Welcome back to season five of Enter the Bible, a podcast in which we share "Everything You Wanted to Know about the Bible...but were afraid to ask."

In episode 12 of season 5, our hosts are joined by Amy-Jill Levine (“AJ”) who is the Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace; and University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies, and Professor of New Testament Studies, Emerita, at Vanderbilt.

Today our theologians will be answering the listener-submitted question, "Who Are the ‘Marginal’ and the ‘Outcast’ (Given How Popular these Terms Are in Sermons)?"

Watch the video version on YouTube at https://youtu.be/8B710r7h55I

Do you have Bible questions you would like answered? Go to our website at https://enterthebible.org/about to get started.

This episode of the Enter the Bible podcast was recorded on July 12, 2023, on Riverside.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast. I'm Kathryn Schifferdecker.

Katie Langston: And I'm Katie Langston.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: And today we have as our guest contributor and speaker, Professor Amy-Jill Levine, who is the Rabbi Stanley Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. She is also University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies emerita, Mary Jane Worthen Professor of Jewish Studies emerita and Professor of New Testament Studies Emerita at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. So and Amy- Jill, AJ, as she goes by, is also the author of many, many works, many books. One we'd like to highlight, particularly for this podcast episode, is a book called Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi. So a book on the parables of Jesus, published by Harper One. So thank you again for joining us. AJ We're so happy to have you here.

Amy-Jill Levine: I'm delighted to be with you.

Katie Langston: So the question that we have for you today sort of comes out of a lot of Christian teaching and preaching, certainly that I hear. And I'm imagining that that others would relate to it, which is sort of, you know, there seems to be an emphasis in a lot of sermons and things like that about the outcast and the marginalized and the duty to, you know, to how how we ought to relate to such folks. And the question is, like, who are they in the scripture, in the New Testament? Who are the the so-called "marginalized" and "outcast" after all? So.

Amy-Jill Levine: Yes, it's a great question because people drop those.

Katie Langston: They do! Everybody must know when we say marginalized and outcast, but like.

Amy-Jill Levine: Right. And then and then people in the church feel so much better because, like, we don't marginalize, we don't cast people out, that we're totally inclusive of everyone. Right. So what what terms like marginal and outcasts do is they set up a false image of what Jesus' first century Jewish context is by creating people who get labeled marginal and outcast, and then Jesus becomes the one who welcomes them,

Katie Langston: Right, yes.

Amy-Jill Levine: So it's bad. Yes, it's bad. And it doesn't actually do anything other than make people congregation feel complacent or think, oh, well, thank God we're not like those Jews.

Katie Langston: Right.

Amy-Jill Levine: So, you know, in interpretation of parables, for example, when Jesus tells a parable about a woman who hides yeast in dough, it's coming lectionary in the next couple of weeks. Or what? A woman who searches for her lost coin, right? That, oh, well, women were marginalized and outcast. And by telling stories about women, Jesus is bringing them back to their full authenticity as co-equal with men. Judaism, in turn, is kind of comparable to the Taliban, you know?

Katie Langston: Right.

Amy-Jill Levine: Well, right. For my students, so, you know, if I go to my text, I have a books like Esther and Ruth, and then there's this nice book called Judith in the deutero-canonical literature. And we have lots of rabbinic stories about women. So, you know, how are they marginal and outcast? And what is Jesus doing to make them less marginal and outcast? Because if he were really interested in that, they would be among the 12 and they're not

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Right

Amy-Jill Levine: Or oh, that children are marginal and outcasts. And when Jesus says, you know, "welcome the little children," that Jews looked at children as like little nothings or little nobodies. No, I mean, kids are really, really important, which is why all these, you know, desperately infertile couples are trying to have babies and they care about babies and this thing in the Roman Empire, even daughters were super important. So what we see is this artificial model or that uh, children if they disobey their parents, would have been thrown out. So in the parable, it's usually called the prodigal son that we would we would have expected, we Jews, that the dad would have been stern and wrathful and saying, okay, young man, you know, go work for the next 30 years and then we'll see if you can come to dinner. And then they get surprised that daddy is generous as opposed to Daddy's a dad, a typical Jewish dad: my kids, come I'm delighted. Or Gentiles are marginal and outcast, right? No, they're running the empire. So or sick people are marginal and outcast. And it turns out that the vast majority of people who are disabled or ill in the Gospels are embedded in either kinship groups or friendship groups. The guy who's paralyzed is an outcast. He's "in cast" when they open up a roof to let him in.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Right.

