Short History of Christianity

This is what I am reading right now:

A Short History of Christianity
by Stephen Tomkins
Eerdmans,2006
256 pages,English
Cloth,6 x 9
ISBN: 0802833829
List Price: $15.00
Your Price: $11.25
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~TOMSHORTH

It is just exactly what it says it is, short. It reads very fast and is quite entertaining; the perfect book to give someone who needs to know some church history, but would never read a full blown one. I will probably send this to my son after I finish it. It would be perfect for him, a good overview that will keep him interested. Hopefully it will wet his appetite for a more complete one, but if it doesn't he will still have gotten a basic overview.

For $11.25, you can afford to give it away, but you might want to skim through it first just for the fun of it. Tompkins is quite witty and is able to make history fun.

Interesting statistic

I ran across this in a marketing e-mail I subscribe to. The web version is here near the bottom of the page.

Restaurant sales are projected to hit $511 billion in 2006, according to the National Restaurant Association. There are 925,000 dining locations in the U.S., employing 12.5 million people, the association reports. These establishments will serve up over 70 billion meals and snacks this year. That's not surprising, considering that daily 130 million individuals are food service patrons.

<idle musing>
Hmmm...and we wonder why the U.S. has become a nation that is chronically overweight? Maybe this has something to do with it? 130 million people a day! 70 billion meals! How does world hunger fit in here? Just wondering.
</idle musing>

New book from IAA on the Megiddo "Church"

The Israel Antiquities Authority has just published a book on the Megiddo prison "church." Here are the details:

A Christian Prayer Hall of the Third Century CE at Kefar `Othnay (Legio)
Excavations at the Megiddo Prison 2005

by Yotam Tepper and Leah Di Segni
Israel Antiquities Authority,Forthcoming October 2006
59 pages,English
Paper
ISBN: 9654061937
Your Price: $20.00
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~TEPCHRIST

We will be receiving copies soon and will be taking quite a few to ASOR and AAR/SBL in Washington, D.C. in November.

"Critical" Scholarship

I must confess that I never read Ben Witherington's blog, he's too wordy for me, but Tyler Williams mentioned this post, which is something I had been thinking about for a while now. I quote the relevant section:

Skepticism is itself a faith posture, a presupposition that affects and infects how one reads Biblical texts, just as ardent faith is also a faith posture. It is of course necessary for any historical scholar to recognize and take into account what his or her faith posture or inclinations or predispositions are as one approaches the Biblical text.

But here’s the rub. Some scholars, mistaking skepticism for critical thinking, assume that they are being ‘objective’, approaching the text in a value free way with no axes to grind, while person’s of ‘faith’ are approaching the text in a ‘subjective’ manner that is tendentious and necessarily predetermines the outcome of the interpretation of the Biblical text. This is not necessarily true at all on either side of the equation.

There is of course no purely objective value free scholarship out there. It is just that some do a better job of admitting this, and owning up to their presuppositions and inclinations than others do, and some do a better job of being objective than others. And I would say that it is those who are aware of their own commitments and take them into account and even correct for them that are the persons who really ought to be called critical scholars whether they are persons of no apparent faith, agnostic, or persons of one or another sort of ardent faith. A critical scholar is one who is capable of being self-critical and self-corrective, as well as being able to cast a discerning eye on this or that Biblical text.

<idle musing>
I was reading in Acts in the Greek New Testament a while back. When I came to Paul's defense before Agrippa (Acts 26), I found it interesting that Festus interrupts him crying, "Your great learning is driving you insane" (NIV). These days we would say that it was a sign of unlearning or ignorance that would cause him to believe in the resurrection. Strange mutation, isn't it?

Of course, the bottom line is that it wasn't easily accepted then just as it isn't accepted now. So, maybe it isn't really a mutation, just a morphing of the expression of unbelief...
</idle musing>

A little slow

OK, I promised over a week ago that I would recap week 2 of vacation, although I'm sure it hasn't been keeping you on the edge of your seat :)

Our son, Ryan lives in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and is on the leadership team of God's Barn which is a youth outreach. They have an old farmhouse there that they call "The Mission house" which is where we stayed. The place is essentially a duplex, with one half open to drop-ins and the other has living quarters. Because of zoning laws, no permanent residents are allowed, but we freeloaded for about 5 days. Well, we didn't really freeload, since I did some stuff.

One of the things was to put ceiling fans in the barn. They use the old hayloft as a worship/prayer room and it gets quite warm. The week we were there the temperatures outside were running in the 90's F. You can imagine what the barn ran. A nearby church had donated 5 ceiling fans, but they hadn't been mounted, nor had the wiring been run. That was my job for the week—helping Jim mount and wire the fans. So, I'm at the top of 20 feet of scaffolding drilling through the rafters and mounting fans in 90 degree weather. Strange vacation! But, we got them mounted and they work.

Actually, we had a good time. The Barn has an excellent outreach to people who desperately need to know the love of Jesus in their lives. Jim, Becky, Fred and company do a good job of displaying that love without compromising. Debbie and I enjoyed talking and praying with them. Maybe next time they will have a cooler job for me to do :)

BookNews error

I just sent a BookNews announcing some new books. About 5 minutes after I sent it, I noticed an error. Too late to recall it. Oops.

Then I challenged the Customer Service reps to find the error. Help! They found a second one. It must be Friday!

Can you find one of the errors? Here's the BookNews:

Eisenbrauns would like to congratulate two of our authors who were recently recognized for their accomplishments:

Dr. Joan Goodnick-Westenholz was recently awarded the Curator's Prize by the Israeli Ministry of Culture. Dr. Goodnick-Westenholz, chief curator at the Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem received the prize for her contribution to understanding the history of the People of Israel against the background of the cultures of the ancient near east.

Prof. Sara Japhet (The Hebrew University) was elected President of the World Union of Jewish Studies by the Union Council at its meeting on May 26, 2006. Japhet is Professor of Bible at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research interests include biblical religion and literature, restoration period; literature, history
and theology; Biblical law and the history of Jewish exegesis. She was the recipient of the Israel Prize for Biblical Studies for the year 2004.

Don't miss our annual back-to-school sales going on now. For Akkadian and Sumerian resource works at 10-30% off, click on the "Go to monthly sale" link on the New and Noteworthy page; for Greek and Syriac reference works at 10-50% off, click on the "Go to weekly sale" link.

To see cover graphics and read more information about the new titles listed below, please follow this link: http://www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~~~NEWNOTES

This week's retail special is at the bottom of this e-mail, 1/3 off on Westbrook's 2 volume "History of Ancient Near Eastern Law," don't miss it.
=================================================================
New from Eisenbrauns' distribution partners:

>From TVZ:
"Wortschatz der Hebraischen Bibel: Zweieinhalbtausend Vokabeln alphabetisch und thematisch geordnet"
by Samuel Arnet
Theologischer Verlag Zurich, Cloth. German.
ISBN: 3290173747
Your Price: $23.00

>From Academic Press Fribourg in the OBO series:
This one has already sold out of the first shipment,
but there are more on order:
"Altbabylonische Zeichenliste der sumerisch-literarischen Texte"
by Catherine Mittermayer
Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis - OBO Sonderband
Academic Press Fribourg, Paper. German.
ISBN: 3727815515
List Price: $70.00 Your Price: $56.00

"Garments of the Gods: Studies on the Textile Industry and the Pantheon of Sippar according to the Texts from the Ebabbar Archive"
by Stefan Zawadzki
Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis - OBO
Academic Press Fribourg, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 3727815558
Your Price: $69.00

>From IAA:
"Shoham (North): Late Chalcolithic Burial Caves in the Lod Valley, Israel"
Edited by Ram Gophna and E. C. van den Brink
Israel Antiquities Authority Reports - IAAR 27
Israel Antiquities Authority, Paper. English.
ISBN: 9654061848
Your Price: $30.00

