Ed Cook reminds us today is Palm Sunday. So this morning I spent some time reading the accounts of the triumphal entry and I'd like to keep these readings going through Easter.

As such, I'm curious to know if Marc Goodacre (NT Gateway Weblog) or Stephen Carlson (Hypotyposeis) have recommendations for a presentation that aligns the accounts and provides readings for each day of the week through the resurrection. I don't have a modern synopsis in print at home. I do have an older copy of Huck (ninth edition) I picked up in a used bookstore awhile back that will suffice in a pinch.

If Dr. Goodacre, Dr. Carlson or anyone else can point to a reputable online source to use this week, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Update: Here's a table I whipped up for those who may be interested. Any errors here are mine; I am most definitely not a synoptician. I started in Mark and looked for the instances of new days, then did the same in Luke, then split Matthew up as best I could. All links are to the ESV.

Update: Dr. Goodacre responds with a link to a Passion/Resurrection synopsis. Thanks!

Folks reading about ricoblog in Northwestern College's alumni publication The Classic have started to trickle in. Welcome! Here are a few bits of info that may come in handy:

• If you know me from NWC, please feel free to leave a comment on this post or drop me an email if you'd like to update me on what's going on in your life — spouse, kids, job, whatever. You obviously know a bit about what I've been up to, feel free to tell me what you've been up to! I'd really like to know. You can send email to: textgeek (a-t) gmail (d-o-t) com.
• How does one get an article about himself (or herself) published in The Classic? Well, I didn't really try. I just updated them via this web form. If you're an NWC alum, you should really do the same — they may have pages to burn for you too! Here's a little more background on how it all happened. 
• If you want to see more pictures of my kayak (photos from every stage of the building process) check out my Kayak Building pages.
• If you'd like to know more about my Pastoral Epistles study, check out my Pastoral Epistles pages. If you'd like to commit to reading rough drafts and offering serious feedback, please let me know.
• More information about my employer and our way-cool Bible software, Logos Bible Software.

Thanks for dropping by. And I'm not joking or just being nice — if you know me from Northwestern College, I really would like to hear about what you've been up to for the past few years. Please do drop me a message. If you'd like, I can make sure you're on my yearly Christmas email update — just mention it and I'll add you to the address book.

I'd also like to say thanks to Duane Beeson and Amy Scheer for their work and David Scherrer (and Susan Grainger!) for some excellent photography. Everyone I've spoken to about the article thinks it is accurate and well written — so thanks!

Go Red Raiders!

Amy and I went for a walk along the Padilla Bay shore trail in the Skagit flats this past Saturday. It was windy and chilly, but it was clear. I had no idea there was an old barn/shed/structure out there. Finding a barn away from power lines is a trick (I know, I've been looking as I've been driving/riding through Whatcom county over the past year or so). Unfortunately, there's an oil refinery in the background that you can see a little smoke from.

Next time I'm out there, I'm guessing there will be less wind. I think I'll put on the wide angle lense and get a wider view of the scene. Until then, this should suffice:

More photos (only two more from Padilla Bay) are, of course, on my photo page.

Those interested in photographs of old structures might also like this one from the "English Camp" on San Juan Island. This building dates back to the 1800's. I've really got to get there in the spring or early summer this year, when the grass is green. More photos are available.

For those who are unaware or new to ricoblog, I also occassionally post information that has to do specifically with the Pastoral Epistles over at a different site: PastoralEpistles.com.

On that site, I've just posted a link to an article titled Distribution of Semantic Domain by Section in the Pastoral Epistles. This is a table of information that shows the frequency of occurrence of each semantic domain in each section (sections are based on the NA27 section boundaries) of the Pastoral Epistles.

I thought some folks might be interested in this, hence the cross-post. That, and I think the data is just plain cool, but my opinion may be biased.

In the fall of 2004, I supplied my alma mater (Northwestern College in Orange City, IA) with a brief personal update (address change, email, web page, and brief update) through a web submission form.

Someone in the alumni office read it, checked out my web site, and decided that they wanted to do an "alumni profile" on me in the Spring 2005 alumni magazine. I can only guess that they had extra pages to burn and figured they'd waste them on me.

