Jesus and the Talmudic Tradition

Amy-Jill Levine, The Difficult Words of Jesus: A Beginner's Guide to His Most Perplexing Teachings

Conservative or progressive, believers or unbelievers, we like to believe the teachings of Jesus are straightforward and clear. We love choosing favorite passages, brandishing them like torches, and claiming: “See? Everyone knows what these words mean, so stop arguing!” So how do we handle those passages where Jesus seems to contradict his usual teachings? The places where Jesus sometimes seems authoritarian, combative, or downright nasty?

Despite being Orthodox Jewish herself, Dr. Amy-Jill Levine has spent her career mostly at Christian seminaries, teaching the faith’s aspiring young leaders about Christianity’s Jewish roots. She has explicated the teachings of Jesus and Paul, both of whom considered themselves lifelong Jews, to a generation that has forgotten Hebrew idiom. And part of that idiom is: Scripture is something we live with, not something we mine for sound bites.

Professor Levine identifies six Gospel passages where Jesus makes statements which theologians have wrestled with for centuries. She organizes them in ascending order of difficulty, starting with the Rich Young Ruler, whom Jesus told he would only achieve salvation by selling everything he owned. She rises through Jesus calling followers to apparently hate their families, live like slaves, and fear eternal condemnation, finishing on a passage where Jesus appears shockingly antisemitic.

In all cases, Dr. Levine avoids the popular Protestant desire to provide pat answers. She seeks to situate Jesus’ words in historical and scriptural context, including not only the Hebrew Scriptures which Christians call the Old Testament, but also the Pseudepigrapha (Apocrypha), Talmud, and Mishnah. Though dealing with Christian teachings, her approach is steadfastly Jewish, based on debate, testing, and acknowledging the limitations of human understanding.

Christians, and unbelievers coming from a culturally Christian background, have a history of using Scripture to stop debate. “The Bible says this,” we proclaim, sometimes literally waving our Bibles, “so stop arguing.” This authoritarian tradition has resulted in important issues of the relationship between persons and power being subsumed by anger and pettiness, as both sides wonder why the other can’t understand what seems so unable to grasp the obvious.

Amy-Jill Levine

Jewish tradition works differently. “The Bible says this,” they say, sometimes while literally spreading the book open on the lectern, “what does that mean?” The entire Talmudic tradition consists of recognized scholars struggling to understand what Biblical passages, sometimes made opaque through passing ages, mean for us today. In other words, Christians use the Bible to stop debate, while Jews historically use the Bible to commence debate.

Levine takes this latter approach. Her chapters parse Jesus’ parallels with Jewish Scripture, study the Gospels’ Greek vocabulary and its Hebrew equivalents, consider what was happening in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time, and eventually find a resting place, if not a resolution. Levine emphasizes that these are her conclusions, not absolute solutions to difficult passages. However, she invites readers to continue the debates with the best evidence they can find.

As an aside, this approach isn't always flawless. Memorist Shulem Deen describes years spent teaching young Jews the Talmudic tradition, often at the expense of math, science, and the humanities. No tradition is one-size-fits-all, and when the debate becomes more important than the action, maybe it’s time to reëvaluate our choices. However, going to the other extreme and eliminating all debate hasn’t worked so well, either.

On balance, Levine hasn’t resolved the conundrums found in Jesus’ difficult teachings. In applying the Jewish dialectic tradition, she leaves behind Christians conditioned to seek a resounding final answer, which they expect to hear proclaimed authoritatively by a (usually male) figure at a lectern. In academic terms, many Christians want a lecture, not a seminar. The Jewish love of questions doesn’t embrace the culturally Christian demand for answers.

Further, Levine’s secondary title promises “A Beginner’s Guide,” and that’s what we get. Her chapters are sized right for weekly Bible study lessons (an accompanying DVD and leader’s guide are available). Which is fine, for what it is. But she doesn’t cite sources, offer further readings, or otherwise prepare for anybody to move beyond the beginner’s level. I sometimes lament Protestantism’s lacuna between novice-level studies and postgraduate seminary.

Notwithstanding these quibbles, I really appreciate this book. Levine attempts to coach willing Christians to rediscover their faith’s Jewish dialectical heritage. Remember, Jesus taught in the synagogues, and Paul never stopped calling himself Jewish. She encourages Christians, and culturally Christian unbelievers, to do something few seem prepared to handle: to sit quietly with the word, let it grow on you, and test the message through language, thought, and dialogue.