Excerpt from Thy Word Is Truth: Barth on Scripture by George Hunsinger

George Hunsinger

George Hunsinger is Hazel Thompson McCord Professor of Systematic Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary and 2010 recipient of the Karl Barth Award (given annually by the Union of Evangelical Churches). He is also editor of the new book Thy Word Is Truth: Barth on Scripture.

In this excerpt from his introduction to that volume, Hunsinger discusses the christocentric underpinnings of Karl Barth’s biblical interpretation and provides an overview of the book’s contributors and key themes.

* * *

It was once suggested by Calvin that the main reason for studying theology is to make us better readers of Holy Scripture. No one took this proposition more seriously than Karl Barth. The 150-page Scripture Index to his massive Church Dogmatics testifies impressively to his biblical engagement. Using the Scripture Index can be a good way of gaining access to his theology.

Barth’s scriptural interpretation was strongly christocentric. He believed that Jesus Christ is attested, directly or indirectly, by virtually any biblical passage, whether in the Old Testament or the New. He therefore read all of Scripture from a center in Jesus Christ. Scripture was to be interpreted with an eye toward Christ as the one who had become incarnate, was crucified, and was raised again for our sakes. Barth ingeniously discerned parallels in Scripture — both literary and theological — to the narrative of this saving history. Other biblical events and figures could be read as “types” for which Christ served as the “antitype.” How could it be otherwise if the entire sweep of God’s covenant, as attested in Holy Scripture, was fulfilled in him?

The narrative of Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection involved a deep structure that might be described as “affirmation,” “negation,” and “negation of the negation.” Since these structural or grammatical elements were essentially formal, their presence could also be discerned in other biblical stories. Insofar as the stories displayed some elements of the same pattern, they could be read as pointing to Christ at the center. They could be taken as attesting the uniqueness of Christ without losing their essential distinction from him.

Jesus Christ — fully God, fully human — was thus the mysterious center, the hidden subject matter, the concealed referent, at stake in biblical passages whose surface content obviously had nothing to do with him. Think, for example, of the stories about Joseph, Moses, David, or Job. With their characters, always imperfect though sometimes honorable, their negative twists in the plot, and their positive or ambiguous outcomes, such stories were susceptible to a typological reading. Each somehow found its ultimate reference in Christ — its deepening or correction or healing. In various ways each displayed elements of the same underlying pattern (though usually partially) of “affirmation,” “negation,” and “negation of the negation.” With Christ in view, think of Joseph, his father’s favorite, in the pit, or later in Pharaoh’s prison, or still later in his role as the Provider. Think of Moses, as the abandoned and rescued child, as the one-time murderer, as the Liberator from Egypt, or later as the Lawgiver and prophet, who died in exile from the promised land. Think of David, the messianic though notoriously flawed king; or of Job, with his innocence, his languishing in terrible affliction, and finally his unexpected restoration.

Each of these figures in its own way was a pointer or type that was somehow reconfigured, restored, and surpassed in Christ. Their ultimate significance could only emerge when the type was juxtaposed to Christ as the antitype. Interpretation of this kind required a reading that took place on two different levels at the same time: the one straightforward, the other christological, if the type was not simply to be overpowered by the antitype. A similar move could sometimes be made with texts from the Psalms, or with the Sermon on the Mount, or with 1 Corinthians 13. They could be interpreted in light of a hidden christological center that was secretly but ultimately their subject.

* * *

Thy Word Is Truth: Barth on Scripture

Over the past twenty years or so Barth studies have become increasingly technical. Although he saw himself as writing primarily for preachers, he has ever more become the captive of professors (mea culpa!). That is why it is usually better to read Barth than to read what is written about Barth. Nevertheless, because he is not always easy to understand, a little guidance every now and then can come in handy. While this book is a guide to his use of Scripture, it will succeed only if it whets the reader’s appetite to read Barth.

Chapter 1, by RobertMcAfee Brown, offers a refreshingly accessible introduction to some themes of this book. Brown wrote before the rise of academic Barthianism.

Chapter 2, by Katherine Sonderegger, beautifully explains how Barth saw Scripture as both reliable and inspired.

Chapter 3, on Rudolf Smend by George Hunsinger, the centerpiece of this volume, discusses what is probably the best essay ever written on Barth’s interpretation of Scripture.

Chapter 4, by Hans W. Frei, is of interest not only for the light it casts on Barth, but also on Frei’s own use of Barth in his influential proposals about “realistic narrative.” This essay is published here for the first time.

Chapter 5, by Kathryn Greene-McCreight, displays Barth’s typological exegesis in action. After Barth’s reading of Leviticus 14 and 16 is deftly set forth, it is brought into conversation with Robert Alter and Jacob Milgrom.

Chapter 6, by A. Katherine Grieb, shows how Barth reads the Sermon on the Mount as possessing a hidden center in Christ.

Chapter 7, by myself, George Hunsinger, lifts up Hebrews 13:8 as a key passage for unlocking Barth’s profound but elusive ideas about time and eschatology.

Chapter 8, by John Webster, shows that certain of Barth’s distinctive views about the Gospel of John, which some have felt mark a shift in the development of Barth’s theology, and especially in his 1942 doctrine of election, were already present as early as 1925.

Chapter 9, by Paul Molnar, measures several recent theologians against Barth on the question of Scripture and “religion.” Special attention is devoted to Sallie McFague, Paul Tillich, and S. Mark Heim.

Chapter 10, by Paul Dafydd Jones, digs deeply into what makes Barth’s christocentric interpretation tick. It serves as a fitting conclusion to the book.

The Appendices offer three brief excerpts from Barth himself. They are typical of the exegetical and theological riches to be found in his Church Dogmatics.

Click here order Thy Word Is Truth: Barth on Scripture, edited by George Hunsinger.

“The Practice of Fasting” by Addison Hodges Hart (from Taking Jesus at His Word: What Jesus Really Said in the Sermon on the Mount)

Addison Hodges Hart’s new book Taking Jesus at His Word: What Jesus Really Said in the Sermon on the Mount is still a few months away from publication (June, 2012; available to preorder now). After reading his chapter on “The Practice of Fasting,” though, we couldn’t resist sharing a sneak preview of the book on Ash Wednesday.

(Please note that since the following excerpt has not yet been published, it may still be subject to changes before its release.) 

* * *

Matthew 6:16“And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17 But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 18 that your fasting may not be seen by men but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”

In Jewish practice, fasting and prayer went very much together. Jews fasted twice weekly, a custom picked up by early Christians. The traditional days for fasting, from the apostolic age onward, were Wednesday (the day on which Jesus was said to have been betrayed) and Friday (the day of his crucifixion). Jesus here gives no specific weekdays for fasting, but he assumes that his disciples will continue the practice. Fasting was thought to give greater intensity to prayer. In the spirit of the influential passage in the book of Isaiah, fasting was related as well to the needs of the poor and to almsgiving:

Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to hit with wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a man to humble himself ? Is it to bow down his head like a rush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am. If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. (Isa. 58:4-10)

Taking Jesus at His Word

With this passage, composed some six centuries before, we can glimpse the mind of Jesus as well. Just as Jesus condemned mere liturgy and religious posturing among the religious leaders of his day, Isaiah condemns those same things here. It was expected practice on special days of fasting to look drawn and haggard, to pull out the sackcloth and ashes, and to make a display out of the whole thing. The prophet points out the incongruity between the outward religious show on such holy days and the sort of quarreling and violence engaged in by the same persons the other days of the year. Instead, says the prophet, what God desires is righteous action in caring for the needy, the homeless, the hungry, and the oppressed. Real fasting is not just giving up food, and it certainly isn’t about showing off one’s best sackcloth wardrobe and fashionably ashen face; true fasting involves correcting injustice and acting compassionately. If you deal with those latter things, God will come to you.

