When Prayer Takes Place

Forays into a Biblical World

by J. Gerald Janzen and edited by Patrick D. Miller and Brent A. Strawn

Book cover: When Prayer Takes Place

Extent: 450 pages

Publisher: James Clarke & Co

Subject: Religious Studies

Language: English

Paperback (No longer our product)

(November 2017)

ISBN: 9780227176733

5.98 x 9.02 inches

Price: $60.00

In stock

PDF (No longer our product)

(November 2017)

ISBN: 9780227906491

Price: $47.99

A collection of exegetical essays by the biblical scholar J. Gerald Janzen, exploring how the activity of prayer is presented in scripture.


Where in the world was Jesus when he prayed? Where is any one of us when we pray? Since we are embodied creatures, our prayer location can be mapped onto space-time coordinates. Since we are social creatures, our prayers are also situated within our social locations. But do these sets of coordinates exhaustively identify the place that prayer takes when truly entered into? Conversely, can either set totally prevent prayer from taking place there? The studies in When Prayer Takes Place explore dimensions of these issues traced in selected texts from both parts of the Christian Bible.

  • By (author) J Gerald Janzen

"Janzen has been looking at these biblical texts all his life. Every time he looks again, he sees something else by way of connection or nuance . . . It is a delight to salute this long-loved colleague on this rich offer that, as always from him, is a gift of newness."Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary"Rare is the exegete who is wise beyond his or her own specialty. Rarer still is the interpreter who explores the text down to its minutest of details with infectious wonder. Janzen is that exegete: text critic, theologian, philosopher, and poet. His exegetical forays are unhurried expeditions of a vivacious mind that will touch the heart, indelibly."William P. Brown, Columbia Theological Seminary"Janzen models what the exegetical imagination can do when it is focused on significant questions and disciplined by wide-ranging study, thorough and exact knowledge of the biblical text, and the life of prayer itself. These essays invite us to slow down and savor Scripture."Ellen F. Davis, Duke Divinity School"In these essays, both old and new, Janzen delves into detailed exegetical and intertextual analyses of biblical texts, crossing both Testaments and constantly appealing to the original languages with a sensitivity that generates profoundly existential reflection on one's own relationship with God. I found his essays transformative both for my reading of Scripture and for my own life."J. Richard Middleton
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