Jack Levison - An Unconventional God: The Spirit According to Jesus

The book is done, the corrections and additions enteredexcept for this part. I left this single, satisfying assignment to the end. It is a cold, gray, and uncharacteristically frigid winter day in Dallas; I am in my Southern Methodist University office with the room heater blazing and a cup of tea at my elbow. It is time now to indulge in reminiscence.

I owe the origin of this book, as I did A Boundless God , to Bob Hosack of Baker Academic. Bob took both ideas to his team and came away with a green light. That team, it turns out, has been adept, efficient, and amenableevery one of them: Jeremy Wells, Mason Slater, Jennifer Hale, Shelly MacNaughton, Sarah Gombis, Kara Day, Amy Donaldson, Kristie Berglund, Robert Maccini, and Paula Gibson, who produced a cover twice over and captured the spirit of this book.

I am grateful, too, to Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, on several counts: a yearlong sabbatical, which Dean Craig Hill granted; a Scholarly Outreach Award, which left summers free of teaching; the research support of the W. J. A. Power Chair of Old Testament Interpretation and Biblical Hebrew, of which I am, for these fortunate years, the occupant. Thanks to these resources, I was able to revise A Boundless God , complete a nearly final draft of An Unconventional God , and accomplish the late-stage work on The Holy Spirit before Christianity .

While most of my writing took place in the ordinary and comfortable confines of my SMU office and our townhome in Dallas, Priscilla and I were able to write and revise our books in two more enviable locales. We spent two stunning weeks at the Mount Tabor Ecumenical Centre for Art and Spiritualitya Tuscan villa owned by the Community of Jesus, which ably operates Paraclete Press. The fresh cappuccinos Brother Benedict brought to Priscilla and me on the veranda, followed by lavish lunches, turned the otherwise onerous task of revision into an indulgence. Priscilla and I also spent five months in a small apartment under the eaves in Munich, thanks to a resumption of my Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship and the hospitality of Loren Stuckenbruck, professor of New Testament at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt in Munich. Priscilla and I tackled more work than we could have imagined, though I did come home five pounds heavier, thanks to the irresistible density of Bauernbrot from the Kistenpfennig bakery and Kse from the nearby komarkt .

Thanks, too, to my children, Chloe and Jeremy, whose care rims my writing and keeps it squarely in perspective. The unlikely presence of our adult children in Dallas over the past few years is a gift I had not foreseen.