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First Seelisberg Prize

26/6/2022

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Today, 26th June, Professor Amy-Jill Levine will be awarded the first ever Seelisberg Prize set up by the International Council of Christians and Jews and the Centre for Intercultural Theology and the Study of Religion at the University of Salzburg. It is to be given annually to “a person who has contributed to Jewish-Christian understanding through their academic excellence and the outstanding communication of their research and insights to a wide audience.” The establishment of the prize marks the 75th anniversary of a conference that took place in the small Swiss village of Seelisberg in 1947 to consider the roots of an antisemitism that had led to the Holocaust but still survived in Europe. The conference faced the 1900 years of Christian antisemitism, and its famous 10 points laid the foundation for future Christian – Jewish relations and saw the beginning of the International Council of Christians and Jews.

The ten points of Seelisberg were in fact a distillation of eighteen points put forward by the Jewish historian Jules Isaac whose conversation with Pope John XXIII fifteen years or so led eventually to the Vatican II document ‘Nostra Aetate’ which while focussed on the church’s relations with non- Christians had begun its life as a statement on the Church’s relationship with the Jews. The ten statements stress that it is the same God that speaks in the Old and New Testaments; that Jesus, his mother and the first disciples as well as the first martyrs and members of the Church were all Jews; that the fundamental command to love God and neighbour, found in the Old Testament and confirmed by Jesus, is binding on all Christians and Jews;  that Jews are not responsible for the death of Jesus and the Passion of Jesus should not be presented as though they were; that language which  uses the word Jews in an exclusive sense of the enemies of Jesus or any suggestion that the Jewish people are reprobate or accursed should be avoided. These are elements that eventually did find their way in to Nostra Aetate and further catholic teaching such as the document based on Rom. 11: 28 – 30:  They are beloved for the fathers' sake. For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance.

Professor Amy-Jill Levine is a worthy recipient of the prize. She is Jewish and a recognised scholar of the Christian New Testament. Her CV is impressive. She is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies, and Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School, Graduate Department of Religion, and Department of Jewish Studies; she is also Affiliated Professor, Woolf Institute, Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations in Cambridge UK. In 2019 she was the first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute. Her list of publications is also impressive including the co-editorship of The Jewish Annotated New Testament, the editorship of the 13-volume Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings. She is also the New Testament editor of the new Oxford Biblical Commentary Series and sits on the editorial board of the Encyclopaedia of Christian-Jewish Relations.

 I have read some of her books and been privileged to hear her speak on several occasions, all made possible because of zoom. I have learned such a lot about the Jewishness of Jesus, how the Gospels could be seen as a kind of midrash, that is a reflection in the light of the early disciples’ experience of Jesus on traditional Jewish teaching and stories.  I have learned that Jesus lived as a faithful Jew. He kept the law, he ate kosher food, he was circumcised like all Jewish boys, he went to the Temple in Jerusalem, he attended the synagogue, he read the Jewish scriptures and would have prayed and even sung the psalms. He would have prayed three times a day wearing phylacteries, he would have worn fringes on his outer cloak. He kept the Sabbath. And like other Jews of his time, he would have debated what it meant to be a good Jew. In fact, if Jesus set out any guidance it was how to be a good Jew, rather than a good Christian.

Professor Levi loves the New Testament and is fascinated by it. She also loves Jesus. I have heard her say this often while admitting that she doesn’t have faith in him in the way Christians do. For Professor Levine Jesus is a faithful Jew and nothing in the New Testament would contradict this. And she wants both Christians and Jews to recognise it. Speaking of Prof. Levine’s nomination for the prize Prof. Gregor Maria Hoff of the University of Salzburg said, “Her astonishing productivity stems from her lifelong commitment to bringing the fruits of her scholarship to the general public and to promoting positive interactions between Jews and Christians.”
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As she receives the first Seelisberg prize at a ceremony in Frankfurt today Prof. Levine will deliver an address entitled, “Learning about Jews by Reading the New Testament,” reflecting her conviction that in studying the New Testament she enriched her own Jewish identity. I look forward to reading it.

