By Mary Ann Zehr, contributor
Starting just before Christmas, Harrisonburg-based publisher MennoMedia began shipping thousands of copies of a new study Bible called the Anabaptist Community Bible.
“We printed 10,000 in our first print run, and we’ve just gone back to do another printing,” said Amy Gingerich, the publisher and executive director for MennoMedia, affiliated with Mennonites in the U.S. and Canada.
The actual biblical text used for the new publication is the Common English Bible, a translation completed in 2011. The Anabaptist imprint comes via its introductions to each book, essays providing biblical context, artwork, and thousands of margin annotations contributed by Anabaptists. Mennonites, the Church of the Brethren, Amish, and Hutterites are some of the faith groups that have a church history rooted in Anabaptism, a religious movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, exactly 500 years ago this month.
Anabaptism Is Born
The movement traces its roots to January 21, 1525, when a group of men gathered to baptize each other as adults. Through their reading of the Bible, they had come to believe that their baptism as infants had been invalid. They were called Anabaptists, which meant “rebaptizers,” by other people at the time.
“The Anabaptist movement was birthed 500 years ago with young people wanting to read the Bible for themselves and discern together what the scriptures had to say to them,” said Gingerich. The Anabaptist Community Bible was published “as a way to draw people back into the Bible and introduce a way of reading scripture together in community,” she said.
The introductions, essays and contextual notes in the new study Bible are written by scholars. However, the notes in the margins include comments and questions from everyday congregants who responded to assigned scriptures in study groups. These responses came from about 600 study groups, primarily from the U.S. and Canada, but also countries including Indonesia, Germany, Guatemala, and India.
Numerous people from Harrisonburg participated in the project, including members of many area Mennonite churches and students from Eastern Mennonite University and Eastern Mennonite School.
Contributions by Local Study Groups
J. Melvin Janzen, a retired Mennonite pastor and hospital chaplain, can trace six annotations published in the new Bible to a study group that he facilitated at Immanuel Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg. For example, in response to 2 Corinthians 4:15, a published comment from the study group says: “We love the image of God’s grace expanding as it reaches more and more people. We are struck by the inclusive nature of God’s grace. It welcomes all who will accept it.”
Janzen remarked: “Instead of from the secluded monk or scribe or biblical scholar, this comes out of ordinary people’s interaction with the biblical text, both what has inspired them and what questions it raises for them.”
Janzen said that he appreciated the “discipline and structure” that study groups were asked to follow. The organizers of the Bible project gave participants five prompts for reflecting on specific scriptures, including “What does this verse or passage suggest about God?” and “How do you live differently because of this verse or passage?” In addition to having a facilitator who was charged with trying to engage everyone in the study group, the group designated a recorder to write down responses from individuals.
Several local theologians–Timothy Reardon, Reta Halteman Finger, and Dorothy Jean Weaver–associated with Eastern Mennonite Seminary, and Benjamin Bixler, a teacher at Eastern Mennonite School, wrote introductions to Bible books or essays for the study Bible.
Weaver, a New Testament scholar and professor emerita of the seminary, wrote in an introduction to Matthew that the biblical book is the “quintessential” text for Anabaptists in the scriptures because out of Matthew emerged tenets of the Anabaptist faith. In an interview, Weaver explained, “Different Christian groups have different texts they focus on in different ways.” She noted that Lutherans are known to emphasize the book of Romans in the Bible because the text inspired Martin Luther to start a movement to reform the Roman Catholic Church.
A set of teachings by Jesus that Christians call the Sermon on the Mount are included in the gospel of Matthew, which Weaver says has been central to Anabaptists’ faith from the start of the movement. “That’s where Anabaptists would have gotten the concept of nonresistance and loving your enemy,” she said. Weaver writes in her introduction that other tenets such as that “Jesus does not minister alone”–he has disciples–are in the book of Matthew.
Both Janzen and Weaver stressed that the purpose of the Anabaptist Community Bible isn’t fulfilled merely with publication.
“Nothing will happen” unless people actually use the Bible, noted Weaver.
“The process isn’t complete until we live out some of this,” said Janzen.
The publication of the Bible is one of many projects and events connected with the 500th anniversary of the birth of Anabaptism. Many gatherings will take place in Europe, but some will also happen in Harrisonburg:
- On January 21, 2025, from 7:00-8:30 pm, a pan-Anabaptist quartet will lead songs at Park View Mennonite Church that have been sung by Anabaptists in different eras over five centuries. The Shenandoah Mennonite Historians planned the event.
- On Jan. 29, from 10:15-11:15 am, historian John D. Roth–also the general editor of the Anabaptist Community Bible–will give a lecture in Martin Chapel at EMU. At 7 pm on that same day, Roth will give a talk at Harrisonburg Mennonite Church planned by the Brethren & Mennonite Heritage Center.
- On January 30, from 7:00-8:00 pm, at Eastern Mennonite School (or online), a five-part lecture series on Anabaptism will begin with a lecture by Roth and continue with lectures on subsequent Thursday evenings by local scholars of Anabaptism at various locations in Harrisonburg.
Some Harrisonburg residents will be leading tours in Europe or participating in a May anniversary celebration in Zurich organized by Mennonite World Conference, a global Anabaptist organization. The EMU Chamber Singers, a group of 26 students, will tour Europe and along with four other choirs from around the world provide music on May 29 for the celebration of Anabaptism in Zurich.
Benjamin Bergey, the director of the choir, wrote in an email that the EMU choir is preparing songs “on the topics of bringing hope and working for unity of our children, for the healing of the earth, and to work toward peace.”
Mary Ann Zehr is the writing program director at Eastern Mennonite University.
Thanks for reading The Citizen, which won the Virginia Press Association’s 2022 News Sweepstakes award as the top online news site in Virginia. We’re independent. We’re local. We pay our contributors, and the money you give goes directly to the reporting. No overhead. No printing costs. Just facts, stories and context. We value your support.
