The Catholic Biblical Association (CBA)has elected Dr. Amy-Jill Levine as its new president, a historic move given that she is Jewish and has publicly revealed that she is not a literalist and “does not read the gospels as recording exactly what happened.”
Levine, a former professor in New Testament and Jewish studies at Vanderbilt University, is considered by some to be one of the world’s leading biblical scholars and has been a CBA member for dercades.
Founded in 1936, the Catholic Biblical Association of America‘s mission is to “promote, within a context of faith, scholarly study of Scripture and related fields” through meetings of the association, publications, and support for those engaged in such studies, most notably through the peer-reviewed academic journal Catholic Biblical Quarterly, as well as Old Testament Abstracts and the CBQ Monograph Series. According to NCR:
CBA’s constitution states that its work conforms to the teachings of the magisterium. Although the group is not operated by the Catholic Church, it offers consultation to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), including on translations of the Bible and faith formation and catechesis.”
Following blowback to her appointment, including some regarding her non-Christian status (Past President’s have typically and historically been Roman Catholic) the CBA released a statement of support, noting:
She was not elected because she is Jewish, but because she is an exceptional scholar and has played a very important role in Catholic-Jewish dialogue.
She is the first Jewish scholar to teach New Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome (2019). She had three audiences with Pope Francis.
Speaking of her role as an “exceptional scholar,” in 2022, in Roman Catholic priest James Martin’s Outreach magazine, she offered an apologetic for why we need to rethink the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality, writing in part:
If it is not good for human being to be alone, why would we condemn queer people to lives of singleness and celibacy?…There are other verses that have been, and can be, read as affirming to those outside of heterosexual monogamous relations, as there are verses that suggest that the G-d of the Bible transcends any gender roles we might construct.
…Anything that prevents such love needs to be questioned, if not eliminated. Not all passages are of equal import, and not all actions lead to wholeness.To rely only on the Bible, or on particular interpretations of particular verses, and to dismiss what we know from both science and from personal testimony is both harmful and theologically aberrant. Knowledge does not stop with the last verse of John’s Apocalypse.
She also received a statement of support Bishop Joseph C. Bambera, in his role as Chair of the Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)*
What a dumpster fire.
A previous version of this suggested that her appointment was endorsed by the org as a whole, rather than just one individual speaking in his role as Committee chair. Corrected for clarity.
