There are too many good books to read (and study) and not enough time. Just this week I received the final drop from an order I placed with Peter Lang at SBL (two books). And then I see the latest Review of Biblical Literature (thanks to NT Gateway Weblog). One of the books I've been waiting for has been reviewed, and this only makes me want to read it more.

The book is Dr. Charles E. Hill's The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church. Dr. Hill was a professor at Northwestern College when I was there, and I had the pleasure of taking a few classes that he taught. The most enjoyable (and frustrating) was of course first-year Greek. We studied Attic Greek using the ATHENAZE books. I also took a class on the Johannine literature that he taught.

Anyway, this latest book looks to be well worth reading. Only it's from Oxford, and it's $150.00 — more than I like to spend on a single title. I guess this one is going on the 'buy at SBL' list (assuming I'm able to go to Philadelphia for the 2005 meeting) unless someone else can suggest a method for getting Oxford titles on the cheap. Again, please realize I'm a bibliomaniac and while I may be able to get the title via interlibrary loan, the problem is returning it — I wouldn't want to let it go.

This brings me to a general question: How do folks attack reading lists? Obviously you're reading some stuff and you're doing well at working your way through it. How does one go about selecting and then diligently working through them in light of all the other responsibilities of your daily routine?

I have my own ways of doing this, but I've got too many books and too little time. Apart from “read faster” (which means I'd end up understanding less of what I'm reading) or perhaps “remove distractions” (which goes without saying and is easy for a single guy like me) I'm looking for some hints on how to be a bit more efficient with my time.

I see from a post at Marginal Revolution that Dr. Robert Heilbroner has passed away due to an extended illness.

This brings back memories.

In my heady undergrad days, one assignment given in an econ class was to write a letter to an actual, living, breathing economist and ask him questions about stuff.

This was in the early 90's (1991?). Balanced budgets were all the rage; the phrase “Gramm-Rudman” was known by many who weren't into politics or economics (oh that we could be in a similar place now ... Phil Gramm, please do something!). I was a balanced budget zealot. So I chose to send a letter to Dr. Heilbroner asking him how in the world one could advocate deficit spending as a viable fiscal policy.

Not too long after I sent the letter, I received a handwritten response (on a postcard) from Dr. Heilbroner. I'm fairly sure I still have it; I'll see if I can dig it out of my old college papers tonight and post an image of it here sometimes over the next few days. I don't remember exactly what Dr. Heilbroner wrote, but it did have the effect of calming me down a bit.

Update: I went home for lunch, and took a quick look in my old stacks. I found the letter immediately. I had (most likely for a class) finished reading The Debt and the Deficit by Dr. Heilbroner and Peter Bernstein. The assignment to write to an economist came at about this point in time. According to the copy of the letter I sent him, I asked Dr. Heilbroner whether or not the government had a “moral obligation” to repay its debts.

Below are the front and back of the card he sent. The card is typewritten (not handwritten as I earlier mentioned) but is signed. I wrote my letter to him on November 25, 1991. His response is postmarked December 3, 1991. Clicking on either image will open a larger version of the graphic.

and the front of the card:

Note to you young'uns out there: This is how we did things before email (and blogs).

I'm working through 1Ti 3.1-7. I'm at the end of verse 2, specifically dealing with the term “hospitable” (φιλόξενος). In looking at non-Biblical citations of φιλόξενος, I came across Josephus, Life 1.141-142:

When, therefore, silence was made by the whole multitude, I spake thus to them:—“O my countrymen! I refuse not to die, if justice so require. However, I am desirous to tell you the truth of this matter before I die; for as I know that this city of yours [Taricheae] was a city of great hospitality, and filled with abundance of such men as have left their own countries, and are come hither to be partakers of your fortune, whatever it be, I had a mind to build walls about it, out of this money, for which you are so angry with me, while yet it was to be expended in building your own walls.” (Life 1.141-142, Whiston translation)

I got a chuckle because Josephus notes that Taricheae “was a city of great hospitality” and then essentially begs for them to spare his life, hoping their hospitality will kick in and save his skin.

