Public Books Circle with UTK Professors Tina Shepardson and Erin Darby

Discussion of The Bible With and Without Jesus, by Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler

Why do Jews and Christians read many of the same Biblical texts – including passages from the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Psalms – differently? Esteemed Bible scholars Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Z. Brettler take readers on a guided tour of the most popular Hebrew Bible passages quoted in the New Testament to show what the texts meant in their original contexts and then how Jews and Christians, over time, understood those same texts. Comparing various interpretations – historical, literary, and theological – of each ancient text, Levine and Brettler offer deeper understandings of the original narratives and their many afterlives and the Bible’s ongoing significance.