Authors Eric D. Huntsman and Trevan G. Hatch are experts on Easter: they have spent multiple years studying (and celebrating) its scriptural accounts. Both have studied the global cultural traditions surrounding Easter: the music, art, and food that different cultures use to commemorate the Savior’s Resurrection. They have both lived (and studied) in the Holy Land, and both have doctoral degrees relating to the subject: Huntsman in ancient history and Hatch in religion, with an emphasis on Judaism. Huntsman is the current director of BYU’s Jerusalem Center, and Hatch is the specialist for anthropology and religious studies (including studies of the Bible and ancient Near East and Middle East) in BYU’s Harold B. Lee Library. Both are also faculty in BYU Religious Education’s ancient scripture department.

Their latest book, Greater Love Hath No Man: A Latter-day Saint Guide to Celebrating the Easter Season, is greatly benefited by their vast combined experience and research. In addition, where the Latter-day Saint community has few fixed ways of celebrating Easter week, the RSC’s new book offers scholarly research, scriptures, beautiful artwork, and ideas to help Latter-day Saints celebrate the Easter season—and make it even more memorable.

The volume follows the same user-friendly format of Eric Huntsman’s earlier book God So Loved the World, organizing the chapters according to the traditional days of Holy Week with expanded discussion and additional materials. Foremost among these new materials is a “reader’s edition” of relevant scriptural accounts for each day so that individuals and families can have them readily at hand for both individual study and group reading.

After discussing the scriptural accounts for each day of Holy Week, the chapters then summarize both how these scriptural events have been celebrated through the centuries in different Christian traditions and how Latter-day Saints can study the texts and commemorate the events.

Greater Love Hath No Man expands substantially upon Huntsman and Hatch’s earlier work. Huntsman explains, “The idea for revising and expanding my earlier God So Loved the World came from my coauthor, Trevan Hatch. We had worked together during my time as the coordinator of the Kennedy Center’s Ancient Near Eastern Studies program, so we had become familiar with each other’s work. He liked my earlier book and its potential for bringing individuals and families into closer engagement with the Passion and Resurrection narratives. I think also as the father of a young family, he was attracted to the potential of using the scriptural accounts of Jesus’s final week to help children find more purpose in Easter. That was one of the major reasons I had written God So Loved the World in 2011, when my own children were still small. Hatch approached me in early 2020 with the idea of working together on a new book.

“Initially we were not sure how much of a revision and expansion Greater Love Hath No Man would be. We thought that perhaps we could get permission to use some of what I had already written and possibly include reprints from other chapters and articles by other Latter-day Saint scholars. But the turning point, surprisingly, was the COVID-19 pandemic. I was scheduled to leave in August for a two-year appointment as the academic director of the BYU Jerusalem Center, but it quickly became apparent that I was not going to leave that year, and in fact, I was not finally able to go until April 2022. Suddenly I had time for a really big project. And I am glad I had that time, because as Trevan and I started outlining the book and discussing what we wanted to accomplish, it became apparent to us that we wanted to do more than a simple revised edition. We wanted to write a longer and more comprehensive book.

“We set up an appointment with Scott Esplin, who was then the publications director of the Religious Studies Center (RSC) and later became dean of Religious Education. He was very enthusiastic about the project and gave us some great suggestions on how to proceed so that this book could be different from my earlier one. Working with the RSC turned out to be a real advantage. I had a good relationship with Deseret Book from a number of previous projects, but it turned out that we could do a longer and more detailed book with the RSC because of its particular mission and its resources. And because several of my earlier books had been illustrated, they provided us a great visual model for this book. In fact, with much more art, detailed maps, and Holy Land photographs, this book is a visual as well as an intellectual and spiritual feast.”

Greater Love Hath No Man features stunning full-color art from masters like Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Carl Heinrich Bloch, James Tissot, and Peter Paul Rubens, and contemporary Latter-day Saint artists like Minerva K. Teichert, Walter Rane, Liz Lemon Swindle, and Brent Borup.

“Without a doubt our primary hope for this book is that it will strengthen and deepen faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice and joyous resurrection,” Huntsman says. “But we are commanded to worship the Lord with our minds as well as our hearts. Without overwhelming readers, we wanted to provide more historical, literary, and cultural background for each of the events and teachings from that unparalleled week. As I have often said to students, Latter-day Saints should know and understand as much as possible about what Jesus said, did, and experienced during his last week. We should not be any step behind our other Christian friends when it comes to what it means to us.

“I hope that readers can have the kind of experience I have tried to have and which I have shared with my family each year. The scriptures can come alive as we read them, think about them, talk about them, sing about them, and celebrate with them. Trevan and I both hope that our efforts can play some small role in helping people reprioritize what Holy Week and Easter mean to them. When we do this, the Spirit can come in great measure to help us better love and know Jesus, to better appreciate and access his atonement and grace. That’s what the restored gospel is all about to me.”

Greater Love Hath No Man: A Latter-day Saint Guide to Celebrating the Easter Season is copublished by the Religious Studies Center at Brigham Young University and Deseret Book. It is expected to be on sale February 22, 2023 at Deseret Book. Visit rsc.byu.edu/book/greater-love-hath-no-man for more information.

Possible Pull Quotes:

This book is a visual as well as an intellectual and spiritual feast.

Our primary hope for this book is that it will strengthen and deepen faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice and joyous Resurrection.

The scriptures can come alive as we read them, think about them, talk about them, sing about them, and celebrate with them.