BRiefs

Moore’s “Judith” and Koester and Patterson’s “Gospel of Thomas” Named Best BR Articles

Carey A. Moore’s “Judith—The Case of the Pious Killer,” published in the February 1990 issue of BR, has received the Fellner Award for the best article of 1990. The award, the fourth in a continuing series, carries a $500 prize. A second prize of $250 went to Helmut Koester and Stephen J. Patterson for “The Gospel of Thomas—Does It Contain Authentic Sayings of Jesus?” which appeared in the April 1990 issue.

The judges were Kent H. Richards, professor of Old Testament at the Iliff School of Theology, Denver, Colorado, and Sarah J. Tanzer, associate professor of Judaism and Christian origins at McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois. In a joint statement, they said that Moore’s article was “balanced, well-written and informative” in its “highlighting of the great, irony, humor, patriotism and piety of the Book of Judith” and in its exploration of “possible reasons for Judith’s exclusion from the canon.” Two aspects of the article that they found “especially interesting are the various understandings of the character of Judith (from Freudian, feminist and moral viewpoints) and the possible misinterpretations of the book—most plausibly on account of its irony—which may have caused it to be excluded from the canon.”