Anyway, that's beside the point. After thinking about the above for a bit, and looking at the other occurrences of φιλόξενος in the NT (1Ti 3.2; Titus 1.8; 1Pe 4.9) and some instances in the Apostolic Fathers (1Cl 12.3, Hermas Mandates VIII.10, Similitudes IX.xxvii.2), I started to think about φιλόξενος in terms of citizenship; that it has to do with showing kindness of some degree to foreigners sojourning among a native population, at least in some sense. I don't want to narrow it to a citizenship context (as it does obviously mean “hospitable” or “hospitality” in a general sense in some of the above citations), but many of the above instances (particularly Josephus and 1Clement) are in that context.

Then I started thinking about the sense of citizenship of Heaven that occurs in the NT. There are two references in particular:

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Eph 2.19-22)

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. (Php 3.20-21)

This perspective also occurs in the Apostolic Fathers, particularly in the Epistle to Diognetus:  

But while they dwell in cities of Greeks and barbarians as the lot of each is cast, and follow the native customs in dress and food and the other arrangements of life, yet the constitution of their own citizenship, which they set forth, is marvelous, and confessedly contradicts expectation.  They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners; they bear their share in all things as citizens, and they endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign. (EpDiog 5.4-5, Lightfoot)

So, my question is: When Paul includes φιλόξενος in lists of virtues describing qualities that should be evident in “overseers” (1Ti 3.2; Titus 1.8), could he, as he considers Christians to be citizens of the Kingdom, be desirous of overseers who show hospitality to all non-citizens of the Kingdom?

I realize the context in both 1Ti 3.2 and Titus 1.8 is general, so we have to interpret it generally in the sense of “hospitality” since that's as specific as the context gets. But I'd never considered this in light of heavenly citizenship espoused elsewhere in the NT. Does Paul simply require the overseers to be kind to strangers; or does this requirement have roots in a desire for the overseer to extend kindness to those who are not fellow-citizens of the Kingdom?

Looks like I've got a bad case of blogorrhea today. Oh well. I blame it on the snow. We had snow over Thursday night/Friday morning here in Bellingham. Here's the view off of my back deck this morning (around 8:00). There are probably 5-6” on the ground. Not much for folks from some areas, but a decent amount for us.

You'd be amazed at how much weather like this affects travel here in low-snow northwestern Washington. Though I don't mind driving in the snow (four years in northwestern Iowa will do that to you) I do mind the other crazies on the road who think that four-wheel drive makes them invincible to the laws of physics. Folks are either too cautious or too crazy — all in all a bad mix.

If the photo looks a little dark for 8 AM, it's because it was. The end of dawn combined with clouds and the fact that it was still snowing made sunlight scarce. We're in winter here in northwestern Washington, which means the daylight is in scant supply. It's dark (not dusk, but dark) at around 5:00 PM in the evenings. But we're past Dec. 21 which means the days are getting longer (yay!). We make up for it in the summer when it stays light until 9:00 or so in the evenings.

About a year ago, I ran across Mark Shea's The Lord of the Rings: A Source-Criticism Analysis. A friend reminded me of this by asking me if I still had the URL.

I did an URL search of Google and didn't see that any bibliobloggers had linked to it, so I figured I had to do my duty and post a link. Here's an excerpt:

Because The Lord of the Rings is a composite of sources, we may be quite certain that "Tolkien" (if he ever existed) did not "write" this work in the conventional sense, but that it was assembled over a long period of time by someone else of the same name. We know this because a work of the range, depth, and detail of The Lord of the Rings is far beyond the capacity of any modern expert in source-criticism to ever imagine creating themselves.

It's a quick read — it'll take 5 minutes or so. Enjoy!

Update: Jim Davila at PaleoJudaica picks up the ball and runs with it.

I noticed an unread comment in an earlier post of mine on Galaxie's Theological Journals (post dated 2004-11-28). The post noted how helpful the journals are in searching for recently written material having to do with a particular verse or issue. In the comment, John Kendall helpfully notes:

You might also find Al Wolters' paper helpful.

