Jaroslav Pelikan: Early Years, Writings and Interviews, Yale University Professor, Lutheran Pastor to Orthodox Layman, Selected Bibliography, and a List of Books by Author Jaroslav Pelikan

Search - List of Books by Jaroslav Pelikan

Jaroslav Jan Pelikan (December 17, 1923—May 13, 2006) was a scholar in the history of Christianity, Christian theology and medieval intellectual history.

Early Years more less

Writings and Interviews more less

Yale University Professor more less

He joined Yale University in 1962 as the Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History and in 1972 was named Sterling Professor of History, a position he held until achieving emeritus status in 1996. He served as acting dean and then dean of the Graduate School from 1973—78 and was the William Clyde DeVane Lecturer 1984-86 and again in the fall of 1995. Awards include the Graduate School's 1979 Wilbur Cross Medal and the Medieval Academy of America's 1985 Haskins Medal.

While at Yale, Pelikan won a contest sponsored by Field & Stream magazine for Ed Zern's column "Exit Laughing" to translate the motto of the Madison Avenue Rod, Gun, Bloody Mary & Labrador Retriever Benevolent Association ("Keep your powder, your trout flies and your martinis dry") into Latin. Pelikan's winning entry mentioned the martini first, but Pelikan explained that it seemed no less than fitting to have the apéritif come first. His winning entry:

Semper siccandae sunt: potioPulvis, et pelliculatio.

Pelikan was appointed to numerous leadership positions in American intellectual life. He was the president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was editor of the religion section of Encyclopædia Britannica, and in 1980 he founded the Council of Scholars at the Library of Congress.

In 1983 the National Endowment for the Humanities selected him to deliver the 12th annual Jefferson Lecture, the highest honor conferred by the federal government for outstanding achievement in the humanities. Pelikan's lecture became the basis for his book The Vindication of Tradition.

Pelikan gave the 1992—1993 Gifford lectures at the University of Aberdeen, which were published as the book Christianity and Classical Culture.

President Bill Clinton appointed Professor Pelikan to serve on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Dr. Pelikan received honorary degrees from 42 universities all over the world. At the age of 80, he was appointed scholarly director for the “Institutions of Democracy Project” at the Annenberg Foundation.

In 2004, having received the John W. Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Human Sciences, an honor he shared with the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, Pelikan donated his award ($500,000) to Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, of which he was a trustee. At the ceremony, he quoted a leitmotif passage from Goethe that had moved him all his life: "Was du ererbt von deinen Vaetern hast, Erwirb es um es zu besitzen" -- "Take what you have inherited from your fathers and work to make it your own."

Lutheran Pastor to Orthodox Layman more less

For most of his life Pelikan was a Lutheran and was an ordained pastor in that tradition. In 1998, however, he and his wife Sylvia were received into the Orthodox Church in America in St Vladimir's Seminary Chapel. Members of Pelikan's family remember him saying that he had not as much converted to Orthodoxy as "returned to it, peeling back the layers of my own belief to reveal the Orthodoxy that was always there."

Pelikan died on May 13, 2006 at his home in Hamden, Connecticut, at the age of 82, after a seventeen month battle with lung cancer. He was interred at Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven,, Connecticut on May 17, 2006. Pelikan was honored by a memorial service in Yale's Battell Chapel on October 10, 2006, with speeches by distinguished scholars and a musical performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

 [*Phrase referred to below is missing from here, where it should appear]

Delighted with this turn of phrase, Dad used it (or close variants) several times that day among family and friends, including during our visit to St. Vladimir's for Divine Liturgy, our last before his death."

Selected Bibliography more less

Acts (2006) Brazos Press, ISBN 1-58743-094-0. A theological Bible commentary
Bach Among the Theologians (1986), Philadelphia: Fortress Press, ISBN 0-8006-0792-9
The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, 5 vols. (1973—1990). Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Volume 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition 100—600 (1973) ISBN 0-226-65371-4
Volume 2: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom 600—1700 (1974) ISBN 0-226-65373-0
Volume 3: The Growth of Medieval Theology 600—1300 (1978) ISBN 0-226-65375-7
Volume 4: Reformation of Church and Dogma 1300—1700 (1984) ISBN 0-226-65377-3
Volume 5: Christian Doctrine and Modern Culture since 1700 (1990) ISBN 0-226-65380-3

Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism (1993) Gifford lectures at Aberdeen, Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-06255-9
Confessor Between East and West: A Portrait of Ukrainian Cardinal Josyf Slipyj
Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition (2003) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-09388-8
Development of Christian Doctrine: Some Historical Prolegomena
Divine Rhetoric: The Sermon on the Mount As Message and As Model in Augustine, Chrysostom, and Luther (2000) St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, ISBN 0-88141-214-7
The Excellent Empire: The Fall of Rome and the Triumph of the Church
Faust the Theologian (1995) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-07064-0
Fools for Christ: Essays on the True, the Good, and the Beautiful (1995) Fortress Press, (2001) Wipf & Stock ISBN 978-1579108021
The Idea of the University: A Reexamination (1992) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-05834-9
The Illustrated Jesus Through the Centuries (1997) Yale U. Press ISBN 0300072686
Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution (2004) Yale U. Press ISBN 0-300-10267-4
Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture (1985) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-07987-7
The Light of the World: A Basic Image in Early Christian Thought (1962) Harper and Brothers, no ISBN
Martin Luther's works (1955—1969) multiple volumes
Martin Luther's Basic Theological Writings
Her Place in the History of Culture (1996) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-07661-4
Mary: Images Of The Mother Of Jesus In Jewish And Christian Perspective
A Philosophical Dictionary ISBN 0-674-56472-3
The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century (Forward) ISBN 0-8070-1301-3
The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (1959)
Sacred Writings: Buddhism — The Dhammapada (1987) Book of the Month Club, no ISBN
Sacred Writings: Hinduism — The Rig Veda (1992) Book of the Month Club, no ISBN
Sacred Writings: Islam — The Qur'an (1992) editor, Book of the Month Club, no ISBN, in English with Arabic sub-text
The World Treasury of Modern Religious Thought (1990), editor, hardcover: ISBN 0-316-69770-2, paperback: no ISBN issued
The Vindication of Tradition: The 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities (1986) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0300036388.
What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem?: Timaeus and Genesis in Counterpoint (1998) Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures, University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0-472-10807-7
Whose Bible Is It? A History of the Scriptures Through the Ages (2005) ISBN 0-670-03385-5

Total Books: 57

1987 - Jesus Through the Centuries His Place in the History of Culture (Paperback) → Paperback, Hardcover
ISBN-13: 9780060970802
ISBN-10: 0060970804
Genre: Christian Books & Bibles

Currently 4.5/5 Stars.