It has been a while now since my book came out: Cur Deus Verba: Why the Word Became Words. It culminates twenty years of thinking about what exactly Scripture is, getting past the various partial viewpoints and straining for that view from the mountaintop where you can see the whole landscape. That vision was a burden: I felt that I was with child, so to speak, and the only way forward to peace was to bring it forth to the world. The day it was accepted for publication by Ignatius Press I felt a weight drop from my shoulders.
Good. I don’t know whether I will ever write another book.
In fact, you may have noticed that I have not written anything at all for quite a while. I didn’t even post on this blog when the book came out. For whatever reason, even though I know that writing is essential for my health, I have not been able to write much in recent months. It just isn’t there. But then The Catholic World Report reached out and asked me for a written interview, and over several painful weeks of taking long walks around the writer’s block I produced this nice synopsis of the whole book.
Wondering whether to read the book? Check out the synopsis. Know you won’t read the book, but feel guilty? Read the synopsis. Need to sound like you read the book even though you haven’t had time? Read the synopsis.
Want to see Scripture as from a mountaintop, set as a jewel in the cosmos, shining like the sun at dawn? Read the book.
Buy it, read it! You won’t regret it.
I’ve been reading your book (slowly) and I really love it. It’s one of several books I’ve been dipping into as I think about Scripture as a whole (what I call “the story that God wrote”) and how we are to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” the greatest & truest story ever written. I’m currently reading the chapter called “What Scripture Is For,” and I really appreciate the argument you make in favor of society and tradition, showing that both are not only important but necessary if we are to fulfill our human nature. There are too few voices,… Read more »