Funny SBL story
I forgot to mention this before . . .
I was wandering through the Exhibition Hall at SBL, looking especially at biblical scholarship on Joel, Jonah, prophets, and creation; spirituality of animals, pets, nature; and children's books that dealt with biblical or environmental themes. In the last category, I was happy to find After the Beginning, a beautiful book by Carolyn Pogue and Margaret Kyle, which had been introduced to me by a friend working on reading the Bible with children. It's about the creation of Earth by the Divine Family as a planet where things change in beautiful ways: seeds sprout, animals grow and move, humans love each other and the world they're part of. Then greed takes over and starts to spoil the earth and alienate people from each other and the world, and how children try to teach adults to see the world afresh. It's a wonderful, child-empowering, nature-respecting story, and the pictures are gorgeous.
As I was paying for it, one of the people staffing the booth said, "You do know that there's a goddess in this book, right?" I said that I was in Old Testament studies and I loved the idea of the Divine Family/Divine Council in a children's book. Then I asked why he was so concerned. He said a bunch of people glanced at the book, thought it would be a great illustrated Bible story for their kids, and then came back later trying to return it because there was a goddess in it. I thought he was kidding, but the woman working with him backed him up. I said, "What, they didn't even look at the first page??" Apparently not.
As I stepped away from the booth, the man said, "Oh, you're from Union! If I'd seen that before, I wouldn't have worried!"
I was wandering through the Exhibition Hall at SBL, looking especially at biblical scholarship on Joel, Jonah, prophets, and creation; spirituality of animals, pets, nature; and children's books that dealt with biblical or environmental themes. In the last category, I was happy to find After the Beginning, a beautiful book by Carolyn Pogue and Margaret Kyle, which had been introduced to me by a friend working on reading the Bible with children. It's about the creation of Earth by the Divine Family as a planet where things change in beautiful ways: seeds sprout, animals grow and move, humans love each other and the world they're part of. Then greed takes over and starts to spoil the earth and alienate people from each other and the world, and how children try to teach adults to see the world afresh. It's a wonderful, child-empowering, nature-respecting story, and the pictures are gorgeous.
As I was paying for it, one of the people staffing the booth said, "You do know that there's a goddess in this book, right?" I said that I was in Old Testament studies and I loved the idea of the Divine Family/Divine Council in a children's book. Then I asked why he was so concerned. He said a bunch of people glanced at the book, thought it would be a great illustrated Bible story for their kids, and then came back later trying to return it because there was a goddess in it. I thought he was kidding, but the woman working with him backed him up. I said, "What, they didn't even look at the first page??" Apparently not.
As I stepped away from the booth, the man said, "Oh, you're from Union! If I'd seen that before, I wouldn't have worried!"