You Tube Theology

“While many Christians, influenced by the Gospel of Matthew, regard the Pharisees as legalistic hypocrites, Jews consider them to be respected teachers and innovators who helped Jews to embody their traditions more fully,” writes Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, the first Jewish woman to teach the New Testament at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome, in a commentary for the Heschel Center of the Catholic University of Lublin for Sunday, October 22.

Commenting on Jesus’ response, “Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” (Matthew 22:21), Dr. Amy-Jill Levine writes that “Jesus asks us to determine what, and who belongs to Caesar: the coin with his image? The land his troops occupy? The lives of the people in his empire?” In her opinion, Jesus’ words draw the attention of the listeners to the fact that in the end, everything belongs to God, as we read in the Psalm: “The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.” (Ps 24:1).

Entire commentary - https://heschel.kul.pl/pharisees-legalistic-hypocrites-or-respected-teachers-and-innovators,art_104517.html

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.