Amy-Jill Levine, a Jewish scholar of the Christian Bible, has been appointed the first Jewish President of the Catholic Biblical Association, in the US.
Levine, who currently serves as the Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace, was announced as President for the 2026-2027 term at the association’s 2026 annual general meeting, which took place in Baltimore on July 20.
She is also Professor Emerita at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.
Levine has written and edited widely read works of biblical scholarship, including The Misunderstood Jew, The Bible With and Without Jesus and The Jewish Annotated New Testament.
In 2019, Levine became the first Jewish scholar to teach the Christian Bible at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, as well as being elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021.
Levine said: “When the chair of the nominating committee informed me of this last year, I actually wrote to another member of the committee and said, 'Is this a joke?' because I was stunned.
“I'm honoured, and I'm grateful.”
The Catholic Biblical Association was created by American Catholic biblical scholars in 1936 to modify the English-language Christian Bible used by Catholics.
However, its purpose slowly broadened to integrate academic research, as well as scholarly publications, and the public dissemination of biblical scholarship.
Initially, the association had only 50 charter members, but that figure had grown to 1,070 by 2024.
Whilst faith is central to its vision, the organisation includes Catholic, non-Catholic, and Jewish scholars.
“I have been carrying on a love affair with the Catholic Church since I was 7 years old, and that hasn't stopped”, said Levine adding: “It's chaste, and it continues”.
The self-described “Yankee Jewish feminist” has been involved in the association for almost 50 years, during which time she has served on numerous committees, spent 12 years as a book review editor for The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, and has also worked as a consultant.
She said that her priorities as president now include exploration of the connection between scholarship and religious practice, and confronting anti-Jewish interpretations of Christian scripture.
She concluded: “I would like to get this better material into the hands of people who are speaking to people in the pews, into the hands of people in parochial schools who are teaching biblical studies to teenagers or to little kids, and mainstream it.”
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