First, it's been awhile since I've blogged about the Epistle to Diognetus. For newer ricoblog readers (and there are a few of you), in the past I used the Epistle to Diognetus as "blog fodder". Since it's been so long, here's a recap of the previous major posts:

• Intro
• Section 1
• Section 2
• Section 3
• Section 4
• Section 5
• Section 6
• Section 7a
• Section 7b

So now I'm on EpDiog 8. The author is continuing in his argument disputing the pagan conception of God. God is not equivalent with some element (fire, water, or some other element, cf EpDiog 8.2). These things should not make up our conception of God. Instead, claims the author, God reveals Himself to us. This is noted in EpDiog 8.5-6:

For no one either saw him or made him known, but he revealed himself. And he revealed himself through faith, through which alone is one permitted to see God. (EpDiog 8.5-6, Ehrman's version)

The author is emphatic on this point. Check out the beginning of v. 5 in the Greek:

ἀνθρώπων δὲ οὐδεὶς οὔτε εἶδεν οὔτε ἐγνώρισεν

Next the author explains the process of the revelation of God's plan of salvation. He sees the plan of salvation as known from before time and shared only within the Godhead. We get this in EpDiog 8.9-10:

And when he [God] had a great and inexpressible thought, he communicated it to his child alone. And so, as long as he enshrouded it in a mystery and kept his wise plan to himself, he seemed not to care for us or give us any heed. (EpDiog 8.9-10, Ehrman's version)

In the above, "his child" is Jesus Christ. This is speaking of communication between the Father and Son. The author's point here is that just because nobody knew exactly how God's plan would work prior to the arrival of Jesus Christ His Son, that doesn't mean that the plan hadn't been made ages beforehand. It doesn't mean that God disregarded man until Jesus Christ came. Instead, says the author, God (who, recall, transcends time) established the plan and "communicated" it to His Son. When the part of the plan that involved the arrival of Jesus Christ on earth was put into action is when the exact details were made known to us:

But when he [God] revealed it through his beloved child and showed the things prepared from the beginning, he shared all things with us at once, that we might participate in and see and understand his kindly acts. Who among us would have ever expected these things? (EpDiog 8.11, Ehrman's version).

The last sentence hits me. "Who among us would have ever expected these things?" Yes, how true. I'm getting off track now, but I'm going to run with it. The Jews during the time of Jesus' sojourn on earth had their own conception of a Messiah, and Jesus didn't necessarily match those expectations. A national king, arriving in power and conquering? Nope. A mighty prophet with miraculous signs and wonders who would do incredible things? Well, yes, but He was more than a prophet. He was prophet, priest and king (read Hebrews) perfect in every way and the very Son of God. Fully God and fully man. And instead of restoring a national people to primacy in a particular geo-political region, He conquered sin and death so that those who believe in Him -- Jew or Gentile -- can have fellowship with God. Now that's restoration. Praise God!

And now I'm way off track, but that's OK. I wonder, how many of us have firm and perhaps inviolate expectations of what the return of Christ will be like? When he arrived as a baby, born in Bethlehem, he didn't really match the expectations of the arrival of the Messiah from the common Jewish perspective. But he was (and is), nonetheless. I wonder how different our expectations of the second coming of Christ are from how it will actually happen?

So, to get back on track, "Who among us would have ever expected these things?" Not too many of us. Mary & Joseph had a little warning. John the Baptist too, I suppose. But could they have understood the events that were to happen 30 years or so after Jesus was born? Did they expect to see what actually occurred? Even the apostles were surprised by the event of Jesus' crucifixion, amazed at his resurrection, and blown aback by the arrival of the Holy Spirit.

God, in His wisdom, provided a solution for sin that appeased his justice and wrath (or better, 'propitiated' his wrath). It was the most costly solution and the most effective. And when He put it into motion He revealed Himself to us. And it still blows my mind, 2000 years later.

Next up: EpDiog 9. I don't know when that'll be, though.

I forget when I ran across this, but it is helpful to me in remembering prepositions and what different combinations of preposition + case indicate.

(Thanks to John Schwandt and his site BiblicalGreek.org for the link.)

The site in question is called New Testament Greek: Prepositions. It is one of a number of lessons. After you go to the page, scroll down to section 2, "Examples" until you see the cartoon. Yes, it's a cartoon. But boy-howdy does it work!

Enjoy!

[Previous posts in series: The Complutensian Polyglot, Erasmus' New Testament(s), Stephanus' 1546 GNT, and Beza's 1598 Greek NT.]