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Law and Spirit

7/6/2022

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Seven weeks ago, the Jewish and Christian faiths celebrated Passover and Easter and so fifty days later they have celebrated the festivals of Shavuot and Pentecost.  Originally a harvest festival, Shavuot focuses on the Torah and remembers the giving of the Law to Moses on Mt Sinai. Religious Jews will spend the night studying Torah, the synagogue will be decorated with flowers and there might even be a marriage canopy built around the Bimah as a symbol of the marriage between God and the People that took place when they accepted to live in a covenantal relationship with God. For Jews the Torah and the Torah Scrolls are the symbol of God’s presence among them, the most sacred object of their faith and to live according to the Torah is to keep alive God’s presence among them.

The Christian festival of Pentecost also celebrates God’s presence among His people. This time the gift is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, that same Spirit which animated Jesus. It was the gift given to the disciples of Jesus after his death and resurrection. It gave them the courage to continue his mission and live according to his way.  It turned fearful men and women into courageous witnesses to the life and message of Jesus. The Holy Spirit was the continuing presence of Jesus in his community, not in a physical way but in a spiritual way. And to live according to the Spirit is to keep alive God’s presence and influence in the world today – in a sense to do for Christianity what the Torah does for Judaism. 

The two festivals are connected but it’s possible to understand the difference as one faith being focussed on the Law with the other on Spirit, giving rise to the anti-Jewish tropes which suggest that Judaism is legalistic as is the God of the Old Testament while the God of the New Testament is loving and merciful. This is to misunderstand the Old Testament which has some of the most beautiful and moving passages on the love of God in the whole of the Christian bible. It is also to misunderstand the Law which for the Jews is more like a contract within the context of a covenantal relationship in which both sides bind themselves to one another to live together in a loving relationship. 
 
I was able to witness just how much the physical representation of the Law in the Torah Scrolls is a symbol of the loving and joyful presence of God amongst his people a few years ago. I so happened to be in the town of St Andrews and the Scrolls of the Law were being transferred from a synagogue in Dundee to a specially designed Ark or resting place in the university chaplaincy. The joy and delight with which the Scrolls were received, passed from one to the other in an atmosphere of song and dance showed how significant the law is to the Jewish community. Within the Orthodox community the Scrolls are only held and passed on by the men of the community though in the Reform community both men and women can handle them. Because it was a mixed congregation, I was handed the Scrolls and able to embrace and dance with them. It was a sacred moment for me, and I felt very privileged to share these moments of intimacy. The sacredness of the moment was brought home to me when a woman from the Orthodox community told me that it was like sacrilege for her to touch and carry the Scrolls. She wouldn’t presume to do so because they were so  sacred. I wonder if she was shocked that I had had the temerity to carry them and whether in any way that seemed to devalue them.
 
This awe and wonder inspired by the Torah is something we Christians must learn and appreciate. Only then will they have an insight into the heart and beauty of Judaism. But many Christians see Judaism as narrowly legalistic. This is to forget that Jesus lived by the Law, never suggested doing away with. Rather he saw himself as fulfilling it. It is to forget that the gift of the Spirit was given to Jesus’ followers as they gathered to celebrate Shavuot.  In the recent newsletter of the Christians and Jews Prof. John Barton, emeritus professor at Oxford University is quoted:
 
'The 'law' that some Christians since Paul have opposed is not the Torah as Jews affirm it. It is a Christian construct, found in over-scrupulous and legalistic branches of Christianity that need the liberation that Paul proclaimed. Christians projected this legalism on to Judaism, but there are many varieties of Christianity that affirm, with the Psalmist, that 'your law is a lantern for my feet and a light upon my path'. Even Paul did not preach 'freedom from the law', if 'law' is understood like this, as a joyful vocation rather than as a set of forbidding demands.'
 
Understanding Pentecost from the perspective of Shavuot allows Christians to appreciate the significance of Law for their Jewish brothers and sisters. It can also help them deepen their understanding of the gift of the Holy Spirit  and rejoice in the presence of God in both Law and Spirit, something that surely unites  rather than divides us. 


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    I am  a Catholic nun, involved in interfaith relations for many decades.  For me this has been an exciting and sacred journey which I would like to share with others.

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