Sneak Peek Week: Bringing the Word to Life

Bringing the Word to Life

It’s Sneak Peek Week on EerdWord, when we’ll be sharing excerpts from four of this month’s most exciting releases.

Today’s excerpt comes from Richard F. Ward and David J. Trobisch’s Bringing the Word to Life: Engaging the New Testament through Performing It.

* * *

Performance Criticism and Form Criticism

The reading experience in antiquity differs considerably from a modern reading experience. Whereas reading is mostly a silent, solitary activity today, the manuscripts of antiquity were designed by authors, editors, and publishers to record sound; published literature was intended to serve as a script to be interpreted to an audience by a performer. Form-critical approaches stress the importance of understanding the situation of communication in which a text functions, and performance criticism can provide the necessary contextual information.

“Sitz im Leben”

The Pope received a phone call from Jesus Christ. “The good news is that I have returned,” Jesus said. “And the bad news?” the Pope asked. “I am calling from Salt Lake City.”

Much will depend on who tells this joke and to whom. It makes a difference if a Mormon, a Catholic, a Protestant, or a Jewish person tells it. And it will make a difference who listens. The joke may mock Catholics (if a Mormon tells it to a Mormon), it may express an uneasiness with organized religion (if a Protestant tells it to a Protestant), or it may be an expression of poor taste (if a Jew tells it to a Catholic). In this context the joke simply illustrates the form-critical term Sitz im Leben and the importance of assessing the situation of communication. Its historical value would be mostly sociological, documenting attitudes of a segment of the population. To the question of whether the Pope even takes phone calls, the joke contributes little. . . .

Jesus Tells a Bathroom Joke

In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus talks about hypocrites who stand at busy intersections and pray so others will see them. Jesus rebukes such practices and says, “But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matt. 6:6). Like our homes today, houses in antiquity had at least one room that could be locked: the bathroom. Jesus was trying to be funny; his original audience was expected to laugh.

Once an interpreter accepts the form-critical assessment that this saying of Jesus may be based on a joke he made in public, the irony of the other statements in the context becomes apparent. How likely is it that a pious person would stand at a street corner and pray in order to be seen? Or that he or she would have someone “sound the trumpet” when they went to give alms “in the synagogues and in the streets” (Matt. 6:2)? Don’t we know from our own stand-up comedians that exaggeration is part of a strategy to make us laugh at ourselves? If Jesus was joking, then the criticism of the “hypocrites” might just be a criticism from within, a call for renewal, an attempt to communicate through humor. Jesus, a pious Jew, is asking other pious Jews to return to their own ideals, to remember God’s commandments and promises.

The text continues, “Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then in this way: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name . . .” (Matt. 6:8-9). The editor of the Sermon on the Mount, who used the saying of Jesus to introduce the Lord’s Prayer, may have already missed the irony. The genre shifted from a joke to an exhortation. And in the tradition of Christian preaching, Jesus’ caricature of a Pharisee has often been interpreted as disparaging Jews; it was easily turned into political propaganda. Considering the medieval pogroms and the mass murder of Jews in the twentieth century, committed by professed Christians, this misinterpretation is no laughing matter.

The Experimental Nature of Performance Criticism

In 1947 the Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl and five other daring seafarers launched a balsa wood raft outside the port of Callào in Peru. They sailed more than 4,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean and landed on the Raroia Atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago 101 days later. The voyage demonstrated that it was possible for a primitive raft to sail the Pacific and that Polynesia was well within the range of prehistoric South American seafarers. Based on linguistic, physical, and genetic evidence, however, many anthropologists remain convinced that Polynesia was settled from the Asian mainland in the West and not from South America. But some apparent American influences — like the sweet potato as part of the Polynesian diet — find a satisfactory explanation in Thor Heyerdahl’s theory.

In very much the same way, performance criticism of the New Testament can demonstrate possibilities and create plausibility for new understandings that otherwise seem far-fetched. Like experimental archaeology, which recreates tools, events, and settings of the period studied, performance criticism recreates the situation of a performance of literature for which the New Testament originally had been designed. And like experimental archaeology, performance criticism can be used to test methods and theories.

The Experiential Nature of Performance

In the performance of the text, the word becomes flesh. Interpreters explore possible authorial intentions, the basic structure of the argument, reactions from the audience, and subtexts of underlying humor and irony, some or all of which might have escaped their attention had they only studied the text sitting at a desk and read it quietly to themselves.

During a performance, text is simply experienced; the analysis takes place afterwards, when an emotional distance from the performance has been established. A debriefing session after the performance, preferably the following day, will typically help students reach a high level of exegetical and theological reflection.

After engaging text through performance, one often finds that a specific text can be understood in more than one valid way. Like other forms of art, performance of literature will present only one of several possible interpretations, not necessarily the most authoritative one, or a scholastically viable reading. Especially in those rare cases when the setting allows for repeat performances before the same audience, and the interpreter performs the same text in several different ways, the multifaceted nature of human communication through art becomes evident. Developing a variety of possible interpretations is a crucial step of scholarly discourse; the performance of texts before an audience helps to achieve this goal.