I haven't received my print copy of The Classic yet, but the PDF is up and on the NWC publications web page. You can catch a recent photo of me in the Table of Contents (page 2) and in the article on pp. 14-15. And you can see a picture of me paddling my kayak! If you're in Bellingham, I hope to have some print copies soon.

To Download: The PDF is of the whole magazine, and is just over 5 megs (lots of photos/graphics). I'd recommend right-clicking and saving to your hard drive instead of attempting to browse online. From this page, right-click on the Spring 2005 link and do a "Save Link As" or  "Save Target As" or whatever the option is on your browser.

Update: I've received my print copies of The Classic, and so have others. Noel -- of course I remember you. If anyone else I may know from NWC happens to drop by, hop to this post and feel free to drop a note in the comments. Or if you'd rather, drop me an email. The address is textgeek (a-t) gmail (d-o-t) com.

Going through 1 Clement, I noticed the extended citation of Psalm 51 [LXX 50] in 1Cl 18.2-17. I decided to peek at the Greek and compare it to the Greek of the LXX, just to see if they were that different.

It was almost a let-down. Here I was prepared to get all text-critical with y'all, but these two excerpts are really very similar. The differences below are in bold. Please note that I pasted this in from MSWord; if your browser is doing something funky with the table, I apologize for it.

Apart from punctuation differences, the only major differences (that I located on two quick skims through the parallel text) are:

• a word broken by a space (διαπαντός vs. διὰ παντός)
• a trivial orthographic variant (ἀπορίψῃς vs. ἀπορρίψῃς)
• word switching (στόμα ... χείλη vs. χείλη ... στόμα) that doesn't make much difference (mouth ... lips vs. lips ... mouth).

I checked Lightfoot's edition of Clement, he says that these differences are trivial and inconsequential. Rahlfs doesn't list any variants for this section of text. I don't have access to the Göttingen edition, so I can't check that.

This morning, languishing about and not wanting to get out of bed, I caught a short interview on NPR with Donald Knuth.

Knuth is legendary in the realm of information science/computer programming. Knuth himself developed the typesetting language TeX, primarily to typeset his continually-in-progress The Art of Computer Programming. He is guru above all gurus. Here is the short description/bio of Knuth from the interview page:

Donald Knuth is legendary in the computer science world for writing a series of must-have reference books called The Art of Computer Programming. Part cookbook, part textbook, part encyclopedia, these books are also considered by many to be technical and personal works of art.

One interesting part of the interview (towards the end) was when the interviewer asks if Knuth believes in God. Knuth does, and says he devotes a fair amount of time to thinking about such things. Interestingly, Knuth laments the possibility of there being a proof of God. He says that if such a thing ever occurred, he'd end up memorizing the proof and then wouldn't have any cause to think about it again. Not that he doesn't want to consider such things, but if it was empirically certain it wouldn't require the depth of thought and consideration that we are to give it. Because there's a mystery, it demands attention and consideration.

I'd never considered that perspective, but it makes a lot of sense. Of course, we're talking about Donald Knuth here, so it has to make sense.

Update: Programmers/Techies who are believers may find Knuth's book Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About an interesting diversion from the normal Comp. Sci. reading list. Here's part of the book blurb:

[Knuth's] starting point is the 3:16 project, an application of mathematical "random sampling" to the books of the Bible. The first lectures tell the story of the project's conception and execution, exploring its many dimensions of language translation, aesthetics, and theological history. Along the way, Knuth explains the many insights he gained from such interdisciplinary work. These theological musings culminate in a surprising final lecture tackling the ideas of infinity, free will, and some of the other big questions that lie at the juncture of theology and computation.

I've not read the book, I just came across a reference when searching for more info on Knuth and Christianity.

Driving back from a memorial service in Oak Harbor yesterday, I took the long way home through the Skagit flats and across Chuckanut Drive. Just north of Bayview, I spied a bald eagle in a tree. I pulled over, put on the telephoto lense, and snapped some pics. This is probably the best one. Too bad I didn't have more zoom and a better angle — it could've been a really cool photo.

More pictures taken that day (a few more pics of the eagle, plus some other shots) are on my photo site.