That Jesus Cover

It is jeopardy when academics who contribute to serious scholarship see a problem in the cover assigned to their work. It is double jeopardy when several claim it is misleading to their own contribution and misrepresentative of the prospectus of the volume. And it is unusual and rare when the editor welcomes his colleagues to vent and to write their charges in a public forum.

"It is striking and visual," responded a delighted Charles Watkinson, Director of Purdue University Press, to my suggestion that we select James Tissot's Jésus dans la synagogue déroule le livre ("Jesus Unrolls the Book in the Synagogue"), painted in Provence, France between 1886 and 1894 and now hanging in the Brooklyn Museum, as the cover for The Jewish Jesus: Revelation, Reflection, Reclamation (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2011). The Synoptic Gospels speak of Jesus preaching in the synagogue (Mark 6:1-6, Matthew 13:54-58, and especially, Luke 4:16-30). Tissot's painting suggests Luke 4:18-19, where Jesus, touched by the Holy Spirit, reads portions of Isaiah 61:1-2 and 58:6, proclaiming that the poor will be fed and clothed, the oppressed become free, and the blind regain sight. As was the custom of his people, Jesus was celebrating a Sabbath Synagogue moment, reading from the Book which succinctly captures a contention in our book, Jesus in the proximity of Jewish revelation. So I thought.

December 2010 was a real December dilemma. I requested and received from all the contributors to The Jewish Jesus their corrected manuscripts in the allotted time. That was done on December 5 (Fourth Day of Chanukka). The next day, I sent with excitement to all the contributors the marketing material on the Shofar Supplements Jesus volume (cover, content, blurb, post card), NOT expecting for one moment the instant reaction to the book cover—from "schmaltzy" to non-enlightened to reverting back to medieval Church triumphalism— all seen in a nineteenth-century French Christian artist's rendition of Jesus reading from the Torah (scroll not "Book") in a synagogue setting. Steve Bowman adroitly commented, "With all due respect I cannot abide the Front cover picture. It is too schmaltzy and East European. If you want a Jewish rebel rabbi (suggested by my words on the back cover), then perhaps a medieval picture of Judah Maccabee would do. (He was after all a messiah too.)"

Publication factors precluded the replacement of the Tissot picture. Disappointed but not depressed, I decided—wisely, in retrospect—to engage in disclosure to bring closure. So my invitation to the seven savants, who agreed to write:

Thank you for accepting the invitation to comment on the cover to The Jewish Jesus: Revelation, Reflection, Reclamation. Our book explores the Jewishness of Jesus. Does this picture do justice to this theme? You may want to reflect on the picture in a modern context or in the context of Second Temple Judaism or in the tapestry of Tradition ( Jewish and/or Christian). Or, in the content of your chapter, does this portrait of Jesus in the synagogue challenge, confuse, disturb, or enlighten? Wrestle with a paradox: the scholar sees rupture and the observer sees rapture in Jesus in a prayer shawl reading from the Torah (Book). Write on the whims of scholarship and popularity and in whatever genre you choose. Be creative and imaginative.

• Responses
• Steven Leonard Jacobs (bio), Sara Mandell (bio), Steven Bowman (bio), Norman Simms (bio), Eugene J. Fisher (bio), Michael J. Cook (bio), Penny Wheeler (bio), and Zev Garber (bio)

You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover?!? Responding to the Cover of The Jewish Jesus

Steven Leonard Jacobs
University of Alabama

The initial "controversy" (with a very, very small "c")—which I genuinely would like to call a machloqet l'shem shamayim/"disagreement for the sake of Heaven"— in response to the cover our editor Zev Garber chose for the volume The Jewish Jesus: Revelation...