https://www.barbaragreen.net/mysteries daily 0.75 2025-04-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1506829451104-9Y064XB1D7PBUR4XSBPX/near_kin.jpg.w180h272.jpg Mysteries - Near Kin A Contemporary Mystery Borrowing from the Book of Ruth Academic serenity and civility are shattered when an exhibit of ancient religious art at Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union is plundered from the school's library display rotunda the night before the show opens. Theft in a closed community generates local suspects: library staff, certain faculty, a Palestinian student, and the night maintenance staff. Brendan Byrne, Dominican priest and professor of Old Testament at Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union works on the crime at the edges of full days, primarily out of loyalty and affection for his friends and to satisfy a lavish curiosity about the ways of the human species. The mechanics of the crime's when and how give way to the more subtle issues of who and why, as Brendan and his two closest friends interrogate what data they can assemble. It becomes apparent that kinship ties are a major motivator behind much of what has occurred. To discern and disentangle the varied motivations of near kin keeps us trekking across Berkeley and Northern Oakland as well as tracking the geography of human motivation: to thwart another, to risk one's own livelihood, to act so that good can come to all. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1506829451104-9Y064XB1D7PBUR4XSBPX/near_kin.jpg.w180h272.jpg Mysteries - Near Kin A Contemporary Mystery Borrowing from the Book of Ruth Academic serenity and civility are shattered when an exhibit of ancient religious art at Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union is plundered from the school's library display rotunda the night before the show opens. Theft in a closed community generates local suspects: library staff, certain faculty, a Palestinian student, and the night maintenance staff. Brendan Byrne, Dominican priest and professor of Old Testament at Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union works on the crime at the edges of full days, primarily out of loyalty and affection for his friends and to satisfy a lavish curiosity about the ways of the human species. The mechanics of the crime's when and how give way to the more subtle issues of who and why, as Brendan and his two closest friends interrogate what data they can assemble. It becomes apparent that kinship ties are a major motivator behind much of what has occurred. To discern and disentangle the varied motivations of near kin keeps us trekking across Berkeley and Northern Oakland as well as tracking the geography of human motivation: to thwart another, to risk one's own livelihood, to act so that good can come to all. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1506829451107-PO3H3FBT2QRFRU7RWMRK/Woven-Silence.jpg Mysteries - Woven Silence A Contemporary Mystery Borrowing from the Book of Genesis The best medical care available, professionals always in attendance, final days spent with a loving family: All factors suggest a peaceful end for the old man. But it's whispered that the death of powerful patriarch Jake Lavarone was not natural. His death calls attention to a hedge of silence that both protects and entraps his prominent family. Determined academic sleuth Father Brendan Byrne makes his way into family secrets ancient and fresh: counterfeit ration coupons, a vanished favored son, a neglected and neurotic granddaughter, desperate additions of a spoiled scion. How to untangle the deeds of the guilty without harming the innocent? Located at the soft-boiled end of the mystery spectrum, Woven Silence is pitched to lovers of academic mysteries who delight in basically decent characters caught up in events that challenge them to do well. The setting is Berkeley's liberal and interreligious Graduate Theological Union, with city and University of California as backdrop. Woven Silence combines a classic biblical plot (the Genesis story of Joseph and his brothers) with a contemporary one: the inexplicable disappearance of a son from his family, fraternal animosity and guilt, parental favoritism, complex motivations, the beginnings of reconciliation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1506829654410-T3YZTNY2TKQLM60IOV0K/odd_school_ties.jpg Mysteries - Odd School Ties A Contemporary Mystery Borrowing from the Book of Jonah When his community-activist lawyer friend fails to appear to guest-lecture on biblical law, theology professor Brendan Byrne cannot resist digging into the circumstances of Jonah's sudden disappearance. The man's eventual re-surfacing is even odder, and Brendan finds his curious self peering into a boat-wreck and sweatshop crime and pursuing a mysterious older woman with a wire-haired terrier and a family of ne'er-do-wells. With the help of good friends he finally resolves the knot of factors that explains Jonah's behavior to the satisfaction of all involved in the case. Set at Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union, this soft-boiled mystery is focused on the cerebral rather than on the vicious side of wrong-doing and invites readers to probe a double-helixed plot which twists an ancient biblical story around a contemporary enigma, all in the company of people enjoyable enough for readers to want to spend time with! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1506829753855-YL7N2YP5KZT7PIEIJ4X3/too_strong_for_me.jpg Mysteries - Too Strong for Me https://www.barbaragreen.net/new-gallery daily 0.75 2017-10-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1506830555141-HQ7QLPXJLXDZG924E5EJ/david_wise_woman.jpg Historical Fiction - King David, the Wise Woman, and the Learning of Compassion: A Scholarly but Fictive Reflection on the Story of David in 1 and 2 Samuel https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1506830555141-HQ7QLPXJLXDZG924E5EJ/david_wise_woman.jpg Historical Fiction - King David, the Wise Woman, and the Learning of Compassion: A Scholarly but Fictive Reflection on the Story of David in 1 and 2 Samuel https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1506830555688-6JT9LFR4HLLVHUL81KYL/mindful.gif Historical Fiction - Mindful Enriching and filled with adventures from the road, this historical fiction, set in the sixth century BCE, accompanies a band of Jews leaving exile in Babylon as they anticipate a fresh start in the land of their forbears. All but invisible in biblical prose but a story waiting to be told, Mindful, by Barbara Green, recounts the little-known journey of exiles retuning to a homeland they've never seen. A stunning testament to responsible imagination, this is historic fiction at its finest. Beautifully wrought, the tale starts in the year 535 BCE and follows Tizkor, along with her three children, as they journey home from exile in Babylon to make a fresh start. The long road skirting the desert's edge and the winter weather allow them to reflect on their past hardships, present struggles, and dream about what lies ahead as they seek to reconcile the differences between the lives they have lived and the days which lie before them. Borrowing beloved language from biblical Deuteronomy, each character shapes his or her own experience through the ancient language, at the same time enriching it with the insight gained through hardship.   "So many people today make the mistake of thinking that the Bible is a fixed text - words set in stone that say the same thing to every listener every day, every year, every century. In this story, Barbara Green makes biblical traditions come alive by showing how those traditions live and breathe, grow and diminish, in the lives and memories of people who cherish them. The story offers wonderful insight, not only into an historical moment and the way the Bible itself took shape, but also into how each of us makes meaning from the materials that matter to us. The Bible thus become not a repository of static data but a resource we are constantly reshaping to meet the changing circumstances of our daily lives." Professor Catherine M. Murphy, University of Santa Clara   "With a compelling respect for and admirable knowledge of these ancient and ever new texts, Green teaches us that honoring our pasts is not the same as enshrining them in stone. With creative flair and characters that are as old and new as the Bible itself, she tells us a new story about biblical power, one in which the power of "holy" words works not as a moralizing bludgeon, but rather as a gentle but insistent guide to our deepest humanity and truest selves. In the same manner the Bible shares its points of view, through stories, so too does Green understand that narrative is often a more effective teacher than traditional scholarly exposition." Professor Carleen R. Mandolfo, Colby College   "Part road story, part mystery, part family saga, part biblical narrative, Barbara's Green's Mindful is ultimately a meditation on the need to return in new circumstances to old words and the power of old stories to bloom again in new words. Mindful combines the (never stuffy, always lively) erudition of a biblical scholar with the lyrical flights of a born story teller to bring to life the most profoundly human impulses that underlie the Biblical story. Green's moving novel retraces old journeys, retells old stories, and revisits old repositories of memory and dream, connecting us in words and breath with those whose steps we continue to follow as we discover them ever anew." Professor Naomi Seidman, Center for Jewish Studies, Graduate Theological Union   https://www.barbaragreen.net/publications daily 0.75 2025-04-13 https://www.barbaragreen.net/odd-school-ties-photo-tour daily 0.75 2025-04-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903648949-7IHAT1OD6PRA84MP28F6/april_19.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour - testing title copycopycopycopycopycopy   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903648949-7IHAT1OD6PRA84MP28F6/april_19.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour - testing title copycopycopycopycopycopy   https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903647277-D4M3XHF0ECC4FODMEKPQ/april_20.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903647986-CPYARBB69DX1EXZAAHR1/april_22.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903648111-6ET6M4GD1AWJ01SQS34B/april_25.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903648639-5Z5UREAKBUSMPRAZH2DJ/april_25_jonahcastforthbythewhale_dore.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903648886-FOLHR6O8ECGZYT40A6OR/april_28_jeremiah_michelangelo_sistine.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903650955-KWCN86PS0PNZPPNMB5I0/jun1_1.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903654240-CBIUHOKA14GCINPQ4VF9/june_2.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903654883-JU6SWOSB8G5IEQKG1KIQ/june_3.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903654812-MKPOX5U15PQMXUHNY570/may_15.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903660372-1ZJ1H70MOD8OTNCGQ98F/may_16.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903660239-JA2VLK4MGHKTZKFAU8VX/may_17.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903665217-7WSW7L74N0385Z7ZX9O7/may_20.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903660672-4DO7GXZVDS9ALL3PXQY7/may_21.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903660854-3IO66A7DDC7YOTNXRHP9/may_26.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903666323-0TLCIZ62CLYI25W4ZTSD/may_27.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903669900-M40DFZD9O6ITP4NHNVUG/may_28.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903666682-ELJXK25I669S1T94TUPD/may_29_jonah_michelangelo_sistine.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903671703-7FPHZ4GPNA43G2HUGJ51/may_30.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1508903674083-TEVP0UDQQ2U8YOELGA8J/may_31.jpg Odd School Ties Photo Tour https://www.barbaragreen.net/new-page-2 daily 0.75 2025-03-30 https://www.barbaragreen.net/about daily 1.0 2025-04-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59b7747403596e7daebc9728/1505196713176-4JLZSZ69XZXT4TZZZXXI/barbara_green.jpg About