Click to order Richard F. Ward and David J. Trobisch’s Bringing the Word to Life: Engaging the New Testament through Performing It.

Eerdmans All Over: May 3, 2013

Welcome once again to Eerdmans All Over, a Friday roundup of all the Eerdmans-related news, reviews, interviews, and other interesting online content we can gather in a given week.

New Releases

Abraham Kuyper

Abraham Kuyper: Modern Calvinist, Christian Democrat
James D. Bratt

The Kuyper Center Review, Volume 3: Calvinism and Culture
Gordon Graham, editor

News from Eerdmans . . .

• We welcome Jen Rose this month as our new Lead Buyer. A graduate of Judson University in Elgin, Ill., where she majored in visual communications and fine art, Jen comes to us with a decade of experience in print and manufacturing, where her specialty was prepress and process management. In her new position, Jen will manage quoting, pricing, scheduling, and purchasing all adult print book products, both new titles and reprints. We’re very happy to have her!

. . . and elsewhere.

• 

  Back to Front and Upside Down

  Three EBYR titles (Claire Alexander’s Back to Front and Upside Down, Stian Hole’s Garmann’s Secret, and Cynthia Grady and Michele Wood’s I Lay My Stitches Down) have been selected for Children’s Choices 2013, a reading list cosponsored by the International Reading Association (IRA) and the Children’s Book Council (CBC).

• School Library Journal blogger Elizabeth Bird reviewed Katie Quirk’s A Girl Called Problem on A Fuse 8 Production, calling it “a trifecta of publishing rarities.” Loganberry Books also published a review on Loganberryblog, saying, “Exotic location and sympathetic, real characters combine to provide excellent entertainment in a book aimed at students aged 10-14.”
• John Webster (Holiness) has been appointed to a Chair in Divinity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
• The Church of England Newspaper featured Lamin Sanneh (Summoned from the Margin) in its article “The New Pope Francis, an American view by two Yale Divinity School Professors.”
• Suzanne Morris had some lovely things to say about Kathy Long and Patricia Cantor’s Christopher Sat Straight Up in Bed for Kid Lit Reviews.
• 

  The Sacredness of Human Life

  David Gushee will appear on the radio program Encounter with Dr. David Vaughan on Tuesday, May 7, at 10:30 a.m. EST to discuss The Sacredness of Human Life. Listen live here.

• Robert Cornwall reviewed David Gushee’s The Sacredness of Human Life for Ponderings on a Faith Journey, concluding, “Read it closely and ponder its message. You won’t be disappointed. In fact, I guarantee that your vision of life will be at minimum enhanced, and more likely revolutionized!”
• Francis Watson has created a companion website for his book Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective.
• Mary Newell DePalma’s illustrations for Bow-Wow Wiggle-Waggle will be on display at the Wenham Museum in Wenham, Mass., from May 1 to August 30.

Have we missed any news, reviews, or other online miscellany dealing with Eerdmans or EBYR books or authors from the last week? Please let us know in the comments. You also can post items on our Facebook timeline, mention us on Twitter (@eerdmansbooks or @ebyrbooks), or write to us directly: webmaster@eerdmans.com.

“Nonpareil Bar None”: Recent Landmark Contributions from Eerdmans

A few days ago, our president Bill Eerdmans paid a friendly visit to the Internet marketing department to ask whether we might be able to devote some of our time and attention to a hand-picked selection of recent titles.

“Happily!” we said. “But first, can you give us an idea of what is it that ties all these books together?”

“Every book in its own field or specialization is nonpareil bar none,” he told us. “That’s the long and the short of it.”

As we looked over the list of books he gave us, we began to understand exactly what he meant.

Whether in biblical studies, ethics, or theology, each of the books below offers a significant original contribution to scholarship — and we are all proud to have played a part in making them available to the reading public.

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit – In Biblical Teaching, through the Centuries, and Today
Anthony C. Thiselton

In this landmark work Anthony Thiselton looks at the Biblical teaching on the Holy Spirit and how it has been received and interpreted through the centuries.

“I have often thought that I would like to round off my writing career with a fuller or more complete study of the Holy Spirit. Rather to my relief I need no longer chomp at that bit. Tony Thiselton has already done it and left me nothing to do. Thank you, Tony.”
— James Dunn

“I know of nothing comparable. Tony’s guidance in this volume is something every pastor and student should have in his or her library.”
— Klyne Snodgrass

Self, World, and Time

Self, World, and Time: Ethics as Theology, Volume 1: An Induction
Oliver O’Donovan

“Writing with a clarity that comes from a lifetime of reflection, O’Donovan has given us an account of practical reason that shows why and how ethics is at the beginning, middle, and end of a theological work. I suspect this book is destined to become a classic because few authors are as capable as O’Donovan to combine wisdom and erudition. We are in his debt.”
— Stanley Hauerwas

“In his splendidly dense yet lucid first volume of his new project, Oliver O’Donovan richly succeeds in re-connecting a neo-orthodox stress upon dogma with an earlier pietist stress upon personal formation. We are thereby inducted into a stance where vision and commitment, belief and action become fully inseparable. O’Donovan realizes that such an integral theology is what responsibility requires of us in the face of a double threat to our planet and to our humanity.”
— John Milbank

The Sacredness of Human Life

The Sacredness of Human Life: Why an Ancient Biblical Vision Is Key to the World’s Future
David P. Gushee

Never before has one volume explored the sacredness of human life in such a multifaceted way, encompassing biblical roots, theological elaborations, historical cases, and contemporary ethical perspectives.

