The Controversial Jew By Amy-Jill Levine

Amy-Jill Levine is a Methodist author who writes to us about “the enigmatic parables of a controversial Rabbi.” She is taking the parables of Jesus and giving them a new light to help with understanding them. If you enjoy an educational read from time to time that is easy to understand and gives you a feeling of knowing more than when you started I would recommend this book to you. One of the many reasons is that this book helps the reader to understand more of the original purpose of a parable, but also lets the reader know that parables can change meaning with every individual who reads it, so it is ok to not get the original interpretation right away. To start this book review we will look at some of Levine’s main points. As mentioned …show more content…
It is just like trying to understand a poem. You may read a poem and feel one thing but the author’s purpose may have been different, so in school they teach us how to interpret poems from the original stand point. That is just what Levine is trying to do here. She is giving us an understanding of what the original intent may have been during that time, which can be very helpful when you teach the Bible. While I agree with many aspects of this book there are still things I disagree with. One of the things that I do not agree with is that every interpretation should be looked at as a possibility. One of the reasons I do not agree with that is because there can and are interpretations that do not make since when understanding the original meaning and time frame that they are in. One of the examples of this would be Augustine’s understanding of the Good Samaritan. Augustine does an allegorical interpretation where he sees Jesus is the Samaritan and the man in the ditch as a sinner needing salvation . Part of the reason that this is wrong is because this allegorical understanding leaves out the point …show more content…
If her purpose was to just show the original intent then she would be fine but she also mentions different interpretations and points out that other translations are relevant. However, she never mentions many current translations of the parable. If she added this then here purpose of different interpretations matter, would have been stronger and would have had as much light as her purpose of giving the original Jewish interpretation. However, the second purpose is very strong and you can see her passion as she is writing about the original intent of parable that she really cares that others know and can understand the Jewish meaning of these parables. This book really helped me to understand that the parables original purpose is important to interpreting them today. This is important because a lot of times when people interpret scriptures people do not tend to look at the original setting, purpose, and context of what is going on before they say what they think it means. My opinions of parables have changed to the point that I will teach them more, but maybe instead of teaching them as a this is what they mean, having people explore what they think they mean so that they can learn something from the parable that they may have not gotten from me just telling them what that specific parable means. This is important because I am a youth director and finding new ways to