WATSA Parables? 20th Anniversary Revised and Expanded Edition coming soon!

Soon to be Revised and Expanded!

I am delighted to announce that yesterday I started working on the 20th anniversary revised and expanded edition of What Are They Saying about the Parables? 

It is great to be working with Paulist Press again (I also published WATSA Historical Jesus? with Paulist).

I turned in my final manuscript for WATSA Parables?  in November 1998. I remember that date because I found the files on a 3 1/2 inch floppy disk (marked "final" with the date on it) in a storage room in our basement and had to obtain an external floppy disk drive so I could transfer the files to my laptop (it's been a few years since I've had a computer with a floppy drive).

Many, many important studies in the parables have appeared since WATSA Parables? was first published (2000). Arland Hultgren's The Parables of Jesus, in fact, came out the same year, and the first edition of Klyn Snodgrass's monumental Stories with Intent was published in 2008, with a second edition appearing in 2018 (with a new chapter on recent scholarship). So it's a good time to bring the book up to date, especially since it is still being used as a textbook in classes on the parables.

In addition to expanding the seven extant chapters, I am adding at least one chapter, tentatively entitled, "What do Parables Want?" More about that chapter later, but it will include recent Reception History works on the parables, selected ethical responses, and some books about preaching the parables.

So this is my third book in a row that focuses on the parables:

Howard Thurman, Sermons on the Parables (co-edited with Kipton Jensen) comes out August 23, 2018.

The Parables After Jesus: Their Imaginative Receptions across Two Millennia was published in 2017.

I have some thoughts about my next book project after I finish this one, and it may also have some connections to the parables. We'll see.