There isn’t much difference here between that age and its religiosity and, say, the sight of a wealthy cutthroat of a Catholic or Episcopalian businessman who attends church on Ash Wednesday, gets his forehead marked with the traditional cross of ashes, noticeably fasts from meat and dessert, and goes about the rest of the day sporting the ashes on his face as a sign of his devotion. His business practices may be vicious most of the year, just barely honest, utterly dishonest, savagely capitalistic, and/or injurious to the less advantaged near and far, but his devotion on Ash Wednesday is heartfelt and even a touch sentimental. It makes him feel good; he gets to demonstrate his faith. Perhaps he’s a member of Opus Dei and attends St. Patrick’s Cathedral, or perhaps he’s a member of the Vestry of St. Thomas, Fifth Avenue. Perhaps he gave a fat check for the new pipe organ recently, and the organ has a big brass plaque with his name engraved on it. He’s renowned as a benefactor. The message of Isaiah to this man, and Jesus’ message as well, would be that none of this can be called true religion at all. True religion would be the transformation of the man himself, and that would be visible in how he conducted his business in the future. The story of Scrooge rests entirely on Jesus’ teachings, and those of Isaiah as well. The sign of the reality of this man’s religion would not be his religious activities but the practical details of his workday living. The other things — church attendance, the Ash Wednesday service, the brass plaque on the organ — may all have their place, and perhaps they might even suggest something worthy about the man. But how he lives and works, and not his expressions of piety, are what really and lastingly matter for the disciple of Jesus.

Jesus tells us that fasting — like almsgiving and prayer — is not something to be paraded. We are to keep our faces washed, and especially of those ashes after an Ash Wednesday service, and to put away the sackcloth. No one is supposed to know how “religious” we are. Real fasting means we give from what we have and learn to curb our appetites. Real fasting may mean eating less expensive food, not going to the swankest restaurants, and not being a practical narcissist. It may mean not buying the most elaborate cell phone on the market, the biggest car, the best entertainment system — maybe going without some of these altogether. Real fasting, especially in our consumerist culture, means to stand apart from the unthinking point of view that we are what we buy. We may need to reduce our time given over to entertainment and self-gratification in order to have time for others’ needs.

Fasting is not strictly a matter of food and drink. It has to do with how we eat, certainly; but also with how we travel, dress, furnish our homes, shop, are entertained, and otherwise pamper ourselves. What we save from cutting corners — from the practice of mindful fasting — may amaze us. From those saved resources we might find we can give more generously than we ever could before for the sake of those whose poverty would also amaze us, if we were to notice it.

Click here to preorder Addison Hodges Hart’s Taking Jesus at His Word: What Jesus Really Said in the Sermon on the Mount. 

“Sin, the Body, Romans 7, and Early Christian Commentators” by J. Patout Burns

J. Patout Burns

According to Western liturgical tradition, today is Shrove Tuesday, also known as Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Carnival, or (if you’re Polish or simply fond of giant jelly donuts) Paczki Day. It marks one last day for liturgical Christians to revel in the “pleasures of the flesh” before they descend into the fasting and spiritual discipline that mark the penitential season of Lent. 

But is “the flesh” inherently sinful? In this post, J. Patout Burns examines the way in which four early Christian writers each wrestled with this question as they sought to interpret one tricky passage in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. 

Dr. Burns is editor of the forthcoming volume on Romans in the Church’s Bible series, which brings to life the rich classical tradition of biblical interpretation found in the writings of early and medieval Christian commentators. 

* * *

In Romans 7:14-25, Paul describes himself as a divided person.  He wants to do what he recognizes as good but he ends up doing the evil he hates.  He delights in the law of God but is held captive by a law of sin that is still found in his “members.”

Early Christian writers gave different explanations of this passage. They all agreed that since recognizing and loving the good was an effect of God’s grace, Paul must have been speaking about himself as a Christian and about the conflict as one that Christians endured: their conversion to Christ, it was understood, did not remove their tendency to evil when it moved them toward good.

Origen of Alexandria (died 254) postulated that Paul was not speaking about himself at the time he wrote the letter.  Instead, Origen argued, Paul had assumed the persona of a recent convert to Christianity, a person who was still battling habits of sin that had been developed over years.  The result was that decisions for the good were hard to implement.  The problem was not in the body but in the will itself. The faithful, therefore, should, according to Origen, be persistent in their effort but patient with their failures as they overcome their prior addictions and build up good habits. Most importantly, they must rely on the grace of Christ.

Ambrosiaster, a priest serving in the church at Rome in the last quarter of the fourth century, agreed with Origen that Paul was speaking as a Christian.  He, however, identified the “sin” in the members as the temptations that the devil is able to raise in the body made mortal through the sin of Adam. The mind, guided by the teaching of Christ, argued Ambrosiaster, continues to battle the lusts arising in mortality — the desires for things that the body needs to maintain itself and the human race.  The devil, he believed, uses these desires in the flesh to make sinful suggestions arise in the minds of Christians, but the rational mind, with the help of the Holy Spirit, resists these suggestions. The body, damaged by sin, gives the devil a way of tempting the mind and will but is not, according to Ambrosister, in itself evil.

Romans

John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople at the beginning of the fifth century, joined others in insisting that the flesh was not evil nor did it wage war on the will. Flesh, he claimed, is inferior to and weaker than the soul; thus, the problem Paul described arose from the weakness of the will itself, not the resistance of the body.

Augustine, who died in 430 as bishop of Hippo in what is now eastern Algeria, initially argued that Paul was speaking about himself before his conversion. Later, however, he argued that Paul was speaking in the name of Christians in general. The “good” that Paul (and all Christians) could not accomplish was to eradicate all evil desires that are present in the person as a result of prior sin. Christians, Augustine said, should oppose their evil desires even as they remain unable to eradicate them completely. According to Augustine’s understanding, the grace of God, by which sin is resisted, will provide full and complete liberation only in the resurrection, and in the meantime, the Holy Spirit strengthens the Christian. The inner conflict itself, he said, points to a continuing need for God’s support.

Each of these authors refused to name the flesh evil and the spirit good.  Some recognized that mortality gave rise to desires that the devil could use to assault the person’s free will. All insisted that God’s grace enlightened and strengthened the Christian for the conflict and promised liberation in the future resurrection.

Click here to order Romans: Interpreted by Early and Medieval Commentators, edited by J. Patout Burns. 

Review of D. A. Carson’s The Intolerance of Tolerance

Rachel Bomberger

Rachel Bomberger is Internet marketing manager at Eerdmans. She loves reading, writing, and not kicking hornets’ nests. 

* * *

If you’ve been following my semi-occasional book reviews over the past year or so, you will have learned quite a bit about me. You will know, for example, that:

• I am married to Lutheran pastor
• I have three adorable children
• I spent part of my childhood in Papua New Guinea
• I studied C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books in graduate school
• I love gardening
• I am lazy
• I am fascinated by Roman Catholic religious orders

What you probably won’t have learned from reading my posts, however, is what I really, truly think about, well, anything. You might know that I have long struggled to come to a place of resolution about the death penalty, but you certainly won’t have a clue as to where I stand on the issue today.

This is completely intentional, by the way, for while I do hold strong convictions on many of the more controversial political and theological issues of our time, I have, in recent years, become ever more reticent about publicly airing those convictions.

Why is this? Why should I, the natural-born citizen of a nation that safeguards freedom of speech, of religion, and of the press — a nation that prides itself on its almighty tolerance — always feel so downright reluctant, even afraid, to speak my mind?

Perhaps I’ve become timid about this kind of self-expression because, as D. A. Carson points out in The Intolerance of Tolerance, I’ve noticed that the kind of tolerance now so greatly esteemed in public life can actually be quite intolerant.

The Intolerance of Tolerance

Yet how can tolerance be intolerant? Carson helps me unravel this apparent paradox by careful defining what is generally meant by “tolerance” and “intolerance.” In doing so, he draws a helpful line between “old” and “new” definitions of tolerance and intolerance.

“Old tolerance” can be pretty adequately expressed by that oft-quoted line (often wrongly attributed to Voltaire): “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

“New tolerance,” however, takes this ideal — this graciously putting up with people you strongly believe are dead wrong — and both inflates and twists it almost beyond recognition. If the quote above were reworked to fit Carson’s understanding of “new tolerance,” it might read thusly: “I cannot, will not, and dare not disapprove of what you say, because what you have to say is every bit as valid as what I have to say. And I will put to death anyone who says otherwise.”

“Old tolerance” (which allowed deviation from commonly held societal norms) was, by its very nature, held in constant tension with intolerance (which encouraged adherence to societal norms).

But with a new understanding of tolerance — in a culture that now possesses very few broadly held societal norms — comes a new definition of intolerance. According to Carson:

“If you begin with this new view of tolerance, and then elevate this view to the supreme position in the hierarchy of moral virtues, the supreme sin is intolerance. The trouble is that such intolerance, like the new tolerance, also takes on a new definition. Intolerance is no longer a refusal to allow contrary opinions to say their piece in public, but must be understood to be any questioning or contradicting the view that all opinions are equal in value, that all worldviews have equal worth, that all stances are equally valid. To question such postmodern axioms is by definition intolerant. For such questioning there is no tolerance whatsoever, for it is classed as intolerance and must therefore be condemned. It has become the supreme vice.”

