Dismantling anti-Jewish readings of the Passion story

"We might think of Jesus' triumphal entry as a victory parade, when the enemies have been conquered, when the liberator has entered. . . . But instead of a victory of dead bodies and booty, what we have instead is the victory of the cross and then the resurrection." It’s one thing to see words like this on the page as you’re reading the chapter assigned for this week’s session of your Lenten book group. It’s another thing altogether to hear them directly from the mouth of Amy-Jill Levine, who radiates passionate, gentle authority as she stands in the archway next to a chapel and looks straight into the camera.

Levine’s new Lenten study book is good. I’d even say it’s pretty great. Not because it achieves the perfect balance in speaking both to beginners and to seasoned readers of scripture (it doesn’t), and not because it covers every aspect of the gospels’ versions of the Passion that’s worth covering (what six-session study guide meant for congregational use could?). But it's an engaging, solidly-written close reading of the Passion narratives that situates Jesus within his Jewish context while deftly dismantling anti-Judaic presumptions, and that alone makes it the kind of book I wish all Christians would read.

Levine, a Jewish professor of New Testament at Vanderbilt Divinity School, regards the Passion narratives as powerful literature that convey the beauty and wonder of the gospel. “Even though I am not a Christian,” she writes, “I have seen it work, over and over again, in my Christian friends, students, and churches worldwide.”