January 31, 2007   • BEHIND THE NEWS   • Controversy Over Grand Canyon Book Revs Up Again • BOOKS BRIEFLY   • What the Talmud Really Says About Jesus • SPOTLIGHT ON...Bible-Inspired Novels   • Authors Find Old Stories Have Fresh Possibilities • RELIGION IN REVIEW   • Four Reviews Coming in Publishers Weekly on Monday, February 12   • Two Starred Reviews Coming in PW on Monday, February 12 • BESTSELLERS: February Christian Marketplace Bestsellers • COMING ATTRACTIONS • HOW TO SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE BEHIND THE NEWS Controversy Over Grand Canyon Book Revs Up Again by Juli Cragg Hilliard A three-year-old controversy over a book espousing a young-earth Creationist view being sold at the Grand Canyon visitors center has resurfaced, with renewed media attention and more they-said, they-said hullabaloo. In spite of the ongoing squabble, a National Park Service spokesman said it's unlikely to review the sale at the Grand Canyon National Park of a popular book that says the canyon was created during the global flood recounted in the Bible. "The fact that we haven't done anything in the last three years is kind of a decision," David Barna, NPS chief of communications, told RBL. Since 2003, when New Leaf's Master Books published it, the store has sold Tom Vail's Grand Canyon: A Different View. The arguments began right away. All seem to agree the book contains exquisite photos, but the storm has been over Vail's assertion the Grand Canyon was created just a few thousand years ago. At this point, said Barna, the book is shelved under an inspirational category. The scientific community wants the book gone, but Barna said the park's interpretive staff wants it to stay "because they're not afraid of alternate views. And they think debate itself is healthy." Barna drew a comparison to Civil War battlefield sites, where visitors may find books with various perspectives of the war's causes. Read the full story...   BOOKS BRIEFLY What the Talmud Really Says About Jesus by David Klinghoffer Will Peter Schaefer's new book, Jesus in the Talmud (Mar.), be controversial? "I'm afraid so," Schaefer told RBL. "That's why I'm nervous." His editor at Princeton University Press, Brigitta van Rheinberg, laughed but agreed: "You think, oh, whoa, this is not going to go over well in certain circles." Schaefer, who heads up Princeton's Judaic studies program, has collected and analyzed all the passages in the Talmud that apparently refer to the founder of Christianity, texts that were previously censored from Talmud editions for centuries. In his book he argues—against other scholars—that the scandalous passages indeed refer not to some other figure of ancient times but to the famous Jesus of Nazareth. Read the full story... SPOTLIGHT ON...Bible-Inspired Novels Authors Find Old Stories Have Fresh Possibilities by Marcia Z. Nelson The newest high-profile writer to join the creative crowd inspired by biblical subjects is bestselling British novelist Jeffrey Archer. The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot (St. Martin's, Mar.) is structured as a gospel and intended to tell Jesus' life from the viewpoint of the disciple who sold out his master. As written by Judas's imagined son Benjamin, the 22,000-word work is a collaboration between Lord Archer and Australian biblical scholar Francis Moloney. Moloney taught at the Catholic University of America and is a past president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America. His job was to make sure that details Archer imagined would be possible. "I wrote things, and he said many, many times, 'That's not acceptable,' " Archer told RBL. Controversy, however, is both acceptable and expected. "There are six things [in the book] which are going to cause a lot of controversy," said Archer, prepublication mum about them except to allow that Judas does not hang himself in this newest gospel. Speaking to RBL from Spain, the former Tory Member of Parliament, who is used to headlines, said the buzz for this book is greater than anything he's experienced in a writing career that includes 27 titles since 1976. "We had such amazing reactions from across the world," he said, adding that 17 foreign publishers already have bought rights. An audio version will be read by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The book launches in Rome March 20. Read the full story... RELIGION IN REVIEW Four Reviews Coming in Publishers Weekly on Monday, February 12 The Only Road North: 9,000 Miles of Dirt and Dreams Erik Mirandette. Zondervan, $12.99 paper (308p) ISBN 978-0-310-27435-3 Mirandette made headlines when he and two friends were severely injured by a terrorist bomb in Cairo, Egypt, in April of 2005. His brother, Alex, who was weeks away from his 19th birthday, died in the attack. READ FULL REVIEW Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion Jeffrey J. Kripal. Univ. of Chicago, $30 (512p) ISBN 978-0-226-45369-9 Most readers will probably not have heard of Esalen—but that doesn't mean they won't find its history fascinating. READ FULL REVIEW Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life Margaret Kim Peterson. Jossey-Bass, $21.95 (192p) ISBN 978-0-7879-7691-0 In this deeply theological, welcome book, Peterson (Sing Me to Heaven) argues in favor of the idea—no longer fashionable—that Christian service and spiritual growth are inherent in the acts of keeping people fed, clean, housed and comfortable. READ FULL REVIEW 40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, OxyContin, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania Matthew Chapman. Collins, $25.95 paper (288p) ISBN 