The Revd Dr Christian Brady is Professor of Ancient Hebrew and Jewish Literature and the Inaugural Dean of the Lewis Honors College at the University of Kentucky. A scholar of Targumic literature, Brady is the author of dozens of articles and book chapters on issues relating to biblical, rabbinic, and Christian literature and interpretation. Brady has written three books, The Rabbinic Targum of Lamentations: Vindicating God (2003), The Proselyte and the Prophet: Character Development in Targum Ruth (2017), and his most recent book, Beautiful and Terrible Things: A Christian Struggle, with Suffering, Grief, and Hope (Westminster John Knox Press, 2020). Brady received his baccalaureate degree from Cornell, a masters degree from Wheaton College, and a Graduate Diploma and his doctorate from the University of Oxford. A priest in the Episcopal Church, Brady is also Canon Theologian in the Episcopal Diocese of Lexington (KY).
Regarding Buechner, he writes:
I stumbled across the work of Frederick Buechner while tracking down the quote found in the title of my most recent book. ‘Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.’ The quote is often used in graduation speeches for obvious reasons, yet its original context is Buechner’s definition of the grace of God which culminates in the affirmation: ‘Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It’s for you I created the universe. I love you.’ Buechner’s works, fiction, memoir, and pastoral, exhibit this deep understanding of God’s grace and have fed and sustained me and, I pray, influenced my own work.
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