AJ Levine on the Importance of Jesus in a Jewish Context
This special episode of the Engage Church Network Podcast features a thought-provoking conversation with Professor Amy-Jill (AJ) Levine, world-renowned scholar, author, and teacher of New Testament and Jewish Studies. In this timely episode, Professor Levine joins Pastor Mike Glenn to address common mistakes pastors make in preaching, particularly the tendency to take Jesus out of His Jewish context. With humor, clarity, and depth, she reminds us that Jesus always looks good, but to understand Him fully, we must also understand the Jewish world that shaped Him.
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Mike Glenn: [00:00:00] What mistakes do pastors make?
AJ Levine: How long do we have? Oh, my gosh.
Mike Glenn: Uh, Acts 4, the Pharisees and Sanhedrin and all
AJ Levine: challenge- Well, it's mostly Sanhedrin. It's not much Pharisees
Mike Glenn: there. Okay. Right. So the San- Sanhedrin combined everybody.
AJ Levine: Yeah, 'cause Luke likes to group people together.
Mike Glenn: Right.
AJ Levine: Um, as, as John does. John will start talking about Pharisees, and next thing you know it's Jews.
Uh, I think Matthew starts the process, uh, when Mark talks about people coming for baptism. Right. Matthew throws in Pharisees and Sadducees coming in together. It's like- Right ... oh, well, that's not in Mark. [00:01:00] Um, Luke has his own take on Pharisees, kind of nasty in the gospel, really quite darling in the book of Acts for the most part.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
AJ Levine: As if to say, hmm, may- maybe this negative view is, is not gonna be terribly helpful as the church begins to grow.
Mike Glenn: Right.
AJ Levine: Uh, maybe- Yeah ... we ought to consider some Pharisees who have joined the church. Oh, like Paul.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. Uh,
AJ Levine: so Pharisees become a fairly problematic topic.
Mike Glenn: Oh. What is, what is the one thing that you wish most Baptist preachers understood about the Pharisees?
AJ Levine: To stop using them as negative examples. Uh, there are books out today, I, I think, uh, uh, some by Baptists, like, You Might Be a Pharisee If-
Mike Glenn: Yeah, yeah ... and it's always
AJ Levine: quite negative. You go, "I can't imagine, You Might Be a Baptist If..." And then you have a list of, you know, 25 hypocritical things.
Mike Glenn: Right.
AJ Levine: Um, a- and you could probably write one of those.
Uh, there's one book out now that's, that talks about the Pharisees as the uber liberals, uh, and we have to go back to good old conservative values, and there's another book- Yeah ... that talks about the Pharisees, the uber conservatives, and we have to be a little bit more liberal, which shows me that Christians are [00:02:00] simply deploying the Pharisees to make them be the, the bad guys- Right.
Mike Glenn: Yeah ...
AJ Levine: regardless of where you happen to stand- Yeah ... on social issues.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. Yeah, it, it, it's, it, if you're called a Pharisee It is, it is not a term of endearment. Uh-
AJ Levine: There is in Germany, uh, and in Austria, a, a drink called the Pharisäer, and they're actually little cups with Pharis- Pharisäer written on it. Um, and it looks like a, a, like a cappuccino or something like it.
Right. But it's got a couple of shots of alcohol in it. Um, so the idea is you wanna look like you're just having a decent cup of coffee- Yeah, cup of coffee ... but you hypocrite- ... you're really just, you know, knocking one back.
Mike Glenn: Yeah. Don't tell that to my Baptist friends. We'll, they'll be ordering that cup, so, uh - Yeah, well anything with whipped
AJ Levine: cream on the top you ought to be careful with
be doing all this stuff. Yeah. Some
Mike Glenn: of that. All right, to, uh, of all the books you have written, and, uh, AJ, you have written, uh, uh, two pages worth of books here and articles that we can't even count, uh, are the, the book on the Pharisees, uh, that you gave us, and this one, uh, Jesus for [00:03:00] Everyone.
AJ Levine: You gotta give the subtitle.
Mike Glenn: Not Just for Christians.
AJ Levine: Not Just Christians.
Mike Glenn: Not Just Christians. Uh, tell me why you wrote this book.
AJ Levine: I've written a couple of books on Jesus already. Um, but what I continue to find is, uh, particularly in more recent political climates, Jesus being deployed to say whatever the politician wants-
Mike Glenn: Right,
AJ Levine: right
uh, without any historical background whatsoever. So he's completely yanked out of context and made to serve basically as a sound bite. Uh, and I think Jesus deserves better. Mm-hmm. So the question that drove the book is, I'm not asking what would Jesus do, 'cause I don't think that's a terribly helpful question.