Given this, perhaps I have valid reason to be afraid after all. My strongly held faith and convictions — the things in this life I hold dearest — demand me to acknowledge that they are right and true. Yet for me to assert publicly in any way that my beliefs are right and true is inevitably to imply (even if I don’t say it outright) that other people’s beliefs, insofar as they contradict mine, are wrong and false. This, the world screams, I absolutely must not do.

So I keep quiet. I bite my tongue. And, what’s more, I encourage others to bite theirs.

I can recall conversations with earnest young Christian students back when I was an adjunct English instructor at a state university:

“Yes, I know you’d like to write an argumentative essay on why abortion/gay marriage/evolution/[fill in the blank] is wrong. I know you want to quote the Bible in your research paper. I know you’re dying to write a narrative essay about your conversion experience. But I feel compelled to counsel you against it. Trust me: I know how you feel, but if you’re going to make it successfully through four years at this college, you’ve got to learn to turn down the volume on the faith stuff.”

It broke my heart to do it, but I felt I had to warn them. Even now, I often hear myself urging the outspoken faithful near and dear to me to be careful:

“You can’t say that!” I tell them.

“Why not?” they say. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, of course it’s true, but you still can’t say it. It’s not nice. Don’t you know how uncomfortable people get when they hear stuff like that?”

This, of course, is Carson’s point in a nutshell. As he puts it so well in the article we posted here last week, “The new tolerance will simply wrap us up in more chains, as every issue becomes, not, ‘What is the truth of the matter?’ but ‘Has anyone been offended?’”

So, then, what’s a girl with deeply held (but often deeply suppressed) beliefs to do?

Thankfully, Carson offers not just a keen analysis of the issues at stake but also ten “ways ahead.”

“Preserve a place for truth,” he says. “Challenge secularism’s ostensible neutrality and superiority.” “Insist that the new tolerance is not ‘progress.’” “Practice and encourage civility.”

“Be prepared to suffer.”

And, just like that, I suddenly remember why it is that I so often choose to keep mum about my beliefs. As Carson reminds me: social ostracism, harassment, discrimination, even legal action can all lie in wait for those branded by contemporary society as “intolerant.”

“Delight in and trust God,” Carson tells me, even as he recognizes that while “God may bring about changes that reflect the more robust understanding of tolerance better known in earlier times,” the “powerful delusion” of so-called tolerance may also lead Christians “into more suffering for Jesus than the West has known for some time.”

I shudder to think of it. Like everything else in this book, these sentences, drawn from its very last paragraphs, have given me something to mull over deeply.

(FYI: this “mulling over” process may take some time. If you’re still hanging around waiting to hear what I really think about any of that “hot button” stuff, you may need to be patient and wait a little longer while I mull. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, check out Carson’s book for yourself and leave me a comment below to let me know your thoughts on the matter.)

Click here to order The Intolerance of Tolerance, by D. A. Carson.

“Review of Anthony Le Donne’s Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It?” by Charles B. Puskas

Charles Puskas

Charles B. Puskas is field sales manager at Eerdmans. He also holds a Ph.D. in biblical languages and literature and is coauthor of  An Introduction to the Gospels and Acts (with David Crump) and An Introduction to the New Testament (with C. Michael Robbins).

* * *

On the historical Jesus there have been a plethora of titles in the past few centuries, written by scores of esteemed authors who, for example:

• sought to free Jesus from church dogma and modernize him in their own image (e.g., Reimarus, D. F. Strauss),
• unveiled Jesus as an end-time prophet announcing God’s impending reign (Albert Schweitzer),
• doubted if we can know anything but his basic (existentially relevant) message (Rudolf Bultmann),
• launched a new quest for his authentic pre-Christian sayings (e.g., Ernest Käsemann, Norman Perrin),
• exposed him as a pre-apocalyptic Jewish cynic peasant (John Dominic Crossan),  or
• envisioned him to be the non-violent advocate of a new world order (Richard Horsley).

This wildly diverse history of research has left many who seek to discover the “real” Jesus dazed and confused.

In his Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It? Anthony Le Donne invites us to stand back and re-examine how we perceive past and present realities, what we can and what we cannot know about them, how we remember what we know by experience,  and how Jesus’ followers would have experienced and remembered him. In short — how we should view and “do” history honestly and responsibly.

With Bultmann, Le Donne agrees that recovering “the facts” is problematic, but like the “New Quest” inaugurated by Käsemann, he makes a plausible case that something can be learned about Jesus. For Le Donne, this something can be found in the interpreted memories of those who first perceived Jesus through the lens of their own shared experiences in life. As a result, all Jesus’ recorded deeds, words, and encounters are important here. “Jesus made a historical impact that was perceived by his contemporaries . . . people saw his actions, heard his words, felt his touch,” Le Donne points out (p. 15). In agreement with Horsley, Le Donne mentions that Jesus preached nonviolence and announced a new world order (p.85).

Le Donne’s student-friendly guide, based on his dissertation, The Historiographical Jesus: Memory, Typology, and the Son of David (Baylor, 2009), uses insights from social memory theory to identify “memory refraction” (i.e., just as light is distorted through the convex shape of a lens, so memories are distorted by the perceptions and experiences of those who remember).  Le Donne also discerns patterns of oral communication and memory in the history of the Jesus tradition.  Helpful here is his discussion of the Jesus saying “destroy this temple.” It occurs in different contexts on the lips of both Jesus (John 2:19) and his opponents (Mark 14:58).  These two versions, according to Le Donne, represent counter-memories prompted by some earlier historical memory (129).

In contrast to Crossan and the Jesus Seminar, who claim a critical-historical approach without any theological agenda, Le Donne prefers not to separate the religious elements from the Gospels or to divide the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith (8).  Dale C. Allison, Jr. (see below) would applaud this inclusivity.

Historical Jesus

As a thoughtful pedagogue Le Donne keeps us involved in the debate with concise explanations (e.g., Dilthey’s hermeneutical circle, 60), detailed visual elements (e.g., patterns of perception and memory, 66), and contemporary illustrations — from his attending a Bob Dylan concert,  p. 65,  to his reflecting upon Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” 84. Judiciously using certain “criteria of authenticity” from Norm Perrin and the “New Quest,” (e.g., embarrassment, coherence, multiple attestation), Le Donne claims that some of Jesus’ strange actions and unusual relationships (e.g., his rebuke of his mother in John 2:4, his encounter with demons, 46-48) may have been the most memorable to his followers who were, first and foremost, perceivers and interpreters of these experiences they shared.

I wonder, though, how relevant for the recovery of early or widespread memories of a historical personage are statements of intentional slander or deliberate malignment? How reliable is ridicule and mockery in any historical inquiry?  How would memory theory work with the pagan satirist Lucian’s derisive exposés in Alexander the False Prophet or The Passing of Peregrinus (2^nd century C.E.)?  It is reported that the Cynic Peregrinus became a Christian. Perhaps more judicious use of the historical criteria is needed here to distinguish reliable from unreliable data. In two of the illustrations Le Donne uses to reveal our unconscious interpretative frameworks, I was also (somewhat) surprised to learn that one very quotable remark was not from Martin Luther King Jr. but Adolf Hitler (97) and that the beloved “Prayer of St. Francis” is an early 20^th century literary creation (99). Yes, it can be a challenge to reframe our perceptions!

The book has received endorsements from notables like James D. G.  Dunn (LeDonne’s Doktor Vater and author of Jesus Remembered, 2003), Gerd Theissen (with Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus, WJK, 2002), and Richard Horsley (Jesus and Empire, Harper, 2003). Dale Allison, who wrote The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus, 2009, provides a supportive foreword.  Allison, who reaffirms Albert Schweitzer’s eschatological focus, must be pleased with statements like, “Jesus’ apocalyptic teaching likely evoked thought-categories . . . by which his identity was perceived” (p. 126).  Allison also surmises, in his foreword, that if Joseph had died and if Jesus was a firstborn son, Jesus may have thus rejected his prescribed role as a new, surrogate paterfamilias when he became an itinerant preacher of God’s reign, clarifying for Allison the tension that Le Donne alleges to exist between Jesus and his mother (xii).

