Amy-Jill Levine

Conversion is a matter of the heart, not of the academy; polemics function more to “speak to the choir” and shore up internal unity rather than to facilitate understanding, let alone to show love of neighbor. Biblical studies, as we understand it, can rather help us better to understand each other, and to move forward in appreciating the Bible’s power and importance.

BECAUSE 2 Timothy 3:16 states that “all scripture [the reference was initially to the scriptures of Israel, since there was no “New Testament” at the time 2 Timothy was written] is inspired by God [or “God-breathed”],” the idea developed in Christian circles that all biblical passages are replete with meaning. More, the corollary was that because the text is inspired, it cannot have contradictions: it is “inerrant,” containing no error or faults. Jews traditionally have taken the same approach: scripture is divine; it contains revelation.

The Bible itself is less important in Judaism than the Bible interpreted.

That same point holds for Jews, who do not have major problems with most alternative readings of scripture. In Judaism, orthopraxy, what one does, is more important than orthodoxy, what one believes.4

Almost all English translations have the widow saying “grant me justice,” but the Greek verb asks not for “justice” but for “vengeance,”

Translators were uncomfortable having a morally problematic heroine in a parable or having readers think asking for vengeance was okay, so they modified the original text to comport with their own beliefs.

The Greek term clearly means “shamelessness,” but translators from the patristic period (that is, the time of the church fathers) onward, not wanting to commend such behavior, have rendered the Greek “persistence.”42

For example, some scholars believe that the book of Ruth, where Ruth the Moabite is welcomed into the Israelite community, was written as polemic against the policies of Ezra and Nehemiah, which exclude foreigners from the community.24

As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said to Pope Benedict XVI: “We celebrate both our commonalities and differences, because if we had nothing in common we could not communicate, and if we had everything in common, we would have nothing to say.”63

According to Gen 1:24–30, first God creates animals and then, as the epitome of creation and in the image of God, male and female humans, together, as equals; in the second account, first God creates a male human being from the clay (2:7), then the animals, and finally, a woman from the “rib” or “side” of the male human being (2:18–23). The first author calls the deity “God” (’elohim); the second refers to the “LORD God” (YHWH ’elohim). In the first, God creates through speaking, while in the second he creates in a hands-on fashion.