What am I reading? Well, when I have time to sit and read these days it is usually something to do with canon issues:

• Paul D. Wegner, The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible (amazon.com). pp 75-162.
• Arthur G. Patzia, The Making of the New Testament: Origin, Collection, Text & Canon (amazon.com), pp. 102-111.
• Michael W. Holmes, “The Biblical Canon” in the Oxford Handbook to Early Christian Studies (amazon.com), pp. 406-426
• Wilhelm Schneemelcher (tr. R. McL. Wilson), “General Introduction” in New Testament Apocrypha, Volume One: Gospels and Related Writings (amazon.com). Revised Edition. pp. 9-50. Particularly §2, “On the history of the New Testament canon”, pp. 15-34.
• Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development and Significance (amazon.com).
• F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (amazon.com).

My primary interest is in early Christian conception of “canon”; and this is of course problematic. Most interesting to me have been Holmes and also Schneemelcher, who deal with the Septuagint. It really throws a wrench into thoughts of canonicity in early Christendom. I love that the introduction to a volume on NT Apocrypha has such a great essay on the topic of canonicity. Can’t agree with everything, but this essay in particular is really great stuff. And Holmes is top-notch too. Both are highly recommended.

OK, my real primary interest is because the topic of canon in early Christianity will be a decent chunk of the class I’m teaching in spring 2011 on “How We Got the New Testament”. I want to make sure I’ve got my bases covered. Wegner is the text I’ll be using, so the NT portions of his section on canonicity will be primary, though I hope to supplement with at least portions from Holmes and Schneemelcher.

A friend of mine has asked me to help him out by teaching a 6-week course on “How We Got the New Testament”. It will be online, and will consist of assigned readings, podcasts, forum Q&A with me and with other students, some quizzes, perhaps webcasts and videos. It is presently not scheduled until sometime next year, but it never hurts to be ahead of the game.

So, the inevitable question: Which book to use?

Subject matter includes stuff like:

• how canonization happened
• ancient scribal tasks and practices
• coping and transmission of the biblical text
• ancient and modern translation of the biblical texts
• history of the printed New Testament

Regarding NT textual criticism, the following will be hit upon:

• types of errors in manuscript transmission
• divergent readings in manuscripts (examples and their effect)
• basic text-critical principles of evaluating errors and divergent readings

I’m expecting anywhere from five to 15 students, but would take more if they sign up. The target is somewhere between motivated layperson and focused undergrad. The students may take a similar OT class, which will use Wegner’s Journey from Texts to Translations (amazon.com), which also covers the NT. I haven’t read or used Wegner, but it does seem to cover those bases (simply by checking the TOC on Amazon.com). I’m planning on assigning around 50 pages a week for reading, a brief podcast overview of highlights to be on the lookout for with the reading, and an extended post-reading podcast to review the reading.

So, my questions:

1: Have you read or used Wegner (amazon.com)? What are the book’s strengths and weaknesses?

2: I’d like to prevent the necessity of having them buy another book. Even if Wegner isn’t the best, is it good enough? Any article or other book chapters to supplement?

3: What other book(s) would you recommend instead of Wegner?

Other books that have some overlap with these areas that I’m familiar with:

Metzger, Bruce M. The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (amazon.com).

Metzger, Bruce M. and Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration [4th ed] (amazon.com). Although I have only read the 3rd edition; the 4th came out soon after I’d read through the 3rd.

Metzger, Bruce M. The Early Versions of the New Testament (amazon.com). Excellent, but I actually like Vööbus better. There are some portions of Metzger that almost echo Vööbus, and it’s uncanny. And Oxford simply wants too much for this book. Buy a used version or buy Vööbus.

Bruce, F.F. The Canon of Scripture (amazon.com).

Aland, Kurt and Barbara Aland. The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism (amazon.com).

Vööbus, Arthur. Early Versions of the New Testament: Manuscript Studies (amazon.com). Dated, but for my money the best place to dig into the question of early versions.

There are also some chapters in other books and other essays/articles I’ve got frittered away that would be good supplementary references.

Once the class details solidify, I’ll post more info here. If you’re interested in such a course, email me at text geek at gmail dot com for more info.

Update: Thanks to all who have responded thus far. I appreciate it! Seems plain I'll have to get a copy of Wegner somewhere and get readin'. Brian, thanks for the suggestion on Metzger/Ehrman, but that plus Bruce seems a bit overkill for a six-week class where I'm trying to limit reading to 50-75 pgs per week. Esteban, I'd seen Patzia's book when searching but haven't looked at it. I'll have to give it a peek. Mike, on the Textual Criticism aspect, my guess is I can get enough out of whatever book I go with, and go with some supplementary articles to round that aspect out.

Weston, this will be more like a guided study for motivated laypeople than a traditional lecture-style undergraduate session, though I am thinking of some review-type podcasts to round out each week. I don't know that they'll be freely available online, though, as the class will be through Dr. Michael S. Heiser's newly-announced MEMRA Institute for Ancient and Biblical Studies. This particular class isn't scheduled until May 2011.

Update II: Hadn't realized it until now, but Patzia's The Making of the New Testament is available in Logos Bible Software, and it is available for the Logos iPhone app as well. And I've already got the book. Sweet.

[Part of my More Non-negative αλλα series]

27 Νῦν ἡ ψυχή μου τετάρακται,
καὶ τί εἴπω;
πάτερ, σῶσόν με ἐκ τῆς ὥρας ταύτης;
ἀλλὰ διὰ τοῦτο ἦλθον εἰς τὴν ὥραν ταύτην.
28 πάτερ, δόξασόν σου τὸ ὄνομα. (Jn 12.27-28a, NA27)

27 “Now is my soul troubled.
And what shall I say?
‘Father, save me from this hour’?
But for this purpose I have come to this hour.
28 Father, glorify your name.” (Jn 12:27-28a, ESV)

The contrast in the statements preceding and following the αλλα in v. 27 is rather obvious; instead of pleading to the Father to be saved from the hour (the counterpoint), Jesus notes that he has instead come to glorify the Father (the point). The contrast is evident. The Father is in focus, but instead of requesting deliverance from the Father, Jesus is seeking to ascribe glory to the Father. Here there is an interlude of sorts between αλλα and the contrasted item. This interlude (here a “reason-result frame” according to Runge’s LDGNT) uses a cataphoric pronoun to point the reader/hearer forward; the resolution being in v. 28 (in addition to functioning as the point of the counterpoint/point pair). This all serves to make Jesus’ action to glorify the Father much more prominent in the scope of the narrative.

[Part of my More Non-negative αλλα series]

41 ἦραν οὖν τὸν λίθον.
ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἦρεν τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἄνω καὶ εἶπεν·
   πάτερ, εὐχαριστῶ σοι
      ὅτι ἤκουσάς μου.
42 ἐγὼ δὲ ᾔδειν ὅτι πάντοτέ μου ἀκούεις,
ἀλλὰ διὰ τὸν ὄχλον τὸν περιεστῶτα εἶπον,
   ἵνα πιστεύσωσιν
      ὅτι σύ με ἀπέστειλας. (Jn 11.41-42, NA27)

41 So they took away the stone.
And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said,
   “Father, I thank you
      that you have heard me.
42 • I knew that you always hear me,
but I said this on account of the people standing around,
   that they may believe
      that you sent me.” (Jn 11.41-42, ESV)

The αλλα in verse 42 serves as the hinge of a Counterpoint/Point structure that is the whole of the verse. The contrast is between the Father and those present who hear Jesus. Jesus began his words (the raising of Lazarus) by giving thanks to the Father for hearing him. He explains this by saying he did it for the benefit of those present, not for the benefit of the Father. The aspect of correction or replacement is in the understanding of those present. Jesus did not give thanks to the Father to ensure the Father’s hearing of his request; he instead gave thanks in order that those present, who will witness the miracle, know the source of the miracle.

The whole of verses 41-42 could be skipped, with the call of verse 43 of Lazarus to “come out”, and the Father would have still heard Jesus. But by stopping and attributing the source of the miracle before it happens, those hearing know the source of the miracle as it happens, and can believe. The structure in verse 42 does this, using αλλα and a Counterpoint/Point, to make prominent who is hearing Jesus, and what their response to his words and actions should be.

[Part of my More Non-negative αλλα series]

Ταῦτα εἶπεν,
καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο λέγει αὐτοῖς·
   Λάζαρος ὁ φίλος ἡμῶν κεκοίμηται·
   ἀλλὰ πορεύομαι ἵνα ἐξυπνίσω αὐτόν. (Jn 11.11, NA27)

After saying these things,
he said to them,
   “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep,
   but I go to awaken him.”(Jn 11.11, ESV)

In this instance, the contrast is quite evident; between Lazarus “falling asleep” and Jesus going “to awaken him”. The information that Lazarus had “fallen asleep” was important, but more important to the context is that Jesus was going to change Lazarus’ state from being asleep to being awake.

The disciples don’t quite get it, it seems; they think Jesus is actually talking about sleeping and waking up, and if so, don’t understand what the big deal is. So, bless ‘em, they follow up so that it can be clear for us too:

The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” (Jn 11.12-15, ESV)

Jesus has to re-explain himself to say that he means that Lazarus has, in fact, died; and that the reason Jesus is going is to raise Lazarus from the dead. Given this information, the contrast seems even higher (death –> life) as does the aspect of correction/replacement.

[Part of my More Non-negative αλλα series]

25 ἔλεγον οὖν αὐτῷ·
   σὺ τίς εἶ;
εἶπεν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς·
   τὴν ἀρχὴν ὅ τι καὶ λαλῶ ὑμῖν;
   26 πολλὰ ἔχω περὶ ὑμῶν λαλεῖν καὶ κρίνειν,
   ἀλλʼ ὁ πέμψας με ἀληθής ἐστιν
   κἀγὼ ἃ ἤκουσα παρʼ αὐτοῦ ταῦτα λαλῶ εἰς τὸν κόσμον. (Jn 8.25-26, NA27)

25 So they said to him,
   “Who are you?”
Jesus said to them,
   “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning.[1] 
   26 I have much to say about you and much to judge,
   but he who sent me is true,
   and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” (Jn 8.25-26, ESV)

Several grammars (Porter’s Idioms, Dana and Mantey) list Jn 8.26 as an example of αλλα used with an emphatic sense. Porter writes:

Jn 8.26: ἀλλʼ ὁ πέμψας με ἀληθής ἐστιν (indeed, the one who sent me is true), where the emphatic sense solves the problem of continuity with the first part of the verse: πολλὰ ἔχω περὶ ὑμῶν λαλεῖν καὶ κρίνειν (I have many things to say and judge concerning you); [2]

There is no need to appeal to a separate emphatic sense of αλλα to understand its function in this passage.

First are the words of the Jews that Jesus was in dialogue with. Not willing to accept his words, they appeal to Jesus asking who he is. They are attempting to establish by what authority he speaks, in this way they can dismiss his words by dismissing his authority.

Jesus’ first response is a further question asking if he has been consistent in how he has represented himself to them. After this comes the counterpoint: Jesus states that he has “much to say and judge” concerning them. The statement following αλλα offers both contrast and correction. Jesus clarifies that he did not come on his own, but that he was sent by one who “is true”. Further, the words he brings, including the judgment, are not his own. He is a representative of the one who sent him; the words and judgment are true, and are from the sender. The ESV misses this aspect, a better translation of the apodosis may be “but he who sent me is true, and what I have heard from him, these things I declare to the world.”

The counterpoint-point structure make this information regarding source prominent. The use of αλλα draws out the contrast between the expectations of the Jews and the response of Jesus. The judgment of the Jews brought by Jesus is not from Jesus, it is from the one who sent Jesus.

[1] Note that both NA27 and UBS4 punctuate this statement as a question: “What have I been telling you from the beginning?” NASB follows NA/UBS punctuation; but NET, NIV and RSV do not.

[2] Porter, S. E. (1999). Idioms of the Greek New Testament (205). Sheffield: JSOT

[Part of my More Non-negative αλλα series]

9 ἔστιν παιδάριον ὧδε
   ὃς ἔχει πέντε ἄρτους κριθίνους καὶ δύο ὀψάρια·
ἀλλὰ ταῦτα τί ἐστιν εἰς τοσούτους; (Jn 6.9, NA27)

9 “There is a boy here
   who has five barley loaves and two fish,
but what are they for so many?” (Jn 6.9, ESV)

The surrounding context is important for understanding the degree of contrast in this statement. Earlier, the disciples (Philip and Andrew) had established that there was a large, hungry crowd. The crowd size had not been reported at this point, but the amount of food needed to feed the crowd had been: “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little” (Jn 6.7). The crowd is large.

Into this scene comes Andrew bringing report of a boy who has some food with him: Five barley loaves and two fish. The contrast is apparent. The disciples need at least two hundred denarii worth of bread to feed the crowd; they only have the relatively meager amount from the boy. The conclusion is that the available means (five loaves and two fish) cannot meet the available demand (two hundred denarii worth of bread). The apodosis offers correction or replacement in that, according to Andrew, five loaves and two fish is not enough to feed the crowd.

The exchange between Philip and Andrew establishes the lack of available resources to feed the crowd, providing the setting for Jesus’ miracle of the feeding of the 5,000.

I am not going to blog through issues I have with Campbell’s massive tome The Deliverance of God (amazon.com). The critical review of Campbell’s work is in very good hands (for starters, see Douglas Moo’s review article in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 2010, issue 1).

I just wanted to note something I ran across in the early pages of Campbell’s work. (Yes, pages 157-158 are early pages in Campbell). This has to do with Antioch and the reference to it in Acts 11.26; particularly the portion I’ve placed in italics:

And when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. And it happened to them also that they met together for a whole year with the church and taught a large number of people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. (Ac 11.26, LEB)

Campbell discusses this in a section having to do with conversion, what it is, and how “conversion” as described by “Justification theorists” doesn’t look anything like the conversion of Paul. (In other news: green and orange are not similar shades).

The problem is that Campbell takes a passing comment by Luke and builds a whole theory of conversion out of it, and in doing so loads the page down with weasel words: “seem to have felt”, “obvious reason”, “would almost certainly have sufficed”, “obvious explanation” … and those are just in the first paragraph of the section (p. 157).

The further problem is that all of Campbell’s supposed explanation is that: supposed. But he takes the supposed explanation and hails it as yet another silver bullet shot into the heart of “Justification theory”: “In sum, this evidence points to a considerable difficulty for Justification theory” (p. 158). It’s not evidence, it is Campbell’s conclusion based on his extrapolation and supposition of what might have precipitated the comment in Ac 11.26.

[At this point, I now vent my special frustration at the typesetter(s) and publisher, who for whatever reason chose to use endnotes instead of footnotes. I believe Dante has a special place for them. They have doomed the notes to only be examined in frustration and agony. Use footnotes. If the notes aren’t important enough to be looked at, then just remove them and save us the pain. You’re wasting the 250+pp of endnotes in the book, they’ll never see the light of day.]

Campbell basically proposes the novel (and probably fairly normal) idea that if the Christians were separated from the Jews even by name in Antioch (where they had typically been an sect/offshoot/branch of Judaism elsewhere) then something massive must’ve gone down in Antioch. And that massive thing must’ve been doctrinal/theological in nature (likely path for a theologian, eh?):

The obvious explanation for this phenomenon was that these ‘Jews’ had stopped practicing the law at some crucial point or points — or never started — and so become unrecognizable to outsiders as Jews. A relaxation of the need to be circumcised seems likely, but some relaxation of dietary and Sabbath regulations also sees possible. (p. 157).

Hmmmmm … oh yes, the “obvious explanation”. That wins all the time, doesn’t it?

Enter: Thomas Robinson’s Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways: Early Jewish-Christian Relations (amazon.com). If you want an idea of how Antioch was that is well researched and has footnotes (even when they take up more than half the page!), then read Robinson. He necessarily scours the literature from Antioch’s formation in around 300 BCE up to and through the time of Ignatius.

One further possibility on the background of the comment in Ac 11.26 is that something else non-doctrinal/theological (or perhaps combined with doctrinal/theological influences) caused the distinction to be made; that Christians are a separate group and not a Jewish sect.

Mercenary Jews, among others, were involved in the founding of Antioch and had special privileges and benefits (taxation/etc.) as a result. Rising influence of Christians could have jeopardized the social and financial privileges the ‘native’ Jews of Antioch had. Instead of only theological/doctrinal issues, the Jews in Antioch could’ve had all sorts of reasons to dissociate themselves with the sect of Christ-followers, and the primary impetus may not have been solely theological or doctrinal.

I’m not doing Robinson justice, and these are things he just discusses in detail while setting up the larger case that there was tension on all sorts of fronts between Jews and Christians in Antioch up through the time of Ignatius. Read Robinson.

My larger point is that Campbell’s section on Ac 11.26 isn’t as neat, tidy and airtight as he makes it (and as he uses with rhetorical gusto). It makes me wonder about the rest of the places where he uses infirm language like “seemingly”, “perhaps”, “obviously” and the like to establish what he then uses as a firm plank in the floor of his argument.

Thanks to Hendrickson Academic for sending along:

Moyer V. Hubbard, Christianity in the Greco Roman World: A Narrative Introduction (amazon.com). Hendrickson Publishers: Peabody, MA. 320p. 2010.

Here’s the publisher blurb:

A creative introduction to the world of the New Testament

Background becomes foreground in Moyer Hubbard’s creative introduction to the social and historical setting for the letters of the Apostle Paul to churches in Asia Minor and Europe.

Hubbard begins each major section with a brief narrative featuring a fictional character in one of the great cities of that era. Then he elaborates on various aspects of the cultural setting related to each particular vignette, discussing the implications of those venues for understanding Paul’s letters and applying their message to our lives today. Addressing a wide array of cultural and traditional issues, Hubbard discusses:

• Religion and superstition
• Education, philosophy, and oratory
• Urban society
• Households and family life in the Greco-Roman world

This work is based on the premise that the better one understands the historical and social context in which the New Testament (and Paul’s letters) was written, the better one will understand the writings of the New Testament themselves. Passages become clearer, metaphors deciphered, and images sharpened. Teachers, students, and laypeople alike will appreciate Hubbard’s unique, illuminating, and well-researched approach to the world of the early church.

Go to the book’s page at Hendrickson.com for the TOC, Introduction and a sample chapter. I hope to read this sometime over the next few weeks; when I do I’ll report back.

The majority of times one runs into αλλα in the NT (and the Apostolic Fathers, for that matter) it occurs with a negator of some sort. The default case is to negate something in order to highlight that which follows. That is, when we say “not that, but this” we’re typically wanting “this” to be the important bit in the context. There is typically some sort of implicit contrast between “that” and “this” (e.g., dark vs. light, big vs. small, etc.) as well. We bring “that” on the table, then negate it, then say, “no, not really that, but this other thing”. In the vast majority of these instances, the “not that” portion can be completely removed and the clause has no inherent change in meaning. It’s just dull.

Enter Rom 3.31, which ends a section that most are very familiar with:

νόμον οὖν καταργοῦμεν διὰ τῆς πίστεως; μὴ γένοιτο· ἀλλὰ νόμον ἱστάνομεν. (Rom 3.31 NA27)
So do we nullify the law through faith? Certainly not! Instead we uphold the law. (Rom 3.31)

Here αλλα is the hinge between nullifying the law and upholding it. So the contrast is between getting rid of something, and having that something remain in force.

Interesting here is how the negation happens. It isn’t a simple negative. We get the Pauline emphatic negation of μὴ γένοιτο or “Certainly not!”. This amps up the rhetoric even more. Talking about abolishing or nullifying the law was serious stuff, but it fit the context where Paul was talking about how the gentiles were justified by faith, not by works of the law. The logical conclusion is that the law is no longer necessary. But Paul anticipates this conclusion, baits his reader/hearer, and then smashes him back down with “Certainly not!” and then, using αλλα makes his contrasting conclusion, that the law is actually being upheld in all of this.

Note that the same exact facts could’ve been communicated with “Therefore we uphold the law.” But that would’ve been boring. Instead Paul not only used a point/counterpoint (cf. Runge’s DGGNT) he also amped up the negation. On top of an already rhetorically heated section.

I just started re-reading Paul after working through the Gospels and Acts. Paul, how I’ve missed you!

The title is more far-reaching than I can really support. It’s just a notion I have for now as a result of working through the Greek text of Matthew and now the first three chapters of Mark in comparison with the NIV and other translations.

I get the sense that there are three ‘registers’ to the NIV translation. Yes, I know ‘register’ isn’t exactly the right word to use here, but it conveys what I mean. I guess that I want to say I think the ‘dynamicity’ (is that a word) of the NIV appears to be correlated in the following manner in Matthew and at least the first three chapters of Mark:

• OT Quotes in NT: Fairly literal in translation
• “Normal” text: Dynamic
• Words of Jesus (text in red): Fairly dynamic

I can see the OT quotations as being in a sort of higher register, a “thus saith the Lord” style of register. Appealing to older wisdom, quoting an esteemed source authoritatively. Sorta like we appeal to KJV-ish speech sometimes (e.g., “we all could do that kind of thing; remember, ‘but for the grace of God, there go I.’ ”).

The words of Jesus caught me off guard though. Yes, they’re not always translated “fairly dynamically”. But check out Mark 3:28:

NA27: Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πάντα ἀφεθήσεται τοῖς υἱοῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὰ ἁμαρτήματα καὶ αἱ βλασφημίαι ὅσα ἐὰν βλασφημήσωσιν·

NIV: I tell you the truth, all the sins and blasphemies of men will be forgiven them.

LEB:* Truly I say to you that all the sins and the blasphemies will be forgiven the sons of men, however much they blaspheme.

ESV: Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter,

(* LEB = “Lexham English Bible”, a new translation under way by Logos Bible Software. The NT is complete).

The differences aren’t picked up in surrounding contexts either. For whatever reason — and I must stress that my report here is anecdotal in what I’ve seen and noticed and not comprehensive — this sort of smooshing the text seems to happen more frequently (not exclusively) in words attributed to Jesus in the NIV. No, I have not checked the TNIV — one can only check so many translations.

Anyone else notice similar sorts of things? Am I on to something? Any theories as to why?

I'm presently reading E.P. Sanders’ Paul: A Very Short Introduction (amazon.com), which is part of Oxford University Press’ wonderful series called “Very Short Introductions”.

I happened across the following, though:

We should pay special attention to the degree to which Sin is treated by Paul as an enemy power. This is most clearly the case when the noun hamartia, sin, is the subject of a verb other than “to be”, as it is in Romans 5-7. (Sanders, 42)

Sanders goes on to list some instances of this phenomenon:

• Ro 5.12, Sin “entered the world”
• Ro 5.21, Sin “reigned in death”
• Ro 6.12, Sin may ‘reign’ in one’s body
• Ro 6.14, Sin may ‘have dominion’ over one
• Ro 7.8, Sin “wrought in me all kinds of covetousness”
• Ro 7.9, Sin ‘revived’
• Ro 7.11, Sin found “opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me”
• Ro 7.13, Sin “worked death in me through what is good”

All quoted text from Sanders, p. 42.

I figured “wow, I really missed out on this—never noticed this before” and figured I’d look to see where αμαρτια is the subject of a clause where the verb is not ειμι. This is a relatively straightforward syntax search in Logos 4.

What did I find? The primary place this occurs is in Ro 5-7. I also excluded αφιημι from the subject. In doing this using the Cascadia Syntax Graphs, I found 20 locations; 13 of them were in Ro 5-7:

• Ro 5.12, 13(2x), 20, 21; 6:12, 14; 7:8(2x), 9, 11, 13(2x)

The kicker is that I’d expected, especially based on Sanders’ comment quoted above, that most of the rest of the occurrences would be in the Paulines as well (and that there would be more of them). Guess what?

• Jn 9.41; Ac 3.19; 1Ti 5.24; Jam 1.15; 1Jn 3.4, 5; Rev 18.5.

Only one more instance in Paul, and that in the heavily disputed First Timothy, where “the sins” of some are “evident, preceding them into judgment”.

If I narrow it down to where αμαρτια is singular (we’re talking about “sin” and “sins”, right?) we end up with 17 hits:*

• Romans: Ro 5.12, 13(2x), 20, 21, 6:12, 14; 7:8(2x), 9, 11, 13(2x)
• Elsewhere: Jn 9.41; Jam 1.15; 1Jn 3.4, 5.

In other words, the Romans hits stay the same, but we lose Acts 3.19, 1Ti 5.24 and Rev 18.5. Sanders’ comments still puzzle me. I’ll repeat them again:

We should pay special attention to the degree to which Sin is treated by Paul as an enemy power. This is most clearly the case when the noun hamartia, sin, is the subject of a verb other than “to be”, as it is in Romans 5-7. (Sanders, 42)

It’s not his conclusion, it’s the way he sets it up: “as it is in Romans 5-7”. This leads me to think what he’s describing happens with frequency, but really, it’s just centered in Ro 5-7. In Jn 9.41, “your sin/guilt remains”. Jam 1.15 is helpful and seems to jive, “sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death”. 1Jn 3.4-5 don’t seem too applicable, v. 4 is “sin is lawlessness”; v. 5 is “in him there is no sin”.

If you’re talking about sin, Romans 5-7 is important. You don’t need to appeal to some grammatical structure to make Romans 5-7 worth discussing, particularly when that structure doesn’t really appear to happen outside of Romans 5-7 (outside of perhaps Jam 1.15).

* A search for similar structure (w/singular αμαρτια) in the OpenText.org database returned 14 hits: Jn 9.41; Ro 5.12, 13, 20, 21, 6:12, 14; 7.8, 9, 11, 13 (2x); Heb 10.8; Jam 1.15. So most of the double hits in Romans were not returned, one hit in Hebrews was added, and the 1Jn hits were lost. In Heb 10.8, the structure that OpenText.org classifies as a subject is classed as an object by the Cascadia Syntax Graphs analysis, and Cascadia’s analysis seems proper to me too.

That’s “government” for those not in the know.

I dug around ERIC (the “Educational Resources Information Center”) and found four older papers by Stephen H. Levinsohn, at least one of which sounds particularly interesting. Most of them appear to be from older SIL “work papers” volumes. Here they are:

• The Definite Article with Proper Names for Referring to People in the Greek of Acts. (paper here) A study examined the presence or absence of the article with proper names for people in the Bible's book of Acts, using four categories of description, including: (1) the unmarked patterns involving the first mention of a participant and further references to the participant in the same incident; (2) the reintroduction of participants after an absence; (3) further references to a participant in the same incident that are anarthrous as contrasted with arthrous; and (4) the use of the article with names in reported speeches. It is proposed that, in different contexts, the four situations illustrate the principle that anarthrous references to particular, known participants either mark the participant as locally salient or highlight the speech that he or she utters. A list of twelve references is included.

For the others, I’ll just list the title:

• Preposed and Postposed Adverbials in English
• Unmarked and Marked Instances of Topicalization in Hebrew
• The Interrogative in Inga (Quechuan)

Just type “Stephen Levinsohn” into the search box, and you’ll find ‘em.

No, I don’t have any insightful new conclusions on this, but I did run across a very interesting instance that warrants further study and research.

First, note that most grammars portray πλην as a strengthened form of αλλα, and portray αλλα as a “strong adversative” in comparison to δε, which they class as “adversative” (at least in one of the typically myriad senses). I’m not happy with that. I get the idea of a cline here, but it just seems sloppy. What, there’s an “adversative”, a “strong adversative” and a “stronger adversative”? How does that help? How does that not simply mistake contextual cues for lexical/grammatical function?

I think the insights from Stephen Levinsohn, Steve Runge and Discourse Grammar help a bit more. That is, δε indicates development; αλλα is a marker of contrast and indicates correction or replacement (again, see my αλλα paper).

But what does πλην do, then? Muddying up the works is the notion that πλην can function as a conjunction (most common) or as a preposition (Ac 15.28, cf. Robertson XIII.VIII(ai), p. 646), or as a simple adverb (Ac 20.23; Php 1.18, again cf. Robertson).

One approach is to see how the same author uses these two function words. Last night, while working through the text of Mt 26, I came upon the following that screams out to me for further examination/research:

αὶ προελθὼν μικρὸν ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ προσευχόμενος καὶ λέγων· πάτερ μου, εἰ δυνατόν ἐστιν, παρελθάτω ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ τὸ ποτήριον τοῦτο· πλὴν οὐχ ὡς ἐγὼ θέλω ἀλλʼ ὡς σύ. (Mt 26.39, NA27)

and going forward a bit, he fell upon his face praying and saying, "My Father, if it is possible, remove from me this cup; πλην not as I desire αλλʼ as you [desire]." (Mt 26.39, my own)

The synoptic parallels are interesting (thanks for pointing them out, Steve), particularly depending on how you view their composition histories. Me? I think ‘Q’ is a load of hooey, and think considering Mark as the first written and also as a source for both Mt and Luke makes sense. So here’s what Mark and Luke (respectively) have:

καὶ ἔλεγεν· ἀββα ὁ πατήρ, πάντα δυνατά σοι· παρένεγκε τὸ ποτήριον τοῦτο ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ· ἀλλʼ οὐ τί ἐγὼ θέλω ἀλλὰ τί σύ. (Mk 14.36, NA27)

and he said: “Abba Father, all things are possible with you. Take this cup away from me, αλλʼ not what I desire, αλλα what you [desire].” (Mk 14.36, my own)

λέγων· πάτερ, εἰ βούλει παρένεγκε τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ· πλὴν μὴ τὸ θέλημά μου ἀλλὰ τὸ σὸν γινέσθω. (Lu 22.42 NA27)

saying, “Father, if you wish, take this cup away from me, πλην not my desire αλλα your [desire] be done.” (Lu 22.42, my own)

So Mark uses αλλα … αλλα while Luke (along with Matthew) use πλην … αλλα. That’s very interesting too; it means that examining the higher-level discourse of all three gospel writers in this instance could shed some light on why Matthew and Luke both prefer πλην … αλλα.

Might have to consider digging into this for the ETS NW Regional meeting. It’s in February, and it’s only in Tacoma.

Update: For those keeping score at home, note that Margaret Thrall addresses this very issue in her book Greek Particles in the New Testament. Whether proper or not, you can grab a copy of Thrall from archive.org (search "Texts" for "Margaret Thrall"). The gist, apparently, is that she sees Mark as the strongest formulation, with πλην in Mt & Luke functioning conditionally in this instance. Her discussion runs from pp. 67-70. Davies & Allison (ICC Matthew vol. 3) agree with Thrall; Luz (Hermeneia Matthew 3) disagrees saying in a note "Here the adversative sense dominates". I'm inclined to go against Thrall as well but will actually read the section first (of course).

Have you ever stopped to notice how Cornelius was introduced in Acts 10?

First, Acts 10.1-2 (the translation is a draft from the Lexham English Bible, which is almost complete now):

Now there was a certain man in Caesarea named Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Cohort, devout and fearing God together with all his household, doing many charitable deeds for the people and praying to God continually. (Ac 10.1-2, LEB draft)

What do we know about Cornelius after these verses?

• Lives in Caesarea
• A centurion
• with the “Italian Cohort”
• Devout and God-fearing (was he a “God-fearer”?)
• His “household” feared God too (interpret that as you will)
• He did many “charitable deeds” for the people
• He prayed to God “continually”

That’s a lot to introduce someone into the discourse. He must be important to the story. For comparison, look at what we know about “Simon the tanner”, whose house Peter was staying at (cf. 9.42; 10.6) — not even enough to know if “tanner” described his trade, or if it was just a surname (e.g. “Simon Berseus”).

That’s not all. When does Cornie come into the story next? See Ac 10.22 for his next introduction/resumption:

And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, a righteous and God-fearing man—and well spoken of by the whole nation of the Jews—was directed by a holy angel to summon you to his house and to hear words from you.” (Ac 10.22 LEB draft)

Again, what is known/reiterated about Cornelius?

• A Centurion
• A “righteous and God-fearing man”
• Well spoken of by “the whole nation of the Jews”
• Received directions from an angel to summon Peter

Must be pretty important to have all this info about this dude. I don’t think it was an accident that the event where Peter was summoned by Cornelius (a non-Jew, a centurion, for that matter, but one who was a God-fearer and who was accepted by Jews) in this episode where Peter’s conclusion (Ac 10.34-35) is:

So Peter opened his mouth and said, “In truth I understand that God is not one who shows partiality, but in every nation the one who fears him and who does what is right is acceptable to him. (Ac 10.34-35 LEB draft)

This episode ends with the Holy Spirit being poured out on the Gentiles, Ac 10.44-48:

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all those who were listening to the message. And those believers from the circumcision who had accompanied Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and glorifying God. Then Peter said, “Surely no one can withhold the water for these people to be baptized, who have received the Holy Spirit as we also did!” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay for several days. (Ac 10.44-48, LEB draft)

Who was Cornelius? Seems he was pretty important. I guess that’s why he was super-qualified in his introduction (vv. 1-2) and reintroduction (v. 22).

It’s funny when you notice things that scribes noticed as well.

I was reading through Acts and came across Acts 9.23-25:

23 When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.  (Acts 9:23–25, ESV)

I thought, “huh. Didn’t realize Saul had disciples.” Here’s the Greek of v. 25:

25 λαβόντες δὲ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ νυκτὸς διὰ τοῦ τείχους καθῆκαν αὐτὸν χαλάσαντες ἐν σπυρίδι. (Ac 9.25, NA27)

Then I looked at the NA27 apparatus to see if there were variants here. Other people have thought the same thing I did, and figured they needed to fix it.

Some MSS simply remove αὐτοῦ thus removing the issue with “his” (“and the disciples took him by night”). Others change οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ to αυτον οἱ μαθηταὶ, thus making explicit the formerly implicit object “him” in “took him by night” and removing the “his” from “his disciples”). Note that the text behind the KJV follows this latter option: “Then the disciples took him by night”.

Ain’t this fun?

While at SBL in New Orleans this year, my friend Bobby Koduvalil at Hendrickson handed me a new book by Michael Bird (who blogs at Euangelion) called Crossing Over Sea and Land: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (amazon.com). Bobby said he thought it would be right up my alley.

Bobby was right. I’ve not read the whole book yet, but when I wasn’t snoozing on the plane(s) on the way home, I was engrossed in Bird’s work. There were times where it seemed like I’d only read three pages, but when I looked at the page number, I’d really read about eight pages. This happened more than once, and it’s the sign of a well-written book.

The book is just over 200 pages, with index, but don’t let that fool you. It’s worth reading if you’re at all interested in the subject, or in tangential subjects such as (as I am). Bird works over the available sources (primary and secondary) with economy and precision. No long, drawn-out, yawn-inducing diatribes.

Hope to blog about it at least once more when I make it through the main text of the book. But even now, I’d say it’s worth your time to read.

This is a bit of a tag-along to my previous post on Mt 17.8.

No extended discussion, just text. First, the Greek from the NA27 for Jn 5.19. I’m interested in the second half of the verse.

19 Ἀπεκρίνατο οὖν ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς· ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐ δύναται ὁ υἱὸς ποιεῖν ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ οὐδὲν ἐὰν μή τι βλέπῃ τὸν πατέρα ποιοῦντα· ἃ γὰρ ἂν ἐκεῖνος ποιῇ, ταῦτα καὶ ὁ υἱὸς ὁμοίως ποιεῖ. (Jn 5.19, NA27)

Next, from the NIV:

19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.  (Jn 5.19, NIV)

The only difference in the TNIV is “Very truly I tell you” instead of “I tell you the truth”.

Here’s the same verse in the present draft of John’s gospel for the Lexham English Bible (LEB) which is being published electronically by Logos Bible Software (my employer; further disclaimer that I’m deeply involved in the project). The draft of John isn’t public yet, but Romans-Revelation has been released (and is in Logos 4!) and a little birdie told me that Matthew and Mark may be released in the next few weeks, at which point an auto-update will distribute the updated resource and reverse interlinear to all who have it.

Anyway, here’s John 5.19 in the LEB:

19 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, the Son can do nothing from himself except what he sees the Father doing. For whatever that one does, these [things] also the Son does likewise. (Jn 5.19, LEB [draft])

So, the NIV supplies “the Father” as the demonstrative pronoun. OK. That’s fine (though I would prefer keeping the demonstrative). The kicker is in the end of the verse: NIV has “the Son also does” which conveys the basics; a more literal approach like the one taken by the LEB kicks it home: “these things also the Son does likewise.” The repetition is important, and it just kind of gets lost here in the NIV (and TNIV). For comparison, here’s the ESV (which conveys some of the repetition):

19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. (Jn 5.19, ESV)

And here’s the NASB, which does better:

19 Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. (Jn 5.19, NASB95)

And, to round it out, here’s the NET, which is very close to the ESV:

5:19 So Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. (Jn 5.19, NET)

OK, so you know, I’m not going to be one of those guys who only complains about a particular translation. Translation is hard work. Good translation is even more difficult. And the NIV is a good translation. (There, I said it, and I stand by it). But one of the things I look for in a translation (for my own purposes, which may not align with everyone else’s) is transparency. That is, transparency to the underlying text. It doesn’t have to be word-for-word literal; sound like Yoda it must not. But it should also be somewhat transparent to the underlying text. What, like it wasn’t somewhat repetitious to the Greeks reading it and hearing it initially? Of course it was. That’s the point, and that’s why I like to see stuff like this come through in a translation as well.

It’s stuff like Matthew 17.8. Here’s the NIV:

“When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.”

While this does communicate the basics, it completely blandifies the underlying text. Yes, I verbed “bland”. And you completely understood it.

Here’s the context: Jesus has just been up on the mountain with his three primary dudes, Peter, James and John. While they were up there, Moses and Elijah show up, and Jesus, Mo’ and Eli get to talkin’. The disciples are freaking out. Then a cloud surrounds them, and a voice shouts out from the cloud (it’s God) and it says that Jesus is his son, and he’s pretty daggum awesome, and that everyone should listen to Jesus. The disciples are more freaked, they fall face down to the ground, and are probably pretty sure they’re gonna die.

After this, we have vv. 7-8. The NIV, again: “but Jesus came and touched them. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’ When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.”

Yeah, that’s a great ending to the story. Not. That is super bland, and while it communicates the basics of what happened, it has no soul. There is no life to it. Here’s the Greek (the Greek the NIV is based on in this verse has no variations from the NA/UBS text):

7 καὶ προσῆλθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ ἁψάμενος αὐτῶν εἶπεν· ἐγέρθητε καὶ μὴ φοβεῖσθε. 8 ἐπάραντες δὲ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτῶν οὐδένα εἶδον εἰ μὴ αὐτὸν Ἰησοῦν μόνον. (Mt 17.7-8)

And a rather wooden translation, but you get the gist. Pay particular attention to the end of v. 8:

7 and Jesus came, and touching them he said: “Get up, and do not be afraid!” 8 and lifting up their eyes, they saw nobody except him: Jesus alone.

So, in vv. 1-6, Peter, James and John basically thought they were gonna die and were scared out of their wits. They hid, they shook, and they covered their eyes, likely hoping it would just end. They were freaked. If you read vv. 1-6 carefully, even in the NIV, you can tell that this is somethin’ mighty strange and fearful going on. Moses and Elijah chattin’ with Jesus; this funky cloud surrounds them and the voice of God booms from it? I’d cower on the ground and hide my face too! But in vv. 7-8, all of a sudden all that stuff is gone. Verse 8 underscores this, and that’s why it makes it so plain that only Jesus (no cloud, no Moses, no Elijah) is there. They’re gone. Only Jesus is with them.

There’s no reason to not include the “alone” in the translation. Is it technically redundant in the English, communicating information already known? Yes, but that’s the point. That’s why it’s in the Greek: to highlight this information so you know it is important. It also (and perhaps more importantly) keeps the sense of wonder that is present throughout the passage — you get the sense, even at the end, that Peter, James and John still really don't know what's going on even though the cloud and Mo' and Eli are gone (vanished, even).

To be fair to the NIV-folk, you can find stuff like this in every translation in every language ever done. (Even translations I’ve done!) But when I happen to see it in cases like this, it just makes me wonder what the translation committee was thinking.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Internally, as Logos Bible Software 4 neared time to ship, a group of us in the Design & Editorial department were commissioned to make some videos for Logos 4. These aren’t meant to be completely instructional how-to videos, just walk-thru and demonstration of some features. You know, to get you comfy with the feature.

Now you can hear the smooth, dulcet tone of my voice, coaxing you gently through the peculiarities of each feature. [yeah right]. Anyway, here are the ones I did:

• Sympathetic Highlighting
• Stereoscopic Images
• Bible Word Study Guide
• Command Bar
• Bible Explorer
• Cited By
• Timelines
• New Tab
• Ratings

The links are to YouTube; they were functional as of the time of writing this post.

You may think “Huh?! Finally?!! I just heard about Logos4!” but Logos4 has been my life for at least the past 18 months. But now I can talk about it to whomever I please. Logos4 is public. Released. Not a beta. You can buy it now. You can cross-grade, upgrade, or flat-out buy it today. Download the whole thing if you want. That’s pretty awesome.

If you haven’t heard, please check out the Logos4 web site. Oh, and don’t forget about the iPhone app, either. Yes, there is a Logos iPhone app. I’m not making this up.

Logos4 is a complete change. It is new from the bottom up. It does things differently. I’ve fallen in love with the windowing system, rule-driven collections mean my collections can finally keep up with my library, floating windows are a dream on multi-monitor setups, and there are a ton of new resources too.

Instead of all that stuff (which others will cover, I’m sure), I just wanted to point to a few things dear to my heart in Logos4.

• The Apostolic Fathers Reverse Interlinear
• Cascadia Syntax Graphs of the New Testament
• Templates for Syntax Searching
• Grammatical Relationships in Bible Word Study
• Facilitate Serendipitous Discovery

1: The Apostolic Fathers Reverse Interlinear. Logos4 has a great selection of reverse interlinears (OT and NT for ESV, NRSV, NKJV, KJV, NASB95; an alignment of the LXX and BHS; and the in-progress Lexham English Bible (LEB) is also reverse-interlinearized for the available content [Rom-Rev]). But reverse interlinears aren’t just for Bible text anymore, they can be implemented on non-Bible text as well. Really all that is needed is a text and its underlying source. So a few years back I pitched the idea of having a reverse interlinear of the Apostolic Fathers text (English with underlying Greek; sorry, no Latin). Our first editor was unable to take on the project due to personal circumstances. I wanted this one so much I ended up doing the reverse interlinear alignment myself as a side project! It was fun, and now you can use a reverse interlinear with Greek text outside of the NT.