"The Tel Bet Yerah Excavations: 1994-1995"
Edited by Nimrod Getzov
Israel Antiquities Authority Reports - IAAR
Israel Antiquities Authority, Paper. English.
ISBN: 9654061864
Your Price: $28.00

"Atiqot 51 (2006)"
Edited by Zvi Gal
Atiqot 51
Israel Antiquities Authority, Paper. English and Hebrew.
ISBN: 9654061880
Your Price: $36.00

>From NINO:
"The Akkadian Language in its Semitic Context: Studies in the Akkadian of the Third and Second Millennium BC"
Edited by Guy Deutscher and M.J.C. Kowenberg
Publications de l'Institut historique-archeologique neerlandais de Stamboul - PIHANS 106
Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten / Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO), Paper.
English and German.
ISBN: 9062583172
Your Price: $39.00

"Die Tempelanlage Amenemhets III. in Hawara: Das Labyrinth. Bestandsaufname und Auswertung der Architektur- und Inventarfragmente"
by I. Blom-Boer
Egyptologische Uitgaven - EU 20
Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten / Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO), Paper. English.
ISBN: 9062582206
Your Price: $119.00

"Anatolica 32 (2006)"
Anatolica: Annuaire International pour les Civilisations de l'Asie Anterieure 32
Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten / Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO), Paper. English.
Your Price: $85.50

>From Paternoster:
"The Significance of Salvation: A Study of Salvation Language in the Pastoral Epistles"
by George M. Wieland
Paternoster Biblical Monographs-PBM
Paternoster Press, Paper. English.
ISBN: 1842272578
List Price: $33.99 Your Price: $29.91

=================================================================
This week's retail special:
"A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law - 2 volume set"
Handbook of Oriental Studies, Part One: The Ancient Near East and Middle East - HOSANE / HOSNME 72
Edited by Raymond Westbrook
Brill Academic Publishers, 2003
1248 pages, English, Cloth
ISBN: 9004129952
List Price: $399.00 Sale Price: $265.73 (33%)

The Revolution by Barna

On my vacation I finally read The Revolution by George Barna. I had read the review in Christianity Today which slammed it, so I didn't figure I would read it. But, Jim, the guy who runs God's Barn (where we stayed the second week, more later) said I might find it interesting. He was right.

I understand why CT finds it frightening, as would all people with a stake in the established church. I personally found a book that describes who I have been since God got a firm hold on my life over 32 years ago. I thought I had a broad description of what constitutes church, having been involved in house churches off and on for over 30 years. But, Barna's is broader (and more biblical!). He says that whenever two or more Christians get together, it is church.

I only have two beefs with the book:

He calls Christians sinners

No where in the New Testament are Christians who are redeemed called sinners. They are always called Saints.

He misrepresents the Wesleyan Revival somewhat

I can forgive him this, because he is seeing it through the lenses of the Great Awakening and Jonathan Edwards. This is a very common error by people in the United States and doesn't diminish the value of the book at all.

Other than that, I would highly recommend the book. It may help you understand some of those strange Christians in your life—or you may find yourself described and discover that you aren't the only one out there. :)

Back to school sale

I see that Charles over at Awilum has already linked there, but we are running our annual back-to-school sales again this month at Eisenbrauns. All month long Akkadian and Sumerian references will be on sale, see here for a complete listing.



We are also running ten-day sales, right now it is Greek and Syriac references, see here for a complete listing.

Interesting book

I was looking through the latest University of Nevada Press catalog and found an interesting book:
Psychotherapy as Religion: The Civil Divine in America.

Here is an excerpt from the description:

"In Psychotherapy as Religion, William Epstein sets out to debunk claims that psychotherapy provides successful clinical treatment for a wide range of personal and social problems. He argues that the practice is not a science at all but rather the civil religion of America, reflecting the principles of radical self-invention and self-reliance deeply embedded in the psyche of the nation...

"Epstein exposes psychotherapy’s deep roots in the religious and intellectual movements of the early nineteenth century by demonstrating striking parallels between various types of therapy and such popular practices as Christian Science and spiritualism. Psychotherapy has taken root in our culture because it so effectively reflects our national faith in individual responsibility for social and personal problems..."

<idle musing>
This book truly looks fascinating! It reflects my basic thesis that everyone is a theist at some level and that the theos that most people (even christians) choose is themselves. A throwback to Genesis 3, "You shall be gods." Same lie, same bait, same success :(

Bohoeffer is still right, "When Jesus calls a person he bids them come and die." And we continue to listen to the serpent's lie that we can be gods!
</idle musing>

Vacation is over

We got back late/early Sunday night/Monday morning. It was a wonderful 2 weeks. We spent a week with Joel, Renee and Joshua in Grand Marais and then went back to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to spend a week with Ryan (our 22 year old son).

Here is a summary of week one (week two later...):
Ryan and I spent three days backpacking on the Superior Hiking Trail, covering about 35 miles from Lutsen Ski Area to Grand Marais. It was beautiful rugged country, but dry. I haven't seen it that dry there since I was a kid. It did rain the first night, a nice solid rain that made everything wet for packing up the next morning. We camped on a river (more like a creek), so the mosquitoes weren't too bad. The second day turned out to be longer than we had planned, since the campsite we had chosen was full. 16 miles of up and down on granite can make a long day; but the views were beautiful and the weather hot. We ended up camping on a beaver pond with a full complement of mosquitoes but no bullfrogs. I was looking forward to an evening concert from them, but there weren't any.

The third day was more level terrain, running through some boggy areas where we saw plenty of Moose tracks but no Moose. We walked on top of a 183 foot beaver dam, longest one I have ever crossed. Eventually we came out on an overlook above Grand Marais. It was a beautiful view of the town and lake. Descending that, we came to the Gunflint Trail and walked a mile along it to Joel & Renee's, 3 days and 35 miles behind us and a most welcome shower in front of us :)

If you like rugged trails, I would highly recommend the Superior Hiking Trail. You can break it down into day hike portions if you wish. I have walked portions of the Appalachian Trail and backpacked quite a bit in the Rockies (north and south). It compares very favorably to those. In fact, I preferred it over the Appalachians, but I like granite better than sandstone.

Saturday all of us (Joel, Renee, Joshua, Debbie, Ryan and I) took a day hike on the Superior Hiking Trail from the Devil Track River to Pincushion Mountain (5 miles of relatively easy trail). I carried Joshua (our 16 month old grandchild) in the backcarrier and fed him raspberries. He was cute; I would pick the raspberries (and thimbleberries) and hand them to him to eat. If I wasn't fast enough for him, he would tap my shoulder to remind me to give him more. We could have picked buckets of them, but didn't bring any buckets, just our stomachs.

Sunday we spent renewing acquaintances at the Baptist church in Grand Marais and getting to know the people in Joel & Renee's evening fellowship group. It was a wonderful day of blessed fellowship in the Lord.

Week two will come later...now I have to continue to unbury my inbox :)

I'm off

I'm off for the next two weeks to enjoy time with our kids (and grandkid) and the great outdoors.

I just checked the conditions on the trail, and here is what they say:

July 21, 2006: The Border Route Trail and the Kekekabic Trail have been closed (because they go through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness). There continue to be no fire restrictions or travel bans on the Superior Hiking Trail.

July 18, 2006: The fires burning in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness do not affect the Superior Hiking Trail in any way. There are no fires near the trail and there are no burning restrictions or bans on the trail. However, it is extremely dry so use extreme caution if you do make a fire.

July 13, 2006: LOW WATER ADVISORY: There has been no rain to speak of for many weeks so expect small creeks and streams to be dry. So if your campsite water souce for the night (listed in The Guide to the Superior Hiking Trail) is a small creek or stream you might want to get your water from a lake, pond or river as you hike along.

So, we make sure we have plenty of water before we stop each night and we will be fine.

