Jews reading the NT?! Why yes!
Amy Jill-Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler have edited The Jewish Annotated New Testament and it looks amazing. I flipped through a copy in Powell’s Books and it looked like something I should acquire. I asked Oxford University Press for a review copy I am excited to say that a copy is going to be send my direction!
The New York Times has an article by Mark Oppenheimer on Amy Jill-Levine and this volume titled ‘Focusing on the Jewish Story of the New Testament’ that provides a bit of a biographical sketch of Levine. She is deserving of this coverage. At AAR/SBL she was one of the most captivating and impressive personalities in the room at any given time. I have read her work The Misunderstood Jew and I benefited from her insights there as well. As a synagogue attending Jewish scholar she provides amazing insight into early Christianity and I have benefited from her work.
If you’d like to read a review prior to my future review(s) I recommend John Hobbins’ post ‘Jews Reading the New Testament’. It will make you want to purchase this book for your library as well. In the meantime I will anxiously await my copy so that I can tell you more about it!
November 30, 2011 at 6:22 am
I read John Hobbins’ review, though I’d welcome reading yours, too.
I always appreciate a book that will help us understand how to get more into the minds of the Bible’s writers, and explaining the Jewish mindset – especially the Jewish mindset during the times that the scriptures were being written – has got to be one of the most important ways to do that.
November 30, 2011 at 9:16 am
@Mike: Me too!
December 1, 2011 at 9:48 pm
It sounds excellent. I also found Tomson’s “Paul and the Jewish Law” to be utterly brilliant and genuinely helpful. Bockmuehl’s Jewish Law in gentile Churches” is also on my shelf waiting to be read. One point does tug at my heart. John 20:31 “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” What did these scholars, who spent so much time in the New Testament, decide about the person of Jesus? Will we see them in heaven?
God bless,
Colin