I’m on my way back from a wonderful day-long learning festival held at Loyola University in New Orleans. I was delighted to bump into a former student — now working at a service corps called Avodah — who attended the conference with many of her colleagues. The event was energetic, well attended, and a joy to be at. And I even found time to see alligators in the nearby swamps and cranes building a nest in Audubon park.
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From Amazon.com:
“Joel Hoffman’s book, And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible’s Original Meaning, is just invaluable for in-depth study of the Bible…. Using linguistics (in a remarkably clear and non-intimidating way), Hoffman describes the different kinds of information conveyed by a Biblical text, and then works out the methodology by which one can best understand the text…. Just an outstanding book. Really, a necessary book….
You all have to read it.”
[March 1, 2010 update: The February contest is now closed. Check back frequently for details of a March giveaway!]
Thomas Dunne Books / St. Martin’s Press is giving away a free, autographed hard-cover copy of And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible’s Original Meaning.
So many people showed up in Dothan, Montgomery, and Huntsville that by the time I got to Knoxville, we’d run out of copies of And God Said. We had tried to order more, but thanks to a massive snowstorm in the mid-Atlantic, next-day delivery was unavailable.
I was delighted to see some 100 people at the final stop on my tour through the south. They came from two local communities, from neighboring churches, and from the University of Tennessee. And while I didn’t have any copies of And God Said left to sign, we still had a few copies of my NYU Press publication, In the Beginning.
Delta is my airline, so I usually fly through Atlanta from this part of the world. It’s a good thing I ended up with a direct flight back to New York this time. All of the flights through Atlanta are canceled because of snow.
And God Said is now available on Amazon’s Kindle! And the experimental text-to-voice feature has been enabled, so the Kindle will read the book to you, if you want.
Have you read And God Said on the Kindle? Have you listened to it?
Please let us know your experiences.
Wednesday is Bible night in the South, so I was scheduled to give two presentations in Huntsville, AL: one mid-day, for the local ministers, and another in the evening.
It was a particular honor for me to talk about And God Said with the ministers, and I was delighted to have lots of time afterwards over lunch to hear their reactions.
Then I managed to squeeze in a walking tour of the historic district (even though temperatures didn’t make it out of the 30’s) before returning to Temple B’nai Sholom, where some 150 people showed up for the evening lecture.
Today I’m off to Knoxville, TN.
They say that only two things keep people away from church and synagogue: good weather and bad weather.
I drove two hours north from Dothan to the much larger city of Montgomery through intermittent rain, and then once I got here a cold front moved in. (It ended up colder here than it was in New York.)
So last night’s lecture was small but energetic, with well-informed listeners eager to learn more about metaphor and imagery in the Bible and how it should be translated.
Today I continue my route northward, to Hunstville.
Dr. Joel M. Hoffman in Dothan, AL.
Photo courtesy of Danny Tindell of the Dothan Eagle.
Dothan, AL, is a welcoming southern city of about 60,000 people. Delta flew me down from New York into Montgomery via Atlanta, and then I drove the rest of the way, finally arriving late Sunday night. I found time to see the city on Monday before giving my presentation to a packed and enthusiastic crowd Monday night. I was thrilled to see so many participants from the sponsoring synagogue and neighboring churches.
The Dothan Eagle has more.
Today I leave for Montgomery.
After a long week of negotiations, Amazon has worked things out with Macmillan. That means that you can buy And God Said directly from Amazon, in addition to other major on-line book sellers and book stores across the country.
And God Said is available across the country in bookstores, and on-line from almost every major retailer. But Amazon won’t sell it to you. [UPDATE: Amazon has worked things out and now sells And God Said.]
Amazon is negotiating e-book policy with Macmillan, the parent company of St. Martin’s Press, of which Thomas Dunne Books is an imprint. As part of the negotiations, Amazon suddenly and without warning stopped selling all of Macmillan’s titles, both electronic and paper. (For background on the tiff, try this, and for analysis, this.)
So until Amazon works things out, you might try one of the other major on-line sellers. Barnes and Noble usually has pretty good prices.
