You Tube Theology

As the Second Vatican Council taught, and as the Church teaching continues to affirm, God's first covenant with the Jews remains in place because God does not break covenants, Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies and the first Jewish woman to teach New Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, points out in a commentary for Heschel Center of the Catholic University of Lublin.

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine points out that a passage from the reading for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, if not accurately clarified, can instill or reinforce resentment against Jews. There we read the words of Peter the Apostle, “Let the whole house of Israel know for certain that God has made both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36).

However, it is important to refer, with all due force, to Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Council document on Catholic-Jewish relations promulgated in October 1965, which emphasizes: “what happened in [Jesus'] passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today”. Dr. Amy-Jill Levine explains how, on the basis of Catholic Church teaching, to understand St. Peter's words correctly.

The full text of the commentary follows: https://heschel.kul.pl/god-s-first-covenant-with-the-jews-is-still-valid,art_102808.html

About the author:
Amy-Jill Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies Emerita and Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies Emerita at Vanderbilt University. She is also Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, Hartford International University for Religion and Peace. In the spring of 2019, she became the first Jew to teach a course on the New Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome; in 2021, she was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.