March 23, 2012: Jewish Jesus
Jesus, says New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine, “teaches like a Jew. He talks in parables…and Jesus is just a fabulous Jewish storyteller.”

Jesus, says New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine, “teaches like a Jew. He talks in parables…and Jesus is just a fabulous Jewish storyteller.”
We all choose how to read religious texts, says this Vanderbilt Divinity School New Testament and Jewish studies professor who proposes that “what we can do is read graciously in the presence of our neighbor.”
"The religion of Jesus was Judaism, not Christianity...Jesus was not coming to innovate and start a new religion. He was coming to reinforce the Torah."
"It's crucial for pastors, Christian educators, professors, seminary leaders to study the Jewish roots of Christian faith."
“I feel the voice of God echoing from the mountains all over this place,” says a Syrian Christian pilgrim visiting Deir Mar Musa, an ancient desert monastery in Syria reestablished by Jesuit priest Paolo Dall’Oglio.
The Claremont School of Theology, the Islamic Center of Southern California, and the Academy for Jewish Religion California are partners in a new effort to educate leaders for churches, synagogues, and mosques in shared classes.
"There are a lot of people in this country who are into dialogue, education, getting to know one another, trying to live together," says Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Jerusalem.
“Have we healed? Yes, healed with a hole. It’s never a complete healing, but at least there a willingness to write a new chapter of life,” says Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, a New York Fire Department chaplain.
“You’re not tolerant,” says this Christian philosopher, “if you're indifferent. You're tolerant if you disapprove of the other person's religion but put up with it nonetheless."
“We think of 9/11 every day,” says Rabbi Joseph Potasnik of Congregation Mount Sinai in Brooklyn Heights. “All you do when it comes to the anniversary, you try to look back and say have I made a difference?”

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