No more posts for about 16 days! But, to make sure I still have a job when I get back, make sure you buy lots of books from Eisenbrauns while I am gone :)

UBS sale

Eisenbrauns is running a 2 week sale on selected UBS (United Bible Societies) texts. Anywhere from 35-55% off on Greek, Hebrew, Latin and Syriac texts and lexical aids, plus other resources. Just go here and enjoy the savings!

What's on sale? Here's partial list, since there are 45 titles on sale, I won't list them all, just highlight some.

Almost all fascicles of BHS are on sale at 40% off, I think only 12 & 13 are missing.

Other Hebrew Bible texts:
"Tanakh"
Edited by Norman Henry Snaith
American Bible Society, Cloth. Hebrew.
ISBN: 0564000299
List Price: $32.99 Your Price: $18.14

"Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Paperback Edition"
Edited by K. Elliger and W. Rudolph
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Paper. Hebrew.
ISBN: 3438052229
List Price: $34.99 Your Price: $20.99

"Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Small format"
Edited by K. Elliger and W. Rudolph
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Cloth. Hebrew.
ISBN: 3438052199
List Price: $69.99 Your Price: $41.99

"Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: Large Format"
Edited by K. Elliger and W. Rudolph
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Cloth. Hebrew.
ISBN: 3438052180
List Price: $79.99 Your Price: $47.99

The first BHQ fascicle, at 45% off:
"General Introduction and Megilloth: Biblia Hebraica Quinta"
Edited by Adrian Schenker, et al.
Biblia Hebraica Quinta - BHQ 18
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Paper. Hebrew.
ISBN: 3438052784
List Price: $98.00 Your Price: $53.90

Greek Texts:
Most all USB4 and NA27 texts: 40-50% off.

I really like this volume, which I have been using for the last year. Very easy on the eyes, the size is the same as the large BHS:
"Novum Testamentum Graece--Large Print edition"
Edited by Eberhard Nestle, Barbara Aland, and Kurt Aland
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Cloth. Greek.
ISBN: 3438051036
List Price: $69.99 Your Price: $41.99

Other Greek texts/tools:
"Septuaginta"
Edited by Alfred Rahlfs
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Cloth. Greek.
ISBN: 3438051214
List Price: $71.99 Your Price: $43.19

"The Letters of Peter: Catholic Letters,
Installment 2, Parts 1 and 2"
Edited by Barbara Aland, et al.
Novum Testamentum Graecum, Editio Critica Maior - NTGECM 4
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Paper.
ISBN: 3438056011
List Price: $49.99 Your Price: $25.00 (50%)

"A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament"
by Bruce M. Metzger
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 3438060108
List Price: $37.99 Your Price: $22.79

"Greek-English New Testament: NA 27 and RSV"
Edited by Eberhard Nestle, Barbara Aland, and Kurt Aland
German Bible Society, Cloth. English and Greek.
ISBN: 3438054086
List Price: $59.99 Your Price: $32.99

Latin:
"Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine"
Edited by Eberhard Nestle, Barbara Aland, and Kurt Aland
German Bible Society, Cloth. Greek and Latin.
ISBN: 343805409
List Price: $59.99 Your Price: $35.99

"Novum Testamentum Latine"
Edited by Barbara Aland and Kurt Aland
German Bible Society, Cloth. Latin.
ISBN: 3438053004
List Price: $39.99 Your Price: $21.99

"Biblia Sacra Vulgata: Latin Vulgate"
by Robertus Weber
United Bible Societies, Cloth. Latin.
ISBN: 3438053039
List Price: $84.99 Your Price: $46.74

Lexical tools:
"Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament
Based on Semantic Domains"
Edited by Johannes P. Louw and Eugene A. Nida
United Bible Societies, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0826703437
List Price: $59.99 Your Price: $35.99

"Greek English Dictionary of New Testament"
by Barclay M., Jr. Newman
German Bible Society, Cloth. English and Greek.
ISBN: 343860086
List Price: $29.99 Your Price: $16.49

"A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, part 2: K-U"
by J. Lust, Erik Eynikel, and K. Hauspie
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Paper. English.
ISBN: 3438051265
List Price: $41.99 Your Price: $18.90 (55% off)

"Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint"
Edited by J. Lust, Erik Eynikel, and K. Hauspie
American Bible Society, Hard cover. English and Greek.
ISBN: 3438051249
List Price: $119.99 Your Price: $71.99

Syriac:
"Syriac New Testament with Psalms"
American Bible Society, Cloth. Syriac.
ISBN: 090018549X
List Price: $16.99 Your Price: $10.19

"Syriac Hardcover Bible with Apocrypha:
Peshitta Version from the S. Lee Ed."
American Bible Society, Cloth. Syriac.
ISBN: 090018552X
List Price: $33.99 Your Price: $20.39

Both Hebrew & Greek:
"Biblia Sacra Utriusque Testamenti: Editio Hebraica et Graeca"
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Cloth. Greek and Hebrew.
ISBN: 3438052504
List Price: $139.99 Your Price: $76.99

Gospel Synopses:
"Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum"
by Kurt Aland
United Bible Societies, Cloth. Greek.
ISBN: 104004
List Price: $89.99 Your Price: $49.49

"Synopsis of the Four Gospels: Greek-English edition of
the Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum"
by Kurt Aland
United Bible Societies, Cloth. Greek and English.
List Price: $129.99 Your Price: $77.99

"Synopsis of the Four Gospels : English edition"
Edited by Kurt Aland
United Bible Societies, Cloth. English.
ISBN: 0826705006
List Price: $21.99 Your Price: $12.09

Atlas:
"Tubinger Bibelatlas / Tubingen Bible Atlas"
Edited by Siegfried Mittmann and Gotz Schmitt
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart, Cloth. German and English.
ISBN: 3438060221
List Price: $150.00 Your Price: $97.50 (35%)

Megiddo

I just heard that the IAA is putting together a book on the Megiddo prison "prayer room" discovered last year. I will post more details as I have them. It should be ready before ASOR in November.

Vacation

Tomorrow after work we leave for the great frozen north! Actually, given that the predicted high temperature today in Minneapolis is higher than for Indiana, that is quite untrue :) But, it sounds good.

I will not have Internet access, with a possible 1-2 day exception, for the whole time. Because of the spam comments that have a nasty tendency to show up, I have turned comment moderation on. All that means is that if you post a comment after today, it won't show up until August 7. I hope it isn't anything urgent!

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Thought for the day

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God...

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

“You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; truly, I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny." — Matthew 5:9, 14-26.

<idle musing>
Seems especially appropriate given the world situation right now. We certainly could use a few more peacemakers. Remember, shalom means more than the absence of war...
</idle musing>

The Boundary Waters are burning

We are getting ready to go on vacation. We will be visiting our daughter, son-in-law and grandson in Grand Marais, Minnesota and our son in Shakopee, MN. While we are there, Ryan (our son) and I are planning on spending a few days backpacking along the Superior Hiking Trail (eat your heart out, Joe!).

Today, my son calls me and says that there is a fire in the Boundary Waters, see the picture below. So far, it is far up the Gunflint trail, so we can still backpack, but we will probably smell it.

Continuing down the Long Tail

I finished the book The Long Tail: The Radical New Shape of Culture And Commerce. There is lots to mull over, but I think he is right about most of it. Knowing quite a bit about the insides of some of the things he talks about, I can say he oversimplifies a lot. But, that is to be expected in a popular book.

So, how does Eisenbrauns fit in the long tail? Well, last week I posted the results of why people shop at Eisenbrauns. This week I am posting the answers to the second question, "How did you find the books you bought?"

8.4% Left Blank
18.3% Search engine (e.g., Google, Yahoo, MSN...)
0.9% Froogle or other price-comparison search
10.4% Eisenbrauns Source Catalog
3.6% An Eisenbrauns catalog other than Scholar's Source
9.2% Word of mouth (includes blogs and message boards)
16.4% Book News Email
4.3% Other Email List
13.5% Browsing the Eisenbrauns website
0.9% I saw them at a conference I attended
14.3% Other Sources

Obviously, the long tail shows up in the 18% who found us via the various search engines. I have watched that percentage grow until now it surpasses BookNews, which initially was the largest category.

