Levine, Amy-jill. The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus. HarperOne, 2006.

To me, the main value of this book is seeing the perspective of someone who is committed to Judaism but also  happens to be a New Testament scholar.  She begins by drawing an analogy—a tad strained, she admits—that, I believe, shapes the way she writes the book: “the Torah functions for the synagogue as Jesus does for the church: it is the ‘word’ of the divine present in the congregation” (Levine 2006: 17). Therefore, looking carefully at the worldview of each community is important if one is to understand the relationship between the two.  She has many things to say about the interaction between Jews and Christians throughout history and the different ways that each misunderstands the New Testament. Although some will quibble about Levine’s exegesis of some passages, she does challenge Christians to take a closer look at those passages more critically, and I personally found her discussion of the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax-collector to be illuminating. All in all, it is a fascinating read even when there are points of disagreement.

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The rabbinic word for parable(s) is mashal/meshalim, and, to mark a literary item as a narrative mashal, the authors chose the following elements:

Explicit label. Often the introductory formulas to the items explicitly label them as meshalim. Some typical introductions are: “A parable”; “A parable: It is like unto . . .”; and “They parable a parable. Unto what is the matter like? It is like unto. . . .”

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