The Eric Metaxas Show - Howard Edingotn (Encore)

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

Who is the “Forgotten Man of Christmas”? Pastor and author Howard Edington has an illuminating conversation with Eric about this key figure of the Holy Season. (Encore presentation)

Welcome to the Eric Mettaxas show. Back again, eh? Glutton for punishment, eh? When will you ever learn? Now, here's the host that you hate to love, the man who was the reason your friend sponsored your last intervention, Eric Mattaxas. Hey, folks, it's Christmas Eve.

Did you not know that? Is there anybody who didn't know that? Certainly nobody listening to me right? now. Didn't know that. It is Christmas Eve, which means what? Which means today I'm taking my mom from Danbury, Connecticut to New York City. We're going to be with the family. I know that's what most people do. But we do, because Suzanne's dad was Italian, that part of the family, is Chavonne part of the family. They're doing the famous Seven Fishes Christmas Eve thing. That's what I have to look forward to tonight. Seven different kinds of seafood. Seven, do you understand? And seven fishes,

listen, the plural of fish is fish if it's the same species. So if I get seven, if I get 10 trout, I say that's 10 fish. But if it's different species, it's fishes. So tonight, it's seven fishes tonight, December 24th, tonight, Christmas Eve. Obviously tomorrow, I think I know what we're doing. But for us, it's a family thing. We have Suzanne's family is here visiting us in New York. My mom will be with us. It's exciting. There's so much I want to share.

Let me think about this. What about last minute Christmas gifts? Have you thought about last minute Christmas gifts? I've got a few ideas that I like to share with you. Can I do that now? Now, are you ready? How about now? Okay, these are my ideas for last minute Christmas gifts.

Okay, folks. And at this joyous time of year, I always remember the Bugs Bunny. At this joyous time of year, we bring you loads of Christmas cheer. At this joyous time of year, I know that there's still people, you know, looking for Christmas gifts and thinking about it's crazy, okay, today of all days. So I want to remind you of a couple of Christmas gift ideas, which I hope will bless you, right? You get what you want to get, but these are some ideas that people tend to thank me. Okay. So for example, the CSI idea, we'll be talking about that until I'm blue in the face because I believe in it so dramatically.

But that is to go to metaxis talk.com and to click on the banner, you'll see the banner. And they're literally, you could give $5 a month. If you give $5 a month, five times $12 is $60, right? that goes toward freeing a slave in southern Sudan. You could give $20 a month, $20 a month, do the math, $240. That's basically, if you do $21 a month, that frees a slave in the southern Sudan. So in order to do that, or if you can give a bigger amount, whatever, but saying giving per month makes it much easier for a lot of people. And you can still say, I participated in freeing a slave. family participated in freeing a slave. The website is metaxis talk.com. The phone number,

there is a phone number. I'll give it to you if you prefer to call. It is 888-253-3522. 888-253-3522. So to me, that's like the number one idea, Christian Solidarity International, Metaxistalkystalk.com, or call that number. In other ideas, I often say to people, I don't write my books to make money. I write my books because I care about what I write about. And I wanted to bless people and communicate with people. So you can get almost all of my books, many of them autographed at, Socrates in the city.com or Ericmetaxis.com. Ericmetaxis.com has all of my books. I think Socrates in the city has all of my books. And Socrates

in the city has other books that I recommend. So I always think that those are the greatest gifts you could get. There is the Socrates in the city book, the new Socrates in the City Conversations book, which when I was at Amfest recently, people raven. about it when they see it because it's just it's just a beautiful book you will see if you get a copy you'll see like whoa this is you know and i say the same thing about the uncle mugsy books and the birthday ABC and some of these books are just beautiful books so i want to say that that uh that the socrates city book is a great idea at socrates and city.com if you want to make it a sockney's in the city christmas we have a lot of beautiful uh items at the sockneys and city website really gorgeously designed

sweatshirts. They're beautiful. They're just beautifully designed. You see them if you go to Socratesand City.com. We have the mugs. I don't have one here. They're beautiful. I mean, honestly, like, I'm so thrilled. The designer we worked with Lee, he is very talented. And so he just, you know, because usually mugs, it's like, eh, it's just a mug, who cares? They're gorgeous. They're just beautiful. And we have beautiful tote bags. There are t-shirts. Even the t-shirts are beautiful. The hats are particularly beautiful. But that's all at Socrates in the city.com. And also a great gift to get somebody, the gift that keeps on giving, a subscription to Socrates

