Instead of the more bookish and sporadic notes, today I figured I’d blog about the Brannan gluten free Thanksgiving. It was yummy and relatively easy. Hope it helps some who have struggled. Oh, these are also dairy free, egg free, and cane-sugar free. And free of other stuff too; the list of allergies around our table today is too long to list. If you have questions, feel free to follow up with me if you’d like (email is on sidebar).

It’s true, we had gluten free turkey, stuffing, gravy, and mashed potatoes. I only made the turkey, stuffing and gravy; my sister-in-law made the mashed potatoes and green beans. Oh, and my lovely wife made GF pumpkin pie and apple crisp. Mom T made the sweet potatoes & fruit salad. Yum, yum yum.

Gluten Free Turkey

Many turkeys are gluten free; you’ll need to check web sites to ensure. Costco’s turkeys were Foster Farms Fresh or something or other, and their web site confirmed their GF-ness. I popped it in a roaster, put lots of Earth Balance (non-dairy butter) between the skin and the breast meat, about 1/3 cup, salt, pepper, rosemary and sage. No stuffing in the bird. It was a 14lb bird, roasted for around 4 hours. Carved the turkey, reserved the drippings.

While the turkey was roasting, I made broth from the neck & giblets. This is very easy. Just put the parts in a saucepan. Fill with water until they’re covered. Bring to a boil, simmer over low heat for like 30 minutes. Strain, set aside; you’ll use this in the stuffing.

Some background at this point: We basically can’t buy anything that lists “spices” in the ingredient list. This means we can’t buy any chicken/beef/veggie stock at any store in the western world. Chicken and turkey stock is gold in our house. So after the the turkey was carved (I cooked it on Wednesday) it was time to make stock. I stuck all the stuff I didn’t put on the meat plate — bones, skin, fat, whatever — into a stock pot. Filled with water until everything was covered. Added some rosemary. Bring to boil, then simmer over low heat for 45-60 mins. Pull bones out, dispose of those. Strain, label containers, put in containers for freezer.

Back to the good stuff.

Gluten Free Stuffing

I winged this one and it turned out. My basic source was Betty Crocker’s recipe, modified as follows.

First, I used a loaf of Trader Joe’s GF Brown Rice Bread. This stuff is heavy. I cut each slice into cubes, then dried in the oven (like, 250 degrees for 10-15 mins). Then I chopped a medium sized onion into oblivion, melted 1/4-1/3 cup butter (Earth Balance) in a frying pan, added a bunch of garlic, and cooked it until the onions were happy.

Dumped the bread pieces into a big bowl. Then 2tbsp parsley (plus a little more); 2tbsp sage (plus a little more); salt, pepper, butter-onion mixture. I’m assuming you’ve done the research to know if your spices are GF. Then Betty’s recipe says 1/2 cup broth, but her recipe assumes you’re putting it in the bird, which will emit all sorts of juices into the stuffing. Instead I baked it seperately. So I needed more broth. I put in at least two cups, probably more like 3. Stirred like crazy. Put it into a casserole dish, mashed it down. This went into the fridge, I ended up cooking it for probably 45 mins on 350F.

Gluten Free Gravy

While the stuffing was turning from wonderful to awesome, I made gravy. Got the reserved drippings and warmed them up again. I also got some GF corn starch and rice milk. Probably at least 1/4 cup corn starch. Put it in a small bowl that has a tight lid. Then add some rice milk, enough to liquefy. Put lid on, shake like the dickens. When drippings are boiling, add the mixture to thicken. Whisk it. If not thick enough, repeat the thickening mixture bit. Simmer it for awhile, and you’re awesome. Add some salt and pepper if you wish.

That’s it.

See, not too hard. The key is to start with the bird, and only use the broth/etc. from the bird to make the other parts. For me, this works better if I do the bird the day before (Wednesday) then the stuffing/etc. the day of (Thursday).

Hope it helps y’all. All I know is it was awesome, and my wife (several food allergies) and sister-in-law (celiac) could enjoy it all too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The toughest thing about the SBL annual meeting is the book exhibit. It is nearly impossible to not spend too much money on books, it seems. I only bought two books this year, which was my plan — but came home with four, plus an audio CD. Not bad, says me.