“It is a gift to all the Christian churches and their non-Christian neighbors as well, and is a landmark for future work in Christian ethics in general.”
— Charles Mathewes

“A masterful guide to thinking about the choices that will shape Christian life in the twenty-first century.”
— Robin Lovin

“Gushee’s voice is one that believers of all faiths will want to engage. . . . This book leaves me happily breathless!”
— Peter Ochs

The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah

The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah: First English Translation Compared with the Masoretic Version
Benyamim Tsedaka, editor and translator
Sharon Sullivan, coeditor

Benyamim Tsedaka, a member of the ancient Samaritan community on Mount Gerizim, here offers the first-ever English translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch, laid out parallel to the more familiar Masoretic Text and highlighting the more than 6,000 differences between the two versions.

“More than simply a translation, this is a document infused with the unique culture of the Israelite-Samaritans as no other English translation could be. . . . Truly a historic piece of literature.”
— Martin G. Abegg Jr.

“This English translation gives a faithful rendition of the Samaritan text and, by comparing it to the Masoretic version, shows the pluriform nature of the early biblical textual tradition. A welcome addition to the biblical studies library!”
— Terry Giles

Bible, Gender, Sexuality

Bible, Gender, Sexuality: Reframing the Church’s Debate on Same-Sex Relationships
James V. Brownson

“Jim Brownson has written what I believe is a ‘game-changing’ book on the hotly disputed topic of same-sex orientation and relationships in light of the Bible. He provides not only a masterful work on human sexuality in light of Scripture, but also a model for the kind of robust and faithful biblical hermeneutic that our churches desperately need at this point in our history.
— Brian D. McLaren

“Instead of being trapped in shallow debates over the meaning of a few isolated biblical passages, James Brownson grounds his approach in foundational biblical understandings of gender and sexuality. He takes the Bible seriously, engaging it faithfully and deeply, and he encourages the reader to do the same. . . . The church needs this book.”
— Wesley Granberg-Michaelson

Dementia

Dementia: Living in the Memories of God
John Swinton

“John Swinton has given a gift to everyone who interacts with persons with dementia, and even more so to those persons. Engagingly written and thoroughly researched, the book is a ringing challenge to current thinking (and speaking and acting) about dementia.”
— Stephan Sapp

“John Swinton has clearly become the premier pastoral theologian of our time. In this book on dementia he approaches this troubled topic with his usual thoroughness, engaging the science with an unapologetic theological voice. This book will become a classic.”
— Stanley Hauerwas

Click on the links and cover images above to order any of the titles in our “nonpareil bar none” collection. 

“Four Gospels, One Book” by Francis Watson

Francis Watson

Francis Watson holds a research chair in biblical interpretation at Durham University, England.

His new book is entitled Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective.

* * *

I write this from Durham, in the North-East of England. The city itself is celebrated for its Norman Cathedral, which regularly wins the accolade of “England’s best-loved building.” The wider area is associated more with the heavy industry — mining, ship-building, and so on — that vanished without trace in the 1980s, leaving a legacy of unemployment and social deprivation in its wake.

Yet this is also an area whose collective memory stretches right back to the 7^th and 8^th centuries, to the great figures of early Northumbrian Christianity: Bede, second only to Eusebius among church historians, and Cuthbert, abbot of the island monastery of Lindisfarne, a peacemaker in a time of conflicting Christian traditions. Cuthbert in particular remains an iconic figure for the region. A Durham legend credits him with raising a mist that concealed the city and its cathedral from enemy bombers during the Second World War. More credibly, he is associated with an equally iconic book: the Lindisfarne Gospels, traditionally supposed to have been written in his honour and datable to the early 8^th century, a decade or two after his death. This book was removed from Durham in 1539, during Henry VIII’s plundering of the monasteries, and it eventually passed into the safe hands of the British Library in London. In a few weeks from now it will make its first return visit, as the centerpiece of a major exhibition which is expected to attract visitors in their tens of thousands. Locals have never reconciled themselves to its loss, and they speak of its “coming home at last”.

As a New Testament scholar, I might have regarded this spectacularly beautiful gospel-book as marginal to my professional concerns. New Testament scholars are trained to focus intensively on texts and contexts from the 1^st century CE, and we become progressively less interested and informed as the 2^nd century gets under way. It seems that a collective decision has been made to focus on the production of the individual New Testament texts at the expense of their reception. The long-drawn-out process in which a text comes to function as canonical scripture is largely ignored.

