About the Web version of this book.
Background
First of all, I have no illusions that this implementation of Edward Fudge's great exposition of Hebrews, Our
Man In Heaven, adds any value to the book, other than it's greater availability. I'm just a simple Web fan,
with the skills it took to put it all online. Perhaps, though, it is my ego that wanted you to know about how this
book made it here.
In November 1997, I read an item in Cecil Hook's newsletter, Freedom's Ring, which said that Edward Fudge was looking
for some help in getting some of his material into electronic form, and available on the Web. Being the intrepid
Web geek that I am, and having gained a great respect for Edward and his writings, I jumped at the chance. A couple
of quick e-mails, and Edward sent me his only copies of the out-of-print book, and two equally unavailable
tracts, "Four Gospel Slogans" and "The Restoration Movement Fulfilled In Jesus Christ."
His only copies, mind you... no pressure... (gulp!)
Edward was quite patient as I muddled through the beginning of the project. A 15-month old (then 16-month, then
17...) at home, a challenging job, and a wife who likes to see my face on occasion all took some priority. Then
we decided to purchase our own scanner, and the pace picked up quite a bit. A few hours of scanning, a bunch more
hours of proofreading the OCR'ed text, and a few more hours of bending the syntax of HTML to my bidding, and you
have the presentation you see here.
Usage notes
If you're using the framed version of these pages, you'll notice that at every scripture reference (within, of
course, the book of Hebrews) there is a hyperlink that will immediately scroll the cited verses to the top of the
left-hand frame. There are also a handful of links from one part of the exposition to another, and those work as
you would expect, bringing the referred-to commentary into the right-hand frame. If you are, as my good friend
Mark Mullins puts it, a "post-modern web surfing Bible scholar," this probably appeals to your tendency
to jump all over the place as you're reading!
The non-framed version may be easier to follow when you're not following every link you see, since it uses tables
to keep the Hebrews text being discussed adjacent to the exposition.
I briefly toyed with the idea of having smaller windows pop up with other scriptures referenced, but realized that
I wasn't here to impress you with my skills as a web weenie, but to present Edward's book in as clear a fashion
as I could. Hence there's not a graphic to be found (except, of course, the picture of Edward's father in the Dedication), no JavaScript, no Java, no multimedia, nor any other flash
to obscure the substance of this very good (in my opinion) exposition of Hebrews.
Tim Castle, January 1998
San Lorenzo, CA
and my little corner of Cyberspace!