Ultimately, Le Donne’s book is both descriptive (exploring how humans perceive, interpret, and remember) and prescriptive (avoiding naïve objectivism and historicism), synchronic (paying attention to narrative plot) and diachronic (making historical comparisons), both instructive and reflective, with helpful questions, memorable quotes, culture focus notes, and suggestions for further reading to aid readers in their quest for understanding. The book is coherently organized in three parts, with each part unfolding inductively into five subsections: Questions, Perception, Memory, History, Jesus.

Historical Jesus invites us to join the foray of two centuries of debate about Jesus and earliest Christianity. We all have something to bring to this discussion, and we might be surprised to discover that we can come away with more than we had anticipated.

Click here to order Anthony LeDonne’s Historical Jesus: What Can We Know and How Can We Know It? 

Click here to read an EerdWord blog post by Anthony LeDonne.

Four Great Picture Books for Black History Month

With our passion for cultural, ethnic, religious, and ideological diversity — not to mention our ever-expanding list of multicultural books for children — it should come as no surprise that we love Black History Month.

To mark the occasion this year, we’re featuring a selection of picture books that celebrate African American history and culture on our website and on  Edelweiss. Here are just a few of the titles we’re showcasing:

I Lay My Stitches Down

I Lay My Stitches Down: Poems of American Slavery 

This rich and intricate collection of poems chronicles the various experiences of American slaves before the Civil War. Woven through with imagery drawn from quilting and fiber arts, each poem is spoken from a different perspective: a house slave, a mother losing her daughter to the auction block, a blacksmith, a slave fleeing on the Underground Railroad.

Cynthia Grady’s moving and eloquent poetry, brought to life by vibrant artwork from Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator Michele Wood, offers a timeless witness to the hardship endured by America’s slaves. Each poem is supplemented by a historical note.

Click here to read a blog post by author Cynthia Grady.

The Beatitudes

The Beatitudes

In this book Jesus’ Beatitudes — from the famous Sermon on the Mount — form the backdrop for Carole Boston Weatherford’s powerful free-verse poem that traces the African American journey from slavery to civil rights, highlighting the way in which, since the earliest days of slavery, African Americans have called on their religious faith in the struggle against oppression.

Tim Ladwig’s stirring illustrations showcase a panorama of heroes in this struggle, from slaves shackled in the hold of a ship to the first African American president taking his oath of office on the steps of the United States Capitol.

Ben and the Emancipation Proclamation

Ben and the Emancipation Proclamation

In this stirring book, Ben, a young slave, uses every chance he gets to teach himself to read, practicing with the words he sees on street signs and in shop windows and even in cast-off newspapers he finds in the gutter.

After the Civil War breaks out, his master leaves town and Ben finds himself locked up in a slave prison. One night, the prisoners bribe a guard to get their hands on a newspaper, and to the applause of his fellow slaves, Ben reads aloud the momentous news of Mr. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation — surely one of the most remarkable readings of that document ever.

Based on the true story of Benjamin Holmes, Pat Sherman’s stirring text and the memorable illustrations of Coretta Scott King medalist Floyd Cooper pay tribute to the power of freedom — and to the power of the written word.

Come Sunday

Come Sunday

Softly, quietly comes Sunday for young LaTasha, as she wakes to a day that is always full of glorious sounds: the pipe organ, tambourine, and drum; the footfalls of ushers marching down the aisle of the sanctuary; the sweet harmonies of the choir; and the rich vibrato of the preacher’s voice. LaTasha sings along with the congregation, confident that Heaven hears each joyful note.

Sometimes funny, sometimes serious, Nikki Grimes’s poems and the lush tapestry of colors in Michael Bryant’s illustrations celebrate a day of worship — and the rich texture of the African American Christian spiritual tradition — as it is experienced through the sensations of an exuberant little girl.

Click here to see a full list of EBYR picture books that celebrate African American history and culture on our website.

“Stitching Poetry” by Cynthia Grady

Cynthia Grady

Cynthia Grady is middle school librarian at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. She is also a poet, a quilter, and author of the new book I Lay My Stitches Down: Poems of American Slavery, which is illustrated by Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winner Michele Wood. In this post, Grady describes how her love of quilting and her interest in the life experiences of American slaves came together to inspire her first book. 

* * *

I’ve been making quilts for more than twenty years and writing poems even longer, but I’d never thought to put the two together. The idea for I Lay My Stitches Down came to me while I was preparing to teach a quilt class to a group of middle school students. While I drafted the pattern for a block called Underground Railroad, a line came to me: “the hunter aine no match for this old pilgrim in the woods.” It was a little weird, but I kept drawing. Then it happened again: “my thimble, thread, and needle comfort me.” This line happens to be perfect iambic pentameter. I became excited, but kept planning my lessons for the quilt class. While I worked on another block my muse visited one more time: “The teacher catch us making letters in the dirt with sticks.”

I Lay My Stitches Down

I knew then that I had to write some poems and they had to be about slavery. I would need a minimum of 14-16 poems for a picture book to work, so I made a list of my favorite blocks: Birds in the Air, Anvil, Broken Dishes, Kaleidoscope. And then I listed some fairly obvious choices for a book about slavery times: North Star, Log Cabin, Wagon Wheel. That gave me eight blocks. Not enough for a book, but a start. I knew basket-making was a West African art so I thought the Basket block might work, too. Now I had nine blocks. I spent the next six months researching slavery with an eye toward finding block names that I could use as poem titles.

In some cases, I had the idea for the poem first and in others I chose the quilt block first. Still other times, the two came together. For instance, I knew that I wanted to use Anvil and that its poem would concern an enslaved blacksmith. Likewise, I would use the Log Cabin block and write something about the archaeological digs surrounding slave quarters. I had recently visited Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s house, and Mt. Vernon, George Washington’s house, where excavations had taken place.

Researching and writing the poems for each of these early blocks led to ideas for others. While researching blacksmithing, I learned about shoeing horses, which in turn led me to information on horse racing. I was so surprised to learn that horse trainers and jockeys had been slaves that I wrote that poem without a title in mind. I thought there must be a quilt block that had something to do with horses or horseshoes, ranches or stables. I looked and looked, but I found nothing suitable. It was a long time before I thought of using Rail Fence. There’s nothing about a fence or a corral in the poem, but I think it works.

The final poems came about in similar ways with one leading into the next. At one point I considered using blocks with biblical names, but I ultimately ended up using just one, Tree of Life.

This project was a joyful experience from beginning to end. The constraints I set for myself within each poem allowed me to stretch meaning and metaphor in a way that was new for me and very satisfying.

Click here to order I Lay My Stitches Down: Poems of American Slavery.

Click here to visit Cynthia Grady’s website. 

First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage: Five Great Books for Valentine’s Day

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet,
And so are the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Oh, dear. That didn’t sound quite right. Please bear with us as try again.

Roses are red,
John Jensen is green,
Happiness is sweet,
And — hey! Did you see that forthcoming volume on Romans in the Church’s Bible commentary series?

With a sigh — whether of relief or resignation we’ll leave you to guess — we must acknowledge frankly that Eerdmans is no Harlequin. In general, romance just isn’t our specialty. If you’re interested in the sexual mores of Jewish society during the Second Temple period, we’ve got you covered. If you’re looking for something that goes well with chocolate and flowers, we may not.

Yes, romance isn’t our specialty, in general. That said, like any good box of Valentine’s chocolates, we do have a very eclectic list — when you open an Eerdmans catalog, you really never know what you’re going to get. In honor of Valentine’s Day, therefore, we’ve combed the backlist to put together this Whitman’s Sampler of great books on love, sex, and marriage.

First Comes Love . . .

We don’t publish many love stories, but when we do, they’re pretty special — like these two books of young love.

Garmann's Secret

Garmann’s Secret

“They’re like two peas in a pod,” adults whisper about the twins Hannah and Johanna. But Garmann knows that they aren’t.

Then one day Johanna takes Garmann into the woods to show him a surprise, and the two find a secret world full of imagination and discovery.

Award-winning author and illustrator Stian Hole has once again created a book filled with wonder and delight in this sweet story about a boy’s first crush.

Things We Couldn't Say

Things We Couldn’t Say

Things We Couldn’t Say is the poignant memoir of Diet Eman, who, as a young Dutch woman, together with her fiancé, Hein Sietsma, risked everything to rescue imperiled Jews in Nazi-occupied Holland during World War II.

Throughout the years that Diet and Hein aided the Resistance — work that would cost Diet her freedom and Hein his life — their courageous effort ultimately saved hundreds of Dutch Jews.

