School Notes: Yale Divinity School
May/June 2013

The Gutenberg Bible up close

In February, students and faculty were offered a rare chance to see the pages of the Gutenberg Bible turned, outside of its protective enclosure. The opportunity came in connection with the course Jews, Christians, and Bibles in the Renaissance, cotaught at the Beinecke by Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History Bruce Gordon and Joel Baden, associate professor of Old Testament. “We wanted to foster a real encounter with the past, so that students realize these Bibles aren’t only artifacts, but living things that connect us with history,” said Gordon. For two hours, he and Baden introduced the materials, fielded questions, and turned pages with assistance from Kathryn James, a curator at the Beinecke.

Cancer care for congregations

When someone in the congregation faces serious illness, wondered James deBoer ’11MDiv and Laura Fitzpatrick-Nager ’13MDiv, how can the church offer care?  What is our theology of healing, and what do we believe about church, community, and wholeness? For deBoer and Fitzpatrick-Nager, both cancer survivors and members of the United Church of Christ (UCC), these questions became the subject of an independent study they completed at YDS that culminated with a healing liturgy in Marquand Chapel and the creation of a set of resources on congregational care and cancer for use in congregational settings.  Now these resources are available on the UCC website at www.ucc.org/justice/health/congregational-care-and-cancer. 

In our midst, a poet laureate

Marc Harshman ’75MAR, a poet and award-winning children’s author, is happily serving as poet laureate of West Virginia.  “Poetry’s ‘prophetic function’ can be like that of the Hebrew prophets of old, railing against kingship and power,” observes Harshman, who was appointed in mid-2012. Referencing Elie Wiesel’s insight about words attaining the quality of deeds, Harshman says, “It’s one of the things I struggle with as a writer—I want to have that grace to say something that approaches deed, that really matters, that reveals the [world’s] divine immanence.”  He has a new book out, Green-Silver and Silent (Bottom Dog Press, 2012), a full-length collection of his poetry, spanning 30 years of writing.