Amy-Jill Levine: Um, that's that's in casting. Nor do Jews generally equate forms of disability with forms of sin. I mean, the major place where people get that is John chapter nine. Hello, in a New Testament text where the disciples say, "Who sinned this guy or his parents that he was born blind?"was kind of weird. When you have blind people or sight impaired people in the scriptures of Israel, like Isaac's blind. Um, but not because he's sinful, because he's like old and probably has macular degeneration. So to try to get away from this "bad Jew" and then all inclusive Jesus, as opposed to say "Jesus is marvelously inclusive," but that's part of his tradition rather than something radical over against it. In fact, generally when I hear that Jesus is doing something radical, it's something that's that's a cheap, gray sort of model for the church. And it's a misreading of early Jesus. And the really radical stuff about Jesus is like sell all you have and give to the poor. That's pretty radical or hate mummy and daddy and kids and leave your wife. That's radical. Or you will see the son of man coming on clouds to judge people. And that's me. That's radical. Right. Not let's heal people. That's. That's not radical. That's. That's just grace.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Well, I think about, for instance, the the greatest commandment too, right? When Jesus is asked, "what's the greatest commandment?" he quotes Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Right? First Deuteronomy and then Leviticus six.

Amy-Jill Levine: Yeah, right. And then my students, he comes up with love of God and love of neighbor. How original. And I'm thinking, no.

Katie Langston: And is it

Amy-Jill Levine: He doesn't have to be original in order to be profound and he doesn't have to be yanked out of his Jewish context in order to be meaningful to people who are in the churches. So I'm not a believer in Jesus as Lord and savior. I mean, I think he was really smart. I think it's brilliant teacher and I can see all sorts of wonderful things about him. And I don't need to make Judaism look bad in order to do that. So I don't see why Christians need to do that.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Right. I've had so I teach Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, and I've had well-meaning students, you know, dealing with the difficult texts like, you know, the wanting to destroy the Amalekites or the wars in the Pentateuch or the Torah. They'll say something like, "Well, you know, that was then and this is now," or "that was the God of the Old Testament. But I'm so glad we have Jesus" kind of thing. And I know that I always respond, "Look, the God of the Old Testament, there is only one God, right? It's not God doesn't change." But how, how how would you respond to that, AJ?

Amy-Jill Levine: There's a scholar named Eve Mirotzic who actually produced this this worksheet on if you think it's Old Testament, God of Wrath versus New Testament, God of Love. Let me show you the verses.

Katie Langston: Right, right, right, right, Exactly.

Amy-Jill Levine: When I get some of that junk from my students, I'm just inclined to say, find the Lord is my shepherd who leads me beside still waters and restores my soul. But you are condemned to the outer darkness where there's wailing and gnashing of teeth. Right? Have you have a sadistic dentist? You think the flood was bad? Have a look at the Book of Revelation, which makes it like a walk in the park. Or Sodom and Gomorrah. Well, Jesus pronounces woes against entire cities. Woe to you Capernaum. Woe to you Corizon and woe to you Bethsaida, not because they were doing bad things, but because they didn't believe in him, which is not something that they actually have a choice about because belief is not something you choose. Belief is like love, you know, it's either there or it's not there. You don't do a cost benefit analysis on it. Yeah. So yeah, it's the same God. And when people come up with these God of wrath versus God of love stuff, it shows complete ignorance of the Bible, complete ignorance of the Bible. It's Marcionism . It's a heresy. So it's theologically unhelpful. And for some reason, those stereotypes just keep coming.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah. And I think you hit the nail on the head when you when you were talking earlier about, you know, Christians who want Jesus to be radically inclusive and loving and all of that. And by doing so in the way that you're saying by contrasting him to the Jews or the Pharisees or the Sadducees or whoever, they are inadvertently being very exclusive and condemning. You know, in the process.

