Jesus was a skilled storyteller and perceptive teacher who used parables from everyday life to effectively convey his message and meaning. Life in first-century Palestine was very different from our world today, and many traditional interpretations of Jesus' stories ignore this disparity and have often allowed anti-Semitism and misogyny to color their perspectives.

In this Bible study based on her book Short Stories by Jesus, Amy-Jill Levine analyzes these "problems with parables" taking readers back in time to understand how their original Jewish audience understood them....