Amy-Jill Levine Quotes

United States, Professor
1956

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.

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.

Amy-Jill Levine
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?

Amy-Jill Levine
- Taxes
- Occupation
- Resist

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

Amy-Jill Levine
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.

Amy-Jill Levine
- Earth
- Taste
- Salt
I've got a good shepherd; you've got a sadistic dentist.

Amy-Jill Levine
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.

Amy-Jill Levine
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.

Amy-Jill Levine
When church becomes a club, parables become pedestrian.

Amy-Jill Levine
- Church
- Club
- Pedestrian

Reducing parables to a single meaning destroys their aesthetic as well as ethical potential.

Amy-Jill Levine
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.

Amy-Jill Levine
- Jesus
- Jewish
- Judaism