Amy-Jill Levine: Yeah. Let alone being historically inaccurate.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you don't mind, could you, could you say a word about the Pharisees and Sadducees? Maybe just provide a little bit of historical context of those and, and how are they? How do we? I think that Jesus is closer to a Pharisee than, than most, you know, preachers would think about. Right. If you think about the different Jewish groups and sects, including the ones at Qumran , you know, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. What does, how does Jesus fit into that, into those groups of the first century?

Amy-Jill Levine: The only reason we spend all this time talking about Pharisees, Sadduccees, Essenes and zealots is because Josephus, the first century historian, did. He's talking about at most, 8 to 10% of the population. And what he does, if you actually read Josephus, which none of these people do, is to say, well, the Pharisees are like the Stoics and the Sadducees are like the Epicureans and the Essenes are like the Pythagoreans, like mystical mathematicians. And the zealots are kind of like Pharisees with knives. So it's a very, very small group of people. So to try to fit Jesus into that mix would be like saying, Well, everybody in the United States is either a member of the Moose, the Elk, the Knights of Columbus or the B'nai B'rith.

Katie Langston: Which one was Jesus, right? Yeah.

Amy-Jill Levine: He's closer to the Sadducees on divorce legislation where he says, Don't get divorced. There's a Matthean loophole, but it's basically don't get divorced. He's closer to Pharisees on things like resurrection and action. He's closer to the Sadducees in terms of not washing your hands before you eat. Because what the Pharisees were trying to do is extend priestly privileges that you would have in the temple out to everybody following Exodus. You're all supposed to be a kingdom of priests in a holy nation. Language that first, first Peter in the New Testament picks up. In 2017 there was a major conference at the Pontifical Gregorian Institute in Rome on the Pharisees, a big international conference. The proceeds from that conference were published by Eerdmans in 2021, I think it was 2021. I'm the co-editor along with Joseph Sievers, who's a priest in Rome. We're right now working on a German translation of that. And then Joseph and I just signed a new contract with Eerdmans to do a less academic, more popular version with a focus on how to preach texts about the Pharisees like the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew, for example, where the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Who are they? They're a lay led group. They're interested in extending priestly privilege, they're interested in making things easier rather than harder. So they're the liberalizers. The Dead Sea Scrolls refer to them as seekers after smooth things, they just make things a little bit too easy. Jesus roughened them up a little bit. Like, you know, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, Don't murder. I said, Don't be angry. All right. That's kind of making it more rigorous.

Katie Langston: That's much harder, right.

Amy-Jill Levine: The Pharisees are interested in how you figure out how to sanctify daily life, so you do pay attention to what you wear and what you eat and how you prepare food. Those concerns that they have, which are shared by general people. We know that archaeologically with chalk stone vessels which are all throughout Galilee are mikvah ritual baths which are all throughout lower Galilee. They're also a wonderful form of anti assimilationist practice. You get Rome coming in and Rome wants every and before that Greece where they wanted everybody to be like good Greeks or good Romans By having these particular Pharisaic teachings, the people are able to assert their own identity over against the broader imperial concern. Today, we would call that multiculturalism, right? And they're interested in adapting. So they're not, what, strict constructionist to use the contemporary American term. They're saying, how do we understand this text in our own life? And they're interested in debating, which is in part why they debate with Jesus, because that's what Jews do, right? You want to figure out how to do what God wants. You have to have a conversation about it because Torah doesn't come with an instruction manual. How do you honor the Sabbath and keep it holy? Those are good questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: And am I right in saying that rabbinic Judaism owes more to to the Pharisees than it's kind of descended from the Pharisees? Or is that too much of a generalization?

Amy-Jill Levine: There's strong connection between them. Yeah, there are differences, but the stuff that the stuff that interests the rabbis is stuff that looks like it interests the Pharisees.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah.

Amy-Jill Levine: In terms of Sabbath observance and purity concerns and ritual washings. Back then, Pharisees, Josephus, who's the first century historian, he thinks the Pharisees are kind of uppity because he's a priest, Josephus. And priesthood in Judaism is inherited. Like if your dad's a priest, you're a priest. And Josephus thinks people ought to be listening to the priests because they're the inherited class and instead they're this lay group. You know, they use the British term. They've upshot , they've gotten ahead of their station. When Paul talks about his own biography in Philippians, he says, as to the law a Pharisee and under the law, blameless, amemtos. He's trotting that out because that's really important. Because if he says if I give it all up, it's all seruvala, it's all crap. Um, you know, in order for, well, if you give up something that's worth nothing, then it doesn't matter.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Right

Amy-Jill Levine: So even Paul saying, look, this is really important. And when Paul has his road to Damascus experience, he doesn't stop being a Pharisee. He just becomes a Pharisee who believes the Messiah has come.

