As is my wont, this is an expanded version of a Goodreads review.
Jesus for Everyone: Why He Should Matter More to Everyone by Amy-Jill Levine
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I had heard things about Amy-Jill Levine before. Some of what I’d read, on certain subreddits, Academia and elsewhere, indicated that she brought a lot of new insight to Jesus and his parables and teaching by looking through Jewish eyes.
And, some other insights indicated that this might be at least in part good marketing.
But, I’d not latched on to one of her books before.
And now?
“Jesus for Everyone” makes me think it is indeed — at least in part — good marketing.
First is her spending multiple pages beating down “Jews 101” stereotypes. Most people who really have all those stereotypes probably aren’t reading this book in the first place. (On the other hand, that she had to call out a piece in Sojourners, and talks about relatively critical Catholic and Protestant theologians, says maybe this is an issue.)
Second, she does blow her own horn.
Then, near the end of the opening chapter, which overviews the subject ahead, the “Family values, celibacy, marriages and divorce, adultery” subsection says “He is single and celibate.”
Is he? A fair chunk of serious NT scholars of recent years have at least partially pushed back against that. At a minimum, unlike Paul, who references Peter’s wife and thus indicates he has one, this is an argument from silence.
Wooden translations are literalistic, not literal, and as bad as Jesus Seminar’s translations of sayings of Jesus. Or, for another comparison? It’s like reading the English line of Bible Hub’s interlinear. In fact, maybe that’s what it IS, or similar.
It also comes off as pedantic, and per the title of the book, I think would lose a fair share of her target audience.
OK, I have several disagreements, theological, exegetical and sociological, with material in all the individual chapters. I have unhidden the spoiler on the original review, which started with the "Economics chapter" and went up to the "Finally, let's look at the title," and expanded the material that was hidden, as well.
Second, her insertion of queer sexuality into the Legion pericope? Laughable.
Economics chapter. Did the steward know the debtors’ debt? I’ve always thought that “show me your books” was followed by the rich man taking them.
Slavery chapter:
First, just as Candida Moss did in “God’s Ghostwriters,” she overstates the prevalence of slavery in Rome, especially outside Italy.
She is wrong, as is Moss, on one-third or more of Rome being enslaved;
in the provinces, it was no more than 15 percent. Even in Italy itself,
they were no more than 30 percent the population. See Wiki,
also linked in my Moss review. You’ll see occasional estimates higher
to much higher, but I don’t think they’re credible. In short, contra
Levine (and Candida Moss) it wasn’t that 10 percent of the Empire owned
the other 90 percent or even close.
At this point, I turned to the back and realized — no index! This itself can get a ding of up to 1 star. Also missing? No bibliography. I couldn’t find if she cited Moss. Or later, Yonathan Adler. Finally, a lesser ding than the other two? No end-of-book list of biblical passages or pericopes cited, referenced or discussed. Total ding is, say, 1.25 stars right there, meaning we’re guaranteed not more than 3 stars. It also means that when, I’m going web searches later, I can’t find the pages for what she said about an alternative etymology for “Pharisee.”
Next, she does not talk about Israelite enslavement of non-Israelites.
Centurion’s slave misses point. The story itself is about the centurion’s trust, and healing at a distance rather than in person, since such stories of magic usually relied on physical contact. It's not about whether this person is a slave or not.
Name of high priest’s slave Malchus could also come from Hebrew for “messenger.” It's not necessarily from "king." It's also irrelevant.
What’s really at issue with both Levine and partially with Moss is that they, by saying “Look, slaves” don’t do enough to distinguish Roman slavery from modern Western versions, as in, the number and type of roles slaves held. (Moss is somewhat better, on the idea that slaves were literate in terms of both reading and writing.) This came out in the parable of the vineyard. And, Ms. Levine, probably anybody this side of Peter Singer would be more concerned about the death of their son than that of slaves.
She could do better, going beyond these actual passages, to counter White-privileged modern White evangelical Christians who embrace the idea of being God’s slave with no idea of what slavery actually entails. (Incorrect interpretations of the Parable of the Talents confirm what most these people think.) That said, noting clearly that the master, per the parable, is a conniver, Levine does NOT use that to fully overthrow most Christian analogies. And, other than talking about misinterpretations, she doesn't really offer up a correct interpretation, or what she thinks is one. (I'd grokked sections of her "Short Stories by Jesus" as extracted for magazine or other reading years ago, so the problem I mention isn't new and I know that.)
Ethnicity et al:
Claim that Jews didn’t evangelize are overblown. We know that 150 years earlier, Hasmoneans evangelized at the point of a sword. And, elsewhere, like in Muslim-Christian borderlands in places like Spain centuries later, at a minimum, Jews didn’t dissuade converts. Plus, the “four abstentions” in Acts would indicate that there was some Jewish evangelism. And, Paul was a Pharaisee, was he not? Levine later “softens” by admitting that a “hey neighbor,” at least, led godfearers to synagogues.
Injecting queer sexuality into the Legion pericope? Laughable. I mean, at a point like this, we're giving anti-"woke" folks free bullets.
She does get credit for noting that Gerasa, in Mark, is likely the correct town, contra Matthew, and that Mark may have been punning. If so, maybe Moss isn't totally wrong on claiming Mark was deliberately writing "social confusion" in his mixed-up geography a chapter or two later. I am still not ready to go too far down that road.