This brings up another feature that works with all texts that share a common alignment text (or are the alignment text): Something called “Sympathetic Highlighting”. For you Logos old-timers, this is “Navigate to Associated Word” on steroids. Basically, you highlight something in one text, and the other text highlights it too. You can see this above; I’ve highlighted text in the English, the underlying Greek gets highlighted too. This works in the OT and NT. Highlight something in the ESV and see how the NASB95 treats it. Even better: Highlight something in the LXX and see it highlight in the BHS (!)

2: Cascadia Syntax Graphs of the New Testament. If you’ve followed Logos at all over the past five years, you know that we’ve been very innovative in applying syntactic analyses (analysis above the word level) to the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament. Logos4 continues this innovation with the Cascadia Syntax Graphs of the New Testament. These are based on work done by the Asia Bible Society in their Greek Syntactic Treebank Project. They use simple, approachable terms (like “Subject”, “Indirect Object”, “Clause”, “nominal phrase”, “prepositional phrase”, etc.) for their structures.

The Syntax Search dialog has been completely revamped as well. For example, below is a query for the Cascadia Syntax Graphs that locates where a prepositional phrase has φοβος as its object:

In comparison with LDLS3 (and OpenText.org), Cascadia needs fewer properties, uses more approachable terminology, and is conceptually easier in structure.

3: Templates for Syntax Searching. As much as I love syntax searching, I’m enough of a realist to know that it is a great feature with a very limited audience. Most folks just want to know when something is the subject, or the object, or where it occurs as the main verb. Or even perhaps what sorts of adjectives modify the word. Templates provide this. From the syntax search, hit the query drop-down. Templates are on the left. Select one, and go. Let’s say I want to find where the verb φοβεω is negated (so, “do not fear” instead of “fear”):

Click “Go” when the word is there (select from the list or hit enter), and you’re doing a syntax search.

Alternately, you could open the desired template for the desired database from the syntax search editor. This would open the actual structure to search. From here, just fill in as necessary.

4: Grammatical Relationships in Bible Word Study. The primary difference between v3 and v4 in Grammatical Relationships is speed. In Logos4, it’s faster. Much faster. Like, real fast. But there’s this new section that shows up (where applicable) called Preposition Use. This is where the study word is the object of the preposition. There’s this cool graphic used to help show how the preposition is used. Here is an example with φοβος (fear) as the study word:

Fret not, there’s a Preposition Use chart for Hebrew too.

5: Facilitate Serendipitous Discovery. Go to the command bar. Start to type in “Facilitate”. You should see:

What does it do? Try it. Let me know what you find. Need some background? Try this three-and-a-half year old blog post.

What am I not mentioning?

There’s all sorts of stuff I’m not mentioning, including:

• Scads of new resources available in the new “LE” collections.
• Maps. Awesome maps. Zoomable maps. Linked to dictionaries maps. Linked to the text maps. Linked to Google maps maps.
• Infographics. Images of all sorts. Images in Dictionaries are integrated. Stereoscopic images.
• Customizable Guides. Ever wanted to create your own Passage Guide from a template of options? Now you can. Same for Exegetical Guide and Bible Word Study Guide.
• Passage Analysis. This is cool. OK, I’ll give you a picture of this one:

There is so much other stuff, I’ve just gotta stop now. There is not enough time to mention it all in a blog post. Check it out for yourself.

I’ve wanted to look into this for awhile, and found the following from the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary quite helpful:

Alternatively [abba] has been explained as a rare vocative (in which case it could just as well be Hebrew as Aramaic) or as derived from children’s baby talk (cf. "Papa," "Daddy"). If the last explanation were right, then the use of abba as an address to God in Mark 14:36 might be thought to imply a special, indeed a unique, intimacy. This view was held at one time by J. Jeremias, but he later came to regard it as "a piece of inadmissible naivety" (1967: 63). Wrong as it is, it deserves mention not only because of its extensive dissemination beyond the walls of academia but also because its influence can be detected even in the work of respected scholars such as J. G. D. Dunn (1975: 21–26; 1980: 22–23) and is explicit in the most recent writing of M. J. Borg (1987: 45). Apart from the intrinsic unlikelihood of the idea that Jesus ever addressed God as "Daddy," the suggestion is ruled out of court by one important fact: wherever abba is found with the meaning "father" or "my father" (in Mishnaic Hebrew or Targumic Aramaic), it is equally employed of the fathers of grown-up sons. One instance cited by G. Vermes (1983: 42) is Judah’s threat to his unrecognized brother, Joseph, in the Tg. Neof. version of Gen 44:18: "I swear by the life of the head of abba, as you swear by the life of the head of Pharaoh your master. . . ." And as J. Barr (1988) emphasizes, inferences concerning the meaning of words must be based upon function, not upon origin or derivation. (AYBD v1 p7, article on “Abba” by John Ashton)

Conversely, see J.D.G. Dunn in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, in his article on Prayer:

A great deal has been made during the past forty years of Jesus’ style of address to God and its significance. Jeremias made the case for Jesus having regularly addressed God by the Aramaic word ‘abbā>’ (see Languages of Palestine); and he also noted that ‘abbā’ was "a child’s word"; and this led too quickly to the conclusion that abbā meant "Daddy"—an early conclusion which Jeremias soon qualified, but which has come back to haunt the study of the Gospel traditions ever since.

The basic evidence is clear and Jeremias’s initial conclusion probably sound. The key evidence is the appearance of abba itself in Mark 14:36. Added to that is the clear attestation that the same form was used by the early Christians (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). Two points of significance are to be noted in the last two passages. (1) The Aramaic word was retained in the worship of the Greek-speaking churches. This must mean both that this particular prayer address had become so established among the earliest Palestinian believers and so precious for them that it was carried over into Greek-speaking worship. That is to say, its continuing value lay not in its meaningfulness to Greek speakers but in the meaningfulness of the living tradition of prayer which it expressed. (2) It is remembered as a word particularly associated with Jesus: to say abba is to share in a common sonship and a common inheritance with Jesus (Rom 8:16–17; Gal 4:6–7; cf. 8:29). This must mean that the word was recalled as a word particularly and peculiarly associated with Jesus’ own sonship to God (see Son of God). Were it a common prayer idiom of (some) Jews at the time of Jesus (as some have suggested, without supporting evidence), it would not have had this significance of linking the one who said abba so distinctively and directly with the sonship of Jesus. (DJG, p. 618-619).

Also in DJG, see D.R. Bauer’s article on “Son of God”:

Jesus experienced this intimate fellowship especially through prayer, and consequently addressed God in prayer almost exclusively as "Father" (Aramaic Abba Mk 14:36; cf. Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). Jeremias has argued that Jesus was apparently the first Jew to address God in prayer as Abba (Jewish prayers typically used the obsolete and formalized Hebrew term Abi), and that Abba was a term of familiarity and intimacy, having originally developed from the speech of children ("daddy"). Subsequent scholarship has been unable to contradict the claim that this prayer language of Abba was original with Jesus. Although Jeremias’ employment of etymological considerations is questionable (Barr), his distinction between formal prayer speech, which suggests distance, and the more colloquial expression used to address earthly fathers bears the weight of critical scrutiny.

This article references the following, which I am unable to access but would love to. 

Text-critical wisdom from Gunther Zuntz, Text of the Epistles: A Disquisition upon the Corpus Paulinum (amazon.com):

Readings are either right or wrong. Their theoretical implications largely depend upon this elementary fact. Agreement in genuine readings is normal; possibly significant only where it is confined to few witnesses or where it recurs frequently in well-defined groups; agreement in error suggests some relationship. These theoretical implications apart, we want to know which readings are true. No statistics can tell that: we have got to use our critical faculties and methods. (Zuntz 59)

This is after some paragraphs on the dubious usefulness of “statistical methods” in evaluating and comparing texts/manuscripts where Zuntz has another memorable line:

Variant readings can fruitfully be compared and grouped on more than one principle, but they cannot reasonably be added up or reduced to percentages like the factors of an arithmetical sum. What is the sum total of, say, an egg plus a grape plus a unicorn? (Zuntz 58)

This isn’t a passive, read-before-you-go-to-bed book. Zuntz is a tough slog; you’ve gotta work your mind while reading him in order to get the most from him; consulting the text is necessary too. To grok him more fully I’ll have to read it a few more times (still working on my first slog). But there is a ton of useful stuff in here about the practical application of textual criticism to the real problems one runs into when evaluating variants. I don’t think Zuntz is right about everything, but I do think that if you’ve got any desire to do textual criticism, then Zuntz should be near the top of your list after intros like the Alands Text of the NT and Metzger’s Text of the NT and after you read (really read) the NA27 intro and do some scanning of the consistently-cited witnesses. Zuntz could come before or after Westcott & Hort’s intro (amazon.com) as well. <speaker voice=”yoda”>But read them all you must if textual criticism you desire to practice</speaker>.

Read this (Lk 3.15-18) and ask yourself the question, “what is the good news?”:

As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ, John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people. (Lk 3.15-18, ESV)

The good news* is that Jesus comes after John. But the rest of it? Burning the chaff with unquenchable fire? Being baptized by fire? And this is the “good news”?

Further, look what preaching the “good news” got John (Lk 3.19-20):

But Herod the tetrarch, who had been reproved by [John] for Herodias, his brother’s wife, and for all the evil things that Herod had done, added this to them all, that he locked up John in prison. (Lk 3.19-20, ESV)

I wonder if John thought the “good news” was good—I mean, look where it got him. In prison and then not too much later … his head was on a platter. I’m sure he did think the “good news” was good. But do we? And are we thinking of the “good news” or something else?

* Yes, I know that the ESV's “preaching the good news” is a translation of the verb εὐαγγελίζω, which could also be translated “preaching the gospel”. The translation “good news” makes my point easier to make, but the modern conception of “gospel” has problems too. Either way, John’s description of Jesus gathering his own “wheat” and exterminating the “chaff”, followed by the consequences John experienced because of his preaching, well … I don’t know how much that squares with our conception of the impact of the gospel in our lives today.

One problem with associating an English gloss or two with a Greek word and then proceeding to “read” a text by doing a decode-o-rama followed quickly by a de-yoda-ification (I speak as one with deep, intimate knowledge of this mystical practice) is that you end up throwing context to the wind if you’re not careful, and many times even if you think you are being careful.

After some brief examination of lexicons and dictionaries, one might think it is reasonable to generally associate the gloss “lust” with the Greek verb επιθυμεω. After all, that seems to be the sense one runs into in the NT. If not “lust”, then perhaps “strong desire” or something else of such ilk, with a nod to being general and non-specific, but really knowing that “desire” has to do with that of the sexual sort; and if not that then at least the desire of something sinful or wrong. Oh, there might be exceptions (1Ti 3.1 talks of “desiring a good work”) but the word (and cognate group, especially the noun form) really has to do with sexual lust … at least, that’s the approach that I’ve heard and have seen, and that’s the word-study trap that’s easy to fall into.

Here’s the problem: Look up επιθυμεω in BDAG, and check out the citations for sense 1 (“to have a strong desire to do or secure something, ‘desire’, ‘long for’”) and compare those to sense 2, the “lust” sense. Sense 1 has many more citations and a broader range of cited material. But even in sense 1, many examples seem to be negative (“desiring” unwholesome things). Then, assuming you’re being diligent and looking up citations because you really want to understand and you’re not just cherry-picking to bolster your pre-conceived notions, you run into Poly 1.3:

“Even without seeing him, you believe in him with an inexpressible and glorious joy that many long to experience. For you know that you have been saved by a gracious gift—not from works but by the will of God through Jesus Christ” (Ehrman).

The bold bit is translated as “which many desire to experience” by Holmes. Lake has “many desire to come”; Lightfoot has “many desire to enter in”. The word translated “desire” or “long to” is … yep, you guessed it … επιθυμεω. There is nothing about “lusting” in a sexual sense here. The context here has to do with “longing to” experience the joy one experiences as a result of belief and trust in Christ. The joy experienced by the Philippians is “strongly desired” to be experienced by others.

You don’t even need to go to the Apostolic Fathers for the non-lusty sort of επιθυμεω; some responsible reading of the BDAG definition gets you there only with NT citations. 1Ti 3.1 and Mt 13.17 are great examples, but the killer to the επιθυμεω-means-sexual-lust argument has got to be Lk 22.15, where Jesus “strongly desires” to eat the passover with his disciples.

Bottom line: It’s a chicken-and-egg proposition, just like reading in English. You only know what επιθυμεω means by reading lots of stuff and building up a concept of what επιθυμεω means. Lexicons like BDAG help, but it’s easy to be myopic in word-study land where even though a “word” is being studied, it is usually prompted by a particular instance in a particular context one wants to understand. It is this local context that is important; not the word. Context is how the author constrains the variables. If one says “lust after her” or “desire her”, it’s easy. In Poly 1.3, is essentially telling the Philippians that “there are many who really want to experience that joy you’re experiencing”. In Poly 1.3, Mt 13.17 and Lk 22.15, the formula is επιθυμεω + infinitive verb where the infinitive verb (and its associated items) help one determine the nature of the “desire”. In the same way the object of επιθυμεω when not used with an infinitive (thus typically a genitive or accusative, as we see in 1Ti 3.1; check BDAG) help dial in this constraint … not anything innate in the word itself. Be very careful what local context you import into the definition of a word to apply elsewhere (go back and re-read your Exegetical Fallacies), and be even more careful about how glosses perpetuate false conceptions of word meaning.

No matter what, when your understanding of επιθυμεω is limited to one or two-word English glosses (“lust, strong desire”) your understanding of the Greek text will be similarly limited. So make it a goal to read and work through lots and lots and lots of text. I can’t tell you how helpful this has been to me! Then when you hit επιθυμεω, you’ll think in your head “επιθυμεω” and not “lust, strong desire”. And that’s a step in the right direction.

Another snippet from his short grammar:

As a rule German editors punctuate too freely according to German ideas rather than those of the Greeks.

Robertson, A. T. (2009). A Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament, for Students Familiar with the Elements of Greek (16). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

Remember, Robertson wrote that in the 1908 (100 years ago!). This was interesting to me because of a note I made on a post on punctuation/accent almost two years ago now:

Pure speculation and likely irrelevant and misguided, but I'm wondering how the punctuation in NA27 compares with how one would punctuate a somewhat literal German translation — and how punctuation in UBS4 compares with how one would punctuate a somewhat literal English translation.

From the introduction to his “Short Grammar”:

The genius of the Greek language itself must constantly be sought. It is easy to explain a Greek idiom by the English or the German. This is the vice of many grammars. The Greek must be allowed to be itself and have its own point of view. Good Greek may be very poor English and vice versa. It is imperative for a just and sympathetic appreciation of Greek to look at the language from the Greek standpoint. The consistent application of this principle will prevent one from explaining one preposition as used “instead” of another, one tense “for” another, etc.

Robertson, A. T. (2009). A Short Grammar of the Greek New Testament, for Students Familiar with the Elements of Greek (4). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

I just downloaded and installed the “A.T. Robertson Collection (15 volumes)” recently released by Logos Bible Software (disclosure: I work for Logos); the short grammar is one of those titles. Looking forward to checking out the structure and reading through some portions.

Steve Runge mentioned a comment I made to him yesterday in a blog post he posted this morning:

I am working my way through Con Campbell’s Verbal Aspect, The Indicative Mood and Narrative, currently in the section on the present tense form. He has made some great observations about the kinds of verbs that are found in the historical present (HP), viz. that most are either verbs of speaking/communication, or verbs of propulsion i.e. movement. However, Rick Brannan pointed out that these two semantic classes of verbs are also the most frequently occurring, based on the LN semantic domains. Notwithstanding Rick being the precise contrarian, some hay can be made from Campbell’s point, but a bit further on.

Since Steve mentioned me above, I thought I'd provide some numbers on this assertion. These are all based on the Louw-Nida annotation including in the Lexham Greek-English Interlinear New Testament, which also provides LN domain.article references for every word in the NT.

When I made the comment to Steve, I was thinking particularly of domains 33 (Communication) and 15 (Linear Movement). These are two of the largest domains in terms of division into subdomains. Domain 15 has 56 subdomains; Domain 33 has 35 subdomains. This division is one indicator of their frequency. But I did some searches too. First note there are 28,000+ verbs in the NT.

• Items with Domain 33 (Communication): 7819 items total, 5469 are verbs
• Items with Domain 15 (Linear Movement): 3517 items total, 3416 are verbs

For comparison, Domain 88 ("Moral and Ethical Qualities") has 38 subdomains (highly divided), there are 2129 words classified as belonging to that domain, but only 488 of them are verbs. Domain 79 ("Features of Objects") has 29 subdomains, 544 instances, with 172 of them verbs. These domains (15, 33, 79, and 88) are the most highly subdivided.

If you want to get a glimpse of instances of domains within pericopes, see my Distribution of Semantic Domain by Section in the Pastoral Epistles (note I do not include domains for particles, articles, prepositions, contractions, etc.; only verbs nouns and adjectives). You'll see that domain 33 is very frequent, which, on afterthought, it is not surprising in written communication that the author would be using language in the semantic domain of communication.

So, while Campbell likely is onto something, that verbs of speaking or movement are common HP instances doesn’t seem too surprising seeing as how verbs of speaking and movement seem to be generally common within the NT literature.

I’ve mentioned Armenian in passing before, usually in the context of textual criticism (see here and here).

If you’re interested in the Armenian NT, the Zohrab edition (which is the primary Armenian source the NA27 points to when it cites ‘arm’, as I recall*) is available as PDF from archive.org: New Testament in Classical Armenian.

I found the link on Robert Bedrossian’s site Internet Resources for the Study of Classical Armenian (Grabar), which I happened upon a few clicks down the road after reading one of Roger Pearse’s blog entries (which pointed to this cool site about Papias Fragments).

* Further digging leads me to the NA27 intro, p. 28*, which cites:

Yovhannes Zohrapean, Astuacasunc Matean Hin ew Nor Ktakaranac, IV, Venice 1805.

The date matches the date on the Zohrab NT above. The ECM volume on James (p. 15*) points to the same source as its Armenian basis, with translation of the title confirming that it is an Armenian OT and NT.

As my regular, very intelligent, highly esteemed, and most worthy readers know, I spent a lot of time dealing with the conjunction αλλα in 2008; the results of which are in the paper I wrote for the 2008 national ETS meeting (paper here).

Today I was doing a quick read the text of First Thessalonians (reconciling English with Greek) and I noticed some good examples of αλλα, so I thought I’d blog them. There are 13 examples. I’ll list each briefly and offer (hopefully brief) comments. Actually, I only got through eight before I stopped (not enough time), but hopefully you get the picture.

My basic premise is that αλλα indicates either correction or replacement. That is, the item following αλλα corrects or replaces the item preceding; and that additionally these items are contrasted such that the latter item is highlighted. In other words, the second item in the contrast is the more important information; it is what the structure puts in the spotlight. After the Greek is a very quick and not well thought out translation of relevant text (but not all of the Greek, I’m trying to work quickly here). Also, since I am working quickly, note I haven’t proofed/revised/rewritten anything, this is pretty much a raw dump — please offer feedback on whatever you see.

1 Thess 1:5
ὅτι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἡμῶν οὐκ ἐγενήθη εἰς ὑμᾶς ἐν λόγῳ μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν δυνάμει καὶ ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ καὶ ἐν πληροφορίᾳ πολλῇ καθὼς οἴδατε οἷοι ἐγενήθημεν ἐν ὑμῖν δι ̓ ὑμᾶς 
that our gospel did not come to you in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much certainty,…

Here the correction is in how the gospel came to the Thessalonians: It didn’t just come in word, but it came (that’s the correction) in power, with the Holy Spirit, and with much certainty (and that’s the important part). It was more than mere words. This “not only/but also” is a frequent formula and typically indicates correction. 

1 Thess 1:8
ἀφ ̓ ὑμῶν γὰρ ἐξήχηται ὁ λόγος τοῦ κυρίου οὐ μόνον ἐν τῇ Μακεδονίᾳ καὶ ἐν τῇ Ἀχαΐᾳ ἀλλ ̓ ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν ἡ πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ἐξελήλυθεν ὥστε μὴ χρείαν ἔχειν ἡμᾶς λαλεῖν τι 
For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and in Achaea but in every place your faith, that which is in God, has gone out, so that we have no need to say anything

Again, we have correction and the “not only/but also” formula. The word of the Lord didn’t just go through Macedonia and Achaia; it went everywhere the news about the Thessalonians went. The important part is how this news has spread.

1 Thess 2:1-2
Αὐτοὶ γὰρ οἴδατε ἀδελφοί τὴν εἴσοδον ἡμῶν τὴν πρὸς ὑμᾶς ὅτι οὐ κενὴ γέγονεν ἀλλὰ προπαθόντες καὶ ὑβρισθέντες καθὼς οἴδατε ἐν Φιλίπποις ἐπαρρησιασάμεθα ἐν τῷ θεῷ ἡμῶν λαλῆσαι πρὸς ὑμᾶς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν πολλῷ ἀγῶνι
… that it was not in vain, but after we had already suffered and been poorly treated, just as you know, in Philippi, we had the courage in our God to speak to you the gospel of God, in much opposition/conflict.

Here Paul is clarifying/correcting that his (and Timothy, and Silas, see the prescript (1Th 1.1) arrival in Thessalonica was not in vain or in error; but that it was — after what happened in Philippi — indeed meant to happen. Paul is saying that it wasn’t an accident, instead it was intended of God for them to bring the Thessalonians the gospel in this way, after the incident(s?) in Philippi. Note the next clause group is another αλλα statement.

1 Thess 2:3-4
ἡ γὰρ παράκλησις ἡμῶν οὐκ ἐκ πλάνης οὐδὲ ἐξ ἀκαθαρσίας οὐδὲ ἐν δόλῳ ἀλλὰ καθὼς δεδοκιμάσμεθα ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ πιστευθῆναι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον οὕτως λαλοῦμεν οὐχ ὡς ἀνθρώποις ἀρέσκοντες ἀλλὰ θεῷ τῷ δοκιμάζοντι τὰς καρδίας ἡμῶν
For our appeal does not from error, or from impurity, or with deceit, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so that we speak not as people-pleasers but as to God, the tester of our hearts.

Here there are two different αλλα statements. Paul is first clarifying the source; the word he brings comes not deceitfully but in fact they have been “approved” by God to do this. That’s pretty much the opposite of deceit. Secondly, as to motive, Paul corrects that they come not to please people, but to please God. The important bits are that Paul’s message comes from God, and that Paul speaks not so that people will be pleased, but so that the one who tests Paul’s heart will be pleased with the results of the test.

1 Thess 2:7
δυνάμενοι ἐν βάρει εἶναι ὡς Χριστοῦ ἀπόστολοι ἀλλὰ ἐγενήθημεν νήπιοι ἐν μέσῳ ὑμῶν ὡς ἐὰν τροφὸς θάλπῃ τὰ ἑαυτῆς τέκνα
While we could have made demands as Christ’s apostles, instead we became as infants in your midst, as a nursing mother cherishes her own children.

The first portion of the αλλα statement may actually run up to the start of v. 5 (see Runge, Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament) but this is enough to get the idea. Note the contrast between making demands as apostles and instead being as infants. While they could’ve made demands, they instead took the more gentle route, and this is what Paul desires to highlight in the context. He gets their attention with the first statement, and then turns it on its head with the second (now more salient) statement.

1 Thess 2:8
οὕτως ὁμειρόμενοι ὑμῶν εὐδοκοῦμεν μεταδοῦναι ὑμῖν οὐ μόνον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ ἀλλὰ καὶ τὰς ἑαυτῶν ψυχάς διότι ἀγαπητοὶ ἡμῖν ἐγενήθητε
In this way longing for you, we determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own souls/life 

The correction is in what was shared. They didn’t just share the gospel (cf. 1Th 1.5 above) but they shared their whole lives, so it was evident how the gospel had affected them. This again, by heightening the contrast, puts the spotlight on the second portion of the statement. If you’re preaching this, the important part is that Paul/Timothy/Silas shared their whole souls/lives with the Thessalonians. That’s how they were able to model the gospel to them.

1 Thess 2:13
Καὶ διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἡμεῖς εὐχαριστοῦμεν τῷ θεῷ ἀδιαλείπτως ὅτι παραλαβόντες λόγον ἀκοῆς παρ ̓ ἡμῶν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐδέξασθε οὐ λόγον ἀνθρώπων ἀλλὰ καθώς ἐστιν ἀληθῶς λόγον θεοῦ ὃς καὶ ἐνεργεῖται ἐν ὑμῖν τοῖς πιστεύουσιν
… you accepted it not as the word of men but just as it truly is, the word of God

Again, remember my premise: correction or replacement is involved, and the second item is highlighted (prominent) in the current context. Here there is contrast innate between “the word of men” and “the word of God”. Paul had gone to pains earlier (using αλλα) to note the source of their preaching and the motive of their preaching (cf. 1Th 2.3-4 above): It was from God, to please God. Note also the “just as it truly is” statement. This puts even more prominence/importance on the second half of the structure.

So, to recap my position on αλλα, which I’m hoping the above discussion has made evident:

• it indicates correction or replacement
• it involves comparison/contrast between two items: the first premise and the following correction or replacement of that premise
• as such, the correction/replacement is the more important information. If you’re preaching, that is the thing you should focus on, because that is what the author (here Paul with some help from Silas and Timothy) has highlighted in the immediate context.

Was reading Jerome Murphy O’Connor’s St. Paul’s Ephesus: Text and Archaeology (amazon.com), and came across the following paragraph in the context of asylum offered in ancient pagan Greek temples:

It is easy to think of ways in which the safeguard of assessment of individual cases could be nullified. That this in fact happened at the temple of Artemis is clear from Apollonius of Tyana: “But I do condemn the people who by night and by day share the home of the goddess. Otherwise I should not see issuing thence thieves and robbers and kidnappers and every sort of wretch or sacrilegious rascal. For your temple is just a den of robbers.” (Letter 65). The final phrase evokes Jeremiah 7:11, which was used by Jesus apropos of the Temple in Jerusalem (Mark 11:17 and parallels). (Murphy-O’Connor 25)

This is speaking about those who abuse the offer of asylum, those who take up asylum to escape the prosecution they are worthy of. It would be interesting to see a larger examination of this (one that, of course, safeguards against parallelomania). Did a quick search of my Logos library for (bible = "Mk 11:17" and Apollonius) and didn’t find much.

Outside of having started a jaunt through the New Testament in Greek (beginning with the Paulines), here’s what I’ve been reading:

Steve Mason, Josephus, Judea and Christian Origins: Methods and Categories (amazon.com). Right now I’m in chapter five, which is probably one of the more important essays in the book. It’s on understanding Ιουδιαοι as “Judeans” instead of “Jews”, at least for that particular era. He’s almost convinced me, and I’m rather conservative when it comes to these sorts of things.

Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Ephesus: Texts and Archaeology (amazon.com). Several ancient texts concerning Ephesus in one way or another conveniently pulled together in one volume in English translation, as well as some commentary/discussion and writing on archaeology. I figured I needed to get a bit more well versed on the history of Ephesus. Not so long ago I pored over Paul Trebilco’s The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius (amazon.com), which I highly recommend, followed by Peter Lampe’s From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries (amazon.com) which I also recommend if you want some understanding of Christianity in Rome. Books like these reinforce how weak I am in my understanding of the setting in which Paul’s epistles were written and lived. Hopefully I’m improving.

Steve Runge, Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament: A Practical Introduction to Discourse Features for Teaching and Exegesis. Steve is a good friend and co-worker, so I’ve been lucky enough to read through pre-release drafts of his stuff. His work has helped me understand conjunctions sooooooooo much better it isn’t even funny. If you have Logos Bible Software, you should probably consider this book. If you have Steve’s previous work, The Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament, then his discourse grammar is a no-brainer.

I’m also reading some articles from Filologia Neotestamentaria, but won’t list them here.

Recently I noticed that Re 20.4 appears to be the verse in the Greek NT with the most words (that is the longest verse, though I’ve not verified that with a count of letters in the verse). So I figured I’d do a word count of every verse in the Greek NT to verify it. These counts are based on the NA27. “Word” is defined as a space-delimited token (with punctuation stripped), so a crasis (e.g. καγω) is counted as one word.

58 Words: Re 20:4
52 Words: Mk 16:8;* Re 3:12
50 Words: Re 5:13; Re 9:20
48 Words: Re 17:8
47 Words: Lk 6:42; Jn 8:44
46 Words: Jn 20:25
45 Words: Re 6:8
44 Words: Re 11:18; Re 12:10
43 Words: Re 14:18; Re 19:20
42 Words: Jn 18:36; Jn 18:37; Ac 21:11; 1 Jn 2:27
41 Words: Lk 10:21; Re 4:8
40 Words: Mt 2:13; Mt 18:8; Ac 28:17
----------------------
* Mk 16.8 here includes the shorter ending of Mark, accounting for the length of the verse.

Why does Revelation appear to have so many long verses? Was Stephanus getting near the end of his carriage ride and pushing to get to the end? (yes, that’s a joke).

I should note that a length of 15 words (again, according to NA27) appears to be by far the most popular count (over 500 times).

[NB: Since I haven’t posted much recently, I thought I’d cross-post this post from PastoralEpistles.com here as well. —RB]

Our pastor has commenced working through Second Timothy (one of the reasons for my recent jaunt through Second Timothy) and today’s text was 2Ti 1.9-10 (he’d discussed the larger section, 2Ti 1.8-12, last week). But I really don’t see the rationale for splitting this out from the larger unit because it is all one sentence (in the Greek) with components building one upon the other to the crescendo of v. 12. Below is my translation of these verses:

And so do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, or of me his prisoner, but suffer together with me for the gospel according to the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, which has been granted to us in Christ Jesus from times eternal, and now has been revealed through the appearance of our Savior Christ Jesus, who indeed abolished death and brought to light life and immortality through the gospel into which I was appointed herald and apostle and teacher. For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that he is quite capable to guard my deposit until that day. (2Ti 1.8-12)

On my reading, Paul’s first bit about not being ashamed of the testimony or being ashamed of Paul is an attention-getter that is then immediately trumped. This isn’t about Timothy being ashamed, it is about Paul’s exhortation to Timothy to “suffer together” with him for the gospel. In the underlying Greek, the portion after this initial “but” corrects. Timothy is not to be ashamed of Paul’s suffering (or the gospel for that matter), he is instead to join with Paul in his suffering for the gospel.

From here, Paul gives further information on how Timothy can in his right mind sign up for such suffering: the power of God is what will enable him.

As if that’s not enough, Paul then describes what God has already done: he’s saved them (the start of v. 9). In addition to that, he has called them with a “holy calling”.

But what is the holy calling? Paul explains that too. The holy calling is not one given because they are worthy based on the merit of their own works, they are worthy because God has called them to it. God has his own purpose and his grace will enable him to meet that purpose to which he has called Timothy (and Paul).

But Paul isn’t done; he next has to get in some explanation of how this grace works to enable for the holy calling. The grace has been in place since the foundation of time, only recently revealed in Jesus Christ.

And again, Paul isn’t done.

Note how Paul doesn’t just refer to “Jesus Christ”, but to “our Savior Jesus Christ”. This as well is for a reason, it is so Paul can remind Timothy once again of what Christ did. He abolished death (by his grace saving from eternal death) and brought life. He is the life-bringer. And this was done “through the gospel” (remember that thing Paul initially exhorted Timothy to not be ashamed of?). (this is the end of v. 10)

Still, Paul has more.

This gospel, the accounting of how our Savior provided for our deliverance, is what Paul has been called to proclaim. He is a “herald” (a proclaimer), an apostle and a teacher of the gospel. He proclaims it, he advocates it, he practices it and he teaches it.

Paul continues, “For this reason …”. This is Paul’s justification of his suffering. Paul doesn’t hide his suffering, he embraces it. And he wants Timothy to embrace it too. Again, as when the section started, there is a contrastive “but”: “I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed …”. This as the same contrast as the beginning of the section, between suffering and being ashamed of the suffering. Paul offers himself as an example to Timothy: “I’m embracing the suffering, you should too.” (an aside: recall 2Ti 1.7, immediately previous to this whole section, where Paul reminds Timothy that “God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and love and self-discipline”.)

Paul then gives reason for his embracing of the suffering he finds himself in: He knows that the one who saved him will bring him through it until “that day” (which is, in my opinion, an eschatological reference).

The whole section progresses, each clause or phrase expanding some portion of the previous one, making Paul’s case. And it ends up right where it started, advocating the embrace of suffering for the gospel over against being ashamed of the gospel.

From here, Paul will begin to contrast the gospel against the false teaching prevalent in Ephesus, holding up the standard of the gospel. But before then, Paul needs to make the reader aware that there is a choice between the hard way (holding to the gospel and undergoing the suffering which will come) and the easy way (letting go of the gospel and not challenging the false teachers). Paul makes Timothy aware of this choice, encouraging his embrace of the gospel and related suffering, before getting into the ramifications of it.

Also interesting (at least to me) is that throughout this section, Paul is exhorting Timothy to join together with him in this suffering for the gospel; he is not exhorting Timothy to take his place in this suffering. So many times Second Timothy is read as “Paul’s last will and testament” but, at least here, we see that Paul has no hint of wanting to let go of the reins. Timothy is joining together with Paul, he isn’t taking Paul’s place.

J. Harold Greenlee, The Text of the New Testament (amazon.com). Hendrickson 2008. 130pp. ISBN 1598562401.

Thanks to Hendrickson Academic for sending along the review copy (amazon.com).

This is a slim volume (130 pp.) that gives a very basic, very general background to the practice of textual criticism as applied to the Greek New Testament.

First off, it is probably best to say what this book is not: It is not, from all I can tell, intended to compete with the similarly-named volumes from Metzger (now Ehrman/Holmes) or Aland & Aland (tr. Erroll Rhodes). Those are both more academic and comprehensive introductions to textual criticism. Greenlee is geared toward a completely different audience. In this, I think Greenlee’s book is unfortunately named because it will, I believe, be misjudged by textual critics. Actually, it already has been. It was reviewed by the Review of Biblical Literature by none other than Keith Elliott, and was not reviewed positively. After this, it was discussed on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog (here for a comment by Greenlee on Elliott’s review, also here and here for Elliott’s response to Greenlee; check the comments of all posts too).

Despite all of that, to understand Greenlee’s book, one must understand the audience he intends to hit. He is not aiming at an academic audience. This much is obvious in the second paragraph of the book blurb (from Amazon.com, emphasis is mine):

Geared to the lay person who is uninformed or confused about textual criticism, Greenlee begins this volume by explaining the production of ancient manuscripts. He then traces the history of the development of the New Testament text. Readers are next introduced to the basic principles of textual criticism, the concept of variant readings, and how to determine which variant has the greatest likelihood of being the original reading. To illustrate the basic principles, several sample New Testament texts are examined. The book concludes by putting textual criticism in perspective as involving only a minute portion of the entire New Testament text, the bulk of which is indisputably attested by the manuscripts.

This is important to understanding what Greenlee is up to in this book. I’d highly recommend that any pastor/teacher keep Greenlee’s Text of the New Testament (amazon.com) on his short list (near the top, if not at the top) of books to recommend to parishioners who ask questions like: “Why is the KJV New Testament different in spots, and does it matter?” or “Why are there all of these footnotes about ‘other manuscripts’, and what do they mean?” Greenlee’s book is short, to the point, and is pretty much the anti-Ehrman. It will build up, not destroy, the faith of the one asking the questions. (For the record, I’d also put Comfort’s New Testament Text and Translation Commentary (amazon.com) on that pastor/teacher’s short list of books to recommend).

If Greenlee intended to write a book to make textual critics happy, to compete with standards like Metzger and Aland & Aland, then he surely failed, and Elliott’s review is spot-on. But Greenlee didn’t do that. He wrote a book for the average person, sitting in the pew, with some basic questions about the text. Greenlee paints in broad strokes and gives general answers to the questions, which is what his desired audience needs.

Academics and textual critics can continue to nitpick Greenlee’s book, but don’t pay attention to them. If you need something on textual criticism for a basic layperson audience, Greenlee is your go-to book.

A side note: Greenlee is no slouch; check out the range of topics he has authored on over the years.

Before I start this, I should say that I greatly appreciate Bill Mounce and all of the work he's done. It's not easy to write a first-year grammar that anyone besides yourself can productively use. And have you ever really dug into his Morphology of Biblical Greek book? While not my cup of tea, there's an astounding amount of work and understanding distilled in there. So Bill, if you ever read this, know I greatly appreciate your efforts.

But did anyone else skim the Koinonia blog "Mondays with Mounce" this week and find themselves saying "huh?" after the first few paragraphs? Here's the text I'm talking about:

In Mark 5:7 the demon says to Jesus, "I adjure you by God (horkizo se ton theon), do not torment me" (ESV). The TNIV says, "In God’s name don’t torture me!" There are two issues here. The accusative ton theon is an accusative of oath, the name by which the oath is taken. That is why you can translate an accusative with "by," an idea normally connected with the dative.

The other issue is horkizo. BDAG lists its meaning as, "to give a command to someone under oath, adjure, implore." It is more than just a command or a strong request from the demon. The demon wants Jesus to take an oath not to torment him. This explains the "adjure" and "In God’s name." Pretty bold of the demon—asking the Son of God to swear an oath in the name of God.

The bold part is the part that threw me. An "accusative of oath"? Now, I have to admit, I don't have Wallace's grammar handy, so I don't know if he actually lists that one in his accusative categories. But the translation logic, at least as written and briefly argued here, astounds me: We are permitted to translate the accusative with "by" in this instance because τον θεον is an "accusative of oath"? Actually, I guess we're permitted to translate the accusative article τον with "by" because of this label?

Funny, I thought the verb ορκιζω had something to do with that. There's nothing about τον θεον in and of itself here that would cause one to label it as "accusative of oath". We know oaths are involved here because ... well ... the verb ορκιζω is put in the mouth of the demon. In other words, it's the context, not just the accusative.

While we typically wouldn't use "by" to put a Greek accusative structure to English, for some reason the Greeks did use accusatives in such contexts. The Greeks used one particular structure to accomplish this; in English we use a different structure. It doesn't mean we need to give it a fancy label to clue us in to "English" it as if we are translating a standard Greek dative into English; like we need to appeal somewhere for permission or something. We just need to understand the whole structure.

True, BDF §149 describes "Accusative with verbs of fearing, etc., and of swearing", including Mk 5.7 as an example (though in a section on "The Simple Accusative of the Object", not as double accusative, which is discussed in §§155-158). Robertson (p. 483, XI.VII(i)), at least at the point cited by BDAG, takes the causative route here and notes the double accusative in that context.

But all of that stymies me. I'm really supposed to know (and recall?) all that hooey before I can translate ὁρκίζω σε τὸν θεόν as "I implore you by God"? The label doesn't help me understand the Greek any better, it gives one shorthand to English it (lemma + parsing/declension + force labels == English translation). Actually, I may even be understanding the Greek less because I'm relying on the label to tell me how to English something instead of actually understanding the Greek itself. Doesn't the occurrence of ορκιζω along with the double accusative (σε + τον θεον) clue me in to something different going on without having to label the blasted thing "accusative of oath"?

You know, I'm liking some aspects of Robertson's grammar more and more each time I pull it off of my Logos Bible Software bookshelf.

But I don't begrudge BDF for including §149; it is very useful for the information it provides. I do, however, begrudge the notion that I need to have a label in order to justify a translation, because the labels quickly move from explanation of translation to prescription for translation. It's not, "Oh, oaths and stuff, particularly ορκιζω, are "causative" verbs, and they typically take double accusatives — so they get translated like so-and-so" (and yes, I'm not even really a fan of calling the verb "causative"); it is "well this is an accusative of oath, so we translate it using 'by'". Assigning the label becomes the task, with understanding (and translation) following; when the reverse of that process should really be what's going on.

So, in closing, I'll again say I appreciate Bill Mounce's work. And I'll end the post with some words from (near) the end of his post:

The point is this: languages are not codes. You can’t go neatly from one into the other. Words don’t have exactly the same meanings, and neither do grammatical constructions. All translation is both science and art.

[NB: cross-posted from PastoralEpistles.com since I thought folks here might be interested too. I've written two posts already, Second Timothy 1.1-5 and Second Timothy 1.6-7. I will not update this thread, but will update the index post on PastoralEpistles.com as the work progresses. RB]

I think I'm going to begin something that I may or may not finish. I always hesitate announcing a new "series" because I may never finish the series. But, I find myself thinking about Second Timothy now, and thinking about an analysis and discussion of the text.

One initial step I take in thinking about a text is to translate it. But I don't just translate, I also think about the structure of the text. When I did this for the Didache awhile back, I ended up with what I called a "Phrasal Interlinear". I'm starting the same thing with Second Timothy. I may or may not finish. The good news is that I already translated Second Timothy five or six years ago, though it needs some work.

Consulted Resources

I'd be stupid not to consult existing resources for this sort of thing. And there are many. Here are a few of the best. Thankfully, I have all of these (except for Comfort's new textual commentary) in Logos Bible Software.

Texts

Runge, Steven. The Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament. Logos Bible Software. (Uses UBS4 text as primary, includes in-context glosses from the Lexham Greek-English Interlinear New Testament)

Porter, O'Donnell, Reed, Tan. The OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament: Clause Analysis. Logos Bible Software.

Commentaries

Knight, George. Pastoral Epistles (amazon.com) (NIGTC). Eerdmans.

Marshall, I. Howard. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (amazon.com). T&T Clark.

Mounce, William. Pastoral Epistles (amazon.com) (Word Biblical Commentary, Vol. 46). Thomas Nelson

Towner, Philip. The Letters to Timothy and Titus (amazon.com) (NICNT). Eerdmans

Lexicons

BDAG, LSJ, Louw Nida.

Monographs

Van Neste, Ray. Structure and Cohesion in the Pastoral Epistles (amazon.com). Sheffield Academic.

Text-Critical Material

NA27 apparatus

Comfort, Philip W. New Testament Text and Translation Commentary (amazon.com). Tyndale.

Metzger, Bruce W. Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (amazon.com). United Bible Societies

Do check out the new NT Gateway!. I know that Mark has been planning it for a long time, and it's finally up! Hopefully he'll find it easier to maintain.

Do note that Mark's academic blogging is now taking place at Mark Goodacre's NT Blog, so to keep up with the changes you'll need to do the following:

0: Unsubscribe your current subscription to the NT Gateway Weblog.

