Jon D. Levenson


Jon Douglas Levenson is an American Hebrew Bible scholar who is the Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies at the Harvard Divinity School.

Education

  • A.B. summa cum laude in English, Harvard College, 1971.
  • A.M. Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1974.
  • Ph.D. Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University, 1975.

    Areas of specialization

Levenson is a scholar of the Hebrew Bible and rabbinic midrashim, with an interest in the philosophical and theological issues involved in Hebrew Biblical studies. He specializes in the relationship between traditional modes of biblical interpretation and modern historical criticism, as well as the relationship between Judaism and Christianity.
Levenson's research foci include the theological traditions of ancient Israel and biblical and rabbinic periods; literary interpretation of the Hebrew Bible; midrash; history of Jewish biblical interpretation; modern Jewish theology; and Jewish–Christian relations. His 1987 essay Why Jews Are Not Interested in Biblical Theology challenged the traditional methods of the fields of historical criticism and biblical theology and remains widely referenced.
Levenson has been called "the most interesting and incisive biblical exegete among contemporary Jewish thinkers." Furthermore, his work has been described as "challenging the idea, part of Greek philosophy and popular now, that resurrection 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 argues 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."
Levenson is a member of the editorial board of the Jewish Review of Books. In the late 1990s, his body of work, up to then, was reviewed by Marvin A. Sweeney and put in the larger context of the field of biblical theology. In his Jewish Book Annual review, 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."

Recognition