[Magdalen] Seeing the Gospels through a Jewish lens: An interview with Amy-Jill Levine - On Faith & Culture

[Ginga Wilder]

Good Shepherd has frequently made use of Living the Questions, progressive
Christian video series.  Right now, we are in the final weeks of 'Saving
Jesus Redux.'  Amy-Jill Levine is one of the major contributors to these
programs.  Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Brian McLaren, Helen Prejean,
among others from several denominations, also contribute.  I have huge
respect and appreciation for Amy-Jill Levine.

Ginga

On Fri, May 8, 2015 at 2:12 PM, <sally.davies at gmail.com> wrote:

> Interesting, I would love to hear more about her readings of the Parables.
> Her students are lucky!
>
> As to Max, he may make the occasional logical, well founded point but I've
> looked at a few other articles on that same blog, and Max appears to be a
> classic Internet Troll. He is not there to enhance debate or even play
> devil's advocate, but to shout down the conversation and act out in abusive
> ways - even when other commenters really do try to present their evidence
> etc.
>
> The sad and somewhat puzzling thing is that trolls like Max almost always
> succeed in preventing constructive debate, because there are always at
> least one or two people who do attempt to engage them and reason with them,
> or (worse) to retaliate in like manner.
>
> And the format of most "comments" sections means that once you've ploughed
> through a string of such messages, you're more likely to hit the X than to
> persist in the hope of finding something more substantial, further down.
>
> I've wasted more time than I should have - in years gone by - on political
> blogs where there were "salaried" trolls who were paid to do the job! I'm
> not saying Max is that sort but he's talented enough to make money if he
> had a sponsor!
>
> Sally D
>
>
> On Fri, 08 May 2015 at 6:58 AM James Oppenheimer-Crawford <
> oppenheimerjw at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > The christians really did no service to their cause.  Instead of reading
> > the sense of what Max said, they focused on a triviality of whether you
> > could call Paul a zealot or not, which was apart from the point being
> made.
> >  but it worked well. These folks kept saying Max was ignorant but never
> did
> > any of them actually present a basis for their allegation, and they
> > presented no sources.
> >
> > Max was the straight-shooter, actually, but I suspect the others are so
> > inoculated with the assumption of christian privilege that they felt no
> > need to show why they said what they did.  The view of Paul is much like
> > the current viewing of David as more a thug than a monarch. (Not quite
> sure
> > how the humanity of Paul relates to Christianity) I think we can cut him
> > some slack, since a lot of good christians "knew" (and many still "know")
> > that Paul hated women, when all one had to do was read what the man wrote
> > to refute that.
> >
> > I thought it was an unfortunate diversion from the discussion of how to
> > view Jesus through competent Jewish eyes. I've heard the good professor
> > speak, and she is very articulate and learned.  That is, she knows the
> > needed facts, has them at her fingertips, and she also is able to make
> her
> > position quite clear with minimum smoke and mirrors.
> >
> > While she does speak in public, she will not generally speak to laity, I
> am
> > told. She has made some tapes for The Great Courses, however.
> >
> > James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
> > *"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
> > except in memory. LLAP**"  -- *Leonard Nimoy
> >
> > On Thu, May 7, 2015 at 10:12 PM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > I went on down into the comments, and OMG.....that Atheist Max gives
> me a
> > > headache! He is out of his everlovin' mind. Claims, like so many of his
> > > ilk, that reading the scriptures leads him to the "truth", but he's got
> > > more twists and turns than a road in the Smokies. Oy vey......
> > >
> > > On Thursday, May 7, 2015, Lynn Ronkainen <houstonklr at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I commend this article to your attention... important information,
> > wish I
> > > > could still share these kind of articles with an EFM group.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2015/01/02/seeing-gospels-jewish-lens-interview-amy-jill-levine/
> > > >
> > > > Lynn
> > > >
> > >
> >
>