Jesus doesn't live in a participatory democracy with social media. Um, but what can the stories told by Jesus, like parables, and what can the stories, uh, told about Jesus, like the Gospels, uh, how can they inform us on current social issues like, uh, [00:04:00] family values or discussions of slavery, which have been become quite fraught recently.
'Cause Jesus actually says quite a lot about slavery and tells stories about slaves. Um, about self and other. Who are the insiders and who are the outsiders, and how do we relate to them? So I'm looking at fraught cultural issues to say, it doesn't matter whether you're a Christian or not, it doesn't matter whether you worship Jesus as Lord and Savior, or in fact you may never have heard of him- Mm-hmm
um, but these stories can be helpful to you. And if we can use the Gospel stories to help think our way through some of these problems, uh, then we're in a better position to have the conversations that need to be had.
Mike Glenn: The thing that I loved about this book, um, is, uh, growing up as I did in a traditional Southern Baptist Church, on one hand we're told Jesus is like us.
And, and that's one of the, the, the saving points about Jesus, is he's fully human. But we're really told that he's, he's [00:05:00] divine, and he's not like you, and he is without sin, and all of this. Uh, the, the teachings here, uh, th- that, and, and the application you draw really, uh, emphasize the humanity of Jesus, the realness of, of, of Jesus.
AJ Levine: Right, in his own historical setting. I- in
Mike Glenn: his own historical setting.
AJ Levine: Absolutely.
Mike Glenn: Uh- Which
AJ Levine: means that if you're a believer in Jesus, I'm not questioning any of that, that, uh, high Christology- Right ... the technical term. I'm not questioning whether he's God, whether he's divine, whether he's the Messiah. Mm-hmm.
If you believe that stuff, all that stuff stays in place. This can only enhance it. And then,
Mike Glenn: well, that's where it is. This, this is Jesus, the real man, in his real time-
AJ Levine: Absolutely ... and- As best, as best as we can determine ...
Mike Glenn: a- as best as we can, we can, we can do that. What mistakes do pastors make?
AJ Levine: How long do we have?
Oh my gosh. What? Well, I mean, and so the first problem is, is something you've already flagged. As soon as you move into the Jesus [00:06:00] is divine, there's already a sense of yanking him out of his context, and a- Right ... desire, I think, to make him seem unique. Yeah. So in a, quite a lot of preaching, which runs the gamut from very liberal Christians to very, very conservative ones, um, Jesus winds up being the only person who cares about love of God, um, or love of neighbor.
He's, he, he invents social justice. Uh, he invents women's rights and the pantsuit, right? Um, he invents universalism over, against a kind of narrow, xenophobic, parochial Jewish system. Uh, he invents general worship as to po- as opposed to something that's simply temple-based, right? As if Christians somehow don't go to church, right?
Um, so he becomes the inventor of everything that we like, and consequently, the background, the Jewish context, becomes in the preaching moment the model of everything that we don't like.
Mike Glenn: Right, right. So we take, we take Jesus totally out of context.
AJ Levine: Completely, and it's the model of making Judaism look bad in order to [00:07:00] make Jesus look good, which strikes me as silly, because I think Jesus looks fabulous.
And, and I don't have to make Judaism look bad- Right ... in order to make him look good. To the contrary, I can show, and I do show, uh, how he draws on his own Jewish tradition. Well, I was going to say, to
Mike Glenn: discount- Yeah ... the Jewish aspect of the story is to discount the, the Jewish heritage, uh, that was so significant for Jesus.
AJ Levine: More than that- Yeah ... it's theologically, I think, aberrant. Right. Um, because if you leave out what the, what the Church would call the Old Testament... I'm okay with the term Old Testament, by the way, as long as you remember that old is fabulous- ... good, bedrock, essential- That's right. Tested ... I'm, right, I'm old.
Tested true.
Mike Glenn: That's right.
AJ Levine: Um, uh, it, then we're starting in the middle of the story
Mike Glenn: Right
AJ Levine: Uh, so if Jesus is going to talk about Torah, then we have to know how Tor- how biblical law is interpreted. Right. If he's gonna talk about women, then it helps to know who are the women in his tradition from whom he might have drawn some strength, and I have a feeling that Mary told him a couple of those stories- Sure
[00:08:00] when he was a kid. Um, so we have to know the Old Testament background, and we have to know how Jews at the time of Jesus are interpreting this text, 'cause you can't go back and look at Leviticus and say, "Oh, that's what they're doing in the year 29."