Gospel Writing

My forthcoming book (Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective) challenges this disciplinary bias. It sees the construction of the fourfold canonical gospel both as the defining moment in the reception of the individual texts and as a creative act of gospel production in its own right. Theological decisions underpinning the four gospel collection are brought to light in the writings of early gospel-users, but also through the visual arts: see chapter 11 of my book and the accompanying website. For me, it was a short step from the wonderful mosaic images of Ravenna and Rome to the Lindisfarne gospel codex. In Anglo-Saxon England as in Italy, high artistic abilities were employed in communicating and interpreting the fourfold gospel text and the single gospel message.

In the Lindisfarne Gospels, each gospel is preceded by a portrait of its evangelist. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are portrayed in the act of writing, while John faces the viewer and points towards the opening of his completed text.

Portrait of Matthew in the Lindisfarne Gospels; Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

In principio erat Verbum: in the beginning was the Word. The portraits help to establish the individuality of the evangelists and the integrity of their respective texts. The gospel comes to us not in the form of a shapeless mass of traditions about Jesus but by way of four distinct yet complementary perspectives.

Portrait of John in the Lindisfarne Gospels; Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Also preceding each gospel is an elaborate abstract depiction of the cross. (Art historians refer to these as “carpet pages.” This expression trivializes them by viewing them as merely decorative, and it is also culturally inappropriate: the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic world is known for its stone crosses but not for its carpets.) In these pages the cross is transfigured by resurrection glory. They reflect a tradition in which Easter is still the Christian pascha or passover, a single divine act of deliverance from enslavement to sin and death. In these cross pages, each gospel is preceded by an eloquent image of the salvation it narrates.

Matthew Cross Page in the Lindisfarne Gospels; Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

In the opening words of each gospel (the “Incipit”),  the art-work invades the text itself. Early gospel-users placed great emphasis on a gospel’s opening words as defining its distinct contribution. If the cross pages point towards the end and goal of the gospel narrative, the illuminated openings draw the reader-viewer back to its foundations. Here it is established that Jesus is of Jewish ancestry (Matthew), that his advent was prepared by prophetic writing and a living contemporary (Mark), that there exists a true and faithful testimony to him (Luke), and that he is the divine Word who was with God in the beginning (John).

Matthew Incipit in the Lindisfarne Gospels; Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The Lindisfarne artworks interpret the texts they accompany and articulate the faith of the church. They suggest that, if the fourfold gospel testimony is true, it must also be beautiful.

Click to order Francis Watson’s Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective. 

Congratulations to Our Eugene Peterson Book Giveaway Winners!

Now in Paperback!

We’re pleased this morning to announce the winners of last week’s Eugene Peterson Book Giveaway.

Each of the three people listed below will receive a paperback set of Eugene Peterson’s five Conversations in Spiritual Theology: Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eat This Book, The Jesus Way, Tell It Slant, and Practice Resurrection.

Our congratulations go out to . . .

• James Paton
• Aubrey Allison
• Debbie Abbot

Email notifications have already been sent out, but if you see your name on this list and happen not to have received an email from us yet, please contact webmaster@eerdmans.com to let us know.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our giveaway — and if you didn’t win this time, take heart! We’ll be giving away more books in just a few weeks.

In the meantime, here are a few of our favorites from among the many and various blog comments left on EerdWord last week, sharing why folks hoped to win copies of Eugene Peterson’s books:

Eugene Peterson offers some of the most insightful and accessible theological reflections of any pastor-scholar that I know. I have read a number of his works, but not this whole series.
– Rick Wadholm Jr.

“Eat This Book” has been one of the most influential books for my spiritual growth. I keep giving away my own copies of it. I need a replacement and would love to dive into his other books!
– rjfuentes

Every pastoral theologian should have these books on hand!
– Theresa

I’ve been intrigued by Peterson’s Conversation series for some time. I teach multiple Bible classes at a small Christian High School, and I can see a big benefit for incorporating this kind of material in my classes.
– Sean Hadley

Eugene Peterson rocks!
– rutheverhart

Read all the comments here, or click the links above to order paperback editions of any of Eugene Peterson’s five Conversations in Spiritual Theology. 

Eerdmans All Over: April 26, 2013

Welcome once again to Eerdmans All Over, a Friday roundup of all the Eerdmans-related news, reviews, interviews, and other interesting online content we can find in a given week.

New Releases

Learning to Dream Again

Learning to Dream Again: Rediscovering the Heart of God
Samuel Wells

Bringing the Word to Life: Engaging the New Testament through Performing It
Richard F. Ward and David K. Trobisch

The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah: First English Translation Compared with the Masoretic Version
Benyamim Tsedaka, editor and translator
Sharon J. Sullivan, coeditor

Horizons in Hermeneutics: A Festschrift in Honor of Anthony C. Thiselton
Stanley E. Porter and Matthew R. Malcolm, editors

News from Eerdmans . . .

• Today’s the last day to enter our Eugene Peterson book giveaway. Learn more about the five books we’re giving away and how to enter here. The entry period ends at midnight tonight, and our three lucky winners will be announced Monday.

. . . and elsewhere.

