As you probably know, I’m an ‘information architect’ at Logos Bible Software. We recently (today!) released Logos Bible Software 5. There are lots of bug fixes and new features and stuff, but the big deal with Logos 5 are the new data sets that allow for examination of the scripture like we’ve never done before. I think it is a huge step forward, though admittedly I might be biased.

This is data we’ve been working on for a long time (some of it before we even released Logos 4 in 2009, believe it or not). The data sets I’m most excited about include:

• Biblical Referents: So, you’ve always been able to search for “Jesus” and “said” and find where Jesus says something. But that’s only where the word “Jesus” is explicitly used. What about when it is “he said”? Biblical Referents solve that problem. We’ve analyzed the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament and resolved these sorts of things. Because the data is annotated on the original languages, that means it bubbles up all over the place through our linking of the original languages to modern translations.
• Bible Sense Lexicon: This is just the start of a massive project that will allow for incredible things. If you’re familiar with WordNet, then this is like WordNet for the Bible. We are analyzing every word (nouns, adjectives, verbs, , determining sense used, and annotating them. Further, we have a cross-linguistic approach that allows us to map from Hebrew to Greek, which means that we can find when a sense occurs in the Bible, not just in the NT or the OT. Right now we have an initial annotation of nouns in both Hebrew and Greek, and are starting work on verbs. It is very cool.
• Clause Search: Clause search allows one to search for clauses and clause components. It integrates several data sets: Biblical People, Places and Things, Referents, Syntax data, morphological data, and makes it all searchable bounded to a clause. Search for “subject:Jesus verb-lemma:θεραπεύω” (the verb for “to heal”) and find everything. Even stuff like “he healed them” (Mt 4.24, ESV).
• Reported Speech: Sometimes it is handy to know who or what is speaking. We have annotated “reported speech” through the whole of the Bible. One way this is viewable is through a visual filter for “Speaker Labels” in Bibles with reverse interlinears.
• Roots in Greek NT and Hebrew Bible. Roots (both Greek and Hebrew) are integrated with original language texts and reverse interlinears. This has been a much-requested feature over the years, and we’re glad to finally make it available to users!

Here's a video from YouTube that describes many of these features.

On top of this, we have new resources. There are a few I am personally very happy to have see the light of day in that I either produced it myself or was the lead editor. Here they are.

The Lexham English Septuagint. The Lexham English Septuagint (LES) is a new translation of the Septuagint (LXX, the Greek version of the Old Testament) based on Henry Barclay Swete's edition of the Septuagint, The Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint. Based on the work of the popular The Lexham Greek-English Interlinear Septuagint, the LES provides a literal, readable and transparent English edition of the Greek Old Testament, which was the edition of the Old Testament writings most popularly used during New Testament times and in the early church.

There was a small but stellar group that did the primary editing of the translation, including myself, Ken M. Penner, Israel Loken, Michael Aubrey and Isaiah Hoogendyk.

One of the things I really like about the LES is the approach to proper nouns. Septuagint Lexicons typically do not handle proper nouns. Septuagint translations typically transliterate all but the most important (e.g. David, Jerusalem, Moses). What this means is that the names most English readers are familiar with (from translations of the Hebrew Bible) are not used in LXX translations. So it is hard to track who does what. Read something like First Chronicles, and you’re completely lost because the majority of the names are not familiar at all.

In the LES, we were able to use, where possible, names familiar to those who have only worked with English translations of the Hebrew Bible and the apocryphal books. So Reuben is Reuben, Manasseh is Manasseh. Cities use names you’re probably expecting (e.g. Gibeah, not Gabaa). However, because the differences in spelling/representation are sometimes insightful, we’ve footnoted the transliterated form of proper nouns — where the transliteration is different from the familiar representation — so the information is not lost.

The Apostolic Fathers in English (with reverse interlinear). This is a new translation of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers in English. It is a follow-up to my Apostolic Fathers Greek-English Interlinear. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:

This translation is not meant to replace either Holmes' or Ehrman's editions in print. Instead, my goal in creating a new English translation was to create a tighter and more transparent relationship with the underlying Greek text. As this translation has its genesis with my Apostolic Fathers Greek-English Interlinear, it began with a direct relationship with every word and phrase of the underlying Greek. From here, the English translation was reviewed and edited to become more readable yet still retain its relationship with the Greek text. Finally, using tools provided by Logos Bible Software, the English text was completely re-aligned with the Greek text, word by word, phrase by phrase. When the English text is read with the reverse interlinearized Greek text displayed in Logos Bible Software, the result is an English translation that shows exactly where each word and phrase has its origin.

This level of alignment becomes more useful in reading and particularly when studing how words and structures found in the New Testament are used in contemporary literature. And this, to my mind, can help the writings of the Apostolic Fathers play a larger role in one's study of the New Testament and Septuagint, which is my larger goal.

I’m super-excited about this one too. It has been hard to not talk about as it has been complete for almost a year!

Anyway, to sum it up, I’m excited about Logos 5!

So I thought I’d do a run-down of books I read, received, or posted about in some way or another over the year. I’ll divide them into a few different categories:

• Books Received and Reviewed (for the blog)
• Books Purchased or Otherwise Discussed
• Books I had something to do with in some manner

I may be missing some; my review wasn’t exhaustive. I just looked at all my posts in the “Books” category and listed the relevant items here.

