AN UNCOMMON LECTIONARY: A Companion to Common Lectionaries

It may sound oxymoronic to claim that a lectionary could be original, but this one truly shatters the mold. It is arranged in the manner of most Christian lectionaries (though it begins with Epiphany and not Advent), following the liturgical calendar through Holy Week, feast days, and Ordinary Time. However, that is where the similarities end; whereas most lectionaries follow a three-year cycle of readings from the Gospels, this one adds a fourth year which includes not only biblical texts but snippets from pseudepigrapha. A by-product of the Jesus Seminar's work The Complete Gospels, this companion volume uses excerpts from documents such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Secret Book of James, the Dialogue of the Savior, and the Gospel of Mary. For Pentecost, for example, the lectionary provides non-canonical readings on light and the Holy Spirit, and the Advent readings center around the nativity sequences founded in the Infancy Gospel of James. (Sept.)