The Difficult Words of Jesus

The Difficult Words of Jesus: A Beginner’s Guide to His Most Perplexing Teachings
Amy-Jill Levine
Abingdon Press (August 3, 2021), 176 pages
Kindle edition $9.99, Amazon paperback $14.53

I am very familiar with the work of Amy-Jill Levine. I have listened to her lectures in the Great Courses and I have read her book The Bible With and Without Jesus. Levine offers an interesting viewpoint. She is an observant Jew who is a professor of New Testament studies. From her Jewish background she takes the perspective that the Bible should be interpreted and debated, as the Jewish Talmud exemplifies.

Levine does not stand by as an objective scholar. She inserts herself into the conversation. In discussing Jesus’s statement that no one can follow him unless he hates his mother and father, she states, “My first thought is to reject the entire Gospel. I’m not hating my parents. I’m not hating life. Not me. No way.” She goes on to say that this commandment cannot be taken literally, especially considering that Jesus tells his disciples that they must obey the Torah, including the commandment to honor your father and mother. She suggests that the statement really takes the perspective of those left behind: “My son must really hate me to have done that.”

The author is not afraid to engage in debate. She tells how she wrote a commentary on the Gospel of Luke with a colleague. Levine’s position is that Luke was not progressive on women’s issues. For example, in the parallel stories of Anna and Simeon only Simeon speaks. But she says her colleague believes Luke has Jesus promoting an active role for women in his communities.

Levine avoids taking the easy way out on tricky passages. Regarding the statement of Jesus that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven, she refers to the theory that there was a small gate in the city wall where you had to unpack your camel in order to get it through. She states, “There is no such gate.” Similarly, she writes, “Jesus, like Paul, presumed that slaves were a normal part of life.”

The author differs from mainline scholarship on some points. She suggests Luke was written about 90 CE, later than most scholars believe. She also believes that Matthew drew from Luke, where the standard belief is that both Matthew and Luke drew from a common “Q” source. She writes, “I am also finding it increasingly likely that the Book of Revelation was written before the Gospels,” where the accepted belief is that it is a product of the late 90s.

Levine concludes, “We can work together. Since we find common history in the first century, or what is called Second Temple Judaism, we can learn together and interpret together.”

I’m more than happy to learn and interpret with Amy-Jill Levine.