Books I had something to do with in some manner

Holmes, Michael W. The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition. I had the privilege of being involved with the development and publication of the SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT), and the joy of working with Michael Holmes from start to finish. Blogged about it here; here’s the book web site, here’s where you can get a print copy from the SBL.

Lexham English Bible English–Greek Reverse Interlinear New Testament. As part of the release of the SBLGNT, Logos created PDF representing the alignment between the Lexham English Bible (LEB) New Testament and the SBLGNT. The LEB NT is a translation of the SBLGNT, so the alignment makes sense. Head to the SBLGNT download page, scroll to the very bottom, and check out the PDF.

Lexham English Bible, New Testament (first and second editions). This was originally released in March 2010; a revised edition was released in October 2010. I worked with the editor, Hall Harris, to wrangle the data release it in Logos Bible Software format.

Brannan, Rick. The Apostolic Fathers Greek-English Interlinear. I’ve been working on a Greek-English interlinear version of the Apostolic Fathers for the past 6-7 months, with hopes of completing it sometime in summer 2010. More info on the blog here.

Other items: I also did the alignment of the NIV with the NA27 for Logos Bible Software; this was published for users in April or May 2010.

I was busy in 2010, both personally and professionally, on several book projects. Hopefully more of the same in 2011!

Books Received and Reviewed

Moyer V. Hubbard, Christianity in the Greco Roman World: A Narrative Introduction (amazon.com). Mentioned here.

Porter, Reed and O’Donnell, Fundamentals of NT Greek (amazon.com) and Fundamentals of NT Greek: Workbook (amazon.com). Mentioned here and here.

Jefford, Clayton N. Reading the Apostolic Fathers: An Introduction (amazon.com). Mentioned here.

Pratscher, Wilhelm. The Apostolic Fathers: an Introduction (amazon.com). Mentioned here. I hope to do a comparative review between Jefford and Pratscher in 2011.

Books Purchased or Otherwise Discussed

Douglas A. Campbell, The Deliverance of God (amazon.com). Mentioned here.

Thomas Robinson, Ignatius of Antioch and the Parting of the Ways (amazon.com). Mentioned here.

Paul D. Wegner, The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible (amazon.com). pp 75-162. Mentioned here.

Arthur G. Patzia, The Making of the New Testament: Origin, Collection, Text & Canon (amazon.com). pp. 102-111. Mentioned here.

Michael W. Holmes, “The Biblical Canon” in the Oxford Handbook to Early Christian Studies (amazon.com), pp. 406-426. Mentioned here.

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. Mentioned here.

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

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

Culy, Parsons & Stigall, Luke: A Handbook on the Greek Text (amazon.com). Baylor University Press, Waco TX. 2010. 802pp. Mentioned here.

Dubis, Mark, 1 Peter: A Handbook on the Greek Text (amazon.com). Baylor University Press, Waco TX. 2010. 202pp. Mentioned here.

Ware, James P., Synopsis of the Pauline Letters in Greek and English (amazon.com). Baker Academic, Grand Rapids MI. 2010. 317pp. Mentioned here.

Bart Erhman and Zlatko Plese, The Apocryphal Gospels: Texts and Translations (amazon.com). Mentioned here.

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.

I’ve mentioned it in passing, but I’m now the guy on the hook for the “Thoughts from the Church Fathers” column in Bible Study Magazine. My first column is in the May-June 2010 issue:

Brannan, Rick, “Fighting Over Moses’ Body” Bible Study Magazine 2, no. 4 (May/June 2010): 43.

The column is relatively simple and is designed to let the writings of the fathers speak for themselves on a particular topic. I find a quote, usually appropriate to the theme of the issue, and write a short intro as well as a short biographical bit about the church father in question.

It’s a fun little gig and hopefully folks get introduced to the fathers through the column!

I just read an interview Dan Wallace gave over on the Broadcast Depth blog.

Wallace has his fingers in everything, but what I didn’t expect were his multiple mentions of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers.

[Disclaimer: Yes, I hope to publish an interlinear of the Apostolic Fathers (pre-order here, more info here), but I think I would’ve linked and excerpted this stuff anyway, though perhaps not as quickly or as pointedly. RWB]

Here are some excerpts from the interview. “BD” means “Broadcast Depth”, “DW” means “Dan Wallace”. Emphasis is mine. Again, note these are excerpts; there is much more at the interview proper, so do check it out!

BD: Can you divulge any information on any new publication or project on which you are working?

DW: I’m under contract for half a dozen books right now. ... But I can tell you that they involve textual criticism, canonicity, Apostolic Fathers, and the historical Jesus. …

…

BD: What about your Exegetical Syntax? I’ve heard rumors of a new edition. Is there any credibility to that? If so, what should we expect in the new edition?

DW: It’s still a ways off. But the new edition will have a comprehensive syntax of the Apostolic Fathers with hundreds of references to the AF, and will bring up to speed what has happened in Greek grammatical studies in the last fifteen years. …

…

BD: What areas do you think New Testament Greek scholars will have to focus on in the next ten years?

DW: … There are also key areas in NT study that are heating up, issues that need to be honestly examined in the next couple of decades by all sides. Among these are the relation of the Apostolic Fathers to the NT (in terms of quotations from the NT, emerging canon consciousness, ecclesiological developments, the Fathers’ view of grace, and whether the AF and the NT reflect the earliest form of Christianity or just that form that became the dominant one). …

Excellent stuff, and great to see the emphasis on the importance of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. All the more reason for more resources to help folks as they read and familiarize themselves with these writings!