Eman’s book tells the tragic, triumphant, unforgettable true story of a love stronger than Nazi persecution.

Then Comes Marriage . . .

Wedding Rites

For lovebirds dreaming of and planning for “till death do us part” this Valentine’s Day, we suggest Michael P. Foley’s Wedding Rites: A Complete Guide to Traditional Vows, Music, Ceremonies, Blessings, and Interfaith Services.

In this unique book, Foley presents meaningful wedding traditions so old that they’re practically new again. Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Jewish wedding traditions fill this comprehensive guidebook — the perfect resource for couples looking to follow tradition even as they carve their own wedding path. From music and flowers to vows and ceremonies to blessings, Foley’s Wedding Rites contains a vast assortment of rich traditions very usable in weddings today.

[Then Comes You Know What . . . ]

Sex for Christians

Now considered a classic statement on sex and sexuality from a Christian perspective, Lewis B. Smedes’s Sex for Christians offers a frank yet compassionate discussion that is refreshingly open-minded and strongly biblical. In it, he provides an overview of human sexuality — its created goodness, its sinful distortions, and its redeemed potential. With sections on both “Sex and Single People” and “Sex and Married People,” Smedes addresses sexual behavior — the things we do as sexual beings — in each succeeding stage of life.

Smedes’s attempt to present “a Christian perspective for a truly human sexual life” has resulted in a sexual morality that, within a biblical perspective, is as liberating as it is limiting.

Then Comes Baby in a Baby Carriage!

Before You Were Born

Who says Valentine’s Day is just for lovers? Parents looking for a cozy Valentine’s read-aloud that celebrates the love they have — and have always had — for their children can look to Nancy White Carlstrom’s lovely book Before You Were Born.

Carlstrom’s lyrical celebration of life, which takes its inspiration from Psalm 139, explores in simple language the mystery of how each child is a part of God’s loving plan — and the wonder of how a family grows and changes when a child arrives. With vibrant colors and joyful images, illustrator Linda Saport tenderly conveys the excitement and love with which parents welcome children into their lives.

Click here to discover more great books on love, sex, and marriage.

Walter Brueggemann at Eerdmans Bookstore [Video]

We were honored to welcome two bright stars in the biblical scholarship cosmos to Eerdmans Bookstore in January. Thursday, January 26, N. T. Wright stopped in to sign books and greet dozens of his many admirers, and just one day later, on Friday, January 27, Walter Brueggemann came by to give a talk and answer audience questions about his new book The Practice of Prophetic Imagination: Preaching an Emancipating Word (Fortress Press, 2012).

We have a couple of online “souvenirs” from these exciting author events to share with those who were unable to attend. N. T. Wright fans can view a Facebook album of photos from his book signing. Walter Brueggemann fans can enjoy video from his talk below.

We’ll post clips from the extensive and wide-ranging question and answer session with Dr. Brueggemann that followed this brief lecture soon — subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch them as soon as they’re uploaded!

Book Trailer for Jonah’s Whale

Jonah's Whale

Although we do consider it mildly ironic that videos have lately become such a powerful force in book promotion (videos and books just don’t seem like natural allies to us), we cannot deny that we love watching book trailers.

When Mary Newell DePalma sent us a link to the book trailer she had posted to YouTube for Uh-Oh!, we were immediately enchanted by the way it brought the art, story, and spirit of the book to life.

What’s more, after watching it a few (dozen) times and trolling YouTube for more representative samples of the genre, we began to think to ourselves: we can do that! Why not?

Inspired, we started poring over EBYR’s latest announcement catalog, looking for a picture book that stood out for its cinematic possibilities. We quickly agreed that, with Eileen Spinelli’s deft storytelling and Giuliano Ferri’s luminous artwork (not to mention a lovable main character in gentle Whale), Jonah’s Whale was the perfect choice for our first in-house book trailer.

With our subject chosen, we got right down to business, selecting artwork and sound clips, finding a willing narrator, and reworking portions of the text into a manageable script. Then our indefatigable Internet marketing assistant Becki Watson set about the serious work (or as she calls it, “fun”) of putting all the pieces together into a coherent whole.

The fruit of Becki’s labor (or as she calls it, “play”) you can see below. Enjoy!

Now that you’ve seen it, please let us know: what do you think of our first in-house book trailer? We’d love to hear your thoughts. We’d also love to know which other Eerdmans books (for adults or young readers) you think would translate well into book trailers.

Click here to order Jonah’s Whale, written by Eileen Spinelli and illustrated by Giuliano Ferri.

“Tolerance, Not Truth, Is the New Supreme Virtue” by D. A. Carson

D. A. Carson

D. A. Carson is research professor of New Testament at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois, and author of the new book The Intolerance of Tolerance. In this post, he describes the way in which tolerance has evolved throughout recent history  — from a necessary safeguard against tyranny into the supreme virtue of Western society.

* * *

For more than two thousand years, tolerance was widely viewed as a virtue that was in some ways parasitic on a larger moral vision. A parasite draws its life from a larger organism; old-fashioned tolerance drew its life from the moral matrix in which it was embedded. In recent decades that has changed, and not for the better: tolerance has become independent, largely cut off from a larger moral framework.

In the culture of ancient Greece, in the Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages, in Spain during the Inquisition, in Calvin’s Geneva, in Victorian England as in revolutionary France, in Puritan New England as in mid-America during the Eisenhower years, in Mao’s China or in today’s Saudi Arabia — in all these worlds tolerance held the same functional place. Whatever the shape of the particular culture in which it was embedded, the degree of tolerance or intolerance that was settled on in each setting was in large part maintained out of concern for the public good. If one holds that such-and-such a belief system is for the good of society (whether the belief system is religious, as in the Spanish inquisition, or secular, as in Mao’s China, or some complex combination of traditional religion and commitment to “progress” and material prosperity, as in Victorian England), it will not be long before people have to wrestle with the question, “How much deviation should we allow? How much deviation from the norm can be tolerated?” If the powers that be allow too much tolerance, the “exceptions” and “misfits” and “outliers” may bring down the entire system that is understood to do so much good; if too little, the powers that be risk hurting many people, and may in addition provoke an unsolicited reaction from the broader culture, a reaction that might well prove equally destructive. In these worlds, tolerance is not absolute. It is held in tension with intolerance. Tolerance and intolerance constitute a sort of paired virtue, and the trick is getting the balance right in support of the larger matrix of cultural values. And necessarily, that paired virtue, the balance between tolerance and intolerance, changes as the culture changes.

The Intolerance of Tolerance

But in much of the Western world, the last few decades have brought about a jarring change. This change can be analyzed on at least four fronts.

First, by and large it has become detached from any broad, culture-wide ethical system, for the very good reason that the culture has become suspicious of all systems. But that leaves tolerance as the last virtue standing — or, more cautiously put, it leaves tolerance exercising the role of supreme virtue.

Second, the supreme virtue of tolerance, detached from any broad ethical system, has now become part of the “plausibility structure” of much of the Western world. As far as I know, the category of plausibility structure was first coined by sociologist Peter Berger. The plausibility structure of society is the cultural structure that the overwhelming majority of people in that culture find plausible; opinions and stances outside that structure seem hopelessly implausible. If tolerance is part of the West’s plausibility structure, then even to suggest that we should not tolerate something or other is to sound bizarre, out of date, out of step with the contemporary world, mean, even (and here’s irony) evil. So if a Christian were to insist, for instance, that Jesus is the only way to God, the first question in our culture will not be “What reasons do you advance for that position?” but “What about all the Hindus (or Muslims, or atheists, or whatever)?”

Third, it is worth analyzing the effect of elevating tolerance to the level of supreme virtue. It generates scores of ironies that relatively few people even notice. As J. Daryl Charles puts it, the old tolerance that has recently been transmuted to this new status “becomes indistinguishable from an intractably intolerant relativism.” Worse, it soon becomes massively inconsistent and manipulative.

A university tries to ban a Christian student group from circulating one thousand free copies of C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, on the grounds that this book does not take a sufficiently tolerant view of other religions and that campus Muslims, Buddhists, Mormons, and other religionists might be offended. Yet few reflect on the fact that by trying to ban this Christian group, the university is reflecting an intolerance of the Christian group that does not accept the majority view regarding the nature of tolerance.