plus. That's $5 a month. They get whoever isn't signed up for Socrates Plus is you're signed up for live streaming for every single event. We're doing an event in Palm Beach, February 6th. We're doing an event in Lexington. Kentucky. We're doing events in New York. We're doing an event in D.C. We've got all kinds of events coming up. If you're subscribed to Socrates Plus for $5 a month, or if you want to do that for

someone, you're inviting them into the life of the mind to be exposed to this great stuff. And you can tune in to the event. You don't have to fly to Lexington, Kentucky, or New York, or whatever it is. So that's a great gift. Socrates Plus, go to Socrates in the city.com. I also want to mention my Bonhoeffer book. A lot of people have seen the movie. I'm doing a course with Peterson Academy on Bonhofer. The hardcover is a gorgeous book. If you go to Soxene City.com or my website,

it's just a beautiful book and it's well-priced. And before I go, I want to say, Mike Lindell, go to my store.com. Some of my books are very reasonably priced there if you use the code Eric. Mike Lindell, obviously, is an American hero. You're supporting him and you're supporting this radio show. If you use the code Eric, and if you go to my store.com.

And obviously, you should use the code Eric. If you go to mypillow.com, I highly recommend the towels. I highly recommend the mattress topper. Everything there is great. Huge discounts if you use the code. Eric, if you use the code. Eric, can you help support this program? So I wanted to say all of that.

And before I forget, next week, we're going to be playing a lot of my conversations, or maybe this week. I can't even think when we're going to, but as soon as we get the audios of my time at Amfest, it is really, we've got some amazing interviews. And we got a lot of fun stuff, a lot of best of stuff, that we're going to be cycling through this week. So let me think here. Also, I wanted to remind folks to go to my website,

Eric Metaxis.com, and sign up for my newsletters. I bumped into a lot of people at Amfest who said, oh, no, I didn't know you had a newsletter. It's a great thing, or maybe you want to share it with people or just sign up your relatives. because, you know, it's hard for us to get the word out and the newsletter. It's just once a week, but it's a great way to get the word out. And I don't want to forget, I almost forgot, the Donald the Caveman books.

They're only available as far as I know, probably available at Amazon, but you can get them at a great price at my store.com. They're hilarious gifts for your friends at my store.com. use the code Eric. They are truly like crazy, hilarious. You know, Donald the Caveman is the hero of all three books. But even though I wrote them as

kind of humor books for adults in the genre of kids books, people give them to their kids and the kids love them because there's nothing in there that's not appropriate for kids. In fact, it's, you know, each one is a fable about telling the truth and whatever. So to get the Donald the Caveman books, you have to go to

my store.com and use the code Eric. So check it out. Go to my store.com. Use the code Eric. God bless you. We'll be right back. Okay. Every new year, we all spend a few days seriously thinking about what we can do to improve our lives. And usually it revolves around better health, right? Well, I want to strongly encourage you to do what I do, take responsibility for your health by taking balance of nature's whole food ingredient supplements. Seriously, they're packed with 31 varieties of fruit and vegetable ingredients from tomatoes to sweet potatoes, just about everything in between. It's a resolution you can truly keep all year long like I do.

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they're extending their 60-day money back guarantee till March 1st plus all orders $75 or more ship absolutely free Mypillow.com use code Eric the snow is snowing

and the wind it is blowing but I can weather the storm what do I care I must hit me storm I've got my love to keep me warm All right folks, this is Dean Martin, and it sounds like he's just fine.

He's got his love to keep him warm. I have a radio program to do. I have a guest on a friend, the Reverend Howard Eddington, has written a book called The Forgotten Man of Christmas. Reverend Eddington, just great to have you. I admire and respect you and to have the opportunity to visit with you as a real treat. Well, listen, I don't have guests on here lightly. When I read things like your book, The Forgotten Man of Christmas, which is the story of Joseph, I said, this is tremendous because