1: Subscribe to the new NT Gateway Blog, which (I'm guessing) will be centered around the content of the NT Gateway itself.

2: Subscribe to Mark's academic blog.

You should be ready to go!

[NB: cross-posted from PastoralEpistles.com since I thought folks here might be interested too. RB]

One of the catchword arguments that P.N. Harrison uses in his book The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles (amazon.com) has to do with how Paul usually expresses thanks. Here's Harrison:

In expressing his thankfulness to God, Paul consistently uses the word ευχαριστεω (Ro 1.8; 1Co 1.4; 2Co 1.11; Eph 1.16; 5.20; Php 1.3; Col 1.3; 1Th 1.2; 2Th 1.3; 2.13; Phm 4); this author never writes that word, but uses instead the Latinism χαριν εχω (= gratiam habeo) 1Ti 1.12; 2Ti 1.3. (Harrison, 28-29)

I've always been intrigued by this. First, because Harrison assumes his conclusion in the first sentence where he mentions what "Paul consistently uses"; second because he's right about the discrepancy (not Pauline authorship). The Pastorals don't use ευχαριστεω in thanksgiving sections, other Paulines do.

Why bring this up? This morning I began digging back into my translation of Second Timothy, and I ran into 2Ti 1.3, where χαριν εχω is used. And I have a few thoughts on this now.

Some of Harrison's cited instances (Eph 1.16; 5.20) use ευχαριστεω as a participle in a series of modifications, not as the primary verb. His 2Co 1.11 instance may implicitly refer to God as receiving the thanks, but is doesn't explicitly state it. And note that 2Th 1.3; 2.13 use ευχαριστεω as an infinitive, modifying the verb οφειλομεν. Again, not an exact syntactic parallel for the phenomenon under discussion. Note also that Harrison missed 1Co 14.18, which should be added to his list.

Of course, I'd suppose that Harrison (and others) would see these as evidence that Ephesians and Second Thessalonians aren't Pauline either. In any case, the are not direct examples of the phenomenon he is trumpeting, so they shouldn't be listed as evidence for or against his lexical/syntactic argument here.

In the non-Pastorals usage at the head of thanksgiving sections, ευχαριστεω always takes "God" as its complement: "I give thanks to God". More specifically, it is ευχαριστεω τω θεω. In 1Ti 1.12, it is not "God" that Paul thanks with χαριν εχω, it is "the one who has empowered me, Christ Jesus our Lord". Still in the dative, but not quite apples-to-apples.

But that still leaves 2Ti 1.3, which has χαριν εχω τω θεω (compare to ευχαριστεω τω θεω in Ro 1.8; 1Co 1.4; 14.18; Php 1.3; Col 1.3; 1Th 1.2; Phm 4). This is actually Harrison's stronger counterexample (though he doesn't mention it).

My thoughts? Well, εχω (present active indicative first-person) + dative is not unknown in Paul (Ro 12.4; 15.17; 1Co 2.16; 7.25; 8.1; 9.4, 5, 6, 17; 11.16; 12.21; 2Co 3.4; 4.7; Gal 6.10; Eph 1.7; 2.18; 3.12; Col 1.14; 2.1; 2Th 3.9), so it is a structure that Paul could've used. I haven't examined these instances so I don't know exactly what contexts they occur in, if they take references to the deity as complements, etc.

But one interesting item that comes up is Luke 12.50 (yes, Luke). I've always been enamored with the theory that Luke was Paul's amanuensis for the Pastorals, and that his role may have even been closer to co-author. Luke 12.50 is as follows:

NA27: βάπτισμα δὲ ἔχω βαπτισθῆναι καὶ πῶς συνέχομαι ἕως ὅτου τελεσθῇ
ESV: I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!

This is mildly interesting to me because the same thing could be said a different way. In fact, it is said a different way in Mark 10.38:

NA27: ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· οὐκ οἴδατε τί αἰτεῖσθε. δύνασθε πιεῖν τὸ ποτήριον ὃ ἐγὼ πίνω ἢ τὸ βάπτισμα ὃ ἐγὼ βαπτίζομαι βαπτισθῆναι;
ESV: Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”

In other words, in Luke's rewrite of this idea (sure, I think Luke used Mark as source (cf. Lu 1.1-2), but I also think Q is a load of hooey) he uses "I have a baptism" instead of "I am baptized". He uses an εχω construction instead of the plain verb.

I realize it's a reach built on next to nothing, but hey, this is a blog post so why not? Could Luke have done the same thing with Paul's words? Paul says ευχαριστεω τω θεω; Luke writes χαριν εχω τω θεω. Same idea, same stuff being communicated, just a different way of doing it. As Witherington posits, it's the voice of Paul but the hand of Luke.

I've always seen the amanuensis argument (whether it is Luke or not) as a strong one in favor of Pauline authorship/responsibility because we know that Paul uses an amanuensis in other letters. Many of the "style" arguments that seem so valid in challenging Paul's authorship can probably be seen (I'd say better seen) as pointing to different amanuensis situations, not to mention different roles of the amanuensis, influence of listed (and perhaps unlisted) co-authors, genre and the target of the letter.

Anyway, this is too long and I've gotta go. Perhaps more on this later (but perhaps not).

In a previous post, I threatened to do some comparisons between Comfort, Metzger, Omanson's rewrite of Metzger and (where applicable) Westcott & Hort's "Notes on Selected Passages". First, the list of books:

• Comfort: New Testament Text and Translation Commentary (amazon.com) (Tyndale, 2008)
• Omanson: A Textual Guide to the New Testament (amazon.com) (German Bible Society, 2006) This is a "geared towards translators" edition of Metzger's Textual Commentary.
• Metzger: A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition (amazon.com) (United Bible Societies, 1994)
• NET: NA27/NET Diglot (amazon.com) (Biblical Studies Press, 2004). I realize that the non-diglot NET has more notes and may have greater coverage, but the diglot is the only edition I have to hand at present.
• Westcott & Hort: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Introduction and Appendix (amazon.com) (Vol. 2). (MacMillan & Co., 1896)

In this post, I'll provide a list of readings covered in the book of First Timothy. I may expand upon some of the readings in subsquent posts. In this list, the following abbreviations are used: C = Comfort; O = Omanson; M = Metzger; NET = NET Bible TC notes; WH = Westcott & Hort

• 1Ti 1.1: C O M NET
• 1Ti 1.4a: C O M
• 1Ti 1.4b: C O M NET WH
• 1Ti 1.12: C
• 1Ti 1.15: O M
• 1Ti 1.17a: C O M
• 1Ti 1.17b: C M NET
• 1Ti 2.1: C O M
• 1Ti 2.7a: C O M NET
• 1Ti 2.7b: C
• 1Ti 3.1 segmentation: O
• 1Ti 3.1: C M WH
• 1Ti 3.3: C M
• 1Ti 3.16 segmentation: O
• 1Ti 3.16: C O M NET WH
• 1Ti 4.3: WH
• 1Ti 4.10: C O M NET
• 1Ti 4.12: C M
• 1Ti 5.4: C
• 1Ti 5.5: C
• 1Ti 5.16: C O M NET
• 1Ti 5.18: C O M
• 1Ti 5.19: M WH
• 1Ti 5.21: C
• 1Ti 6.3: C M
• 1Ti 6.5: C O M NET
• 1Ti 6.7: C O M NET WH
• 1Ti 6.9: C O M
• 1Ti 6.13: C O M NET
• 1Ti 6.17: C O M
• 1Ti 6.19: C O M
• 1Ti 6.21a: C O M NET
• 1Ti 6.21b: C O M
• 1Ti subscription: C M

Interesting standouts: First, Comfort's coverage is most thorough in number of variations handled. Outside of the "segmentation" issues only noted by Omanson, Comfort misses 1Ti 1.15; 4.3; 5.19. These are areas that are of some text-critical interest, but not necessarily where differences arise in translation. Items that Comfort alone handles include 1Ti 1.12; 2.7b; 5.4, 5, 21.

Westcott and Hort don't intend to be comprehensive (they only have 140 pages for the whole NT), but it is interesting that in 2 of the 5 places they show up, Comfort is silent: 1Ti 4.3; 5.19. The discussion in 1Ti 5.19 is about how a phrase in the Greek text is not found in some extant Latin witnesses. In the case of 1Ti 4.3, it is simply difficult extant text. While these are issues, it is pretty obvious that these sorts of things don't really fit the target that Comfort (and Omanson) are trying to hit. W&H give text-critical information to text critics; Comfort and Omanson translate the text-critical information for a larger audience. Metzger sort of sits in the middle of both.

I may dig further into some of these, particularly those that have examples in every listed source (perhaps 1Ti 1.4b or 1Ti 6.7? 1Ti 3.16 is so well-known as to be over-analyzed), just to compare the level of discussion and style of notes each edition has. Let me know if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Unbeknownst to many, Westcott and Hort published an Introduction (amazon.com) as a second volume to their epochal edition of the Greek New Testament. The Introduction (amazon.com) has a massively detailed description of their text-critical method (330 pages!). It is, essentially, them showing their work. (Oh that other editions ... you know which one(s) I'm talking about ... would follow their lead!)

Another component of the Introduction (amazon.com) is the first Appendix, "Notes on Select Readings", 142 pages of text-critical notes and discussion on problematic readings. Think of it as the precursor to Metzger's Textual Commentary (amazon.com).

I've never read the two (Metzger and WH) against each other. So imagine my surprise when I read the note for 1Ti 5.19 in both, I added the bold:

Westcott-Hort

v 19 ἐκτὸς ... μαρτύρων ] < Latin MSS known to Hier; also apparently Cyp Ambst, who quote no further than παραδέχου; not D2 r nor (<ἐπὶ) G3.

Metzger

5.19     ἐκτὸς εἰ μὴ ἐπὶ δύο ἢ τριῶν μαρτύρων
These words, found in all extant manuscripts of the passage, were absent from some Latin manuscripts known to Jerome, and perhaps also from the copies used by Cyprian and Ambrosiaster, who quote no farther than παραδέχου.

I'm not accusing anyone of plagiarism; I would be surprised if Metzger hadn't consulted WH in writing his volume. This just surprised me.

The release of articles for volume 6 (2009) has commenced. The first article is:

Jintae Kim, "The Concept of Atonement in the Gospel of John"

This journal publishes online first. The PDFs are available throughout the volume year; once the year is over the PDFs are removed and the journal is published in print (by Sheffield Phoenix).

So grab the articles while you can. The volume 5 (2008) PDFs are still up, so grab them while you can; who knows when they'll be taken down.

Also, be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed.

Got some new books in the mail today (with some Christmas fundage from Mom & Dad B; thanks!). I'll likely be blogging about them as I read them. One of them is Philip Comfort's new (and, upon initial review, very excellent) title New Testament Text Translation and Commentary (amazon.com). This is like Metzger's Textual Commentary (amazon.com) only with English New Testament readers in mind as primary readers, though detailed text-critical and Greek variation data is included.

Here's a paragraph from the introduction; this is in the "makes you go hmmmmm ..." department:

Nonetheless, the reader will see that he NU and WH editions often agree on matters of major textual significance. Where the WH and NU diverge, however, NU far more frequently concurs with TR than does WH. Furthermore, where WH and NU differ, I am inclined quite frequently to agree with WH on the basis of documentary evidence. (Comfort, xxvi, bold emphasis added)

Did you catch that? According to Comfort, when WH and Nestle/UBS ("NU" in Comfort's abbreviation) disagree, NU agrees with the TR far more frequently than WH does. I find that very interesting, particularly for the derision and scorn the Alands seem to have for the TR text (second only to their dislike of WH, which for whatever you want to say, seems to me to be the basis of their text).

Appendix D has further information about this, particularly a critique of the "local-geneaological" method which NA/UBS follows. This is interesting as I just read another critique of the local-geneaological method last night in Fee & Epp's NT Texts volume.

Also, I may do some comparisons between Metzger, Roger Omanson's rewrite of Metzger, and Comfort (and, perhaps, W&H's introduction for passages that include material) just to see how they all compare to and complement each other. If that sounds interesting, let me know.

Longtime ricoblog readers may remember two years ago when I posted some on what is known as "Thorough-going Eclecticism", which is the method described, applied and advocated by J.K. Elliott. (Yet another unfinished series ... oh well)

I have to admit some admiration for thorough-going eclecticism, if only as a corrective to the "cult of the best manuscript" phenomenon. It reminds that there are all sorts of reasons for variants, and each one must be studied carefully in light of all sorts of information. For that, I like it. For it's dismissal of all external evidence, I'm not so happy.

I've been reading some in Epp & Fee's* Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism (amazon.com). Chapter 7 in this volume is "Rigorous or Reasoned Eclecticism—Why"? In it, Gordon Fee responds strongly but charitably to the primary proponents of "Rigorous Eclecticism" (Kilpatrick and Elliott, one of his students). It is well worth the read. Here is Fee's final paragraph, with which I concur:

Rational eclecticism is indeed the currently reigning method, and it appears to be a valid one, for it takes seriously both internal questions and the manuscript evidence. Rather than search for a new method as some propose, or jettison historical study as rigorous eclecticism tends to, the present methodological task would seem to be the implementation and refinement of rational eclecticism. It is here that the labors of Professor Kilpatrick and Dr. Elliott should prove to be most useful. Their contributions as to various stylistic features of the NT authors as well as their isolation of the variants where Atticism might be a possible factor have not only increased our knowledge but also widened our perspective when asking the internal questions. For this we express unqualified appreciation.
Epp, E. J., & Fee, G. D. (1993). Studies in the theory and method of New Testament textual criticism (amazon.com) (140). Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans.

* How often can you find a volume edited by two people, each with three-letter last names, one of which is vowel-consonant-consonant and the other which is consonant-vowel-vowel?

In his book A Stylometric Study of the New Testament, Anthony Kenny writes:

The Fribergs divide the Greek conjunctions of the New Testament into three classes. The two clauses or propositions of structures which are joined by a conjunction may be intended to have equal prominence in their context, or one may be given greater weight than another. Accordingly, the conjunctions which link them may be classed as co-ordinating (giving equal weight), as subordinating (introducing a clause less prominent than that to which it is linked), or as hyperordinating (introducing a clause more prominent than that to which it is linked). Thus every conjunction will be tagged either CC, CS or CH. (Kenny, 32).

Based on what I've learned about αλλα, my understanding is that αλλα should always be, in the Fribergs terminology, "hyperordinating". But an examination of their analysis shows that of the 638 NT instances, the Fribergs tag 553 of them hyperordinating (aka "superordinating"), 84 of them as coordinating, and one instance as subordinating. This post examines Rev 2.9, the lone "subordinating" αλλα in the NT.

Οἶδά σου τὴν θλῖψιν καὶ τὴν πτωχείαν, ἀλλὰ πλούσιος εἶ, καὶ τὴν βλασφημίαν ἐκ τῶν λεγόντων Ἰουδαίους εἶναι ἑαυτοὺς καὶ οὐκ εἰσὶν ἀλλὰ συναγωγὴ τοῦ Σατανᾶ. (Rev 2.9, UBS4)

I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. (Rev 2.9, ESV)

There are two αλλα in this verse; according to the Fribergs, the "subordinating" αλλα is the first, τὴν πτωχείαν, ἀλλὰ πλούσιος εἶ ("and your poverty (but you are rich)"). The second is "hyperordinating" (what would be expected).

So, what is it about the first instance that is different? Is it because the αλλα clause is seen as secondary to the primary clause; an in-stream parenthetical comment that doesn't seem to add much to the larger structure? The larger point seems to be built around the comparison between "your tribulation and your poverty and the slander ...", with the party doing the slandering further qualified as not Jews (though they confess to be Jews) but instead a "synagogue of Satan". In this latter instance, "the synagogue of Satan" has the prominence (indeed, Fribergs mark it as hyperordinating, thus it being the "more important" of the conjoined items). This is fairly standard with αλλα, the following statement offering correction to the first one and highlighting the correction.

[Note: The following paragraph has been added subsequent to the original post]

Upon further reflection, I believe the compared clauses are "I know your affliction and poverty" and "but you are rich". The corrective response is not simply to the note of poverty; "affliction" and "poverty" are one unit, joined by και (and perhaps too the genitive phrase following the αλλα?); the correction is to that unit, not simply to being poor.

[Back to the original post]

I'd argue the same thing for the earlier instance. In the context of the two conjoined items, "your poverty, but you are rich" it is the encouragement of the author to his audience. This is the letter "to the angel of the church in Ephesus", thus these words are from Christ to that church. While they find themselves temporally poor, they are to be encouraged that in fact they are rich in what matters. While their circumstances are tough, those circumstances will change—indeed, they already have begun to change. To me, this as well seems to be the basic "corrective" use of αλλα, correcting the first item and marking the correction as the important, salient bit in the comparison of elements.

I'd have to say that, at least with the first instance of αλλα in Rev 2.9, the Friberg's morphology should mark it as "conjunction, superordinating (hyperordinating)" instead of "conjunction, subordinating".

This as well serves as a case to show once again why I don't like such morpho-syntactic labels applied at the word level; it leads many who use such data to think there is something about αλλα itself in this instance that is "subordinating" or "hyperordinating". In reality, the conjunction morphology (part-of-speech) is just a convienent place to hang this item when it rightly belongs at a higher level of the annotation. But since "morphologies" only consider words as data tokens, they only have words to hang such data on—whether it rightly belongs on the word (as several "morphological" criteria do) or whether it rightly belongs at a higher level of the discourse (marking phrasal relations, clausal relations, or discourse-level relations).

While I am fairly sure that the Fribergs don't intend to mark αλλα itself as somehow morphologically producing a "hyperordinating", "coordinating" or "subordinating" result, less-informed use of such resources could easily make (and attempt to defend) such a conclusion. This is a common problem, and it is visible everywhere in everything. Calvin would (rightly) dispute against many who claim to be "Calvinists" as having misrepresented his thought; Darwin would also (rightly) dispute many who claim to be "Darwinists".

Anyway, enough from me. I don't know that I'll work through the 84 "coordinating" instances of αλλα to show how I would instead consider them to be "hyperordinating". But you never know. Maybe. In case you want to peek at them, here are the references:

Mt 24:6; Mk 3:27; 4:22; 6:9; 11:32; 13:7, 24; 14:28, 49; 16:7; Lk 6:27; 7:25, 7:26; 11:42; 16:21; 21:9; 23:15; 24:21, 22; Jn 1:31; 3:28; 5:42; 6:22, 36, 64; 8:26; 11:11; 14:31; 15:21, 25; 16:2, 4, 6, 7, 20; Ac 10:20; 19:2; 26:16; Ro 4:2; 5:15; 6:5; 10:2, 16, 18, 19; 11:4; 1Co 2:9; 3:2; 4:3, 4; 6:6, 11(3x); 1 Co 6:12(2x); 7:7; 8:7; 9:12; 10:5; 12:24; 15:35, 40, 46; 2Co 1:9; 7:11(6x); 8:7; 11:1; Ga 4:8; 4:23; Eph 5:24; Php 1:18; 2:17; 1Ti 1:16; Heb 3:16; Jas 2:18; 1Pe 3:16; Re 2:6; 10:7.

From Epp and Fee's Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism (amazon.com), chapter 5, "The Twentieth Century Interlude in New Testament Textual Criticism", (emphasis mine):

One response to the fact that our popular critical texts are still so close to that of WH might be that the kind of text arrived at by them and supported so widely by subsequent criticism is in fact and without question the best attainable NT text; yet every textual critic knows that this similarity of text indicates, rather, that we have made little progress in textual theory since Westcott-Hort; that we simply do not know how to make a definitive determination as to what the best text is; that we do not have a clear picture of the transmission and alteration of the text in the first few centuries; and, accordingly, that the Westcott-Hort kind of text has maintained its dominant position largely by default. Günther Zuntz enforces the point in a slightly different way when he says that “the agreement between our modern editions does not mean that we have recovered the original text. It is due to the simple fact that their editors … follow one narrow section of the evidence, namely, the non-Western Old Uncials”.
Epp, E. J., & Fee, G. D. (1993). Studies in the theory and method of New Testament textual criticism (amazon.com) (87). Grand Rapids, MI.: Eerdmans.

The quote from Zuntz is from a book that's been on my Amazon.com wishlist for awhile, but I haven't yet obtained: The Text of the Epistles: A Disquisition Upon the Corpus Paulinum: The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1946 (amazon.com). Yet another reason to think about buying it, I guess (I've seen it in footnotes a couple times in the past weeks).

It's Christmas Eve. I don't know about you, but here in Bellingham we have at least 2 feet of snow on the ground, which is very unusual for this time of year. And it's still snowing; we got 4-6" more overnight—with more on the way, according to the weather-dude. I get to shovel my driveway for the fourth time in a week! The Christmas Eve service at our church has been canceled. Mail delivery is off-and-on (so much for that "neither snow nor sleet nor hail" bit). We're hoping the garbage truck makes it to pick up our garbage today. And I've been working from home (thanks, Logos!) since last week Friday. This will be the first real white Christmas, with lots of snow, that I can ever recall experiencing.

I wanted to wish a Merry Christmas to all who read ricoblog, and express my gratitude as well. I know my posting has been sporadic this year; hopefully the posts that I've made have been interesting and thought-provoking in some way.

I've come across a few unique tools and charts that I wanted to make sure all you folks out there in TV-land knew about. I find them incredibly interesting and think that you might too.

So enjoy these goodies, and Merry Christmas!

Christmas Goodie #1: What's in Your Bible? An interactive Canon Comparison Chart.  This is from Bible Study Magazine (which is published by Logos), put together my my friend and colleague (in that order), Vincent Setterholm. You're likely aware that most protestant bodies accept 66 books in the Biblical canon, and that there are "apocryphal" or "deuterocanonical" books that are accepted into other traditions' canons. But did you know that the Ethiopian canon (the widest canon) has both a "broad" and "narrow" canon, and that the broad canon includes stuff like purported letters of Peter to Clement? Check the chart out to get a glimpse of the sorts of things going on in the canons of other traditions.

Christmas Goodie #2: Biblindex: Index of Biblical Quotations and Allusions in Early Christian Literature. This as well is very awesome, hat-tip to Kevin P. Edgecomb at Biblicalia. I've mentioned Biblia Patrisica on this blog before; it is a 7 volume (plus one supplement) set that somewhat exhaustively sets out references among the writings of the Fathers to the Bible. Biblindex makes this information available for query:

This site already allows simple interrogation in a corpus of about 400,000 biblical references, from the volumes of Biblia Patristica, CNRS Editions, 1975-2000, and unpublished archives of the Center for Patristics Analysis and Documentation (CADP).

As Kevin notes, the search function is somewhat byzantine. Read the instructions to figure out how things work, it doesn't work like you might think. But it makes a wealth of hard-to-find material available, with a little work. You should bookmark this site.

Christmas Goodie #3: Collation and Evaluation of OT Apocrypha Translations. The hat-tip goes to Mark Hoffman of Biblical Studies and Technological Tools for this one. This originated in a posting to the Biblicalist yahoo group. There is a cool chart, some XML, and a spreadsheet. Check it out, there is some cool and useful information here.

First, I won't pretend to have all of the answers (or any of the answers, for that matter), but I would like to weigh in on how syntax searching of the OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament might help one get a grasp of the problem and the options.

Disclaimer: I work for Logos, and have blogged extensively on the OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament on the Logos Blog. I'm not writing this post to say that "danielandtonya" are right or wrong (though their approach seems sound to me and I'm guessing their results will be too), or to say that their data sets are somehow in error. I just want to try to assemble their data sets using syntactic searching (and any advantage that relying on syntactic relationship gives) instead of relying on proximity + agreement relationships, with or without exclusion—and see what differences there are and how important or unimportant they might be.

For the uninitiated, this debate is concerning Gal 2.16 (go ahead, read it, and make sure to check the Greek too).

Specifically, I'd like to interact with Hebrew and Greek Reader's three data sets delineated in their "The Jesus Faith - Vol. 3" post (but also described in the Vol. 2 post).

Here are their descriptions of their three data sets, from their Vol. 3 post:

• Data Set 1 - How many times in the GNT is πιστις (in any case) followed by Χριστος (in any case) within four words of each other?
• Data Set 2 - How many times in the GNT is a genitive noun followed by another genitive noun within four words?
• Data Set 3 - How many times in the GNT is πιστις in the genitive case followed by another genitive noun within two words (and words in between are not conjunctions or non-genitive nouns)?

On the first data set, danielandtonya report that the following references are included: Ro 3.22; Gal. 2.16 (2x); 3.22, 26; Phil 3.9; Col. 1.4; 1Tim 3.13; and 2Tim 3.15. My syntax search located one additional hit, James 2.1. The syntax search looks like this:

I'm searching for where πιστις is the "head term" of the word group (loosely, the "phrase"), and where it is either directly or indirectly modified by χριστος. The James 2.1 instance has four words between πιστις and χριστος, so the intervening range is larger than danielandtonya accounted for. I'm not sure that it makes any difference to the argument, and they may have known about it but weeded it out. I just mention it because it was in my results.

On the second data set, danielandtonya report 1,431 hits (in their Vol. 3 post). That's a lot of hits. The syntax search I created narrows it down to 452 hits.* The difference is that the syntax search locates where the second genitive is in some sort of direct relationship with the first genitive, not just where two genitives happen to be within two words of each other. Again, it is relying on the relationship, not the proximity of words (which essentially serves as a loose approximation of syntactic relationship). Whether this makes any difference for danielandtonya's argument I have no idea. But here's the search:

I should note that I'm constraining to nouns because that is the wording that danielandtonya's specification uses; I might also want to consider adjectives in one or both slots, but that's left as an exercise for the reader to complete.

On the third data set, danielandtonya haven't yet reported (at the time of my initial posting), so I'll have to wing it. In OpenText-ese, what they appear to be looking for is when a genitive noun is in close relationship with πιστεως (genitive form of πιστις), hence the two-word proximity constraint, and the further specification that no conjunctions or pronouns intervene. With a syntactic analysis, there is no necessity to consider the exclusion of certain intervening types (such as conjunctions or pronouns) because one is really searching for the relationship between things no matter what may intervene. Here again, between two nouns, a simple "modification" relationship fits the bill (from what I understand of danielandtonya's intent). So my third search is relatively similar to the previous, I've just added that πιστις should be the lemma of the first word in the series:

What did I get for results? Five hits: Ro 3.22; Ga 2.16(2x); 3.22; Col 2.12. All but Col 2.12 were in danielandtonya's first dataset.

And this is where I leave you. I don't have a dog in the "objective or subjective genitive" argument. I don't like any of the labels because they (at least to me) seem to be geared toward answering the "how do I translate it?" question instead of the "how was it understood?" question. Yes; the two are somewhat related, but the primary difference is the end. One seems to think about and try to understand Greek in terms of English; the other at least tries to think about Greek in terms of Greek. Thus, I'm not a fan of labeling things like this. From my view, the obvious ones are, well, obvious; and the debatable ones are debated ad nauseum to little ultimate benefit.

* If you allow for variation in the order of the head term word and modifier, then the count is 458. But as danielandtonya's specifications rely on order, I figured these should too.

At least, that's the book I'd like to see someone write. Mike Aubrey wrote a post called "On the Use of Linguistics In New Testament Studies". It's worth reading, so hop on over and give it a read.

I wrote in the comments:

In my background reading for the paper on αλλα, I found time and again that the dead grammarians had more insight to offer than a lot of the new stuff. Blass-Thackeray was more helpful to me than BDF. Funk’s BIGHG gave the stuff and had no fluff getting in the way. Robertson, when you could find the twelve places he mentioned something, was good. But most newer (published in the last 20 years, let’s say) had survey-itis and classification-itis. It was like listening to a player piano. All the notes were right, but the tune had no soul. The dead grammarians, for all their warts, have soul.

My undergrad degree is in economics. One book I had to read for a senior seminar had the best title ever: “New Ideas from Dead Economists”. I’ve been hoping against hope that someone would write a similar book for Hellenistic Greek, something like “New Ideas from Dead Greek Grammarians” or something like that.

Additionally, though, I have to say that some of the best stuff as an overview on discourse function of conjunctions was in Porter & O'Donnell's 1996 2006 LIABG paper. If you haven't read that, you should.

For those keeping score at home, I've recently purchased the following:

Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (amazon.com). Yes, I should've read this one a long time ago. I've done a lot of work, reading and thinking in the area of use of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers; specifically in the use of the Pastoral Epistles in the Apostolic Fathers. As such, it only makes sense that I should read Hays' classic to see what it can add to the mix. I'm well aware of the criticisms of his work, but it still is one of those books you've got to deal with if you're digging around in this area. So now I've got it, I hope to dig into it soon. Here's the blurb:

Paul's letters, the earliest writings in the New Testament, are filled with allusions, images and quotations from the Old Testament. This book investigates Paul's appropriation of Scripture from a perspective based on recent literary-critical studies of intertextuality.

Andrew E. Bernhard, Other Early Christian Gospels: A Critical Edition of the Surviving Greek Manuscripts (amazon.com). I've been wanting this for awhile and finally took the plunge. I can only say that it is very awesome; giving both transcriptions and reading editions of each early non-canonical gospel as well as translations. Incidentally, this book also ends up being a pretty good "reader"; it has text with familiar vocabulary but unfamiliar content, in Greek and English. The indexes look great too. I can recommend this one highly. Here's the Amazon.com blurb:

Other Early Christian Gospels (amazon.com) collects all the recently-recovered Greek manuscripts containing parts of long-lost early Christian gospels into a single volume. It includes new critical editions, English translations, and exhaustive indexes of the Greek fragments of the "Gospel of Thomas", the "Gospel of Peter", the "Egerton Gospel", and six other unidentified gospels. In addition, "Other Early Christian Gospels" features "student's Greek texts" that present the restored Greek texts without any potentially confusing apparatus, editorial signs, or unidentifiable word fragments. This special student's version makes the fragmentary ancient texts dramatically more accessible to those still in the process of learning Greek.

Finally, I installed the Flavius Josephus Collection (5 Volumes) on my home computer. This package from Logos Bible Software is the perfect complement to the recently-released Josephus in Greek: Niese Critical Edition with Apparatus. The Flavius Josephus Collection includes:

• Steve Mason, Flavius Josephus: Life of Josephus
• Steve Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees: A Composition-Critical Study
• Louis H. Feldman, Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, Volume 3: Judean Antiquities Books 1-4
• Christopher T. Begg, Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, Volume 4: Judean Antiquities Books 5-7
• Christopher T. Begg and Paul Spilsbury, Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, Volume 5: Judean Antiquities Books 8-10

You've heard about it for months, now you can read it too. I've posted my ETS 2008 paper on my conference papers web site.

If you're interested in the background posts I've made regarding the paper over the past nine months or so, see the ETS 2008 category. I've also written a lot that didn't make it in the paper due to length considerations; perhaps I'll consider posting that information in blog-post-sized chunks over the next while if there is interest. This extra material contains primarily review of lexicons, grammars and monographs as well as brief examination of particular instances. If you'd like to see that kind of stuff, please let me know by commenting on this post.

Finally, thanks to all who offered comments and feedback along the way. Particular thanks to Steve Runge for pushing, prodding, and encouraging me through the whole thing. I bit off much more than I could chew, but Steve's help and encouragement along the way saw me to the end. I understand much more now about conjunctions than I ever thought I would. Thanks, Steve.

[Disclaimer: I work for Logos Bible Software and love every minute of it. The links to Logos below are just that, links. I get no commission or brownie points from click-thrus or any sales.]

Logos will be at the national meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (in Providence, RI, Nov 19-21, 2008) and also at the national meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (in Boston, MA, Nov 21-25, 2008).

The specials mentioned below are only available at these conferences. And I'm not even listing all of them, just the ones that I find interesting and which I think you (my humble reader) may be interested in. There are 12 specials designed for the conferences, I'm only listing three of them below. If you'll be at the conferences, please stop by the booth for more info on all of the conference collections, or to purchase them.

These are awesome collections of top-notch texts useful for Biblical Studies. Listed first is perhaps the best deal you'll ever find on the combination of ICC NT vols and several (33!) very useful JSNTS monographs.

New Testament Studies Bundle (64 Vols.)

• International Critical Commentary (ICC): New Testament (30 vols.)
• Library of NT Studies: JSNTS on the Gospels and Acts (16 vols.)
• Library of NT Studies: JSNTS on Paul (17 vols.)
• Linguistics and NT Interpretation – Black, Barnwell, Levinsohn

Show Only Price  $1,199.95
Show Savings (off Retail): $4,541.45

Advanced Greek Supplement (6 Vols.)

• BDAG
• Grammar of the Greek NT in Light of Historical Research – A. T. Robertson
• Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics – Daniel B. Wallace
• Idioms of the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. – Stanley Porter
• Intermediate NT Greek: A Linguistic and Exegetical Approach – R. A. Young
• Learning the Basics of NT Greek with Workbook – Hadjiantoniou

Show Only Price $299.95
Show Savings (off Retail) $111.91

ANE Studies Bundle (30 Vols.)

• Ancient Near Eastern Texts (ANET) – James Pritchard
• Dictionary of Deities & Demons in the Bible
• Ugaritic Library, 12 vols.
• Writings From the Ancient World, 16 vols. 

Show Only Price $639.95
Show Savings (off Retail): $806.94

As I said, that is only three of the twelve bundles. If you're at the show, be sure to ask about the "Scholar's Reference Bundle" which includes all of ICC, all of WBC, and a few other commentary sets. These are specials on the big stuff that you won't want to miss.

Just stumbled across this at Amazon.com (amazon.com). It has a release date of Nov 1 2008, so you can probably pick it up at ETS or SBL if you're going to be there.

Maurice Robinson, David Alan Black, Keith Elliott, Daniel Wallace and Darrell Bock, Perspectives on the Ending of Mark: Four Views (amazon.com). B&H Academic: Nashville. 2008.

It looks like a good one to check out on the perennial problem of the ending of the book of Mark. Here's the description from Amazon.com:

Because it is conspicuously absent from more than one early Greek manuscript, the final section of the gospel of Mark (16:9-20) that details Christ’s resurrection remains a constant source of debate among serious students of the New Testament.

Perspectives on the Ending of Mark (amazon.com) presents in counterpoint form the split opinions about this difficult passage with a goal of determining which is more likely. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary professors Maurice Robinson and David Alan Black argue for the verses’ authenticity. Keith Elliott (University of Leeds) and Daniel Wallace (Dallas Theological Seminary) contend that they are not original to Mark’s gospel. Darrell Bock (Dallas Theological Seminary) responds to each view and summarizes the state of current research on the entire issue.

In my recent post on Ignatius' Christology, Esteban Vázquez asked in a comment:

I wonder if there are any studies out there of St Ignatius' knowledge of the Acts of the Apostles, and what text of it he might have known.

I thought I'd respond since I've done a fair bit of tracking references between the NT and the Apostolic Fathers. I don't have any specific studies on Acts to refer to, but I do have some hints on tracking this stuff down. Here we go.

1. Editions of the Apostolic Fathers (Holmes, Ehrman, Lake and Lightfoot at least, perhaps others) typically have reference indices in the back. Several of these editions cite cross-references in the margin or in footnotes. The Logos Bible Software editions of Holmes, Lake and Lightfoot index these references, so information on any cross-reference is a reference search away. For example, I have an "Apostolic Fathers" collection, I just searched it for "bible in 'Act 20' " to search for references to Acts 20 (any verse). This is a great place to start. The references won't all be quotations/allusions, and the reference may just be topical—but it is a way to get a quick look at what the editions have to offer.
2. The original 1905 edition of The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers is online at archive.org. You could (and should) examine the portion on Ignatius' writings. There is a scripture index in the back, though I don't know if it is comprehensive. Acts 20.28 is not referenced in the index. I find this one so valuable (see some previous work here; hopefully I'll pick up that work again sometime soon) that I have it printed out and on my desk. Do read the front matter to understand how the book works, though.
3. The 2005 two-volume edition of The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (amazon.com) should also be consulted. Mine is downstairs and I'm upstairs on the computer in the office ... and I'm lazy ... so I'm not going to check it right now. Maybe later. But this should be on your list of stuff to check, definitely.
4. If you can find a copy, you want to check Biblia Patristica. But it can be hard to find. So good luck.
5. Hermeneia has commentary editions for Didache, Ignatius, Shepherd of Hermas and the Apostolic Traditions. A reference search of the Ignatius volume turns up the following:

What enflames the Ephesians is “the blood of God”—that is, the blood of Christ. The expression is found in important manuscripts (SB) of Acts 20:28. Tertullian also says that we are bought with a price—the “blood of God” (sanguine dei; Ad uxor. 2.3.1). That “God” suffered (see Rom. 6.3) was acceptable language before criticism required some refinement of the conviction that God (or God’s Son) had become man and died on the cross. Monophysites were later to appeal to precisely such unreflective remarks of Ignatius in defense of their christology. By the term “blood” Ignatius has in mind the passion (Phd. inscr; Sm. 6.1) and/or the eucharist (Phd. 4). Such a reference is appropriate in this context since the eucharistic blood (Tr. 8.1; Rom. 7.3) and the blood of the passion (Sm. 1.1) are both closely linked with “love” by Ignatius (see Introduction, 5.7).
Schoedel, W. R., Ignatius, S., Bishop of Antioch, & Koester, H. (1985). Ignatius of Antioch : A commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch. Includes indexes. Hermeneia—a critical and historical commentary on the Bible (42). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

Lastly, there are several specialized volumes that may come in handy, depending on what you're looking for and how easily you can get to a good library that might actually have them on the shelves. Use the footnotes in the new 2-vol NTAF as a roadmap (amazon.com); they are well worth following. If Ignatius, or Clement, or Polycarp, then see if you can find Lightfoot's multivolume editions (two vols on Clem, three vols on Iggy and Polly). Also, if First Clement, you need to locate Donald Hagner's work on OT & NT quotations in First Clement; it is a gold mine.

Finally, if you're dealing with a specific NT book or subcorpus (e.g. Pastoral Epistles) then commentaries are hit and miss. Again, go to a decent library and check out some technical commentaries, you may strike gold. FWIW, on the Pastorals, I've found the Yale Anchor Bible Commentary volumes (L.T. Johnson on 1&2 Timothy; Jerome Quinn on Titus) and Hermeneia the more valuable ones when it comes to references to the Apostolic Fathers and other early Christian writings; but other volumes in those series may vary. I'd expect Quinn & Wacker on 1&2 Timothy in the Eerdmans Critical Commentary to also be good in this realm (though perhaps not so good in other realms).

Note that Mike Aubrey, of the blog εν Εφεσω, has been doing some blogging on the use of the conjunction δε in the book of Ephesians.

• The Function of δε in Ephesians — Introduction
• The Function of δε in Ephesians — Part I
• The Function of δε in Ephesians — Part II

Do check Mike's stuff out! Conjunctions (function words is the better label, I think, so particles/interjections/etc. are included too) are such a large part of any language and are so blithely treated in many grammatical and lexical works. They seem to be more focused on cataloguing and sorting them than understanding the function they play.

If the depth of your understanding of any conjunction is just to substitute out one or two English glosses when you read the conjunction in Greek ... well ... expand thy vision and understanding, and thine exegesis will surely benefit.

I'm so excited I've got another post on αλλα cookin'!

Just installed the following Logos Bible Software packages to my home computer:

Sheffield/T&T Clark Bible Guides Collection (44 Vols.). This much sought-after and highly esteemed Bible study guide series is concise, comprehensive, manageable and affordable. The Sheffield/T & T Clark Bible Guides Collection (44 volumes) serves as an invaluable resource for students, preachers and Bible study leaders. Each of these books delivers to the reader a thorough and insightful introduction to a particular book of the Bible or the Apocrypha. All the books in the series were written by leading biblical scholars and the authors have drawn on their scholarly expertise as well as their experience as teachers of university and college students.

Writings from the Ancient World (16 vols.) The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) publishes books intended to convey the finest biblical scholarship to students in college, university, and seminary courses, leaders in church and synagogue settings, and members of the general public interested in biblical study. The SBL offers these 16 volumes of Writings from the Ancient World to provide teachers, literary critics, historians, general readers, and students direct access to key ancient Near Eastern writings that date from the beginning of the Sumerian civilization to the age of Alexander the Great. The volumes typically offer historical and literary background to the writings, the original text and English translation, explanatory or textual notes, and a bibliography. These ancient writings—letters, laws, government documents, poems, prayers and rituals—provide a glimpse into the social, economic and religious context of other civilizations before and during early biblical times.

A friend who happened upon Neil Elliott's new book The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire (amazon.com) passed it along to me. There are some intriguing parts, it appears, but there is also a lot of current events/politics that has creeped into the book, from what I can tell. On the intriguing parts, check this excerpt from the introduction:

Unfortunately, rhetorical-critical interpretations of Romans have often done little more than glean from the classical Greek and Roman rhetorical handbooks a novel technical nomenclature for an outline of the letter that has already been established, without the benefit of rhetorical categories, in dogmatic readings. ... Similarly, some interpreters tend to describe the letter in terms resembling the genre of the philosophical treatise or letter essay, though it bears none of the hallmarks of the ancient letter essay. Others seek to identify the rhetorical genre of the letter according to the categories of the ancient rhetorical handbooks, but falter on prior assumptions regarding the letter's purpose.

In contrast, I expect the ancient handbooks to be of only limited usefulness in determining the genre of Romans. The handbooks were designed, after all, for the fairly formal expectations of public oratory in the Greco-Roman world. (Elliott pp. 17-18)

All that said, I figured I'd mention it since I normally mention new books I receive or purchase. I've not read this book (outside of the introduction) and it isn't on my to-read list, but if/when I next hit Romans, I'll probably check it out.

Here's the blurb from Amazon.com:

Product Description
Elliott offers a fresh and surprising reinterpretation of Paul's letter to the Romans in the context of Roman imperial ideology, bringing to the text the latest insights from classical studies, rhetorical criticism, postcolonial criticism, and people's history.

By setting the letter alongside Roman texts (Cicero, Virgil, the Res Gestae of Augustus, Seneca, poets from the age of Nero, as well as later historians and satirists), Elliott provides a dramatic new reading of the letter as Paul's confrontation with the arrogance of empire - and with an emerging Christianity already tempted by the seductive ideology of imperial power.

The Arrogance of Nations (amazon.com) explores such topics as: Empire and the 'obedience of faith'; Justice and the arrogance of nations; Mercy and the prerogatives of power; Piety and the scandal of an irreligious race; Virtue and the fortunes of peoples; and Paul and the horizon of the possible.

