The Reverend Dr. Eugen J. Pentiuc, internationally renowned Old Testament scholar, will be honored Sunday, November 19, at a book launch celebrating the forthcoming publication of his latest work, titled, Hosea: The Word of the Lord that Happened to Hosea (Peeters Publishers). Father Pentiuc is both Professor of Old Testament and Hebrew and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and Professor of Scripture and Semitic Languages at St. Vladimir’s Seminary. Holy Cross Seminary and the famous biblical school, École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, will co-host the fete on the seminary campus in Brookline, MA, in Dowd Hall at 1 p.m.
Father Pentiuc’s new monograph is published under the auspices of the École, under the meticulous direction of Father Olivier-Thomas Venard, O.P., and it represents the tireless work of a group of international biblical scholars. Father Pentiuc was the main author and team leader of the Hosea project.
Hosea is the second volume, after Philippians (Peeters, 2016), to appear in the newly created B.E.S.T. (acronym for La Bible en Ses Traditions =The Bible in Its Traditions) series, recently launched by the École. Creating a B.E.S.T. volume entails a collaborative online platform that brings together dozens of researchers and scholars, working across 29 categories of annotation: Jewish studies, patrology, Ancient Near East studies, archeology, liturgy, and so forth. The series’s new and expanded digital format continues the École’s mission to transmit the Scriptures to the general public; the École created the first Study Bible, La Bible de Jérusalem, also known as The New Jerusalem Bible, in 1956 (Cerf).
The new digital Study Bible offers the modern reader a fresh scriptural translation based on the Old Greek (Septuagint and second-century A.D. Jewish translations), Hebrew (Qumran and Masoretic), Syriac (Peshitta), and Latin (Vulgate) texts, accompanied by a wide variety of study notes divided into three sections: text, context, and reception. These notes cover various interpretive aspects: from mere textual, lexical, and literary glosses to sophisticated Jewish and Christian patristic and liturgical commentaries and theological treatises, and further including modern and secular forms of scriptural usage (e.g., literature, visual arts, music, dance, cinema and television). (View a video summarizing B.E.S.T. project, here.)
The layout for each volume in the B.E.S.T. series (See the Hosea volume layout, here.) attempts to imitate the Medieval Glossa Ordinaria (“Standard Gloss”), consisting of patristic annotations placed in the margins of the Latin Vulgate of Jerome. This ingenious layout emphasizes the polyphonic centrality of the biblical text as well as the irreducibility of the rich and multifaceted interpretations generated by the text in various communities of faith throughout the centuries.
In the Introduction to the new volume, Series Editor Father Venard writes of Father Pentiuc’s contribution: “The impulse given to our work by Professor Eugen J. Pentiuc, an internationally recognized West Semitist (Pentiuc 2001), has brought to the present writing its clearly philological contour, perseverance in formulating historical hypotheses throughout Hosea’s ancient prophecies (Pentiuc 2002), and an emphasis on the present-day relevance of Hosea’s teaching on the true personality of God, whose intimacy with the human being went even to the Incarnation (Pentiuc 2006).”
Dr. James C. Skedros, the Dean of Holy Cross, noted, “During four working summers between 2010 and 2016, as ‘researcher-in-residence’ at École Biblique in Jerusalem, Father Pentiuc, an internationally recognized biblical scholar and Semitist, has proved one more time his refreshing creativity, deep erudition, and passionate love for the Word of God. With this ecumenical-in-scope publication, Father Pentiuc has brought great honor to Holy Cross and to Orthodox biblical scholarship. Thank you, Father Eugen, for your tireless work and genuine dedication to our school!”
[revised and reprinted from the website of Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, with permission: http://www.hchc.edu].
more information about the B.E.S.T. series.