nobody knows this. People need to know about this. So the first question I have to ask you is, what led you to write a book about Joseph? Joseph is a figure about whom we know ostensibly very little, but you have discovered all kinds of extraordinary things that I had never seen until I read your book. Well, thank you. If you don't mind, I will give you at least a little personal aspect to this. The book actually arose out of a deep personal pain that Trish and I experienced. Our 22-year-old son, John David, several years back, was killed in an automobile accident just three days before Christmas. Death, and the pain of that marked our Christmas then, obviously, but it marked every Christmas since. Well, as we struggled to find a way to turn what was for us unbearable grief

into a bearable sorrow, at one point, Tricia said to me, you know, you love Christmas and John David loved Christmas. I think you ought to write a Christmas book and remember him, but it also will be a way for us each year to try to find our way through the valley of the shadow that we always experienced to some extent in the midst of the joy of Christmas. Well, it's obvious that a lot of people have pain at Christmas. We're not alone in that. But once I began to dive in to trying to figure out what I would write, it was obvious to me that all of the other primary figures in the Christmas story, research studied, written about, and understood even. Joseph, however, not so much. And I discovered that the reason, obviously,

is in the Bible, Joseph never speaks a word, not a single word. And yet, so then once I began to look at that, it became apparent that in the Gospel of Matthew, after another after another, will journey through the eyes of Joseph. And so I began then to dig in and to try to flesh out what was there in the Bible. And in addition to that, I had several sections in the Bible. spent like the business. We never have a word from him. And so his identification is muted and consequently

he's kind of shunted to the side in the whole experience of the Christmas celebration. It's extraordinary, first of all, to hear you say a number of things. I mean, first of all, that Joseph never spoke a word. The idea, most people think they know the Christmas story, but to think that Joseph never said one

word, it strikes me. I've never noticed that, although it's the kind of thing you wouldn't notice, but it's extraordinary, that there's not a word that he spoke. He's the silent figure. And then you tell about these four dreams. If somebody had said to me, how many dreams did Joseph have, or how many I, it's one of those things that's kind of a blur. When you lay it out, it's stunning to see what's really there that we've all missed. It's really, that's one of the things I loved about this book. It's just you're reading something. It's clear as a bell and you never see it. It's

stunning. I've been preaching for, have to confess to you that the four dreams escape my attention as well. I read the scripture passages. I did all of the heavy lifting in order to preach, but suddenly it all came together, and that's why I count this effort. Well, I love it when something comes out that we've not seen before, you know? It's just an amazing thing. It's initially embarrassing to realize that somehow I've missed this. But then, you know, you say, well, now I don't have to miss it anymore, thanks to Dr. Howard Eddington. So I really am just so glad when I read the book to see that that you decided to home in on Joseph. And you do. You call him in the title, you know, the forgotten man of Christmas.

That's quite right. Nothing else occurs through this book. I do hope of what I honestly believe was a truly extraordinary man. I labeled him the ideal husband and the ideal father. and that I would never have been able to do before. So many of us forget about Joseph. We think who's the father of Jesus? Well, God, the father is the father of Jesus. And yet, no, no, no, no, no. He had a father, an earthly father named Joseph.

And you think, you know, Mary must be pretty incredible, chosen by God to bear the son of God. She must be the most amazing woman who ever lived. And she is. And yet, who was chosen to be the earthly father of Jesus? Joseph, well, he certainly must be one of the most extraordinary human beings who ever lived, and yet we know so little. So tell us what can we know about him that we don't know.

Well, let me just start by saying that he was extraordinarily tough, resourceful, and yet he was equally tender and sensitive. And that combination you see right from the very beginning, when he has to deal with the fact that here he is, betrothed to Mary. That was a legally binding contract. The couple were required then to live completely apart for nine months to a year, the reason being a child born into the union until the purity and the fidelity issues had been established. And so that was the reason for betrothal. So here they are. They are called husband and wife, but living completely apart. And then suddenly

he discovers that Mary is with child. And how the shock of that, I tried to put myself into his shoes a bit. And one of the things, I use the phrase, I suppose, I would apologize for, holy imagination. I have sections in the book that I call How It Must Have Been, where I try to put myself into Joseph's circumstance and begin to think through what he had to deal with and try to articulate that. So you begin right from the very beginning to see what an extraordinary man he is as he begins to deations of what it occurred. Now, just one little aside here, and I have a lot of little asides in the book that I kind of enjoyed putting in there. The genealogy in Matthew, which comes first, traces Joseph back of Abraham, but particularly the Old Testament promise was that the Messiah would come from the line of David. Well, Joseph's lineage takes him back to Solomon, the firstborn son of David and Bathsheba.