About the Author
Neil Elliott, an Episcopal priest, teaches biblical studies at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities and Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis. He is the author of Liberating Paul and The Rhetoric of Romans.

If Romans is your interest, you should probably check it out (amazon.com).

I've been slowly but surely working my way through Reinhard Feldmeier's The First Letter of Peter: A Commentary on the Greek Text (amazon.com), published by Baylor University Press. Sean Winter (of the blog Primal Subversion), who blogs a lot about all things First Peter, mentioned Feldmeier in a post awhile back:

My semi-embarrassing moment [at the International SBL meeting] came when I began to chat to a guy about Reinhard Feldmeier’s newly translated commentary on 1 Peter (which I’m hoping to review soon). This guy was quite persistent that this was one of the best commentaries on 1 Peter. I was a bit hesitant, and I’m quite happy that Achtemeier and Green are the best commentaries on 1 Peter, with Elliott a close second. The banter when back and forth for a while and then we parted ways. Later on, I was told that the person I was talking to was Carey C. Newman, who is down to write a commentary on 1 Peter for the Smyth & Helwys series! Next time I’ll be more careful before I just start blabbing… PS: I still think I’m right about Achtemeier and Green. Feldmeier is helpful, but nowhere near as helpful or insightful as the former two.

Feldmeier's commentary (amazon.com) has a lot going for it, in my opinion. I actually enjoyed reading the introduction and particularly appreciated the focus on recipients/addressees. Feldmeier beat it into my head that the author (we'll call him Peter since that's what the text claims) considers himself and those he's writing to as foreigners. Here's an excerpt:

... one must carefully observe that in 1 Peter, the alienation from the world around them does not in the first place take its character from a negation of the world but is interpreted as the flip side of the belonging to God that is stressed in the whole letter, in 1.1f.; 2.4, 9f., by means of the concept of election as integration into the people of God, in 1.3f., 23; 2.2f., by means of the idea of rebirth as an eschatological renewal of existence. This shows that even though the address as "foreigners" is determined by the societal conflict situation, the foreignness of the Christians is not in its essence derived from protests against society, but from correspondence to God and belonging to his new society. (Feldmeier 14, emphasis his)

In other words, the foreignness of Christians in this world is because Christians belong to God; it isn't some counter-cultural difference. I knew this, but Feldmeier (better, Peter Davids' translation of Feldmeier) put words to this idea in ways I hadn't before read, and that I've profited from.

What about the commentary itself? While there is an extensive bibliography in the back, each commentary section has a section-specific bibliography as well. Layout-wise, the book has real, bona-fide footnotes (yay!) instead of chapter endnotes or that insipid abomination, notes at the end of the book. All in all, a good reading experience.

However, I have at least one thing I'm not pleased with: Latin phrases. Sure I can figure out most of them, but c'mon -- genitivus auctoris? (p. 58); scientia eminens practica? praxis pietatis? (both on p. 43); paralelismus mebrorum? (p. 65). This sort of thing is just unnecessary and useless. Here's an in-context example of useless use of Latin: "The having or not having of such hope thus forms virtually the differentia specifica between Christians and non- Christians..." (p. 68).

I'm still working through the commentary itself; perhaps I'll post more in the future as I continue to work through it.

Thanks to the folks at Baylor University Press, today I received a copy of Reinhard Feldmeier's The First Letter of Peter: A Commentary on the Greek Text. This is a translation of Feldmeier's 1 Peter commentary by Peter H. Davids.

Here's the blurb from Baylor Press' web site:

The New Testament book known as "The First Letter of Peter" describes how Christians should relate to the world. Specifically, it suggests how Christians should define themselves against a powerful and sometimes hostile culture. Written to first-century Christians in Asia Minor who were suffering from religious persecution, this letter brings Biblical and extra-Biblical traditions together to forge an original and unique pastoral strategy. At the same time, in its depiction of "practical piety," the letter is an impressive display of early Christian theology. Here, one of the world's authorities on Peter provides a verse by verse interpretation of First Peter that is both highly readable and deeply informed.

Here are a few back cover blurbs:

Reinhard Feldmeier has produced an exceptional commentary that is not only brilliant academically, but one that is also edifying. Feldmeier is at once erudite and accessible. Here is an exegetical commentary that unfailingly leads the reader to the meaning and significance of the text. I recommend it with the greatest enthusiasm. Donald A. Hagner

This volume is among the most important theological commentaries of 1 Peter written during the modern era. The thematic of the church's "foreignness" within a pervasively pagan culture, a continuing interest of Feldmeier's by which he orients his interpretation of 1 Peter, yields extraordinarily evocative insights for today's post-Christian church. Fully fluent with the social and literary worlds that shaped the letter's composition and the complex history of its reception into the 21st century, Feldmeier is able to produce an informed and richly detailed exegesis of 1 Peter. His steady interest in the church's "practice of piety" as a practical expression of Christian existence will surely lend this commentary for use by preachers and teachers as well. Robert Wall

The book is in two primary parts, the first "Introduction" (47pp) and the second "Exegesis" (210pp, including 11 excurses). There is a very large bibliography (34pp) and a reference index (22pp) as well, though no subject/topic index.

I'm looking forward to reading through it and reporting about the book as I do. Thanks again, Baylor Press!

Ran across this yesterday, figured I'd pass it along based on my previous post on this word:

Aposiopesis ( = "hushing") is the abrupt termination of a sentence whose ending may be inferred from tone or gesture, or gathered from what has gone before. Examples may be seen in Lu 13.9; Lu 19.42; Jn 6.62; Ac 23.9.
Moulton, James Hope. An Introduction to the Study of New Testament Greek. (p. 232) 2nd ed., rev. London: Charles H. Kelly, 1903.

As I mentioned earlier, a blog post I wrote a few years back was footnoted on p. 151 in the proceedings from the 2006 LIABG symposium.

The article is titled "Conjunctions and Levels of Discourse", by Stanley E. Porter and Matthew Brook O'Donnell, running from p. 145 to p. 156 and is basically the same paper that was presented to the European Associate of Biblical Studies Annual meeting in Budapest, Hungary, from Aug. 6-9, 2006.

I never thought I'd be footnoted in a serious grammatical discussion; I suppose this is proof that the blogosphere can have some sort of influence/impact on current discussions in all areas of Biblical studies. Even blog posts by a motivated autodidact (read: no graduate degree held) such as myself.

The context is in the section of the article titled "3. The Greek Conjunction System", speaking of "Vertical Axis of Levels of Discourse". This has to do with the level of discourse on which the conjunction may function. Is it just a joiner of words or word groups, or is the joining further up (vertically) the ladder of discourse (join words, join word groups, join clauses, join clause complexes, paragraphs, discourses or whatever).

The post that Porter & O'Donnell refer to is about 1Th 5.15. In that post, I don't really make any statements, I just ask a lot of questions about how αλλα functions based on what happens with constituent order before and after αλλα. I was asking if αλλα might be doing something more in that context.

Porter & O'Donnell's point on p. 151 is that αλλα functions "only at the lower levels (but perhaps not the lowest level of the word). This conjunction joins word groups in Mt 9.13 ... clauses in Mk 4.17 ... and clause complexes in 1Th 5.15." (Porter & O'Donnell, Proceedings, 151).

Now, I would say that what I suggested in 2006 concerning αλλα in that instance was wrong (specifically the section breakdown near the top of the post); v. 15 is a standard μη .. αλλα instance, where v. 15a is a foil that serves to make 15b more prominent in the discourse. On the segmentation of units, I think Porter & O'Donnell's suggestion in the footnote (vv. 14-15a, 15b-18a, 18b-21ff) is fine. I have no problem using the term "clause complex" instead of "subparagraph" or "paragraph"; those are all strange terms that mean what one wants them to mean anyway. The idea that αλλα is somehow indicating a relationship between two separate clause complexes (vv. 14-15a & 15b-18) is the important bit for my concerns with αλλα at present.

My confusion today stems in the sentence that runs from p. 151 through 152. In the above-quoted portion of p. 151, they limit αλλα to word group, clause, and clause complex connections. But on the sentence running from pp. 151-152, they note:

An initial analysis indicates that there are a limited number of conjunctions that function at all of the levels of discourse. These include only και, δε, αλλα, and some of the negative conjunctions, such as ουδε and  μηδε. All of the rest of the conjunctions are more circumscribed in the linguistic levels at which they may be used (Porter & O'Donnell, Proceedings, 151-152)

Porter & O'Donnell's only level above clause complex is paragraph (I think, they don't seem to explicitly list them but they mention paragraph above clause on p. 151); and the only level below word group is word.

[Corrected, 2008-06-04] Porter & O'Donnell list the following discourse levels along the vertical axis: word, word group, clause, clause complex, paragraph and discourse (p. 151)

I would say that there are instances of αλλα that join paragraphs, and Porter & O'Donnell seem to acknowledge this as well (based on p. 152). That's good, because I plan to have examples of αλλα functioning at the paragraph level in my ETS paper (unless my preliminary analysis changes between now and then, which it may). But this discussion gives me some more support in positing αλλα as a paragraph conjoiner in certain contexts.

Poking around the LIABG ("Linguistics Institute of Ancient and Biblical Greek") site, I happened upon the proceedings from the 2006 symposium. This was nice, because while I was invited I wasn't able to make it (was married the previous month).

In the proceedings, I skimmed the article "What's Up in Syntax" and ran across the following, which I found helpful:

In traditional analysis predication involves a grammatical subject about which a predication is made. In the sentence All dogs have tails. The noun phrase All Dogs is the subject and the possession of tails is predicated of dogs with ‘have’ serving the predicating function. An alternative view of predication asserts that this relation is between a predictor and one or more arguments, in which case both All dogs and tails are viewed as arguments or terms with have (the predicator) functioning to form a relation of predication between the two. Complements are generally taken to be elements required by the predicator whereas adjuncts are nonobligatory elements, providing circumstantial information. Head terms or controlling terms govern the terms to which they stand in relation, as in ‘The head is the noun in the NP’ (Van Valin and LaPolla, 1997: 67). The marking of head terms typologically continues to be debated among linguists (see Zwicky, 1985; Hudson, 1987). Head terms receive various levels of modification in which a dependant terms modify the head through qualification (a limiting relation), specification (a classifying or identifying relation) or definition (further defining) (see Halliday, 1976: 59-66). A head term with its modifiers forms a group. Groups can be nominal, verbal, adverbial or conjunctive (Halliday, 2004: 310; Morley, 2004: 74-83). Coordination relations, realized through the conjunction system, are used to relate groups or modifiers within groups. (2006 LIABG Proceedings, p. 11)

If you've worked at all with the OpenText.org analysis in Logos Bible Software, the above may help a bit in understanding the analysis (which uses these labels). For example, if you've ever wondered what the difference between a complement and adjunct is, the above gives you a rule of thumb: Complements are required, Adjuncts are non-essential.

If you dig this stuff, or if you want to know more, I'd recommend reading the introduction to Jeffrey T. Reed's A Discourse Analysis of Philippians (amazon.com) (also part of the "Studies in New Testament Greek" collection, hopefully available sometime in the future for Logos Bible Software (on pre-pub at the time of post composition))

Bonus: A blog post I wrote in 2006 is footnoted in one of the articles of the proceedings (p. 151 of the proceedings). It was news to me when I learned of it. Interestingly, that blog post had to do with αλλα. Let's just say I've come a long way in understanding αλλα in the past two years. Maybe I'll write about the footnote in a future post.

My friend and colleague Steve Runge has recently had a few things published that you may find helpful.

In April, RBL published a review of Ivan Shing Chung Kwong's The Word Order of the Gospel of Luke: Its Foregrounded Messages (amazon.com). This sort of stuff (word order studies) is right up Steve's alley and I was looking forward to see Steve's take on Kwong's approach.* The review is thorough, even if it is only 8 pages. If you have even the slightest interest in Greek word order, you need to read this review.

The Journal of the Linguistics Institute of Ancient and Biblical Greek (JLIABG) has commenced publishing its inaugural issue online. Steve's article, "Relative Saliency and Information Structure in Mark's Parable of the Sower", is the first article in the inaugural issue. How cool is that? The PDF is available online, so do check it out. Here's the abstract:

Levinsohn claims that the near and far demonstratives (οὗτος and ἐκεῖνος respectively) can be used non-deictically to encode relative thematic saliency of discourse referents, with οὗτος being used to mark the more salient constituent. In applying this concept to the Markan explanation of the Parable of the Sower, Levinsohn’s claim would indicate that the descriptions of the three unfruitful scatterings of seed are more salient to the writer than the productive scattering that bears fruit. The other synoptic accounts do not seem to make such a distinction in salience, using the near demonstrative οὗτος for both the unfruitful and fruitful plantings alike. Are there other means of analysis to either corroborate or overturn the view that the unfruitful plantings are more thematically salient in Mark’s account?

This study applies the cognitive model of Chafe and Givón, and the information- structure model of Lambrecht as applied by Levinsohn to the Markan explanation of the Parable of the Sower (4:14-20). The primary objective is to identify and analyze other linguistic devices, besides demonstratives, which might clarify the apparent prominence given to the unfruitful scatterings in Mark’s account. This study provides the necessary framework for comparing Mark’s pragmatic weighting of salience to that found in the other synoptic accounts in order to determine whether Mark’s version is consistent or divergent with the other traditions.

Also note that the JLIABG has an RSS feed to notify of new article postings: http://feeds.feedburner.com/jliabg.

* Disclaimer: I actually badgered Steve into doing the review when I saw the title was available for review from RBL. He's repaid the favor by suggesting I look into the use of αλλα in non-negative contexts. I'd say we're about even.

Many thanks to Hendrickson for sending David Scholer's Social Distinctives of Christians in the First Century: Pivotal Essays by E.A. Judge (amazon.com) along for review; apologies it took me so long to get to it. Why did it take so long? There are a number of reasons, but there are probably two primary reasons. The first is that I've had available time to read as of late (and this for a number of factors, the primary being doing research/background for my paper on αλλα); the second is that the book didn't suck me in.

Let me be a little more clear. I've really wanted to be sucked into this book; the title sounds like something I should really be interested in. But, apart from the first essay, it didn't. I'm grateful to have the book, and am sure the essays will prove helpful in the long run, but for now it isn't drawing me in.

Here is the blurb from Hendrickson:

This is a collection of pivotal essays by E. A. Judge, who initiated many important discussions in the establishment of social scientific criticism of the Bible.

What is it that made the work of Judge in 1960 and in subsequent years so important? Judge was the first in scholarship after the mid-twentieth century to clarify early Christian ideals about society by defining what the social institutions of the broader cultural context were and how they influenced the social institutions of the early Christian communities. Judge points out that earlier scholars had entered into this field of inquiry, but that, in general, they failed due to the lack of careful definitions of the Greco-Roman social institutions at the time based on a thorough use of the primary sources.

Thus, Judge was the “new founder” ( a turning point in scholarship) of what came to be called social-scientific criticism of the New Testament. Social-scientific criticism is the term in scholarship that refers to the use of social realities (e.g. institutions, class, factors of community organization) in the critical study of literary sources available (this is an advance over “merely” literary and traditional historical questions).

And here is the TOC:

Introduction by David M. Scholer
Permissions

1. The Social Pattern of the Christian Groups in the First Century
2. Paul’s Boasting in Relation to Contemporary Professional Practice
3. St. Paul and Classical Society
4. St. Paul as a Radical Critic of Society
5. The Social Identity of the First Christians: A Question of Method in Religious History
6. Rank and Status in the World of the Caesars and St. Paul
7. Cultural Conformity and Innovation in Groups in the First Century Paul: Some Clues from Contemporary Documents
8. The Teacher as Moral Exemplar in Paul and the Inscriptions of Ephesus

• A Comprehensive Bibliography of the Society Publications of Edwin A. Judge
• First Index of Modern Authors
• Index of Subjects
• Index of Ancient Sources

"Aposiopesis" is a new one for me. Stumbled across this one reading R.T. France on Mk 11.31-33 (in his NIGTC volume) this morning.

The four words that remain, ἀλλὰ εἴπωμεν ἐξ ἀνθρώπων, can be construed either as the beginning of a second conditional clause matching ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ἐξ οὐρανοῦ in v. 31, but with the ἐάν left unexpressed, or as a further deliberative question, ‘But shall we say “From men”?’, or even as a tentative decision on their part, ‘But let us say “From men” ’, which is then aborted by their recognition of the diplomatic gaffe that would involve. While the general sense is clear, the syntax is awkward, and the decision on how to punctuate the aposiopesis after ἀνθρώπων is a matter of taste.

France, R. T. (2002). The Gospel of Mark : A commentary on the Greek text (455). Grand Rapids, Mich.;  Carlisle: W.B. Eerdmans;  Paternoster Press.

Here's the definition from MW's eleventh edition:

"the leaving of a thought incomplete usu[ally] by a sudden breaking off (as in “his behavior was—but I blush to mention that”)

Merriam-Webster, I. (2003). Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary. Includes index. (Eleventh ed.). Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc.

Here's the text; France is referring to the spot in v. 32, at the end of the words attributed to the scribes and chief priests (where the ESV has an emdash).

31 And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ 32 But shall we say, ‘From man’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet. 33 So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.” (Mk 11.31-33)

Update (2008-05-26): Two excellent comments on this post. The first, from David Fish, is a pointer to a blog post of his own where he recollects his first experience with aposiopesis. Do check it out, and check out David's blog, Random Thoughts from a Fish, as well. 

The second is a comment from Dave Novick, reminding us to check Bullinger's Figures of Speech for these sorts of things. Dave writes, "He's got an article devoted to it on page 151. The article divides the good number of Biblical examples into 4 categories: Promise, Anger and Threating, Grief and Complaint, Enquiry and Deprecation. I thought I'd pass that on, in case you (and others) weren't already familiar with it."

So there you go.

One thing I'm doing to get an idea of how αλλα functions is examining synoptic parallels for instances of non-negative αλλα. Do the parallels also use αλλα? If not, are they using different structures to communicate the same thing, or are they communicating different things?

Here's my initial rough draft for the instance in Mt 9.18.

Mt 9.18 (|| Mk 5.23 || Lu 8.41-42)

18 Ταῦτα αὐτοῦ λαλοῦντος αὐτοῖς ἰδοὺ ἄρχων εἷς ἐλθὼν προσεκύνει αὐτῷ λέγων ὅτι
    Ἡ θυγάτηρ μου ἄρτι ἐτελεύτησεν
    ἀλλὰ ἐλθὼν ἐπίθες τὴν χεῖρά σου ἐπ’ αὐτήν καὶ ζήσεται
       (Mt 9.18, NA27)
18 While he was saying these things to them, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying,
    “My daughter has just died,
    but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.”
        (Mt 9.18, ESV)

The parallels in Mark and Luke disclose that the “ruler” in this instance is Jairus. His daughter has died; he desires Jesus to heal her and restore her to life. In this case, there is a degree of contrast involved in the context. Jairus is asking for Jesus to move his daughter from the state of death (τελευτάω, aorist active indicative) back into the state of life (ζάω, future middle indicative). The underlying contrast is both lexical (contrast between death and life) and grammatical (between the aorist and future tenses). In this instance, αλλα functions as a hinge between the two contrasting statements, heightening the contrast and shifting focus onto the apodosis: Jairus believes that if Jesus comes and touches her, she will live.

The differences between the synoptic accounts of this event are notable. Here are the Markan and Lukan accounts:

23 καὶ παρακαλεῖ αὐτὸν πολλὰ λέγων ὅτι
    Τὸ θυγάτριόν μου ἐσχάτως ἔχει
        ἵνα ἐλθὼν ἐπιθῇς τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῇ
            ἵνα σωθῇ καὶ ζήσῃ (Mk 5.23, NA27)
23 and implored him earnestly, saying,
    “My little daughter is at the point of death.
        Come and lay your hands on her,
            so that she may be made well and live.” (Mk 5.23, ESV)

41 καὶ ἰδοὺ ἦλθεν ἀνὴρ ᾧ ὄνομα Ἰάϊρος
καὶ οὗτος ἄρχων τῆς συναγωγῆς ὑπῆρχεν
καὶ πεσὼν παρὰ τοὺς πόδας τοῦ Ἰησοῦ παρεκάλει αὐτὸν εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ
    42 ὅτι θυγάτηρ μονογενὴς ἦν αὐτῷ ὡς ἐτῶν δώδεκα καὶ αὐτὴ ἀπέθνῃσκεν
Ἐν δὲ τῷ ὑπάγειν αὐτὸν οἱ ὄχλοι συνέπνιγον αὐτόν (Lu 8.41-42, NA27)
41 And there came a man named Jairus,
who was a ruler of the synagogue.
And falling at Jesus’ feet, he implored him to come to his house,
    42 for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying.
As Jesus went, the people pressed around him. (Lu 8.41-42, ESV)

In the Markan and Lukan accounts, Jairus initially represents his daughter as being sick unto the point of death but still alive; information of the girl’s death comes later from a servant who arrives on the scene (Mk 5.35 || Lu 8.49). In Matthew she is represented as being dead throughout Jesus and Jairus’ interaction.

In Mark, Jairus’ request is twofold: “so that she be made well and live”. The request in Luke is much more subtle: “he implored [Jesus] to come to his house”. But recall that in Matthew, the request is not to make Jairus’ daughter well, but for Jesus to place his hands on her so that she may live again.

Matthew, compressing the event of Jesus and Jairus’ initial interaction, packs all of the contrast and drama of the event into Jairus’ request that Jesus, by touching his daughter, restore her life from death. Jairus by his statement shows that he thinks Jesus is able to, with his very touch, restore the dead to the living. Mark and Luke both spread this aspect of the drama out. First, Jairus requests that Jesus heal his daughter (Mark only refers to Jesus healing through touch; Luke has Jairus requesting that Jesus simply come to his house to heal, with means unspecified). Then the interlude with the healing of the woman with the issue of blood, who is healed through touching Jesus’ garment, which shows the power of Jesus to heal by touch. Only after this do Mark and Luke update the reader with the further information that Jairus’ daughter has died. They both do this by focusing on the hopelessness of the situation; now that the daughter has died there is no reason to further bother Jesus. But Jesus overhears this report (Mk 5.36 || Lu 8.50) and goes to Jairus’ house anyway, where his touch—in all accounts he takes the daughter by the hand—restores her to life.

In Matthew, then, Jairus’ request is initially larger and more hopeless. Instead of asking Jesus to heal his daughter from a grave illness, he asks that his dead daughter be restored to life. Each synoptic account uses different grammatical means to make this request: Mark focuses on means, requesting Jesus’ touch to reverse the slide from death back toward life. Luke focuses on Jairus’ method of request, passionately imploring that Jesus come to his house to heal his dying daughter. Matthew’s version, with αλλα in a non-negative context, relies on the contrast between death and restoration to life to quickly establish the impossibility of the situation. Mark and Luke reinforce/increase the hopelessness later (and thus increase the drama) by the introduction of the servant with news that Jairus' daughter has, in fact, died.

All three instances end up in the same place, with Jesus’ touch restoring Jairus’ daughter to life. Matthew’s use of αλλα in a non-negative context is the only instance that places all of the contrast at the head of the story, previous to the healing of the woman with the issue of blood.

(end of what I wrote this AM)

Which account do I like best? Actually, I like Mark's version the best because of the progression:

• Jairus: Your touch will heal my daughter, so she will live.
• Jesus: Whoa, who touched me?
• Woman: I did. And I'm healed.
• Jesus: Your faith has made you well.
• Jairus' servant: Don't waste your time bothering Jesus, Jairus, your daughter is dead.
• Jesus: Don't fear, only believe.
• Jesus goes to house.
• Mourners: You're too late, she's dead.
• Jesus: She's not dead, she's only sleeping.*
• Jesus: Takes her by the hand, asks her to rise, and she does.

The whole thing starts with Jairus stating Jesus' touch will heal. Then the woman with the issue of blood touches Jesus' garment and is healed. Then we find out that Jairus' daughter is dead. Then it's confirmed she's dead. Then his touch raises the dead girl; though Jesus is quick to teach it isn't necessarily his touch, it is the belief—the belief of the woman with the issue of blood that she'd be healed, and the belief of Jairus (stated at the start of this episode) that Jesus could make his daughter better. I think that ties it better together than Matthew's or Luke's versions of the story. I'd take Matthew as a close second. Mark creates more suspense/drama with the progression from gravely ill to dead; Matthew front-loads the contrast (using lexical and grammatical means, and marking it even more by using αλλα) and the drama, making Jairus' faith in Jesus to heal seem even greater.

* Resisting urge to write, "She's only mostly dead ..."

Why? Because, if you take the time to read or at least peruse their 330 page Introduction to their NT (amazon.com) (published in a second volume with an appendix), you see that they fill in most if not all of the details of the how & why of their edition.

What sort of stuff? Well ... who'd've thunk that two pages on casing of κυριος, Χριστος and υψιστος would be appropriate? Sometimes on reading an upper-cased Κυριος or a lower-cased χριστος (In NA27, not WH) I've often wondered "why is that one upper-cased/lower-cased?"

WH show their work and tell you why, at least in their edition — and why, in four instances in Luke (Lu 1.32; Lu 1.35; Lu 1.75; Lu 6.35) they also upper-cased Υψιστος. They take two pages (pp. 316-318; §§414-416) to tell you. Here's §416, explaining their capitalization of Υψιστος:

416. An initial capital has likewise been used for Υψιστος in the four places, all in St Luke's Gospel, in which it stands in the singular without an article. In this shape it exactly represents the anarthrous Elion, a very ancient name not confined to the Jews, and is virtually itself a proper name. In the LXX the article is usually inserted: but in Ecclesiasticus, doubtless a better authority for Palestinian custom, Υψιστος occurs frequently, and has the article but once, except in combination with another title.

More than you ever wanted to know, but helpful nonetheless. If you're looking for a copy of WH's Intro/Appendix, then you want the 1896 edition which has corrections/updates.

Why do I like this so? Whether I agree or not, I can at least know what in the world they were thinking. You can't do that with any other print edition; none are nearly as transparent as WH were. We'd all do well to re-learn this lesson.

Wipf & Stock have done a recent photo-reprint, available in paperback (amazon.com).

Hendrickson did a reprint in the late 1980's, in hardcover (amazon.com). Some used copies of this are available via Amazon.

Which do I recommend? I don't know, I've not used any of the reprint editions. Years ago, I found a copy of the 1896 edition via abebooks from a seller in Australia and snapped it up quickly.

If you work with the Greek New Testament and do anything remotely pertaining to textual criticism (the appendix "Notes on Select Readings" is a mini-Metzger for WH's edition and their "Notes on Orthography" will tell you more than you wanted to know about spelling in their edition); or if you have interest in orthography, punctuation, and other particulars of producing and fully utilizing a printed edition of the Greek NT, then you need this book; whether the Hendrickson hardcover (amazon.com) or the Wipf & Stock softcover (amazon.com).

Update (2008-05-14): Thanks to Mark from the Bible and Tech blog for pointing out that WH's Intro/Appendix volume is available via Google Books. So grab it and absorb!

A comment from Justin on a recent αλλα post noted:

I ran into a funny αλλα recently.  In 1 Peter 3.16 there is a use that seems to develop the previous verse thought.  If it were to contradict the previous thought it would be a really strange translation.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

Here's the response I emailed back to him:

There's a lot going on in 1Pe 3.13-16 with both δε and αλλα.

One of my contentions/thoughts about αλλα is that yes, it is a marker of contrast, but contrast has a range -- is isn't simply on or off; it is more like a dial than a switch. The range has to do with contextual cues. When the context of αλλα involves a negative then a positive (e.g., "not [that], but [this]") the contrast is high. Contrast is similarly high with positive-negative  context (e.g., "[that], but not [this]").

There are, however, a small portion of αλλα that seemingly involve no negative (at least directly). The two αλλα in 1Pe 3.13-16 fit in this group. So I'd say they're still contrasting, it is just not as blatant because the author isn't using contextual cues (positives/negatives) to amp up the contrast. In vv 15-16, the contrast is much more subtle, having to do with the way the defense is made. A more amped-up way of saying it would be, "Be prepared to make a solid defense, but don't bite the guy's head off". The contrast is in the way the defense is made, it isn't made ... er ... defensively, it is made positively and respectfully but strongly. Peter didn't use the amped-up version, and he did that on purpose because that was what he needed to do to make his point. The spotlight is still on the portion following αλλα (make the defense with gentleness and respect); that is the important bit of the comparison/contrast.

At least, that's what I think right now. I hope to look into each of the non-negative instances (there are over 90 of them) a bit further over the next months.

I've got a lot of work to do before finishing this paper ...

I've recently finished a first-pass examination of every instance of αλλα in the Apostolic Fathers. While I report numbers here, the big thing to notice are trends; the specific numbers may change as I re-evaluate things between now and November.

There are no surprises in the 352 instances evaluated.

First, αλλα usually occurs with a negated clause or phrase.

• The negator μη (or something very much like it, such as μηδε) is used 82 times.
• The negator ου and its kin are used 188 times (though note some of these are ου μη).

When I say μη or ου, I'm also including things like μη μονον and ουκ μονον and even ουδεν, μηδεν, μηκετι, ουκετι and stuff like that. Maybe not completely and technically accurate, but I have the details down in a spreadsheet I can use later to disambiguate if need be.

There are 76 'clearly' positive (so, no negator on either side of αλλα); there are six that I've found confusing enough to pass on for now. What could be confusing? Sometimes negators are involved, though it is difficult to determine if the entire context is negative, or if something else is going on. These usually involve use of μηδεν.

Recall, my submitted abstract involved examining the "positive" instances, so these instances will be followed up and re-examined.

As mentioned above, the negator occurs both before and after αλλα.

• Of the 82 instances of the negator μη, there is only one that has the negator after αλλα, though there are four instances (e.g. Ign Tral. 5.1) that have negators on both sides of αλλα.
• Of the 188 instances of ου and its kin, 21 instances occur after αλλα (αλλʼ ουκ is a relatively common formation), and seven instances that have negators on both sides of αλλα.

What have I found most interesting? Well, it has to be how the Shepherd of Hermas uses αλλα without negation. Of course, this is the largest item in the corpus of the Apostolic Fathers, but 39 of the 76 'positive' instances are found in the Shepherd. There are some pretty cool things going on in those 39 instances that have no analogue in the New Testament; I'm guessing that I'll end up working through a few of them for the paper as examples of how αλλα functions and what that means for evaluating αλλα from the perspective of discourse analysis.

What's my next step? I have similar data tables for the NT and the Apostolic Fathers. I believe my next step will be to re-evaluate the positive instances in the NT (90 clearly positive instances out of 638; but I have 35 more complex/confusing instances to re-evaluate and classify). After this, I'll be able to really start writing. I've already got a high-level outline in my head, it'll be interesting to see how it fleshes out.

I'm looking at the instances of αλλα in the Apostolic Fathers. One very peculiar set of instances (seven instances in two verses) occurs in Hermas, Visions I.iii.1-2. (watch out, I may blog about it later to work though some thoughts)

Of course, I'm using the Logos version of Holmes (2nd edition). So, while in Vis. I.iii.1, I right-click and do a "Search for References to Herm., Vis I, iii, 1". One tiny little right-click.

Across my library, 148 instances of references to the verse (including ranges that include the verse) in 15 books. Books like:

• TDNT
• Nag Hammadi Library in English
• BDAG (very handy; this gives me links to all the articles that cite the verse, sort of like a reader's edition!)
• ICC vols
• NIGTC vols
• A Semeia volume
• Some Hermeneia volumes, including several in the volume on the Shepherd of Hermas.

How cool is that?

Muchas gracias por Hendrickson for sending along the following:

David M. Scholer, editor. Social Distinctives of the Christians in the First Century: Pivotal Essays by E.A. Judge (amazon.com).

This title sounds wonderful; I'm really looking forward to delving into it and blogging about it as I work through essays.

Jerry L. Sumney. Philippians: A Greek Student's Intermediate Reader (amazon.com).

I've blogged about some recently-released Greek readers in the past (here, here, here, here, here and here) so it only makes sense to give this one a look-see as well. I'll let you know what I find.

The Epistle to the Romans uses μη γενοιτο (usually translated, "May it never be!" or "By no means!") five times. In four of those instances, it stands between a counterpoint and point that has αλλα as hinge (Ro 3.31; 7.7, 13; 11.11; the other instance is Ro 6.15). [On Counterpoints and Points, see this article on the Logos blog and also see this conference paper on negation by Dr. Steve Runge -- RB] Here's a sample, the <<..>> denote the CounterPoint (CP) and Point (P):

Ro 3.31:

<<CP νόμον οὖν καταργοῦμεν διὰ τῆς πίστεως;>> μὴ γένοιτο· ἀλλὰ <<νόμον ἱστάνομεν.>> (NA27)

<<CP Do we then overthrow the law by faith?>> By no means! On the contrary, <<P we uphold the law.>> (ESV)

So, Paul answers his own rhetorical question with the obvious answer (μη γενοιτο!), then uses αλλα to fill out the comparison/contrast.

In examining instances of αλλα in the Apostolic Fathers, I noticed one instance of the same thing going on in the Epistle of Barnabas:

Ep.Barn 6.3:

εἶτα τί λέγει; Καὶ ὃς ἐλπίσει ἐπʼ αὐτὸν ζήσεται εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα. <<CP ἐπὶ λίθον οὖν ἡμῶν ἡ ἐλπίς;>> μὴ γένοιτο· ἀλλʼ <<P ἐπεὶ ἐν ἰσχύϊ τέθεικεν τὴν σάρκα αὐτοῦ ὁ κύριος.>> λέγει γάρ· Καὶ ἔθηκέν με ὡς στερεὰν πέτραν. (Holmes 2nd Ed)

Then what does he say? “And whoever sets his hope on him will live forever.” <<CP Does our hope, then, rest on a rock?>> By no means! But <<P he says this because the Lord has established his flesh in strength.>> For he says: “And he established me like a solid rock.” (Holmes 2nd Ed)

The comparison/contrast is less straightforward in Ep.Barn., but you get the contrast, particularly when you look at the end of v. 2, " ... 'Behold, I will set into the foundations of Zion a precious stone, especially chosen, a cornerstone, highly valued.'" That rolls right into v. 3; all of it referring to Is 28.16. The author of Ep.Barn. is saying that this passage in Isaiah doesn't mean that a rock will save us, he points to a different passage of Isaiah (Is 50.7) to explain the rock reference; vv. 4-5 have three more citations doing the same thing. All in accordance with the allegorizing style of the letter. The bottom line is that it isn't a rock that saves us (that's ridiculous!), it is the Lord that saves us.

Anyway, I found it interesting that the Epistle of Barnabas uses, at least in this one instance, rhetoric similar to the Epistle to the Romans. No, I'm not saying that Paul wrote Barnabas (or that Barnabas, influenced by Paul, wrote Barnabas). I'm just noting a little gem I found while sifting through mounds of data.

[NB: This post is a bit of a rant, and doesn't really come to an end or conclusion. It's just me thinking by writing, which is one of the most profitable ways I know to work my thoughts out. So, read on. But don't think I'm making conclusions or judgements; my thoughts could completely change. In other words, this is fluid, not static. RWB]

Here are some things about αλλα that I've noticed as I've worked through the 638 NT instances (a few times).

When considering an instance of αλλα, know that most of the time (approx. 85% of the time in the NT), a relationship with a negator of some sort is involved.

Instead of just making the oh-to-common mental note associating αλλα with the English gloss "but" and moving on, look around for the negative to determine what two things are in relationship with each other via αλλα.

Here's what I'm presently calling the "αλλα Funnel":

1: Look for a negator. This will be some form of ου or μη, most likely; or some other word like ουδεις, μηδεις, ουκετι, μηκετι, etc.) Again, around 85% of NT instances of αλλα involve a negator. You need to find it. Note the very small proportion of items that have negators on both sides of the αλλα (3 instances; e.g. 1Co 4.4).

2: First, look up (to the left). Over 75% of αλλα in NT have the negator preceding.

3: Still looking? Okay, look down (to the right). About 10% of αλλα in the NT have a negator following. In this case, the negator is usually ου or ουκ, and it usually follows the αλλα directly.

4: Still looking? Well, there are 15% or so instances of αλλα in the NT that do not seem to involve a negator. This is the minority case, so look again (up and down) to be sure.

5: Still looking? Then stop looking and assume there is no negator. At this point, you need to isolate the two items in relationship with each other through the αλλα. This is usually brain-dead easy; sometimes, though, it is a pain (Gal 4.8-9? 1Co 15.35?). Note that there are some instances where αλλα doesn't seem to be responding to an explicit statement. My working hypothesis at present is that αλλα must be a response (contrast, correction, clarification, expansion, what-have-you) to something; and when nothing is explicit the response must be to something implicit in the context. Examine the context and try to figure it out if the connection isn't readily apparent.

Now you're at the bottom of the funnel. The easy part is done, the hard work begins.

αλλα is typically described as a "strong adversative" and, to define "strong", most grammars say it is "stronger than δε". That isn't too helpful. That's like saying "bold" is stronger than "confident". So read the whole context of the statement (or statements) in question that uses αλλα as a hinge to compare. Read the larger context. What is happening with the two phrases/clauses that αλλα stands between? What is the point of the comparison of those two items? Is it replacement/correction? Is it enhancement or expansion? Don't cop out and just say it means "but"; get your mind out of the word-level jumble and think about the relationship between the phrases/clauses and what the point of the author could be in placing these items in juxtaposition with each other, using αλλα as a guide to that author's intent. He's left clues with αλλα, use (or non-use) of negators, and the items he's comparing.

On Lexicons and αλλα

This could actually be a whole additional post, but it won't be. In short, I've read most lexicon definitions of αλλα, and they are all uniformly unhelpful. They seem to jump from lexicography to syntax quickly, sorting "senses" by differing syntactic contexts that αλλα appears in. Cataloguing of instances by syntactic context does not make a helpful lexicon article.

I'm largely convinced that one of the reasons that αλλα is typically classed as an "adversative" is simply because in most of its instances it stands between two clauses/phrases, one negative and one non-negative. In this case, it is the clauses/phrases that are adversary, not αλλα. Then, if no negator is present, αλλα is said to be, perhaps, correlative or contrastive or continuative something like that.

[[This brings up a side rant: Morphologies of the Greek New Testament that provide senses/classifications to conjunctions (e.g. GRAMCORD, "conjunction, coordinating, adversative") are also relatively unhelpful if you're really interested in what the conjunction is up to. Why do I say this? Get yourself a few different morphologies that do this, and you'll see that everyone has different ideas in this area. Compare GRAMCORD to Friberg's morphology. You'll see that many do seem to be the same on first glance, but that's because most morphologies classify most instances of αλλα the same exact way. GRAMCORD has 97.6% of αλλα classified as "conjunction, coordinating, adversative"; Friberg has more variation with 86.5% as "conjunction, superordinating (hyperordinating)". (Full disclosure: The Logos Morphology has even more variation, but it also has more categories) Am I saying they should all be consistent? No; I don't subscribe to a 'concordant' method of morphological classification. I'm just saying there is a lot of variation so it brings into question the classification schemes themselves.]]

So what does αλλα do? What does it indicate? I'm still working on that.

My hope is to have some flash of insight and arrive at a grand unification theory. But I think a large part of the problem is that traditional methodology seems bound to try to answer the question, "how do I translate it?" (hence all sorts of categories and memorization of short glosses) when, in order to actually understand what the author is communicating, we really should be asking the question, "what does it mean?" or, perhaps, "how does it all go together?".

In the context of examining a discourse to better understand "what does it mean?", we need to examine how different parts of the discourse relate to each other. One way that discourse parts relate to each other is though use of conjunctions. So when the author/writer uses αλλα with two items in juxtaposition to each other, what is that author communicating? Are there semantic or grammatical connections between the two juxtaposed items and the rest of the discourse?

My guess is that that, chances are, αλλα means the same thing no matter what context it appears in. Instead, it's how the juxtaposed items relate to each other through αλλα that variation in understanding arises.

Update (2008-03-16): Responding to a few of the comments, I can only emphasize the word 'rant' in regards to αλλα and morphologies and lexicography/lexicons (not to mention grammars). If you compare the labelling of senses/types of αλλα across morphologies, you'll soon find that opinions differ, particularly as you get outside of the easy-to-understand instances (usually in some sort of negative context) and into the 'long tail' of instances. And that's fine; my rant is more my response to the difficulty of the problem than complete dissatisfaction with existing lexicons/morphologies. I guess my issue with the αλλα article in BDAG (and elsewhere) is that by their structure and breakdown they seem more geared toward telling me what to think about specific instances of αλλα than in sewing all that discussion up at the end and giving some thoughts on αλλα in general. It's more of a catalogue of instances than a discussion of the word.

To respond specifically to Mike about BDAG: I suppose one thing I'd like to see in BDAG is after the separation of discussion of αλλα in particular contexts, some discussion of how even in these differing contexts αλλα is functioning similarly. I realize the first sentence of the definition speaks of this somewhat, but something tying the whole thing in general would be nice.

To respond to Ken about adversative as a label: I don't have such a list, and I don't really have a problem with 'adversative' as a word to describe how αλλα functions. I do think that αλλα can be 'adversative' when no negator is present in either clause/phrase of the structure in question. What gives me pause would be to say of any instance of αλλα that it is an 'adversative αλλα'. No, it's αλλα. The context may be adversative, and αλλα is likely the hinge joining two adversarial or contradictory things; but that doesn't mean that αλλα is adversative. Anyway, that's my own issue with labelling things that I need to get over; not necessarily an issue with morphological classifications.

In case you're wondering what I've been spending much of my time at Logos doing, now I can show you since we spilled the beans on the Logos blog today.

I've been working with Dr. Steve Runge on his project to annotate several aspects of discourse grammar in the Greek New Testament. My job has been to take the annotation work he's been doing and make it work in Logos Bible Software. I've learned a whole lot in the process and am excited to now have something in a form we can begin to share with others.

There are two primary components of the project:

• The Lexham High Definition New Testament: ESV Version (HDNT)
• The Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament (LDGNT)

In the below screen shot, LDGNT is on the left, HDNT is on the right:

My job has been to process Steve's annotation work and work with him (and others here at Logos) to figure out how to represent it inside of Logos Bible Software. Steve works in the Greek New Testament, so I also have had to map the Greek data onto an English translation so we can start to make this sort of thing more usable to folks who only know English. It's been challenging and fun. We're not done yet. Steve's primary annotation of the New Testament is complete and can be called 'beta' (further revision/correction/etc. may happen); he's still working on the left-column outline stuff for narrative texts (Gospels/Acts) and Revelation.

