Harvard Divinity School
Harvard Divinity School (HDS) is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school's mission is to educate its students either in the academic study of religion or for leadership roles in religion, gov ...
Harvard College
Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...
, 1971.
*A.M. Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1974.
*Ph.D. Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations,
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
, 1975.
Areas of specialization
Levenson is a scholar of the Bible and of the rabbinic ''
'', with an interest in the philosophical and theological issues involved in biblical studies. He studies the relationship between traditional modes of Biblical interpretation and modern historical criticism. He also studies the relationship between Judaism and Christianity.
Levenson's foci include: Theological traditions in ancient Israel (biblical and rabbinic periods); Literary Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible; Midrash; History of Jewish biblical interpretation; Modern Jewish theology; and
Jewish-Christian relations
Christianity began as a movement within Second Temple Judaism, but the two religions gradually diverged over the first few centuries of the Christian Era. Differences of opinion vary between denominations in both religions, but the most importa ...
. His 1987 essay, ''Why Jews Are Not Interested in Biblical Theology'' essay, challenged the fields of historical criticism and Biblical theology as they had been practiced and has been widely discussed.
Levenson has been called, “the most interesting and incisive biblical exegete among contemporary Jewish thinkers.” He is described as “challenging the idea, part of Greek philosophy and popular now, that
resurrection
Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, whic ...
for Jews and the followers of Jesus is simply the survival of an individual's soul in the hereafter.” In ''Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel'', Levenson asserts that in classical Christianity and Judaism,” “resurrection occurs for the whole person — body and soul. For early Christians and some Jews, resurrection meant being given back one's body or possibly God creating a new similar body after death”. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the ''
Jewish Review of Books
The ''Jewish Review of Books'' is a quarterly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs from a Jewish perspective. It is published in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
The magazine was launched in 2010 with an editorial board that ...
''.
In the late 1990s his body of work as of that time was reviewed by Marvin A. Sweeney and put in the larger context of the field of biblical theology; Sweeney wrote: "A great deal of his work focuses on the seminal question of identifying the role that Christian theological constructs have played in the reading of biblical literature, even when the reading is presented as historically based objective scholarship, and of developing reading strategies that can remove these constructs in order to let the biblical texts 'speak for themselves.' Work of this kind naturally paves the way for the development of Jewish biblical theology."
Prizes and honors
*
Biblical Archaeology Society
The Biblical Archaeology Society was established in 1974 by American lawyer Hershel Shanks, as a non-sectarian organisation that supports and promotes biblical archaeology. Its current publications include the ''Biblical Archaeology Review'', whil ...
Publication Award in the category of Best Book Relating to the Hebrew Bible published in 2005 or 2006 (for ''Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel''), awarded August 2007
* Doctorate in Divinity, ''honoris causa'', from St. Mary's Seminary and University, Baltimore, Maryland, awarded May 10, 2007
*