Now, we aren't going to do anything drastic based on these results—like stop going to conferences! This is a snapshot, not a year long study. But, it does confirm some of our long standing opinions, which can be good or bad :)

A tale of two booksellers

On a July day in 1975, a graduate student at the University of Michigan walked into an office and paid the fee to become a business. His desire was to make difficult to obtain non-domestic books available to students and scholars in biblical studies and ancient Near Eastern studies living in the US. He had no desire to get rich and no delusions of world domination :) His first "catalogs" were mimeographed sheets of paper. Gradually his reach spread; the catalogs became more professional, the number of titles more expansive. Eventually he began to publish, initially reprints, but then original works. The business became better known and scholars in biblical studies and ancient Near Eastern studies would drool over the catalogs, circling the items they wanted (I know I did!). Along came the Internet; it was an obvious move to create an online presence for the catalog business. Today it has a worldwide reach.

In late 1994, when the Internet was starting to become a hot item, another young man had an idea. This young man wasn't interested in serving the academic community, he worked for a hedge fund and was more interested in crunching numbers. He thought that there would be a potential for an Internet bookstore. He managed to convince investors and proceeded to lose more money in 3 years than the first person in our story had ever made in his life. Eventually, through selling at a loss, the Internet bookstore had a huge following. It expanded into other areas and patented an idea that didn't seem like it deserved a patent—one click ordering. Because of the millions of dollars that this company managed to lose, they became synonomous in many people's minds with books. People ceased to even think of other bookstores, it was as if they had disappeared from the planet. This company then raised their prices on all except hot sellers and began making money. But, people didn't notice that the prices had been raised. They started to treat this website as Book in Print. If it wasn't listed there, it didn't exist.

Meanwhile, the first person in our story continued to sell and publish books for the academic community. His prices for published books remained reasonable and all other books were sold at a fair price—a practice that is still going on today. He gets to attend academic conferences around the world and interact with other scholars. He is respected by the academic community and employs about 20 people, including me.

What is the moral of this story? I don't know if there is one. It is just the story of two people with entirely different dreams and purposes. Both have succeeded in doing what they set out to do. Of course, the question is, which would you rather support? That's your decision. I confess I occasionally buy from the other guy, some books are out of the ANE/biblical studies field and bookstores are few and far between in this town.

Science experiment?

It has been hot and humid here for about a week. How humid? Well, I wear a helmet when I ride my bicycle—I learned the hard way, 12 staples in the head makes one realize the value of a helmet. Anyway, because I sweat profusely, the straps get a good deal of salt on them and I am not the best about cleaning them off. They were getting quite a build up, having turned white instead of black. Last week I went to put the helmet on, and the straps were wet. I thought maybe Debbie had washed them for me, but no, she hadn't. The salt on the straps had acted as a wick for all the moisture in the air! Isn't that gross? But, that's how humid it has been, around 90%. This poor northern boy is melting in the Indiana sun.

Quote for the day

"Keep in mind that the carnal state is not reserved exclusively for those in whom there is no good. A man may be a preacher, evangelist, or Sunday school teacher, yet God may say to that man 'Are ye not carnal?' (I Cor 3:3). Yet in the end, does his work not produce the same restuls as it would if he were spiritual? No! He may help another to the Christian life, but the Christian life he helps him to is so disordered that it is feeble and does not stand. The man whose inner life is under the rule of the Spirit, who is himself spiritual will lead others to a truly spiritual life; he will impart the life of God in power."—Andrew Murray

Musings on the L - O - N - G tail

<idle musing>
I have been reading quite a bit lately about the "long tail" of marketing (see sidebar for books being read). Briefly, the long tail is the shrinking part of the sales graph where an item sells 1-5 units per year. This is in distinction from the head of the chart—the hits—where the quantity sold in in the hundreds of thousands. The term is relatively new and the phenomenon has attracted attention recently because of the Internet and the availability of search engines. To get a better idea, either read the book or go here or here.

If ever there was a business that was in the long tail, it is Eisenbrauns. We are definitely a niche market. After all, how many Assyriologists live on your block? OK, we do sell biblical studies, too; but only academic books on biblical studies, which is a niche market. Anytime you can look through a catalog from a major Christian publisher and only find 1-2 books (sometimes less) worth listing, you know you're niche!

This was driven home to me even more strongly in the last 6 weeks. We started doing a 2 question survey of customers on our website as they checked out. One of the questions is "Why Eisenbrauns?" While I would love to say that 50% of more answered "I always order from Eisenbrauns," that isn't the truth, only 8.46% did. Here is the actual breakdown:

8.46% Left Blank
8.46% I always order from Eisenbrauns
19.85% They have the best price on one or more of the books I'm ordering
2.21% They have cheap and fast shipping
25.00% They are the only place that sells one or more of the books I'm ordering
14.34% They are reliable and/or have good customer service
8.27% The books are on sale
13.42% Other

Obviously we need to do something about the shipping, which is why we are offering reduced/free shipping for July. Bear in mind that over a third of our customers are international, which isn't cheap to ship.

But, look at the number who say we are the only place that sells the book they need: 25%! If that isn't the long tail, nothing is. And, when you look at the detail on the "Other" category, a good number of those say we are the only place they could find the book(s), so the actual percentage is even higher.

How do we capitalize on this? Well, search engines help, as does word of mouth. So, if I could just get everyone to stop talking about that river in Brazil and start talking about the joys of buying from the ibex people...

That's your job, folks! Tell everyone why Eisenbrauns is the greatest thing to hit planet earth since sliced bread!

Oh, you say that's my job? Well, how do I do that? I have an idea, let's make a mug that only has cuneiform on it with a little Eisenbrauns tagline at the bottom. What do you think? Too niche even for our niche? I think I'll have a cup of tea while I consider it.

</idle musing>

Eisenbrauns hits the bigtime?

For the second year, Eisenbrauns is exhibiting at the largest Christian retail show, the International Christian Retail Show, formerly called Christian Booksellers Association. Seems like a strange venue for us, doesn't it? Well, we are there representing our good friends at Carta, Jerusalem. Here are a some pictures of the booth.
The booth, with a few of Carta's wall charts:



Leen Ritmeyer signing his newest book, The Quest. This book is so new we don't have it yet, Emanuel brought it directly from the press in Israel when he flew to Denver:

A couple of "kid's" books

Ever notice how there is a shortage of good introductory books on the ancient Near East for kids? They seem to either be too elementary or else college level. Well, I have a new Oxford University Press sales rep and he mentioned that Oxford had some aimed at middle school to high school. I was skeptical, but told him to send me two different ones to look at.

I am skeptical no longer. The Pocket Timeline of Ancient Mesopotamia is really nice. The chart folds out to about 4 feet (they say 12 pages) and is full color with 32 pages of accompanying text. There is a whole series of them. Even though I have only seen this one, I assume they are all of the same high quality. Here are the others:

Pocket Timeline of Ancient Egypt

Pocket Timeline of Ancient Greece

Pocket Timeline of Ancient Rome

And, he sent me another one, The Ancient Near Eastern World, 176 pages long with full color pictures. There are three other ones in that series, also:

The Ancient Egyptian World

The Ancient Greek World

The Ancient Roman World

So, if you are looking for some good introductions for your kids/grandkids, these series seem to fit the bill very nicely.

International SBL meeting

John got back on Saturday from the ISBL bringing pictures. (Jim went on to another conference in Germany). Here is the book table that Eisenbrauns had there:

Anybody notice?

Last Monday (July 3) we started discounting all books published by Eisenbrauns by 10% if you bought them through our website. Did you notice?

Just our way of saying thanks for buying from us. Kind of a thirty-first birthday present from us to you.

