Sabbath Sermon: Amy-Jill Levine—Reassessing Jewish-Christian Relations

A self-described “Yankee Jewish feminist who teaches in a predominantly Christian divinity school in the buckle of the Bible Belt,” Professor Levine combines historical-critical rigor, literary-critical sensitivity, and a frequent dash of humor with a commitment to eliminating anti-Jewish readings of scripture. Amy-Jill Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School and College of Arts and Sciences. She holds a B.A. from Smith College, the M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University.

I heard her last week at a Society for Biblical Literature panel discussion where she outshone John Dominic Crossan, Bart Erhman, and N. T. Wright due to her sharp humor and bracing reminder that Christians—from liberals to conservatives—continue to make major anti-Jewish historical and theological assumptions about Jesus.