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Country Western singer Kinky Friedman often performs a song entitled "They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore," and New Testament professor Amy–Jill Levine would agree. In fact, her career is dedicated to helping Christians and Jews understand the Jewishness of Jesus, thereby deepening the understanding of him, and facilitating greater interfaith dialogue. In this book, she shows how liberal Christians misunderstand Judaism, misunderstand the New Testament, and thus yank Jesus out of his Jewish context and wind up promoting hatred of Jews. Only with the deeper understanding this top Jewish, Southern–born New Testament scholar provides can we hope to respect each other's beliefs, as well as enrich our own.
Through a extremely busy teaching and speaking schedule, Levine has honed her message at synagogues, Catholic conferences, Jewish Community Centers, denominational meetings, in the classroom and in her highly successful Teaching Company audios and videos. Levine is brilliant, charming, funny and forceful, and uses these traits to give a completely fresh perspective on Jesus and the New Testament. In addition to offering new insights with great skill, she has the remarkable ability to be tough, pointing out how even liberal Christians can be unwittingly anti–Semitic in their understanding of what Jesus stood for.Her truth–telling here will provoke honest dialogue on how Christians and Jews should understand Jesus and our New Testament heritage.
New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine has dedicated her career to facilitating greater interfaith dialogue by helping Christians and Jews understand the Jewishness of Jesus. In The Misunderstood Jew, Levine argues that liberal Christians misunderstand Judaism in general and the New Testament in particular, removing Jesus from his Jewish context and unwittingly promoting hatred of Jews. In addition, she charges Jews with willful ignorance of Jesus and his message. This book is designed to provoke honest dialogue about how Christians and Jews should understand Jesus, the Gospels, and our New Testament heritage.
Amy-Jill Levine is Professor of New Testament Studies and Religion, Gender, and Sexuality at Vanderbilt University Divinity School in Nashville, TN. Levine has been awarded grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. She has been interviewed by Diane Sawyer on ABC’s “20/20” and on NBC’s “Dateline,” has been a featured expert on several CNN, A&E, and Discovery Channel specials, has been interviewed on NPR and quoted in Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, and the New York Times. “Amy-Jill Levine combines brilliant scholarship with a keen historic consciousness to produce this powerful and provocative book. Calling Christians and Jews alike to move beyond their shallow and distorting stereotypes of each other, The Misunderstood Jew will open a new chapter in both religious understanding and mutual appreciation.” – John Shelby Spong, author of Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish EyesYou may also like
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