• Martin E. Marty (Building Cultures of Trust) was a guest contributor to the On Being with Krista Tippett blog, where he discussed a recent Gallup poll finding that public confidence in religion has dropped.
• 

  The Book of Judges (NICOT)

  Liturgy, Hymnody, and Pulpit Quarterly Book Review published reviews of two books this week. Editor Paul Cain looked at Barry Webb’s NICOT volume on Judges in “LHP Review: Old Testament Resources” and reviewed Walter Sundberg’s Worship as Repentance in “Liturgy Review: Lutheran Catholicity.”

• Katie Quirk is giving away two copies of her new novel A Girl Called Problem on Goodreads this month.
• Aaron Gaglia blogged about a recent talk by David Gushee (The Sacredness of Human Life) on why American should “recover its torture ethic” for Juicy Ecumenism – The Institute on Religion & Democracy’s Blog.
• Jackson Watts reviewed John M. Mulder’s Finding God for Helwys Society Forum, calling it “a unique collection that will be fascinating reading for those hoping to engage with the Christian Tradition and Western religious history.”
• 

  Bully.com

  Suzanne Morris reviewed Joe Lawlor’s Bully.com for Kit Lit Reviews, concluding, “Of all the bully-themed books out this year, Bully.com is different.”

• In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing, Robert Cornwall posted a reflection on David Gushee’s The Sacredness of Human Life on Ponderings on a Faith Journey.

Have we missed any news, reviews, or other online miscellany dealing with Eerdmans or EBYR books or authors from the last week? Please let us know in the comments. You also can post items on our Facebook timeline, mention us on Twitter (@eerdmansbooks or @ebyrbooks), or write to us directly: webmaster@eerdmans.com.

Foreword by Steven Fine (Excerpted from Benyamim Tsedaka’s The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah)

Steven Fine is professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University in New York, director of Yeshiva University’s Center for Israel Studies, and co-editor of Images: A Journal of Jewish Art and Visual Culture. 

He wrote the following foreword for Benyamim Tsedaka and Sharon J. Sullivan’s groundbreaking new volume The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah: First English Translation Compared with the Masoretic Version.

* * *

The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah

The European discovery of the Samaritan Pentateuch was cause for great excitement for biblical scholars of the early modern period, both Catholics and Protestants. Here they had an alternate Hebrew text to the Jewish Masoretic version, the Greek Septuagint, and the Latin Vulgate — a new window into the history of Scripture itself. Samaritan manuscripts were procured by the most important European and American libraries, creating a minor boon for manuscript copyists in Nablus. In the nineteenth century Jews adopting German modes of biblical scholarship entered the conversation, most prominently the orientalist, biblical scholar, and religious reformer Abraham Geiger. The first modern Jewish monograph dealing with Samaritanism was published in Hebrew by Geiger’s student Raphael Kirchheim in Frankfurt in 1851. Introducing his pathbreaking Karme Shomron: Introductio in librum Talmudium “De Samaritanis” (Frankfurt, 1851), Kirchheim wrote with great excitement of his own discovery of Samaritanism:

When the Lord called upon me to publish the seven minor Jerusalemite [that is, Palestinian, postrabbinic] tractates, among them Tractate Kutim, whose contents deal with the laws of Israel regulating relations with the Kutim [that is, the Samaritans], I had great difficulty in my attempt to interpret and explain those issues [dealing with Samaritanism] for which I found no aid or support in the books of the Talmud [that is, rabbinic literature]. I searched in later Hebrew books [medieval and early modern rabbinic literature], and even there I did not find any mention of issues relating to the Kutim. These [sources] revealed nothing of their teachings and their laws. Only taunts reverberated from their mouths, and only harsh words were written down.

I turned to the books of the nations and found that many, many stood before my eyes, for their authors had arisen and gone to the houses of the Samaritans and satiated their intellectual hunger. They returned and interpreted what they had found in the language of each and every nation. The most important of these [texts] are the Samaritan version and Targum [Aramaic translation] of the Torah— the book of the Torah of the Lord and its translation, which has been with the Kutim from days of yore.

I said to myself: how is it that only in the soil of foreigners the fruit of the Samaritans may blossom, and from the harvest of [their] toil others [Gentile scholars] collect stalks [of grain, that is, wisdom]? Do we truly consider the Samaritans to be foreigners, and hence do not establish a covenant with them? Do we not all have one Father? They too have Torah and commandments like us, and they serve the Lord our God! . . .

While Jews had been in periodic contact with the Samaritans from Second Temple times until the modern era, this relationship was intensified owing to Zionist interest in the Samaritan community. Like other “lost tribes of Israel,” early Zionist thinkers imagined that the Samaritans were Israelites in need of “redemption” and inclusion in the Jewish national enterprise. Through the scholarly writings and political patronage of Isaak Ben Zvi, later the second president of Israel, and others, the situation of the Samaritan community in Nablus stabilized after centuries of decline. A second community developed in Tel Aviv under the leadership of Yefet son of Avraham Tsedaka, and a Samaritan neighborhood was established in the Tel Aviv suburb of Holon in 1955.

