When Prayer Takes Place [Hardcover]

Where in the world was Jesus when he prayed? Where is any one of us when we pray? Since we are embodied creatures, our prayer location can be mapped onto space-time coordinates. Since we are social creatures, our prayers are also situated within our social locations. But do these sets of coordinates exhaustively identify the place that prayer takes when truly entered into? Conversely, can either set totally prevent prayer from taking place there? These questions lie at the intersection of resolutely religious vis-a-vis resolutely secular understandings of existence. The studies in this volume explore dimensions of these issues traced in selected texts from both parts of the Christian Bible. Janzen has been looking at these biblical texts all his life. Every time he looks again, he sees something else by way of connection or nuance . . . It is a delight to salute this long-loved colleague on this rich offer that, as always from him, is a gift of newness. --Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary Rare is the exegete who is wise beyond his or her own specialty. Rarer still is the interpreter who explores the text down to its minutest of details with infectious wonder. Janzen is that exegete: text critic, theologian, philosopher, and poet. His exegetical forays are unhurried expeditions of a vivacious mind that will touch the heart, indelibly. --William P. Brown, Columbia Theological Seminary Janzen models what the exegetical imagination can do when it is focused on significant questions and disciplined by wide-ranging study, thorough and exact knowledge of the biblical text, and the life of prayer itself. These essays invite us to slow down and savor Scripture. --Ellen F. Davis, Duke Divinity School In these essays, both old and new, Janzen delves into detailed exegetical and intertextual analyses of biblical texts, crossing both Testaments and constantly appealing to the original languages with a sensitivity that generates profoundly existentialCÇ