Hi folks.

I'm back. I was going to wait to post until tomorrow (Tuesday). But then I got up to date on Mark Goodacre's NT Gateway Weblog ... and notice that he announced that he's coming to America! I'm sure those in the blogosphere are already aware of this, but I just had to express my congratulations here. Apparently Duke is lucky in more than basketball.

Congratulations, Mark!

As for me, it was a good time away with family, friends and (of course) books. I was able to read a chunk of stuff, including:

• Chrisoph Unger. An Introduction to Relevance Theory. Available from: Bible translation files. Scroll to the bottom of the page, available in PDF, HTML or RTF.
• Kevin Gary Smith. Bible Translation and Relevance Theory: The Translation of Titus. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa). 2000. 260pp. I was able to read the first 100 pages of the dissertation, which works through relevance theory as applied to translation, to be applied to the book of Titus. I have not read the actual translation/notes on Titus. But I know a whole lot more about relevance theory now, and it seems to make sense. The application, however, is a different question. I'll need to work through some areas of Titus to grok that part.
• Stanley E. Porter and Matthew Brook O'Donnell. The Greek Verbal Network Viewed from a Probabilistic Standpoint: An Exercise in Hallidayan Linguistics, in Filologia Neotestamentaria vol XIV, pp. 3-41. 2001. Finished this one up. I'll need to read it again, though.
• Stanley E. Porter. Studies in the Greek New Testament: Theory and Practice. (New York: Peter Lang). 1996. 290pp. I read the first two essays: Greek Language and Linguistics and In Defense of Verbal Aspect. I'm itchin' to get to the lexicography article, but all good things will come in time.
• Stanley E. Porter (ed). The Pauline Canon. (Leiden: Brill). 2005. 254pp. I read a few articles in this one, including:
  • James W. Aageson. The Pastoral Epistles, Apostolic Authority, and the Development of the Pauline Scriptures.
  • Robert W. Wall. The Function of the Pastoral Letters within the Pauline Canon of the New Testament: A Canonical Approach.
  • Detlev Dormeyer. The Hellenistic Letter-formula and the Pauline Letter-scheme.
  • Mark Harding. Disputed and Undisputed Letters of Paul.

In Porter's Pauline Canon, nobody argued for Pauline authorship of the Pastorals (the seven genuine / six disputed perspective seemed dominant in what I read). I can't say that I'm surprised. But Wall's article was notable in that he specifically mentioned that one cannot simply brush aside the Pastoral Epistles when they are tough to interpret/exegete. Actually, his exact words are:

Sharply put with the particular interest of the present essay in view, the interpreter must steadfastly avoid the current practice of setting aside the three-letter collection of Pauline Pastorals as 'inauthentic' and accept their teaching as complimentary for a holist Pauline theology that is, in fact, authorized by the church's Scriptures. (Wall, in Porter, Pauline Canon, 37).

Harding's article takes a similar line, noting that even if the six disputed Paulines are not "genuine", they should stay in the canon and continue to be authoritative. Harding writes:

It would be fruitless, I believe, for the church to re-draw its canon today on the basis that had the early church known it was dealing with documents many scholars today regard as pseudepigrapha it would have rejected them. Pseudepigrapha were accepted because they bore a confirmin testimony to the significance of the Christ-event as that was interpreted, and as such were believed to be authentic. Anonymous books were erroneously attributed lest thier witness be lost to the church. These books enhanced the apostolic witness to the tradition articulated in the church form early times. That tradition had been accepted unquestionably as apostolic and was now inscripturated and in the process of being canonized. (Harding in Porter, Pauline Canon, 167)

Anyway, as I have time over the next few days (heh ... if I have time, that is ... things are going to be busy this week) I'll probably blog about some of these articles both here and on PastoralEpistles.com as I mull over them and think about them some more.