Books I bought at SBL

Peter H. Davids, II Peter and Jude: A Handbook on the Greek Text (amazon.com). Baylor University Press, 2011. This is the latest in the Baylor Handbook on the Greek New Testament series. I knew I was getting it before I left; there is something about these volumes I just love, so I try to get them at SBL the first year they’re out as the price is usually pretty good then.

Klaus Wachtel and Michael W. Holmes, eds., The Textual History of the Greek New Testament: Changing Views in Contemporary Research (amazon.com). Society of Biblical Literature, 2011. This is part of the “Text-Critical Studies” series. Essays from a 2008 colloquium; they look to be good and well worth reading.

Books I was given at SBL

These books were given to me by the publisher for review purposes, I will write about them in the future here on ricoblog.

Craig A. Evans, ed., The World of Jesus and the Early Church: Identity and Interpretation in Early Communities of Faith (amazon.com). Hendrickson Publishers, 2011. Essays from two related symposiums, and they look good. More info on the Hendrickson page, including PDF of the intro, TOC, and a list of contributors.

Gary Alan Chamberlain, The Greek of the Septuagint: A Supplemental Lexicon (amazon.com). Hendrickson Publishers, 2011. I’m deep in some Septuagint stuff at my day job (Logos) so I’m happy to give this one a look. I’ve read the preface and part of the intro. It will take some time to work through this, but I’m encouraged by what I’ve seen so far. The idea is to supplement BDAG for the one who is attempting/starting to read the LXX. Again, more info is on the Hendrickson page.

John D. Schwandt, The Audio Greek New Testament (amazon.com) (MP3s on a DVD). Hendrickson Publishers, 2011. My friend Randall Buth will give me grief for this one because Schwandt reads with the Erasmian pronunciation. Randall should be happy, however, because at least I’ll be listening to the GNT. I’d be happy to listen to Randall’s as soon as the whole GNT gets recorded (don’t think he has it yet, but could be wrong). Schwandt reads the UBS4 edition of the GNT. My guess is I’d be able to internalize Buth’s better, but listening to Schwandt will do more good than harm.

I’ve been thinking a lot about cohesion lately, for a number of reasons.

• It’s interesting
• There is some decent stuff written on it from the perspective of NT studies:
• Jeffrey T. Reed on Philippians
• Ray Van Neste on the Pastorals
• George Guthrie to some degree on Hebrews
• Cynthia Westfall on Hebrews
• Varner on James
• Earlier standard linguistics/discourse literature goes back to Halladay & Hasan and others; I still need to read this stuff.

Anyway, my mind has been turning on cohesion, thinking about what it is, and thinking about how to make examining a discourse for cohesion (and other above-the-word-level stuff) easier to do.

Essentially, I’m taking a very brief look at what is (very loosely) termed “lexical” and “semantic” cohesion using a method described in O’Donnell/Porter/Reed’s paper “OpenText.org: the problems and prospects of working with ancient discourse,” specifically the notion of “Semantic Chains” described in the latter half of the paper. This basically amounts to counting words and counting instances of words in Louw-Nida domains, and looking at how they are used together in a discourse. I am also looking at participants (person and non-person) in a discourse at the same time, to see how they co-occur with semantic chains as described in the paper, hoping to understand more about how people understand cohesion to work. And I’ve done this, very very briefly, for chapters 1 & 2 of James, primarily because I’ve been looking at Varner’s commentary, because my pastor is preaching through James, and because there is a session on James and discourse at ETS (I think it is ETS, right?). Anyway, below are my notes.

James 1.2-8: Convergence of domains 31 (Believe) and 57 (Possess, Transfer, Exchange). This is largely an exhortation to the addressee of James (3-4). Switch from v. 4 to v. 5 is rhetorical, from v.4 “lacking in nothing” to v. 5 “if any of you lacks in wisdom”. Verses 5-8 rely on domains 57 and 31 asking for wisdom in faith, without doubting, in order to receive what is lacked. Domain 57 comes from lack/give/receive language. Domain 31 comes from faith/doubting language. One frequent participant in vv. 5-8 is the doubter.

James 1.9-11: Some words in the plant domain (domain 3) are grouped here, showing we have an illustration that uses plants to convey a point. Domain 57 continues (the rich person and receiving) perhaps providing some cohesion with the previous section. We also have new participants introduced in the context of the illustration, the rich person and the humble person. Figurative language also includes the sun. Further use of domain 13 (the 'exist' subdomain, specifically 13.93, 13.94 and 13.96, pass away/lost/wither away) and domain 79 (for beauty / withering language) provide cohesion internal to the illustration.