This is the edition that many Bible Software packages title 1550 Stephanus Textus Receptus or something like that. The electronic editions you'll find have their genesis with Dr. Maurice Robinson's work. You can download the raw text (no accents, moveable nu normalized, no casing) edition of Dr. Robinson's work at byztxt.com (nb: byztxt.com no longer exists and now links to indecent and rude material).

Here's the title page of the edition:

The typographical device (representing the typesetter, as I understand it) is pretty much the same as the 1546 edition, though this reproduction is much clearer than the 1546. And the mention of the Gospels and Acts is interesting. But that's because this is a two-volume set with the first volume (cover page above) for the Gospels and Acts, the second volume for everything else (Paulines — which include Hebrews in this list; Catholic epistles, and the Apocalypse).

How about that initial page of First Timothy? You can see a page number in the upper left. This appears to be set, not added after the fact. But what else is going on besides an even larger initial drop-cap (seven lines!!)?

Well, there are cross-references in the outer margin (the left margin in the above image) and textual notes in the inner margin. That's pretty cool. The Greek uncial letters represent stichoi, I think — but that's a complete guess on my part. But that means that I don't know what the numeric indicators are on the inner margin.

On the references and textual notes, we can see more when we examine 1Ti 2.3-6. The image is clickable, you may need to examine the larger image to read the Greek and also to see how the referencing works.

So the the superscript circle that looks like a degree symbol indicates a cross-reference (here a reference to Second Peter). The superscript roman numeral I indicates a textual note of some sort. It looks like Stephanus rightly prefers the reading of μαρτύριον to what he notes on the side (apparently μυστήριον, using the stigma ligature, which is not mentioned in NA27/UBS4). So even some rudimentary variants are presented, though their source is not immediately evident.

One difference between Stephanus and the Complutensian Polyglot and Erasmus is the Stephanus has no Latin translation at all in his text. He just represents the Greek text, as does Beza after him. 

All in all, cool stuff. I don't know if I'll do any more of this sort of thing. It all depends on if I can find other interesting editions of the Greek NT. Let me know if you know a source, or if you'd like me to do more of this type of posting.

Thanks!

I've played around with posts showing aspects of the Complutensian Polyglot, Erasmus' New Testament(s), and Beza's 1598 Greek NT. I've got some spare time tonight, so I thought it would be cool to finally look at some of Robertus Stephanus' NT editions.

This is all the more cool to me because my employer (Logos Bible Software) has a page from an original 1550 Stephanus edition hanging in the lobby. Its the first page of the gospel of Mark, and it is very cool. I sure wish I knew more about the miniscule script ligatures. If I did, I might actually be able to read it. As it is, the page is hanging right next to the coffee machine so everytime I'm making an Americano I take a peek at the Stephanus page to see how much of it I can decipher.

Anyway, the good folks at bibles.org.uk have two editions of Stephanus to choose from: An edition from 1546 and the 1550 edition. We'll start with 1546; the 1550 will be in a subsequent post.

First off, let's just say that whomever had this edition used it. There are notes everywhere — in the margins, underlines, etc. While some may not like that or think it detracts from the value, I kind of like it. It means that this edition was used and used extensively. Here's the title page:

Pretty simple. Standard typographical device of the day. There's a library stamp there too that came along from somewhere. Below is the initial page of the first epistle to Timothy. There are a few things to note. The '1.' in the upper left corner actually indicates the chapter. I'm unsure if this was in the typography or the later addition of the user, but it is consistent throughout the portions of the edition I've examined. The '188' is the page number of the section. So, the Pauline epistles are a section (volume?) and this is page 188 of that section. The numbers running down the margin are actually verse numbers and they're rather reflective of the ordering of the text we have in our modern versification structures today. My guess is that both the chapter and the verse numbers are later and weren't in the original typeset edition.

The typographical device at the top seems typical. The five-line drop-cap is a bit ostentatious for my tastes, but I guess it worked for Stephanus. You can also see the underlining and marginal notation added by an owner of the text at some point in its lifetime.

Finally, let's peek at 1Ti 2.3-6 and see how it looks in comparison to the other editions we've examined.

This is at the bottom of the page, the last word of v. 6 is on the next page. But we can see that the owner underlined it and added a cross-reference to what looks to be Galatians (chapter 3?). Some of the underlining gloppiness makes the text hard to read, but at least we can get an idea of what it was like 450 years ago.

Next up: 1550 Stephanus.

I don't want to bring politics into the ricoblog arena, but every now and then something just hits me. This is one of those times.

