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Davis Alumnus Co-Edits New Book

Davis College alumnus Art Boulet (’05) has co-edited a forthcoming volume with James Charlesworth entitled The Tomb of Jesus and His Family? Exploring Ancient Tombs Near Jerusalem’s Walls . The volume is currently scheduled for an October release.

Read the following excerpt from the Eerdman’s Publishing blog post.
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Thanks in large part to the Discovery Channel’s planned broadcast tonight of “The Resurrection Tomb Mystery” — a documentary based on James Tabor and Simcha Jacobovici’s Jesus Discovery — there has been a flurry of recent online discussion by scholars and amateurs alike about the tombs Tabor and Jacobovici excavated in the Talpiot neighborhood in Jerusalem. Representative samples of this (sometimes vigorous) discourse can be found here, here, here, and here.

Several of these discussions — debating the merit and meaning of the findings popularly known as the “resurrection tomb,” the “Jesus family tomb,” the “James ossuary,” and the “Jonah ossuary” — make reference to the 2008 Princeton Symposium. This international congress brought scores of experts together in Jerusalem to examine Second Temple-period Jewish burial practices and views of the afterlife and to evaluate the so-called “Jesus family tomb” in context.

We’re pleased to announce that the conference papers from this landmark event will soon be published. The forthcoming volume — entitled The Tomb of Jesus and His Family? Exploring Ancient Tombs Near Jerusalem’s Walls and edited by James Charlesworth and Arthur Boulet — is currently scheduled for an October release.

Read more of this article by clicking here.
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Art Boulet (’05) is currently finishing a Post-Baccalaureate program in Classics at Columbia University in New York CIty. He graduated from Westminster Theological Seminary (M.A. Biblical Studies, ’09) and Princeton Theological Seminary (M.Div., ’11). He is Senior Editorial Assistant at the Princeton Dead Sea Scrolls Project where he has contributed new texts and translations of Dead Sea Scroll fragments to two volumes in their series.

In addition to co-editing The Tomb of Jesus and His Family? Exploring Ancient Tombs Near Jerusalem’s Walls, Boulet also prepared the indices for “Non-canonical” Religious Texts in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (co-edited by James Charlesworth and Lee McDonald). The listing can be found at: http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=167709&SearchType=Basic

Art and his wife, Liz, currently live in Manhattan.

Correcting Some Misconceptions | Guest Post from Calvin Park

This is re-posted from alum Calvin Park from his blog with permission.
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As I’ve talked with more and more people about attractional youth ministry and my own reasons for striving to find a different–better–way of doing ministry with students I’ve realized something. When I say I don’t like attractional youth ministry, or I have misgivings about it, or I’m concerned that it puts the focus on the wrong things. What people tend to hear is, “I don’t want fun.”

This is actually furthest from the case. Fun–whatever form that takes–is a vital part of a healthy church, and a healthy youth ministry. Sure, if the only thing we ever do is “fun,” and we never do Bible study, or prayer or service then we’re missing the fullness of things (I should be quick to note that all of those things can and should be “fun,”). The problem isn’t with having fun, the problem is with replacing Jesus and his kingdom with fun.

One of the most successful youth ministries I have ever been a part of spent huge amounts of time being together, hanging out, talking, playing games, walking around town, going to a family’s cabin, playing games, going out to eat, going to movies, and playing games. These kinds of “social” times weren’t merely fun for us, but they allowed us to build trust with one another and enter into shared life–what we might call, community–on a very regular basis. The point of this stuff, however, was not to attract new students to the ministry. The point was for the Body of Christ to live life together.

As I told a student recently, regardless of how they might feel, the last thing their friend wants or needs is more fun. What their friend needs and wants (even if they aren’t at a place to articulate this yet) is something that goes beyond a culture that demands we be concerned with getting ahead. Jesus offers that. We need to stop being embarrassed by the counter-cultural nature of Jesus. At the same time, this isn’t to say that one should never spend time simply hanging out and being together. That is as much a part of enacting Jesus’ mission on earth as studying the Bible, praying or building homes; in our over-stressed and over-worked society, time to simply relax and be together is a vital spiritual practice.
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Have you been too focused on the “fun” part of ministry? Is there a way we can have fun with a purpose? Let us know on Facebook and Twitter – we’d love to hear from you!