Katie Langston: I notice

Amy-Jill Levine: He doesn't give up. He doesn't give up being a Pharisee.

Katie Langston: That was something that that it's so. In my own history, I came out of Mormonism, which is it's own little journey there. But you know something that there's a it's not analogous, but there is a way in which there is an entire culture and way of being as a mormon that is, I think, distinct from, let's say, um, you know.

Amy-Jill Levine: Gentiles.

Katie Langston: Yeah, exactly. Than the, right, which Mormons use that term, bless their hearts, they appropriate that. Um, and one of the things that was very, um, moving for me coming out of Mormonism was reading in Acts when Paul still Paul would go to temple right when he would go to the temple when he was in Jerusalem. And there was a part of him that, well, he was always Jewish, right? He didn't un-Jew himself. Right. And there was a sense where I related to that as someone who comes out of a tradition that is distinct, again, not in the same ways, but it's there's a little bit of a there's something there that that that that resonates a little bit with. You know, we're much younger Mormons are much younger whatever. But there was a sense where I was like, yeah, like I'm always there's always a like, I'm just I'm a mormon, right? I grew up in Utah. Like, that's the there was something about that that I found really moving and beautiful and that it doesn't have to be like a rejection of one's identity. Right? Um, and Paul, you don't see Paul doing that. You don't see any of the early Christians doing that.

Amy-Jill Levine: Right and when Paul, who never uses the word Christian as a self predicate, when he's talking about don't follow the law, he's not talking to Jews, he's the apostle to the Gentiles.

Katie Langston: He's saying that to the Gentiles. Exactly.

Amy-Jill Levine: And say, no, I don't want you converting to Judaism, because if you did, the only people who would be worshiping God would be Jews. But this this messianic age that we now seem to be in says that Jews and Gentiles together worship the God of Israel. The Gentiles come as Paula Fredrickson and my friend as ex-pagan pagans. And the Jews are just Jews, but they're now Jews with a messiah. Right?

Katie Langston: Exactly. Yeah, I think, and we don't, I just I get I do get frustrated with my fellow Christians who don't seem to get that, you know, like when I preach on the Old Testament or the or the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament or whatever, I always try to call it back and say, look, it's not it's not they you know, we're you know, it's not like a it's not super session ism, right? It's Jesus was a Jew. Paul was a Jew. That Romans is clear we're grafted into. You know, our belief is that we're grafted into the promises God made to Israel. We're not we owe everything right to.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So Gentile. Yeah. So Gentile Christians need to be humble to have humility.

Katie Langston: Yeah. Exactly.

Amy-Jill Levine: And not it's not like everybody listens to Paul all the time. Right.

Katie Langston: That's fair enough.

Amy-Jill Levine: Yeah, right. That's Romans. Don't be boasting in your position. Exactly. Right. Dependent upon them. Sure. Right. I do think any supercessionism, I just think you can be nice about it. I mean, think. Yeah, I think all religions are supercessionist because if you weren't, you wouldn't be you. Right? So you're coming off of something and then and then you think you're you're different than or have improved on something else. But there's a theologian in Canada named David Novak who talks about hard supercessionism and soft supercessionism . So soft supercessionism said, we kind of got the right path here, but there's a lot of value in what you have also, and I think most traditions do that. Hard supercessionism is, is we've got everything and you're screwed, right? Which other traditions will do, and I don't find that terribly helpful.

Katie Langston: Yeah.

Amy-Jill Levine: So if I go to the Mishnah, the the rabbinic source is completely right at the Sadducees. You know, all Israel has to share in the world to come, except those who deny resurrection of the dead. Okay. Bye bye. Sadducees. You're out because the rabbis were the historical winners. And you just write out the other people. So everybody's superstition one degree or another. The reason you can have ELCA is because there are other Lutherans who didn't go in that direction. ELCA. There are other Lutherans who didn't go in that direction and and they're supercessionist over you and work that out when when the Messiah comes or comes back.