James 1.12-16: Language from domain 27 (testing/tempting, 27.46, πειραζω/πειρασμος) provides a cohesive tie with James 1.2-3, which has some use of domain 27 where trials are endured to ensure one becomes complete. Domain 88 (moral/ethical qualities) is also concentrated in this passage. This section is also general in that no particular participant is named, but a general 'person' (ανηρ) is the subject of the beatitude of v. 12; he carries as subject through the paragraph. Sin/temptation language is prevalent, especially with the use of opposites πειραζω/πειρασμος and απειραστος in v. 13.

James 1.17-18: Primary participant is God. Some lexical/conceptual cohesion with previous by use of αποκευω (earlier in v. 15), give birth to. In the previous section sin gave birth to death, in this section God gives birth to “us” (James and his addressee) by his will, through the “message of truth”.

James 1.19-21: Participants in this section include anger, immorality and wickedness as well as gentleness/humility (all domain 88). Lexical/conceptual cohesion exist with the previous section due to a reference to “the implanted message/word” which is a reference to the “message/word of truth.” Note also use of domain 67 (quick/slow) in the wisdom statement.

James 1.22-25: Participants include those who hear the “message/word of truth” (previous sections) and those who do the message/word. This segues into an illustration centered on mirror and reflection.

James 1.26-27: This section has a concentration of domain 53 terms (religious activities, “pure and undefiled religion”) with some domain 31 language (thinking/deceiving). James' generic person as subject (“anyone”) is the primary participant.

James 2.1-7: Domains having to do with artifacts (domain 6, gold ring/clothing/footstool), object features (domain 79, glorious/fine/filthy), positions in spacial relation (domain 83, prepositions and adverbs, largely, providing here/there senses), possess/transfer (domain 57, poor, rich, heirs) and some believe language (domain 31, faith, listen (v. 5)). This all combines for a powerful illustration given to James' addressee (“brothers”, with second-person verbs and further second-person pronouns throughout the section) illustrating a problem among the addresses with partiality/differences in perception and attitude of those with means (rich) and those without (poor). These references also provide some lexical/semantic cohesion with rich/poor in 1.9-11.

James 2.8-13: James' generic addressee is again a participant; with an exhortation again reinforcing the problem of partiality. Domain 88 (partiality, sin, adultery, mercy/merciless, stumble) is common in this section. James appeals to the law (two of the ten commandments), thus an increase in the common domain 33 (communication) due to citation language (according to scripture, etc.). The section encourages proper action and discourages improper through use of domain 13 (be) and 88 (moral activity).

James 2.14-17; 18-26: Domains frequent in this section include 31 (belief/trust/faith), 42 (works/working/doing), and 88 (moral qualities: justify/justification/righteousness, but also prostitute). The discussion is about faith and works and the effect on those who practice one or both. Some OT illustrations (Abraham, Rahab) are given.

So, what’s the big deal? Well, one thing is that lexical and semantic cohesion has to involve more than simple repetition and clustering. That might help identify areas of cohesion, but it does not define them. Specifically with Louw-Nida domains, some are huge (e.g. 33 and 15) and some are very small. To count frequencies doesn’t really do much. But what this type of work can do is help to reinforce themes/topics in given sections, and it can also help to isolate paragraph boundaries (and larger-level discourse boundaries).

I’m a little dismayed at how easy it is to count frequencies of domain (or term) instances, and then see a relationship between two portions of a discourse simply because they’ve been counted and noted. Sure, “testing” language is used in James 1.2-7 and in 1.12-16, but that doesn’t mean there is some inherent relationship between those two portions of the text. There may be, and examining “semantic chains” may bring it to light, but the simple co-occurrence does not a relationship (inclusio, link, chiasm, chain, etc.) make.

It is too easy to have a load of data, and then posit things about the text because you’re (I’m) riffing off the count data. If there is some relationship there, there must be other means of confirming it than simple counting and being. Because an author uses similar language / words / topics in two places or more doesn’t mean he’s implying a relationship.

