Great Figures of the New Testament

By: Amy-Jill Levine, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Amy-Jill Levine

Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins

Publisher's summary

Improve your biblical literacy with these 24 insightful lectures about the cast of vivid characters in the New Testament. From the well-known figures of Jesus, John the Baptist, and the disciples to important but lesser known figures, such as the Syro-Phoenician woman who must turn Jesus's own words back on him to gain the healing of her daughter, Professor Levine paints vivid portraits of Christianity's founding generation.

You'll learn about such figures as:

• The elderly couple Elizabeth and Zechariah and their son, John the Baptist;
• Jesus's friends, the contemplative Mary and the vocal Martha, as well as their brother, Lazarus;
• The apostles Peter and Thomas, James and John, and Judas Iscariot;
• Mary Magdalene, who becomes known as the apostle to the apostles;
• Paul the apostle, as presented in Acts of the Apostles and what can be determined about him from his letters;
• A number of strong and interesting women, including the unnamed Samaritan and a repentant sinner who anoints Jesus;
• Jesus's interlocutors, including the centurion with a paralyzed son and the desperate Canaanite mother with a demon-possessed daughter.

Rather than promoting any particular religious worldview, this course seeks to read the ancient texts anew to discover what they really say and how they were interpreted by both the secular culture and the faithful church.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2002 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2002 The Great Courses

Professor Levine is one of my favorites!

An outstanding lecturer, Professor Levine will engage and captivate the student listener with different perspectives and insights.

Interesting, thoughtful, and well presented

This series of lectures were insightful and informative. I liked her choices of figures to highlight. She is well organized and clear. I found this series helpful and thought provoking.

Made Me Want to Read Book of Acts

Up until Prof. Levine’s lectures in this course, the Book of Acts in particular, was a tough, boring slog. Now it’s full of interesting characters, incidents, tensions that blended together make for the primordial soup out of which rose the first Christian church.
Four instead of five stars for performance because the good professor read the lectures to us. She certainly reads well, but also a bit fast for my taste.

Listen to the LAST session FIRST

Would you consider the audio edition of Great Figures of the New Testament to be better than the print version?

No comparison

What was one of the most memorable moments of Great Figures of the New Testament?

Nothing stands out except that the LAST session explains the connections among many of the NT Figures. Had it been at the beginning, it would have helped a great deal. Maybe bookend the session: once at the beginning, repeat it at the end.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

meh

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No.

Any additional comments?

Not a GREAT course, but a good one. Some interesting info. Prof. Levine throws out lots of bits of info, most of it common knowledge to me, a few little surprises. However, she does not qualify the data as "widely accepted by scholars," "accepted by very few scholars," or some other description as to whether the data has high acceptance, low acceptance, or somewhere in between. Scripture scholarship comes from theologians, archeologists, linguists, historians, geographers, and other experts in arcane fields. The average person has little time (and often far less talent) to replicate the research done by the experts. We count on people like Prof. Levine to qualify what they tell us.

Chip

I have slso listened to several of her books. I am getting tired of the chip on her shoulder and her defensive posture towards Judaism.

Well-grounded

There are many sentimentalized surveys of New Testament figures: this isn't one of them. Amy Jill Levine describes the bit players (Nicodemus, the Syro-Phoenician woman, the centurion) and the major figures (Paul and Jesus get two lessons each). For each figure, she gives the New Testament account and then fills in the historical and textual background. Her lessons are well-grounded in mainstream New Testament research, and her delivery is rapid and enthusiastic. This is not a systematic course on the New Testament, but it's engrossing and informative.

A fascinating who's who of First Century Palestine

When hearing this course' title "Great Figures of the New Testament," I conjured up an image of someone discussing some literary figures from the New Testament. What I found was surprisingly and excitingly different. Prof. Amy-Jill Levine, the well-known Jewish New Testament Scholar, gives an important overview of of various characters and historical figures from the Christian New Testament. On the one hand you will meet the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son, while you will also learn of Peter, Herod the Great, Paul, Josephus and various other historical figures. She asks "Who is who in the first century living in and around Palestine?"

If you thought that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute, you might be surprised to find out that she wasn't. Prof. Levine is not hesitant to dissect the layers of tradition that surrounds various of the historical figures she presents in this course. She presents her insights and that of other scholars in a non-threatening way while minimising typically scholarly jargon. If I did not know that she was Jewish, I might never have guessed it, the way she presented it. She brings together a vast array of knowledge about different figures, that enables the listener to think differently about various topics.Her careful phrasing of ideas and sentences makes this course very accessible. Her respect for her subject matter is praiseworthy.

If you want a critical overview of the New Testament, this course comes highly recommended. She is very fair in most of her comments her unique blend of historical-critical scholarship and literary analysis of texts shines through. Her redeeming of the Jews and of females are also two important aspects that shines through in these lectures.

I heartily recommend this course, if you need an overview of the New Testament. Prof. Levine gives profound insights throughout this course. Some of it will keep your mind occupied for some time.

Wonderful!

A great study in the people and places of the New Testament. Provides strong encouragement in the faith by identifying what many call contradictions in the faith and making them powerful statements of how we each have a personal relationship with God, and how over time that relationship reflects culture and environmental influences. Awesome!

Thoughtful, funny, excellent

As with Prof. Levine's lectures on the Old Testament, this series is entertaining and informative. She's funny. That helps.

Magnificent and Insightful

Provides wonderful information on many of the prominent characters in the New Testament. Really educational and enjoyable.