Jesus, Paul and the New Testament
Jesus, Paul and the New Testament make far more sense read where they were written: inside first-century Judaism, addressed to real communities, in kinds of writing with rules of their own. Three Dig In conversations show what changes when you read that way.
- In her words
“We’re listening in on somebody else’s telephone conversation. We’re reading somebody else’s email.”
Dr. Beverly Gaventa, on Paul’s letters - In her words
“What am I missing if I don’t see the whole vista?”
Dr. Jeannine Brown, on reading the Gospels whole - Her argument
Jesus intensified Torah rather than abolishing it, and his parables were built to provoke, not to comfort.
Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, on the Jewish Jesus
Turn the
lens.
Each guest hands you one tool: who the text was written to, what Jewish world it came from, and what kind of writing it is. Switch lenses to see what each scholar argues and a passage to test it on.
Paul was writing to Rome, not to you
Dr. Beverly Gaventa has studied Paul for more than 40 years, taught at Princeton Theological Seminary for over two decades and served as president of the Society of Biblical Literature. Her first move is simple: Paul’s letters went to groups. They were real letters, carried to real assemblies of believers working through first-century problems. Modern readers, in her view, are overhearing a conversation meant for others. The letters still speak to us. The first question is what Paul was saying to them.
Read that way, Romans gets bigger, not smaller. Gaventa traces salvation in layers: individuals, then Jew and Gentile together (Romans 1:16), then the whole creation groaning to be set free (Romans 8). She also argues that Phoebe, the deacon of the church at Cenchreae whom Paul commends in Romans 16, carried the letter to Rome and may have been the one who read it aloud, which made her its first interpreter.
Romans as a personal salvation manual: a few verses, a prayer, done.
Romans as a letter read aloud to house churches in Rome, about God reclaiming Jew, Gentile and all creation.
Paul hands the letter to Phoebe and asks Rome to receive her.
Jesus argued inside Judaism, not against it
Dr. Amy-Jill Levine is Jewish, belongs to an Orthodox synagogue and does not believe Jesus is the Messiah. She also became the first Jewish scholar to teach New Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. She has spent her career putting Jesus back into the Second Temple Judaism he was born into.
Her case is that Christian preaching often makes Judaism look bad so that Jesus can look good, and that the Pharisees have been turned into villains along the way. Levine’s Jesus intensifies Torah rather than abolishing it, which matches what he says in Matthew 5:17. His parables were built to provoke: in her reading they afflict the comfortable far more than they comfort the afflicted. She reads the Prodigal Son beside the lost sheep and the lost coin that come right before it in Luke 15, and points to an ending most sermons never reach.
Pharisees as hypocrites, the Law as the problem, Jesus as the alternative to Judaism.
A Jewish teacher debating fellow Jews about how to keep Torah, with parables meant to unsettle the people listening.
Three lost things in a row: a sheep, a coin, a son. Read all three before you decide what the third one means.
A Gospel is a story, so read the whole story
Dr. Jeannine Brown, Vice Chair of the NIV Bible Translation Committee, says the most common mistake she sees is reading the Gospels in fragments: a verse for a devotional, eight verses for a sermon. The Gospel writers built themes across whole books, and ancient biographies were arranged by theme, not only by timeline. The first Christians heard them that way. Around AD 156, Justin Martyr described Sunday gatherings where the Gospels were read “as long as there is time.”
Whole-book reading turns up connections that fragments hide. When Jesus tells Peter to forgive “seventy-seven times” in Matthew 18, he reuses the numbers of Lamech’s boast of revenge in Genesis 4 and turns a spiral of vengeance into a spiral of forgiveness. Matthew calls the disciples people of “little faith” five times, and Brown argues the pattern pushes readers to cling to Jesus, who stays faithful when his followers fail. Narrative reading even shaped translation: the NIV renders Matthew 8:7 as a question, “Shall I come and heal him?”
Peter asks how often to forgive, Jesus says a lot. Sermon over.
