NEW YORK – Ms Liana Lupas stands out in New York, even by the standards of a city that defines itself with superlatives and seems to have world-class specialists in every conceivable discipline. She calls herself “the only librarian in the world who takes care of one book”.
Of course, that book is “the” Book, the Bible. And in two decades with the American Bible Society and the Museum of Biblical Art, she has been responsible for a collection that includes more than 45,000 books of Scripture printed in more than 2,000 languages during six centuries.
“Each and every one is important to me, whether it was a pamphlet printed last month or a first edition printed before 1500. They are part of the same story and should be treated with respect,” she said.
Ms Lupas trained as a classicist in her native Rumania, where she earned her doctorate in Greek and Latin. She worked at the University of Bucharest for 21 years before joining her husband in New York in 1984.
With a small child at home, she took a job as a library assistant, shelving books at the New York University law library and studied for her Master’s in Library Science at Columbia University. A research project for her studies brought her to the American Bible Society, a venerable 193-year-old institution dedicated to making the Bible available to every person in a language and format each can understand and afford.
The society’s Scripture collection is immense and some of the holdings are rarer than others. Ms Lupas said most of its acquisitions are new translations, given by publishers to the organisation that serves as a depository library. She is able to buy rare books for the collection with donations from “Friends of the Library” organisation.
She said that Bibles considered rare might include anything printed before 1700, the earliest translation in a language or geographic area, regardless of age, and Bibles belonging to historic figures, among other criteria. – CNS.
Lutheran-UMC group forges three-year plan
CHICAGO – A joint commission of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and The United Methodist Church developed a three-year plan at its inaugural meeting on July 15.
The commission is charged with assisting the two denominations in fostering their new full communion relationship. The commission appointed two co-chairmen: the Rev Jonathan W. Linman, Assistant to the Bishop for Formation, ELCA Metropolitan New York Synod, and the Rev Edgardo Colon-Emerie, Professor and Director of Hispanic Studies at Duke Divinity School, Durham.
“This new relationship of full communion marks a denominational milestone in the ecumenical history of The United Methodist Church,” said the Rev Stephen J. Sidorak Jr, a top executive of the United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns. “We’re really excited about it,” he said. – United Methodist News Service.
Palestinian heads world group
STUTTGART (Germany) – Bishop Munib A. Younan, a passionate campaigner for peace and inter- faith dialogue in the Middle East, was elected President of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) at its General Assembly in Stuttgart on July 24.
Bishop Younan, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL), succeeded Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, who has been President of the LWF since the denomination’s last Assembly in Winnipeg, Canada, in 2003.
Bishop Younan has headed his church body since 1998 and was the third Palestinian bishop of the church founded by Germans in the 19th century and previously led by clergy from Germany. A member of the LWF since 1974, the ELCJHL has about 3,000 members.
The bishop was the first to translate the Augsburg Confession, a key document of the Lutheran Church, into Arabic. He is the author of Witnessing for Peace, a book about the search for peace in his homeland and numerous articles on churches and the search for peace in the Holy Land.
– World Methodist Council First Friday Letter.