That also said, credit where credit is due elsewhere. The section about John 4, Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well at Sychar, was well handled in general.
Health care chapter:
Didn’t do much for me in general. Even more than some previous chapters, much of it was about “what most Christians, including many academics, get wrong about Jews.”
On the Jairus pericope, the note that “archisynagogos” can also appear in feminine declension is irrelevant to the story at hand. (And, for anti-"woke" people who notice that? More free bullets." Page 2 of her Goodreads writings will indicate that, with anything she stuffs under the umbrella of feminism, this is par for her course.
On Mark 1? Any good modern non-fundagelical commentary will tell you that the "healing" of the "leper" is about ritual purity, not moral. And, with that said, while not a challenge to "all Judaism," it IS best seen as a challenge to the temple cultus.
Family matters chapter:
Contra the first page of the chapter, there is no such thing as “gender reassignment surgery” as sex is not gender. With me expecting that to set the tone for the chapter as a whole, we’re pretty much guaranteed two-star territory. Tis true that ancient Hebrew, in part borrowing from Greek and Hebrew, had words for people who were intersex or similar, as well as people with fluid gender representation. But, gender wasn't sex back then, and on sex, we know some of the issues of human reproduction and sexual development which they didn't know back then.
Second: How do we know that Jesus was only metaphorically in favor of eunuchs, rather than Origin, at least allegedly, thinking he was literally in favor? Two paragraphs later, Levine herself talks about Jesus talking about it in the literal sense, in fact. Then later, it's back to metaphorical angles.
On Antipas executing John the Baptizer, is it really more plausible to follow Josephus and think this was a pre-emptive strike against John’s movement, rather than thinking John had angered him? This also presumes that John, even more than Jesus, at a minimum was perceived as a Zealot-like figure and maybe actually was one.
Also, interestingly, on modern Judaism and a husband’s refusal to grant the bill of divorce so as to block a Jewish-ceremony remarriage (Is this for Orthodox only, or all Jews? Levine doesn’t say) she overlooks the partial parallel of Catholic annulment.
Biblical criticism in this chapter? On most theories of development of the Torah, and not limited to a full documentary hypothesis, Deuteronomy was written before Leviticus and therefore, contra Levine, cannot “update” it. And by this point, I am "wondering" about her as a biblical critic in general.
Politics chapter:
On Romans 13, though it’s fun to argue it’s universal and absolutist to "submit to governing authorities," it probably isn’t. That said, it’s highly doubtful that it’s referring to synagogue rulers. Rather, I think the interpretation that it’s time and location specific, and referring to Jews in Rome recently returned from Claudius’ expulsion, has much to commend it. (I saw that on Wiki's page for Romans 13, which should again shut up people who unduly diss Wiki.)
Finally, let’s look at the title: “Jesus for Everyone.”
To do that, we have to ask “Who was Jesus,” and set aside the fundagelicals, C.S. Lewis, etc.
We have:
1. Apocalyptic prophet
2. Jewish faith healer
3. Zealot-type revolutionary
4. Jewish Cynic.
On No. 4? I’m not aware of any A-list scholar besides Burton Mack who still plumps for that. Crossan moved away again. Don’t know of any top-level younger scholars who have picked that up. That said, it’s very much detached from No. 3. Maybe not so much from 1 or 2.
Of 1-3, they’re not mutually exclusive. To pick up on “bios” type theories of Jesus, Apollonius was arguably both 1 and 2, to some degree, in the pagan world. To some degree.
But, Jesus could have been following on John the Baptizer’s lead (little mentioned here) proclaiming the immanent kingdom, while the healings were part of the “exousia” with which he taught.
That said, 1 and 3, or 2 and 3, or all three, aren’t mutually exclusive. Maybe Jesus eventually felt called to, if you will, personally immanentize the eschaton? Zealot-type or zealot-like, perhaps not an open revolutionary against either Rome on the one hand or the Temple cultus on the other, but partially? As I’ve pondered before, behind Luke’s increasing hand-waving late in Acts, maybe Paul actually did bring a goy in the temple and for similar reasons, as I have discussed, also linked in the Moss review.
Anyway, does an actual secularist NEED Jesus for them, as I infer the title implies, and as the subtitle “Why He Should Matter More to Everyone” goes beyond implying? Not so much, contra Levine’s attempts to try to make him speak about health, mental health and other things.
And with that, the title, and the presumptuousness, guarantees two stars. It gets the "meh" tag, but not the "disappointing," because I wasn't expecting as much as with Moss. But, in broad ways, they have some similarities, and I'll pass on reading Levine again, just like Moss.
On her horn-blowing? Big deal that she's written a semi-critical commentary on Luke with an evangelical like Ben Witherington. This fits an evangelical "Jewish ingathering" perspective.
And to deliberately riff on something at the time of the Jesus movement? Riffing on "godfearer" goys who hung around synagogues, I think Levine is a "Jesus-fearer" Jew.
Finally, I've been inspired to look at Jesus the purveyor of wisdom sayings. I'll take a crack at some of his more famous words from the Sermon on the Mount in weeks and months ahead.
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