That was the royal line. And so the implication is of Israel. And what's so fascinating to me, I'd miss this for years. When the angel formation of that is had remained self-governing through all of those years and no longer under the control of others, Joseph, more than likely, likely would have been the king of Israel. I mean, this is extraordinary stuff here. We're also talking about, I mean, this is a big question, but it's always so confusing when they talk about the lineage of Jesus going through Joseph. I think most people think, wait a minute, who cares?

Joseph was not a blood relation. How does that work? I think that Matthew was writing primarily the Jewish people. And so the genealogy in Matthew is designed to demonstrate that Jesus was, in fact, the Messiah. And in order to be the Messiah, you had to have the proof of that line back to David. Another little aside that I have here is that Titus, Bespassian, in 70 AD, invaded the Holy Land. Oh, you know what, Dr. Eddington, hang, hold that thought.

We're going to go to a break. We're going to have a little Burl, Ives, Christmas music, and we'll be right back talking about this wonderful new book, The Forgotten Man of Christmas. Joseph's Story by Dr. Howard Eddington. Stick around. Hey, folks, listeners to my show know I'm passionate about the work of Christian Solidarity International because they protect and free those who are being persecuted and enslaved for their faith.

Thanks to you to date, CSI has freed more than 100,000 people from slavery in Sudan, but the work is not done yet. It's estimated that there are still tens of thousands, more still in bondage. And CSI is preparing right now for their final slave liberation of this year. I'm hoping you'll join me and help them liberate another 300 women and children. Your gift of just $250 will free a woman in Sudan who has been enslaved for years and provide her with food and other supplies necessary to start her new life. Call 888-253-3522.

888-253-2522 Christian Solidarity International, freeing and healing captives in Jesus' name. Metaxistalk.com. Metaxistock.com. Click on the Christian Solidarity banner. Metaxistock.com or 888-252522. God bless you. Hey, there, folks. It's the Eric Mattaxas show. Hey, guess what? It's Christmas. We're talking to Dr. Howard Eddington, who wrote a book. I'm holding it in my hands called The Forgotten Man of Christmas Joseph's story. And Dr. Eddington, I was asking you about the genealogy. In other words, when we're talking about Jesus, the genealogy, people always say that Jesus, Jesus, is the son of David, and you can trace him back and on and on and on. But it's traced back through Joseph, which of course is confusing, because we all know that Joseph was not his biological father. Not his biological father, but the term that I use, Eric, is the designated father of Jesus, designated by God, chosen by God, to be the father of Jesus. Had nothing to do with the biological process in which Jesus was born,

but has everything to do with who Jesus became in his human life and his journey on this earth. Well, right, because he was raised by Joseph. And again, we forget this. We forget that he was raised. It's such a strange thing for us to forget, because what could be more important than who raised Jesus? I mean, we just act as though he, you know, came out of the brow of Athena, and he didn't.

He was born of a woman, and he had a father who raised him. And, you know, so that's why it's so extraordinary to read this book and to get into the stories of who Joseph was. You were saying something about Titus. I didn't pick it up just when we went to the break. You killed millions of people. But the critical thing for this story, he knew how important the genealogical records are to the Jewish people. He destroyed all the genealogical. Oh, my gosh.

He existed to trace and prove the line of David. Oh, that's extraordinary. was clear. And of course he was related to Bathsheba. Yes. I mean, that's just incredible. That is. Right? Absolutely. If you just want to know, what good can come out of that? Well, Jesus, for starters. Exactly. And that's a pretty good starter for that. I mean, right? It's, but that's the lesson. Okay, so tell us more about what we don't know about Joseph. The important thing that I do, I believe it's important, is to trace how he dealt with the circumstances that he was confronted with. He never asked for, never invited, but they just came, whether he was dealing with Mary's child, that was not an easy journey.