He then provides an URL to a PDF file that is, unfortunately, no longer valid. In poking around, the paper Mr. Kendall referred me to is an article in the 2000 edition of the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism titled “A Semantic Study of αὐθέντης and its Derivatives”. I was previously unaware of this resource (I'm sure Marc Goodacre / et. al. have mentioned it, but I missed it anyway). It looks like my slackitude in checking for unread comments (I don't have any comment notification set up at present) strikes big-time. The 2000 edition of this journal is now in print (hardcover) at Sheffield Phoenix, but it is $70 for “Scholars Price” and $140 “List Price”. The PDF is no longer on the web site.

Blast. But the current volume (three articles thus far) does have PDF files online, so y'all might want to check it out.

Mr. Kendall — thanks for the recommendation anyway. I'll keep the bibliographic info and maybe I'll be able to consult it at some point in the future.

Update: Marc Goodacre did mention the journal, and not even a month ago (Dec. 14, 2004). Don't mind me folks, just keep movin' along.

As I've mentioned before, I'm working my way through Martin Culy's I, II, III John: A Handbook on the Greek Text.

One thing that has been brought out in Culy's text that I'd never really noticed is the dearth of imperatives (ten) in 1 John and the wealth of subjunctives (54). I thought: “Gee, what a groovy thing to run a verb river on!” So I did:

Here we see a picture of the use of moods in 1 John. A few imperatives toward the middle/end of chapter 2, and a few more sprinkled throughout chapter three. The predominant mood (of course) is the indicative, and subjunctives are used throughout the book as well.

What was interesting to me was to see how some (e.g. Longacre, according to Culy) see the imperative occurrences as showing high-points in the text.* The first imperative occurs in 1Jn 2.15** which states “Do not love the world ... ”. Longacre (as I recall, from Culy's text) sees this as the start of the second section (of four) sections that make up 1 John. The sections coincide with use of the imperative.

Many of the subjunctives in 1 John, then, are “hortatory” subjunctives. These are (in 1Jn, from what I gather — I'm still picking this stuff up as I go) almost back-handed commands. 1Jn 1.8-10 is a good example (I think). Subjunctives are in bold.

(Greek text is UBS4, English text is ESV)

I'd never really noticed this stuff before, but what is going on is that instead of using an outright command like “You must confess your sin”, John goes about it from the other direction. “If you say you don't have any sin, you're lying and you're making Jesus Christ into a liar. But if you confess your sins, you'll be forgiven”. Same effect — the reader knows he must confess — but the instruction is more gentle and more effective.

Fun stuff. Makes me want to read Longacre's work on 1 John to see what else he sees going on in there at the discourse level. I'm a very long way from being able to notice things like this in my own reading/study.

* Also interesting are the vocative nouns.

** I think — my LDLS search results are busted with the current code base on the machine I'm working on here at the office.

I was in a used bookstore here in Bellingham over the weekend. A title in the religion section caught my eye while browsing: The Politically Correct Guide to the Bible by Edward P. Moser. I decided to liberate the title from the prison of musty used bookstore shelves. Oh, and it was cheap.

Here's a snippet:

Eve and Adam's Patriarchal Oppressor

And lo, it was a sexist thing to make a man before a womyn. But God fancied making man after his own image. Perhaps he wanted company, having pretty much been on his own for five billion years. The deity breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life, pushed hard upon his chest, applied the electric shock-paddles of life, and man became a living being. God placed his creation in a garden lush with fruit, which raised moral dilemmas about eating fruit. For mangoes and figs have feelings too, as evidenced by their strong response to stimuli like sunlight and recorded music.

The deity told Adam, “Behold, I have given you herb-bearing seed, and its grass is upon the face of all the earth,” and Adam experienced temporary memory loss, and fashioned the Middle East's first hookah. (Moser, 19-20)

It goes on. Some parts are hilarious, others are trying too hard. It is broken into short chapters so reading can be stretched out; there is also no need to read it consecutively.