Quotes from Amy-Jill Levine

If one person contends that there is no anti-Jewish teaching in the New Testament but another insists that there is, who's right? Who gets to speak? Unlike Nazi newspapers and KKK pamphlets, the New Testament prompts different reactions from people of goodwill. For

Jeremiah and Jesus indicted people then, and now. The ancient Temple, and the present-day church, should be places where people not only find community, welcome the stranger, and repent of their sins. They should be places where people promise to live a godly life, and then keep their promises.

In John's version of the Temple incident, Jesus anticipates the time when there will no longer be a need for vendors, for every house not only in Jerusalem but in all of Judea shall be like the Temple itself. The sacred nature of the Temple will spread through all the people.

Jesus is about to give up his life, which requires determining what a life is worth. And that means we all have to determine what our own lives are worth. What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? What are our values, and have we lived up to them?

Jesus' words, citing Zechariah, do even more. They anticipate a time when all peoples, all nations, can worship in peace, and in love. There is no separation between home and house of worship, because the entire land lives in a sanctified state.

The Passion narrative asks much of us, and it also, through Jesus' example, gives us the knowledge that we can do what we are asked, and the assurance that we will succeed.

Historically, Mary would be in her late teens because that is when, as best as we can determine, Jewish women in Judea and Galilee married in the late Second Temple period.

Holy Week is a time to think about risk, because that's what this whole Passion narrative represents.

When an angel comes to an individual to make an announcement, there's both the assurance of divine protection and, usually, a catch.

During Lent you have the opportunity to think about your life alongside the life of Jesus, inviting inward transformation and then outward action.

The Incarnation teaches that the divine takes on human flesh, and so that human body is of value. When we look at the face of our neighbor, or at our own images in the mirror, we see the face of the divine. And so, do we care for our bodies? This is Lent, the time when Christians around the world participate in acts of self-denial. Perhaps this is a time when those who enter into Lent start to think more seriously about how and what and with whom they eat.

One way of reading this genealogy is to see that we are all, as children of Adam, also children of God. We are therefore all animated by the Spirit of God.

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.

Despite Paul's insistence that Jesus "was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:4), no Jewish source, outside those associated with the followers of Jesus, shows any expectation that the messiah would be killed and after three days rise. The

Luke has a much more important story to tell: about divine care and human potential, about how we are all children of God and can therefore do God's will, about the difficult choices we must make, about our memories and our goals.

Just as Mary, like Hannah before her, sang a song of divine redemption, so Mary will learn, as did Hannah, that she will have to let her son go.

On a more serious note, the idea that nothing is impossible with God can be a very difficult statement because it can give the impression that God could have acted when we needed healing or rescue.

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

He wants to see the child, because that child will bring about the consolation that he seeks; he may not want to see the child, because once he has that encounter, he will die.

The dominant Jewish idea at the time (and subsequently) is that the Messiah brings about the messianic age, a time when death no longer has dominion, when there is a general resurrection of the dead, a final judgment, the return of exiles to their homeland, peace on earth.

The best way of evangelizing is not to tell the potential convert, "Here's what's wrong with your tradition." The best way to evangelize is to show that potential convert, "Here's what's right with my tradition; here's how it prompts toward action; here's how it consoles.

We need personal prayer—to sustain us, to help us find courage, to lament. Jesus provides the example that in cases of extreme concern, of course, we pray for ourselves.

For Luke, Anna represents the ancient lost tribes of Israel, separated from their Judean counterparts when the Assyrians destroyed the Northern Kingdom seven hundred years earlier.

Instead of shepherds, Matthew presents the Magi, who, despite "we three kings of Orient are," are not necessarily three, not necessarily all men, certainly not kings, and most certainly not wise.