Ratson Tsedaka, the son-in-law of Yefet and father of the author of our volume, made it his mission to preserve and publish Samaritan sacred texts, both for use by contemporary Samaritans and to allow access to Samaritanism by Hebrew speakers. He and other members of the Holon community were ready primary informants for Zionist/Israeli and foreign scholars in numerous fields, from the history of the Hebrew language to biblical studies to folklore. Among the most significant textual studies carried out by Israeli scholars were Zeev Ben-Hayyim’s pathbreaking studies of Samaritan Hebrew, Aramaic, and postbiblical literature (especially his edition of the homiletical collection known as Tibat Marqe) and his student Abraham Tal’s editions of the Samaritan Pentateuch and Targum. My own teacher, Dov Noy, the founding father of folklore study in Israel, was deeply involved with the Samaritan community, collecting and publishing a series of Samaritan legends as told by Ratson Tsedaka, a project of the Israel Folklore Archive (1965). Ratson published a number of primary sources in readily accessible editions, including The Five Books of the Torah: Jewish Version Parallel to the Samaritan Version (1961-65). Here he and his cousin Abraham Tsedaka set out the Samaritan text in Jewish square script parallel to the Jewish text, for use by Jewish readers. In this way the Samaritans staked their claim for membership in the developing Israeli culture which the Holon Samaritans were intent upon joining.

While Ratson’s primary audience was Israeli and Jewish, Benyamim Tsedeka has reached beyond the bounds of the Holy Land, the “Sacred Tongue,” and the “Holy Nation” to present Samaritanism to the broader world of scholars and interested lay people. His work has coincided with a period of new prominence for Samaritan studies in Israel and abroad, leading to the formation of the Société d’Etudes Samaritaines in 1985 and the inauguration of periodic conferences and an impressive publications program. Through his own publications, most prominently his Samaritan–Modern Hebrew–Samaritan Hebrew-English and Arabic bi-weekly newspaper, A.B. The Samaritan News, and the establishment of the always hospitable A.B.—Institute of Samaritan Studies in Holon, Benyamim Tsedeka has presented a Samaritan perspective on Samaritan life, culture, religion, and politics as well as a forum for scholarly research on Samaritan history, religion, and culture.

Benyamim Tsedaka’s Samaritan and Jewish versions of the Pentateuch is a continuation of his father’s project of disseminating the Samaritan Pentateuch. This volume is certain to make the Samaritan version accessible to a broad English-speaking audience.

Click to order The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah: First English Translation Compared with the Masoretic Version, edited and translated by Benyamim Tsedaka and coedited by Sharon J. Sullivan. 

Coloring Pages from EBYR

If you are a parent, grandparent, teacher, daycare provider, librarian, or home-schooler — or if you yourself have simply never outgrown a love of crayons — listen up!

EBYR has recently begun adding printable coloring pages to its lineup of resources for educators.

Kids can now enjoy coloring within (or even outside) the lines of artwork by acclaimed illustrators including . . .

	Amanda Hall (The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau)
Simona Mulazzani (I Wish I Had . . . )
	Claire Alexander (Back to Front and Upside Down)
Jean-François Dumont (The Chickens Build a Wall)
	Mary Newell DePalma (Uh-Oh!)

Click on any of the images above to pull up a full-size PDF to print and color, and be sure to check our collection of coloring pages often — we’ll be adding more great artwork as we go.

If there are any EBYR picture books you’d really like to see us offer coloring pages for in the future, please leave us a comment to let us know!

“A Smile, a Wink, and a Life Forever Changed” by Alan R. Burt

Alan Burt

Alan R. Burt is a state-licensed social worker who has been advocating for and working with the homeless on Cape Cod since 1993. He is also author of the new book Blessings of the Burden: Reflections and Lessons in Helping the Homeless.

* * *

Twenty years ago I thought the homeless were all lazy bums taking advantage of our hard earned tax dollars. Unfortunately (as I thought then), we had a homeless shelter in our downtown shopping area. I would drive by homeless people in disgust as they pushed their stolen shopping carts.

One day at a stoplight I looked to my left and happened to see one of the homeless. He was elderly and very thin, with a white beard and ragged clothes. For some reason I didn’t turn away quickly, and as I looked at him, he smiled and winked at me.

The light changed, and I drove away, realizing as I did somehow that something very deep inside of me had suddenly changed. In fact, I knew in an instant that I would never be the same again.

My mind went into a spin as my heart took the wheel of my life, and I soon found myself walking into our local Salvation Army. I approached the army officer and, with tears in my eyes, said, “I am here to help.”

Norma gave me a hug, beckoned me into her office, and began to help me sort out what was happening to me.

Norma asked me: “If God was somewhere on this earth, would you want to find him?”

“Yes, of course,” I said. She then said, as she opened her Bible, that in Matthew 25 Jesus told us where to find God. She read, “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” (Matt. 25:40 NIV).

“What do you think about this?” she asked.

I said, “Mother Teresa wrote that in the face of the old, the poor, the sick and dying, we can see the distressed disguise of God.”

She smiled and said, “Let me introduce you to one of our homeless guests.”

