there are a lot of books that have been written on jesus! so writing fringe dweller felt a bit of a weird thing to do. did we genuinely have something to contribute to the conversation that has something fresh to say? i guess we hope the answer is yes! i have been excited by peoples reactions to the book which suggests it is opening something valuable up for people. i loved the comment from someone who said she felt like she was meeting someone for the first time for example. but the other thing about writing something about jesus is the internal gulp thinking of all the theological opinions out there, the biblical scholars and so on. what will they make of it? that old internal voice ‘who do you think you are?’ easily gets going.

the process for me of writing was a mix of digging into various takes on the gospel encounters especially from theologians writing from the edges (some passages required more digging than others). and inspiration from imaginative reading and reflecting on the stories. but we wanted ton reassure ourselves as much as anyone else that we were not too way off by getting a couple of biblical scholars to read the material and give us some feedback. john drane and paul gooder kindly obliged and their comments were so enthusiastic and affirming that we ended up asking if we could quote them on the cover of the book! paula said that the biggest comment she could pay us was that she did not have many comments to give on the content – she loved it! that was a happy email to receive. so the prof and canon doctor have given us the thumbs up 🙂