The fountain of youth? part 2

I promised an update on the Twinkie. Marti chose not to try it, but Andy, our webmaster, was a bit more adventurous. Here is what he reports (via e-mail):

I felt adventurous. If Jim can try haggis for breakfast, I can try a geriatric Twinkie.

The texture and taste reminds me strongly of flat, cold cornbread with butter frosting, and the filling has assumed a faint, tangy, chemical flavor. The cream filling flavor lingers for quite some time.

I now feel a bit light-headed and a little unreal. It could be that I just need to go eat some real lunch.

There's plenty of Twinkie left if anyone wishes to confirm my findings.

No one did. Andy appears quite normal today, so the effects, if any, were limited.

Any takers on next year's tasting test? :)

Fountain of Youth discovered at Eisenbrauns?

We have an interesting and creative group of people working here at Eisenbrauns. This was driven home to me today when all employees received the following e-mail:

Intrigued by the urban legend that Twinkies have a shelf life of 30 or 40 years and presented with an opportunity to (partially) test the theory when Dave put Twinkies in the break room on sale for $.10 last summer, I began my own version of myth busters. Not wanting to let an opportunity like this pass me by I put $.50 in the money box and secured 5 Twinkies. The stack of Twinkies was then put into the back of a desk drawer with a post it reminding me of the year I put it in the drawer and the date to take it out and test it eatableness--if that is even a word.

One year later and the first Twinkie is ready to be tested. All I can say is that it sure doesn't *feel* like a Twinkie anymore. I am not sure I want to taste it. Feel free to stop by desk if you want to see what [a] one year old Twinkie looks like.

The last Twinkie in the myth buster experiment is scheduled to be opened July 6, 2010.

<idle musing>
And you thought we only published and sold books!

I felt the thing, it certainly doesn't feel spongy. It still looks like a Twinkie, though:


Not sure if I would try it. I'll let you know if we have a sudden sickness in customer service, or–worse yet–a strange metamorphosis of an employee into some different life-form.
</idle musing>

Zealotry part 2

Scot McKnight hits hard again. I'll quote the summary to whet your appetite:

Zealotry, however, is afraid of freedom. Freedom opens the windows, tosses up the doors, and lets the winds blow in and the people go outside.

Zealotry, at its bottom layer, is the unwillingness (1) to trust God to work in others, (2) to trust others to listen to God, and (3) to trust ourselves to do what God wants. The ambiguity created by freedom is fearful to many, so they make fences and laws — and in so doing, they create a bounded society of zealots who convince themselves that, even though the Bible does not say something, what they are saying is really what the Bible wanted after all.

<idle musing>
How dare he? Actually, how dare he not! It is about time someone with a wide listening audience attack the sacred cows of christianity in the U.S. Too often we allow our cultural lenses to influence our christian conduct.
</idle musing>

Zealotry at Jesus Creed

Never one to shy away from controversy, Scot McKnight is taking on zealotry here. Definitely worth the read, as I'm sure the whole series will be.

One paragraph, to give you a taste:

Trotting alongsie this zeal is a friend named immunity: Zealots think their zeal makes them immune to criticism because they are so zealous for God; their zeal never to get close to breaking any commandment makes them better than others. In other words, zeal shows just how deeply committed a person is to God and therefore immune to criticism. What, they reason to themselves, is wrong with doing more than the Bible? Does not God recognize our zeal?

Biblical Studies Carnival VII

Wow, I never thought it would happen, but I made it into the Biblical Studies Carnival. Check it out here. Look for this:

Archaeology in Pictures
Check out the pictures from the Tell es-Safi/Gath Excavations.
Ancient pottery inscriptions found in Indiana (pictures).
The Tel Gezer Blog is replete with action shots.

Of course, he is referring to my picture of the broken mugs. But, hey, it got me listed :)

New browser

I have been experimenting with a new web browser for the last few weeks: Flock. It is beta and based on the Mozilla engine that powers Firefox.

I was not unhappy with Firefox, but there are some very nice features in Flock. Even though it is beta, it is stable. I haven't managed to crash it yet :) Of course, there are rough edges, like the tabbed browsing extension doesn't work right. But, that is minor compared to two really sweet features:

RSS reader built-in

Just push Ctl-Shift-N and up pops a tab with all your RSS feeds plus a "Home Page" with the unread items

"Blog this" feature

Highlight something on a webpage, right click and select "Blog this".
I use this, but edit the source HTML and then paste it into the blogger "create post" window. But, you can publish directly if you wish.

There are other features that seem interesting, but are largely irrelevant to me. Definitely worth a look and download. After all, it's open source and free.

July special at Eisenbrauns

For July we are offering Carta titles on sale at 15-25% off. I haven't run a Carta sale since November 2004. You can chase the sale down here.

But, to make the summer more interesting, we are offering an additional July incentive:

Order 2 or more books via our website during the month of July and get free shipping within the continental United States, or half price shipping outside the continental United States. This offer includes used books, books on sale, as well as regular books.

Enjoy!

Programmer

We recently hired a programmer—Travis. He has been spending his time getting used to our system (and us!). But today he made a small change that I think is really nice. Before now you wouldn't be able to tell whether an item was in stock or not on our item detail page. Travis changed that. Now it will tell you not only if it is in stock, but how many.

I know, small detail to some of you, but progress. Now if we could just get the thing to move faster...Anybody got any squirrels we could borrow? We feed them well, all they do is run in circles. The faster they go, the more power to our webserver. Just kidding :)

The latest doping scandal in cycling

Since most of you don't follow cycling, and I don't much anymore either, you probably don't know that there was a raid in Spain recently. It uncovered extensive doping, involving many big names. My feelings on the matter are expressed very nicely by the Boulder Report

The Tour de France could disappear, and sports fans the world over would shrug and change the channel. What’s more telling, the Tour and the entire sport of professional road cycling could stop tomorrow and millions of cycling enthusiasts would still wake up tomorrow morning and ride their bikes. This is the warning that the UCI faces: either remake the sport, or risk it becoming irrelevant, a sideshow like pro wrestling. And all it would mean to most people, even ardent cyclists, is that they’d have more time to do things like ride their own bikes.

Well put!

More on the broken Mugs

Charles over at Awilum has one upped me! His press release is great. Mine seems weak in comparison. Here's an excerpt:

"Archaeologists from Indiana University assert that this is finally the definitive proof that an enclave of people devoted to ancient Near East studies lived in Winona Lake, while archaeologists from Tel Aviv University and the University of Copenhagen state that there never was a group of ANE devotees in the third millenium. Instead, ANE studies flourished in the mid fourth millenium and this interest was retrojected back onto the early third millenium in order to give fourth millenium scholars more prestige."

Who would have thought? Minimalists/Maximalists in 4154 CE!

BHQ on sale

At Eisenbrauns, we are running a special sale on BHQ Megilloth this week. The only place we announced it was BookNews. As far as I can tell, this is the lowest price anywhere. Here are the details:

General Introduction and Megilloth
Biblia Hebraica Quinta
Biblia Hebraica Quinta - BHQ 18
Edited by Adrian Schenker, et al.
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart,2004
368 pages,Hebrew, Paper
ISBN: 3438052784
List Price: $98.00
Your Price: $53.90
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~BHQMEGILL

Sherds?

We had quite a few damaged mugs in the shipment to us. The vendor wanted a picture as proof. I thought maybe you would enjoy it.



And here is a closeup:


We are considering burying them on the property. Wouldn't archaeologists have a blast in 2000 years? :) I can just see the report now:

"Obviously a ritual destruction of the cup once it has been used. The destruction almost certainly guarantees the continuation of the world. Undoubtedly the ritual was held every year at the summer solstice. The fact that it is in cuneiform proves that this method of writing was in continuous use from its invention through this period, 6000 years later. It must have been used only on ritual vessels at this time period, since it is relatively rare..."

What do you think?

ATLA

The conference hall is nice and big; everyone fits easily in the same room this year. There is wi-fi right in the hall, too. Very nice!