Although I was a little nervous, I followed her down the hall to the dining room. To my surprise she introduced me to Henry — the same elderly man who had winked at me on the street corner. He was so easy to talk to, and his story was heartbreaking.

Henry said that his wife had come down with dementia and was sent to a nursing home. He said that with the loss of her social security he was unable to pay the rent and ended up on the streets sleeping behind dumpsters.

What was most amazing about Henry was that he was so pleasant and friendly. To his mind, he had a wonderful life and an amazing marriage of over 40 years, and he felt it would be sinful to be anything else but very grateful.

In the years that followed Henry introduced me to many of his homeless friends, most of whom I found to be extraordinary human beings that had only fallen on hard times. I was struck with how so many of them loved and took care of each other. More and more I came to understand the amazing meaning of Matthew 25. In a real sense I was finding God through the homeless. As I came to know, love, and help them, I discovered that I was also coming to really know and love God.

I contacted a number of churches, and soon I had developed an alternative shelter program in which a small number of homeless men and women would go to churches each night instead of the neighborhood shelter. It was amazing for me to see how the men and women changed because of the love they were getting from the wonderful church volunteers who cooked for them, talked to them, and slept alongside them.

A couple of years after Henry had passed away, I heard his sweet, gentle voice behind me saying, “Hey Al, write a book about us. Everyone who reads it will learn about us, and they will want to help us.”

I shook my head, thinking that these must be nothing more than silly thoughts running through my head. However, as time went on, I found I could not shake them. Nor could I shake the feeling that somehow, from the grave, Henry really was speaking to me, telling me what God wanted me to do.

Blessings of the Burden

In just a few weeks my book, Blessings of the Burden — inspired by Henry and all the other homeless I’ve come to know over the years — will be on bookshelves. Just as Henry suggested, I have written about my personal experiences coming to know and love Henry and other homeless men and women who have changed my life and blessed me in so many important and beautiful ways. I have also written in the book about an amazing organization formed by the homeless, for the homeless, which has proven with amazing success that the homeless can take care of themselves with just a little bit of outside help.

As Henry said, “Write the book. People will read it and be changed by it, that everyone will be blessed.”

That is my dearest hope for this book.

Click to order Alan R. Burt’s Blessings of the Burden: Reflections and Lessons in Helping the Homeless. 

Enter to Win Five Eugene Peterson Books from Eerdmans

Earlier this year on EerdWord, we noted the paperback release of Practice Resurrection, the fifth and final volume in Eugene Peterson’s award-winning series of “Conversations in Spiritual Theology.” Upon further reflection, however, we realized that we had not, perhaps, announced the release with all the splash and fanfare it deserved.

After all, between them, the five books in this series have earned two Christianity Today Book Awards and one Award of Merit, two Publishers Weekly stars, and glowing reviews from Booklist, Christian Century, Choice, Lauren Winner, Scot McKnight, Marva Dawn, and many others.

And so, to celebrate properly the fact that all five of Peterson’s “conversations” are now available in paperback, we’re giving away three complete sets on Rafflecopter this week. Three lucky winners will receive paperback copies of the following titles:

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places reunites spirituality and theology in a cultural context where these two vital facets of Christian faith have been rent asunder. Lamenting the vacuous, often pagan nature of contemporary American spirituality, Eugene Peterson here firmly grounds spirituality once more in Trinitarian theology and offers a clear, practical statement of what it means to actually live out the Christian life.

Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading

Eat This Book challenges Christians to encounter the Scriptures on their own terms, as God’s revelation, and to live them as they read them. With warmth and wisdom Peterson offers a nourishing entree into the formative, life-changing art of spiritual reading, drawing readers into a fascinating conversation on the nature of language, the ancient practice of lectio divina, and the role of Scripture translations. Included here is the “inside story” behind Peterson’s own popular Bible translation, The Message.

The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways That Jesus Is the Way

In The Jesus Way Peterson considers all the ways that Jesus is the Way compared to the distorted ways the American church today has chosen to follow. Arguing that the way Jesus leads and the way we follow are symbiotic, Peterson begins with a study of how the ways of those who came before Christ — Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah of Jerusalem, and Isaiah of the Exile — revealed and prepared the “way of the Lord” that became complete in Jesus. He then challenges the ways of the contemporary American church, showing in stark relief how what we have chosen to focus on — consumerism, celebrity, charisma, and so forth — obliterates what is unique in the Jesus way.

Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers

Tell It Slant explores how Jesus used language, particularly in his parables and prayers. His was not a direct language of information or instruction but an indirect, oblique language requiring a participating imagination — “slant” language. Tell It Slant beautifully points to Jesus’ engaging, relational way of speaking as a model for us today.

Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ

In Practice Resurrection Peterson brings the voice of Scripture — especially Paul’s letter to the Ephesians — and the voice of the contemporary Christian congregation together to unpack the crucial truth of what it means to fully grow up to the “stature of Christ.”

To enter our giveaway, click the link below. You’ll have the option of logging in with Facebook or email (we’ll need some way to contact you if you win!); you may then choose from several possible methods of entry. You can even use multiple entry methods to increase your odds of winning.

