The Bible With and Without Jesus (Amy-Jill Levine & Marc Zvi Brettler) -- A Review

 

THE BIBLE WITH AND WITHOUT JESUS: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently. By Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler. San Francisco, CA: Harper One, 2020. Xvii + 494 pages.

                Christians and Jews share a common sacred text. Jews call it the Tanakh. Christians call it the Old Testament (though a recent alternative is First Testament). We read the same stories, but we tend to do so very differently. We have different sets of lenses and traditions that influence the way we read the same texts. For Christians, the lens through which we traditionally read it is Jesus. That’s not necessarily wrong, but what if we were to remove that lens and read it without reference to Jesus? Would that change the way we as Christians read a passage, especially ones we traditionally understand to point to Jesus? The fact is Jews do this all the time!

                The Bible With and Without Jesus offers a powerful answer to the question of how two religious communities read the same text. The authors are both Jewish—Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler. Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies in the Department of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt. She is perhaps best known for her work on the Gospels, making her a leading Jesus scholar who happens to be Jewish. It is that lens that she brings to the study of the Gospels that has proven to be illuminating to so many of us, including me. Her co-author, Marc Brettler, os Bernice and Morton Lerner Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at Duke University. They are also the co-editors of The Jewish Annotated New Testament. Together they provide us with a tour de force examination of this sacred text. To do this, they wrestle not only with the Hebrew Bible but the New Testament as well. Of the book, Susannah Heschel opines: “How can Jews and Christians the scriptures they share without denigrating each other’s interpretations? The world has been waiting for two thousand years for this book!” I tend to agree with this endorsement!

                The authors write in the preface that they approach the text from the perspective of "reception history.” That is, they focus on "the interpretation of these texts by the communities that hold them sacred." In this case, Jewish and Christian communities. To do this, they focus their attention on ten passages/themes from the Hebrew Scriptures that figure prominently within the New Testament. As they work through these passages, they ask three questions about each passage or theme. The first question is: "What did the text mean in its original context in ancient Israel?" Secondly, they ask: "How do the New Testament authors interpret that text?" Finally, they ask: "how do post-biblical Jews from the time of Jesus (e.g., the Dead Sea Scrolls, the first-century historian Josephus, and the first-century philosopher Philo) through the rabbinic and medieval Jewish tradition and later Christian traditions understand those same texts?" (p. xi).

                Before they approach these passages and themes, they first address the question of the text itself and how it is interpreted. One of the key elements of this opening piece is a reminder that while we share similar texts, there are significant differences in the texts themselves. First and foremost, we must acknowledge the role of the New Testament in this conversation. While it is central to the Christian faith, it plays no role in the Jewish tradition. While Jews and Christians share the books of the Old Testament/Tanakh, the way we organize the books that make up this text differs. Some parts of the Christian community acknowledge books that others do not. Not all of these texts were originally written in Hebrew. In fact, neither faith tradition reads the Hebrew Bible as self-standing. Christians read it through the lens of the New Testament while Jews use post-biblical commentaries, rabbinic teaching, and Jewish liturgy to read and interpret these books. Therefore, the book under review speaks to how these two communities read Scripture differently. Their point here is not to say one reading is better than the other, but to recognize that the interpretations are contested. They hope that by the time the reader reaches the end of the book they will be able to understand how and why the other community reads the text the way they do (pp. 3-4). As they note in the conclusion to their opening chapter, "at times, Jewish and Christian readings can complement each other; at times, one community adopts a reading that the other might find impossible." (p. 39). One thing I've discovered, largely through reading Levine's works, but not only hers, is that as a Christian interpreter, I have much to learn from Jewish interpreters. That doesn’t mean I give up the Christological lens, but it does mean exchanging lenses when appropriate.

                The chapters that follow address questions of prophecy and how we might read and understand prophetic texts. They remind Christians that while the New Testament and later interpreters often read prophetic texts as pointing Jesus, Jews do not do so. Thus, it is appropriate to read Jesus into the text of the Old Testament as long as we understand that this is not the only reading or the original reading of the passage. From there we move on to texts that speak of the creation of the world (ch. 3), Adam and Eve (ch. 4), the priesthood (with a focus on Melchizedek) (ch. 5), texts such as the one that speaks of an "eye for an eye" (ch. 6), sacrifice and atonement (ch. 7), a "virgin will conceive" (ch. 8), the Suffering Servant of Isaiah (ch. 9), the Sign of Jonah (ch. 10), Psalm 22 and Psalms as prophecy (ch. 11), and the concept of the "Son of Man." As you can see, they cover a lot of important topics, topics that are central to the Christian faith. But what if we remove Jesus from the equation, will we read these texts differently? If we take this step honestly, then most likely we will come out with a different answer than we would with Jesus in the mix.

                The goal of the authors is to help readers from both communities understand how and why we read the text the way we do. They encourage Jews to read the New Testament and try to see why Christians read this text with reference to Jesus. At the same time, they encourage Christians to read the Scriptural text through Jewish eyes. We can do this by reading later Jewish interpretations of the Tanakh. Having read several books recently by Jewish interpreters, I will admit that I read Scripture differently. These authors, including Levine and Brettler, have spoken a great truth that if followed could help build bridges of understandings between communities.

                I know that it is difficult for Jews to read the New Testament. So much damage has been done to the Jewish community in the name of Jesus, that this might appear to be a betrayal of one's faith. Nevertheless, we need to find ways of hearing each other. They invite us to let go of the zero-sum way of looking at these texts. Instead, we have "an opportunity to correct certain older readings based in polemic, creating newer ones based on the possibility of mutual respect if not in complete agreement" (p. 422). I know of no better writers to do this than these two authors. They are scholars of note. Nevertheless, they write in a way that is accessible to a more general audience. That doesn’t mean that this book doesn’t require a certain level of sophistication, but one need not have a graduate degree in biblical studies to understand what they write. Therefore, The Bible With and Without Jesus can be read beneficially by many in the church. As for clergy, this is a must-read for it will deepen one's interpretive grid and help overcome some of the pitfalls that we so easily fall into. As they note in conclusion, "we are stronger when we wrestle, and when we read together" (p. 426). I heartily agree!

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