When Amy-Jill Levine was a child growing up in Massachusetts, a classmate in her largely Catholic hometown told her that, because she was Jewish, she was responsible for the death of Jesus.
Her mother assured her that was not true. Rather than turning away from Christianity, Levine responded by trying to understand it. She began attending Catholic catechism classes, an experience that would help set her on an unusual academic path as a Jewish scholar of Christian Scripture.
Amy-Jill Levine
(Photo: AP)
Over the decades, Levine built a career studying the New Testament through the lens of its Jewish context and working to improve understanding between Christians and Jews. She has spoken in churches, taught generations of students and written numerous books, several with Christian scholars. She and a co-author once personally presented one of their books to Pope Francis.
Earlier this month, the Catholic Biblical Association of America elected Levine as its first Jewish president.
The historic appointment was quickly followed by an antisemitic backlash online.
Posts and replies on social media accounts with large followings accused Levine of being “anti-Christian,” claimed she was attempting to take control of Catholicism and attacked Jews for not accepting Jesus. Some of the criticism also included anti-Zionist rhetoric.
Although some critics questioned why a non-Catholic should lead the association, much of the reaction included explicitly anti-Jewish language, drawing alarm from Levine’s supporters and longtime Christian colleagues.
The association defended her election in a statement by executive board chairman Gregory E. Sterling and executive director Archie Wright.
“She was not elected because she is Jewish, but because she is an exceptional scholar and has played a very important role in Catholic-Jewish dialogue,” they said.
The Catholic Biblical Association includes both Catholic and non-Catholic scholars and says its purpose is to advance biblical studies within the context of faith. Levine has been active in the organization for decades.
She said she initially wondered whether the invitation to consider serving as president was serious. It was, and supporters pointed to her long record of scholarship and collaboration with Christian academics.
Association leaders said the hostile reaction only reinforced the need to confront antisemitism.
“We need to live and practice the values of our faith, values that are not evident in the criticisms,” their statement said. A number of former presidents of the association signed a similar declaration.
Bishop Joseph Bambera of Scranton, Pennsylvania, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee overseeing interreligious relations, also congratulated Levine.
“Your election is a fitting celebration of the genuinely interfaith character of biblical scholarship and of the many years of faithful Jewish-Catholic collaboration in the study of Scripture,” he wrote.
Bambera said the appointment reflected the Vatican’s call for Catholics to pursue “deeper understanding and mutual respect with the Jewish people.”
Levine, who practices Orthodox Judaism, does not accept the Christian belief that Jesus is divine. But she has said she respects him as an early Jewish teacher and believes Jews and Christians can learn from each other.
“Hate and demonizing, name calling and slandering, are not good forms of evangelism,” Levine wrote on Facebook. “And now, ironically again, I have to explain that these nasty posts are not indicative of the best of the Church.”
She has also noted that she regularly pushes back against anti-Catholic prejudice.
‘We do not need to make Judaism look bad’
A central theme of Levine’s scholarship is that Christianity does not need to diminish Judaism in order to elevate Jesus.
“My historical work shows that we do not need to make Judaism look bad in order to make Jesus look good,” she said.
She points to common Christian stereotypes that portray Jesus as introducing grace and compassion in opposition to a rigid Jewish tradition centered on law and purity.
Levine argues that the New Testament instead shows Jesus affirming Jewish law and operating within the Jewish religious world of his time.
She has also emphasized that many Gospel stories would have sounded familiar to ancient Jewish audiences. Accounts of Jesus performing miracles echo stories of Israelite prophets, while his escape from a murderous ruler as an infant resembles the story of Moses.
When Jesus identifies loving God and loving one’s neighbor as the greatest commandments, Levine notes, he is quoting the Torah rather than introducing entirely new principles.
She believes antisemitic attitudes can come from many sources, including family and social environments, material encountered online, the tendency to treat Israeli government policies as representative of all Jews and problematic interpretations heard in churches.
Catholicism itself has a long history of antisemitism, but the Vatican has repeatedly repudiated it in the decades since the Holocaust.
The Second Vatican Council in the 1960s emphasized the shared spiritual heritage of Christians and Jews and rejected the idea that all Jews could be blamed for the death of Jesus.
Pope John Paul II later made Catholic-Jewish reconciliation a major part of his papacy and declared antisemitism to be unjustifiable and “absolutely reprehensible.”
‘She loves Christian people and she loves the Bible’
Levine is professor emerita of New Testament and Jewish studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and now teaches part time at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace in Connecticut.
As president of the Catholic Biblical Association, she said she hopes to promote excellence in biblical scholarship and support researchers and their publications.
She also plans to continue speaking in Catholic parishes and working with bishops to improve how Judaism is presented in Catholic schools, religious education and preaching.
Levine said she wants to help ensure that those settings do not reinforce antisemitic ideas and to continue strengthening Jewish-Catholic relations.
Her supporters extend well beyond the Catholic Church.
Ben Witherington III, a New Testament scholar at Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky, co-wrote a commentary on the Gospel of Luke with Levine. The book is believed to be the only Gospel commentary written jointly by an evangelical Christian and a Jewish scholar.
“She is profoundly loved by all kinds of Protestant and Catholic folks,” he said.
Witherington said Levine has repeatedly put her beliefs into practice, including by teaching Bible classes in a Nashville prison.
“She loves Christian people and she loves the Bible,” he said. “What she doesn’t love is people using the Bible to beat other people over the head, including Jews. I agree with her on that.”