Who is My Neighbour: Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Formation (Keynote Address)

Authors

  • Amy-Jill Levine Hartford International University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.26443/jcreor.v4i2.84

Keywords:

Good Samaritan, Interfaith dialogue, neighbours, strangers

Abstract

“Who is my neighbour?” is a good question for both the Bible and today, but it is a complicated one. In this paper, I will focus on unpacking the idea of “love of neighbour,” first in its Levitical context, then in certain New Testament passages, and finally in contrast to its relationship with the concept of “stranger.” The term “neighbour” (רֵעַ) has multiple meanings in a Hebrew Bible context, and similarly, there are distinct meanings of “neighbour” within the New Testament – specifically between the gospels and the Pauline letters. I argue that the common understanding of the “Good Samaritan” passage, that Jesus promotes accepting everyone as neighbour, is incorrect; instead, I suggest that the literature demonstrates how a non-neighbour reveals how real neighbours should behave. The scope of the article is to demonstrate how discussions about “neighbour” and “stranger” can be used to segue into questions to dialogue between Christians and Jews.

Author Biography

Amy-Jill Levine, Hartford International University

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine is the Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace.

Professor Levine has been awarded grants from the Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American Council of Learned Societies. In addition to receiving three audiences with Pope Francis, in Spring 2019 she was the first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute. In 2021, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has held office in the Society of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Biblical Association, and the Association for Jewish Studies. She served as Alexander Robertson Fellow (University of Glasgow), the Catholic Biblical Association Scholar to the Philippines, and is a member of the Woolf Institute, Centre for Jewish-Christian Relations, at Cambridge University, UK. She has given close to 1000 lectures on the Bible, Christian-Jewish relations, and Religion, Gender, and Sexuality across the globe.

Her books include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus; Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi;  The Meaning of the Bible: What the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us (with Douglas Knight); The New Testament, Methods and Meanings (with Warren Carter); and The Gospel of Luke (with Ben Witherington III; the first full-length biblical commentary co-authored by a Jew and an Evangelical). Her most recent books include The Bible With and Without Jesus, co-authored with Marc Z. Brettler, and The Pharisees (co-edited with Joseph Sievers), to which Pope Francis contributed an essay.

References

Akiyama, Kengo. “Reproof in CD 9:2–8 and 1QS 5:24–6:1: A Note on a Curious Omission.” Dead Sea Discoveries 24 (2017): 301–306.

Akiyama, Kengo. The Love of Neighbor in Ancient Judaism: The Reception of Leviticus 19:18 in the Hebrew Bible, The Septuagint, the Book of Jubilees, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the New Testament. Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 105. Leiden: Brill, 2018.

Basser, Herbert W. “The Neighbor You Love and the Decalogue: Speculations on Some Textual Evidence for Early Jewish Polemics.” In Studies in Exegesis: Christian Critiques of Jewish Law and Rabbinic Responses 70-300 C.E., 51–106. Leiden: Brill, 2000.

Basser, Herbert W. “Rabbinic Legal Argument.” In The Historical Jesus in Context, edited by Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison, Jr., and John Dominic Crossan, 285–295. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.

Crown, Alan D. “Redating the Schism Between the Judaeans and the Samaritans.” Jewish Quarterly Review 82, no. 1/2 (1991): 17–50.

Fagenblat, Michael. “The Concept of Neighbor in Jewish and Christian Ethics.” In The Jewish Annotated New Testament. Edited by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Z. Brettler, 2d edition, 645–650. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Fredriksen, Paula. “‘Circumcision is Nothing’: A Non-Reformation Reading of Paul’s Letters.” In Protestant Bible Scholarship: Antisemitism, Philosemitism and Anti-Judaism, edited by Arjen F. Bakker, René Bloch, Yael Fisch, Paula Fredriksen, and Hindy Najman, 79–105. Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 200. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2022.

Goldstone, Matthew. “Rebuke, Lending, and Love: An Early Exegetical Tradition on Leviticus 19:17–18.” Journal of Biblical Literature 136, no. 2 (2017): 307–321.

International Group of Orthodox Rabbis. “To Do the Will of Our Father in Heaven: Toward a Partnership between Jews and Christians.” Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations, December 3, 2015. https://www.ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/documents-and-statements/jewish/orthodox-2015dec4.

Isaac, Jules. The Teaching of Contempt: The Christian Roots of Anti-Semitism. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1964.

Kister, Menahem. “The Golden Rule and Ancient Jewish Biblical Exegesis: The Pluriformity of a Tradition.” Journal of Biblical Literature 141, no. 4 (2022): 717–735.

Levine, Amy-Jill. The Social and Ethnic Dimensions of Matthean Salvation History: Go Nowhere Among the Gentiles (Matthew 10:5b). Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1988.

Levine, Amy-Jill. Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi. New York:

HarperOne, 2014.

National Jewish Scholars Project. “Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity.” Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations, September 10, 2000. https://ccjr.us/dialogika-resources/documents-and-statements/jewish/dabru-emet.

Downloads

Published

2023-08-31

How to Cite

Levine, Amy-Jill. 2023. “Who Is My Neighbour: Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Formation (Keynote Address)”. Journal of the Council for Research on Religion 4 (2). Montreal, QC, Canada:1-13. https://doi.org/10.26443/jcreor.v4i2.84.

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 2 (2023): Who is My Neighbour? Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Education in the Global Village

Section

Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Formation: Day One, Panel One

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Amy-Jill Levine

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.