The rising number of Muslims in England has prompted subtle (and not-so-subtle) eviction of pigs and their stories. In some schools, the story of the three little pigs is now banned, as Muslim school children might be offended by stories about unclean animals. The council of Dudley, Worcestershire (West Midlands) banned all images or representations of pigs from its benefits department, on the ground that Muslims coming in for benefits might be offended: calendars with pigs, porcelain porcine figurines, and so forth, including a tissue box depicting Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. When pressed as to why pigs have to go, Mahbubur Rahman, a Muslim Councillor in West Midlands, explained, “It’s a tolerance of people’s beliefs.” This is stunning doublespeak. What about tolerance of those who think differently about pigs? In the name of tolerance toward the beliefs of Muslims, intolerance is imposed. No one should doubt that Muslims ought to be free to express their dislike of pigs and pig representations; the problem, rather, is that Mr Rahman thinks that getting rid of pigs and pig representations is a moral obligation that upholds the virtue of tolerance, whereas he senses himself under no obligation to uphold the virtue of tolerance so as to permit those who rather like pigs and their representations to keep them. As one commentator puts it, on the lips of Mr Rahman and in the decisions of the Dudley Council, tolerance has become strangely confused with Islamist supremacism. My files on such developments, like certain demons, have become legion.

Fourth, the elevation of tolerance to supreme virtue and the adoption of this virtue into the West’s plausibility structure makes it extremely difficult to converse intelligently with other parts of the world — the worlds of Buddhism, say, or of Islam, Hindusim, and Communism. They may like our technology and our toys, but they commonly think we are silly, intellectually and morally vapid, unprincipled; we are inclined to think they are hard-line, bigoted, hate-filled, and (the supreme sin) intolerant.

Believe me when I insist that this blog post has no interest in decreasing tolerance in the world. Rather, we must expose the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of this new tolerance, and we must strive to regain the old tolerance, which was attached to some sort of broad ethical and cultural vision, so that what we argue about with others is first of all the truthfulness or credibility or usefulness of the broad vision. And here, Christians can lead the way. The new tolerance will simply wrap us up in more chains, as every issue becomes, not, “What is the truth of the matter?” but “Has anyone been offended?”

Sometimes the truth offends.

Click here to order D. A. Carson’s new book The Intolerance of Tolerance.

“Voytek: A Bear with a Tale” by Laura Watkinson

Soldier Bear

Yesterday, we published editor Kathleen Merz’s reaction to Soldier Bear‘s Batchelder win. Today, we hear from Laura Watkinson, who translated Bibi Dumon Tak’s novel from the Dutch, about what it was like for her to learn that the book had won such an important award.

* * *

I’m still gently reeling from last week’s exciting news that Soldier Bear, my translation of Bibi Dumon Tak’s book Soldaat Wojtek, has won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for “the most outstanding children’s book originally published in a language other than English in a country other than the United States, and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States” – which really is quite a mouthful.

Kathleen Merz from Eerdmans emailed me to say that the award had gone to Eerdmans and Soldier Bear. Seconds later, a message appeared on my Facebook wall from Roxie Munro, a friend and fellow member of the Society of Children’s Book Authors and Illustrators. It was soon followed by lots of other messages from friends who loved the book and the bear and, like me, were delighted to see a translation from the Dutch gaining recognition in the States. There was tweeting, there was Facebooking. . . . The bear was everywhere!

One of the nicest emails I received was from Bibi Dumon Tak herself, who was just as pleased as I was that the translation had won such an honor from the American Library Association. Bibi also mentioned that a DVD has recently come out in the UK about Wojtek, and she added that, “Dat beest is hotterdanhot,” which I suspect I don’t need to translate.

Wojtek, with one of Polish soldiers who cared for him.

Bibi is absolutely right. The bear certainly does seem to be a very hot property right now. My mother-in-law just sent me a newspaper cutting from The Times (London, January 5) featuring a color photograph of the “grizzled, beery hero of Monte Cassino,” with his customary bottle of beer, and describing his wartime adventures. The article says that the Wojtek Memorial Trust is planning to commemorate Wojtek, “one of the most unlikely heroes of the Second World War,” with a bronze memorial in Edinburgh and “is in talks to send a copy of the statue to Warsaw and to recreate the heroic homecoming that his Polish comrades always dreamed of providing.”

My mother-in-law is in fact from Edinburgh and actually remembers, as a girl, seeing Wojtek when he was a resident of Edinburgh Zoo. She loved reading Bibi’s story of the bear’s life, and I’m sure she’s not the only person to have been in tears at the end of the book. At that time, when he lived in Edinburgh, Wojtek’s Polish name often appeared in the British press as ‘Voytek,’ and we kept this spelling for the translation, as we thought it’d be a little more straightforward for young American readers.

Another familiar name appeared in the Times article: Aileen Orr, the author of Wojtek the Bear, Polish War Hero, which I kept by my side as I translated. It’s a fine read and covers some of the factual background to the bear’s tale and the story of the Polish soldiers in WWII. I’d recommend it to anyone who’s interested in finding out more about Wojtek and his companions, although it must be said that there is some debate about the accuracy of the facts surrounding Wojtek’s story. Wojtek has many fans who are devoted to him and there are a few different versions of the “facts” doing the rounds.

The article in The Times finished by mentioning some facts that aren’t open to debate: “Ms Orr is hoping to raise £500,000 for the bronzes and to fund two scholarships at Edinburgh’s Royal Veterinary School — one for a Scottish student and one for a Pole.”

So it seems that this marvelous creature, who died in 1962, is still having a positive effect on people’s lives in 2012 and beyond. That bear – yes, he’s hotter than hot!

Click here to order Soldier Bear, written by Bibi Dumon Tak, illustrated by Philip Hopman, and translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson. 

“Soldier Bear, the Batchelder, and the Risky Business of Publishing International Literature,” by Kathleen Merz

Kathleen Merz

Kathleen Merz is managing editor for Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. Here she describes EBYR’s reaction to the news that it had been awarded the American Library Association’s prestigious Batchelder Award for its translation of Bibi Dumon Tak’s Soldier Bear, and she offers insight into the “tricky and risky business” of publishing translated children’s books.

* * *

Monday, January 23, was a day of celebration for everyone here at Eerdmans Books for Young Readers. This year’s Youth Media Awards — some of the most significant awards in children’s publishing — were announced that morning at the midwinter meeting of the American Library Association. And as our staff gathered around my computer to watch the webcast, we were stunned and elated to hear that the Batchelder Award went to our book Soldier Bear, the story (based on a series of actual events) of an orphaned bear adopted by a company of Polish soldiers in World War II.

Soldier Bear

The Mildred L. Batchelder Award is given to an American publisher to recognize the year’s most outstanding translated children’s book published in the United States. The award was proposed in 1966 by Eleanor Burgess, head of children’s services at none other than our very own Grand Rapids Public Library. After hearing a speech from Mildred Batchelder, a fellow librarian and tireless promoter of international children’s literature, Burgess was so inspired that she immediately suggested that an award be established in Batchelder’s honor, for the purpose of encouraging American publishers “to seek out superior children’s books abroad and to promote communication among the peoples of the world.”

Having one of our books chosen for this prestigious award was a thrilling surprise and a great honor. But even more than that, it is a wonderful encouragement to us to continue the work we’ve been doing to bring international books to a U.S. audience. Soldier Bear, originally published in Dutch, is our first translated novel, although EBYR has published numerous picture books in translation — Willy, John Jensen Feels Different, and 2009 Batchelder Honor winner Garmann’s Summer are just a few noteworthy examples.

Garmann's Summer

We’re grateful for the affirmation, because publishing translated books can be a tricky and risky business. For starters, there is the daunting task of acquiring a book written in an unfamiliar language. EBYR regularly looks at books published in French, German, Norwegian, Dutch, Italian, and Korean, among others. Needless to say, our department’s collective understanding of these languages ranges from shaky to utterly nonexistent. With a picture book, the art can at least offer some sense of a story’s possibility — though the text may not measure up at all — but with a novel, often the only clues to its potential are a brief synopsis and perhaps one or two roughly translated sample chapters provided by the foreign publisher.

This was the case for us with Soldier Bear. We were, however, intrigued enough by the story to take the next step and find a reader who knew both the Dutch language and the field of children’s literature well enough to give us a report on the book. When the evaluation came back positive, we moved ahead with finding a translator and hiring her to translate five chapters to give us an idea of what she might be able to do with the book. At any point along the way, of course, we might have discovered that the book wasn’t for us — and all that effort would have been wasted.