Jesus answers Lamech: the numbers of revenge in Genesis 4 become the numbers of mercy in Matthew 18.
Then read Genesis 4:23-24 and listen for the same two numbers.
Three scholars,
three lenses.
Each conversation runs about an hour. Press play right here, or open the episode page for the show notes and full transcript.
Why You’re Reading the Gospels Wrong
with Dr. Jeannine BrownVice Chair, NIV Bible Translation Committee. David Price Professor, Bethel Seminary.- The most common mistake in Gospel reading, after 25 years of training pastors
- Lamech’s seventy-seven in Genesis 4 and Jesus’ answer in Matthew 18
- Why the NIV turns Matthew 8:7 into a question
Paul Wasn’t Writing About You
with Dr. Beverly GaventaFormer president, Society of Biblical Literature. 2020 Burkitt Medal, British Academy.- Reading Paul “apocalyptically” without end-times charts
- Phoebe of Cenchreae, the first interpreter of Romans
- Worship as the thread that holds Romans together
The Misunderstood Jew: She Taught at the Vatican and Changed How We See Jesus
with Dr. Amy-Jill LevineRabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor, Hartford International University. University Professor Emerita, Vanderbilt.- Who the Pharisees really were
- Why Jesus intensified Torah instead of abolishing it
- The Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, read in their Jewish setting
Phoebe’s story keeps going in Women in the Bible, and the Jewish books of Jesus’ day are in Dead Sea Scrolls and the Lost Books.
Browse every episodeRead it again,
slower.
Seven passages where these lenses change what you see. Take one a day for a week.
- 01Matthew 5:17-20Jesus says he came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, not to abolish them. Read it as a claim made inside Judaism.
- 02Matthew 8:5-13The centurion’s servant. Compare the NIV’s question in verse 7 with the statement in most translations.
- 03Matthew 18:21-22Seventy-seven times. Keep Genesis 4:23-24 open beside it.
- 04Luke 15Read the sheep, the coin and the son as one chapter, the way Luke arranged them.
- 05Romans 1:16The gospel as God’s power to save, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
- 06Romans 8:18-23Creation groaning. Salvation in Romans reaches past the individual.
- 07Romans 16:1-2Phoebe, deacon of Cenchreae, the likely courier and first reader of the letter.
Asked and
answered.
Yes. Jesus was born to a Jewish mother, circumcised, taught in synagogues, kept the festivals and argued about Torah with other Jews. The Gospels place him entirely inside the Jewish world of first-century Galilee and Judea.
Dr. Amy-Jill Levine argues that a great deal of Christian preaching loses this, making Judaism look bad so that Jesus can look good. Put him back in his setting and his debates with the Pharisees read as arguments among people who shared the same scriptures.
It is the Judaism of the period between the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple, finished around 516 BC, and its destruction by Rome in AD 70. Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, synagogues, scribes and a large library of Jewish writings all belong to this world. Jesus and Paul both lived and taught within it.
The Pharisees were a Jewish movement devoted to applying Torah to everyday life, and they were influential with ordinary people. Dr. Levine argues that the familiar picture of them as hypocrites and legalists comes from centuries of Christian caricature. Jesus argues with them often in the Gospels, as teachers inside one tradition did.
Dr. Jeannine Brown points out that the Gospel writers built themes, character arcs and Old Testament echoes across entire books, and early Christians heard the Gospels read at length. Reading a fragment misses patterns like the disciples’ “little faith” in Matthew or the Genesis 4 echo in Matthew 18.
Most were written to communities: the churches in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Philippi and Thessalonica. Even Philemon is addressed to the church that met in his house. Dr. Beverly Gaventa says modern readers are listening in on someone else’s conversation, so the first task is hearing what Paul said to them.
In Dr. Gaventa’s usage it has nothing to do with end-times charts. The Greek word means a revelation, an uncovering. For Paul, she argues, the gospel reveals that God has intruded into a world held captive by Sin and Death, powers bigger than any person, to set it free in Jesus.
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