Professor AJ Levine, a pioneer Jewish scholar of the New Testament, has been awarded the Council of Christians and Jews’ 2022 Bridge Award in an intimate live-streamed presentation from CCJ’s office in Westminster.

To watch the brief ceremony, click here.

AJ Levine is a popular speaker and educator and author of dozens of books and articles on the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and Jewish-Christian relations, including most recently, The Bible With And Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (HarperCollins, 2020, with Marc Zvi Brettler) and The Pharisees (Eerdmans, 2021), co-edited with Joseph Sievers.  Her study Bible, The Jewish Annotated New Testament, jointly edited with Marc Zvi Brettler, is a landmark of scholarship and consulted widely by Christian preachers around the world. In 2019 she was the first Jew to teach New Testament at Rome’s Pontifical Biblical Institute and in 2021 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has given over 500 lectures on the Bible, Christian-Jewish relations, and Religion, Gender, and Sexuality around the globe. She is the Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace, and a University Professor Emerita of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt.
 
The award took place at a ceremony broadcast from CCJ’s Westminster office and attended by a small number of CCJ’s Trustees and supporters, including representatives from Lambeth Palace.
 
Introduced in 2017 for CCJ’s 75th anniversary, the Bridge Award is an annual award for someone who has made an exceptional and leading contribution to building bridges between peoples, in a Christian-Jewish or wider setting. Recent winners include HM The King; the late former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; and Lord Rothschild. Previous winners also include Rabbi Lord (Jonathan) Sacks, Chief Rabbi from 1991-2013, and the Smith family for their work on Holocaust education.
 
In remarks in a pre-recorded segment broadcast at the event, The Rt Revd Justin Welby, Archbishop Justin Welby, said to Prof Levine: ‘You have had the courage to be a Jewish scholar of the New Testament, shining a forensic spotlight on how our preaching and teaching so often compounds and develops the lies, distortions and errors that dishonour the Jewish tradition. We are in your debt for our helping us to be better Christians for our Jewish neighbours. I am delighted that CCJ has thought to give you this award, which your prodigious and prolific scholarship deserves.’
 
Also speaking at the ceremony, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, said: ‘Bridge building is a crucial task in today’s fragmenting world. This is especially so between the great monotheistic faiths. The prolific work of Professor Amy-Jill Levine makes her an outstanding recipient of CCJ’s Bridge Award. Having just returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I am even more keenly aware of the Jewishness of Jesus and our need, as Christians, to embrace the richness of our Jewish heritage. Her work helps us to do so.’
 
Also speaking at the ceremony, Joanne Greenaway, the Chief Executive of the London School of Jewish Studies, said: ‘It’s an absolute pleasure to honour someone who epitomizes so much of what we aim for at LSJS as a master teacher and educator who through challenging her students, through charismatic teaching and through brilliant scholarship, has done so much to increase understanding between Christians and Jews.’
 
Chair of CCJ Bishop Michael Ipgrave said, ‘As well as breaking new ground, Prof Levine’s scholarship has broken down misconceptions about Jews and Judaism within Christian communities and built bridges between Jews and Christians. We are all in her debt and we are delighted she has accepted this award.’
 
On receiving this award, AJ Levine said, ‘The work of CCJ in the UK is an inspiration to many, and I’m honoured to receive this award’.