The Misunderstood Jew Quotes

“After a long and happy life, I find myself at the pearly gates (a sight of great joy; the word for “pearl” in Greek is, by the way, margarita). Standing there is St. Peter. This truly is heaven, for finally my academic questions will receive answers. I immediately begin the questions that have been plaguing me for half a century: “Can you speak Greek? Where did you go when you wandered off in the middle of Acts? How was the incident between you and Paul in Antioch resolved? What happened to your wife?”

Peter looks at me with some bemusement and states, “Look, lady, I’ve got a whole line of saved people to process. Pick up your harp and slippers here, and get the wings and halo at the next table. We’ll talk after dinner.”

As I float off, I hear, behind me, a man trying to gain Peter’s attention. He has located a “red letter Bible,” which is a text in which the words of Jesus are printed in red letters. This is heaven, and all sorts of sacred art and Scriptures, from the Bhagavad Gita to the Qur’an, are easily available (missing, however, was the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version). The fellow has his Bible open to John 14, and he is frenetically pointing at v. 6: “Jesus says here, in red letters, that he is the way. I’ve seen this woman on television (actually, she’s thinner in person). She’s not Christian; she’s not baptized - she shouldn’t be here!”

“Oy,” says Peter, “another one - wait here.”

He returns a few minutes later with a man about five foot three with dark hair and eyes. I notice immediately that he has holes in his wrists, for when the empire executes an individual, the circumstances of that death cannot be forgotten.

“What is it, my son?” he asks.

The man, obviously nonplussed, sputters, “I don’t mean to be rude, but didn’t you say that no one comes to the Father except through you?”

“Well,” responds Jesus, “John does have me saying this.” (Waiting in line, a few other biblical scholars who overhear this conversation sigh at Jesus’s phrasing; a number of them remain convinced that Jesus said no such thing. They’ll have to make the inquiry on their own time.) “But if you flip back to the Gospel of Matthew, which does come first in the canon, you’ll notice in chapter 25, at the judgment of the sheep and the goats, that I am not interested in those who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ but in those who do their best to live a righteous life: feeding the hungry, visiting people in prison . . . ”

Becoming almost apoplectic, the man interrupts, “But, but, that’s works righteousness. You’re saying she’s earned her way into heaven?”

“No,” replies Jesus, “I am not saying that at all. I am saying that I am the way, not you, not your church, not your reading of John’s Gospel, and not the claim of any individual Christian or any particular congregation. I am making the determination, and it is by my grace that anyone gets in, including you. Do you want to argue?”

The last thing I recall seeing, before picking up my heavenly accessories, is Jesus handing the poor man a Kleenex to help get the log out of his eye.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus

“The kingdom of heaven is not, for the Jewish Jesus of Nazareth, a piece of real estate for the single saved soul; it is a communal vision of what could be and what should be. It is a vision of a time when all debts are forgiven, when we stop judging others, when we not only wear our traditions on our sleeve, but also hold them in our hearts and minds and enact them with all our strength. It is the good news that the Torah can be discussed and debated, when the Sabbath is truly honored and kept holy, when love of enemies replaces the tendency toward striking back. The vision is Jewish, and it is worth keeping as frontlets before our eyes and teaching to our children.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus

“The popular push to depict Jesus as a Galilean and see Galilee as religiously and ethnically distinct from Judea winds up conveying the impression that “Judaism,” with its Temple and its leadership, is quite distinct from the Galilean Jesus. The popular image of Jesus as a “peasant” often serves not to connect him to his fellow Jews but to distinguish him from them, since “the Jews” remain in the popular imagination not peasants but Pharisees and Sadducees or, in academic terms, members of the retainer and elite classes. Worse, the lingering view that Jesus dismissed basic Jewish practices, such as the Laws concerning Sabbath observance and ritual purity, turns Jesus away from his Jewish identity and makes him into a liberal Protestant.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Jesus’s Jewishness is frequently erased. In the churches, as Jesus continues to be the symbol for all that is socially good, Christian ministers and laity alike depict his Jewish background as the epitome of all that is wrong with the world. If Jesus preaches good news to the poor, so the common impression goes, “the Jews” must be preaching good news to the rich. If Jesus welcomes sinners, “the Jews” must have pushed them away. If Jesus speaks to or heals women, “the Jews” must have set up a patriarchal society that makes the Taliban look progressive.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Who are the true children of Abraham and the heirs to the books of the Bible, the Law, and the Prophets? Who followed the correct path, and who veered off? Christians must engage with Jews, since Jews are explicitly mentioned in the Scriptures of the church, and those references have had substantial repercussions throughout history, most of them bad. Jews should engage with Christians, not only because the early history of the church is the history of Jews as well, but also because the synagogue and the church developed in dialogue, and debate, with each other. The break between the two traditions began not at the cross or the tomb but centuries later.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Jesus’s words are too familiar, too domesticated, too stripped of their initial edginess and urgency. Only when heard through first-century Jewish ears can their original edginess and urgency be recovered. Consequently, to understand the man from Nazareth, it is necessary to understand Judaism. More, it is necessary to see Jesus as firmly within Judaism rather than as standing apart from it, and it is essential that the picture of Judaism not be distorted through the filter of centuries of Christian stereotypes; a distorted picture of first-century Judaism inevitably leads to a distorted picture of Jesus.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“For far too long Jesus has been the wedge that drives Christians and Jews apart. I suggest that we can also see him as a bridge between us.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Today Jesus’s words are too familiar, too domesticated, too stripped of their initial edginess and urgency. Only when heard through first-century Jewish ears can their original edginess and urgency be recovered. Consequently, to understand the man from Nazareth, it is necessary to understand Judaism. More, it is necessary to see Jesus as firmly within Judaism rather than as standing apart from it, and it is essential that the picture of Judaism not be distorted through the filter of centuries of Christian stereotypes; a distorted picture of first-century Judaism inevitably leads to a distorted picture of Jesus. Just as bad: if we get Judaism wrong, we’ll wind up perpetuating anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic teachings, and thus the mission of the church - to spread a gospel of love rather than a gospel of hate - will be undermined. For Christians, this concern for historical setting should have theological import as well. If one takes the incarnation - that is, the claim that the “Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1: 14) - seriously, then one should take seriously the time when, place where, and people among whom this event occurred.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus

“Jesus heals and raises the dead; so too Elijah and Elisha. Jesus survives when children around him are slaughtered, just like Moses. I didn’t have to read Matthew 2–7 to know that the rescued baby would take a trip to Egypt, cross water in a life-changing experience, face temptation in the wilderness, ascend a mountain, and deliver comments on the Law”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Jesus meets a woman at a well and concerns about marriage emerge, just as with Abraham’s servant and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, Moses and Zipporah.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“For Jews, Jesus is unnecessary or a redundancy; he is not needed to save from sin or from death, since Judaism proclaims a deity ready to forgive repentant sinners and since it asserts that “all Israel has a share in the world to come” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 10:1).”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“By seeing Jesus as a Jew with regard to both belief and practice, Christians can develop a deeper appreciation for the teachings of the church.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“In liberation theology—that form of religious thought proclaiming that God has a “preferential option for the poor” and seeking to put biblical pronouncement in service to political and economic ends—Jesus is the pedagogue of the oppressed, the redeemer of the underclass, the hero of the masses. The problem is not the use of Jesus for political ends; the biblical material has always been (and should continue to be) used to promote a more just society. The problem is that the language of liberation all too often veers off into anti-Jewish rants. Jesus becomes the Palestinian martyr crucified once again by the Jews; he is the one killed by the “patriarchal god of Judaism”; he breaks down the barriers “Judaism” erects between Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, male and female, slave and free and so can liberate all today. The intent is well meaning, but the history is dreadful, and the impression given of Judaism is obscene.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“A critically aware, historically informed study of Jesus in his Jewish context does more than provide benefits to Christians and Jews alike; it aids in preventing the anti-Semitism that tends to arise when the history is not known. The concern to recover Jesus’s Jewishness is these days particularly urgent.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“The point of interfaith conversation is not to convert the person across the table, but it is also not to abdicate one’s own theology for the sake of reaching agreement. Put another way: there is no reason for Jews and Christians to sacrifice their particular beliefs on the altar of interfaith sensitivity. The former bishop of Sweden and dean of Harvard Divinity School Krister Stendahl speaks appropriately of “holy envy,” that is, the appreciation of the beliefs and practices of another.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Conversations across religions need not, and should not, end with all participants proclaiming an ultimate unity of belief. Such an exercise only waters down both traditions into a bland universalism that, in an attempt to be inoffensive, winds up offending everyone.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“The synoptic Gospels suggest that the entire Jewish council, the Sanhedrin, met on the first night of Passover to determine Jesus’s fate—this would be tantamount to gathering all the members of the Supreme Court, Congress, and the White House press corps together late on Christmas Eve to debate a minor case of law. If”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Jesus of Nazareth dressed like a Jew, prayed like a Jew (and most likely in Aramaic), instructed other Jews on how best to live according to the commandments given by God to Moses, taught like a Jew, argued like a Jew with other Jews, and died like thousands of other Jews on a Roman cross. To”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“As for “Forgive us our trespasses,” the original was most likely “Forgive us our debts” (as the Sermon on the Mount puts it in Matt. 6:12). The line does not promote some vague notion that God should forgive us for the occasional taking of the divine name in vain or for yelling at the cat. It goes directly to the pocketbook; it says, “Don’t hold a debt. If someone needs, you give.” The call is for economic justice. As Habakkuk laments, “Alas for you who heap up what is not your own! How long will you load yourselves with goods taken in pledge?” (2:6).”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus

