The surprise arrival of my Fall '07 catalogue means that I haven't been dropped from their mailing list, 'though it's been ages since I've ordered any titles. There's still time to redeem myself with a modest purchase ...

I don't ordinarily indulge in window-shopping but, in some spare time recently, I looked through the catalogue with a "what if" mindset. (Like, "what if" the market closes above 14,000 and I can afford to celebrate a little).

A lot of fuss has been made over the Saint John's Bible, the first hand-illuminated Bible since the invention of the printing press. It's a neat idea. I don't care for the artist's style. I can't afford any of the volumes. The university must be in bad financial straits to be setting their prices as they are.

So, Saint John's Bible aside, what else is good?

Well, Stephen Finlan's book, Options on Atonement in Christian Thought looks appealing. He's local, Fordham and SHU. He also edited a book, Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology that I might try to find.

Christ Within Me: Prayers and Meditation from the Anglo-Saxon Tradition may excite and sooth the Anglophile in me. There's a Genesis commentary by a Benedictine in the Berit Olam series that I'll get for Michele's study this fall.

LitPress has updated their famous Collegeville commentary series with a new bank of experts but still sells the old pamphlets at a slight discount. I bought the entire, old set a long, long time ago ... one of the few commentaries I feel comfortable marking up with highlighters and study notes ...

Now, with the issuance of BXVI's MP, I might need to acquire Consecrated Phrases: A Latin Theological Dictionary from that wonderful "The New Dictionary of ..." series. Humph, I bought The New Dictionary of Theology a while back because one of my teachers had an article in it ... gosh, I should remember the entry but cannot ...

The Aramaic Bible: The Targums looks interesting ... and, at about $80 per volume, expensive for the set. I actually know nothing about the work.

And finally, a commentary (with text and translation) on The Didache. This is a cheap and brief book, so I might be able to manage its contents. I haven't considered the Didache since graduate school.

Speaking of school, I really recommend a text we used my second semester, Loewe's The College Student's Introduction to Christology. Loewe really explains the ideas of the progressive theologians on the eve of the Vatican II era. Yeah, it's an undergraduate text but how many people have a degree in Religious Studies? Anyway, I'm glad to see that LitPress continues to make the book available to today's students.

Look at their selection for yourself. No PDF of their catalogue is online but searching on titles and authors works well.