Jewish scholar elected president of the Catholic Biblical Association

The recently elected president of the Catholic Biblical Association, or CBA, has stated that she does not believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior, but instead identifies as a Jewish scholar.

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, was elected president of the CBA in July and was endorsed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Levine did not believe in Jesus as Lord, according to a 2021 interview with the Southern Methodist University School of Theology. During a chapel at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s Luther Seminary, she said she is not a professing Christian or Messianic Jew and does not believe the New Testament is sacred Scripture, but has spent her life studying it, according to a video obtained by the theology watchdog media outlet Protestia. "I'm not a literalist,” she appeared to say in the video. “I do not read the gospels as recording exactly what happened.” She went on to characterize the book of Esther as fiction. She said Jesus was only valuable to her to the extent that he made her a better Jew.

The CBA suggested some of the theological pushback against Levine’s election was based in anti-Semitism in a statement released last month. The organization insisted she was not elected because she was Jewish, but because she was an experienced scholar who specialized in Catholic-Jewish dialogue.

Who does the CBA influence? During a yearlong appointment, the president leads the executive board and shapes academic goals for Bible students at universities, seminaries, and divinity schools. Because the CBA is anchored at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., its academic scholarship shapes curricula across North America and Rome.