When Jewish scholar Amy-Jill Levine found out she was being considered for the role of president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America, she thought it was a joke.
“I actually wrote to another member of the committee and said, ‘Is this a joke?’ because I was stunned,” she said. Levine is a New Testament and Jewish Studies professor at the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace in Hartford, Connecticut.
But it was not a joke, and on July 20 in Baltimore she was confirmed for the role at the CBA’s annual meeting. Levine is the first Jewish person to hold the position.
The CBA lacks any official Church authority and is an academic group, but it has nonetheless played an active role in biblical translations in the United States. The CBA was born in 1936 when Bishop Edwin O’Hara, chair of the Episcopal Committee on the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, sought to revise the New Testament of the Challoner-Rheims translation on the basis of the Vulgate, which was largely formed by St. Jerome in the fourth century. Over time, however, the aims changed, particularly due to the Papal Encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu in 1943. Thus a new translation of both the Old Testament and New Testament began, and over several years and even decades, the work became more “ecumenical” and resulted in the New American Bible translation in 1970.
The stated purpose of the CBA is “to promote, within a context of faith, scholarly study of Scripture and related fields by meetings of the association, publications, and support to those engaged in such studies.” There are multiple levels of membership each with different qualifications, but a “full member” must have “an advanced research degree in Sacred Scripture or biblical theology.” Candidates for full membership must have a sponsorship from an existing full member.
Levine has been a full member of the organization since 1988 and spent over a decade serving as a book review editor for The Catholic Biblical Quarterly.
Levine also taught in 2019 at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome – the first Jewish person to do so.
"IS THIS A JOKE?"
— Catholics for Catholics 🇺🇲 (@CforCatholics) August 13, 2026
"When the chair of the nominating committee informed me of this last year, I actually wrote to another member of the committee and said, 'Is this a joke?' said Levine when she learned about her nomination for this new role.
We ask the same: Is this a joke?… pic.twitter.com/mooErt6FGz
According to Amazon, she has authored at least 56 books and publications, including The Jewish Annotated New Testament, The Bible With And Without Jesus, and Wrestling with the Words of Jesus.
On X, Catholics for Catholics wrote, “Why, if we have so many Catholic scholars of the caliber of Scott Hahn and others to this job, do we have to resort to non-Catholic scholars? What is the point of this?”
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