Jewish scholar first elected as president of Catholic Biblical Association

Jewish professor Amy-Jill Levine. Photo: UM News

Jewish professor Amy-Jill Levine has become the first person in history to lead the Catholic Biblical Association (CBA) of the USA. The New Testament scholar will serve as president of the organization for 2026–2027, reports the Life Site News.

The CBA leadership particularly emphasized Levine's authority in Rome. In 2019, she became the first Jewish scholar to teach the New Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. The Catholic Biblical Association emphasized that Jewish professor Amy-Jill Levine’s "standing with Rome is best recognized by the fact that she had three audiences with Pope Francis."

In her view, many clergy members "continue to rely on commentaries acquired during their seminary education decades ago rather than newer research on the Jewish contexts of Jesus, the Pharisees and the Gospels."

"I would like to get this better material into the hands of people who are speaking to people in the pews, into the hands of people in parochial schools who are teaching biblical studies to teenagers or to little kids, and mainstream it," Amy-Jill Levine told journalists. “It hasn’t been done.”

Levine described herself as “a guest in this house.” Her approach to Jewish-Christian scholarship is not to challenge Catholic doctrines, she said, but to examine the historical and human setting in which Christianity emerged. She believes that historical analysis deepens Catholic theology through a serious engagement with the human nature of Christ.

Levine has had a distinguished career in the academy and in Jewish-Christian relations. She is the author or co-author of more than 20 books, including The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (2006), the co-author with Marc Brettler of The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (2020) which was widely acclaimed, and co-editor with Brettler of The Jewish Annotated New Testament (2011 and 2017). Levine is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds six honorary doctoral degrees.

As earlier reported, Argentina's president, who converted to Judaism, received Communion at the Vatican.

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