Then they get to Bethlehem. In the end, I don't mind telling you, Eric, I spent a lot of years in the pulpit occasionally taking a shot at the end. in Bethlehem. Well, the fact of the matter is there wasn't an innkeeper. The word that's used in the Bible is Kataluma, which means public shelter. There were these public shelters built in towns for travelers, just a floor with a roof and sometimes maybe walls, a fire pit in the center, and people just bedded down on the floor. It's kind of like a lean-to on the Appalachian Trail. Exactly. Yes. And it was usually built over a cave, and the animals were housed in the cave because people traveled with animals then. And that's the Bethlehem. And in the Jewish tradition, birth is a

huge celebration. And there are women all around, the midwife, the mother, female relatives. There's a kind of almost a party atmosphere in this under a public shelter in Bethlehem. None of that is there. No support. Try to imagine what Joseph must have been thinking and feeling during all of that and how he tried to minister to Mary as what he must have thought at that point, I tried to imagine in the book. It's just unbelievable, really, when you look at these things. And again, it's always fascinating to see that it's there, but I never saw it before. I never thought of this before.

I'm so glad you decided to dig into this and to bring it out. I think a lot of sermons are going to be preached on the best. of your book, Howard Eddington, because people are going to say, this is tremendous. I've got to tell my people about this. There's just so much in here. So, okay, so tell us there are four dreams. Tell us a little bit about that. The angel speaking for God says to Joseph, Joseph, son of God, the child in Mary is of the Holy Spirit. Take Mary to be your wife and take her to your home. That's the first dream. And so that's where the, that's where the, the story begins, and as we know it, and then you go from there to Bethlehem, and then at Bethlehem,

the birth occurs, and then the shepherds come. We can be reasonably certain that they arrived probably on that very night, because the kind of glory of God is being so overpowering that you cannot look at it. Moses, God says, you can't look at me. When the kind of glory. It's that, it's That's stunning. Let's hang on there. We're going to go to some more Christmas music. We're going to be back. Folks, the new book is called The Forgotten Man of Christmas, Joseph's Story, by Dr. Howard Eddington. We'll be right back. Grandma got run over by a reindeer walking home from our house Christmas Eve. You can say there's no such thing as Santa, but as for me and grandpa, we believe. Hey, folks, that's right out of scripture. Look it up.

It's hidden there in the Luke narrative, but Grandma got run over by reindeer. That just, that happened. You need to deal with the facts. Actually, that's not true. But what we're talking about is true. We're talking about the story of Joseph in the Gospels. The new book about it is called The Forgotten Man of Christmas. Joseph's story absolutely fascinating.

The author's Dr. Howard Eddington, who's on the line. Dr. Ardington, again, it's just, I cannot get over how much is in here that we missed. You just shared about probably Joseph. was the one who delivered Jesus. Wow. Incredible. God comes into the world, and Joseph, he's the man. There he is. And we have to keep remembering. He was very young. He was probably no more than 19 or 20. Mary being a carpenter at that point in his life, a simple, ordinary guy, and yet suddenly he's having to deal with all of this. It's amazing. We know that he was around when Jesus was 12. Right. But we don't know beyond that how long he lived. We know that he died by the time Jesus begins his ministry at age 30. So he died quite young. Of course, we don't know how he died.

Lord, when I get to heaven. Yeah. You can ask Joseph. That's the fact is that that is also part of the reason, I think, that he kind of disappears in the wings of the Christmas story. It is not. Once the, and we know, when you read the Bible carefully, it says when the wise men came, they didn't come immediately. Our nativity scenes seem to portray that they came immediately, but not so. It says they came to the house, so they were no longer in a public shelter. They were now in a house. Jesus was a toddler. That word actually appears in scripture. It says when they saw the child, and the Greek word there is pideon, which means pideon, which means, toddler. That's the word we get pediatrician from. And so Jesus by this time is a toddler, and that's why I decided to destroy the infant Jesus in time. Right. So when we picture the wise men standing at the crash, that's just fiction. They came about a year later or more. Exactly how much, but certainly, you have to assume that. Right. Okay. And is that, go ahead, sorry. I regard as being the

most incredible challenge that Joseph faced, and the way he handled it demonstrates his enormous courage and bravery. And what is that? He says to him, go to the child, take the child and his mother, and he doesn't have a security guard or a force. He has no means of his own other than his own resources, the deserts, down to Hebron, and then over the Sinai to the Gaza Strip, and then to the Egyptian border, and then another long journey down to Cairo.