Here is a picture of our display. Way too many books and not enough room. I always think I can get more on a table than I actually can.



If you look carefully you can see 3 of the new mugs on display, but this is a better picture

ATLA conference

I got into the hotel late tonight. As usual for Chicago, a freeway was torn up. This time it is the Dan Ryan, so the last 10 miles took me almost as long as the first 100 did :(

I ran into Timothy Smith, the guy who runs ATLA conventions, in the lobby and he told me that the exhibit hall opens tomorrow at 7:00 AM for setup, which is nice; I won't have to rush to get set up in time. Once I have it set up, I hope to post some pictures before it opens. The hotel has free wireless in the rooms, so hopefully it will be in the meeting rooms as well. If not, I can come back to the room or lobby and use the the Wi-Fi there.

Time for bed now.

The mugs are here

The mugs arrived today.

Here's our website blurb:
"We're at it again. We have created the perfect mug for scholars in ancient Near Eastern studies. Show off your knowledge of Akkadian with this cuneiform mug from the "merchant of the 4 corners" Eisenbrauns. There is no transliteration or translation on the mug—although we include a slip of paper with that information—just the cuneiform text of the first two lines of the Enuma Elish. Impress your friends and dazzle your enemies, impress the dean, intimidate the new graduate students, there is no end to the uses for this mug. Of course, it works great for coffee, tea, and hot chocolate, too."

Get yours here. I could add some cheap marketing thing like, "Hurry supplies are limited." But, I won't; really, I won't.

Book Buyers take note

Charles over at Awilum has a great note on packing books home from SBL. I love the picture :)

How-to-Pack for SBL

Another new book

It's like Christmas today! I love my job.

This one just arrived:

Conspiracy and Imprisonment
1940-1945
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Works - DBW 16
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Edited by Mark Brocker
Translated by Lisa E. Dahill
Fortress Press, 2006
xxv + 882 pages,English
Cloth,6 x 9
ISBN: 0800683161
List Price: $60.00
Your Price: $49.80
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~BROCONSPI

Interesting new book

I had an interesting looking new book just come across my desk today:

Holy Spirit and Religious Experience in Christian Literature ca. AD 90-200
with a foreword by James D.G. Dunn
Studies in Christian History and Thought - SCHT
by John Eifion Morgan-Wynne
Paternoster Press,2006
xxi + 381 pages,English, Paper
ISBN: 1842273191
List Price: $39.99
Your Price: $35.19
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~MORHOLYSP

From the back of the book:

"Holy Spirit and Religious Experience seeks to find out how far the centrality of the Holy Spirit in Christian experience during the earliest period of the church was maintained or diminished in the third to the fifth generations (ca. A.D. 90-200). Three themes are explored. First, the sense of encounter with the divine presence, the numinous, a sense of being caught up into the divine being or being overwhelmed by the One who is beyond us. Secondly, a sense of being illuminated in respect to the truth, given deeper understanding of God's purpose, whether for the individual or the congregation, or guided in decision-making. Thirdly, a sense of ethical empowerment, an awareness of being helped by divine power, assisted in a course of action or development of character, in grappling with temptation, or in the ultimate test of loyalty, martyrdom.

"The book is arranged geographically, from Syria and Asia Minor in the east to Rome and Gaul in the west, including North Africa and Egypt. Christian authors within these areas are examined chronologically, from the later New Testament writers through the second century to Clement of Alexandriia and Tertullian of Carthage, for the evidence they supply. The varegated picture which emerges, it is contended, reflects second-century Christianity."

Which theologian are you? quiz

OK, I usually ignore these, but I did this one. The quiz is here. Which theologian am I? Well, they didn't include two of my favorites, Bonhoeffer and Wesley. But, I thought I would place close to Finney, with his Arminian oriented theology. But, who did I place as? John Calvin! That is hilarious, I am a confirmed Wesleyan. Maybe Calvin was just a confused Arminian?

You scored as John Calvin. John Calvin 87% Jonathan Edwards 80% Anselm 73% Charles Finney 60% Friedrich Schleiermacher 60% Augustine 60% Karl Barth 60% Paul Tillich 60% Juergen Moltmann 53% Martin Luther 47% Which theologian are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Conferences

In one week I will be in Chicago for the American Theological Librarians Association meeting. I have been deciding which books to take and showcase. It is always hard to know what to take to these conferences. You want people to see what is new, but you also want to remind them of what you have as backlist that they might have missed. Plus, you want to make sure to take theology, but include a mix of ancient Near East; and don't forget the languages, and the distribution partners... It goes on and on.

I only have a 10 foot table, so the field is limited. I usually end up just taking the newest stuff and having an order form with the rest. A compromise at best.

So, if you are going to be at the ATLA next week, be sure to introduce yourself to me. Or, if you live in the Chicago area and have some free time and want to see our display, e-mail me for a free pass. We will be at the Holiday Inn Market Plaza right downtown.

This conference is the first in the summer conference schedule. Jim and John will be at the International SBL in July, then Jim goes on to the RAI in Muenster. While he is there, Marti will be going to the ICRS—International Christian Retail Show (formerly CBA) in Denver. Right after that, she heads to England for two shows back to back on Persia. While she is over there, the Catholic CBA is happening in Chicago. And that takes us to the middle of August, the summer is gone. Oh, and I am taking a two week vacation in there somewhere. And we have two catalogs to get in the mail before the end of August. Summer, the time to relax and enjoy life :)

Wimp that I am

I finally got a replacement seatpost (for my bicycle) for the one that broke 7 weeks ago. I have been using a standard metal seatpost, and could I tell the difference. Monday I got the replacement carbon one and yesterday I went for a ride. Wow! It is hard to believe the difference. Call me a wimp, but I don't want to go back to a non-carbon seatpost again. 220 miles has spoiled me forever.

Latest Biblical Archaeology Review

The latest edition of Biblical Archaeology Review just arrived. I know many of you are recoiling in horror at the thought of me subscribing :) I usually get so angry with it by the end that I want to burn it.

Anyway, this month Hershel decides he is the "hype police." In his column "First Person" he takes the National Geographic to task for the way they hyped the Gospel of Judas. He is right, of course. But, talk about the pot calling the kettle black! I think he is just jealous that it didn't come his way first. Can you imagine the hype? It would make what the NG did look tame.

In fairness, he does end his column by acknowledging that some will see this as the pot calling the kettle black, which it is.

Pastoral burnout

A bit old, but I just ran across this today.

This is the scary stuff:

The following statistics were presented by Pastor Darrin Patrick from research he has gathered from such organizations as Barna and Focus on the Family.

Pastors

* Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.
* Fifty percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.
* Eighty percent of pastors and eighty-four percent of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors.
* Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.
* Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.
* Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression.
* Almost forty percent polled said they have had an extra-marital affair since beginning their ministry.
* Seventy percent said the only time they spend studying the Word is when they are preparing their sermons.

Pastors' Wives

* Eighty percent of pastors' spouses feel their spouse is overworked.
* Eighty percent of pastors' spouses wish their spouse would choose another profession.
* The majority of pastor's wives surveyed said that the most destructive event that has occurred in their marriage and family was the day they entered the ministry.

He goes on a gives some advice to avoid it. Worth a read, even if you aren't a pastor.

Eisenbrauns 10 day sale

<idle musing>
I have been experimenting with a new style of sale the last 2 weeks. I offer 7-10 books at a very low price—$5.00-$15.00—with the condition that they purchase a book—any other book—at regular web price. It has been getting mixed results. Some people try to order the books without ordering any other book. Some people think they have to order a different book at full retail, even if it is discounted on the web site.