But we were fortunate. The story that started to unfold in those five chapters charmed us all. We wanted to know more about the mischievous little bear cub Voytek and the soldiers who decided to take him along as they traveled across the Middle East and to the frontlines in Italy. So, with seventeen chapters still unread, we agreed to publish the book.

We were fortunate as well to find an excellent translator. Laura Watkinson did a wonderful job of bring the story to life in a new language. It was impossible to tell that the chapters had been translated; they read as smoothly and naturally as if they had been written in English originally. That, too, is another risk of publishing translated books: it’s incredibly hard to get the translation just right, striking the perfect balance between faithfulness to the original language and accessibility to a new audience. We had lots of long discussions about seemingly trivial things. Should we use the original name “Wojtek” for the bear, or the more anglicized (and easier to pronounce) “Voytek”? “Pjotr” or “Peter”? Not the sort of thing you often need to consider if you’re publishing a book written by an English-speaking author for an American audience.

Eventually, of course, we arrived at a consensus on all these issues. And after formatting and reformatting, polishing and proofreading just one more time, we had a finished book. And then we held our breath.

The greatest risk of publishing international literature is that a book will be too far outside what the U.S. market is accustomed to and not be able to find an audience. But in a way, this is also the joy of it — that we have the chance to publish something fresh, something edgy, something altogether unexpected. Something that stretches in some small way the boundaries that readers hold rigid around them without perhaps even noticing that they do. Or maybe just something delightful that children in the U.S. should have the chance to read.

We at EBYR get very excited about the chance to discover these sorts of books. And we’re very grateful to the dedicated individuals at the American Library Association and the United States Board on Books for Young People who have made it their mission to support international literature. Without their encouragement, and without readers who are willing to try something new and perhaps a little unfamiliar, it wouldn’t be possible for us to publish books like Soldier Bear. We’re glad that Soldier Bear is finding appreciative readers, because it paves the way for us to continue to look for books that can offer a small window into a larger world.

Click here to order the Batchelder-winning novel Soldier Bear, written by Bibi Dumon Tak, illustrated by Philip Hopman, and translated by Laura Watkinson.

Click here to read a post by translator Laura Watkinson.

“The Adventure of Gospel Interpretation: Conclusion” by Frederick Dale Bruner

Thanks for joining us for Frederick Dale Bruner’s five-part series on “the adventure of Gospel interpretation.” Today we say goodbye to Dr. Bruner as we post his heartfelt conclusion. If you’ve missed any of the previous articles in this series, use the links below to find them all. If you’re simply craving the opportunity to read more of Dr. Bruner’s pastoral insight into the Gospels than we have space to present here, check out his new book The Gospel of John: A Commentary — it’s currently in production and expected to ship before the end of February.

I. How I Became a Gospel Interpreter (Part 1)
II. How I Became a Gospel Interpreter (Part 2)
III. The Special Responsibilities of Gospel Interpreters
IV. One Striking Experience in Seeking to Understand the Gospel of John  
V. Conclusion 

* * *

V. Conclusion

Frederick Dale Bruner

It has been a very happy exercise for me to reflect on my major adventures in, first, becoming a Gospel interpreter at all, and the circuitous route there; second, in learning what being a Gospel interpreter should probably mean in terms of responsibilities; and lastly, to share with you one of my major experiences, an “aha-moment” in Gospel interpretation itself.

We isolated, insulated, strange little interpreters of Scripture (I think I can speak for most of us), with our metallic posteriors, all over the world — sitting in little studies trying to figure out what these ancient words in the Old Book really mean and what they are trying to say today — we cherish as our major hope in this life that, perhaps, per grace, what we learn and pass on from these little isolated, insulated places in libraries can be of help to busy human beings in the real world, to those who are Jesus’ hands, feet, and heart, those who live out there in that rugged world, and who also teach and preach Holy Scripture in their lives and in their work.

The final earthly justification for a Gospel interpreter’s strange life at all is this: if a real Christian out there in the real world — a Sunday-School teacher, a youth worker, a parent, a grandparent, or, mainly (as I think most of us who write commentaries think), a pastor — can find something in our attempts at interpretation that will help explain the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that very day, and the coming day, and especially on Sunday, we will be so grateful.

 Click here to order Frederick Dale Bruner’s Gospel of John: A Commentary.

“The Adventure of Gospel Interpretation: One Striking Experience in Seeking to Understand the Gospel According to John” by Frederick Dale Bruner

Frederick Dale Bruner’s massive and highly anticipated new commentary The Gospel of John is (at last!) in production and expected to arrive in our warehouse before the end of February. To celebrate the pending release, we’re posting a five-part guest series by Dr. Bruner on “the adventure of Gospel interpretation.” Here’s an outline of the series; we’ll add links as the articles go live. 

I. How I Became a Gospel Interpreter (Part 1)
II. How I Became a Gospel Interpreter (Part 2)
III. The Special Responsibilities of Gospel Interpreters
IV. One Striking Experience in Seeking to Understand the Gospel of John  
V. Conclusion 

* * *

IV. One Striking Experience in Seeking to Understand the Gospel According to John

Frederick Dale Bruner

Because of the limitation of time and because of the singularity of the experience, I want to share with you just one major interpretive experience in John (though I can recall many). This is what I would call the biggest single surprise I received in the study of John’s entire Gospel. The surprise occurred in the interpretation of Jesus’ chapter-long prayer, historically called “Jesus’ High-Priestly Prayer,” which fills out the entirety of John 17. The surprise was the discovery that this prayer is an almost exact paraphrase of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray in Matthew 6 and in Luke 11, the prayer we have come to call The Lord’s Prayer. As a result of the surprising parallels I came to call John 17, quite simply, “The Lord’s ‘Lord’s Prayer.’”

I did not come to this discovery on my own. It was first suggested to me in the English-language study by William O. Walker Jr. entitled “The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew and John,” published in the journal New Testament Studies, volume 28 (1982), pp. 237-256. I think that it would be fair to say that only a minority (though it is a substantial minority) of interpreters of John before or since Walker’s article have found or have subscribed to his theory of the parallel between the two prayers. However, I found Walker’s study compelling.

Let me now, in my own words, see if I can convince you that Jesus’ Prayer in John 17 is Jesus’ own way of praying the Lord’s Prayer that he gave to his disciples earlier in his ministry.

A preliminary question and remarks: how did the evangelist John know what Jesus prayed in the Upper Room that night, even if he himself had been there? I very much doubt that John took stenographic notes during Jesus’ prayer. (That would have been irreverent, to say the least.) I can more easily believe that the Evangelist later asked either Jesus himself or Jesus’ disciples, or both, what they most remembered about Jesus’ last great prayer that momentous evening. I think that the Evangelist may also have heard Jesus’ prayers at other times and have recognized certain themes, and so he would have grasped Jesus’ content more readily in this final prayer. And if the “Lord’s ‘Lord’s Prayer’” is, in fact, an almost exact parallel of the earlier Lord’s Prayer, it would have been much easier for the disciples to remember Jesus’ last prayer. I also believe that is quite possible, perhaps even probable, that John shaped his and the other disciples’ memories of Jesus’ last prayer in language that was compatible with John’s own deepest theological convictions about Jesus. We all shape what we hear and learn in our own language. Finally, by way of introduction, I believe that the Evangelist received special help from the Paraclete Holy Spirit in writing the most important public prayer that Jesus probably ever prayed. These are the several ways that I can best understand the writing of John 17.

Now to the prayer itself. There are exactly six petitions, as we all know, in the earlier Lord’s Prayer that Jesus taught his disciples: three “thy” petitions at the beginning of the prayer (“hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done”) and three “us” petitions at the end (“give us this day …”; “forgive us our debts …”; “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil … “). Therefore, surprise number one: There are exactly six petitions in the “Lord’s ‘Lord’s Prayer’” that Jesus prayed in John 17. Two of the six petitions are almost exactly repeated so that these two petitions, the first and the fifth get special emphasis. Let me lay out the parallels in the six petitions of the two prayers (and the parallels even in their prefaces and middles).

