2018-2019 Weltin Lecture: Jesus the Jewish Storyteller: Of Pearls and Prodigals

Lecture by Amy-Jill Levine, University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies, & Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University.

Understanding Jesus' parables requires understanding Jesus' Jewish context. How would those short stories by Jesus have been heard by their original Jewish listeners, how have Christians over the centuries misread the parables by misunderstanding Jewish tradition, and how might the parables speak to Jews, Christians, and everyone else today?

Amy-Jill Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies, and Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and College of Arts and Science; she is also Affiliated Professor, Woolf Institute Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations, Cambridge UK. A prolific author, Levine’s books include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus; Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi; The Gospel of Luke, Entering the Passion of Jesus, and three books for children on parables. She is also the co-editor, with Marc Z. Brettler, of the Jewish Annotated New Testament, now in a second edition.

Reception and book signing to follow the lecture.

This lecture is free and open to the public. For more information please contact the Religious Studies Program at religiousstudies@wustl.edu or (314) 935-8677.

Additional Programming:

Workshop: “Understanding Jesus Means Understanding Judaism” by Dr. Amy-Jill Levine
For: Pastors, bible study teachers, and lay members
Friday, March 22, 9 am at Bethel Lutheran Church
Free, but participants will find it useful to have a copy of The Jewish Annotated New Testament, 2nd ed.