The entry period for the giveaway begins at 10:00 a.m. Monday, April 22, 2013 and ends at 11:59 p.m. Friday, April  26, 2013. Winners will be selected at random and notified by email on Monday, April 29.

Click to enter the Eugene Peterson book giveaway on Rafflecopter.

Update 4/29/13: This giveaway has now ended. View the winners here. If you missed your chance to enter this time, take heart! We’ll be giving away more books in just a few weeks.  

Eerdmans All Over: April 19, 2013

A Girl Called Problem

Welcome once again to Eerdmans All Over, a Friday roundup of all the Eerdmans-related news, reviews, interviews, and other interesting online content we can find in a given week.

New Releases

A Girl Called Problem
Katie Quirk

News from Eerdmans . . .

• Eerdmans is now on Instagram! To catch all of our latest photographs, follow Eerdmans Publishing on Instagram, or watch for Instagram links on Facebook and Twitter.
• We were delighted to welcome two authors to Eerdmans Bookstore this week and last. Videos of the book talks given by our guests Christine Pohl and Suzanne McDonald are now available on our YouTube channel.
• Our video interview with Richard Horsley, in which he discussed his new book The Prophet Jesus and the Renewal of Israel, also went up on YouTube this week.

. . . and elsewhere

• 

  Finding God

  Two Eerdmans books have won 2013 Nautilus Book Awards. Cynthia Grady and Michele Wood’s I Lay My Stitches Down has won a Gold Nautilus Award in the Children’s Illustrated (Grades 3-6) category, and John Mulder’s Finding God has won a Silver Nautilus Award in the Religion/Spirituality–Western Traditions category.

• John Frederick reviewed Sara Anson Vaux’s The Ethical Vision of Clint Eastwood for Transpositions, calling Vaux’s approach “paradigm shifting, theologically rich and robust, strikingly real, hope-filled, and human.”
• Eva Schloss (Eva’s Story) weighed on the controversy surrounding Justin Bieber’s comments about her stepsister Anne Frank in an interview with The Telegraph, saying, “She probably would have been a fan. Why not?”
• Tamara Wissinger posted a “‘Middleview’ Interview” with Joe Lawlor (Bully.com) on the Smack Dab in the Middle blog.
• 

  The Sacredness of Human Life

  New York Journal of Books reviewed David P. Gushee’s The Sacredness of Human Life, saying, “Mr. Gushee has well met his goal of expanding the concept of the sacredness of life to encompass all of creation.”

• Suzanne Morris wrote on Ulrich Hub’s Meet at the Ark at Eight for Kid Lit Reviews, concluding, “I think kids will enjoy this version of Noah’s Ark, if not for the questions it will raise, then  for the humorous story of three best friends trying to help each other through life.”
• BLT — Bible * Literature * Translation looked at Benyamim Tsedaka’s translation of The Israelite Samaritan Version of the Torah, calling it “incredibly useful.”
• J. Todd Billings (The Word of God for the People of God) was installed as the first Gordon H. Girod Research Professor of Reformed Theology at Western Seminary in Holland, MI, on Wednesday.
• Haley and Sarah at Aslan’s Library included four EBYR titles (Glory, Psalms for Young Children, Morning Has Broken, and Exodus) in their recommended list of books for “A Sunday School Starter Library.”
• Jen Robinson reviewed Giovanna Zoboli and Simona Mulazzani’s I Wish I Had . . . for Jen Robinson’s Book Page, saying that it “is set apart from run of the mill animal attribute books by the creative nature of Zoboli’s comparisons and the detail and subtle quirkiness of Mulazzani’s pictures.”
• Check out this cool animated book trailer for the Italian edition of Ulrich Hub’s Meet at the Ark at Eight. (HT Suzanne Morris)

Have we missed any news, reviews, or other online miscellany dealing with Eerdmans or EBYR books or authors from the last week? Please let us know in the comments. You also can post items on our Facebook timeline, mention us on Twitter (@eerdmansbooks or @ebyrbooks), or write to us directly: webmaster@eerdmans.com.

Author Events at Eerdmans Bookstore: Suzanne McDonald Visits Today; Christine Pohl Video Now Available

Suzanne McDonald

It’s a soggy, stormy day here in West Michigan today. If you, like us, will be kept indoors by the weather, why not spend part of this rainy afternoon in a cozy bookshop?

Visitors to Eerdmans Bookstore this afternoon from 4:00-6:00 p.m. will be treated to a special event with author and theologian Suzanne McDonald.

McDonald is assistant professor of systematic and historical theology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids and author of Re-Imaging Election: Divine Election as Representing God to Others and Others to God and, more recently, John Knox for Armchair Theologians (published with Westminster John Knox Press).

At today’s event, McDonald will give a book talk about John Knox for Armchair Theologians, answer audience questions, sign books, and visit with guests during an informal reception. (Refreshments will be provided.)

For directions or to learn more, visit the official event page on Facebook.

Today’s event follows on the heels of our visit last Friday from Christine Pohl (Living into Community; Making Room). For the benefit of those who wanted to attend but were unable, video from her book talk is now available below.