Was Jesus a Better Jew than the Jews?

An Interview with Dr. Amy Jill Levine
Amy-Jill Levine, a distinguished New Testament scholar, provides examples of Christian commentators making Jewish practices and beliefs look bad in order to make Jesus look good. A more realistic understanding of these Jewish practices helps us understand Jesus better and understand Judaism more respectfully. Examples of these Jewish beliefs and practices include feminist perspectives, being identified as the Chosen Ones, and stereotypical attitudes about wealth and purity laws.
Professor Amy-Jill Levine is the 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 America at Vanderbilt. And before that, the Sarah Lawrence Lightfoot Associate Professor of Religion at Swarthmore College. Having grown up in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood and being raised in a Jewish home lays the foundation for her life-long interest in Jewish-Christian relations.
Dr. Levine has been awarded grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. In Spring 2019 she was the first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute; in 2021, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She may be best known for her book, the Misunderstood Jew and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus and her co-edited volume, The Jewish Annotated New Testament. Her newest book, Jesus for Everyone, Not Just Christians, sheds more light on a better way for all of us to understand Jesus better, particularly Jews and Christians.
Transcript available here: earlychristian...

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AJ, you are ALWAYS amazing!