978-0-06-117945-7 Chapman, Charles Darwin's great-great grandson and a successful Hollywood screenwriter, describes the 2005 Intelligent Design (ID) trial in Dover, Penn. READ FULL REVIEW Two Starred Reviews Coming in PW on Monday, February 12 Praying in Color: Drawing a New Path to God Sybil MacBeth. Paraclete, $16.95 paper (96p) ISBN 978-1-55725-512-9 Just as Julia Cameron, in The Artist's Way, showed the hardened Harvard businessman he had a creative artist lurking within, MacBeth makes it astonishingly clear that anyone with a box of colors and some paper can have a conversation with God. Frustrated by a laundry list of what she calls "prayer dilemmas," and the unfortunate situations of more than half a dozen friends and family members on her "critical prayer list," MacBeth, a math professor by trade, spent an afternoon doodling before she realized she'd in fact spent the afternoon in prayer. As she takes particular care to emphasize, this method—most effective for intercessory prayer, but adaptable for other approaches—requires absolutely no skill, merely a desire to connect with God. (Readers should therefore ignore any lingering self-doubt planted by a first grade art teacher.) Amid gentle personal anecdotes, MacBeth illustrates each step of the process, providing not just instruction but inspiration by sharing her own prayer pages as well as those of her students. She even includes a chapter on using one's computer for the process. Readers of all ages, experience and religions will find this a fresh, invigorating and even exhilarating way to spend time with themselves and their Creator. (Apr.) Sunday: A History of the First Day from Babylonia to the Superbowl Craig Harline. Doubleday, $26 (464p) ISBN 978-0-385-51039-4 Harline, an acclaimed historian and author of A Bishop's Tale, adopts a brilliant day-in-the-life strategy to explore the history of the Christian Sabbath in various cultures and times. Rather than attempting a sweeping and methodically exhaustive approach, Harline investigates the topic episodically, portraying, for example, a medieval English Sunday in one chapter, a decadent fin-de-siècle Parisian Sunday in another, and a 1950s American Sunday in the last and longest chapter. Along the way we also visit the earliest Roman Christians; a Dutch Reformed family in the 17th century; some battle-weary soldiers during World War I; and England again during the interwar years. Harline is a marvelous storyteller, combing the diaries, popular periodicals and letters of the various periods to bring the people and their times to life. There are some surprising revelations --until the fifth century, Sunday was a day of worship but also one of work, as early Christian leaders were anxious to distinguish it from the Jewish Sabbath. And Sunday has sometimes given rise to unlikely leisure pastimes: in Holland 400 years ago, it was the preferred day for courting; and in America today, it seems sacrosanct for professional sports. Harline's engaging and wonderfully written popular history deserves a wide readership. (Mar. 27) BESTSELLERS: February Christian Marketplace Hardcovers Facing Your Giants Max Lucado. Thomas Nelson/W The Purpose-Driven Life Rick Warren. Zondervan The Way of the Wild Heart John Eldredge. Thomas Nelson Cure for the Common Life Max Lucado. Thomas Nelson/W Get Out of That Pit! Beth Moore. Thomas Nelson/Integrity Captivating John & Stasi Eldredge. Thomas Nelson Grace for the Moment, Vol. 2 Max Lucado. Thomas Nelson/J. Countryman Praying God's Word Day By Day Beth Moore. B&H Publishing Group Prayer Philip Yancey. Zondervan The Christmas Candle Max Lucado. Thomas Nelson/Westbow Paperbacks Ever After Karen Kingsbury. Tyndale 90 Minutes in Heaven Don Piper with Cecil Murphey. Baker/Revell God's Promises for Your Every Need: 25th Anniversary Edition Thomas Nelson/J. Countryman Battlefield of the Mind Joyce Meyer. FaithWords Family Karen Kingsbury. Tyndale Wild at Heart John Eldredge. Thomas Nelson Why the Nativity? David Jeremiah. Tyndale The Five Love Languages Gary Chapman. Moody/Northfield My Utmost for His Highest Oswald Chamber. Barbour What on Earth Am I Here For? Rick Warren. Zondervan All rights reserved. ©2007 CBA Services Corp. and Spring Arbor Distributors by Evangelical Christian Publishers Association.     COMING ATTRACTIONS Next week in RBL, we’ll have coverage of CBA Expo—the Christian retailers’ midwinter trade show—which meets this week in Indianapolis. We’ll also feature a Q&A with Bob Abernethy—host of PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly—and his coauthor Bill Bole about their new book, The Life of Meaning.   PW Religion BookLine from Publishers Weekly Editors: Lynn Garrett (lgarrett@reedbusiness.com); Daisy Maryles (dmaryles@reedbusiness.com) Contributing Editor: Jana Riess © 2007 Reed Business Information. Published weekly. If your links aren't working, you can view this newsletter by copy and pasting the following URL into your browser: publishersweekly.com/eNewsletter/CA6411726/2287.html To read past issues, click here. TO UNSUBSCRIBE You are currently registered to receive PW Religion BookLine at: michael.gwertzman@reedbusiness.com To unsubscribe, e-mail us here TO VIEW OUR UPDATED PRIVACY POLICY Click here. To subscribe to PW Religion BookLine, go to our newsletter subscription page. Contact your PW sales rep for advertising opportunities. For all other questions, contact: Online Support Team Reed Business Information 2000 Clearwater Drive, Oak Brook, IL 60523 Email: MediaSupport@reedbusiness.com?Subject=PW-"RB"--michael.gwertzman@reedbusiness.com

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