A good example is the use of domain 33 in James 2.8-13. Domain 33 is the largest domain and one of the most consistently represented domains in the book (in any book) outside of domains dominated by function words (89, 91, 92). In James 2.8-13, though, one can see the reason for an increase in ‘communication’ language is because James is citing OT material and telling the readers/hearers about it. So here we have a reason for the increase: It isn’t because James is focusing on saying something about communication, it is because he is stopping to cite OT material that is relevant to his point. These are the nuts and bolts required for talking about and citing other literature (I’m sure the ‘communication’ language in this paragraph has a higher concentration than the rest of this post, but I’m communicating about communication so the higher concentration is to be expected. Focus on the citation, not the mechanics of citation. Move on.)

So while I can see (even better now) the nuts and bolts of lexical and semantic cohesion, I’m dismayed that in several (not all, but several) it is explained as little more than counting stuff and examining clusters, as if the cluster of data (the semantic chain) exists and is meaningful simply because it was counted. It is a blip on the radar; worthy of further examination but not necessarily meaningful at all.

We must be careful because my guess is that there are a fair amount of mountains made out of some of these mole-hills.

As anyone who has even half paid attention to this stagnant blog, or my somewhat more active Twitter feed (@RickBrannan if you’re interested) I spent a large chunk of my free time over the past 18 months working on the text of the Apostolic Fathers. (http://bit.ly/ApFthInt for more info on that, last time I’ll link to it on this post).

But that’s “in the can” and I’ve noticed something since I’ve been done. For 18 months, I haven’t had to ask myself “what will I study?” or “what am I going to work on this morning?” While I do have another project in the works (no info on that at present, sorry) I find it difficult to get my attention re-focused in the mornings. For the longest time, I just had to wake up and dig in where I left off.

My times studying had a focus. I had an anchor. It was almost easy.

Now I’ve got a few different things I’m thinking about pursuing, and I find myself floating free. And it is disconcerting. Not only that, it is difficult to get the focus back.

I hope to do some reading in the mornings, and might actually blog a bit again (either here, or on http://www.PastoralEpistles.com). I expect to be “floating” a bit, at least until I cast the anchor and can focus again on some task for awhile.

Thanks to the generosity of the author, I’ve received a copy of Will Varner’s The Book of James: A New Perspective (amazon.com). The subtitle is “A Linguistic Commentary Applying Discourse Analysis.” Thanks, Dr. Varner!

I’ve been interested in working through this for a few reasons. First, the church I attend will be working through the book of James in the late summer/fall, I think, and I’d like to work through Varner’s stuff as part of that. Second, I haven’t seen a commentary focused on linguistics/discourse targeted at a less academic level (outside of Runge’s High Def Commentary on Philippians, but it is a different beast altogether) and wanted to see how it frames the discussion and approaches the problem of discourse/linguistics for the non-academic. Third (and related to the second) I’ve always had the idea that I’d like to write something discourse-y (is that a word?) on the Pastorals, so it’s good to see what others have done and are doing.

I’ve done an initial read of the introduction and a bit more. Varner seems to have hitched his syntactic wagons to the OpenText.org analysis (which I am intimately familiar with, having implemented it for Logos Bible Software; a static visual representation is also available online at OpenText.org). This is good and bad. It is good because OpenText.org is out there and known to some degree, it is bad because there is an (admittedly not too steep) learning curve to begin to think in OpenText.org-ese. It’s bad (at least for me) because I’m not a fan of the contained-box-style notation that OpenText.org uses in its online form, and that is what Dr. Varner has emulated in his commentary. All told, Varner includes the Greek text with translation beside it in a table, and then has the contained-box-style visuals after that. I’d rather have had the Greek text once, perhaps even with a less detailed block outline or some other notation influenced by OpenText.org. I just think it would’ve been easier to refer to and it would lose the confusion of the unfamiliar box notation. The other thing I’m dealing with is that I would probably describe myself as post-OpenText.org these days. It was great and formative as I really began to understand how text functions above the word level, but it is now, to me, quirky enough in terminology and approach (what, really, is a ‘definer’ and how is it different than a ‘qualifier’ in ways that aren’t describable using more standard morphological or syntactical terminology?) that I tend to lean more toward the Cascadia analysis these days (this is also in Logos).

What I’ve read of the commentary is good; I hope to dig into it in greater detail soon. Discussion of cohesion is promising, and there is some discussion/use of semantic chaining as well. The introduction seems heavy on citations from Porter and Reed; though they have done some foundational work in this area (particularly Reed in his Philippians volume). I’ve been reading some stuff from Scandiavians lately (in the Coniectanea Biblica New Testament Series), while this is more “textlinguistics” than “Discourse Analysis” (slight differences), there is some good stuff (particularly in discourse markers, continuity/discontinuity, and the like) that should make its way into more stuff than it has.