Check out the Logos Blog post for more information and links. And check out Steve's page on the Logos site for links to articles and conference papers that explain some of the devices that he's annotating.

At least, that was the working title of the abstract I've submitted for the 2008 ETS meeting in Rhode Island this November. But I couldn't bring myself to actually make that the title of the paper. So here's what I've submitted:

We'll see if the abstract is accepted. Either way, I've already started culling through the 638 instances of αλλα in the New Testament (500+ of which appear in a negative pairing, it seems), working through the section on αλλα in Denniston's Greek Particles (amazon.com), reading Heckert on αλλα (amazon.com); I'll probably be braving the lexicon articles (BDAG, LSJ, LouwNida) sometime over the next week; and hitting the grammars (BDF, Moulton-Howard-Turner, Robertson, Porter's Idioms, Moule's Idioms, Wallace; perhaps Young's Intermediate Grammar) as well.

Sounds like fun, huh?

Update (2008-03-11): Responding to some comments: Yes, I do plan on posting the paper, but likely in conjunction with or just after the conference in November. But I'll probably blog some thoughts along the way that may or may not make it into the paper. On other resource (e.g. Thrall); perhaps. There is no shortage of items to look at for background. But the paper isn't a review of how people have described αλλα in the past, so there has to be a limit to the background section of the paper. I just don't know what that is yet (beyond standard lexica and grammars, Denniston, and Heckert)

This one excerpt all at once shows my love-hate relationship with both the genitive and with Charles Ellicott's commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (amazon.com). Here he discusses επαγγελιαν .. ζωης in 1Ti 4.8:

'promise of life.' The genitival relation is not perfectly clear. If it be the gen. of identity or apposition (comp. Scheuerl. Synt. § 12.1, p. 82), ζωη, the import or rather object of the promise, would seem at first sight to involve two applications, quantitative ('long life,' Eph. 4.3, De W.) when in connexion with της νυν, qualitative ('holy, blessed life') when in connexion with της μελλουσης. If again it be the gen. of reference to (Huth., comp. Alf.), or the point of view (Scheuerl. Synt. § 18. 1, p. 129 sq.), ζωη retains its general meaning ('vital existence,' etc.), but επαγγελια becomes indefinite, and moreover is in a connexion with its dependent genitive not supported by any other passage in the NT. This last objection is so grave that it seems preferable to adopt the first form of gen., but in both members to give ζωη its higher and more definitely scriptural sense, and to regarded it as involving the idea, not of mere length, or of mere material blessings (contrast Mark 10.30, μετα διωγμων), but of spiritual happiness (ευδαιμονια, Coray) and holiness; in a word, as expressing 'the highest blessedness of the creature:' see Trench, Synon. § 27, whose philology however, in connecting ζωη with αω, is here doubtful; it is rather connected with Lat. 'vivere' (Sanscr. jîv); see esp. Pott, Etym. Forsch. Vol 1. p. 265, Donalds. Cratyl. § 112, Benfey, Wurzellex. vol. 1. p. 684. There is a good treatise on ζωη in Olsh. Opusc. p. 187 sq. (Ellicott, 61)

First, on genitives. Does anyone seriously treat genitives like this with regularity? Is anyone consumed with classifying genitives (let alone datives, accusatives and nominatives)? Does one really need to label it in order to think about what it does in the passage; to the point of letting the label determine what the genitive can and cannot do in the phrase in question? I don't. And I can't imagine myself attaining command of the nearly 100 types of genitives that Wallace alone isolates and identifies. Why doesn't one simply just look at what the genitive does in a case without feeling a need to put it in a box?

Second, on Ellicott. Can you see why I love him and hate him, all at the same time? The references are great, the discussion makes you think. But it's tough to read. His conclusion is that " ... it seems preferable to adopt the first form of gen." (what's the 'first form' again?) and then gives it his own little twist. That's the frustrating part—why go to the problem of classifying it if your classification is going to be unique? Why not just discuss the function the thing?? On the plus side, you see all sorts of references (to grammars and syntaxes, to commentators, and to other references); this one doesn't even begin to list classical references like many of his other comments do. But it's a pain to wade through.

Long-time ricoblog readers know that I have a more-than-passing interest in stylometry and stylistic studies, particularly in the realm of authorship attribution.

I'm also reading a lot about the Fathers of the Church (via Drobner). And for the Church Fathers for whom we have much information and transmitted writings, there always seems to be mention of documents that had been attributed to a Father at one point in time that have since been proven/posited to not be from that Father.

So, the question: Does anyone have any references to stylometric studies of particular Greek church fathers?

There has been much ink spilt on the question of authorship attribution of New Testament epistles; but has anyone ever taken those same theories and applied them to the much larger corpora of some of the Greek fathers? My primary contention is that the NT is too small for the sorts of authorship studies folks do (vocabulary? bah, gimme a million word corpus from an author and maybe we can do something). In other words, I'd be interested in reading through if anyone has ever done for Chrysostom what P.N. Harrison did to the Pastorals in his 1922 tome The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles, and what sorts of results they came up with.

Any help?

As I've mentioned a few times before, I'm (slowly) reading through Paul Trebilco's book, The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius (amazon.com).

I'd recommend just about anyone read the book. But that doesn't mean that I agree completely with what's going on in the book. Trebilco frequently has to read between the lines in order to recreate what's going on in Ephesus. He uses three different sources — the Pastoral Epistles, the Johannine Epistles, and the letter to the Ephesians in Revelation. He uses each of these as lenses to recreate Ephesus.

In so doing, he has to rely upon his reconstructions of the origin of these books, and that's where my primary beef is. Trebilco puts the Pastorals in 80-100 CE; with a follower of Paul who "clearly saw himself as standing in the Pauline tradition" (202). But Trebilco does see Ephesus as the letter's destination despite, according to his view, none of the named entities (Paul and Timothy) have anything whatever to do with the letter.

In later chapters (specifically chapter 8 section 2, pp 354-384) Trebilco posits that vocabulary unique to the Pastorals can be explained by "acculturation":

It also seems clear that the author presupposes that the language and concepts that he uses are familiar to his readers. For example, the Pastor does not explain the epiphany Christology that we will shortly discuss; rather he assumes that his readers are familiar with it and with the conceptual background that it presupposes. Similarly, concepts like ευσεβεια and σωφρων, which we will discuss, are not explained but are simply utilised. It seems clear then that the author presupposes that his readers are familiar with this language. It is therefore good evidence for the significant level of acculturation of the readers. (354, emphasis added)

Trebilco's poster child for this view is the Greek word επιφανεια, where he argues that the use of επιφανεια in First and Second Timothy more closely matches that of επιφανεια in the context of Greco-Roman religion; and that there is no real Jewish usage of the term (cf. 355).

My problem with reading all of this is that while Trebilco is consistent with his assumptions on authorship and audience, there are other ways to explain this that are more internally consistent with the content of First and Second Timothy.

First, if Paul really was the author of First Timothy, and if Timothy really was the recipient, then there is no need to come up with an explanation of "acculturation" for new concepts or things seemingly unexplained (like επιφανεια). Timothy would of course be familiar with that language; he was Paul's co-worker, likely for a span of over 10 years.

Second, Timothy's mother was Jewish, but his father was Greek. Isn't it possible that Timothy would've known how επιφανεια was used among pagan religion; and isn't it possible that Paul, widely traveled among Gentilies, would be familiar with it too? And why couldn't they have used this language in their dealings with the Ephesian church? After all, Ephesus had all sorts of pagan religion going on; doesn't it make sense — and even fit the Pauline mold of being a Jew to Jews, and a Gentile to Gentiles?

Third, we have examples of Paul using relatively non-Jewish concepts as metaphors for aspects of Christianity. One that comes immediately to mind is that of manumission; of slaves buying their freedom from their masters, via the temple, and then being owned by the god of the temple (cf. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 324-334, specifically p. 326). This is at least alluded to in 1Co 6.20; 7.23; Gal 5.1, 13. Why couldn't Paul use επιφανεια for Christian purposes too?

If the letter is from Paul to Timothy, then we have no need to come up with an explanation of how the church at Ephesus could possibly understand these references which seem to require some degree of acculturation.

Now, with all of that said, even though I bristle when I read some portions of Trebilco's book (like the portion on authorship/date/background of the Pastorals, and also this portion on acculturation) there really is good stuff in the book. If you're studying Paul and his letters at all; and particularly if your study has to do with Ephesus, then you can't ignore Trebilco. So break down and get the Eerdman's printing (amazon.com); it is actually in the realm of affordability.

If you study the corpus of letters attributed to Paul, then you need to read Nijay K. Gupta's recent post, How we analyze ancient texts - are we letting the cart pull the horse?

Nijay is looking specifically at 2Co 6.14-7.1; but his comments apply to various portions of the Pauline corpus. Of course, I see immediate application in the Pastoral Epistles, going back at least to P.N. Harrison's 1921 volume The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles. Nijay goes on to suggest a three-pronged approach when dealing with texts that seem difficult in their current context:

(1) Analyze the text as is and try to come up with a rhetorical scenario that can account for the flow of the text

(2) If this seems impossible (as in the transition to chapter 10 of 2 COrinthians), consider historical scenarios that can account for this without assuming redaction: So, Paul may have heard some distressing news between finishing chapter 9 and beginning chapter 10).

(3) Consider, but only tentatively, other options that involve later and non-Pauline redaction.

You really should read Nijay's entire post. I heartily agree with Nijay's suggestion that the text as received be analyzed first.

One of the advantages of working at Logos and sitting next to very smart, very cool people like my friend Steve is that I get to soak up his knowledge as he works on cool projects.

One thing Steve has imparted to me is the importance of conjunctions and particles at the discourse level.

With this in mind, there I was in church on Sunday. We've been going through the gospel of Mark for maybe two years now, getting close to the end. Sunday's lesson was on Mark 16.1-8. Mark 16.5-7 jumped out at me:

5 Καὶ εἰσελθοῦσαι εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον εἶδον νεανίσκον καθήμενον ἐν τοῖς δεξιοῖς περιβεβλημένον στολὴν λευκήν, καὶ ἐξεθαμβήθησαν.

6 ὁ δὲ λέγει αὐταῖς·
     μὴ ἐκθαμβεῖσθε·
               Ἰησοῦν
          ζητεῖτε
               τὸν Ναζαρηνὸν
               τὸν ἐσταυρωμένον·
          ἠγέρθη,
               οὐκ ἔστιν ὧδε·
               ἴδε ὁ τόπος ὅπου ἔθηκαν αὐτόν.
     7 ἀλλὰ ὑπάγετε
          εἴπατε τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ καὶ τῷ Πέτρῳ
               ὅτι προάγει ὑμᾶς
                    εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν·
               ἐκεῖ αὐτὸν ὄψεσθε,
                    καθὼς εἶπεν ὑμῖν.

A few things to notice.

First, the bold text shows some lexical cohesion between the two units. Mark is the only NT author that uses this particular word (cf. Mk 9.15; Mk 14.33). This connects the surprise the ladies had upon entering the tomb with the instructions from the angel to the women.

Second, note vv 6-7 as the quotative frame with the angel speaking. Note the use of μη .. αλλα (in red). One thing Steve has impressed upon me in the past few months is that when one sees an αλλα, one should always look up the context to see if there is a μη. And it happens here. Consider an English translation:

And he said to them:
     Don't be overwhelmed;
          the one you seek—
               Jesus,
               the Nazarene,
               the crucified one—
          he is risen
               he is not here—
               look at the place where they laid him!
     Instead, go
          tell his disciples and Peter
               that he is going before you
                    into Galilee
               just as he told you.

Do you see the contrast? Instead of being overwhelmed/freaked out; the women are instructed to calm down, to go find the disciples (including Peter!) and remind them of what Jesus had already instructed them.

Third, note how Jesus is specified in the text. There is no question as to whom the angel is referring to. Jesus is further qualified as "the Nazarene", and then further qualified as "the crucified one". Then the women are pointed to where they expected him to be, and noting that he is not there. Jesus, who was crucified and dead, whom they expected to be in the tomb, was not where he was supposed to be.

I think the text is focusing on Jesus not being in the tomb, and then further on directing the women to get the message (he is risen!) to the disciples so they can get to Galilee, back to Jesus.

Kevin P. Edgecomb (whose blog biblicalia should be more widely read than it is) is the host and proprietor of BSC:XXVI. Step right up and check out the fantabulous job he did in assembling this month's montage of Biblical Studies monotony ... er ... uh ... well, I need something to alliterate with the 'm' vibe there ... read on and you will surely see that the Biblical Studies blogosphere is definitely not monotonous.

I had an insanely great time at BibleTech:2008 and will blog about that in a bit; though I wanted to get links up to my paper.My paper on cross-references went well, I thought, though my presentation itself was somewhat scattered. Here are the goods:

• BibleTech2008Paper.pdf (531.26 KB)
• BibleTech2008Handout.pdf (64.45 KB)
• Rick Brannan BibleTech2008.ppt (1.54 MB)

I'll be posting these on my personal web site on Monday; I also believe the BibleTech website will hold copies of the paper, handout and powerpoint. And maybe even audio!

Note that my colleague Sean Boisen (who blogs at Blogos) has blogged on a number of the papers presented. Here's his primary post; hopefully he'll add some tags to link them together over the next few days.

I'm stoked about this! Now, before you say anything, I know that Witherington has published volumes in his series with publishers other than Eerdmans (And yes, I know that deSilva did the Hebrews volume for the Eerdmans). But c'mon, how can you not be excited about it?

The Socio-Rhetorical Commentary Series offers the first sustained attempt to read and study the New Testament as both an ancient biography (as regards the Gospels) and as a from of ancient rhetoric. A socio-rhetorical interpretation considers the methods of rhetorical criticism and social-science criticism. The rhetorical method makes use of ancient or classical writings and strategies of persuasion and the communication of meaning. The social science method notes the issues surrounding the identification of the network of social relations (cultures and customs) in regards to the biblical text. The New Testament, in this series by William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, is interpreted within the context of the world in which it was written and read. The commentaries endeavor to give us a glimpse into the methods the gospel writers used in persuading their audience that Jesus was the Savior of the world, and it puts in context the purpose of the Pauline letters. Ben Witherington III contributes to the first six volumes, and David A. deSilva adds his commentary to the last volume in the series.

Don't know about this? Learn more about Ben Witherington III from his website and his blog.

It seems I've been busy since early November, what with ETS & SBL conferences, Thanksgiving, Christmas parties, and New Years. So I haven't had the chance to dig into Paul Trebilco's Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius (amazon.com) as much as I would've liked to.

But today I did get some time (after getting the garage cleaned and reorganized) to read a bit. I finally finished "Part I", which has to do with evidence of Ephesus in Paul and his Letters (Trebilco sees both Ephesians and the Pastorals as non-Pauline, so he does not include them here) and the evidence of Ephesus in the book of Acts.

It was the two chapters on Acts that I was most impressed with. Having done some work on a portion of Acts 18 for my 2007 ETS paper, it was great to read what Trebilco has done, working through all of the Ephesian mentions in Acts. If you are into the Paulines or Acts or Ephesus, then you need to read these chapters.

One thing that stuck out to me, particularly in working through the footnotes as I read the text, was how much the work of Haenchen and Conzelmann are called into question. As I worked through commentaries on Acts 18 for my ETS paper, I was amazed and dumbfounded at some of the claims that Conzelmann (apparently following Haenchen) made concerning Lucan sources in Acts. Treblico carefully works through the passages and other relevant data and shows that many times the leaps made by Haenchen and Conzelmann are too large. Reading this after having read Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses really makes me think that the form-critical approach is dying (if not dead). It additionally makes me think that there needs to be a new Hermeneia volume on Acts (and the Pastoral Epistles, also by Conzelmann, for that matter).

That said, one thing that Trebilco does (that many others do) is frequently note "Lucan" or "Pauline" language, when what they really mean is that the content they attribute to a particular author uses the word in question, perhaps uniquely. I still think that any NT author sample, no matter what you think of authorship issues, is far too small to get a notion of what language quirks or vocabulary should be attributed to a particular author. But Trebilco doesn't do it much, and I realize that while this is a fairly blunt tool, it is a tool. So I'm not too offended by it. :)

All said, Trebilco's work is excellent and highly recommended. Do check it out (amazon.com). It's over 800 pages, and the Amazon price is really a steal (especially considering the Mohr-Siebeck edition, if you could actually find it, would probably cost you upwards of $300!)

It's a happy new year because the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism has just put four new articles online. These are in the 2007 volume (volume 3). If they're of interest to you, you should download them immediately because the JGRChJ only has the articles online until the volume is complete. Then they submit the volume to print and the articles go offline. So get 'em while you can:

4.3 John C. Poirier, The Linguistic Situation in Jewish Palestine in Late Antiquity
4.4 Julie Ann Smith, ‘What Now Lies Before Their Eyes’: The Foundations of Early Pilgrim Visuality in the Holy Land
4.5 David E. Malick, The Contribution of Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis to an Understanding of Women in the Book of Acts
4.6 Justin M. Smith, Genre, Sub-Genre and Questions of Audience: A Proposed Typology for Greco-Roman Biography

I've not looked at any of the articles, though 4.3 and 4.5 look most interesting to me at this point.

In the most recent JBL (as of this writing; the citation is JBL 126, no. 3 (2007): 579-593), is an article David Konstan and Ilaria Ramelli (henceforth K&R) titled “The Syntax of εν Χριστω in 1 Thessalonians 4.16”. If you are an SBL member, you can retrieve this article from the JBL website.

I’ve actually written a series of blog posts for the Logos Bible Software blog on locating prepositional phrases using a syntactically annotated edition of the Greek New Testament (The OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament) using εν Χριστω in 1Th 4.16 as a starting point. Those posts don’t directly interact with the material and argument of K&R’s article; they just work through approaches to sifting data.

I’ve been chewing on K&R’s article for awhile and it’s time to write some more about it. But first, for those unfamiliar with the article, let me provide an excerpt from their introduction:

Our concern in this article is with the final clause: “And the dead in Christ will rise.” Does the Greek mean, “those who are dead in Christ will rise,” as many have taken it, including Jerome in the Latin Vulgate: mortui qui in Christo sunt resurgent? Or is it preferable to take it as meaning, “the dead will rise in Christ”? The choice between the two versions is of considerable importance. On the first interpretation, only those who have died in Christ will be resurrected, whereas the second can be taken to signify that all the dead will be resurrecte din Christ—the necessary premise for the theses of universal salvation or apocatastasis defended by Origen and other patristic writers, including Gregory of Nyssa. In this article, however, we set aside the theological arguments and concentrate simply on the point of grammar: does the prepositional phrase εν Χριστω modify οι νεκροι, or does it more naturally go with αναστησονται? (K&R, 579-581).

So the article is an exploration of a point of grammar (attachment of prepositional phrase) that has theological/doctrinal implications. And that’s great, particularly in this instance, because the text is ambiguous as to point of prepositional phrase attachment. Here’s the text with the pertinent bit italicised:

ὅτι αὐτὸς ὁ κύριος ἐν κελεύσματι, ἐν φωνῇ ἀρχαγγέλου καὶ ἐν σάλπιγγι θεοῦ, καταβήσεται ἀπʼ οὐρανοῦ καὶ οἱ νεκροὶ ἐν Χριστῷ ἀναστήσονται πρῶτον, (1 Th 4:16, NA27)

For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. (1 Th 4:16, NRSV)

If you examine the text, you will find (as K&R note in the excerpt above) that the prepositional phrase εν Χριστω does have two potential points of attachment: οι νεκροι and αναστησονται. The attachment is ambiguous, but after examining the question K&R conclude that it is best to read εν Χριστω as attaching to the verb.

The more I consider K&R’s article, the less I like it and the more it frustrates me. And it isn’t (necessarily) their conclusion that frustrates me, it is the methodology. While they duly examine all 84 NT instances of εν Χριστω (both arthrous and anarthrous), include some extra-Biblical instances in footnotes, and while they even throw in NT instances of εν κυριω for good measure, their approach is lacking.

Why? There are a few reasons.

1. Their approach seeks to classify everything and group like with like; these groupings (and derived trends) then serve as the lense to classify the instance in 1Th 4.16.

Now classification isn’t bad, but this doesn’t address the primary issue with 1Th 4.16: There are two decent possibilities for attachment in 1Th 4.16, but the vast majority of instances of the prepositional phrase are not ambiguous in respect to placement. Classifying all of these primarily unambiguous instances does not necessarily help one think about the ambiguous instances more clearly. It can actually muddy the waters. Trends are not rules. That’s why I don’t like this paragraph:

The phrases εν Χριστω and εν κυριω seem, then, to be regularly attached to a verb, a participle, or an adjective with verbal force (this last very rarely, however). If they do modify a substantive, they are either clearly enclosed in a nominal phrase, as may occur also with a participle (1Co 7.22: ο γαρ εν κυριω κληθεις δουλος), or else they are preceded by a repetition of the article. (K&R, p. 589)

Do you see that? They’ve properly identified the trends of the unambiguous instances. But how does this really help consider what is going on in an instance where there are two relatively probable possibilities? While one can examine all instances to see which is most common, knowing the most common does not necessarily help in trying to determine the proper reading of the ambiguous instance. To simply follow the most common option is to make grammar and syntax into a popularity contest; this does not do justice to the text.

2. Their approach only examines particular components of the clause in question in comparison with other clauses; the questionable clause as a whole is not considered.

What I mean by this is that their approach neglects the clause as a whole; it only examines the subject (οι νεκροι), the prepositional phrase (εν Χριστω) and the verb (αναστησονται). They neglect the adverb πρωτον. This is evident in their proposing of the question (pp. 579-581, excerpted above). There is no discussion regarding how πρωτον affects either of their two possible readings. This, to my mind, is a gaping hole in the argument.

3. The “If Paul would’ve meant to associate the prepositional phrase with the substantive, he’d have written it this way” argument is unconvincing.

K&R proceed to examine instances of εν κυριω in their attempt to better understand εν Χριστω in 1Th 4.16. And this is fine as well. But I just don’t buy the following argument:

The only non-Pauline occurrence of [εν κυριω] is in Rev 14.13, and it, like the passage in 1 Thessalonians, concerns those who are dead in Christ. To indicate the dead, however, John does not use the bare expression οι νεκροι εν κυριω but rather repeats the article before the prepositional phrase, and in addition encloses the phrase between the article an a participle, so that its syntactical structure and meaning are unequivocal: μακαριοι οι νεκροι οι εν κυριω αποθνεησκοντες απ’ αρτι ... ινα αναποστησονται εκ των κοπων. We have here, then, a construction quite different from that in 1 Thessalonians, which indeed suggests what Paul would have written if he had meant to say “those who are dead”—or rather, who have died (the phrase depends on the participle)—“in Christ.” (K&R, 589)

Do you see the subtle flaw with their argument? They’re taking an unambiguous instance in a different author and stating that if Paul wanted the reading to be attached to the substantive, he would’ve done it this way.

To be more precise, however, one must instead conclude that if Paul wanted to present the reading attached to the substantive unambiguously, he might have done it the way John did—but they don't have access to the mind of Paul. One cannot conclude that because Paul didn’t write it the same way John did (or the way George or Ringo wrote it, for that matter), Paul can’t have meant what John meant.

4. Their approach assumes that a prepositional phrase must definitely attach to one or the other clausal component.

Again, this is evident in the phrasing of the question. And this seems largely driven by the traditional method of thinking about Greek syntax and perhaps even driven by the practice of sentence diagramming. This is good to think about and even necessary when doing exegesis; but isn’t it possible that the ambiguity of the phrasing could imply ambiguity in attachment on purpose? I guess I’m saying that in my experience language is messy; to say the prepositional phrase must “attach” to one component or the other may be generally true but, as with other things, I can’t help but think ambiguity should be an option as well.

5. Their approach pays little to no attention to the context surrounding the clause; that is, the clause is read in isolation to the larger context (surrounding clauses, paragraph and discourse levels).

This follows on point 2 above. Because K&R don’t treat πρωτον, they have no need to ask the question “what follows after the first thing?”. Verse 17 discusses what happens after the ‘first’ thing and this can help in resolving the ambiguity. Indeed, the whole context of vv. 13-18 have to do with believers both living and dead; Paul is answering the issue of what happens to those (believers) who die previous to Christ’s triumphant return. To include and consider relevant context is not theological discussion (recall K&R intend to specifically avoid discussing the theological implications of the syntactic reading); it is treating the discourse as a discourse instead of a jumble of unconnected words and phrases.

When there is ambiguity in the interaction of clausal components, examination of the larger discourse may provide light on how to resolve the ambiguity.

6. For an article on syntax, there is no interaction with standard grammars on the point of syntax discussed.

Specifically, there is no interaction with BDF§272, which cites this instance in particular. This is a minor nitpick, but where standard grammars interact on this specific question, that evidence should be noted.

Conclusion

Those are the primary issues I have with K&R’s article. Please don’t get me wrong, I think there is valuable stuff in there but I don’t see how it helps make a conclusion as to what is happening with the prepositional phrase in 1Th 4.16.

Additionally, I have to say that I enjoyed pp. 591-593, where K&R delve into patristic evidence of how 1Th 4.16 was read in the early church—specifically, their examination of Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa. I thought this portion was actually a stronger argument for their view than all of the listing and classification of Greek NT instances.

I've had a copy of Zondervan's Reader's Greek New Testament (amazon.com) [the first edition with the italic font; there is a second edition (amazon.com) with a non-sloping font] for a few years (a gift from one of the editors) and have enjoyed it despite the italic font. I've actually become used to the font (it is slightly better than the horrible UBS4 italic font). I think the concept is great -- gloss words that occur 30x or less at the foot of the page to help those working on their vocabulary and reading skills.

And the book is well crafted -- made for folks who will actually use it. The cover is a soft leather, it is not heavy at all. One of the perennial complaints with the reader, apart from the italic font, is that it uses Zondervan's Greek text instead of the UBS4/NA27 text.

Recently, the German Bible Society has released their own reader's edition: The UBS Greek New Testament: A Reader's Edition (amazon.com). This glosses words that occur 30x or less at the foot of the page, and it uses the UBS4 (and it doesn't have an italic font!) as the Greek text. I've also got access to a copy of this (it was a gift to Logos from the GBS) so I thought I'd write a quick post comparing the two.

• Cost: The RGNT is less expensively priced, as you can see from the Amazon links above.
• Form Factor: Again, I think Zondervan wins. The RGNT is half the thickness of the UBSGNT:RE, same basic shape.
• Cover: RGNT wins hands-down on the cover. The Italian duo-tone leather is a joy to hold. The UBS cover is the standard red cover, though it is the size of a large print edition (also the size of Omanson's Textual Guide to the GNT (amazon.com)). UBS has a ribbon; Zondervan does not.
• Paper: UBS wins here, their paper is better -- not the thin onion-skin paper of the RGNT.
• Text: UBS wins here because they use the text everyone refers to. I realize there are scant differences between UBS and the Zondervan text, but the UBS is still better for it.
• Layout: UBS wins here as well. If you've used the RGNT, you know it is hard to find a gloss at the bottom of the page because the notes are in one paragraph. The UBS text, however, has two columns of notes at the foot of each page; this makes it relatively easy to find the gloss of the word you want.
• Notes: UBS wins here too because they don't just provide definitions, they also provide some parsing/declension info.
• XRefs: RGNT wins here because they actually note the source of OT quotes in the text. UBS does not provide such info.
• Appendix: UBS wins here because they have a dictionary in the back for words that occur more than 30x -- which means you can look up any word in the text if you don't know it and it occurs more than 30x. RGNT has no such dictionary.

I think that's it. And I think there are two ways to slice the data.

I think that if cost and form are important (is it reasonably priced, and does it feel good in the hand, and is it easy to carry around) then you should check out the Reader's Greek New Testament (amazon.com).

But if you're more concerned about the text (UBS/NA is a priority) and about ease of use -- it really is easier to find the notes in the UBS edition, and it's nice to have a full dictionary to access for other words -- then you probably want to spend a little more and get the UBS Greek NT: Reader's Edition (amazon.com).

Update (2007-12-17): In the comments, Mike Aubrey (who blogs at εν εφεσω) points us to Rick Mansfield's similar review. Check his post out because, unlike me, he took time to add images of the text of the two books, so you can see the differences yourself.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the books I picked up at ETS/SBL* is the Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament with Dictionary (amazon.com), published by Hendrickson. This is a reprinting (and re-setting) of WH's Greek NT. Hendrickson have added pericope heads, a running apparatus with diffs between NA27, WH marginal notes, and the 2005 edition of Robinson-Pierpont's Byzantine text (amazon.com). The dictionary is a revised and enlarged version of Souter's Pocket Dictionary.

But, I wondered, how different is Hendrickson's edition from the original Westcott & Hort edition? And are the differences significant?

As I mentioned above, there are some immediately apparent differences:

• Hendrickson's edition has section headings in English; the original WH has none
• Hendrickson's edition has a editional apparatus at the foot of the page with differences between NA27, Byz (RP 2005) and the WH marginal notes; the original WH only has the marginal notes

There are other differences, too; but these are less obvious.

First, Hendrickson's edition has the books of the NT arranged in what is now the standard canonical order: Gospels, Acts, Paulines, Catholic Epistles, Apocalypse. The original WH, however, did not follow that order; they followed (as I recall) the order of books in some of the earliest complete NT MSS: Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Paulines (including Hebrews between 2Thess and 1Tim), Apocalypse.

Second, Hendrickson's edition inserts paragraph breaks where WH's had subparagraph breaks. This removes a level of detail from the text, but all the same -- I don't think anyone really knew the subparagraph breaks (larger horizontal spans of white space) were there on purpose. But I do think it is significant, particularly when much scholarly attention these days focuses on discourse analysis (aka "textlinguistics"). This is a level of annotation that is above the sentence level but below the paragraph level, providing some help when one actually begins to structure the text and wants to read it through sensitive to discourse structure.

While at SBL, I was able to speak with the editor at Hendrickson who did much of the work on the book. The concern they had was that WH's paragraphs are, admittedly, large. They wanted smaller chunks for reading, and to make it easier to find verse references. This is discussed in the introduction, which notes:

In this edition, WH's original paragraph and spacing divisions have been preserved by inserting paragraph breaks for both types of division. The resulting paragraphs are more consistent in length with those of editions and translations of the NT available today. Section divisions have been preserved by inserting English section headings designed to make navigation of the text easier for English readers. Additional English headings have been added betweeen and occasionally within paragraphs where deemed helpful. (p. xxii)

Third, WH's introductory articles are not reproduced in Hendrickson's edition, instead some material by Eldon Epp is included. Also, some of the helpful WH appendices—List of Suspected Readings, List of Noteworthy Rejected Readings, Quotations from the Old Testament—are not included. On the plus side, the Hendrickson edition does have a few maps in the back.

Conclusion

While there are differences between the Hendrickson edition and the original WH, I don't think they're that significant. The editional apparatus included in Hendrickson's edition makes the Hendrickson edition more appropriate to use in today's context. I don't think it should supplant one's use of the primary critical text (NA27) but if one has a need to consult WH or even a desire to consult Byzantine variants from a particular edition (Robinson's), then Hendrickson's reprinting of Westcott & Hort's Greek New Testament (amazon.com) is probably the go-to edition.

* Full disclosure: Hendrickson gave the book to me.

While out at ETS and SBL, the good folks at Kregel sent along a copy of Dr. Rodney Decker's Koine Greek Reader (amazon.com). Be sure to check out Dr. Decker's page for his book. Why did I get a copy? I was one of a select number quick enough to respond to Dr. Decker's offer of a free copy of the book on his blog — which just goes to show you, reading blogs can pay.

I haven't had time to look at the book much, but my friend and colleague Johnny borrowed it over the weekend and was suitably impressed. He said, "I wish my second-year reading class used it as a text!". He found the presentation of chunks (not just one verse) of text followed by grammar and syntax notes on the text helpful.

In the future, I hope to compare the Koine Greek Reader (amazon.com) with Whitacre's Patristic Greek Reader (amazon.com) to show strengths and weaknesses of each. But I have a lot of stuff I want to blog in the next while; so I may not get to it immediately. But the initial word is that Decker's Koine Greek Reader (amazon.com) looks useful and should be a great help, whether you are in a classroom setting or if you're simply wanting a refresher course from that year of Greek you had in school too many years ago.

I left the office early yesterday to attend the memorial service for my great aunt Jo, who passed away over the weekend after an extended illness. I came back to the office this morning to find a copy of Paul Treblico's The Early Christians In Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius (amazon.com) sitting on my desk, waiting for me; a review copy from the kind folks at Eerdmans.

I've been salivating upon mention of this book for years, since I read of the original printing by Mohr-Siebeck in 2004. In typical fashion, Mohr-Siebeck priced the 800 page book at something like $280 so I resolved myself to reading a library copy sometime down the road — if I ever found a library that stocked it. I did drool over a copy at the 2005 SBL, though.

Cheers, congratulations, and much appreciation then for the folks at Eerdmans. They are publishing the US edition of Treblico's work in paperback with a list price of $85.00. Amazon sells it as well — see current price in upper right corner of this post; it's probably discounted from list. And if you'll be at ETS and/or AAR/SBL in San Diego, I'd guess you'd be able to get a below-list price from Eerdmans as well. And if you do purchase it at SBL, make sure to tell the folks at Eerdmans that you really appreciate them republishing books like this!

My reading is piling up, but I've been waiting a long time for Treblico (longer than I've waited for Drobner!) so I'll be working it in to the top of the list. And as I read, I'll blog about it. So stay tuned. Until then, here is some material from the publisher's web site. First, the blurb:

The capital city of the province of Asia in the first century CE, Ephesus played a key role in the development of early Christianity. In this book Paul Trebilco examines the early Christians from Paul to Ignatius, seen in the context of our knowledge of the city as a whole.

Drawing on Paul's letters and the Acts of the Apostles, Trebilco looks at the foundations of the church, both before and during the Pauline mission. He shows that in the period from around 80 to 100 CE there were a number of different communities in Ephesus that regarded themselves as Christians — the Pauline and Johannine groups, Nicolaitans, and others — testifying to the diversity of that time and place. Including further discussions on the Ephesus addresses of the apostle John and Ignatius, this scholarly study of the early Ephesian Christians and their community is without peer.

And here's the table of contents from the Eerdmans catalog page. A brief and much abbreviated TOC is below:

Introduction
Chapter 1: The Context

Part One: Beginnings in Ephesus
Chapter 2: Paul in Ephesus: The Evidence of His Letters
Chapter 3: Acts and the early Christians in Ephesus: Beginnings and Success
Chapter 4: Acts and the early Christians in Ephesus: Endings and Departure

Part Two: The Pastoral Epistles, Revelation and the Johannine Letters
Chapter 5: What do the Pastoral Epistles tell us about the early Christians in Ephesus?
Chapter 6: What do the Johannine Letters tell us about the early Christians in Ephesus?
Chapter 7: Revelation 2.1-7: The Proclamation to the Church in Ephesus and the Nicolaitans

Part Three: The Relationships Between the Readers of the Pastorals, the Johannine Letters and Revelation
Chapter 8: The Wider Culture and the Readers of the Pastorals, the Johannine Letters and Revelation: Acculturation, Assimilation and Accomodation
Chapter 9: Material Possessions and the readers of the Pastorals, the Johannine Letters and Revelation
Chapter 10: Leadership and Authority and the readers of the Pastoral Epistles, the Johannine Letters and Revelation
Chapter 11: The Role of Women Among the Readers of the Pastoral Epistles, the Johannine Letters and Revelation
Chapter 12: What Shall We Call Each Other? The Issue of Self-Designation in the Pastoral Epistles, the Johannine Letters and Revelation
Chapter 13: The Relationships between Traditions and Communities in Ephesus

Part Four: Ignatius' Letter to Ephesus
Chapter 14: Who Are the Addressees of Ignatius' Letter to Ephesus
Chapter 15: Ignatius and additional facets of the life of the Christians in Ephesus

Chapter 16: Conclusions

It's true; they're mentioned in an article in the New Yorker on digitization of information:

Six hundred years later, Eusebius, a historian and bishop of the coastal city of Caesarea, in Palestine, assembled Christian writings in the local library. He also devised a system of cross-references, known as “canon tables,” that enabled readers to find parallel passages in the four Gospels—a system that the scholar James O’Donnell recently described as the world’s first set of hot links. A deft impresario, Eusebius mobilized a team of secretaries and scribes to produce Bibles featuring his new study aid; in the three-thirties, the emperor Constantine placed an order with Eusebius for fifty parchment codex Bibles for the churches of his new city, Constantinople. Throughout the Middle Ages, the great monastic libraries engaged in the twin projects of accumulating large holdings and, in their scriptoria, making and disseminating copies of key texts.

(h/t to Bill; thanks!)

If you've ever wondered what the weird Roman numeral/Arabic numeral stuff is in the inner margins of the print NA27 ... well, now you know. For more information, check out Kevin P. Edgecomb's page on the Eusebian Canons.

I'm curious what you think, so I'm asking. Is "they" == "Jesus and the 12" or is "they" == "the 12"?

Here's the Greek text of Mk 14.17-18 and the ESV text of same.

Καὶ ὀψίας γενομένης ἔρχεται μετὰ τῶν δώδεκα. καὶ ἀνακειμένων αὐτῶν καὶ ἐσθιόντων ὁ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν· ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι εἷς ἐξ ὑμῶν παραδώσει με ὁ ἐσθίων μετʼ ἐμοῦ. (Mk 14:17-18, NA27)

And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” (Mk 14:17-18)

Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts. If you'd rather not comment publicly but want to let me know what you think, try textgeek at gmail dot com.

... I'm still amazed at the differences between Greek editions of the NT in the areas of:

• paragraphing
• punctuation
• orthography (e.g. νγ vs γγ, moveable nu)

and that there is no standard tome on these items, apart from Westcott & Hort's Introduction [mentioned here], as far as I can tell. And you have to dig to find W&H's intro. Are they the only ones to even try to tackle this?

I mean, even if you just compare Westcott & Hort to NA27 — where the text is almost exactly the same — check to see where one uses emdashes and the other uses colons, or where one punctuates a list with commas and the other doesn't, or where sentence and paragraph breaks are entirely different.

Am I making a bigger deal of this than is necessary? Do folks just think this aspect of an edition is interpretive, so editors do what they do and we just gloss over it?

Maybe. But my guess is that most users of the Greek NT are just using it to zero in on a particular word for a study of a particular verse. Like: "Oh, [english word] is a translation of [greek word]; so I'll look that one up in BDAG." Does anyone who actually reads the Greek NT pay attention to paragraphing, punctuation, flow of argumentation? Or are we layering our own translation over things when we examine the Greek (OK, I admit I'm guilty of this).

And I'm also guessing that much of the paragraphing and punctuation in Greek NTs has to do with how the editors would translate the text themselves, thus I'm guessing it is influenced largely by the punctuation practices of their native language* — and not necessarily based on what the Greek is communicating.**

Of course, I know, the written Greek MSS don't have punctuation like modern languages (though there are some indicators). But it still seems like there should at least be some attempts at this area of study primarily because it is so important to understanding the text as a whole.

Is this area doomed to languish?

Update (2007-10-25): Tommy Wasserman over at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog links back here, noting what I said earlier about subparagraphs in the NA27. Thanks! I posted a comment on his post about subparagraphs in Westcott & Hort:

I subsequently 'discovered' that Westcott & Hort has subparagraph breaks too; but at least they tell you what they are in §419 of their introduction: "In the subdivision of sections we have found great convenience in adopting the French plan of breaking up the paragraphs into subparagraphs by means of a space of some length."

The same section goes on with some more information about W&H's edition that I didn't know either: "We have been glad at the same time to retain another grade of division in the familiar difference between capitals and small letters following a full stop. Groups of sentences introduced by a capital thus bear the same relation to subparagraphs as subparagraphs to paragraphs."

I'm beginning to wonder how much of this sort of stuff NA27 just carries over without disclosing.

* Pure speculation and likely irrelevant and misguided, but I'm wondering how the punctuation in NA27 compares with how one would punctuate a somewhat literal German translation — and how punctuation in UBS4 compares with how one would punctuate a somewhat literal English translation.

** You can really see this in Hodges & Farstad's The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text where they go so far as to use “quote marks” to denote spoken text and, as I recall, OT quotations. It's pretty irritating to see quotation marks in the midst of diacritics and some text-critical note indicators.

Found these mentioned in a footnote in Skarsaune & Hvalvik's Jewish Believers in Jesus (amazon.com); this is the proverbial "note to myself" so I can dig the references out again:

Kenneth Berding, Polycarp and Paul: An Analysis of Their Literary and Theological Relationship in Light of Polycarp's Use of Biblical and Extra-Biblical Literature (amazon.com) (VCSup 62; Leiden: Brill, 2002)

Paul Hartog, Polycarp and the New Testament: The Occasion, Rhetoric, Theme and Unity of the Epistle to the Philippians and its Allusions to New Testament Literature (amazon.com) (WUNT 2.134; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 2002)

That is all.

I'm curious to know if anyone can recommend resources (books, articles, web sites, whatever) on matters of punctuation, sentence/paragraph delineation, and orthography as they pertain to printed editions of the Greek New Testament.

If you ever compare editions of the Greek NT, you'll see these differences sticking out like sore thumbs. The words themselves (the order of the stream of letters) may not differ, but the other stuff does. Editions differ on paragraph placement, how to break up paragraphs (i.e. NA27's use of sub-paragraphs* within paragraphs?), sentence delineation, treatment of divine names (only upper-cased when also a proper name? or all upper-cased?), and orthographical issues.

The only treatment of orthography of an edition of the Greek New Testament that I know of (offhand) is in Westcott & Hort's appendix volume to their edition, pp. 148-179. I can't say I've read much on the other stuff (outside of discourse analysis/grammar approaches to determining textual units) and, frankly, it seems like more of an art than a science when you actually examine an edition.

Anyone have any references for such things? I can get to some decent libraries if I need to (Trinity Western University or the Vancouver School of Theology, for example).

Thanks!

