![]() She strips away layers of meaning added to the stories by centuries of Christian interpreters in order to help modern readers contemplate Jesus’ parables as they might have been heard by the original audience. Levine attempts to do with the Jesus’ parables. The artists stripped away the added bling and a poignant, more ancient image of Madonna and child emerged. ![]() As artists began cleaning the image, they realized that the elaborate crown and jewels on Mary and Jesus were much later editions. In the process, one of the most sacred images of Mary and Jesus, which predates the Jesuit church, was restored. Some years ago, the Gesu, the Society of Jesus’ mother church in Rome, underwent a renovation. As I read Levine, an image continued to arise in my mind that illustrates the basic orientation of Levine’s work. ![]() In her book, Short Stories by Jesus, she considers several of Jesus’ parables and ponders how they would have sounded to Jesus’ original audience, first-century Galilean Jews. ![]() She is a professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University. ![]()
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