The Bible With and Without Jesus - Leader Guide

Scholars show how Jews and Christians read the same texts differently.

The leader guide contains discussion questions and session plans for the study. It includes opening and closing prayers, optional activities, and weekly session goals. This leader guide, participant guide, and DVD are everything needed for an engaging study for your small group.

In this Bible study based on their book, The Bible With and Without Jesus, esteemed Bible scholars and teachers Amy-Jill Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler take readers on a guided tour of the most popular Hebrew Bible passages quoted in the New Testament to show what the texts meant in their original contexts and then how Jews and Christians, over time, understood those same texts. Passages include the creation of the world, the role of Adam and Eve, the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, the book of Jonah, and Psalm 22, whose words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” Jesus quotes as he dies on the cross.

Comparing various interpretations – historical, literary, and theological - of each ancient text, Levine and Brettler offer deeper understandings of the original narratives and their many afterlives. They show how the text speaks to different generations under changed circumstances, illuminating the Bible’s ongoing significance. By understanding the depth and variety by which these passages have been, and can be, understood, The Bible With and Without Jesus does more than enhance our religious understandings; it helps us to see the Bible as a source of inspiration for any and all readers.