What do you think? I'm offering books with retail prices in the $35-$60.00 range for $5.00-$15.00. Is it unreasonable to ask the purchaser to buy another book at regular web price? Or is it more a case of overlooking the condition? Everyone wants a deal, me included, and I don't want to sound stingy by adding a condition. But, these are top quality books that we just have too many of right now—look at our forthcoming and just published books. We just plain don't have a lot of room left. Where is Joe Cathey with his pickup? :) Now that's an idea: Truckload sale. You come and pick them up. Any takers?
</idle musing>

New catalogs arrived!

The part of my job I like almost as much as seeing (and reading) the new books is when a new catalog arrives. Doubly so when a new resource catalog arrives. So, yesterday was a great day, because the newest Scholar's Source arrived and the newest Biblical Studies Resource catalog arrived.

These catalogs take a lot of time to put together—although since we started using XML it is faster—so I really like it when they turn out nice. I especially like the cover on the Biblical Studies catalog. Andy did a nice job, don't you think?

Enjoy!

Blatant marketing

OK, ignore this post if you hate blatant marketing :)

Eisenbrauns has started doing the publishing for the Oriental Institute, Moscow. The first book we are doing is the annual Babel und Bibel. At 792 pages, this is no small book! It will be in hardcover, good paper, excellent binding—you know the Eisenbrauns quality.

But, I digress. The volume is a memorial volume to I.M. Diakonoff with a table of contents that is a virtual "who's who" of Semitic studies. If you have any interest in Semitics, this volume is sure to have something for you. Here is the "official" blurb:

"The year 2005 marked the 90th anniversary of the birth of Igor Diakonoff (1915-1999). A classical Semitist in educational background, Diakonoff was most influential in his principal field of research--Assyriology. However, Diakonoff was also broadly interested in various aspects of ancient Near Eastern studies, notably Mesopotamian history, Semitic and Afroasiatic linguistics, and biblical studies. Although not major domains of Diakonoff's scholarship, Biblical Hebrew and the ancient Near Eastern background of the Old Testament were areas of expertise that made him one of the leading figures of biblical studies in Russia. For several decades Diakonoff was a "live bridge" between ancient Near Eastern and Semitic scholars working in Russia and the international scholarly community. Fittingly, this volume of Babel & Bibel in memory of Diakonoff contains essays, short notes, and reviews by scholars from the Russian and international scholarly community on topics in ancient Near Eastern, Semitic and Afroasiatic, and Old Testament studies. The contributors include A. Archi, G. F. del Monte, G. del Olmo Lete, J.-M. Durand, B. R. Foster, P. Franzaroli, S. Loesov, J. Marzahn, J. Pasquali, W. Sommerfeld, K. Markina, N. Roudik, M. P. Streck, M. V. Tonietti, W. R. Garr, K. Jongeling, M. Seleznev, V. Blazek, M. Bulakh, T. Frolova, J. Huehnergard, R. M. Kerr, L. Kogan, A. Militarev, J. Sanmartin, G. Takacs, A. Zaborski, N. V. Koslova, S. Loesov, and L. M. Dreyer."

And here is the bibiliographical stuff:

Babel & Bibel 2: Memoriae Igor M. Diakonoff
Annual of Ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament, and Semitic Studies
Babel & Bibel -- B&B 2
Edited by Leonid Kogan, et al.
Eisenbrauns,Forthcoming, June 2006
xii + 792 pages,
Hard cover,6 x 9 inches
ISBN: 1575061236
Your Price: $79.50
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~BABELBIBEL2

Mug details revealed

For all of you who waited so patiently over the weekend, here is what the mug says:

Akkadian:

e-nu-ma e-liš la na-bu-ú šá-ma-mu
šap-liš am-ma-tum šu-ma la zak-rat

Recognize it? It's the first 2 lines of the Enuma Elish. Duane got it right; however he missed the colophon (see below). He was right that it is a later addition. The Enuma Elish is a good 2500-3000 years earlier than Eisenbrauns :)

Update, 8:00 AM: I missed this for the original post, but I see that Charles over at Awilum also got the text right.

English translation:

When on high no name was given to heaven,
nor below was the netherworld called by name

The smaller inscription next to "eisenbrauns.com" has the determinative LÚ.DAM.GÀR (merchants) plus the phrase kib-rat erbe-tim "of the four corners [of the earth]," which was a classic epithet of the Neo-Assyrian kings. We think it's quite appropriate.

Now, how do you get one?

Enuma Elish cuneiform mug
Pre-orders are welcomed!
Eisenbrauns,Forthcoming mid-June 2006
Ceramic
Your Price: $7.50
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~EISMUG2006

Or, watch BookNews for special offers, and I will have them with me at the American Theological Librarians Association June 22-23.

If you think you can wait until November, we will have them with us at AAR/SBL, too!

New Eisenbrauns mug now "in press"

Yep, we're at it again. Taking to heart some of the suggestions by other bibliobloggers back in December and January, we have designed a new mug:



OK, what does it say and where is it from? Find out on Monday how you can get yours! They should be arriving in about two weeks.

Yon City of Ugarit

Yes, The City of Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra arrived yesterday afternoon at about 2:30; seven pallets full, 200 boxes, 90 degrees Fahrenheit. We don't have a dock that trucks can back up to, the street is too narrow, so we end up doing it by hand. Each case weighed 19 kg (42 pounds), handed off to the next person in line, 160 times. We kept 40 boxes for the shipping warehouse to cover backorders and new orders that will come pouring in—won't they?

The backorders should start shipping today, so look for yours in the next several days (unless you are international). I have mine at my desk and it is a beautiful color book with updates from the French version inserted at the end of most chapters, both bibliography and text.

BHQ Ezra-Nehemiah update

For those of you who are anxiously awaiting the next fascicle of BHQ, Ezra-Nehemiah, here is the latest update, direct from Richard Weis, who is one of the editors:

"The proof-reading for Ezra-Nehemiah took rather longer than anticipated, so it missed the March date... The proof-reading was completed earlier this month, so the fascicle should be in production -- soon if not even as we write."

Ezra-Nehemiah
Biblia Hebraica Quinta
Biblia Hebraica Quinta - BHQ 20
Edited by David Marcus
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft Stuttgart,Forthcoming July/August 2006
296 pages,Hebrew
Paper
ISBN: 3438052806
List Price: $98.00
Your Price: $73.50
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~BHQEZRANE

Quote for the day

“The absence of revival in evangelicalism today certainly does not reflect a lack of activity and opportunities. We have more Christian concerts, conferences, programs, strategies, media events, books, tapes, magazines, and radio/TV ministries than any generation in history. In fact,we have more prayer gatherings and more events and resources geared toward ‘spiritual awakening’ than ever. But something is missing.

“I remember discussing this matter with a ministry leader who observed, ‘Lots of people are praying, and lots of people are repenting, but so few are changing their lifestyle.’ A light went on in my mind when I heard that statement. The fact is, if people are not changing their lifestyle, they’re not repenting. And if we’re not repenting, then all our singing and praising and praying and producing are useless—perhaps worse than useless, because all the noise and activity may deceive us into thinking that we’re OK and that we are actually experiencing revival.”

Nancy Leigh DeMoss in Holiness: The Heart God Purifies. (italics hers)

More on Yon City of Ugarit

The continuing saga of an international shipment...

The seventh day of the 5-7 days on the train from California to Chicago was up on Wednesday. Today I was informed that the product is available. What that means is that our customs broker now has to find a truckline to bring it to us in Warsaw, Indiana. Of course with Monday being Memorial Day, we won't see it until at least Tuesday, more probably Wednesday.

It now becomes a race against the calendar. After all, the world is going to end on 06-06-06 (see previous post here). It would be nice for people to be able to read this long-awaited book before that :)

If the world ends first, you can at least see the cover and the details:

The City of Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra

by Marguerite Yon
Eisenbrauns,Forthcoming May 2006
viii + 188 pages,English
Cloth
ISBN: 1575060299
Your Price: $34.50
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~YONCITYO

Update, 3:00 PM Friday: We now have official word that the truckline will deliver it on Tuesday, so it might beat the end of the world after all!