And how long do we think they were in Egypt? Fascinating to me. If you kind of figure the time and the time of Herod's death, that would be about logical. And the thing that I really love, the Coptic church in Egypt, which is all the time in our news now, sadly, those people are basically the descendants family in Egypt. About what occurred during that time, we have no earthly idea about the truth of all of that, but it certainly adds a dimension of really joy and happiness that these people took the family in. If you go to the St. Serge's Church in Cairo, underneath that church is where there was a family home,

and that's the family that took the Holy Family in. I've never, I can't, this is what I'm saying, I can't believe. I've never heard this, that Jesus, the legend says he was in Cairo. Yes. I mean, we know theoretically they go to Egypt, it says it, but we don't know where in Egypt. You're telling me that for 2,000 years these legends have been kept alive, that Jesus was in Cairo. Yeah. And the Coptic Christians, our sisters and brothers in the Egyptian Coptic church, are the ones who have preserved.

that through the centuries, and that's why I have a special place in my heart for them. Now, is that in the book because I read the book, but it's so long ago now that I forget everything? Yes, there. Okay. In the journey to eat. Well, no, I've got the book right here, but I read it when it was still in manuscript form, and I read things and I forget them, so I need to be reminded. Well, it's not like you don't have other things to do. Well, that's the problem. But it's just so fascinating to me to suddenly think, yeah, Jesus was in Cairo, and we think we know exactly where he was, and it was about one and a half years old. I mean, it's amazing. Absolutely amazing. And I'd take a deep dive into King Herod because I think it's important to realize not only what a monster he was, but the power of his military reach. And when you contrast that, that power with a single carpenter

and his wife, and make that journey to Egypt during that time in Egypt, and then all comes in the Here it is dead. You can go home. Yeah, we're going to go to another break here. But this is, it's just extraordinary to think. First of all, we have to say, before I go to the break, I have to say that what makes Joseph so great is he was a man of faith. He believed in God. So when you get a dream from an angel, if you believe it, you know, everything can be fine. But if you don't believe it, so this was a man that God knew he could trust him to do the right thing.

We're going to be right back talking about the Forgotten Man of Christmas by Dr. Howard Eddington. and stick around. You might not know. Beautiful Christmas song by the band. I actually covered it. I think you can find my version of it on my website, but what a beautiful song. We're talking to the author of The Forgotten Man of Christmas,

Joseph's story, Dr. Howard Eddington. Dr. Eddington, just a few minutes left. What must we tell my listeners before we go? I think the understand is that, and I do this in the last part of the book, I take the qualities and the character of Jesus and then impute that back to Joseph and trace how those characters and character undoubtedly have emerged from his experience with Joseph. Joseph was, as you said, clearly a man of extraordinary.

The character of Jesus and the things that he stood for and the things he did in his life and ministry on earth, then you look back and you can see, I believe, quite clearly, where those things occurred. is ignated father. It is wild. And again, just to think, God chose Joseph. We forget. God chose this man.

How great must he have been? What a man of character. We focus too little on him, which is, again, another reason I'm so excited that you wrote the book. And the book is just out, correct? Yes. Brand new.

Yeah. So people can, you know that sermons are going to be preached. I don't know if people are going to get this in time for Christmas. I hope they do. and they can get a couple of great sermons out of it. It is just so rich the information in here. Are you going on a tour to talk about this book, or are you going to stay home this Christmas?

No, I'm snowbound in the beautiful mountains of North Carolina and loving it here, but I'm at least having the opportunity to do some interviews like this that you have afforded me, and hopefully that will help the word to get out. Well, it is, I mean, it's the sort of thing, again, when you find something so central, I mean, the Christmas story doesn't get more central than that. This is not, you know, something you found in Habakkuk or something. This is the Christmas story, and there's so much in it that we've missed.

So thanks to you, we haven't missed it. I'm just, I'm really excited about it. I hope the book goes far. It is so many people, Rich DeVos read it and gives it a wonderful blurb and a number of other authors that I know the eldest daughter of Billy Graham, Gigi Graham, who must live near you, correct? Yes, she does. She's got to live near you. And it's just really a wonderful, wonderful thing that you got this out. So Howard or Dr. Eddington, I got to tell you this is a great work.

Congratulations on it. A magnificent writing you do to build the kingdom. Bless you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Folks, that's the program. Get a copy of The Forgotten Man of Christmas, Joseph's Story by Howard Eddington. Just amazing. Stick around.