Also sad (in the intro), for me, were the “forthcoming” citations of Porter and O’Donnell’s Intro to Discourse Analysis that has been “forthcoming” for more years than I have digits to count on my right hand. I’d love to see that one, too, but will be waiting for a few more years if past history of Porter’s cited “forthcoming” titles is any indicator. (note: I know this isn’t Dr. Varner’s fault, he’s using the sources he has and needs to use. I just wish the blasted thing would finally be published.)

I plan on blogging more as I get further into the book. That may be awhile, though, as my available time is largely consumed by my work with the Apostolic Fathers and a class on the text of the NT I’m teaching for six weeks (through mid September).

Titles are listed below. Shipping is $4 for the first item, $2 for each additional item. First class to 48 contiguous states unless stuff is really heavy, then I'll ship the fastest I can for the shipping charged. A three-volume set is considered to be three items (books are heavy).

Please note: I'm using PayPal to do the payments, but you can use credit cards. I've never done this before, so please be patient with me.

These are books I have for sale in the "Biblical Studies" subject area. I’ve already listed some Greek books. I will have more books later, in different subject areas (Biblical Studies, Commentaries, Theology, etc.). Consider this a test run to work out some kinks.

If you have questions about the books, please email me, textgeek@gmail.com.

Bruce L. Shelley Church History in Plain Language . Softcover	$15 + $4
C.H. Dodd The Bible and the Greeks (First Edition) . Hardcover	$50 + $4
C.H. Dodd The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel . Hardcover	$20 + $4
Donald McKim, ed. Historical Handbook of Major Biblical Interpreters . Hardcover	$15 + $4
Jerome Murphy O'Connor St. Paul's Ephesus . Softcover	$15 + $4
Neil Eliott The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire . Hardcover	$15 + $4
Stanley E. Porter, ed. Diglossia and Other Topics in New Testament Linguistics (JSNTSup 193, SNTG 6) . Hardcover	$60 + $4
Stanley E. Porter, ed. Handbook to Exegesis of the New Testament . Hardcover	$90 + $4
Stanley E. Porter Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood Softcover.	$75 + $4
Stanley E. Porter, ed. Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period Softcover.	$40 + $4

As May 21, 2011 is tomorrow; and there are predictions from some that it will be the date of the Lord’s return (rapture, judgment, whatever you want to call it), I thought I’d share what Second Clement, one of the writings in the corpus known as the “Apostolic Fathers” has to say on the subject.

This isn’t canonical; it was probably a sermon preached in Corinth in the early/mid 2nd century (120-135?), but it is appropriate to all the hullabaloo circulating today. What follows is my own translation.

12.1 Therefore let us wait for the kingdom of God hour by hour with love and righteousness, since we do not know the day of God's appearance. 2 For when the Lord himself was asked by someone when his kingdom will come, he said, "When the two shall be one, and the outside as the inside, and the male with the female neither male nor female."^[1] 3 And "the two are one" when we speak the truth with ourselves, and there is one soul in two bodies with no hypocrisy. 4 And "the outside as the inside" means this: "the inside" means the soul and "the outside" means the body. Therefore in this manner your body is made visible, so also let your soul be evident in good works. 5 And "the male with the female neither male nor female" means this: that a brother, upon seeing a sister, thinks nothing about her [being a] female, nor does she think anything about him [being a] male. 6 When you do these things, he says, the kingdom of my Father will come.

[1] This saying of Jesus is not found in the New Testament. It is found in the Gospel of Thomas (§22) an also in Clement of Alexandria's Stromata 3.13.92, where the saying is attributed to the Gospel of the Egyptians.

The author is using this to exhort his audience to repent (cf. 13.1, “Therefore brothers, now at last let us repent.”) The author’s idea is: We never know when the Lord will return, so we should live as if he is coming back at any moment.

If someone is preaching a specific date of the Lord’s return to try to get people to repent, they may be sincere and mean well, but it won’t have any real long-term fruit. But if one preaches reminding of the general fact that the Lord will return, and that we don’t know when it will be, and that he’s clearly told us we should be ready at any time … well, that seems like pretty sound teaching to me.