Jan

24 2016

Jesus, the Jewish Storyteller

10:00AM - 11:00AM  

Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Program 96 Wentworth St.

Contact Mark Swick
swickmn@cofc.edu

The parables of Jesus — “prodigal son,” “good Samaritan,” “pearl of great price,” etc. — were
originally Jewish stories told to Jews. However, through centuries of Christian interpretation, often
anti-Jewish interpretations have replaced the original messages. What might the parables have
sounded like to the Jewish people who first heard them, and how might they serve the purposes of
Jewish/Christian dialogue today?

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at
Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Department of Religious Studies, and Graduate Department of
Religion. Her publications include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the
Jewish Jesus (Harper San Francisco, 2006), the edited collection, The Historical Jesus in Context
(Princeton University Press, 2006) and the fourteen-volume Feminist Companions to the New
Testament and Early Christian Writings (Continuum, 2004). Self-described as a “Yankee Jewish
feminist who teaches in a predominantly Protestant 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-Semitic, sexist, and homophobic theologies.”