From the Editor Emeritus / John F. Fink

A new series about Jesus and the land he made holy

With my series of columns about the Old Testament finished, I suppose I should move on to the New Testament. But back in 2005, I wrote a series of columns that later became my book Jesus in the Gospels, published by St. Pauls. The columns followed the Gospels to tell how Jesus was presented by the evangelists. (The book is still available from St. Pauls or from Amazon or Barnes & Noble.)

I don’t want to do the same thing I did then, even though it was 10 years ago, but I would like readers to know more about Jesus’ life—a life lived in a particular time in a particular place. That’s what I hope to do with a new series of columns.

I have been to the Holy Land nine times, most recently in 2013. However, the most meaningful period was the three months I spent there in 1997, the first three months after I retired as editor of The Criterion. Thanks to Holy Cross Father Theodore Hesburgh, former president of the University of Notre Dame, I was able to study at the Tantur Institute for Ecumenical Studies, located at the top of a hill at the border between Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

After Blessed Paul VI visited the Holy Land in 1964, he phoned Father Hesburgh at Notre Dame and asked him to come to Rome. At the Vatican, the pope asked him to establish an ecumenical institute in the Holy Land. Father Hesburgh found the present property, the Vatican bought it and leased it to Notre Dame (for $1), Notre Dame built the present building, and the institute began operating in 1972 and continues to do so today.

During my three months there, I took courses in Holy Land geography and archaeology, Judaism taught by a rabbi who had been awarded the alumnus-of-the-year award from Harvard Divinity School, Islam taught by a Muslim husband-wife team, Eastern Christian religions, and, of course, the Bible. James Fleming was a favorite teacher who took us on field trips to places where most tourists or pilgrims don’t get a chance to go.

We also had some distinguished visiting professors, including Dominican Father Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, one of the top experts in the New Testament, who taught that subject at the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Francaise in Jerusalem; Benedictine Father Bargil Pixner, an archaeologist and prior of the Dormition Abbey; and Harvey Cox from the Harvard Divinity School. Harvey and I became friends.

There were about 30 of us in our class, most of us Catholics but some other Christians; I became friends with an Anglican priest from London. A few priests were there on sabbatical, and some Notre Dame students were there for a semester abroad. A Franciscan priest was preparing to lead tours. We had daily Mass, and we all ate together as well as attended classes together.

I hope in the columns that follow I’ll be able to give you a feel for how Jesus and his followers lived among the conditions of his day. I hope I’ll have some insights that you might not have thought about.

My series in 2005 was chronological, but I plan to jump around a bit with this series, with an eye on the liturgical calendar. †