Update (2007-10-05): There's also Westcott & Hort's introduction volume (actually, the intro & appendix are in the same print volume, though the page numbering starts again for the appendix — at least in my edition, dated 1896). Intro part 4, pp. 288-324 (§§375-425) cover W&H's approach on much of this material. §§393-404 cover orthography; §§405-416 cover breathings, accents and the like; §§417-423 cover punctuation and textual division as well as titles of books. Zounds! Now that's detail. But that's the only place I've found this sort of information. The NA27 preface/intro has no such information; Maurice Robinson's 2005 Byzantine (printed edition) has about a page. R.V.G. Tasker has about two sentences in the intro to his Greek New Testament being the text translated in The New English Bible (he basically says the his Greek follows the NEB NT English practice). Does anyone else have any other references?

* If you ever wondered why there are some longer white space breaks in portions of paragraphs (say, 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide like the space before Jn 1.18 in this screen shot) ... then you've found subparagraph breaks in the NA27. I didn't know about them myself until I asked a contact at the German Bible Society about them while I was working on creating the Logos Bible Software edition of the NA27 with critical apparatus markers found in the SESB. And yes, the Logos editions of NA27 do include visual subparagraph breaks in the text (as well as the paragraphing, casing, etc. of the printed edition).

I've blogged about Jewish Believers in Jesus (amazon.com) a few times now. The more I read the book, the more I think it needs to be more widely read. Why, you ask? Not because it is perfect, or because I agree with everything in it. But it is a book that makes you think. It is not a re-hashing and presentation of current scholarship on the issue; instead it springboards from that, making assertions and connections between the data points that makes me think. And that's good — that's what reading and studying should be like.

Danny Zacharias of Deinde recently blogged about Jewish Believers as well. Danny's reaction? Pretty straightforward:

Earlier this year I made an authoritative declaration that every NT scholar ought to read Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (amazon.com). This is now my second binding authoritative declaration: Every NT scholar needs to have this book on his or her shelf.

Nijay Gupta (at his eponymous blog) also mentions Jewish Believers. (Apologies for being late with this one, I just heard of Nijay's blog from Mike Bird.) Nijay had the inside scoop; he apparently used to work for Hendrickson:

I just obtained a copy yesterday and it looks fantastic. I remember it was coming down the pipeline when I was working at Hendrickson and they did an excellent job. 

I agree. So heed both Danny and Nijay and get your copy now (amazon.com).

Finally, I got to see the ETS program book (thanks, Evangelical Textual Criticism) so now I know that my paper is on Wednesday afternoon at 4:10.

Garden Salon Two: New Testament
Wednesday, Nov 14 4:10-4:50
Richard W. Brannan (Logos Bible Software)
Richard Bauckham and Eyewitness Testimony: Does His Narrative Device Occur Outside of the Synoptics?

Hopefully my flight works out OK, I'm supposed to arrive in San Deigo at around 1:30 in the afternoon. I guess I'll have to go straight to the conference.

I'm also moderating a session on Friday morning. If any of the papers sound interesting to you (and even if they don't) do be sure to drop by and say "hello!"

Royal Palm Salon Five
NEW TESTAMENT
THEME: John
Moderator: Richard W. Brannan (Logos Bible Software)

9:00-9:40 AM
Donald E. Hartley (Dallas Theological Seminary)
Destined to Disobey: Isaiah 6:9-10 in John 12:37-40

9:50-10:30 AM
David Croteau (Liberty University)
Repentance Found? The Concept of Repentance in the Fourth Gospel

10:40-11:20 AM
Paul Hoskins (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary)
Freedom from Slavery to Sin: The Contribution of John 8:31-38 to the Passover Theme of the Gospel of John

11:30 AM-12:10 PM
Michael S. Heiser (Logos Bible Software)
Did Jesus Allow for Reincarnation? Assessing the Syntax of John 9:3-4

I've enjoyed reading the portions of Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament (amazon.com). Again, I should stress I haven't read the whole thing. I have read the first two essays, the essays on Pauline literature, and part of Köstenberger's closing essay.

Of the essays I read, I most appreciated Köstenberger's essay which treated the Pastorals, the general epistles, and Revelation. Why? Because it seemed the most practical of them all. It actually treated the subject looking at the general question of usage of the OT in the NT book. Most of the other essays that I read were good, but they were very narrowly focused—on a particular way that OT passages were used in the NT book. That's all well and good, but I was really looking for something a bit more general. And I guess that's why Köstenberger's article stood out to me. I don't think it was just because that was the essay that discussed the Pastoral Epistles.

While examining Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament (amazon.com), a ricoblog reader pointed me to another essay of Stanley Porter's, published in JSNTSup 148, Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel (amazon.com): "The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament: A Brief comment on Method and Terminology". This essay was helpful in providing some background on method and terminology and also because I culled a few references from footnotes on stuff I'd like to follow up on (the book also mentioned many of these titles in its footnotes):

• C.D. Stanley, "Paul and Homer: Greco-Roman Citation Practice in the First Century C.E." NovT 32 (1990), pp. 48-78.
• C.D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature (amazon.com) (SNTSMS 74; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)
• E.E. Ellis, Paul's Use of the Old Testament (amazon.com) (repr. Wipf & Stock, 2003[1957]).
• Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (amazon.com) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
• Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (amazon.com) (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1999).

There are more, but that seems to be a good start.

I've poked around Stanley E. Porter's Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament (amazon.com) a bit. I haven't read everything, but have read some things. This post will just be a listing of the Table of Contents; I'll write a subsequent post (hopefully in the next few days) with some thoughts on the book itself.

Preface
Contributors
Abbreviations

Introduction: The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament
     Stanley E. Porter

The Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament as a Rhetorical Device: A Methodological Proposal
     Dennis L. Stamps

Biblical Texts and the Scriptures for the New Testament Church
     R. Timothy McLay

Scripture, History, Messiah: Scriptural Fulfillment and the Fulness of Time in Matthew's Gospel
     Michael P. Knowles

The Beginning of the Good News and the Fulfillment of Scripture in the Gospel of Mark
     Craig A. Evans

Scripture Justifies Mission: The Use of the Old Testament in Luke-Acts
     Stanley E. Porter

"They Saw His Glory and Spoke of Him": The Gospel of John and the Old Testament
     Paul Miller

Written Also for Our Sake: Paul's Use of Scripture in the Four Major Epistles, with a Study of 1 Corinthians 10
     James W. Aageson

In the Face of the Empire: Paul's Use of Scripture in the Shorter Epistles
     Sylvia C. Keesmaat

Job as Exemplar in the Epistle of James
     Kurt Anders Richardson

The Use of Scripture in the Pastoral and General Epistles and the Book of Revelation
     Andreas J. Köstenberger

Hearing the Old Testament in the New: A Response
     Andreas J. Köstenberger

Index of Modern Authors
Index of Ancient Sources

I realized I hadn't posted a table of contents for this book when I blogged about it earlier. The TOC is extensive and runs for six of the book's 900+ pages. I've only listed parts, chapters and contributors below so you can get an idea of the scope of this book. The full TOC is available as a PDF on Hendrickson's site. I'm enjoying reading it thus far and am interested to read many of the essays.

Part One: Introduction
1 Jewish Believers in Jesus in Antiquity—Problems of Definition, Method, and Sources
     Oskar Skarsaune, Oslo, Norway
2 The Definition of the Terms Jewish Christian and Jewish Christianity in the History of Research
     James Carleton Paget, Cambridge, England

Part Two: Jewish Believers in Jesus in The New Testament and Related Material
3 James and the Jerusalem Community
     Richard Bauckham, St. Andrews, Scotland
4 Paul as a Jewish Believer—According to His Letters
     Donald A. Hagner, Pasadena, California, United States
5 Paul as a Jewish Believer—According to the Book of Acts
     Reidar Hvalvik, Oslo, Norway
6 Named Jewish Believers Connected with the Pauline Mission
     Reidar Hvalvik, Oslo, Norway
7 Jewish Believers and Jewish Influence in the Roman Church until the Early Second Century
     Reidar Hvalvik, Oslo, Norway
8 Jewish Believers in Asia Minor according to the Book of Revelation and the Gospel of John
     Peter Hirschberg, Bayreuth, Germany

Part Three: The Literary Heritage of Jewish Believers
9 The Jewish Christian Gospel Tradition
     Craig A. Evans, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada
10 Jewish Christian Editing of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
     Torleif Elgvin, Oslo, Norway
11 Jewish Christian Elements in the Pseudo-Clementine Writings
     Graham Stanton, Cambridge, England
12 Fragments of Jewish Christian Literature Quoted in Some Greek and Latin Fathers
     Oskar Skarsaune, Oslo, Norway
13 Jewish Christian Sources Used by Justin Martyr and Some Other Greek and Latin Fathers
     Oskar Skarsaune, Oslo, Norway

Part Four: Jewish Christian Groups according to the Greek and Latin Fathers
14 The Ebionites
     Oskar Skarsaune, Oslo, Norway
15 The Nazoraeans
     Wolfram Kinzig, Bonn, Germany
16 Cerinthus, Elxai, and Other Alleged Jewish Christian Teachers or Groups
     Gunnar af Hällström, Joensuu, Finland, and Oskar Skarsaune, Oslo, Norway

Part Five: Other Literary and Archaeological Evidence for Jewish Believers
17 Evidence for Jewish Believers in Greek and Latin Patristic Literature
     Oskar Skarsaune, Oslo, Norway
18 Evidence for Jewish Believers in the Syriac Fathers
     Sten Hidal, Lund, Sweden
19 Evidence for Jewish Believers in Christian-Jewish Dialogues through the Sixth Century (excluding Justin)
     Lawrence Lahey, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
20 Evidence for Jewish Believers in “Church Orders” and Liturgical Texts
     Anders Ekenberg, Uppsala, Sweden
21 Jewish Believers in Early Rabbinic Literature (2d to 5th Centuries)
     Philip S. Alexander, Manchester, England
22 Archaeological Evidence of Jewish Believers?
     James F. Strange, Tampa, Florida, United States

Part Six: Conclusion and Outlook
23 The History of Jewish Believers in the Early Centuries—Perspectives and Framework
     Oskar Skarsaune, Oslo, Norway

Bibliography Index of Modern Authors
Index of Subjects
Index of Ancient Sources (selective)

For two years now, I've been drooling over a Mohr-Siebeck title: Paul Treblico, The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius. It was published in 2005 and sold for like $250 as I recall.

It is out of print now (they must've only printed five copies) and unavailable. A search of Mohr's website only finds a few paragraphs from reviews of the book, but no listing. RBL reviewed the book as well.

For about a year, I've been lamenting that I was never able to purchase the book. Today, however, I was browsing Eerdmans' upcoming releases in preparation for my annual SBL book-buying spree and noticed that they've got the book slated for publication in October (just previous to SBL!) at a price of $85! That means mortals like me could actually purchase the book at SBL and probably get a decent discount.

This was encouraging in light of my recent disappointment with Royse's Scribal Habits book ...

I received the following today from Eerdmans:

Stanley E. Porter, ed. Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament (amazon.com). (Wm. B. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, MI), 2006. xii, 316pp with indices.

It's quite timely; I'm doing a lot of work thinking about quotations of the Pastoral Epistles in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers and I'm considering a paper on OT references in the NT* for the inaugural BibleTech 2008 conference, hosted by Logos in January 2008. The book should come in very handy to me, particularly Aageson's essay on the major Paulines. As I dig more into that, I will likely blog more about it.

If you have experience with the book, particularly if you've read it and have feedback for how different authors approach quotation, allusion and even looser forms of reference, please feel free to comment here or zap me an email.

Update (2007-08-17): Regarding the phrase, "... I'm considering a paper on OT references in the NT", I mis-remembered what I proposed. What I really proposed was locating NT cross-references automagically; nothing to do with OT references specifically. Whoops. Glad I remembered before I started writing the paper.

Update II (2007-08-29): There are two more posts related to this book:

• TOC of Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament
• Some thoughts and response to Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament

Randall Tan presented a paper in the Hellenistic Greek Language and Linguistics section at the recent International SBL meeting in Vienna called "Reversing the Roles of Lexis and Grammar?". I blogged about this back in January, where you can read a little background and the original paper proposal.

Randall was kind enough to list me as co-presenter, though my role was largely that of munger-of-data and sounding board. While I agree with what Randall presented, the ideas and approach are largely his.

Anyway, I figured it would be a good thing to post the paper here. So here it is:

• Reversing the Roles of Lexis and Grammar.pdf (103.97 KB)

We'd be interested in any feedback you may have on the paper; feel free to either comment here or zap email my way to the address listed in the sidebar.

This morning the Logos Bible Software blog announced the BibleTech 2008 conference. It'll take place January 25-26 in Seattle, WA.

While Logos is the primary conference sponsor (disclaimer: I work for Logos), the conference is not about Logos Bible Software. It is designed for those who are interested in the intersection of the Bible and technology. So this could be professionals, hobbyists, publishers, bloggers, webmasters, educators or just about anyone else. If you're interested in the Bible and technology, no matter where you are, what you do, or who you work for, we'd love to see you in Seattle.

Several folks have already agreed to present. I'm most interested to hear from James Tauber (general XML/Python stud and co-creator of MorphGNT.org) and Zack Hubert (creator of zhubert.com).

The call for participation is open. Have an itch you'd like to scratch, or a cool side project you'd like to present? Then submit your ideas. I know I've got a few different ideas a-brewin'.

I just came across this most interesting resource: Treasury of the New Testament.

Though in reality, it is only on John 1-15 (and doesn't look like it will grow fast at all, at least based on the "what's new" page).

If you're familiar with the concept behind IVP's Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture Series (ACCS) then this will be interesting to you. It looks like someone has interspersed (and footnoted) patristic commentary — in Greek — inside of the Gospel of John. The gospel text is that of the Orthodox Church, I'm guessing.

This is very cool, at least to me. It means I can feel good about reading the John portions but can stretch myself on the patristic portions.

So check it out. Here's John 3 for starters.

Enjoy!

(hat tip: Jim West)

The critical edition of the Gospel of Judas (amazon.com) has finally been published by National Geographic. Copies can be had at Amazon.com.

Here is the description from Amazon's page (amazon.com):

For the first time in a single volume, discover the complete text of Codex Tchacos—the remarkable ancient papyrus book that contains the Gospel of Judas. Hidden for 1,600 years in an Egyptian cave, only to be found, traded, and all but destroyed before its restoration began in 2001, Codex Tchacos contains four texts that shed important light on the ancient world and the emergence of Christianity.

Featuring beautifully rendered, full-color photographs of the original papyrus pages alongside the Coptic text and its English translation, this critical edition provides everything needed for a full examination of the Codex. The Letter of Peter to Philip provides a mystical, Gnostic picture of Jesus; the text entitled James presents Jesus discussing the meaning of life and death with his brother James; the Gospel of Judas casts a new light on Judas' betrayal; and the previously unknown book of Allogenes, though fragmentary, portrays Jesus as a stranger who brings light to a world of darkness. Ideal for the scholar and layperson alike, these texts are published here by an international team of scholars and supplemented by insightful introductions, indices, and other revealing, explanatory essays.

Though I'm curious about the " ... other revealing, explanatory essays". Hopefully none are written by Bart Ehrman, who has said plenty enough already about the Gospel of Judas.

Update (2007-06-29): I received my copy yesterday. The book looks good. Photos of the entire codex, as well as transcription with English line-by-line translation. French translations appended. Notably, the index looks to be complete! Each tractate indexed with some degree of morphological sorting going on, with English and French translations. All in all, good stuff. Even better: I haven't seen the word "Ehrman" yet in the book!

Mark Goodacre (NT Gateway Weblog) was in town for the Logos Lecture Series. We'd met a few years back at SBL in Philly, where he chaired a session on biblioblogging for CARG in which I presented a paper.

It was good to spend some time with him while he was in Bellingham on Monday. I broke away from Amy and Ella for a few hours (thanks, Mom T for coming by and spending time with Amy and Ella while I was out!) and was able to hang out with Mark and a few other folks from Logos for the afternoon. It was a hoot of a time. Mark talks about it some more on his blog.

I wasn't able to attend the lecture, but from what I heard it went very well. Note that Mark mentions he will post the text of the lecture on his blog, so keep an eye out there if you're interested in his topic, "Did the Jews of Jesus' Day Expect the Messiah?"

Next up on the lecture series: Dan Wallace (yes, that Dan Wallace) talks about the work of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. Note that if you've been to a lecture event before, the venue is changing. We'll be at the American Museum of Radio and Electricity instead of the Mount Baker Theatre.

Yesterday I stumbled across PJ Hillery's The Georgian Language: An Outline Grammatical Summary. No, this page isn't about how y'all talk down there in Atlanta; it is about the language of the country of Georgia. Vööbus describes Georgia as "that rough mountain-district between the Black and Caspian Seas — known to the ancient world as Iberia" (Vööbus 173).

I'm always at least superficially interested in the languages of the early versions of the New Testament (Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Armenian, Georgian, Gothic, etc.). This gave me a chance to re-read sections of Vööbus and Metzger on the Georgian Versions (see citations below). You could also check the wikipedia entry on Georgian Language for general background on the language.

What do we know (or at least, what do we think we know) about the Georgian version?

• Christianity probably came to the region in the middle of the fourth century — that's like 350, y'all! (Metzger 184; see also Vööbus 176). For comparative purposes, that's around the same date that many ascribe to the copying of Codex Sinaiticus.
• The Georgian version was probably in currency " ... in the second part of the fifth century. Its origin, then, seems to belong to the decades before the middle of the fifth century" (Vööbus 178; see also Metzger 184). For comparison, many date Codex Bezae in the fifth century.
• Vööbus concludes the Georgian was likely originally translated from the Armenian and later subjected to editing against Greek exemplars (Vööbus 187-192). Metzger makes no conclusions, he just reports conclusions others have made (Metzger 190-196).

A quick search of the NA27 apparatus shows that it is only cited twice, in Mt 27.64 (supporting the omission of a pronoun) and Mk 10.25 (supporting the reading of a phonetically-similar word, καμηλον [NA27] vs. καμιλον). This makes sense because the Georgian is at least a translation of a translation (or perhaps a translation of a translation of a translation, depending on your view of the origin of the Armenian text). But Metzger, in his Textual Commentary, cites 'geo' almost 100 times. So it is of some value in the realm of NT textual criticism.

Wikipedia has some images from the Adysh Gospels (a canon table and an illumination) and also the Vani Gospels (an illumination), two early (10th century) Georgian codices. Here's the canon table from the Adysh Gospels, copied in 897 AD:

Works Cited

Metzger, Bruce M. The Early Versions of the New Testament. London: Oxford University Press, 1977, pp. 182-214.

Vööbus, Arthur. Early Versions of the New Testament: Manuscript Studies. Stockholm: Estonian Theological Society in Exile, 1954, pp. 173-209.

This week RBL reviews New Testament Manuscripts: Their Texts and Their World (amazon.com), an unpurchasably-priced collection of essays from Brill ($181.00!). The review is here. It all sounds interesting, but why is it so blasted expensive?! I realize Brill's primary market for these sorts of things are libraries, but why not have some sort of option whereby regular joes can purchase such things as well?

Anyway, from what I can tell from the review, I'd guess that if it sounds interesting to you then you'd also enjoy looking at Larry Hurtado's recent and much more reasonably priced book, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (amazon.com). One of the essays in the mondo expensivo Brill book is by Hurtado on the Staurogram. Hurtado revises and updates that work in his book on The Earliest Christian Artifacts (amazon.com) (cf. p. 135, footnote 1 where Hurtado notes that he "draws heavily upon" the essay in the Brill book).

At the start of his discussion of "Similarly Spelled but Identically Pronounced Variants":

The contribution of commentaries on the following text-critical discussion is minimal, since commentators as a rule follow the text of the GNT [UBS4] or NA [NA27] without further ado. Where they do take up a variation unit for discussion, they normally accept the verdict of the editors and the explanation supplied by Metzger's commentary, which they express in their own words. (Caragounis, Development of Greek and the New Testament (amazon.com), 518)

And he's right, but his comparison is wrong. In the setting of a commentary, unless it is focused on being a textual commentary, it would be questionable to devote pages and pages to each text-critical complication. It is right to mention them, but one need not work them out in painstaking detail unless that is the raison d'etre for the commentary. In the setting of an article on a variant, however (which is what Caragounis has done) one would be irresponsible to not work things out in significant detail, as Caragounis does in the next section of his book (the one dealing with variants at 1Co 13.3, pp. 547-564). And even in the current section (pp. 517-546) Caragounis usually only presents enough information to show that the variants are spelled the same, they sound the same, and the evidence is split.

But overall, he's right. When *most* commentators bring up a variant, they typically defer to Metzger and move on.

I'm stoked about THIS:

For those without Logos Bible Software, you should really obtain and read at least a few sections of the Handbook of Classical Rhetoric (amazon.com). You should also consider Porter's Handbook to the Exegesis of the NT (link to Logos) and his Idioms of the Greek NT (link to Logos).

[This is part of a series of posts looking at "thorough-going eclecticism" as practiced by J.K. Elliott in his book The Greek Text of the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. See the introductory post for more information. --RWB]

As a part of Elliott's first principle, line omission is pretty much the same as homoiteleuton (though not necessarily with the same start/same end type thing) only on a grander scale. Instead of skipping letters or words of an exemplar, one or more lines are skipped. Elliott writes:

Another cause of omission is line-omission. Clark in his Acts of the Apostles (38) shows how the shorter text of Acts was frequently the result of line omission. ... This cause of omission is less demonstrable in the Pastoral epistles, (Elliott 6-7).

There are not many examples; I will list two here.

• 1Ti 1.14. Elliott uses line omission to explain what happened in MS 1518 (a XIV/XV cent. MS in Jerusalem) at this verse. The NA27 has the following:

14 ὑπερεπλεόνασεν δὲ ἡ χάρις τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν μετὰ πίστεως καὶ ἀγάπης τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. (1Ti 1.14, NA27)

MS 1518, according to Elliott, has this:

14 ὑπερεπλεόνασεν δὲ ἡ χάρις τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ. (1Ti 1.14, MS 1518)

The difference is obvious; instead of being about "the over-abundant grace of our Lord with faith and love in Christ Jesus" it is now about "the over-abundant grace of our Lord Jesus Christ". Elliott posits the following:

The omission may represent one or two lines of an exemplar. The scribe's eye passed from του κυ ημων to the divine names, which he inverts and alters to ιυ χω to follow του κυ ημων.

That's one way to explain 1518's variant. I'm skeptical, though. If it is simple line omission, why would the further change in word order be made except to make sense of the verse with the omission? And wouldn't that imply knowledge of the omission by the scribe?

• 1Ti 6.5. In this case Elliott accepts a longer text that has some decent testimony against the shorter text of Siniaticus and Alexandrinus. NA27 has the following:

5 διαπαρατριβαὶ διεφθαρμένων ἀνθρώπων τὸν νοῦν καὶ ἀπεστερημένων τῆς ἀληθείας, νομιζόντων πορισμὸν εἶναι τὴν εὐσέβειαν. (NA27)

5 διαπαρατριβαὶ διεφθαρμένων ἀνθρώπων τὸν νοῦν καὶ ἀπεστερημένων τῆς ἀληθείας, νομιζόντων πορισμὸν εἶναι τὴν εὐσέβειαν [αφιστασο απο των τοιουτων]. (Elliott's reading)

Elliott's longer text is the Byzantine reading (translated by the NKJV as "from such withdraw yourself"). He notes the following support: D^c K L Ψ P 061. T.R. and most minuscules. Lect. Byz. L (vg DLT). Arm. Goth. EthPP. L (vt mon. m.) and a host of Fathers to boot. He appeals to the validity of the omitted text on the basis of style and further posits its omission due to line omission.

If original, the omission could be accounted for, by the careless omission of one line of the exemplar. If secondary, the longer reading would be a gloss introduced to the text. In view of the above comments on the language [the previous paragraph discussed style] the former is more likely. Accept the longer reading. (Elliott 94)

So in this case Elliott uses line omission to explain the omission. He does this only after he has justified that the text is worthy of including on the basis of style.

So, line omission can be a way to argue for the inclusion of the longer text (yes, the rule of brevior lectio potior isn't always right; it is a guideline and not a rule) when the longer text makes sense based on author style or when the vast majority of quality witnesses include the text. At least, that's the way I'd apply it; I'd guess Elliott would not necessarily qualify the statement as I do.

Next up: Author's Style and Usage

I realize what I am about to write may be considered heresy by some. These are just thoughts rolling around in my head; I've come to no conclusions yet. When I think, I write. And I'm thinking. So I'm writing.

I'm re-reading the first few chapters of Aland & Aland's The Text of the New Testament (amazon.com). I didn't notice it last time I read this -- back when I was first imbibing in things text-critical -- but doggone this thing has an attitude, and the best word I can come up with to describe it is arrogance.

What Eberhard Nestle did was actually quite simple (a radical breakthrough is always simple in retrospect); he compare the texts of Tischedorf and of Westcott-Hort. Where the two differed, he consulted a third edition for a deciding vote. (Aland and Aland, 19)

It's the little parenthetical that doesn't need to be there but is. This sort of thing happens frequently (go ahead, give it a read). The only purpose this parenthetical serves is to puff up the first edition of Nestle as something special when it was just a majority-rules approach resting on the text-critical work that had gone before it. Nothing wrong with that, but here they make it sound like the practice was hugely radical. This is all the more strange for a comment 20 pages later:

Much in Tischendorf's apparatus may simply be ignored. For example, he regularly cites printed editions in support of variants, e.g., in verse 27 (third from last line) for the reading αυτου: ς^e Gb Sz Ln Ti. This means that the Textus Receptus in Elzevir's edition (ς^e) John Jakob Griesbach's editon of 1827 (Gb), Johannes Martin Augustinus Scholz in his edition of 1830-1836 (Sz), Karl Lachmann's edition of 1842-1850 (Ln) and Tischendorf in his edition of 1859 (Ti) read αυτου; such information is quite dated today and of no value. (Aland & Aland, 39)

So I'm confused. Nestle was a genius because he took as standard text where Tischendorf and W&H agreed (he used edition info to establish his text); but the editional information in Tischedorf's apparatus, which was published 20 years before Nestle's first edition, is useless? A&A go on to speak highly of other aspects of T's edition, but why heap scorn on this one? Especially when appendix 3 of NA27 shows differences of editions [including T!] for NA variants? Are they saying their own edition's appendix 3 is useless too, and may summarily be ignored? I just don't get it.

I won't even go into the disdain for the TR and anything associated with it; the examples are numerous and need not be recounted here. OK, one example will suffice:

... while one should beware of The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text by Arthur L. Farstad and Zane C. Hodges (1982) as an anachronism in every respect (A&A, 25).

Now I'm not a fan of Hodges & Farstad's work in that volume (punctuating, formatting and typesetting the Greek as if it was English?), but c'mon. It seems as if it has somehow been tainted by the shadow of the TR and therefore isn't even worth consideration.

One more thing that confuses me is that these first chapters are spent building up to the UBS/NA (but particularly the NA) as being the glory of glories of all Greek editions. They heap some elitist scorn on W&H for their edition, primarily because W&H didn't examine actual manuscripts but relied on critical editions to inform their work (A&A 18). The "non-Western interpolations" are mentioned in derision at least three times, if I recall correctly. Yet the all-glorious Nestle text (the 25th edition), by the counts in this very book, differs from W&H in only 558 places outside of orthorgraphical differences. (NB: just about 8000 verses in the NT, NA27 has 138,020 words. You do the math and figure the percentages). I'm unsure of the differences between NA25 and NA27.

So, NA is the bees-knees. W&H were hacks who could only use critical editions of texts and manuscripts as they stumbled to put together their text. Yet NA is built on top of that foundation and shares it to a very large portion. And NA are the geniuses? Sure, there is a lot of work they've done in the apparatus, and that's groovy. And they do give W&H credit to some (small) degree. But can't they admit that all they've done is re-examine the evidence (comprehensively, systematically) and then ended up changing W&H in a few places?

It's that attitude I can't get past as I read the book this time. Although in a mostly polite way, they treat older pre-WH editions lightly because they largely follow the TR. But NA follows W&H with slight modifications and it's oh-so-better? And NA/UBS *isn't* similar to the TR even though many non-Nestle editions of the past, say, 75 years (Souter, Tasker, Zondervan's Reader's GNT to name a few) are at least as WH-like as NA/UBS? (at least in the Pastorals which, yes, I have examined and compared).

I don't mean to slight the technical achievement behind the NA27 and UBS4 editions. It's awesome. And the work going on with the Editio Critica Maior is mind-boggling. I'm thrilled they're doing the work. But I don't want to slight W&H either. It was -- and still is, to large degree, as the work of NA has proved -- a useful edition. So drop the arrogance and get with it.

Oh, and lastly -- are we really at the point where the status of the Greek of the NT is really only in tweak mode without new major MS discoveries? If so, then I say it is time to begin re-questioning methodology. We can't be that good. Or is 'reasoned eclecticism' really that perfect?

OK, I'm off my soap box. But I might come back, you never know.

Update (2007-04-17): (Responding particularly to Tom Reynolds in the comments). Perhaps I should clarify; I'm not interested in promoting a TR position. I think Maurice Robinson is doing interesting things and that he isn't starting with a KJV-only presupposition (though I could be wrong) but I think the NA/UBS text should be the first consulted (and I'd pick NA if I had to choose between NA and UBS). If you've listened to any of Klaus Wachtel's papers at the SBL the past few years, you've heard him bring up some isolated Byzantine readings as serious possibilities. Not the majority theories per se; just a few readings. But NA/UBS is where we start. It is the best available text.

No, what I was responding to here was the tone in A&A's first few chapters. For all their hullabaloo about the poorness of the TR and the slips of W&H, their text isn't that different from either. They've just spear-headed the detail-work of looking everything up and providing first-hand-accounted evidence (so it's second-hand for you & me) for the readings. They haven't come up with a stupendously fabulous text -- in the vast majority it is the same text everyone else comes up with when they attack the problem (the Byzantine priorists being at greatest variance). Simply examining other Greek NT editions published in the 20th century (like Tasker, Souter, RGNT and some others) shows that everyone is dipping in the same pool; they're simply justifying their readings differently. NA/UBS definitely do the best job of justifying their readings (though I think the data presented in Reuben Swanson's volumes easier to understand and more handy to reference and get an idea of MSS trends and content, not individual variance).

While reading those few chapters, one thing in my head was John Lee's book A History of New Testament Lexicography (amazon.com). Lee conclusively demonstrates that most NT lexicons today (including the hallowed BDAG and BAAR) are essentially translations of translations of translations of 16th century work. Expanded with evidence, yes, but the important parts folks look at -- the glosses and basic definitions -- can be traced directly back in most cases. Are we really that good at lexicography too? Or is it time for another approach to the problem building on what we've learned?

That's what I couldn't help pondering as I read A&A, knowing I'd done collations of the Pastorals against W&H for several 20th century Greek NT editions. And they're all basically the same, apart from Byzantine/TR stuff and what would likely be J.K. Elliott's text based on his Greek Text of the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. The stuff folks actually use is the same, basically, from edition to edition. (I think that's just fine, BTW) And I can't reconcile that knowledge against the arrogance teeming through A&A's intro chapters. Why is their text so much better if it is the same?

I've surely beat this into the ground now. I do think there is room for growth in methodology, though; and I think that growth can come from places other than Muenster.

I just received a reminder about the SBL / Logos Technology Paper Awards. I'm anxious to see what folks are working on!

The dealine for papers is May 1, 2007 with winners announced at International SBL in Vienna. Here's a blurb for the uninformed:

Logos Bible Software and the Society of Biblical Literature announce two sets of awards for papers that creatively use technology in exploring questions of grammar and syntax in biblical studies: one focusing on the Hebrew Bible, the other on the Greek New Testament. The contests are open to all those engaged in the study of those disciplines, and prizes will be awarded in both areas for student and faculty/professional categories. A total of twelve awards will be given.

There's some decent winnings ($1000 cash, $1000 Logos software credit, and $200 SBL book credit for first place entries (4 available) for winning papers, and lots of chance to win with both student and professional entries for the areas of Hebrew Bible and also Greek New Testament. I'd enter, but Logos employees are not eligible.

Get thee to thine syntax annotations!

Update (2007-03-31): ricoblog reader Tom notes that syntax searching can be difficult to get a grasp on. I agree; the multi-dimensionality of the data alone is a new sort of concept to master in thinking about the Greek New Testament. For me, I've found a deductive method to work. If you are somewhat familiar with NT Greek, begin with a passage you know cold. Compare the syntax graph to what you know of and see mentally when  you examine the text itself. See how the syntax maps the structures you're thinking of. Then, using the graph as a guide, try to reproduce some structures. Start small and general, like a clause component that has the same wordgroup->head term->word (insert the proper lemma) as what you're looking at. Search and tweak until you get your template passage as a hit. Then add new components and tweak to get an idea of how to map the basic structure you already know. "Lather, rinse, repeat" is how I end up describing it. Also, beginning with a passage you know, you could do a Bible Word Study on a word and examine the sorts of things the Grammatical Relationships section returns. Under the hood, that's doing a lot of template-based syntax searching. So that's another way to start to play with syntax data without having to master the search dialog.

[This is part of a series of posts looking at "thorough-going eclecticism" as practiced by J.K. Elliott in his book The Greek Text of the Epistles to Timothy and Titus. See the introductory post for more information. --RWB]

NB: In this post, I abbreviate "homoioteleuton" with "hom." (as Elliott does in his book). I've also posted on homoioteleuton before.

The first basic principle Elliott lists is that of hom. In his introduction, he uses 1Ti 5.16 as an example, where a shorter text (πιστος η πιστη) is explained by an instance of hom. from the longer text (ΠΙCΤοςηΠΙCΤη). Elliott writes:

... the scribes eye has passed from the first ΠΙCΤ to the second, and he has omitted the intervening letters. Hom. seems to have been a frequent cause of error in the Pastoral Epistles ...

Elliott provides several examples from the first chapter of First Timothy where hom. may be appealed to to explain a variant and, therefore, argue for the longer text. These instances include:

• 1Ti 1.9: MS 1874, 623, and 1836 omit καὶ μητρολῴαις from πατρολῴαις καὶ μητρολῴαις. This as well can be explained by hom.: παΤΡΟΛΩΑΙCιακμηΤΡΟΛΩΑΙC. After writing the first word, the scribe's eyes skipped to the same ending on the second word, and progressed from there.
• 1Ti 1.10: MS 915 and 917 omit πόρνοις. The word that ends v. 9 has the same ending (ἀνδροφόνοις πόρνοις) , so hom. can be used to explain the omission: ανδροφοΝΟΙCπορΝΟΙC
• 1Ti 1.14: MS 1908 and 489 have καὶ ἀγάπης ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ (omitting the article) while NA27 have καὶ ἀγάπης τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ. Elliott notes that hom. may be a contributing factor to 1908 and 489 omitting τῆς: αγαΠΗCΤΗCεν
• 1Ti 1.17: Uncials S^c D^bc K L P H along with TR (hence KJV) and most minuscules have μονῳ σοφῳ θῳ (only wise God) while UBS/NA have μόνῳ θεῷ (only God). Hom. can explain the longer reading as being shortened; the scribe's eyes wandered from omega to omega: μονΩσοφΩΘΩ. The scribe, I'd guess, would be less likely to omit θῳ; perhaps he could've even missed σοφῳ in his anxiousness to not miss θῳ. Metzger, in his Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament provides the flip side of the coin:

  After μόνῳ the Textus Receptus inserts σοφῷ, with אc Dc K L P most minuscules syrh goth. The word is no doubt a scribal gloss derived from Ro 16.27; the shorter reading is strongly supported by good representatives of both the Alexandrian and the Western types of text (א* A D* F G H* 33 1739 itd, g vg syrp copsa, bo arm eth arab).
  Metzger, B. M., & United Bible Societies. (1994). A textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, second edition a companion volume to the United Bible Societies' Greek New Testament (4th rev. ed.) (572). London; New York: United Bible Societies.

  I'd never really considered hom. as responsible for the omission of σοφῷ; I'll have to think about this a little more.

You'll note that one consequence of a thorough-going eclecticism is that of disregarding documentary evidence. Surely one can't tell everything from textual provenance and the general quality of readings in a MS. It is possible for the better MSS to be wrong, and the less trustworthy MSS to be correct. But I'd think the better road is in the middle, not on the edges. Even so, there are some decent real-world examples above where hom. may be at play in the readings. Seeing these examples and working through them helps me know what to look for in the future when considering variants listed in various apparatuses.

Next up: Line omission.

I've recently been able to finally examine J.K. Elliott's The Greek Text of the Epistles to Timothy and Titus (vol. 36 in the Studies and Documents series published by the University of Utah Press, published in 1968). It is out of print and tough to come by. I'd link to Amazon, but there's only a stub there that says it isn't available. LibraryThing has no listing either. If you're interested in this book, get thee to a theological library!

In the volume, which forms some portion of Elliott's doctoral dissertation from Oxford, Elliott argues against Westcott & Hort's geneaological methodology. Here's what he has to say about the geneaological method:

But it is not only the disintegration of the theory of local text types which has made W. and H.'s (and Streeter's) genealogical method impractical. Mixture makes it impossible to confine a text to a certain geographical area or text grouping. Similarly, a full genealogical plan cannot be constructed to work back to an archetype. The genealogical method is possible in only a restricted way, such as in the building up of family 1, family 13, and family pi. F.H. Tinnefeld works back from D E F G to an archetype.  But such a genealogical method is limited, and even in these family groups, variants, corruption and conflate readings occur. They have to be explained, and as a result the term 'family' can be applied only in a loose way. (Elliott, 3-4).

This volume presents Elliott's application of "thoroughgoing eclecticism" to the Pastoral Epistles. The introduction necessarily defines this methodology, and does so rather succinctly. He derives five primary "principles for use in a thoroughgoing eclectic study of the N.T. text" (Elliott, 6). These are:

• Homoioteleuton and line-omission
• Author's style and usage
• Atticism
• Deliberate alterations
  • Theological or liturgical alterations
  • Grammatical and linguistic alterations
  • Assimilation or harmonization of parallel passages
• Accidental errors

Notably absent in Elliott's principles are any mention as to manuscript quality or provenance. That is, no given MS is preferred over another. Indeed, Elliott takes some readings that by documentary evidence alone are incredibly weak—but Elliott's criteria render more appealing. What his methodology ends up requiring is thinking about each variant from a number of angles, doing research on variants, and—ultimately—really getting to know the text. It speaks volumes against the "cult of the best MS" (Elliott, 4):

The increase of Biblical and textual studies since the time of W. and H. has done much to dispel the 'cult of the best ms.' Some critics still try to clutch at the remnants of W. and H.'s methods. But, with the distrust of the superiority of any given ms. or text type, with the disintegration of closely-knit family units, and with the recognition that the genealogical method is impractical, it is difficult to justify the use of these methods. A more rational system of textual criticism is obviously necessary to replace the old, and it is possible using new knowledge. For example, there is much greater knowledge of Koine Greek due to papyrological studies, more grammars of N.T. Greek are available, the readings of fathers, versions and papyri are accessible. Past methods have been disproved, new knowledge is available: the way is clear for an eclectic study of the N.T. text. (Elliott, 4)

How easy is it for us to say, "yeah, that reading is in B and aleph, so it's gotta be the best"? Pretty easy. How easy is it to actually look at the variants and consider if some form Elliott's principles may have happened? That requires thought, it requires familiarity with the language and the manuscripts, it requires familiarity with syntax and grammar, it requires familiarity with author style. It requires a whole lot more than simply looking to see which MS are earliest and from a provenance we happen to like.

In a series of posts, I hope to go over these main principles of Elliott's methodology, provide examples from his work in the Pastorals, and discuss them just a bit. At least, that's what I hope to do. My intent is simply to sharpen my own understanding of textual criticism and specifically to see what I think of Elliott's methodology as applied here. We'll see if it actually happens.

Lastly, if I may be so bold, another angle that an eclectic methodology may profit from is an examination of prominence and word order along the lines of Stephen Levinsohn (amazon.com). A colleague of mine is doing some really fascinating work in this area, and Jenny Read-Hiemerdinger has done some good work (in JSNTSup volumes here (amazon.com) and here (amazon.com)) in applying this perspective to textual criticism; specifically in examining readings in Acts of codex Bezae. Fun stuff.

Update I (2007-03-24): The series has begun.

• Update II (2007-03-24): Thorough-going Eclecticism Part I: Homoioteleuton
• Update III (2007-04-18): Thorough-going Eclecticism Part II: Line Omission

I just read with interest Chris Wiemer's post on the Jesus Tomb stuff. One thing he mentioned concerned the Acts of Philip:

[The filmmakers] spent more time dealing with Mariamene, which they assumed could be contracted into Mariamne. They then apparently made the connection to Mary Magdalene, since in the Acts of Philip, Philip has a sister named Mariamne, and apparently (since I don’t think the Acts have yet been translated into English, at least according to Harvard Magazine and Harvard University Gazette) this Mariamne is Mary Magdalene. However, the connection itself isn’t solid-proof. Instead the discoverer of the manuscript, François Bovon, doesn’t claim, as far as I can tell from sources, that this is definitely Mary Magdalene, but that only it is possible for her to be identified with Mary Magdalene. Not having the text in my hand, I cannot say one way or another.

Now I'm curious. Everyone says that the name is found in the Acts of Philip, but nobody discusses the character of that text, its contents, or anything about it—as if the simple existence of the name in the text is all that matters and the nature, character and contents of the text means nothing.

I'd figured there was a text and transcription readily available. But after reading Chris' post, I guess it isn't. [Update: The translation is found in M.R. James' NT Apocrypha (amazon.com) and is available online. h/t Danny Zacharias, but see below for more] So I checked my copy of Schneemelcher's NT Apocrypha, vol. 2 (amazon.com) (here's vol. 1 (amazon.com) if you're interested). There are a few pages on contents (vol 2. pp. 468-473, sect. 12.1 Acta Philippi), but no translation. And the description is of a text in shambles. Some interesting excerpts below:

... we may conclude with a high degree of probability that the version of the Acta Philippi which has come down to us originated in encratite circles in Asia Minor somewhere about the middle of the 4th century. Since this version is however an artificial conglomeration of very diverse and sometimes contradictory material, the question of the authorship and origin of individual parts remains open. (p. 469)

So, in other words, folks think the text was composed/assembled in the middle of the 4th century ... 300+ years after Jesus' death and resurrection. No connection with Mary Magdalene is discussed. However, the next paragraph continues:

The report included at the beginning of the eighth act, about the division of the world among the apostles and the sending of Philip together with Bartholomew and Mariamne to the 'city of the serpent' forms a clear brak after the preceding first seven acts, and signals the beginning of the 'Acta Philippi in Heirapolis' with the appended martyrdom (cc. 94-148: Aa II/2, 36-90). This part is without doubt the most important—in terms of volume also—and oldest section of the Acta Philippi, and is conspicuous both for its stylistic unity and also for its depth of thought—in contrast to the episodes of the first seven acts, which are often intermixed without continuity, full of adventures and poor in ideas. (p. 469).

