Amy-Jill Levine Quotes
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Residual marcionism, the view that God had a personality transplant somewhere between the pages of Malachi and Matthew, is still alive and well in churches today; it is also still a heresy.
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The question of paying taxes is a valid one today, particularly for people living under occupation or under an unjust regime. It was a valid one in ancient Israel as well—how much does one go along with the emperor, and when must one resist?
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You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything.
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Holy Week is a time to think about risk, because that’s what this whole Passion narrative represents.
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I've got a good shepherd; you've got a sadistic dentist.
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Religion has been defined as designed to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. We do well to think of the parables of Jesus as doing the afflicting. Therefore, if we hear a parable and think, 'I really like that' or, worse, fail to take any challenge, we are not listening well enough.
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When church becomes a club, parables become pedestrian.
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Reducing parables to a single meaning destroys their aesthetic as well as ethical potential.
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Church reminded me very much of going to shul. It was a bunch of men wearing long robes, speaking in a language I didn't understand.
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Our responsibility is to love God and to love our neighbour which is what Jesus taught and it's also what Judaism taught - and that would make sense because Jesus was Jewish.