August 2 , 2022 at 8pm EDTThe
popular perception that Jesus was a first-century feminist amid a
Judaism that made the Taliban look progressive is compelling for many
women who seek from Jesus a message of liberation from patriarchy. This
perception is also both historically inaccurate and theologically
toxic. How can better historical work help us reconstruct the lives of
first-century Jewish women, and how can this reconstruction in turn
provide good news to women today? Amy Jill Levine is
Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and
Jewish Studies at Hartford International University of Religion and
Peace and University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies
Emerita, Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies Emerita, and
Professor of New Testament Studies Emerita at Vanderbilt. 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. Along with Introduction to the Old Testament for the Teaching Company, her study guides include Sermon on the Mount: A Beginner’s Guide to the Kingdom of Heaven; Light of the World: A Beginner’s Guide to Advent, The Difficult Words of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to His Most Perplexing Teachings, and Witness at the Cross: A Beginner’s Guide to Holy Week. The
first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical
Institute, and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, AJ describes herself as an unorthodox member of an Orthodox
synagogue and a Yankee Jewish feminist who seeks to correct
anti-Jewish, sexist, and other harmful interpretations of the Bible.
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