"Remove St. John' Passion from Lectionary" - Jewish Woman New President of Catholic Biblical Association
She is the first Jewish president in the CBA’s history.
Founded in 1936, the CBA is an independent association with longstanding institutional ties to the U.S. bishops. Its constitution says it pursues biblical scholarship “in conformity with the teaching of the magisterium of the Catholic Church.”
Levine is a New Testament scholar and is a longtime member of the CBA. In spring 2019, she became the first Jewish scholar to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute. She has also had three audiences with Pope Francis.
In a sermon at Washington National Cathedral on March 7, 2021, Levine said: “I’m a Jew. I don’t worship Jesus as Lord and Savior.”
"Lectionary Revision Is Only A Start"
In an interview published by The Christian Century in June 2023, Levine describes parts of the Gospel of John as capable of promoting “Jew-hatred”, “Already the lectionary omits many of the more problematic verses, such as John 8:44, where Jesus says to the Jews, ‘You are from your father the devil.’”
Concerning Good Friday, she said: “In the Christian tradition, not every biblical text is or needs to be proclaimed to the congregation. In the case of Good Friday, the best solution would be to change the lectionary.”
The Church should reconsider to read the whole Passion of John, suggests using the Seven Last Words drawn from all four Gospels.
She admits that “lectionary revision is only a start.”
Remove Anything Against Homosexuality
In an essay published by Outreach on September 12, 2022, entitled “How to read the Bible’s ‘clobber passages’ on homosexuality,” Levine wrote: “Anything that prevents such love needs to be questioned, if not eliminated. Not all passages are of equal import.”
She also wrote: “Because we do not live in the early Iron Age or in the first-century Roman empire, we must judge whether what was appropriate then is appropriate now.”
In the same 2022 essay, Levine wrote concerning homosexuals: “For people who have found their own gender or sexual identity, and who know what is true to them and for them, that truth sets them free from the constraints some church people would put on them.”
She also rejects “love the sinner but hate the sin” as unhelpful in this context.
As CBA president, Levine has said that she would like to provide the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops with guidelines on biblical interpretation for Catholic-school textbooks and catechesis and, if possible, recommendations for a revised lectionary.
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