by Rev Elizabeth Raine
Professor Amy-Jill Levine, of Vanderbilt University, USA, visited the Uniting Theological College in North Parramatta, NSW, on Wednesday 8 July 2009 and presented a seminar, "Jews and Christians Reading Scripture," and evening lecture, "Christian misunderstanding Judaism (and so misunderstanding Jesus)."
I was looking forward very much to meeting Professor Amy-Jill Levine, a New Testament scholar whose work I have read and appreciated over the last decade. I initially heard her speak at a luncheon arranged by the Jewish Board of Deputies, and then later at Untied Theological College. I was engrossed by her presentation on both occasions.
That she is a Jewish professor of New Testament studies initially came as a surprise to me. When I first read her books and articles, it never occurred to me to that the author may be Jewish. Since I discovered this, I have heard the question - why would a Jew teach the stories told of the Christian Saviour? – being asked. But when faced with this question, I thought, why not? After all, I too studied the Old Testament from a Christian lecturer, an occurrence that is taken for granted in theological colleges and seminaries around the world.
This of course, is part of the point Amy-Jill Levine makes in her presentations. Our biases unconsciously affect how we read and understand our scriptures. Anyone who can give voice to these unspoken biases that inform our religious viewpoint can only deserve praise, and our attention. I found myself learning a lot about my own understanding of scripture as I listened. I also found that I was ‘seeing’ Jesus and his Jewish culture from a new and enlightening viewpoint.
One of the arguments I found very absorbing was the proposition that Christian scholars (and Christians generally) have often fallen into the trap of making Jews ‘the bad guy’ in order to make Jesus look good. While being aware of the tendency for Christians to unthinkingly stereotype first century Judaism, I hadn’t actually picked up on the reliance of scholars (also unthinking) on this proposition. Professor Levine made me acutely aware of such pitfalls, and when she asked us to try and avoid them in our preaching, teaching, and interpretation of our bibles, I could only agree.
The other aspect of the luncheon speech that I found most interesting was the tantalizing picture she presented of how Jesus and his followers ‘re-imaged’ the family of God, welcoming women without husbands and giving them the opportunity to have ‘one foot in the kingdom of God’. This way of looking at the women in the New Testament was new to me, and provides an alternative to the accepted Christian scholarly idea that Jesus treated women favourably in contrast to the other male Jews of his day. For example, she disputes the common claim that Jesus’ teaching on divorce was given to ‘protect’ women against chauvinistic and patriarchal males who would divorce them for no reason. Though this latter position is not meant to be anti-Jewish, it actually is – another example of Jesus being seen as good by representing others in his culture in an unfavourable light.
I think one of the best things that Professor Levine talked about was how the Jewish and Christian faiths should each read each other’s scripture with generosity and care, in as much awareness as possible of the other’s tradition. I cannot help thinking that if everyone took this attitude, then our relationship with each other, and our understanding and appreciation of each other, could only get better.