jill Levine was born in 1956. Raised in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood in Massachusetts,she grew up with an appreciation for many aspects of the Christian tradition,though she was raised in a Jewish home. [3] She completed her undergraduate work at Smith College,where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and held honors in both religion and English. [4] She earned her doctorate at Duke University. [4]
She has held office in the Society of Biblical Literature,the Catholic Biblical Association,and the Association for Jewish Studies.
Her publications include The Misunderstood Jew:The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco,2006),the edited collection,The Historical Jesus in Context (Princeton University Press,2006),and the 14-volume Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings (Continuum).
A self-described "Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominantly Protestant divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt," Levine "combines historical-critical rigor,literary-critical sensitivity,and a frequent dash of humor with a commitment to eliminating antisemitic,sexist,and homophobic theologies." [5] She is a member of the Orthodox Jewish synagogue Sherith Israel, [6] though she herself does not observe kashrut or Shabbat according to Orthodox Jewish norms. [7] Levine has produced lectures on the Old Testament and "Great Figures of the New Testament" for The Teaching Company. [8]
Per the introduction by Levine for The Historical Jesus in Context:
There is a consensus of sorts on a basic outline of Jesus' life. Most scholars agree that Jesus was baptized by John,debated with fellow Jews on how best to live according to God's will,engaged in healings and exorcisms,taught in parables,gathered male and female followers in Galilee,went to Jerusalem,and was crucified by Roman soldiers during the governorship of Pontius Pilate (26–36 CE). But,to use the old cliché,the devil is in the details. [9]
The Book of Ruth is included in the third division, or the Writings (Ketuvim), of the Hebrew Bible. In most Christian canons it is treated as one of the historical books and placed between Judges and 1 Samuel.
The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical gospels and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, the burial of his body, and the discovery of his empty tomb. It portrays Jesus as a teacher, an exorcist, a healer, and a miracle worker, though it does not mention a miraculous birth or divine pre-existence. He refers to himself as the Son of Man. He is called the Son of God but keeps his messianic nature secret; even his disciples fail to understand him. All this is in keeping with the Christian interpretation of prophecy, which is believed to foretell the fate of the messiah as suffering servant.
The Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament of the Bible and one of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells how Israel's Messiah, Jesus, comes to his people but is rejected by them and how, after his resurrection, he sends the disciples to the gentiles instead. Matthew wishes to emphasize that the Jewish tradition should not be lost in a church that was increasingly becoming gentile. The gospel reflects the struggles and conflicts between the evangelist's community and the other Jews, particularly with its sharp criticism of the scribes and Pharisees with the position that through their rejection of Christ, the Kingdom of God has been taken away from them and given instead to the church.
The Gospel of John is the fourth of the four canonical gospels in the New Testament. It contains a highly schematic account of the ministry of Jesus, with seven "signs" culminating in the raising of Lazarus and seven "I am" discourses culminating in Thomas' proclamation of the risen Jesus as "my Lord and my God". The gospel's concluding verses set out its purpose, "that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."
Gospel originally meant the Christian message, but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words and deeds of Jesus, culminating in his trial and death and concluding with various reports of his post-resurrection appearances. Modern biblical scholars are cautious of relying on the gospels uncritically, but nevertheless, they provide a good idea of the public career of Jesus, and critical study can attempt to distinguish the original ideas of Jesus from those of the later Christian authors.
The empty tomb is the Christian tradition that the tomb of Jesus was found empty after his crucifixion. The canonical gospels each describe the visit of women to Jesus' tomb. Although Jesus' body had been laid out in the tomb after crucifixion and death, the tomb is found to be empty, the body gone, and the women are told by angels that he has risen.
The historicity of Jesus is the question of whether Jesus historically existed. The question of historicity was generally settled in scholarship in the early 20th century. Today scholars agree that a Jewish man called Jesus of Nazareth did exist in the Herodian Kingdom of Judea and the subsequent Herodian tetrarchy in the 1st century CE, upon whose life and teachings Christianity was later constructed, but a distinction is made by scholars between 'the Jesus of history' and 'the Christ of faith'.