Petition 1. “Father, … [please] glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you” (v. 1); repeated in v. 5: “Father, [please] glorify me in your own presence …” I hear in this first petition John the Evangelist’s way of understanding Jesus’ conviction about the main way that the Father’s Name is hallowed in the first petition of the disciples’ Lord’s Prayer: the Father’s Name is especially hallowed wherever the Father’s Son is glorified. Jesus’ petition is not egocentric, as it might first sound. For Jesus has taught us throughout this Gospel that his being “lifted up” in Crucifixion is the main way that he and his Father will be glorified. The Father’s Name is hallowed, most and best, wherever Jesus’ Person and Work are glorified. For evangelical Christians, I believe this Christocentric conviction gives specific and very helpful direction to our own praying of the first petition of the Lord’s Prayer and, indeed, gives us specific and helpful direction to the whole of our thinking about God, about the Gospel, and about prayer. In short, “Father, hallowed be Thy Name” means, “Father, please glorify your Son.”

Petition 2. “Holy Father, please keep these disciples here inside your Name that you gave to me so that they may be one as we are one” (v. 11) What is “the Name that the Father gave to Jesus” according to the Gospel of John? With the major commentators, I believe that Jesus’ multiple “I Am,” is the special “Name” the Father gave to Jesus for Jesus’ use in public ministry. When praying Christians are kept inside the “I Am” of Jesus Christ — that is to say, when they are kept inside the full divinity of Jesus Christ — then I believe the Father’s Kingdom comes down on them and on their surrounding world, which is exactly the meaning of the Second Petition of the disciples’ Lord’s Prayer. John learned from Jesus multiple times, and he then learned from Jesus’ last prayer very specifically, that when Jesus’ disciples are kept inside Jesus’ “I Am,” inside Jesus’ full divinity and, so, inside Jesus’ ultimacy, then the Kingdom of God is present. Can you see, already in these first two petitions, how John’s “Lord’s ‘Lord’s Prayer’” makes the disciples’ Lord’s Prayer much more specific, more centered, and even more practical?

Petition 3. “I am not asking you to take my disciples out of the world, [Father], but I am asking you, please: Protect them from the Evil One” (v. 15). This is, at first, the most strikingly different of the six petitions from the original Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6. But wait a minute. This prayer for the disciples to be kept from the Evil One is an almost exact replication of the sixth and last Petition of the disciples’ Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from [and the Greek text has the definite article here] the Evil One.” Matthew scholars are almost unanimous that Jesus meant this sixth petition of the disciples’ Lord’s Prayer to be a prayer for protection not just from general “evil” but from the articled “Evil One,” from the Devil. (Hence the careful NRSV translation: “deliver us from the evil one.”) Very early in the church’s history this ending of Jesus’ original prayer seemed awkward to some Christians, and so around the fourth century the now-familiar ending was added by the Church to Jesus’ original prayer — an ending that none of our oldest Greek manuscripts has, and which is rightly omitted from our best New Testament translations: that is, “for Thine is the kingdom, etc.”

John’s Jesus, very pastorally, puts this prayer for protection — from the Evil One, from the Devil — which was at the end of Jesus’ gift of the Lord’s Prayer to his disciples, now in the middle of Jesus’ own personal prayer, and John saves Jesus’ own and final sixth petition for a much more exalted prayer conclusion. I would not be surprised if Jesus himself prayed this protection-from-the-Devil petition right here in the middle of his prayer, as John has given it to us. This is the only petition, in any case, that is “out of chronological order” in the otherwise two strikingly parallel prayers (the Lord’s Prayer and the “Lord’s ‘Lord’s Prayer’”) and the explanation I have just given for this order is the answer I have found most helpful in interpretation.

Petition 4. “Father, please sanctify them in the truth; your Word is that Truth” (v. 17). In the earlier Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught his disciples in the Fourth Petition to pray, very practically, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt 6:11). And the word “bread” (artos) in Matthew’s Gospel always means physical bread. Jesus wanted disciples to pray for earthy, physical, social needs in his original Fourth Petition, after the earlier three more spiritual petitions. The first thing we pray for on the “us” side of the Lord’s Prayer is for physical bread. We are so grateful that Jesus was this earthy and that he taught his disciples to be this earthy, too. The Church can never be socially indifferent to the world’s economic needs, to the access to real bread, ever since Jesus’ original fourth petition. But it was also Jesus himself, in his first temptation in both Matthew’s Gospel and in Luke’s Gospel, who rebuked Satan and taught his Church forever that “It is written: ‘human beings do not live by bread alone but by every Word that comes pouring out of God’s mouth’ ”(Matt 4:4; Luke 4:4). Human beings live by bread at least but not by bread alone. Human beings need, in order to be full human beings, first and basically, physical bread; but second and centrally, human beings need, if they are to be fully alive, the Word of the Living God. Thus we learn from Jesus’ own adaptation of the fourth petition that it is also quite right — indeed, it is quite important — to pray for the spiritual bread of God’s truth and Word.

The Gospel of John: A Commentary

I think every scholar’s deepest longing is for the truth in one’s own subject and, if possible, for the truth in one’s whole life. I am very helped, therefore, by Jesus’ wonderful Fourth Petition in his “Lord’s ‘Lord’s Prayer’” — it is my favorite petition of all six: “Father, please sanctify your disciples in the truth.” It is right to pray for sanctification, that is, for immersion in the full truth, in reality, in the real. And then I love Jesus’ immediate clarification: “your Word is that truth.” Is there any truth that is more truthful, more deep, more important, or more life-changing than God’s own personal Word, who is Jesus Christ in historical reality, God’s Eternal Son come down from heaven into our actual earth of world history for about thirty years in the first century and talking, being, doing, and, most profoundly, dying for us, and then, supremely, rising for us to conquer death and our fear of death? And the Word about this Word — the canonical written Scripture — is the physical presence of that eternal Word with us now. So when we pray “Give us this day our daily bread,” I think we can be taught by this fourth petition to pray also for the daily spiritual bread of Truth and of God’s Word.

Petition 5. “Father, those who will in the future believe in me through these apostles’ words, please may they all be one — one just as you, Father, are locked into me and just as I am locked into you, that they may also be thus locked into us so that the world out there may believe that You, and no one else, sent me, and no one else” (vv. 20-21). This same petition is then almost exactly repeated in the next two verses (vv. 22-23), making this prayer for unity as emphatic in the prayer as the first petition, which was also doubled (in vv. 1 and 5). It does seem to be Jesus’ major passion, in this John 17 prayer, that his disciples be one, united as closely together as humanly possible with the Father and the Son and with each other. Why this petitioned oneness? So that the world out there can come to believe and know that the Father, and no one else, sent Jesus, and no one else, deeply, to be the salvation of everyone else.

Does this fifth petition have any relation to Jesus’ fifth petition in the original disciples’ Lord’s Prayer for forgiveness? I think so. I think you will agree that the prayer for mutual forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer is simply another way of praying for the Church’s Oneness in the “Lord’s ‘Lord’s Prayer.’” We want to be a community that loves one another, forgives one another, gets along with one another, for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of the watching world. This world can be moved, Jesus’ petition seems to assume, by this remarkable Church’s love for one another to the point that people in the world will want to become committed believers in Jesus and join his Church themselves. So I find an almost exact parallel between the Lord’s Prayer and the fifth petition of the “Lord’s ‘Lord’s Prayer.’”

Petition 6. “Father, I very much want this group of people whom you have given to me to be there with me where I am so that they can see my special glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the very foundation of the world” (v. 24). This final Petition is Jesus’ request of his Father that Jesus’ disciples with him here in this world may be with him there, too, in the new world to come. This is Jesus’ last petition in his last prayer. Isn’t this an even better way to end a prayer than the petition for protection from the Devil in the earlier Lord’s Prayer in Matthew and Luke? When we pray this Johannine Petition we are actually praying that we will want to be with Jesus in the next world, to see him and to enjoy him. It is also, even more practically, a prayer that the Father will conquer in us disciples the deep fear of death that we all understandably carry around within us. It is Jesus’ prayer that we disciples will be given the Christian Hope, which is such a large part of Paul’s great “fifth Gospel,” the letter to the Romans. Am I untypical as a disciple in saying that the Christian hope does not play as large a part in my life as it should? This last petition in the “Lord’s ‘Lord’s Prayer’” seems to be saying to us who read it and take it to heart: “Get real, Christian! Life here is so short. Are you really excited about what comes next?”

In summary, I believe that Jesus’ “Lord’s ‘Lord’s Prayer’” in John 17 is a beautiful complement to and a profound commentary on Jesus’ synoptic Lord’s Prayer. And I think that if we could, over the years, learn to pray the two prayers in a kind of tandem, John the Evangelist would believe that we were truly praying the original Lord’s Prayer in depth.

 Click here to order Frederick Dale Bruner’s Gospel of John: A Commentary.