“On the one hand, the creeds do not speak of “the Jews” as responsible for the death of Jesus; he “suffered under” and “was crucified under” Pontius Pilate. On the other hand, the creeds do not mention Jesus’s Judaism at all. With the stress in some churches on Jesus’s divine sonship, the cross, the resurrection, and the redemptory role of saving humanity from sin and death, his historical connection to Judaism gets lost along with his very Jewish message of the kingdom of heaven.

The problem is more than one of silence. In the popular Christian imagination, Jesus still remains defined, incorrectly and unfortunately, as “against” the Law, or at least against how it was understood at the time; as “against” the Temple as an institution and not simply against its first-century leadership; as “against” the people Israel but in favor of the Gentiles. Jesus becomes the rebel who, unlike every other Jew, practices social justice. He is the only one to speak with women; he is the only one who teaches nonviolent responses to oppression; he is the only one who cares about the “poor and the marginalized” (that phrase has become a litany in some Christian circles). Judaism becomes in such discourse a negative foil: whatever Jesus stands for, Judaism isn’t it; whatever Jesus is against, Judaism epitomizes the category. No wonder even today Jesus somehow looks “different” from “the Jews”: in the movies and artistic renderings, he’s blond and they are swarthy; he is cute and buff and they need rhinoplasty and Pilates. Jesus and his followers such as Peter and Mary Magdalene become identified as (proto-) Christian; only those who chose not to follow him remain “Jews.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus

“holy envy,” that is, the appreciation of the beliefs and practices of another.2”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Conversations across religions need not, and should not, end with all participants proclaiming an ultimate unity of belief. Such an exercise only waters down both traditions into a bland universalism that, in an attempt to be inoffensive, winds up offending everyone. Understanding of and appreciation for our neighbor’s tradition are not the same thing as agreement with it. Jews and Christians will disagree. Jews will also disagree with other Jews, and Christians with other Christians. The day that Jews and Christians agree on everything is the day the messiah comes, or comes back.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Looking back, behind the culture wars of today, behind the death camps and the Crusades, behind Constantine and Judah the Prince, to the first century allows Jews and Christians to recover shared roots with Jesus of Nazareth and his immediate followers. The effort does not forget the past two thousand years, but neither does it allow those years to abort the conversation. For far too long Jesus has been the wedge that drives Christians and Jews apart. I suggest that we can also see him as a bridge between us. The image is not meant to indicate that either of us cedes our own views of Jesus—the bridge spans two separate lands—and it does not mean we need to find common ground on everything.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Although the analogy is a tad strained, the Torah functions for the synagogue as Jesus does for the church: it is the “word” of the divine present in the congregation.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Christians obtain yet another benefit in seeing Jesus in his Jewish context, for the recognition of Jesus’s Jewishness and of his speaking in a Jewish idiom can also restore faith in the New Testament. Doing just a bit of historical investigation provides a much-needed correction to America’s Christ-saturated, albeit biblically ignorant, culture.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“If one takes the incarnation—that is, the claim that the “Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14)—seriously, then one should take seriously the time when, place where, and people among whom this event occurred.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Christian missionaries who seek to bring Jews the “good news of Jesus” do not do so because they hate Jews; they do so because they love Jews. On the other hand, the message that Jews are not “complete” or “fulfilled” unless they accept Jesus as the Messiah is not likely to be received by most Jews with great warmth; it is tantamount to telling Christians that their religion is incomplete or erroneous without acceptance of the Qur’an. Thus,”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“The synoptic Gospels suggest that the entire Jewish council, the Sanhedrin, met on the first”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“Anti-Jewish and potentially anti-Jewish rhetoric goes unnoticed in so much Christian scholarship because the authors are not attuned to how their words sound to different ears. The”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew

“When American parents of Italian or Polish or Kenyan background tell their children to “stop acting like wild Indians,” they are not intending to promote bigotry, but they are promoting it nonetheless. And when parents in rural areas of the Philippines tell their children to “stop acting like Jews,” anti-Judaism is the unintended result. Disease cannot be cured when those infected are in denial.”
― Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew