Amy-Jill Levine, M.A., Ph.D.

AJ Levine is Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, Hartford International University for Religion and Peace; University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies/Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies (Emerita), Vanderbilt. Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, awarded the Seelisberg Prize for Jewish-Christian Relations and the H. Walter Award for Interfaith Cooperation, the first Jew to teach New Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the president of the Catholic Biblical Association (2026-27), AJ studies Jesus, the Gospels, Jewish-Christian Relations, gender/sexuality in biblical interpretation, and the New Testament in historical context. Her publications include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus, Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi; Jesus for Everyone, Not Just Christians, six children’s books (with Sandy Sasso); The Gospel of Luke (with Ben Witherington III, the first biblical commentary by a Jew and an Evangelical); The Jewish Annotated New Testament (co-edited with Marc Brettler), The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (with Marc Brettler), The Pharisees (co-edited with Joseph Sievers), and thirteen edited volumes of the Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Literature. Her Beginner’s Guide series includes Sermon on the Mount, Light of the World, Entering the Passion of Jesus, The Difficult Words of Jesus, Witness at the Cross, Signs and Wonders, The Gospel of Mark, The Gospel of John, and A Child is Born, and Genesis. AJ, An unorthodox member of an Orthodox synagogue, works to biblical interpretations that oppress and exclude.