The term "historical Jesus" refers to the life and teachings of Jesus as interpreted through critical historical methods, in contrast to what are traditionally religious interpretations. It also considers the historical and cultural contexts in which Jesus lived. Virtually all scholars of antiquity accept that Jesus was a historical figure, and the idea that Jesus was a mythical figure has been consistently rejected by the scholarly consensus as a fringe theory. Scholars differ about the beliefs and teachings of Jesus as well as the accuracy of the biblical accounts, with only two events being supported by nearly universal scholarly consensus: Jesus was baptized and Jesus was crucified.
Jesus, also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. Most Christians believe Jesus to be the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited messiah, the Christ that is prophesied in the Old Testament.
John Dominic Crossan is an Irish-American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, former Catholic priest who was a prominent member of the Jesus Seminar, and emeritus professor at DePaul University. His research has focused on the historical Jesus, the theology of noncanonical Gospels, and the application of postmodern hermeneutical approaches to the Bible. His work is controversial, portraying the Second Coming as a late corruption of Jesus' message and saying that Jesus' divinity is metaphorical. In place of the eschatological message of the Gospels, Crossan emphasizes the historical context of Jesus and of his followers immediately after his death. He describes Jesus' ministry as founded on free healing and communal meals, negating the social hierarchies of Jewish culture and the Roman Empire.
The race and appearance of Jesus, widely accepted by researchers to be a Judean from Galilee, has been a topic of discussion since the days of early Christianity. Various theories about the race of Jesus have been proposed and debated. By the Middle Ages, a number of documents, generally of unknown or questionable origin, had been composed and were circulating with details of the appearance of Jesus. These documents are now mostly considered forgeries.
Bruce D. Chilton is an American scholar of early Christianity and Judaism, and an Episcopalian priest. He is Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College, formerly Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament at Yale University, and Rector of the Church of St John the Evangelist He holds a PhD in New Testament from Cambridge University. He has previously held academic positions at the Universities of Cambridge, Sheffield, and Münster.
Jon Douglas Levenson is an American Hebrew Bible scholar who is the Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies at the Harvard Divinity School.
Marc Brettler is an American biblical scholar, and the Bernice and Morton Lerner Professor in Judaic Studies at Duke University. He earned his B.A., M.A., and PhD from Brandeis University, where he was previously Dora Golding Professor of Biblical Studies. He researches biblical metaphors, the Bible and gender, biblical historical texts, the book of Psalms, and the post-biblical reception of the Hebrew Bible, including in the New Testament. He is a co-founder of the website thetorah.com, which integrates critical and traditional methods of studying the Bible.
Christianity in the 1st century covers the formative history of Christianity from the start of the ministry of Jesus to the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles and is thus also known as the Apostolic Age. Early Christianity developed out of the eschatological ministry of Jesus. Subsequent to Jesus' death, his earliest followers formed an apocalyptic messianic Jewish sect during the late Second Temple period of the 1st century. Initially believing that Jesus' resurrection was the start of the end time, their beliefs soon changed in the expected Second Coming of Jesus and the start of God's Kingdom at a later point in time.
Christopher Charles Rowland is an English Anglican priest and theologian. He was Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford from 1991 to 2014.
Ioudaios is an Ancient Greek ethnonym used in classical and biblical literature which commonly translates to "Jew" or "Judean".
Christian sources such as the New Testament books in the Christian Bible, include detailed accounts about Jesus, but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the biblical accounts of Jesus. The only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.
Meredith J. C. Warren is a Senior Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies at the University of Sheffield. She is known for her views on the New Testament and early Judaism as well as for her media appearances for such outlets as The Washington Post, and BBC radio. She is a Metis citizen of the Manitoba Metis Federation.
Mary Ann Beavis is a professor emerita, St. Thomas More College, the University of Saskatchewan. She co-founded the peer-reviewed academic journal, S/HE: An International Journal of Goddess Studies, together with Helen Hye-Sook Hwang in 2021.