Katie Langston: That's exactly that's it. That's right. I love that.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: So back to a fascinating conversation. To come back to the original question, who are the marginal and the outcast? Jesus in his answer to that in his is is very much steeped in Jewish tradition and Jewish law and Jewish thought. Can you say just a bit more AJ about who, what what does Jewish tradition say about that, the treatment of those folks, whoever they are? Yeah, it's the orphan and the widow and the foreigner. Right.

Amy-Jill Levine: The poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger. Yeah. And those are the typical models that you find in Torah. But then you have to be careful as well, because not all widows are poor. Like, Judith is doing really quite well. So. And not all strangers are, or in a fully marginalized position either, although they might be strangers like migrant or somebody without your own people. So you're living in somebody else's land. So I want to get I want to get around language of marginal and outcast because it doesn't mean anything, because then you look at your church and well, who are the marginal and outcast here? Well, they're here, so they're obviously neither marginal nor outcast. But say if there are people who are sick, you need to go visit them. If there are people who are poor, you need to provide them some sense of support. If there are people who have no family, you need to provide them. That's the stranger you need. You need to treat them like a citizen among you because you knew what it was like in Egypt when you were a stranger there. And I find rephrasing away from these labels, which are just to a more focused here are people who need your help and here's what you can do. And it may turn out that you although in a well-educated or upper middle class or whatever, may find yourself also in need, because that doesn't that economic status or social status doesn't prevent depression from going away. It's not a guard against loneliness. It's not a, it's not a guard against finding that you have no meaning in your own life and you feel empty. So change the labels to, say, reaching out to people who need to need that touch, people who need that recognition. And because we're all in the image and likeness of God, we can't think of ourselves as better than anybody else because we all go back to the same parent. Um, we are all in this together. We are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. So moving away from, from the buzzwords and actually doing the justice work that the Bible requires.

Katie Langston: Yeah, that's beautiful. That's really helpful.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, that is. Thank you. Thank you for that response. That's helpful.

Amy-Jill Levine: Yeah. And my mother, who was a widow, really resented the idea of the poor, the widow, the orphan, stranger.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah.

Amy-Jill Levine: Excuse me. You're stereotyping me.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah.

Amy-Jill Levine: And assuming that I, as a member of one of these other classes, can't do anything to help. Right? So you have the givers and the receivers as opposed to everybody being in it together. And I remember my mother talked about this and saying, That's right. That's right. Yeah. So.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good.

Katie Langston: Yeah, we're all we're all both givers and receivers, right? In a in a healthy community and from, you know, by the grace of God. So yeah.

Amy-Jill Levine: Should be , and then by the way, when you have people who really are on that kind of outcast list, parolees, people in prison.

Katie Langston: Yes.

Amy-Jill Levine: Right. Yeah. That's where you might want to do a little bit more work. And that's where Jesus is really good because he says, I was you know, I was in prison and you visited me or people in the scriptures of Israel who were imprisoned like Joseph or, go work with that.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Yeah. Yeah. That list in Matthew 25 would be a good place to start.

Amy-Jill Levine: That's helpful.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: I was hungry. I was in prison. I was naked. Yeah. Those those are the folks who are going outside of stereotypes or.

Amy-Jill Levine: Right. Those are the better categories. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody with food instability. Yeah. Somebody in prison. Yeah, absolutely. Somebody who needs a winter coat and doesn't have one. Yes.

Kathryn Schifferdecker: Right, right, right. Yep.

Amy-Jill Levine: More hopeful than "marginal and outcast".

Katie Langston: Much more. More specific as well. Well, this was, oh, did you have something else, Kathryn? No. Okay. This was a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much AJ for being here with us. We appreciate it so much. And thank you to our listeners and those of you who are watching on YouTube for being with us on this episode of the Enter the Bible podcast. You can get more great conversations, commentaries, resources, maps, timelines, all kinds of stuff at Enter the Bible. Org. And wherever you are consuming this podcast, whether it's on your favorite podcast app or YouTube or whatever, be sure to like and subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. We will see you next time.