Mike Glenn: Right
AJ Levine: Any more than you can go back to, uh, First Corinthians and say, "That's what's happening in the church today."
Mike Glenn: Right. To
AJ Levine: some extent it is, but a lot of it isn't. Right.
Mike Glenn: Right? Right.
AJ Levine: You- Most of you are not worried about meat offered to idols. Um, so how do we bring the tradition forward and then embed Jesus within it? And then it seems to me he becomes infinitely more interesting, and then we can figure out why people are listening to him in the first place.
Right.
Mike Glenn: Uh, those of you who may not know, AJ B- and, and I have been friends for a, a, a long time. Uh, you were the New Testament professor at, at Vanderbilt. I got to know you through our, our, our mutual friend Ben Witherington, and, uh, and he made our introduction. Uh, and, and your whole conte- uh, one of your, I say pet peeves, one of the things you [00:09:00] always challenge me on is, um, not understanding Jesus being fully Jewish in these moments.
AJ Levine: Correct
Mike Glenn: Uh, and, and, and trying to make him a 21st century-
AJ Levine: Yeah,
Mike Glenn: but, but again- ... Southerner ... how
AJ Levine: would you, right? Because in, in seminary training, generally what happens is... or general New Testament courses- Mm-hmm ... although some of them are better, uh, you get an introductory lecture, Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes- Right
and Zealots, and then it's Jews all the way
Mike Glenn: down. Mm-hmm.
AJ Levine: And Jesus over against rather than Jesus within.
Mike Glenn: Right.
AJ Levine: Or you get some negative comment from rabbinic literature, which people in Christian seminaries don't read-
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm ...
AJ Levine: uh, that comes from the fifth century after Jesus. Retroject that back into the first century, make that what all Jews do, and then Jesus looks good in comparison.
Right. And that's that nasty game of comparing problematic statements from one tradition with really good statements from another tradition. Mm-hmm. I can do the same thing by looking at extre- what I would consider to be extremely progressive rabbinic [00:10:00] statements, and then looking at some of the statements in the New Testament and going, "Boy, look at how much better the rabbinic system is."
Mike Glenn: Right.
AJ Levine: That's not a fair game.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm. It's
AJ Levine: bad history, and it leads to bad theology.
Mike Glenn: Okay. Uh, another thing that you and I have talked about, uh, is, um, um, how many times I, as a pastor, our churches, uh, are antisemitic and don't realize it.
AJ Levine: Oh, yeah
Mike Glenn: Okay
AJ Levine: In the same way that, uh, people in positions of privilege don't recognize their privilege
Mike Glenn: Right
AJ Levine: Um, or people who might code white don't realize what people of color might have to go through.
Just think walking in the mall-
Mike Glenn: Right ...
AJ Levine: and seeing who's following you- Mm-hmm ... or who's, who's crossing to the other side- Mm-hmm ... of the street.
Mike Glenn: And it comes- Or, or as a Black friend of mine reminded me, he said, "If I leave the mall with a bag in my hand from the most expensive store, [00:11:00] but I'm following a white woman out, I will measure my steps so I don't get too close to her."
AJ Levine: It's, it's not a question of, I think, conscious bigotry. Yeah It's, it's simply how folks are raised. Um, and we frequently don't hear our own bigoted comments.
Mike Glenn: Right
AJ Levine: Um, back when I first started teaching, I taught for nine years at a, at a very good liberal arts school called Swarthmore College in Philadelphia- Mm-hmm
before moving to Vanderbilt. Um, only woman in the Department of Religion. Uh, and the department chair would sometimes pick up the office phone, um, and he'd call out something like, "AJ, a girlfriend on the phone." And you know, when the girlfriend is some senior professor at some other institution. Right And I'd get on the phone, say, "Who was that?"
Um, or, "AJ, if you need something, then the girl will do it." Yeah Right? And the girl was the department secretary who was in her late 50s. And when I pointed out to the department chair, this is in the 1980s, um, uh, "Mrs. So-and-so does not like being called the girl," he's, "Oh, no, the girl doesn't mind." [00:12:00] Um, not recognizing that she is not in a position where she can complain- Right, right, right
because her job's on the line.
