April, 2022
Dear Friends,

In-person events are back!

February marked my first in-person scholar-in-residence weekend in two years.

It was great to be back on the road, visiting a new community as we engaged with ancient texts and timeless ideas. I even enjoyed being in an airport again.

Since then I've been filling in my calendar, so if you're interested in exploring something for the fall or for 2023, now's the time to get started.

My most popular topics include:

  • Will the Real Bible Please Stand Up?
  • Four Exiles and Four Spiritual Revolutions
  • Ancient Answers to Good and Evil
  • The Bible Doesn't Say That

More information on each one is below.

I'm always happy to tailor my visit to fit your community, so if one or more of these appeals to you, let me know and we'll start there.

I'm also continuing to offer flexible good-faith cancellation and postponement. If we schedule something and, for any reason, it turns out no longer to be a good idea, we'll work together to decide what to do.

Reach out to me directly to take the first step toward bringing me to your community, or start with the information below.

Second, I've soft-launched " Human Stories ." I've been fortunate to lecture extensively on all six inhabitable continents, so I've had the opportunity to witness some amazing things and hear dozens of remarkable human stories. I'm collecting them on "Human Stories."

Third, I'm still offering Zoom classes. In one sense I'm glad to see interest waning, because in-person events are returning. At the same time, I was surprised by the effectiveness of on-line study, so I hope it doesn't disappear completely. Again, reach out directly for details or to set something up.

Finally, my social-media experiment is continuing. Social media might not sound like much of an experiment in 2022, but it is. I'm trying to do it with depth, shunning the cliche (and hurtful) one-liners that litter the Internet and posting serious research. It's also where I'm answering questions these days.

If you're so inclined, take a look:

In the coming months I hope to see many of you in person, on video, or even just on line.

With wishes for a rejuvenating spring,
 
Joel 
In Person
I'm thrilled that in-person events are back — both single lectures and scholar-in-residence weekends.

Here's more information about some of my most popular topics:

  • Will the Real Bible Please Stand Up? What does the Bible really say about violence? About marriage? About men and women? The Bible has been reinterpreted and misinterpreted almost from the day it was written, so most people reading the Bible now have very little sense of the original text. We'll peel back 2,000 years of revisionism and take a look at the Bible as it originally was. (Jewish / Christian / Interfaith)

  • Four Exiles and Four Spiritual Revolutions. A whirlwind tour of 3,000 years of Judaism, focusing on three spiritual revolutions and the exiles that led to each, then the most recent revolution: modern Judaism. How are we, today, like the prophets and like the authors of the Talmud? How is the 21st century like the Golden Age of Spain? And what will we build for future generations? (Jewish)

  • Ancient Answers to Good and Evil. The second half of the Adam and Eve story, missing from the Bible. Abraham's formative childhood. The mysterious Enoch. And the way all three ancient texts explore the nature of our lives as they explain good and evil. (Jewish / Christian / Interfaith)

  • The Bible Doesn't Say That. The original Hebrew of the Ten Commandments doesn't say "don't covet" or "don't kill." The translation "the Lord is my shepherd" is misleading, and the English phrase "with all your heart and all your soul" is just wrong. Come learn how modern translation techniques expose what the words of the Bible originally meant. (Jewish / Christian / Interfaith)

If you're interested in putting something together, let me know. (And as I said, I recognize that there's still some uncertainty about future in-person events. We'll figure out what to do if we can't hold an event that we schedule.)
Human Stories
"This pair at a market in Mumbai, India struck me with their immense contrast. A man and a woman. Young and old. Western clothes and eastern attire. Buyer and seller. But mostly a towering giant and a fragile Lilliputian..."



"The Vendress" comes from my "Human Stories" collection. What's going on here? Which person do you think you'd rather be? Why?
Travel Spotlight
Small girl looking at smaller adults
Perspective
This travel spotlight comes from New Orleans. After my recent scholar-in-residence weekend there, I managed to catch a parody of sorts on the famous New Orleans Mardi Gras parades, this one featuring mini floats.

I was struck by the little girl who suddenly finds herself bigger than adults, which prompted me to ask how we might re-envision our own lives with a new perspective.
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Praise

"[A]  wit­ty  and  ac­cess­ible  look at Scrip­ture ... Hoff­man has pro­duced the  best kind of popu­lar scholar­ship ."
- Publishers Weekly
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In Person