My friend Randall Tan asked me to post this.

As you may or may not know, the Computer Assisted Research Section (CARG) at SBL was not renewed this past year. Leaving the whats and whys out of it, CARG’s lack of renewal leaves a void in the SBL for discussing and showcasing how technology can assist research.

Randall and others are in the process of proposing the “Global Education & Research Technology” (GERT) section for SBL 2013 in Baltimore, MD.

Randall has posted more information, along with further details in PDF attachments, at the B-Greek forum. Please check it out, and if you’re so disposed, see how you can participate in the group.

Here is a paragraph describing more about what the group proposes:

The focus of this proposed new section is not only on the development and use of tools, simulations, and social media for global research and education in the wide-ranging disciplines in the field of biblical studies, but also the design frameworks, the development, the deployment, the assessment, and the dissemination of innovative technology for wider user groups in academia, society, and religious communities. We seek to explore how such tools may extend existing scholarship into digital domains or may introduce new methodologies, novel research questions, and new areas of inquiry. For example, we are interested not only in how to develop databases, but also about how to apply databases in such a way that it helps to stimulate methodological debate on biblical interpretation and potentially open up new or alternative avenues of research. In addition, we are interested in stimulating thinking about how theories of learning (Hebrew and Greek Language, OT and NT Literature) can be influenced and improved by technology.

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

Books I bought at SBL

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

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

Books I was given at SBL

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

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

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

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

There were no big book-buying binges for me this year. I did have some birthday money (thanks, Mom & Dad) to spend, though. Here’s what I got:

• Culy, Parsons & Stigall, Luke: A Handbook on the Greek Text (amazon.com). Baylor University Press, Waco TX. 2010. 802pp.
• Dubis, Mark, 1 Peter: A Handbook on the Greek Text (amazon.com). Baylor University Press, Waco TX. 2010. 202pp.
• Ware, James P., Synopsis of the Pauline Letters in Greek and English (amazon.com). Baker Academic, Grand Rapids MI. 2010. 317pp.

The Baylor Handbooks on the Greek NT (BHGNT) volumes are a no-brainer. I like to get them as they’re released, and I know they will always be helpful in years to come. That, and these volumes (starting with Luke and 1 Peter) are increasingly using Steve Runge’s Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament (amazon.com) in their discussion of grammatical and syntactic issues of the text. How cool is that?

And while I have Francis & Sampley’s older “Pauline Parallels” edition, I couldn’t help but get Ware’s synopsis which looks great for a number of reasons. First, he includes the Pastorals and treats them like any other epistle attributed to Paul. Second, he also includes relevant portions of Acts to provide an alternate source of information on some events.

But the best book ever at SBL I got for free (well, relatively speaking): The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition. It’s great to have this in print, in my hands, after so long. Mike Holmes graciously signed mine (and asked me to sign his, which was an honor). I can’t tell you how stoked I am to have this, it will become my take-to-church NT beginning on Sunday.

As has been hitting the blogs, Logos Bible Software and the Society of Biblical Literature partnered to create an edition of the Greek New Testament, named “The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition” (abbreviated SBLGNT, also known as the “SBL Greek New Testament”). Michael W. Holmes is the editor, and I had the great privilege of working with him on creating this text. He did everything text-critical, I worked to support him however I could, getting him all the information he needed to evaluate the variation units (nearly 7000).

Michael Holmes has written a post for the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog announcing the SBLGNT and describing it a bit. It is well worth the read, as is the comment section.

This project has been in the works for awhile, and when Holmes’ name was suggested as a possibility to be the editor, I was hoping beyond hope that he’d be able to. It was great to work with him and support him however I could in the project.

Mike writes of the basic process in the introduction. Using some existing data on orthographic variants I’d put together earlier, I prepared a special version of WH for him to work through, and he corrected (updated) the orthography (both items our existing data flagged, and items he isolated on his own) while so doing. This needed to be done anyway, and it had the side benefit of making the later comparison stage (which compared primarily to editions of texts that use similar “updated” orthography) a little easier. After this pass, I wrote a bunch of code to do comparisons of the four versions, to each other, to generate an initial set of units where there were discrepancies. Mike, again, diligently worked through this data, one book at a time. He made notes in the data as to the preferred reading in each instance, and he also maintained an updated form of the text itself. That text is what eventually became the SBLGNT in Logos, and which is being printed by the SBL.

The apparatus is a bit of a different story. We originally weren’t sure about the apparatus, but as Mike started work it became clear that an apparatus listing the edition evidence for each variation unit could be a handy thing. Based on his notes for the first book he did, I transcribed his notes (copy/paste with the Greek text, not typing) into something that could be an apparatus. I showed it to Mike, he had several great suggestions, and we went back and forth for awhile. It became clear the edition apparatus, while not listing primary MSS sources, could be helpful to show where the variation unit came from, and how different editions treated it. So Mike and I decided to pitch the idea and see if we could add the apparatus to the project. And we could! Mike was busy enough doing the real work (textual criticism), so I volunteered to do the work to create the apparatus from Mike’s notes. I’d dig into the apparatus for a book after he finished the draft. This served a secondary purpose of checking Mike’s work against the notes to ensure the text (and apparatus) actually represented what he intended.

All in all, it worked out very well. When Mike was done with the text, and I had a version of the apparatus together, we had a great platform for me to write some more code to check the text against the apparatus to find more subtle (and some not-so-subtle) issues. I can honestly say we found a decent amount of issues that we might not have found otherwise.

While we were careful, as Mike notes in a comment to the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog post, “I am more pessimistic than James; as a firm believer in the truth of Romans 3:23, I take it for granted that there will be typos, and only hope that none are too embarrassingly obvious.” With this I agree.

When the SBLGNT text was solid, and the apparatus was in good shape, it became apparent to me that my job had only started. We still had to get the text morphologically analyzed. And into a Logos resource. And … well, I had a lot more to do with derivative and associated projects. Like the Lexham English Bible English-Greek Reverse Interlinear New Testament(go to bottom of the download page). And some other things. Keep your eyes on the Logos blog for upcoming announcements over the next few days.

I have learned a whole lot throughout this whole process. Yes, I learned a lot about the application of text-critical principles (Look, I just essentially took a course on applied textual criticism with the whole NT as the textbook and Michael Holmes as the instructor). But that’s not my primary take-away. I learned more about how to be precise in work. I learned more about how to be gracious in relationships both professional and personal. And I learned that a textual apparatus is much, much more than a simple or even a complex diff between two (or more) texts.

Just received an email from Review of Biblical Literature (RBL), among other things it mentions the joyous news:

RBL now has its own blog, where the reviews published each month will be listed for easy reference: http://rblnewsletter.blogspot.com/. Following the pattern of Bryn Mawr Classical Review (http://www.bmcreview.org/), each book reviewed will be listed in a separate blog entry. Note also that the comments function is currently enabled. We invite authors, reviewers, and RBL readers to comment on reviews, understanding that we will adhere strictly to the following guidelines: (a) all comments will be moderated by the RBL managing editor; (b) anonymous comments will not be allowed; anyone submitting a comment must provide his or her full name; (c) only comments that advance discussion of a book or review will be posted; (d) comments that contain personal or ad hominem attacks of any kind, that disparage any individual or group, or that do not relate directly to the book or its review will be declined. We trust that the RBL blog will enable readers to engage in positive interaction concerning the books we review or the reviews we publish. However, the comments function may be disabled at any time, should experience teach us that it is not achieving its purpose.

Very cool; and the comment feature sounds great. Make sure to subscribe and get reviews piped down your feed reader!