Mike Glenn: Right
AJ Levine: Um, this is a fellow who was married, who had two daughters of whom he was very, very proud. He simply could not hear- Did not realize it, right ... how offensive his comments were Um, so what I can do in the classroom or in workshops is to say, "You may be saying the following in a Bible study, or you may be saying the following from the pulpit."
Mike Glenn: Such as?
AJ Levine: Um, well, unlike the Jews, Jesus cared about women, or those Jews who hated Gentiles, but Jesus talks to a Samaritan woman. Mm-hmm. Um, or the Jews thought that e- ritual purity was the most important thing ever, and Jesus dismisses purity laws. Mm-hmm. He doesn't. He actually restores people to states of ritual purity.
Right. It's exactly the opposite. Right. Um, or Jews are all legalistic, and Jesus invents the- Mm-hmm ... you know, let's be a little bit loosey-goosey. Oh, no. I, I think Jesus is actually tiding, tightening up- Oh, yeah ... the Torah rather than making it looser. Right, right. Right. The Torah says don't commit adultery.
He says don't think about it. That's harder. No, and if it crosses
Mike Glenn: your [00:13:00] mind, you, yeah. Yeah, right, you're already in trouble, right?
AJ Levine: You know, if your eye offends you, pluck it out. Mm-hmm. We're like, I'm not gonna go that far, but I get the point.
Mike Glenn: Yeah.
AJ Levine: Um, so it's that I, they're not intending to make Judaism look awful.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
AJ Levine: But they're doing it all the same, and they simply don't hear it. As soon as someone says, "The Jews think..."
Mike Glenn: Yeah ...
AJ Levine: we're already in trouble because there's no head, there's no head Jew to tell us what to think. Right. We're an ethnic group. Um, and we have a variety of different ways of thinking. Um- Mm-hmm
or, uh, unlike the Jews, Jesus something something, um, which would be a kind of stupid thing to say 'cause Jesus is a Jew, and all the other people who are following him are, are Jews. Are Jews. It's an entire Jewish environment.
Mike Glenn: Mm-hmm.
AJ Levine: Except for an occasional Gentile centurion or Samaritan lady- ... walking through.
Mike Glenn: Yeah Who steps in to make this, the, the story interesting. Pretty much. Yeah, go with that. So- Pretty much ... that's
AJ Levine: interesting.
Mike Glenn: So give me some clue, give me some, give me some hints on if I, if I want to make my preaching more aware
AJ Levine: Well, the easiest thing to do... I mean, you should [00:14:00] study, um, and you should read, of course, everything that I've written.
Uh, because that's helpful- ... 'cause I flag all this stuff. Um, but, but the easiest thing to do, um, and this is what I told my students very, very early on. Mm-hmm. Um, when my children were little, I used to bring them to school. So springtime, it's Passover- Mm-hmm ... so then my kids are going to the Jewish day school.
They're off school. So I bring them into my New Testament class, and I, I sit my two little ones in the front row, uh, with my son with his kippah on, right? And I say to them, "When you preach or teach, I want you to picture these little kids in the front pew." Wow. "And do not say anything that will hurt these children, and do not say anything, uh, that will cause a member of your congregation to hurt these children.
And if that's insufficiently manipulative, picture me in the back row." "Because I really care about Jesus." You're right. "And if I hear the Jesus tradition being deformed in any way- Mm-hmm ... or if I hear you preach something that's antisemitic or bigoted or should not be there, I'm gonna stand up at the back of your church.
And the [00:15:00] last thing you want is a middle-aged angry woman standing up- Wow ... in the back of your church, and you know-"
Mike Glenn: That makes me sweat right now, just, uh-
AJ Levine: That's why we have air-conditioning ... immediately. That's
Mike Glenn: right. You, you But,
AJ Levine: but you know at the end of that service, I'm gonna be in your face at the meet and greet.
Mike Glenn: Well, you know, you and another friend of ours, Rob, used to always say, "We're gonna come to your church Sunday," and all of that. I'm glad I retired- ... or stepped down before that happened. This is AJ Levine. She is the former p- uh, New Testament professor at Vanderbilt University. Uh, she has written a number of books.
Uh, two of my favorites are The Pharisees and, uh, this one, Jesus for Everyone, Not Just for Christians. Uh, AJ, thank you for being with us today. I'm Mike Glenn. This is the Engage Church Network podcast. Thanks for being with us.
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