Self-portait?

Renee, Joel and Joshua (our daughter, son-in-law, and grandson) left yesterday. We had a blast with them. Renee fell in love with the digital camera and took this picture. She says it is the best one of me yet. Don't you love daughters? :)


This is a picture of Joel playing with Joshua.

Funny link

One of the things I do a few times a week is search Blogger for all of the occurrences of Eisenbrauns. I must have missed this one, because it is dated April 29.

It is a site called "toronto dermatologist specializing in black skin"

Judging by the other links, someone took ANE to be a mistake for Acne! Anyone following the link to us and looking for dermatology will be mightily disappointed :)

Just arrived

The latest Hermeneia volume just arrived. It wasn't supposed to be released until June, but here it is:

1 Chronicles
Hermeneia
by Ralph W. Klein
Fortress Press,2006
xxi + 561 pages,English
Cloth,8.25 x 9.25
ISBN: 0800660854
List Price: $55.00
Your Price: $49.50
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~KLE1CHRON

Weekend

Well, I managed to get through a weekend without reading a single page, not a word of Greek, Hebrew or Latin. I didn't even make bread. But, I had a blast. Why? Because we are taking care of our 14 month old grandson, Joshua. Joel and Renee are at a wedding in North Carolina and they entrusted him to us on their way through. Here's what he looks like now:


<idle musing>
I spent Saturday at a convention. I have always been of the opinion that if you make good quality biblical resources available to people, they will buy them and use them. Well, I am starting to rethink that opinion. I now think people want to be entertained. They no longer want to think. If it takes longer than a sound bite to explain something, then it must be too difficult or unimportant. Below is a picture of the Carta half of the booth. One of the other exhibitors told me we had the nicest looking booth at the show. Unfortunately, that didn't transfer into sales. This was my second year at this convention, last year went well for a first year, so I decided to try it again and take more stuff. It is a cheap convention to attend, and only an hour drive.



Well, initial reaction is I should have stayed home and played with Joshua. I don't think I even covered my expenses. Which is why I am now becoming convinced that people only want entertainment. People were spending money, but it was only on stuff that was predigested and follow the dots. We sell primary material that requires effort on the part of the person to digest it. Too highbrow. One of the organizers told me that our stuff was good, but he still hadn't read the stuff he bought last year, so why buy more?

Oh well, I got Sunday with Debbie and Joshua and we had a blast together. 14 months is a fun age. They can walk and babble and love to play with you.

But now it is time to go to work and empty the van of all the leftover books...
</idle musing>

The vagaries of international shipping

We printed The City of Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra overseas, something we don't usually do. We did it because of all the color used in the book. We couldn't have done it at a reasonable price – Eisenbrauns reasonable :) – here in the states.

The shipment was supposed to arrive in Chicago yesterday. We would then get it in about 2-4 days. Well, it was delayed in customs for checking. Ugarit is in the Middle East, so you never know, could be dangerous :) Anyway, I digress.

It is now being loaded onto a train bound for Chicago. It will arrive in Chicago in 5-7 days. Just in time for the Memorial Day holiday, which will delay it another few days. All in all, we should see it either May 31 or the beginning of June.

Speaking of which, I saw the worst advertising piece the other day. A certain Christian publisher is putting out a fictional book on the dispensational view of the endtimes. The date of release is 06-06-06. Guess how they are advertising it? Yep, 666, be ready.

Which caused one of the customer service representatives to quip, "I knew the end of the world would come before Yon got published!" Now you know.

How many elephants?

The year 2005 saw 172,000 new books released in the United States, according to Bowker, the world's leading provider of bibliographic information. but what does 172,000 titles mean?

"To transport one copy of each title, the vehicle would have to be capable of hauling 86 tons or 21 full grown elephants. Laying the books down in a straight line would require a little over 16 miles of railroad tracks."

<idle musing>
That's a lot of paper! Eisenbrauns contributed about 12 of them :)
</idle musing>

Idle musing for the day

"If a man strikes me, I should not pull out a revolver and shoot him. The Spirit of the Lord doesn't teach me revenge; He doesn't teach me that it is necessary to draw the sword and cut a man down in order to defend my rights. Some people say, 'You are a coward if you don't strike back.' Christ says, 'Turn the other cheek to him who smites.' I would rather take Christ's teaching than any other. I don't think a man gains much by loading himself down with weapons to defend himself. There has been enough sacrificed in this country to teach men a lesson in this regard. The Word of God is a much better protection than the revolver. We had better take the Word of God to protect us, by accepting its teaching and living its precepts." — D.L. Moody (a raving liberal?) 1847-1899.

Forthcoming this week from Eisenbrauns

We are releasing a paperback version of From Cyrus to Alexander. It is supposed to arrive this week from the printer.

There is an interesting story on this one. It was originally supposed to arrive today, but the paper delivered to the printer was thicker than specified. Normally that isn't too much of a problem, but when the book is 1200 pages long it becomes significant. They ended up having to reprint the covers with a wider spine, which delayed the delivery a few days. But, it isn't supposed to be raining as much the next few days, so at least we won't have to unload in the rain. I hope :)

Here are the details, for those of you interested:

From Cyrus to Alexander
A History of the Persian Empire
Translated from the original French by Peter T. Daniels
by Pierre Briant
Eisenbrauns,2006
xx + 1196 pages,English
Paper
ISBN: 1575061201
Your Price: $49.50
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~BRIFROMCP

Short book review

A Student's Guide to Textual Criticism of the Bible
Its History, Methods & Results

by Paul D. Wegner
InterVarsity Press - IVP,2006
334 pages,English
Paper
ISBN: 0830827315
List Price: $18.00
Your Price: $13.50
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~WEGSTUDEN

I just finished this book recently. It was delayed for over a year, originally planned for late 2004/early 2005 which may explain the inconsistency in some of the chapters. For instance, on page 102 he states (incorrectly) that only Jeremiah and Isaiah of the Hebrew University Bible Project have been published, but on page 112 he correctly states that Ezekiel is also published (2004).

I found the book quite good as an introduction to both Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and New Testament textual criticism. There are better books for each, but this puts them both together. Because of the layout of the book, there is quite a bit of redundancy. For example, he has a chapter on determining the most plausible reading and then a chapter on the sources. Of necessity there is a large overlap in what is covered by the two chapters (both OT/HB and NT).

One nice feature is the bibliographies at the end of each section. He also includes a glossary, as well as name, subject, and scripture indices. I did notice a real howler on page 274 where he states the Diatessaron was created about A.D. 70 (it should be 170). The font is also different for names with diacritics, but other than that, the book is well done.

It would make a good introductory textbook for a class that needs to cover the basics of text criticism for both testaments. For more serious work, you are going to need the other references listed in his bibliography.

I'm back, sort of...

OK, I'm going to start blogging again. But, it is going to be more limited.

Eisenbrauns recently published this little gem that I am currently reading:

The Edited Bible
The Curious History of the "Editor" in Biblical Criticism
EIS - Eisenbrauns
by John Van Seters
Eisenbrauns,2006
xvi + 428 pages,English
Cloth
ISBN: 1575061120
Your Price: $39.50
www.eisenbrauns.com/wconnect/wc.dll?ebGate~EIS~~I~VANEDITED

As a classicist by training, I found the chapters on the Alexandrian Homeric scribes fascinating. I am now on chapter 3, moving slowly through the book.

Book Prize for an Eisenbrauns Book!

I promised to post interesting book announcements, so here is one:

Eisenbrauns Book Wins 2006 Irene Levi-Sala Prize

Eisenbrauns is pleased to announce that The Archaeology of the Early Islamic Settlement in Palestine by Jodi Magness has won the Irene Levi-Sala Prize for Books on the Archaeology of Israel for 2006. The purpose of this prestigious prize is to encourage and reward high quality publications, both scholarly and popular, on the archaeology of Israel against the wider context of Near Eastern history and archaeology.