Jewish Christian Understanding: Dr. Amy-Jill Levine in Minnesota

Her wisdom is surpassed only by her wit. Critically acclaimed scholar and author, Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, PhD is a force to behold. Although her lectures this past weekend, March 28 - 30, 2014, through the Calvin W. Didier Seminar on Religion and Contemporary Thought, sponsored by the House of Hope Presbyterian Church in St. Paul, had multiple titles, the aggregate message is singular - Jesus was a Jew, born in the first century before the common era (BCE), and only by studying the Old and New Testaments from this historically undeniable vantage point, can Christians and Jews come to wholly understand each other. 

 Dr. Amy-Jill Levine Didier Seminar

Dr. Levin’s mastery of ancient languages from Aramaic to Greek and Latin is a major source of her striking authority about how textural readings of the Jewish and Christian bibles have caused such perilous claims and accusations that millennia of massacres have ensued. It is a source of misunderstanding for each culture and religious tradition.

With intellectual balance, grace and humor, Dr. Levine captivates her audience using academic knowledge, yet sometimes acerbic,  sometimes self-effacing humor that is always on target. In spite of her Yankee directness, she resonates well across the cultural/religious divide.

Bringing lofty scholarly concepts to a common denominator is always fraught with risk. Famously, ‘the academy’ as scholars call themselves, look down on academics who are wise and clear enough to unbundle complexity; on the other hand, complex topics can’t be rendered too simple or the interpreter loses critical nuance. She bridges this gap with a command as great as that of the world’s finest orators or better, since she connects with and never loses sight of her audience. 

Through her critical, yet compassionate rendering of the intricacies of ancient Hebrew, "a language without vowels (like text messaging)", she explains how it is possible to ferret out nuanced meanings. Carefully interjecting concrete example after example, she guides the audience to see how interpretation of just one word, or punctuation mark, drastically changes deep meaning.

Rapt attention at Saturday’s lecture

But if that were all Dr. Levine’s lectures provided, audiences might grow weary. Beyond these critical textural illusions, she pulls audiences into the sights and smells of the first century, breathing contemporary understanding into ancient life. Weaving day-to-day activities with tales of archeological artifact findings and commonplace sociological and legal occurrences, Dr. Levine paints a picture of how and why disastrous assumptions have spread like lethal viruses infecting Jewish-Christian relations for over two thousand calamitous years. 

The Didier Annual Seminar was endowed in 1993 as a retirement tribute to the House of Hope’s Reverend Didier in honor of his ministry, with "an informed and compelling Christianity" as its goal. The seminar brings the "best comprehensive thinking in religion, the arts, letters and science” by presenting "inspiring and acknowledged leaders in their various fields. “

Rabbi Adam Stock Spilker, Mount Zion Temple

Rabbi Adam Spilker, spiritual leader of Mount Zion Temple, exemplifies such leadership. With wisdom cloaked in accessibility, Rabbi Spilker doesn’t catch his congregants on sharp edges, but allows all to enter Judaism through multiple portals. His reading of the 23rd Psalm in Hebrew at The House of Hope Church during Sunday’s service was at once lyrical and illuminating. Church members seemed transported by experiencing the ancient text Dr. Levine had been discussing all weekend in an actual service, from the pulpit, as perhaps it has never been heard previously. 

House of Hope congregants

Years of fragile, fraught misunderstanding cannot be eradicated by a single lecture, seminar, book or sermon. But it must begin somewhere. I overheard Rabbi Spilker recommend to Reverend David A. Van Dyke, instigating more frequent dialogues and opportunities. This type of sustained outreach is critical to overcoming misunderstanding. 

We are over a dozen years into the Third Millennium, the very title of this blog. My work, Intentional Transitions, is to bring about conscious, mutual understanding across cultures, continents and other needless divides that keep human beings from achieving their full potential, through workshops, writings, lectures and seminars. We are now in what a few of my mentors, from Dr. Clare Graves and Dr. Don Beck, to other noted futurists, philosophers, humanitarians and scientists, see as enhanced opportunities to rewire our own brains and to rewrite our futures. Dr. Graves called this Second Tier thinking. We are at a precipice where humankind can overcome our more base responses through education, outreach and understanding.

The work of Dr. Amy-Jill Levine goes far to create just such conditions. Please learn more about her and her work. And feel welcome and invited to hear Rabbi Spilker and to visit Mount Zion.