If Philip is in Heirapolis, then we're dealing with Philip the apostle, right? The one Papias mentions (see here, sect. IV)? So what is the connection of Mary Magdalene with Philip the apostle? None that I am aware of. Here's more on Mariamne in in Acts of Philip:

The fact that not all of the elements of this old tradition found their way into the 'Acta philippi in Heriapolis'—e.g. there is not a word about Philip's daughters, and instead the apostle is given his 'sister' Mariamne as a companion—and that (against this tradition) a martyrdom embellished with rich symbolism and profound trains of through was already added signals the relationship of our present Acts to the five older Acts of the Manichean corpus, although we cannot always demonstrate a direct dependence upon them. (p. 470).

There's more, this on parallels with other apocryphal literature:

Moreover, from act 8 of our present Πράξεις 'Mariamne', who is assigned to the apostle as sister and companion, plays a role similar to that to Thecla at the side of Paul..

The dialogue between Mariamne and Nicanora, in which the two women are described as 'twin sisters, daughters of the same mother' (c. 115, Aa II/2, 45.15-46.13) could, in A. Orbe's opinion contain an esoteric interpreatation fo the Heilgeschichte according tot he Valentinian myth with clear analogies to the Acts of Thomas. (p. 470)

So, some see parallels of Philip & Mariamne to Paul & Thecla. And there's also this bit about Mariamne's twin sister.(?) I'm unaware of Mary Madgalene having a twin sister, or of her being sister to the apostle Philip. There's nothing in Schneemelcher at all about Mary Magdalene even being potentially associated with the Mariamne of the Acts of Philip.

Another book I have to hand that discusses the Acts of Philip is Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature (amazon.com) by Moreschini and Norelli. Their treatment is much less detailed than that inside of the Schneemelcher volumes. However, they do say this:

The section comprising 8-15 and the martyrdom brings Philip the apostle on the scene again. He, along with his sister Maryanne and Bartholemew, is a missionary in the city of Ofiorime, which the manuscripts identify with Hierapolis in Phrygia. (vol 2, p 222)

Here, the name translated "Maryanne" has to be that of Mariamne. Again, no comparison of any sort with Mary Magdalene. Magdalene isn't mentioned at all. Heck, "Mary" isn't even mentioned.

So, how do the filmmakers make the connection? If their methodology is sound, then perhaps we can conclude today that this "Maryanne" foreshadows the "Maryanne" of Gilligan's Island? The logic is the same—find a matching name and go with it. You heard it here first, folks.

I can only imagine what the Discovery Channel will drag out next Easter ...

Update (2007-03-07): Chris Weimer (Thoughts on Antiquity) writes in a comment regarding versions of the Acts of Philip:

The Acts of Philip you found online were an older, fragmentary version. François Bovon found a complete manuscript just a couple of years ago, and that version has not been translated yet. You were looking at a translation from 1924, well before the discovery.

I knew M.R. James was from 1924, and I figured based on references to Bovon in both Schneemelcher and Moreschini & Norelli that there was a new MS find. I was about to write an update, and then Chris commented clearing everyting up. Thanks, Chris, for putting the dots together for us!

Update (2007-03-13): Stephen Pfann weighs in with a full re-examination of the so-called Mary Magdalene ossuary. His conclusion: No dice. Check out his paper Mary Magdalene is Now Missing: A Corrected Reading of Rahmani Ossuary 701.

Here's my translation for James 3.1-12, which we're going over on Friday in our home group Bible study. It reads rough in some spots but that is because I largely keep the phrase and clause order from the Greek intact.

¹ Not many of you should become teachers my brothers, knowing that we who teach will receive a greater judgment. ² For greatly we all stumble. If anyone does not stumble in speech, he is a perfect man, able to bridle even the whole of his body. ³ But if horses' bits of bridle we put into their mouths, for them to obey us, we steer even the whole of their bodies. ⁴ And behold, great ships being driven by strong winds are steered by a very small rudder wherever the impulse of the steersman guides. ⁵ In the same way the tongue is a small part, but it boasts greatly.

Behold, how a small fire ignites such a large forest! ⁶ The tongue is a fire: the world of the unjust. The tongue is put in charge of our parts, defiling the whole body; setting ablaze the wheel of being* and set ablaze by Gehenna. ⁷ For every kind—beast and bird, snake and sea creature—is tameable and has been tamed by human-kind. ⁸ But the tongue no human can possibly tame; (the tongue is) a restless evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹ With it we bless the Lord and Father and with it we curse humans—the same humans made in the image of God. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing. Not ever, my brothers, are these things to be! ¹¹ Does a spring from the same source pour forth both fresh (water) and salt (water)? ¹² Is it possible, my brothers, for a fig tree to produce olives? Or a grapevine (to produce) figs? Neither can salt produce fresh water.

* "wheel of being" ==> idiom for "course of life" or "way of life".

(If you're reading this with a feed reader, you may be missing out on relevant images. Check out the actual post on my main blog site. — RWB)

A friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Michael S. Heiser, presented a paper on the "Jesus Ossuary" at the 2003 meeting of the Near East Archaeological Society. This is the ossuary behind the "Jesus Family Tomb" sensationalism that the biblioblogosphere is abuzz over (see Ben Witherington for a good overview).

In his paper, titled "The Jesus Ossuary: A Critical Examination", Dr. Heiser works through the inscriptions on the relevant ossuaries using L.Y. Rahmani's A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel. In case you're wondering about Dr. Heiser's skills and training to do such work, here's his CV.

Mike posted the paper on his website this afternoon. So grab it and check it out, and see reproductions of the relevant inscriptions for yourself.

Update (2007-02-26): Just received word from Mike that he and Darrell Bock will be on Coast to Coast AM tonight talking about the Jesus Family Tomb thing. I won't be able to listen, but if you are you can find a local station on the Coast to Coast AM site.

Update II (2007-02-27): The Discovery Channel website has a PDF file with material from Rahmani's book as well. The PDF also has Amos Kloner's 1996 article on the tomb and inscriptions, which include maps of the tomb.

Update III (2007-02-27): Duane Smith over at Abnormal Interests has a post dealing with the inscriptions as well. It is worth reading.

Update IV (2007-03-01): Richard Bauckham (yes, that Richard Bauckham) guest-posts on the names and the inscriptions over at Chris Tilling's Chrisendom blog. You need to read this, Bauckham is the go-to guy in onomastics.

If you've not yet caught the sure-to-envelop-us-come-easter sensationalistic rah-rah about something folks are now calling "the Jesus tomb", you do need to check out Ben Witherington's post on the matter.

It is notable to check Witherington because he provides statistics on the relevant names that he received from Richard Bauckham. Bauckham is, from all I have read, one of the go-to guys in the realm of Palestinian names in the first century. That, tied with other stats Bauckham provides on the frequency of names found on ossuaries provides some good data by which to refute the sensationalistic claims made by the filmmakers of "The Jesus Tomb". So do check it out.

My take? I think the data on names, combined with the known sensationalism-mongering of the filmmakers (thoroughly documented and debunked by Chris Heard, check it out) combined with the fact that the tomb's original finders and excavators reached entirely opposite conclusions (the tomb was found in 1980, findings released in 1996) speaks volumes against what the filmmakers are proposing.

All of this sounds like you've stepped in on the middle of a conversation? Then you probably have. So check out Witherington's post for the background and some further information on how to handle the assertion when you hear it come easter.

I mentioned awhile back that I was presenting a paper at the 2007 NW Regional ETS Meeting on the "plural to singular narrative device" as described by Richard Bauckham in his recent book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (amazon.com).

Well, the paper is done (enough). I'm not completely satisfied with it, but I'm cuttin' the cord. If you'd like to give it a look-see, it is on my Academic Papers page. Or just download the PDF directly. I'm presenting the paper on Saturday; I'll likely post an update here to let y'all know how it goes.

Update (2007-02-26): The conference was good (Darrell Bock had the keynote) and the paper went well. I received good feedback from those who heard it and was generally encouraged.

I mentioned yesterday that I'd post my translation of James 2.14-26, so here it is.

I typically translate clause-by-clause and my translations try to convey Greek word order where doing so isn't overly unweildy. And I haven't thought much about paragraph boundaries either. Anyway, here it is:

14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Is it possible for that faith to save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacking in food for the day, 16 and if one from out of your number says, "Go away in peace, keep warm and stay filled with food", and does not give them their bodily needs, what good is it? 17 Faith is like this, if it does not have works it is dead by itself.

18 But someone will say: "You have faith, and I have works". Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith from works. 19 You believe that God is one and you do well. Even the demons believe this and tremble. 20 But do you desire to know, you empty-headed human, that faith without works is useless?

21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works in offering up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was a co-laborer with his works and by his works faith was proven 23 and the scripture was fulfilled which says: "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness", and he became a friend of God.

24 You see that from works a person is justified and not from faith alone.

25 And was not Rahab the whore in the same way justified by receiving the messengers and sending them out another way?

26 For just as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.

I'm in a home group Bible study going over the book of James. So I study the week's passage for my morning study time.

Yesterday and today I read and translated James 2.14-26. Wow. Familiar text to most folks who have been around the church for awhile, I'm sure. But stop and read it again sometime soon, and focus on the context of surrounding discussion in James (particularly 1.19-2.13, which speaks of the futility of hearing and not doing).

I'm at the office now, my translation is at home. Maybe I'll post it later.

Note Michael Pahl's thoughts about Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses (amazon.com), where he breaks his discussion into "things I like" and "areas that failed to convince".

Some of the areas that failed to convince Michael also failed to convince me — notably the "inclusio of eyewitness testimony". As regards Mark, if his main source is Peter, what is the likelihood that the first and last testimony he uses are Peter's? Er ... uh ... probably the most likely of the options. It is interesting, and Bauckham provokes thought here, but it just doesn't hit me.

Actually, it's probably been at the office a few days; I've been on a two-week holiday and just got back to the office this afternoon.

I don't know that I'll dig into Caragounis' tome right away; this one seems more like a slow simmer of a read than a blitz and I have some blitzin' to do for a few papers.

Here's the blurb, though:

Languages inevitably evolve, and our understanding of texts from particular times and places must be illuminated by an awareness of changes and continuities in linguistic usage over time. The Development of Greek and the New Testament explores the relationship between the developing Greek language and the body of writings in Greek that make up the New Testament, arguing that the history of Greek is vitally important to New Testament interpretation. Caragounis provides a wealth of historical information not otherwise readily available to students of New Testament Greek. Extensive tables, indices, and bibliographies aid further study. An essential resource for advanced students of New Testament Greek, this unique work is highly valuable for all Hellenists, Byzantinists, and students of Greek patristics.

Chris Tilling finally hits chapter 7 in his series on Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Yay!

Chapter 7 is the one that discusses the "Plural to Singular Narrative Device". I've been digging around with this 'device' to see if it is used in the NT outside of Bauckham's listed instances (21 in Mark, 2 in Luke). As a matter of fact, I'm writing a paper for the 2007 NW Regional ETS meeting on one potential instance, Acts 18.19-21.

I've been intrigued by this device since I read about it and have done some poking around the NT. I present the paper on Feb. 24, I'll likely post a version of it here after the conference.

I can never remember if the words "Marcan" and "Lucan" are spelled with 'c' or 'k'.

Thankfully, for situations like this, there is GoogleFight.

Fight 1: Markan vs. Marcan.
Results: 755,000 to 3,520,000. "Marcan" wins!

Fight 2: Lukan vs. Lucan.
Results: 267,000 to 1,960,000. "Lucan" wins!

I can heartily recommend Paul and First Century Letter Writing (amazon.com). Richards does a great job focusing studies of the mechanics of writing letters in the first century and applying what we know about Paul from his own letters.

Readers of ricoblog know that in the past I blogged about and recommended Hans-Jozef Klauck's Ancient Letters and the New Testament (amazon.com) as an introduction to epistolography. I still stand by that, Klauk's book is a good general introduction to epistolography (not just NT, but epistolography in general). I'd recommend Paul and First Century Letter Writing (amazon.com) over Klauck because Richards is less technical and more directly applicable to NT epistles, particularly those of Paul. I'd go so far as to say that if you teach a course on Paul's epistles, you'd do well to consider requiring Paul and First Century Letter Writing (amazon.com) as a text so the students can get a grasp of how Paul might've actually gone about composing his letters.

Here's the brief TOC of Paul and First Century Letter Writing (amazon.com):

Introduction
1: A Modern, Western Paul
2: Paul as a First-Century Letter Writer
3: The Tools of a Letter Writer
4: Secretaries in the First Century World
5: Paul's Use of a Secretary
6: Identifying Inserted Material
7: Weaving Together a Letter
8: Classifying Paul's Letters
9: Analyzing Paul's Writing Style
10: Preparing a Letter for Dispatch
11: Dispatching the Letter
12: Paul's Letter Carriers
13: Paul's Use of His Letter Carriers
14: Collecting Paul's Letters
15: Inspiration and First-Century Letter Writing
Conclusion

Again, this book is heartily recommended.

Next book in my queue: Lexical Priming: A New Theory of Words and Language (amazon.com) by Michael Hoey. This was recommended to me by my friend Randall Tan; we'll be writing a paper applying some of Hoey's concepts to NT Greek for International SBL in Vienna (though I won't be able to attend the conference). I'm sure I'll blog a bit about that as I read it. Dunno if I'll get through it as fast as this last one, though.

I just received word that a paper I proposed for the 2007 NW Regional ETS Meeting has been accepted for presentation. The meeting is on Feb. 24 at Corban College in Salem, Oregon.

The genesis of this paper has to do with Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. I was reading the chapter that discusses the "plural to singular narrative device" in Mark and was intrigued. Here Bauckham was positing a syntactic structure that could, in certain cases, point back to eyewitness testimony. It got me thinking, and I wondered if the structure occurred outside of Mark. Bauckham allows for that; he himself cites two Lukan instances. I've been playing around with Logos Bible Software's syntax searching to locate other possible instances and work through them. The paper has to do with one of those instances. Here are the details:

From the Mouth of Paul: Acts 18.19-21 as Eyewitness Testimony

Paul's initial journey to Ephesus, mentioned in Acts 18.19-21, has been dismissed in some critical commentaries (e.g. Conzelmann's Hermeneia volume) as a Lucan insertion with no historical basis. Other critical commentaries (e.g. C.K. Barrett's ICC volume) simply dismiss Conzelmann's suggestion without fully refuting it.

A recent book by Richard Bauckham (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Eerdmans 2006) describes Marcan usage of something he calls the "plural to singular narrative device" (Bauckham 156-157). He defines the device using syntactic terminology: "a plural verb ... without an explicit subject is used to describe the movements of Jesus and his disciples, followed immediately by a singular verb or pronoun referring to Jesus alone" (Bauckham 156-157). Using this device, Bauckham posits Mark's usage of Peter's eyewitness testimony as underlying source for 21 different movements of Jesus (e.g. Mk 1.21).

The structure and context of Acts 18.19 fit within Bauckham's syntactic description. This exploratory paper proposes that Acts 18.19-21 be seen as an instance of the plural-to-singular narrative device, pointing to eyewitness testimony from Paul as basis of the short episode. If this analysis holds, this paper provides substance by which to dismiss the suggestion that the text is a Lucan insertion with no historical basis.

Thus, the paper will be a review of the primary commentaries on the passage; a review of Bauckham's (and, necessarily, C.H. Turner's) description of the device and how it is used, a discussion of using syntax searching to match Bauckham's criteria, and a discussion of how Acts 18.19-21 fit Bauckham's criteria. There are some rough spots, notably that of why Luke would use the device in this portion of Acts when he tends to remove it from shared Marcan material in his gospel.

We'll see what happens.

Since I finished Bauckham, I'm now reading Larry Hurtado's The Earliest Christian Artifacts. Yet another SBL purchase. After this comes either Wayne Kannaday on apologetic influence of scribes or a book on Paul and early letter writing.

I don't know that I'll blog on this one much. The first few chapters look at aggregate counts of Jewish and Christian documents and begin to make preliminary conclusions. The sample sizes (in light of known papyri) seem pretty small to base any conclusions from, but the insights and approach is interesting nonetheless.

Update (2007-01-15): Finished it this afternoon. Overall some things to think about, but nothing earth-shattering. Hurtado's proposals on the origin of the nomina sacra stimulate thought. The section on the staurogram had interesting background but wasn't surprising. If you're into early Christian MSS or even perhaps "Christian Origins" (whatever that really means) then you'll probably want to check this out.

A colleague and I were looking at Luke 6.4 in the NA27:

[ὡς] εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τοὺς ἄρτους τῆς προθέσεως λαβὼν ἔφαγεν καὶ ἔδωκεν τοῖς μετʼ αὐτοῦ, οὓς οὐκ ἔξεστιν φαγεῖν εἰ μὴ μόνους τοὺς ἱερεῖς;(Lk 6:4, NA27)

Specifically, the first word ὡς, which has a possible variant of πως. Here's the NA27 apparatus:

[replace] πως 01² L Θ f 1.13 33. 700. 1241. 1424 pc co | – P⁴ B D sy^p | txt 01^* A C W Ψ M
Nestle, E., Nestle, E., Aland, K., Aland, B., & Universität Münster. Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung. (1993, c1979). Novum Testamentum Graece. At head of title: Nestle-Aland. (27. Aufl., rev.) (171). Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelstiftung.

Reading the apparatus, you really don't know what to think. The variant πως is likeable because it is cleaner and reads easier. But according to one of the so-called "canons" of textual criticism, we're to prefer the harder reading — which is just what the NA27 editors have done. But why?

In this case, we can view some of the original MSS, particularly Sinaiticus (01). As noted in the apparatus, both readings are witnessed in Sinaiticus. The original reading is ὡς, a corrector has revised to πως. So, what does it look like?

(kudos to zhubert.com and csntm.org for lookup and graphic)

So it's fairly easy to tell the π is slipped in by a corrector because the style is different (compare other π in same snippet, fifth letter on top line, fifth letter on second line) and because it is on the margin. So it wasn't in the original pass.

What does this prove? Not much. But the initially attractive variant (and still attractive depending on how you measure it) looks a little less attractive because we can see the nature of the addition. Perhaps a well-meaning scribe also appreciated that πως would be the easier read here and slipped the variant in. Either way, we've confirmed it wasn't done by the original scribe, whatever you may think of his work.

Of course, you should ask other questions at this point because perhaps the variant is a true correction. While the "rule" about preferring the more difficult reading makes sense at times, one has to account for grammatically incompetent or perhaps near-sighted scribes. Maybe even hard-of-hearing scribes.

For instance, the variant under discussion here (ὡς vs. πως) could be the result of a mispronunciation (was that an aspiration or a pi?) from a lector. Or perhaps the previous word ended with a closed syllable (particularly if closed on a labial plosive) and the following aspirated syllable was mis-heard and thus mis-copied. Or perhaps the scribe mis-read the original line for similar reasons when he copied it. But in this case that isn't likely, the previous syllable is open, which we've confirmed by examining the source.

Another reason why apparatuses are helpful, but examining the actual MSS can be more useful.

What did my colleague and I decide? I guess we like sticking with NA27 because of the 'harder reading' argument and also because the original hand of Sinaiticus wrote it that way; along with the confluence of other witnesses of the reading. C'est la vie.

Update (2007-01-09): Note Stephen C. Carlson's (Hypotyposeis) comment. Thanks, Stephen. I hadn't noted the possible harmonization to Mt 12.4 nor the previous variant in Lu 6.3; thanks for supplying the info. Much better info for evaluating the variant. Yet another thing that a bottom-of-the-page apparatus doesn't handle nicely (or at all).

As I've mentioned before, I'm reading through Richard Bauckham's new tome Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. In the chapter on Eyewitness Memory, Bauckham lists many factors that point to the "reliability of recollective memory" (pp. 330-346). One of those factors is what he calls "Gist and details" (pp. 333-334; 344). Bauckham introduces the concept by saying:

Some writers, particularly those who emphasize the likelihood of inaccuracy in long-term recollective memory, argue that the "gist" of the memory is likely to be accurate, even when the details are not. Barclay maintains that hte recollective memories are "true in the sense of maintaining the integrity and gist of past life events" (Bauckham 333).

As I read this, I flashed back to Bart Ehrman's Gospel of Judas and his presentation on Judas' betrayal. I remembered blogging on the topic and noting how Ehrman focused on the differences of each account of Judas' betrayal and essentially used the differences to cast aspersions on the whole of each account, concluding that the accounts in Matthew and Acts were "impossible to reconcile". My response was to examine each account and determine what was consistent between them and consider that the basis of the event. Using the lingo I just read in Bauckham, I'd say one should examine the different accounts to get at the "gist" of the situation. Bauckham does the same sort of thing when considering Peter's denials of Christ:

A good example of the consistency of the gist along with variation in inessential detail is the story of Peter's three denials of Jesus as told in all four Gospels (Mt 26.58, 69-75; Mk 14.54, 66-72; Lk 22.54-62; Jn 18-15-18, 25-27) (Bauckham 344).

Bauckham goes on to describe the essential and inessential detail of each account and build a likely view of the event based on shared essential detail. The subsection-concluding paragraph wraps it up nicely:

In such examples [here accounts of Peter's denial] we can see that the gist of an eyewitness memory, preserved in all tellings even if other details are not accurately preserved, and the gist of an oral tradition, preserved in all performances even when other details are varied, can readily coincide. This is a most important conclusion for the study of gospel traditions. It is a conclusion that recognizes the realistic extent to which memory can be relied upon, in the case both of the memory of the eyewetness and the memory of the preformer of oral tradition. The transition from the one to the other need not entail a significant decrease in reliability, though of course this is possible (Bauckham 345).

This from an email I wrote yesterday to a longtime friend who asked me about use of the OT in the NT. I'd just referred him to a recent BiblicalStudies.org.uk posting:. The "there" below refers to the URL that I placed above this paragraph.

There is an article on Jesus' use of the Old Testament in PDF that is downloadable. I've not read it, so I can't say too much, but it sounds along the lines of the sort of thing you're looking for.

In re-reading the first sentence this morning (my friend responded to my email) I thought the following:

"Yet another example as to why reading the NT epistles is fraught with peril."

Why would I say that? Why, the prepositional phrase "in PDF", of course. What does it modify? We know because we know that "PDF" is the Portable Document Format and it refers to an electronic representation of a paper page. But what if I didn't know that, or if I didn't have the cultural wherewithal to put it together? Then my options are:

• "in PDF" modifies "the Old Testament", so I'm referring to an article about Jesus' use of the OT in something called 'PDF'. Maybe it represents a tri-consonontal Hebrew root, maybe it represents a subsection of his teaching and how he uses the OT in it ... hey, it could be anything.
• "in PDF" modifies "an article". That's what I intended, of course. I mean, it's obvious. Right?

Even worse, you can't disambiguate based on the second sentence. Some disambiguation is possible based on the URL that was above the paragraph (though the URL was to a .html page, not a .pdf page) and the further clarifier "that is downloadable" (all the more reason to ensure we have as much context as possible when reading epistles!). That could be enough of a cue to prevent someone from thinking that I was perhaps referring to Jesus' Palestinian Desert Forays, but with some of the exegetical method practiced out there these days, I can't guarantee it.

In my hot little hands: The Logos Bible Software edition of Max Zerwick & Mary Grosvenor's A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament, 5th Edition.

A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament presents a verse by verse analysis of the original Greek New Testament. Breaking down the significant Greek words, it offers parsing, including cross-references to the author’s Biblical Greek, notes, glosses, and other relevant information. Grammatical Analysis also provides a succinct interpretation of figures of speech and other explicit or implicit information within the Greek text. The analysis is preceded by a glossary of grammatical terms.

Here's a question someone out there in ye olde biblioblogosphere may be able to give me some direction on.

Has anyone seriously proposed and defended (or eviscerated ... I'm equal opportunity here) Paul as one of Luke's sources for the portion of Acts that deals with Paul? I realize (based on the 'we' passages, right?) that Luke himself could be primary source ... but aren't there portions where Luke wasn't with Paul? And couldn't some of those portions likely be traced back to Paul's own testimony?

After all, if you take the epistles attributed to Paul at their word, Luke and Paul were in contact with each other or actually with each other (cf. Col 4.14; 2Ti 4.11; Phm 24). Most do attribute Philemon to Paul, so even if one thinks Colossians and Second Timothy are non-Pauline, one still has to contend with the reference in Philemon.

If you have any pointers here (articles, books, commentaries with good initial discussions, or NT intro volumes, or anything else) I'd appreciate it!

Thanks!

Update (2006-12-18): Upon re-reading this entry, I think I need to supply a little more context for my request. The long and short of it is that I've been reading Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses and thinking about the different ways that Bauckham posits eyewitness testimony in the text, and wondering about eyewitness testimony outside of the gospels. Acts seems the logical place to start poking around for various reasons I won't get into here.

So, I was wondering if anyone knew of any similar sort of work in Acts, but I'm guessing there isn't much (else Bauckham would've footnoted it).

Update II (2006-12-21): After a trip up north to the TWU Library, I am now reading H.J. Cadbury's The Making of Luke-Acts. I know it is a bit dated, but hopefully it'll provide some background. If anyone has similar references or pointers to criticism of Cadbury's work, I'd be obliged. Thanks!

In the home group Bible study I attend, we wrapped up Colossians last week Friday, looking at the bulk of chapter 4. Below is a hastily compiled translation/outline (I'd probably change a few things) but it should suffice to post here.

Translation/Outline

2 Τῇ προσευχῇ προσκαρτερεῖτε,
2 Continue steadfastly in prayer,
   γρηγοροῦντες ἐν αὐτῇ ἐν εὐχαριστίᾳ,
   be alert with thanksgiving in this,
   3 προσευχόμενοι ἅμα καὶ περὶ ἡμῶν,
   3 praying at the same time for us,
      ἵνα ὁ θεὸς ἀνοίξῃ ἡμῖν θύραν τοῦ λόγου λαλῆσαι τὸ μυστήριον τοῦ Χριστοῦ,
      that God might open to us a door for the word to speak the mystery of Christ,
         διʼ ὃ καὶ δέδεμαι,
         (because of this I have been imprisoned)
      4 ἵνα φανερώσω αὐτὸ ὡς δεῖ με λαλῆσαι.
      4 and that I might make it plain as is necessary for me to speak.

5 Ἐν σοφίᾳ περιπατεῖτε πρὸς τοὺς ἔξω τὸν καιρὸν ἐξαγοραζόμενοι.
5 Walk in wisdom concerning those who are outside, making the most of the time.

6 ὁ λόγος ὑμῶν πάντοτε ἐν χάριτι,
6 Let your speech always be gracious,
   ἅλατι ἠρτυμένος,
   seasoned with salt,
   εἰδέναι πῶς δεῖ ὑμᾶς ἑνὶ ἑκάστῳ ἀποκρίνεσθαι.
   so that you may know how you should answer each one.

7 Τὰ κατʼ ἐμὲ πάντα γνωρίσει ὑμῖν Τύχικος
7 Concerning me, Tychicus will make everything known to you.
   ὁ ἀγαπητὸς ἀδελφὸς
   He is a beloved brother
   καὶ πιστὸς διάκονος
   and a faithful minister
   καὶ σύνδουλος ἐν κυρίῳ,
   and a fellow-bondservant in the Lord,
      8 ὃν ἔπεμψα πρὸς ὑμᾶς εἰς αὐτὸ τοῦτο,
      8 whom I have sent to you for this very thing,
         ἵνα γνῶτε τὰ περὶ ἡμῶν καὶ παρακαλέσῃ τὰς καρδίας ὑμῶν,
         so that you might know about us and encourage your hearts.
   9 σὺν Ὀνησίμῳ
   9 With him, Onesimus,
      τῷ πιστῷ
      faithful
      καὶ ἀγαπητῷ ἀδελφῷ,
      and beloved brother,
      ὅς ἐστιν ἐξ ὑμῶν·
      who is one of you:
         πάντα ὑμῖν γνωρίσουσιν τὰ ὧδε.
         they will make known to you all that has happened here.

10 Ἀσπάζεται ὑμᾶς Ἀρίσταρχος ὁ συναιχμάλωτός μου
10 Aristarchus, my fellow-prisoner greets you;
   καὶ Μᾶρκος ὁ ἀνεψιὸς Βαρναβᾶ
   along with Mark, the cousin of Barnabas;
      (περὶ οὗ ἐλάβετε ἐντολάς, ἐὰν ἔλθῃ πρὸς ὑμᾶς, δέξασθε αὐτόν)
      (concerning him you have received directions — if he comes to you, welcome him)
   11 καὶ Ἰησοῦς ὁ λεγόμενος Ἰοῦστος,
   11 and Jesus who is called Justus.
      οἱ ὄντες ἐκ περιτομῆς,
      These men are of the circumcision,
         οὗτοι μόνοι συνεργοὶ εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ,
         they alone are fellow-workers for the Kingdom of God,
         οἵτινες ἐγενήθησάν μοι παρηγορία.
         and have been a comfort to me.

12 ἀσπάζεται ὑμᾶς Ἐπαφρᾶς ὁ ἐξ ὑμῶν,
12 Epaphras, who is one of you, greets you;
   δοῦλος Χριστοῦ [Ἰησοῦ],
   he is a servant of Christ [Jesus],
   πάντοτε ἀγωνιζόμενος ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν ἐν ταῖς προσευχαῖς,
   always agonizing on your behalf in prayers,
      ἵνα σταθῆτε τέλειοι καὶ πεπληροφορημένοι ἐν παντὶ θελήματι τοῦ θεοῦ.
      so that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.

13 μαρτυρῶ γὰρ αὐτῷ
13 For I testify of him
   ὅτι ἔχει πολὺν πόνον ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν καὶ τῶν ἐν Λαοδικείᾳ καὶ τῶν ἐν Ἱεραπόλει.
   that he has done incredible work on your behalf and those in Laodicea and those in Heirapolis.

14 ἀσπάζεται ὑμᾶς Λουκᾶς ὁ ἰατρὸς ὁ ἀγαπητὸς
14 Luke the beloved physician greets you,
   καὶ Δημᾶς.
   as does Demas.

15 Ἀσπάσασθε τοὺς ἐν Λαοδικείᾳ ἀδελφοὺς
15 Send my greetings to the believers in Laodicea,
   καὶ Νύμφαν
   and to Nympha as well,
   καὶ τὴν κατʼ οἶκον αὐτῆς ἐκκλησίαν.
   and to the gathering that meets in her house.

16 καὶ ὅταν ἀναγνωσθῇ παρʼ ὑμῖν ἡ ἐπιστολή,
16 When this letter has been read among you,
   ποιήσατε ἵνα καὶ ἐν τῇ Λαοδικέων ἐκκλησίᾳ ἀναγνωσθῇ,
   make it so that the ones at the gathering in Laodicea read it,
   καὶ τὴν ἐκ Λαοδικείας
   and that of the Laodiceans,
      ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀναγνῶτε.
      see that you read it.

17 καὶ εἴπατε Ἀρχίππῳ·
17 And say to Archippus:
   βλέπε τὴν διακονίαν ἣν παρέλαβες ἐν κυρίῳ,
   Regarding your ministry, which you recieved in the Lord,
      ἵνα αὐτὴν πληροῖς.
      [see to it] that it is fulfilled.

18 Ὁ ἀσπασμὸς τῇ ἐμῇ χειρὶ Παύλου.
18 This greeting [is written] with the hand of Paul:

   μνημονεύετέ μου τῶν δεσμῶν.
   Remember my chains.

   ἡ χάρις μεθʼ ὑμῶν.
   Grace be with you all.

Notes/Etc

A few things jumped out at me when I read this. First was the language that Paul used to describe his faithful associates. In particular, that Onesimus was not described as a fellow bond-servant as Tychicus was. Paul's letter to Philemon provides the reason for that, I'd posit.

Verses 7-9 stand out to me as excellent. There is an inclusio with repeated phraseology (πάντα γνωρίσει ὑμῖν / πάντα ὑμῖν γνωρίσουσιν) along with similar phrasing in the middle (last line of v. 8, γνῶτε τὰ περὶ ἡμῶν). The descriptions of Tychicus and Onesimus use similar language — each are beloved brothers — though Onesimus, as mentioned above, is not called a σύνδουλος.

Also, the information we can glean about churches and letters is interesting. We see here that there was a gathering that met in Nympha's house. The idea of a house-church, at least in some communities, seems affirmed. And note the reference to another letter, to the church of Laodicea. This means that letters from Paul (and perhaps other apostles) were being exchanged between churches, providing a glimpse that perhaps the bit in 2 Peter about letters of Paul has foundation.

Lastly, the section of greetings was interesting as I've recently looked into the so-called "Greeting Form" (occurring in concentrations here and in Romans 16).

If you've read Metzger's Early Versions, then you've heard of the Sogdian version of the NT. And likely that's all you've heard.

If you want to know more about the language called Sogdian, now you can! Check out the Sogdian Primer. The intro notes that most Christian texts found in the Sogdian language are translations from Syriac.

More intros to Iranian languages are available at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~iranian/.

Apologies for the extended radio silence, but I'm back. ETS and AAR/SBL were great, as usual. Plenty of good papers and, more importantly, there was much meeting with old friends and making of new friends. Since there has already been a decent amount of SBL chatter, I won't add to it. But I will say that I've posted PDF versions of all three of the papers I presented (along with handouts) on my personal web site.

Also — on the weird side, if you see Tyler Williams (of Codex) you should ask him about the dream I had that he played a prominent role in ...

Short abstracts and links to download papers are below.

2006 National Conference of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS)

• Paper: Subjects and Predicates and Complements, Oh My! Searching the New Testament with Sensitivity to Syntax
• Conference Handout
• Abstract: Logos Bible Software have implemented an edition of the OpenText.org Syntactically Annotated Greek New Testament. One facet of OpenText.org's work isolates clause boundaries. Within each clause, subjects, predicators, complements and adjuncts are identified. This enables searching of the Greek New Testament with sensitivity to clause-level criteria. This advance raises certain questions: How should syntactic annotation be used? What sorts of things can be searched for?
  This paper examines different sorts of searches that can be pursued from the starting point of a word. Questions like "When is [word] used as a subject?" or "What verbs are used when [word] is a subject?" will be examined and discussed.

2006 National Conference of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL)

• Paper: Modifiers in the Pastoral Epistles: Insight for Questions of Style?
• Conference Handout
• Program Unit: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
• Abstract: OpenText.org have completed a preliminary syntactic analysis of the Greek New Testament. One level of their analysis is the Word Group level. A word group is a group of words that consists of, at minimum, a head term. It also contains any terms that modify the head term and additionally specifies the type of modification as that of definer, qualifier, relator or specifier.
  Stylistic analysis has been largely bound to examining criteria such as word usage and morphology along with perhaps sentence length or co-occurring words. The OpenText.org Word Group Analysis allows for stylistic analysis of the corpus at a different level. Does modifier usage offer any insight for comparative studies of the Pastoral Epistles and the generally accepted Paulines?
  This paper examines modifier usage inside of epistolary prescripts in epistles traditionally attributed to Paul. The goal is to show that components of epistolary prescripts use modification for different purposes. This conclusion is well known, but by reaching the conclusion using only the OpenText.org Word Group Analysis, the subsequent value of the OpenText.org annotation for the analysis of style becomes evident.

• Paper: Syntax Searching and Epistolary Form Criticism
• Conference Handout
• Program Unit: Syntactically-Tagged Databases of the Greek NT: Overview & Training Seminar
• Abstract: This paper works through examples of proposed epistolary forms, searching for suggested form structure using the OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament as primary corpus. The following forms will be examined:
  • Disclosure Form
  • Greeting Form
  • Request/Petition Form
  • Joy Expression
  • Charge Form
  Will a syntactically analyzed Greek New Testament such as the OpenText.org Syntactically Analyzed Greek New Testament provide assistance in defining and isolating potential instances of forms in the New Testament?

[Overview, Part I, Part II]

I finally finished going through Klauck's Ancient Letters and the New Testament. Overall, I'd recommend it. However, you should note that Klauck discusses the NT letters as they fit his framework. He presents no alternatives or discussion regarding dating, authorship and authenticity of the NT epistles. Instead he takes the standard "scholarly" perspective (that is, something like Pastorals ==> not Paul, 2Thess/Col/Eph/Php ==> maybe Paul, Romans, 1 & 2 Cor, Gal, 1Th, Philemon ==> probably Paul).

But one thing that he does and does consistently is analyze the epistles as epistles. He looks at them as letters, he examines their rhetoric, and there is good information in the book -- particularly as entails structure and makeup of epistles.

He also has a plethora of analysis of epistles in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin literature. Chapter 6 reviews "Letters in Early Judaism". This includes brief summaries of things like letters in 2 Maccabees, 2 Baruch 77-87, 4 Baruch and the Bar Kokhba letters.

The last two chapters of the book (130+ pages) discuss the New Testament epistles as well as the letters found within the book of Acts.

Klauck's work is a handy book to have on the shelf for reference, but it is good to read straight through. So while you're at SBL, do yourself a favor and stroll on down to the Baylor Press booth, page through a copy, and see if you'd be interested in it.

If you're going to be at the AAR/SBL annual meeting in Washington DC, perhaps you'd like to come hear my paper. I have to warn you, though, I've only got 10 minutes and the paper doesn't lend itself to a 10 minute presentation. I've had the song "The Entertainer" by Billy Joel running through my mind all day as I've considered this:

I am the entertainer
    I come to do my show
You heard my latest record
    It's been on the radio
It took me years to write it
    They were the best years of my life
There was a beautiful song
    But it ran too long
If you're gonna have a hit
    You've gotta make it fit
So they cut it down to 3:05

Anyway, I figured I'd post the paper today. I'll post the handout after the conference. Here are the details:

Section: S19-105: Biblical Greek Language and Linguistics
Date: Sunday, Nov. 19, 2006
Time: 4:00-6:30. I'm #2 on the list, so that means I'd start around 4:10-4:15.
Location: 204C-CC

Paper Title: Modifiers in the Pastoral Epistles: Insight for Questions of Style? (PDF)

Abstract:

The OpenText.org group have completed a preliminary syntactic analysis of the Greek New Testament. One level of their analysis is the Word Group level. A word group is a group of words that consists of, at minimum, a head term. It also contains any terms that modify the head term and additionally specifies the type of modification as that of definer, qualifier, relator or specifier.

Stylistic analysis has been largely bound to examining criteria such as word usage and morphology along with perhaps sentence length or co-occurring words. The OpenText.org Word Group Analysis allows for stylistic analysis of the corpus at a different level. Does modifier usage offer any insight for comparative studies of the Pastoral Epistles and the generally accepted Paulines?

This paper briefly examines modifier usage inside of epistolary prescripts in epistles traditionally attributed to Paul. The goal is to show that components of epistolary prescripts use modification for different purposes. This conclusion is well known, but by reaching the conclusion using only the OpenText.org Word Group Analysis, the subsequent value of the OpenText.org annotation for the analysis of style becomes evident.

I should also take a moment and say that initially I'd planned on doing something much more in the realms of statistics and stylometry. I have all sorts of data, but further number crunching and helpful insight from others (you know who you are, thanks for your comments again) forced me to conclude I didn't have enough data to do the sorts of things that I'd wanted to. So this paper is actually scaled back a bit, and takes a different track than I'd originally planned. C'est la vie.

I'm in need of an article and don't have time in the near-term future to make it to a library (in either Seattle or the Vancouver area). If you have access to the following article and can provide a copy, please let me know. My email address is on the sidebar.

Terence Y. Mullins, “Petition as a Literary Form”, Novum Testamentum 5 (1962), pp. 46-52.

While you're at it, if you have access to Mullins' article on the disclosure formula, it would be cool to look at. This isn't nearly as much of a need, though.

Terence Y. Mullins, “Disclosure, a Literary Form in the New Testament”, Novum Testamentum 7 (1964), pp. 44-50.

Thanks in advance if you're able to lend a hand.

Update (2006-11-03): Much thanks to ricoblog reader Jan Krans (The Amsterdam NT Blog) for supplying both articles.

Update II (2006-11-03): If anyone else does retrieve and read those articles, please note that there are two typos in Bible reference citations on the last page of the article on petitions (p. 54). “2 Corinthians xx 2” should be “2 Corinthians x 2” and “2 Corinthians v 20; v 1” should be “2 Corinthians v 20; vi 1”.

<soapbox>Speaking as someone who has worked with actually looking up each and every citation in books programatically for the past 10 years ... well, you'd be amazed at how many times invalid references occur in print. If you're using lists of references from articles/books/dictionaries to make a point ... well, you should at least look up those references to ensure they really do make your point.</soapbox>

[See Part I and Part II in this series]

Well, I'm through the whole book, so it's time to blog about chapters 9-11. Recall these chapter titles:

• Who Was Judas Iscariot?
• What Did Judas Betray and Why Did He Betray It?
• The Gospel of Judas in Perspective

I've got to say, I'm a bit Bart-ed out. As he rolled to his conclusion, the battle-of-the-competing-orthodoxies vibe became more and more prominent. This is enough for me to commit, here and now, to say that I will not read any more of Bart's "popular" books. If he pops out some editions of gnostic texts in their original and translation, with or without commentary, I may jump on those. But the whole "victorious orthodox party" schtick is tired, old and has begun to grate on me. For perhaps the prime example of the last chapter of the book, consider this sub-section-ending paragraph on p. 179:

Is it just a coincidence that none of the noncanonical writings discovered over the course of the past century embody an orthodox perspective? If orthodoxy was so widespread, why is it that only heterodox documents of the second century have been discovered? The answer to this question leads me to consider why, after all, the Gospel of Judas should be seen as so important. (Ehrman, 179)

Where to start?

First ... uh ... well, we have this thing called the "New Testament" that Erhman would classsify as "orthodox" ... and we've had it for almost 2000 years. I don't think we're going to magically discover new canonical gospels seeing as how the canon is closed.

Second ... well ... we have these writings from guys called "church fathers" and the dudes they dialogued with in their writings. Some are orthodox, some are heretics, and some walk the line (that's right, a Johnny Cash reference in a post on Bart Ehrman!). We've had these for hundreds of years.

Third ... er, wasn't the Didache discovered in the mid-to-late 1800's? And wouldn't that be considered to be, for the most part, "orthodox"?

In other words, the orthodox stuff from that time frame (and before) is well-known and has been for centuries. Is Ehrman really saying that because no "orthodox documents" dating to the second century have been discovered in the past 100 years (so, pre-1906?) that therefore, QED, "heterodox Christians" must've been in the majority? I can't think so, but that seems to be the force of his argument here.

If we're measuring on mass of documents discovered alone — and not just documents located in the past 100 years — then we have scads of orthodox (and heretical/'heterodox') stuff from the NT canon, to the writings of the Church Fathers on down. (On that count, shouldn't Ehrman subscribe to the priority of the Byzantine text if numbers are the important thing?)

Anyway, I'm babbling. I was unsatisfied with Ehrman's conclusion. Because we really don't know much about Judas apart from that he "betrayed" Jesus (for a sum) and then either commited suicide or died horribly, Ehrman ends up spending much of his conclusion providing his view of Jesus — that Jesus was an itinerant apocalyptic preacher — so he can then posit that because that's what and how Jesus taught, that's what Judas must've subscribed to wholeheartedly. After all, Judas was one of the twelve. So then Ehrman discusses why someone with the sorts of beliefs he ascribes to Judas could possibly have betrayed his itinerant apocalyptic Jesus. Ehrman thinks that Jesus taught one thing publicly (son of man will arrive in judgement) and another thing privately to his disciples (Jesus will be the 'King of the Jews'). What Judas betrayed was that Jesus really did claim to be 'King of the Jews' and therefore provided the necessary evidence for the trial.

I see a few problems with this.

Following Ehrman's logic, then, all twelve of the inner-circle disciples would've believed that same stuff to the degree Judas did. But only Judas betrayed. Why? Why did the others stick it out if they were ultimately looking for the same thing Judas was?

While Judas was in the circle of the twelve, he wasn't routinely (to our knowledge) included in the sub-group of Peter/James/John. So there were likely some disciples closer to Jesus. If Jesus was what Bart says, why wouldn't others (e.g. Peter/James/John) more acutely come to the conclusions that Judas apparently did?

Also, people following Jesus wanted to make him king, and that relatively early on in his ministry. We see this in John 6.14-15:

When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. (Jn 6:14-15, ESV, emphasis added. See also Jn 12.12-15)

So the Jesus-as-King vibe is known (or at least desired) outside of the group of twelve. And Jesus didn't want to be king. At least, not a king like the people in John 6 wanted him to be.

I don't have a worked-out alternate view of why Judas did what he did. But Ehrman's view reads just as much into the person of Judas and his motives as any other view does (particularly traditional views). Ehrman relies on his reconstruction of Jesus, then reads a sort of proto-disciple out of that view and applies those attributes/motives to Judas, attempting to make sense out of the gospel texts and his reconstruction. Given his reconstruction, he goes the only places he can.

After examining the "historical Judas", Ehrman then goes into why Gospel of Judas is so spectacular (the last chapter). But he wants to do it responsibly:

How do we put a discovery like this in perspective? We should recognize the Gospel of Judas as the spectacular find it is, without sensationalizing it into something that it is not. (Ehrman, 172).

Sure, I can agree with that. The problem is where it goes next:

The Gospel does matter, a lot. Not because it gives us more reliable information about what happened in the life of Jesus, but because it gives us more reliable information about what was happening in the lives of his followers in the decades after his death. For understanding the early history of Christianity, the Gospel of Judas is tremendously important. It is safe to say that it is the most significant Christian text to appear in the past sixty years. (Ehrman, 173, emphasis added).

My problem with this statement is that he's classifying Gospel of Judas as a "Christian" text. It's a gnostic text, and — apart from the false dialogues between Judas and Jesus — a fairly standard one at that.

The use of "60 years" is a bit specious. Nag Hammadi documents were discovered in 1945 ... just outside that spectacular 60 year window. I'm guessing that Bart would say Nag Hammidi gnostic documents were "Christian" too, hence the 60-year window.

Lastly, note that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1948. So Dead Sea Scrolls have no impact on Christianity but Gospel of Judas does? I'm lost.

Anyway, I'm rambling now. I need to get home (I'm writing this at the office) and think about dinner. The bottom line is: I don't think Gospel of Judas has much if anything to say about early Christianity. I'd say it has something to say about Sethian Gnosticism and it's co-opting of New Testament personae, and that we have (rather) early evidence of this now. But Christianity? Nope.

And so ends my rolling series on Ehrman's Gospel of Judas book. If you've read this far, thanks for doing so, and apologies for the scatteredness. I should end and once again say that there was good stuff in the book, but the use of it as a platform for all this other stuff, as well as the conclusions about the value of the Gospel of Judas* made it a trial for me to read.

* What, a book about Judas and the Gospel of Judas finds that the Gospel of Judas is a spectactular find, the most important "Christian" document in 60 years? Hmmmmmm, why is that a surprise. I'd guess that a book on that topic, written like this one is, would have to come to that conclusion, no?

[see Part I in this series on Ehrman's Gospel of Judas]

I'm through the first eight chapters of Bart Ehrman's The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed. Perhaps it's time for a listing of chapters, so you'll know what I've been reading:

1. My Introduction to the Gospel of Judas
2. Judas in Our Earliest Gospels
3. Judas in Later Gospel Traditions
4. Before the Discovery: Our previous Knowledge of a Gospel of Judas
5. The Discovery of the Gospel of Judas
6. The Gospel of Judas: An Overview
7. The Gospel of Judas and Early Christian Gnosticism
8. Jesus, Judas, and the Twelve in the Gospel of Judas
9. Who Was Judas Iscariot?
10. What Did Judas Betray and Why Did He Betray It?
11. The Gospel of Judas in Perspective

So, I've read the first eight (through page 140) and I'm in the midst of chapter nine, though I'll only report on chapters four through eight here.

Earlier, I mentioned something about the book title being misleading since (to the point I'd read to) the book was more about examining the canonical gospels than the Gospel of Judas. Well, that was true for the first 50 pages, though the emphasis on the Gospel of Judas is alive and well in the last 3/4 of the book. So ... I get to retract that criticism. Please make a mental note of it, apologies for misleading anyone.

Now, on with the new stuff.

Ehrman gives a pretty standard run-down of pre-2005 knowledge of "Gospel of Judas" in referring to Irenaeus' description. Ehrman's typical battle-of-the-competing-orthodoxies vibe runs through this section. You can pick up the vibe in sentences like this:

To help make sense of Irenaeus's comments about the Gospel of Judas, I need to provide some background information on Irenaeus himself and on the book that he produced, in which he attacks "heretical" groups of Christians as nefarious enemies o the truth. (Ehrman, 55-56, quotes are his).

Here's another:

Irenaeus was particularly distressed about the widespread presence of Gnostic Christians in the midst of the church. He viewed Gnostics as false believers propagating a false gospel, sowing weeds among the pure wheat of the true people of God. These heretics needed to be rooted out and destroyed—not by torture and execution by by invective and argument. For the church to be pure, it had to embrace the true teaching about Christ and his apostles. And so Irenaeus wrote a long attack on Gnostic [RWB: are big-G Gnostics different than little-g gnostics?] heretics in which he detailed their nefarious views, described their insidious writings, attacked their heretical perspectives, maligned their immoral teachers, and generally tried to se the record straight so that his readers would know the "truth" about the Christian religion they claimed to profess. (Ehrman, 56-57, quotes are his).

Maybe we need a "Gospel of Irenaeus" so we can rehabilitate our views of Irenaeus. (Yes, that's sarcasm).

Ok, getting back to the show. Again, I can only really say that there is decent information in the book once you get through the trying-too-hard-to-be-folksy approach used to introduce entry-level readers to the larger topics at hand. But getting through that (as in the Irenaeus sections quoted above) can lead to grinding of teeth. Perhaps it reads well if my primary reading on gnosticism (or Irenaeus for that matter) has come from the notes in the NIV Study Bible, and perhaps that's the audience. It just gets tiring after about five minutes.

Chapter five is a recounting of the modern end of the tale, the finding and mis-handling of the Gospel of Judas. Ehrman recounts it just fine, so there's no need to detail it here.

Chapter six is an overview of the Gospel of Judas itself. Again, it is serviceable and adheres largely to the text as established by Kasser/Wurst and translated by Meyer.

Chapter seven paints GJudas in the gnostic milieu. There's nothing really new here, either. And because Ehrman is talking in generalities about gnosticism (or is it Gnosticism?) there's no opportunity to fuss about differences in different accounts. At the end of the chapter, though, he begins to bring out the idea that there are traces of Jewish Apocalypticism within gnostic texts in general and GJudas in particular.

Chapter eight begins to look back again where we left off in chapter three—back to Jesus, Judas and the Twelve. This time, however, they're looked at in the context of the Gospel of Judas. And here we come to the point where, upon reading a sentence (the bold-italicised one below), my only comment was "Why, Bart? Why?!" (you can ask my wife, she heard me say it!). Here's the text:

The Gospel of Judas provides an alternative vision [RWB: context here: 'alternative' to standard treatments with Judas as bungling but vengeful revolutionary fueled by zealousy, greed, sin and devil-possession and subsequently painted as anti-semite]. It is true that over the years some Christians have wondered if the consistent denigration of Judas was fair. Theologically, some have asked, if Christ had to die ofr the sins of the world, and Judas is the one that made it possible, wasn't that a good thing? SOmething that Christ himself wanted? moreover, some scholars have noted that with the passing of time our ancient traditions portray Judas in increasingly villainous ways. Could it be that in the very earliest traditions, which now have been lost, Judas was seen as an itimate of Jesus who simply did his master's will?

If Judas ever was portrayed this way, there is no surviving evidence of it, no text that speaks of Judas in any positive way—until now. The Gospel of Judas stands alone in insisting that Judas was not only close to Jesus but also was the only one among the disciples who understood who Jesus was and did what he wanted. (Ehrman, 138)

Note to folks that are writing books: If you write sentence that, on first draft, causes you to smile smugly and say "yeah, that's awesome!" ... well, flag it to review in two weeks. Chances are you'll read it then and say "How could I have written that cliché-ridden tripe?!" Have a good friend who can write read it, and they'll say the same thing. Then remove the offending line and re-write the paragraph.

This, in a nutshell, is my interaction with Ehrman's popular work. The bent to sensationalise. I can hear the carnival barker now imploring me to check out the wonders of the incredible, new-found gospel. It makes me cringe. But at the same time, there is enough one can scrape out (once the sensationalism is disposed of) that is decent introductory material (though the babbling about "all the differences" and "competing orthodoxies" does get tired).

I plan on one more post to finish up the book. The last three chapters are where discussion on the "historical Judas" take place, and the part I'm most interested to read. I'm afraid of what I'll read, though; I keep fearing it'll be about inconsistencies of accounts. But I keep telling myself: "It'll be OK. He'll come around, and the sensationalism will be muted at the end. Really." Tune in and see where we end up.

I've recently finished working through looking at variants (in the four Gospels) between Scrivener's 1881 Greek New Testament (ostensibly the Greek text behind the Authorised Version, with variants from the Greek text behind the Revised Version in bold) and the NA27.

In what will come as a surprise to no one who has read of variants between the various TR editions (loosely 'Byzantine') and the NA/UBS editions, I make note of the following sorts of general differences:

• Scrivener's TR seems to be the more harmonizing of the two in accounts among the synoptics.
• Scrivener's TR adds specificity where NA/UBS assumes things. For example, in Jn 20.29, Scrivener's TR explicitly adds Θωμᾶ (Thomas) while NA27 assumes it.
• Also, when editions are different, Scrivener's TR will tend to make pronoun references explicit by including the name (likely with article) instead of the pronoun. This is seen when things like NA/UBS have "and he answered and said to them" where Scrivener will have "and Jesus [with article] answered and said to them" (sorry, no easy refs at hand).
• When different, Scrivener's TR routinely adds an article to personal name (though not neccesarily place names) where NA/UBS lack the article.
• John has far fewer differences (and they're far easier to reconcile) than the synoptics do.
• Differences of case and number (but same word)
• Differences of orthography
• Bona-fide, different-word variants. Though likely to Bart Ehrman's dismay, they are not earth-shattering or of the nature to severely change the meaning of the text in the vast majority of instances. And where they are, they are well-documented in the apparatus and commentaries.

I post this anecdotal list not to present some new, gasp-inducing information; rather it is simply to record it for myself. Writing helps me remember things, which is why you've no doubt noticed that when I discuss things like this, many times I simply restate the obvious or conventional wisdom in different words.

I will say, however, that working through each and every variation (thinking about which parts of the two editions are the same, and which parts are different) underscored the sorts of variations one finds in the Gospels of these two editions. And that, of course, will help me in the future when examining variants of all stripes. "Oh yeah, like the diffs we find in the gospels of NA and TR editions". Note that most Bible Software support textual comparisons for this sort of purpose. Logos has a video showing the feature used with English versions (go to around 1:14 for the specific feature), but it works with any language.

At least for me, it's one thing to read an abstract, digested version of information (such as you'd find in an a book on textual criticism or the Byz/NA debate) and quite another thing to actually work through primary data and come to my own conclusions. The above anecdotal notes are nothing different than an introductory tome on the matter would make note of; but for me, it sticks in my head better (with examples more readily in mind) because I actually worked thorugh it.

I will also say that as I go through Acts, at least at present, the variations are of a different character than the gospels.

The SBL Forum has a short article by Stephen C. Carlson (Hypotyposeis) regarding his examination of "Archaic Mark" and its veracity. It serves as a bit of a preview to the paper he'll give on the subject at the National SBL meeting in November.

Do read it. It is typical in its Carlsonian excellence.

Peter Head of the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog asks a Statistical Question.

Actually, it's just a counting question — I'll let others derive statistics based on counts.

He wants to know the number of letters in each book of the Greek New Testament.

Since I have easy-to-query data to hand here at Logos, I thought I'd write a quick script to generate some word and letter counts for various texts.

Note, however, that the simple act of counting "words" gets complex pretty quickly. For these purposes, words are things delimted by spaces and punctuation. Thus instances of crasis (e.g. KAGW) are counted as one word, not two. Anthony Kenny, in his book A Stylometric Study of the New Testament, has decent discussion on this. He uses the Friberg morphology and ends up with a total word count of 138019. You'll note my total count is 138020. I'm fairly sure this is due to MHTIGH in 1Co 6.3 being counted as two words instead of one word. NA27 has "MHTI GH" while UBS4 has "MHTIGH". So UBS4-oriented counts (Friberg uses the UBS as source) have 138019, while NA27-oriented counts should end up with 138020.

Letters are letters. I've counted a unicode source, but I've stripped all breathings, accents and iota subscripts. I've also stripped all brackets from the text, even those intervening words, and counted the bracketed text (including things like the longer ending of Mark) as part of this source.

I have counts for the NA27, for Maurice Robinson's 2005 edition of his Byzantine text, and for Scrivener's 1881 edition representing the Greek text behind the KJV. [Update: Added data for Tischendorf's Eighth edition.] Some overall totals; details in the files themselves if you're interested.

• NA27 words / letters: 138020 / 680942
• Byzantine words / letters: 140155 / 690536
• Scrivener words / letters: 140597 / 689960
• Tischendorf (8th) words / letters: 137548 / 679688

Please note that the NA27 letter counts are at variance with the counts reported in the comments by Casey Perkins on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog.

More info (broken down by book) in the respective text files:

• NA27
• Byzantine (Robinson 2005)
• Scrivener
• Tischendorf (8th)

Update I (2006-10-06): Added data for Tischendorf's Eighth edition.

Update II (2006-10-09): Some responses to comments. First, Casey Perkins who notes:

My program had a bug in it. My figures now match yours for NA, with the exception of Acts (1 char diff), and 2 Cor and Hebrews (2 char diff). Probably a difference in our source files. Beyond that I won't pursue it.

So we're close to the same page. That's good.

Second, Peter Head who notes:

You said: "I've also stripped all brackets from the text, even those intervening words, and counted the bracketed text (including things like the longer ending of Mark) as part of this source."

Strictly speaking you should have distinguished between single square brackets [in which the bracketed words are considered to be part of the NA27 text] from double square brackets [[in which the bracketed words are NOT considered to be part of the text]]. This may require a little human intervention.

True, true. But that wasn't as easy to distinguish in the source files I was working with. I knew it would matter which is why I noted exactly what was included in the figures. I also knew that I would run the same comparison on different texts so I figured I'd stay consistent with reflecting the count on the page. If someone comes up with updated figures such as Dr. Head describes, I'll gladly post a pointer to them here or even host the files. Please let me know if you're aware of such data.

Update III (2006-10-10): Please note that Casey Perkins has provided further adjustments to account for [[double-bracketed text]] in the NA27. Casey reports that double-brackets are "only relevant in Mark, Luke and John". You can retrieve the figures in the comments to the original post on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog; I've also saved the entire comment reporting the figures as a text file with due attribution, you can reach them here. Thanks, Casey!

Disclaimer/Note: Data that produced these counts was used with permission from my employer, Logos Research Systems, Inc.

Well, the portion I've read (about the first 50 pages) is less about the newfound Gospel of Judas and more about Judas in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). Ehrman starts with Mark, then moves to Matthew, then Luke/Acts, then John. He notes each gospel's use and reference of Judas in an effort to begin considering the "historical Judas".

While reading, though, I've finally been able to discover what it is that I don't like about Ehrman's writing. Sure he's engaging, and he does a good job of accounting for the reader who is unfamiliar with recently scholarly/academic trends in Biblical Studies — though sometimes he can seem a bit patronizing in his descent to explain to the uninformed reader. But (and I'm willing to chalk this up to hyper-sensitivity on my part) Erhman always seems to focus on differences between accounts, going as far as calling the differences in the accounts of Judas' death in Matthew and Acts irreconciliable:

The book of Acts has a different account [than Matthew] of Judas' death and its relationship to this field. It is probably impossible to reconcile the details of these two accounts. (Ehrman, 36)

It wouldn't be so bad (to me, anyway) if Erhman actually built his argument. But he hasn't really, at least not yet. He's focused on noting differences in the Gospel accounts of Judas. But he's said very little regarding similarities between accounts outside of the flat-out obvious. He's willing to contrast differences between Gospels but he's relying on the reader to track what is similar between the accounts. So the reader is left to conclude similarities like (the list is not exhaustive, and is off the top of my head, where two or more canonical sources [Gospels/Acts] concur on some aspect of Judas' life):

• Judas Iscariot is listed as one of the twelve
• He was named or clearly implied to be the betrayer
• He was paid a price for the betrayal
• He was with the party that apprehended Jesus
• He died an untimely, un-natural death (suicide or horrible circumstance) after his betrayal
• His payment was associated with the purchase of the "field of blood"

Several times (at least three, I think) when he verges on getting down to brass tacks, he adds thoughts like "those are the questions we will ask at the end of the book". Like this whole paragraph (pp. 33-34), which occurs after noting that complete synthesis of gospel accounts is bad. I agree it's bad (duh!) but that doesn't mean that we throw out the vectors that do meet between accounts. Erhman (at least at present, up to and around page 50) seems to distrust all of it:

The historical conclusion is that we have different accounts from different authors writing at different times to different audiences for different reasons. Given the differences of the accounts, we will eventually want to reexamine them to see if it is possible to draw some kind of historical conclusions about what really happened. In some cases, the differences between the accounts turn out to be irreconcilable. ... [brief hint of Matthew/Acts item mentioned above] ... Accounts that contain discrepancies cannot both be historically accurate. Is one more accurate than the other? How would we know? What can we say for certain about the life of Judas — what he did and why he did it — based on our few surviving sources? Those are the questions we will ask at the end of the book, after looking at other ways Judas was portrayed, first from other surviving Christian sources such as the book of Acts, the Gospel of John, and several apocryphal works (in the next chapter), and then in the newly discovered Gospel of Judas, a book with its own agenda and distinctive portrayal of this one who betrayed Jesus. (Ehrman, 33-34).

Note the focus on differences? Why is nothing said about similarities of accounts? Why not compile and check similarties along with differences as the literature is cumulatively examined through the course of the book? Perhaps he will do this as the book progresses; I've just read about the canonical gospels. But — showing my bias here — I'd say that's our best shot at getting to the "historical Judas". Why not lay both sides of the foundation? Why save (I hope) part of it for later? Well ... focusing on differences (much like focusing on textual variants) really is the more sensational thing. And I've blogged before on what I think regarding Ehrman's sensationalistic tendencies.

So, basically, the first fifty pages of the book is less about the Gospel of Judas and more about examining Judas himself, throwing on the newly-found Gospel of Judas for good measure since we can. Let me be clear, though, that this aspect of the book (brief intro/analysis of the canonical gospels and then examining Judas' role in them) is, apart from focusing primarily on differences between accounts, quite good. There's good information here. It's the undertow of the sensationalism (again, I may be hypersensitive ... I'll easily admit that) that sticks in my craw.

Given this, the book title does seem a bit misleading (along the same lines of the the "Misquoting Jesus" title, where textual variants outside of the words attributed to Christ were, as I understand it, where most of the discussion was centered). [paragraph nixed, this isn't fair to say based on the balance of the book. RWB 2006-10-11]

I'll blog more as I get further into the book.

About two weeks ago I blogged about being offered a complimentary copy of Bart Ehrman's new book, The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot. The book arrived today. I'm planning on reading through the Gospel of Judas a few times (see my post on Erhman's essay in the National Geographic book The Gospel of Judas for some background) and then digging in to Erhman's treatment.

We'll see what I think concerning Ehrman's shark-jumping status once I get into the book. I will by all means blog my reactions as I read it.

Either way, thanks to OUP for sending along the copy of the book!

Update: I'm blogging as I'm reading through the book. Entries will be linked to here.

• 2006-10-05: Bart Ehrman on Gospel of Judas, Part I
• 2006-10-10: Bart Ehrman on Gospel of Judas, Part II
• 2006-10-16: Bart Ehrman on Gospel of Judas, Part III

Update I (2006-10-04): Just a test to see how UTF8 Coptic in the proper Unicode range is handled in browsers. Nevermind me ... these are the first few lines of Kasser & Wurst's transcription of the Gospel of Judas, typos are mine:

ⲡⲗⲟⲅⲟ[ⲥ] ⲉⲧϨⲏ̣ⲡʼ ⲛ̅ⲧⲁⲡⲟⲫⲁ
ⲥ̣ⲓⲭ ⲛ̅[ⲧⲁ ⲓ̈]ⲏ̣̅ⲥ̅ Ϣⲁϫⲉ ⲙⲛ̅ ⲓ̈ⲩⲇⲁⲥ

It appears to work on my side, though it assumes you have the font New Athena Unicode installed. Note that the diaresis in the font clashes with the iauda, hence the one-dot-to-the-left look.

Update II (2006-10-05): Coptic works, for me anyway, in IE6 and FireFox 1.5.0.7. It doesn't work in SharpReader (no surpise, it strips style attributes) or BlogLines. I guess I should say that it works in those two, but that the default font has no characters in the Coptic unicode range. The bytes are there, but no characters exist in the font(s) for Coptic. C'est la vie.

Update III (2006-10-05): Phil Harland, with a post titled Judas Iscariot may be evil after all, links to Jim Davila's PaleoJudaica, which has an abstract describing Louis Painchoud's contrarian critique of the National Geographic translation/commentary/etc of the Gospel of Judas. Do check it out, particularly if you think the recently found Gospel of Judas is good fodder for "rehabilitating Judas".

Update III (2006-10-10): Note a post I wrote, Ehrman on Ehrman on Gospel of Judas, (h/t to Stephen C. Carlson (Hypotyposeis)) which points to interviews and such with Ehrman on Oxford University Press' blog.

(See Part I here, and an Overview here)

I've been examining Hans-Josef Klauck's Ancient Letters and the New Testament some more. It's fun stuff. I've made it through chapters 3 and 4:

• 3: Nonliterary and Diplomatic Correspondance
• 4: Poetry and Philosophy—Literary Letters

As you can see, the book isn't strictly about New Testament epistles. It is about the ancient letter form in all its major varieties. I'm most looking forward to chapters 6-8 as they are about Letters in Early Judaism (chapter 6) and then two chapters on New Testament Letters.

Chapter 3 offers some stimulating discussion of the importance of diplomatic correspondance in approaching Pauline epistles. Klauck has sections on the letter of recommendation and Hellenistic royal letters. The final section in the chapter is a serious examination of Claudius' imperial letter to the Alexandrians. He provides a translation of the letter, a full outline, and detailed analysis. The prescript of Claudius' letter sounds positively Pauline:

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus the Emperor, Pontifex Maximus,
holder of the tribunican power, consul designate,
to the city of the Alexandrians, greeting.

Chapter 4 offers a catalogue of authors that is really quite handy. Names I'd only seen as abbreviations in BDAG suddenly have new meaning to me as a result of skimming across the text. I say "skim" because it really serves as a brief handbook to authors of Greek and Latin letters.

I've begun chapter 5, which is titled Epistolary and Rhetorical Theory. Good stuff. Gets into topoi, examines some classical letter templates and "style" handbooks, among other things.

I'll blog more after I'm a bit further along in the book.

I'm in a home group Bible Study that's working through Colossians. Our passage this week is Col 1.15-20. I translated this morning and wanted to share it as it is a powerful statement of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text

ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου,
He is the image of the invisible God,
   πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως,
   firstborn of all creation,
   ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα
   for by him all things were created,
      ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς
      in the heavens
         καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς,
         and in the earth,
      τὰ ὁρατὰ
      the visible
         καὶ τὰ ἀόρατα,
         and the invisible,
      εἴτε θρόνοι
      whether thrones
      εἴτε κυριότητες
      or dominions
      εἴτε ἀρχαὶ
      or rulers
      εἴτε ἐξουσίαι·
      or authorities:
         τὰ πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται·
         through him and for him all things were created;
            καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων
            and he is before all things
            καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν,
            and all things hold together in him,
            καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν ἡ κεφαλὴ τοῦ σώματος τῆς ἐκκλησίας·
            and he is the head of the body, the church.

ὅς ἐστιν ἀρχή,
He is the beginning,
   πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν,
   firstborn from the dead,
      ἵνα γένηται ἐν πᾶσιν αὐτὸς πρωτεύων,
      so that in all things he might be preeminent;
   ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ εὐδόκησεν πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα κατοικῆσαι
   for in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell
      καὶ δι’ αὐτοῦ ἀποκαταλλάξαι τὰ πάντα εἰς αὐτόν,
      and through it he reconciled everything to himself,
         εἰρηνοποιήσας διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ σταυροῦ αὐτοῦ,
         making peace through the blood of his cross,
         [δι’ αὐτοῦ]
         through him,
            εἴτε τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς
            whether things on the earth
            εἴτε τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς.
            or things in the heavens.

Notes

I broke the text into two groups with each group based on a relative clause. I thought the structure of Relative Clause -> πρωτότοκος statement ->  Subordinate Clause was interesting and a good thing to base the indentation on. Again, the indentation is just me — there is no real consistent basis for newlines and indentations. I'm sure if someone really wanted to, they could go to town in seeing chiasms in this text (and some folks probably already have).

Also, Col 1.19 is interesting. English translations (ESV and NET, anyway) presuppose that "all the fullness" (πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα) is really "all of God's fullness". Surely it is, but that is no reason to insert "God's" or "of God" into the text, is it? The subject is "all the fullness". So that's why I've translated it that way above.

Just thinking out loud here. The following are the adscriptions in the Pastoral Epistles:

1Ti 1.2: To Timothy, my true child in the faith

2Ti 1.2: To Timothy, my beloved child

Titus 1.4: To Titus, my true child in a common faith

Paul is bolstering the rep of the recipient to those who hear the letter. "I'm writing to Timothy (you know, the one whom I consider my son?) ... "

I'm wondering if there is some allusion here to the parable of the wicked tenants (Mk 12.1-12 || Mt 21.33-46 || Lu 20.9-19), specifically Mk 12.6 || Mt 21.37 || Lu 20.13:

He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' (Mk 12.6)

Does Paul's specification of Timothy (and Titus) as his true/beloved son have similar force, the sort of "Timothy (and Titus) represent me and my interests" vibe of the parable?

Just thinkin' out loud. I have some other thoughts on prescipts in the Pastorals that I need to mull over a bit before posting them.

The Logos Bible Software Blog announced the Logos Bible Software/Society of Biblical Literature Technology Paper Awards. Here's the scoop:

Logos Bible Software and the Society of Biblical Literature announce two sets of awards for papers that creatively use technology in exploring questions of grammar and syntax in biblical studies: one focusing on the Hebrew Bible, the other on the Greek New Testament. The contests are open to all those engaged in the study of those disciplines, and prizes will be awarded in both areas for student and faculty/professional categories. A total of twelve awards will be given.

These are serious prizes, but they'll require serious work. The deadline is May 1, 2007 with award notification during 2007 International SBL in Austria. More details on the Technology Paper Awards page at Logos.com.

Note -- Logos and SBL employees are not eligible. That means I can't submit a paper (drats!)

Update (2006-09-28): Check out the page on the SBL's site which also is the home of the URL http://www.sblawards.com. Also note mention of the prize in the SBL Forum. And the press release reproduced on Logos' web site. We're really interested to see what sorts of topics folks delve into and how they use the annotation(s)!

Just some random thoughts here based on the paper I'm wrapping up for the SBL meeting.

How does one go about quantifying and measuring style? Style seems to be a very organic thing, hard to pin down. Efforts to quantify it normally fail, on the whole, because there are no real rules to follow.

Some detect style based on word usage patterns (common or infrequent words). Others look into other grammatical features such as morphology. Still others look at sentence lengths and sentence length distribution. Some have posited authorship traits dealing with the part-of-speech of the last word in a sentence.

A trend of some sort is noticed, that trend is tested against a larger corpus, data on the trend is analyzed, and that analysis becomes the basis of some posited rule or even conclusions about authorship of a document.

The bottom line is that trends do not a rule make. Correlation does not prove causation. But that isn't to say trends aren't useful. It only means we need to consider an expanding amount of such trends in evaluation of style. (Note well: I didn't say authorship, I said style.)

Also, I think that, at least as regards the Pauline epistles and perhaps the New Testament, stylistic studies have unfortunately been conflated with authorship studies. That is, the goal seems to be to isolate an author's style for purposes of authorship attribution—not necessarily to better understand the document content and structure so as to better comprehend the document(s) in question.

Why is this? Why can't style be examined outside of the bounds of the authorship question?

Why can't we be content to analyze what is being communicated and how it is being communicated; why do we (myself included!) get bound in the larger and likely unresolvable authorship question?

I noted earlier that I'd received a copy of Klauck's Ancient Letters and the New Testament. I've been reading the first few chapters and have to say that I've been enjoying it.

The first chapter, Foundations—Two Letters of Apion and Two Letters of the "Elder", uses the well-known examples of letters from one Apion (BGU II 423 and BGU II 632, Greek and English provided) to his family. These were used to identify and discuss epistle structure and standard letter components. After this, Klauck uses 2 and 3 John (in parallel!) as source material and identifies components and details structure. The exercise at the end of the chapter is, essentially, "do the same thing for Philemon". Thankfully, Klauck has answers in the back so one can do the work and compare. One is not left hanging when doing exercises.

The second chapter, Practical Realities—Paper and Postal System, gets into how letters were written and delivered. Good background stuff that folks don't normally think about, but it is good to know.

When I'm able to get through a few more chapters, I'll by all means let y'all know. But for now I'm very impressed with the book and quite happy to have it available as a resource. If you're teaching a class on epistles or epistolography, I'd say this is pretty much a no-brainer for students to have, particularly with the added exercises.

More info, of course, is on the Baylor Press web site.

Baylor Press are publishing Han-Josef Klauck's Ancient Letters and the New Testament: A Guide to Context and Exegesis. The book is in their Fall 2006 catalogue. It is a translation and complete revision of Klauck's 1998 volume Die antike Briefliteratur und das Neue Testament: Ein Lehrund Arbeitsbuch.

Here is the publisher's blurb from the Baylor Press web site:

This volume places the New Testament letters squarely in the middle of all the important letter corpora of antiquity. Chapters cover the basic letter formula, papyrus and postal delivery, non-literary and diplomatic correspondence, Greek and Latin literary letters, epistolary theory, letters in early Judaism, and all the letters of the New Testament. Part I of each chapter surveys each corpus, followed by detailed exegetical examples in Part II. Comprehensive bibliographies and 54 exercises with answers suit this guide to student and scholar alike.

• Comprehensive, detailed, essential reading
• A major book by a leading expert
• Perfect for all students of the New Testament

Through a fortunate twist of fate, this intrepid blogger has secured a copy of the book before release. I'll be reading through it and blogging a bit along the way.

I can tell you this much right now: It looks very good. One great feature is the end-of-chapter exercises. That, and the preface starts out with a quote from Alice in Wonderland. How cool is that?

Update I: I've blogged a bit about the first two chapters: Klauck on Epistolography Part I.

Update II: Klauck's Ancient Letters, Part II is now up.

Update III: Part III is up as well.

I've recently devoured George K. Barr's Scalometry and the Pauline Epistles (JSNTSup 261), and found it interesting and thought-provoking.

If you've read it or if you've read/are familiar with is articles on the same topic, I'd like to pick your brain. I'm wondering what you think of it and if you're aware of any critical reviews. I checked RBL but didn't find any.

What do you think of his work? His conclusions? His methodology? Feel free to contact me via email if you have thoughts or pointers to interaction with his work.

Update: ricoblog reader Jan Krans (the author of the NA27 review cited in the previous blog post) responds with a pointer to a review article in the Journal of Greco Roman Christianity and Judaism. Jan also notes:

FWIW: the book lost much of its potential to me when I noticed that Barr regards for instance 1 Tim 3:1-16 as a later insertion (pp. 89.91), in order to detect the same 'scalometric' pattern as in the other Pauline epistles.

I can understand that to a degree (ditto for throwing out portions of Titus 1 for the same reason). But is this a reason to throw out Barr's work? He detected an anomaly and posited a solution. He could've also posited a solution like "Therefore 1 Timothy and Titus are not Pauline since they don't fit typical Pauline scale patterns" -- aligning with much of current scholarship that, properly or not, considers the Pastoral Epistles pseudepigraphs. If he'd have done that would his results be more palatable?

In other words, is it proper to throw out the whole of his work if one disagrees with one aspect of the conclusion? What about his argument applied to the other 10 Paulines?

Also, FWIW, I find Barr's proposal to consider 1Ti 3.1-16, Titus 1.7-9 and perhaps Titus 1.12-16 as non-Pauline somewhat intriguing. It removes the major ecclesiological portions from the letters and in so doing removes the "chronologically inapproriate eccelsiology" argument (aka the "Ignatian ecclesiology" argument) from those who would discredit Paul as author. We of course don't have good text-critical evidence for such a position, but it is an interesting thought nonetheless. At least to me.

Lastly, Barr's interaction with Anthony Kenny's work (Appendix C, "Scale Sensitivity", pp. 148-154) shows some promise and direction for future work in the realm of stylometry that takes Barr's scalometry into account.

I notice that TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism has a review of the NA27 edition, with apparatus, that is contained in the Stuttgart Electronic Study Bible (SESB). If you're a user of the NA27 in SESB, then you want to read this article. Do it now.

Here's the abstract of the review article, which is a 26 page PDF.

Abstract: The Stuttgart Elecronic Study Bible is a groundbreaking electronic publication. It contains the most widely used scholarly biblical texts, BHS and NA, as well as their critical apparatuses. In this extensive review article, Krans focuses on NA²⁷, especially its critical apparatus, though he frequently draws BHS and its apparatus into the discussion as well. He asks this question: What are the possibilities, surprises, limitations, and future prospects of the implementation of NA²⁷ in SESB 1.0?

Looking for other things related to Sahidic Coptic, I stumbled across this.

Someone typed up Metzger's list and PDF-ified it. If you're working with the Sahidic Coptic NT at all, chances are you'll find this word list (with brief glosses) useful.

Citation: Metzger, Bruce M. List of Words Occurring Frequently in the Coptic New Testament (Sahidic Dialect). Leiden: E.J. Brill. 1961.

While spending a few days in Victoria, BC last week with my lovely wife, I was able to convince her to let me browse a used book shop.

OK, there was no convincing needed -- she knows me and enthusiastically suggested it when she saw the store! I love this woman!

While browsing the religion section, I happened across an edition of Alexander Souter's Greek New Testament. I already have access to the first edition of his GNT, published in 1910. Souter issued a revision in 1947. That's the edition I found.

As noted in The Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism, the cool part of Souter's edition is the apparatus and the attention paid to patristic citations in Souter's second edition. From the Encyclopedia:

A noteworthy feature of Souter's apparatus is the degree of detail it gives about the Fathers. These are cited in careful and specific detail. This is one of the best features of Souter's edition.
The revised edition of Souter cites papyri through P⁴⁸, uncials through 0170, minuscules through 2322, a full list of versions (including Armenian, Gothic, Georgian, and Ethiopic), and nearly two hundred fathers of all eras. The Byzantine text is cited under the symbol w.

So this is a fun find. Throw in that it was $10 (Canadian!) and Rico is thrilled with this purchase.

I need to preface this post by saying that I've read enough about linguistics and discourse analysis to be dangerous. This is just about something I noticed, I'm not making an assertion about how the text should be read. Working through things by writing is one of the primary methods I use to think about an issue and to assimilate data regarding an issue or question. So that's what this post is doing. I suppose this is why I find blogging so helpful, because it means I can get feedback on these preliminary sorts of thoughts as well. Also note that I haven't checked commentaries; I like to work through something and then check the commentaries because then I feel I can really interact with them — as opposed to letting them, intentionally or not, direct my study.

Before we start, here's the text in the ESV:

¹² We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, ¹³ and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. ¹⁴ And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. ¹⁵ See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. ¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray without ceasing, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. ¹⁹ Do not quench the Spirit. ²⁰ Do not despise prophecies, ²¹ but test everything; hold fast what is good. ²² Abstain from every form of evil. (1Th 5.12-22)

I'm sure that many folks have noticed the string of imperatives in 1Th 5.14-22. At present (and this will likely change) I see a few sections in 1Th 5.12-22. They can be laid out thusly:

1. vv. 12-13a*
2. vv. 14-22
   • vv. 14-15a
   • vv. 15b-18
   • vv. 19-22

I think there is cohesion between the first two parts because the main verbs of each part (Ἐρωτῶμεν δὲ ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοί and Παρακαλοῦμεν δὲ ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοί) were used together earlier in 1Th 4.1 (Λοιπὸν οὖν, ἀδελφοί, ἐρωτῶμεν ὑμᾶς καὶ παρακαλοῦμεν ἐν κυρίῳ Ἰησοῦ).**

It's what happens in verse 15 where I noticed something that I hadn't noticed before. After realizing there was a plethora of imperatives in the passage, I was slowly working through the syntax of the passage using the OpenText.org clause annotation (inside of Logos Bible Software 3, of course) and I noticed the position of the imperatives. In vv. 14-15a, the imperatives are at the front of the clause, which (depending on what you think about constituent order in Hellenistic Greek) is standard order with the verb first. In v. 15, though, the verse is split by the conjunction ἀλλὰ, providing contrast from the first part of v. 15 to the second part of v. 15, and this is how it is translated: "Ensure that nobody repays anybody evil for evil, but always pursue the good for one another and for everybody" (my own translation). In the Greek, "ensure" is at the front of its clause. But the second clause (joined to the first by the conjunction ἀλλὰ) has its imperative "pursue" at a later position in the clause, then further modified by two prepositional phrases.

After this, through v. 22, each clause has its imperative at the end of the clause. This visualisation I copied from the OpenText.org GNT in Logos Bible Software 3 shows it a little better. Note the highlighting of the imperatives (done using Logos' "Visual Filters" feature). 'P' is for Predicator, 'C' is for Complement, 'S' is for Subject, and 'A' is for Adjunct. The lines are broken into clauses and secondary clauses.

So I began thinking: Does the conjunction ἀλλὰ in v. 15 serve to connect the clauses in v. 15 but also serve a larger function in the discourse? Why, after that point, are adverbs, prepositional phrases, and objects fronted in their clauses with their predicators (here imperative verbs) following.

Admittedly, there are a few options. Here are the ones I thought of.

Option 1: Coincidence. That is, nothing intentional is going on here, this could just be the way the text was written and transmitted. Or the shift in constituent order in v. 15 could be incidental. Or the shift in v. 15 could be intentional, but the following constituent order difference could be coincidental.

Option 2: Focus. In vv. 14-15a, the focus is on the action itself. In vv. 15b-18 the focus is on how the action is carried out, in vv. 19-22 the focus is on to whom the action is done.

Option 3: Recipients of Action. In vv. 14-15a, the action involves things that those in the fellowship are to do to others. In vv. 15b-22, the action involves things that those in the fellowship do in relation not to people, but to ideas or practices.

I'm interested to know what others think regarding the idea that  ἀλλὰ in v. 15 may function both to join the clauses in the verse and perhaps may function at a larger level, joining two paragraphs/pericopes/whatever together. Feel free to comment, send email, whatever. Note I still need to read Denniston's Greek Particles to see if he lists this sort of function as possible for ἀλλὰ.

Whatever the split between vv. 14-15a and 15b-22, the further division of 15b-22 mentioned above is for reasons of subject matter, not strictly due to structure of section.

vv. 15b-18 involve things in relation to worship and obedience to God. The question, of course, is determining the 'this' of "for this is the will of God". What does that include? I don't have that answer at present (whether it is immediate content and therefore vv. 15b-18 or if it goes all the way back to v. 14) so we won't go there.

vv. 19-22 involve negatives, but I think it also proceeds from verse 18. Paul just laid down what the will of God is, vv. 19-22 (still using imperatives, here with fronted objects instead of fronted adjuncts) instruct the Thessalonians how to live now that they have a guide to the will of God: Don't squelch whatever comes, but test it to see if it is the will of God. Embrace it if it is of the will of God, squelch it if it isn't.

* More on 1Th 5.12 on the Logos Bible Software blog ...

** Note that 1Th 4.3 (Τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ) compares favorably with 1Th 5.18 (τοῦτο γὰρ θέλημα θεοῦ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ εἰς ὑμᾶς). Thus we have good evidence of cohesion between that portion of chapter 4 and this part of chapter 5.