Despite your politics, despite whatever your stance on the situation in Iraq is, you need to go see a photo taken by Michael Yon in Mosul, and you need to read his description of the circumstances of the photo.

It made me cry, and I don't know that I'll get over it any time soon.

Yesterday a colleague of mine IM'd me this link detailing how to make coffee with a "press pot" (aka "French Press").

I use a french press when I make coffee at home, so I thought I might learn something from the link. Imagine my surprise when I realized that this is almost exactly how I make coffee with a press pot! Right down to using a chopstick to stir the brew prior to steeping!

I don't have a high-quality grinder, though. Maybe someday. I just can't see dropping $50 minimum on a high-quality burr grinder. So I use an el-cheapo blade grinder.

Anyway, if you're into coffee, and particularly if you've always been mystified as to how to make good coffee with a press pot/french press, you need to read this article.

And check out the rest of CoffeeGeek.com — it's an excellent site.

In the past months, I've mentioned Diarmaid MacCulloch's book The Reformation: A History a few times.

Tonight, I finally finished it. Here's a list of posts where I mentioned the book in more than passing:

• Demanding Teaching, High Expectations
• I Think, Therefore I Blog
• The Scholarly Omnivore: Knowledge in the 21st Century
• Reformation through Multiple Forms of Media

The book is around 700 pages of narrative prose. It took me about five months to get through, though it did sit untouched for weeks at a time while I focused on other things.

All in all, I'd recommend it. Some places were dry, other places were (I thought) unnecessary; but as a whole the book is worth reading. Particularly if you have an interest in history and especially if you have an interest in the Reformation.

I've been asked from time to time about the workspace I use with Logos Bible Software (the Libronix DLS). My workspaces differ according to task. As my primary task these days involves working through the Pastoral Epistles, I'll detail that workspace here.

First, a note about my computer. It's a two-year-old Dell laptop (Inspiron 8200). 2 ghz Pentium 4, 512 megs RAM, 40 gigs drive space. 15 inch screen (I spent my money on the screen when I bought it). So yes, only one monitor for me at home. For the tasks I perform in my studies, this is adequate.

Second, here's a shot of the main screen. You'll note four regions. The contents of those regions will be detailed below.

Region 1: Greek NT Texts

1. NA27 Greek NT Text, with apparatus indicators. This is available on the Stuttgart Electronic Study Bible. This is reflective of the actual NA27 printed text. Yes, there are slight differences with the UBS4 text (primarily casing, punctuation, sub-paragraph breaks, OT quote distinction). I prefer to base my study on the NA27 since that is fairly much universally accepted as the "critical text" among scholars these days. This text has the GRAMCORD(TM) morphology.
2. NA27 Interlinear. I don't consult this much, but sometimes it is handy to have available.
3. Swanson's UBS4. Sometimes it is handy to have the UBS4 text available, and sometimes an alternate morphology is handy to consult.

Region 2: English Texts

1. ESV. My primary English translation is the ESV, and that's in this window.
2. NET Bible. The NET Bible is helpful to consult as the translation doesn't simply regurgitate and rephrase other modern translations, it has its own style and method. And the notes are helpful.
3. NASB95. Need I say more?
4. Tischendorf's Apparatus. Yes, this is not an English Bible text. But I do like to view Tischendorf's apparatus compared against the NA27 apparatus (and Metzger's Textual Commentary) so it's easiest to do in this window.

Region 3: Greek NT Apparatuses

1. NA27 Apparatus Criticus. Part of the SESB product from Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. This is the one you've been waiting for: The NA27 bottom-of-the-page apparatus.
2. Textual Commentary of the Greek New Testament. Bruce Metzger's awesome work detailing the major variants as addressed within the UBS4 edition of the Greek New Testament. Once you have this, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it (assuming you're even the least bit interested in textual criticism and the Greek New Testament, of course).

Note that all texts in regions 1-3 are linked together so that they scroll synchronously. I use link set 'A' for this.

Region 4: Everything Else

1. BDAG. This is the most awesome Greek-English NT lexicon available today. If you consider yourself a student of NT Greek, you have no excuse for not owning this work in some form (either print or electonic). But the electronic Logos Bible Software edition is so sweet, you know you want it.
2. Liddell-Scott-Jones-McKenzie (LSJ). This as well is necessary if you're actively consulting Greek lexica. LSJ deals primarily with "classical" Greek, though many of its articles cover NT vocabulary and have import for NT studies.
3. ESV. Yes, it's true that I have an ESV in Region 2 above. But I like to have a non-linked copy available to look up cross-references/cited verses. Note that I also keep this copy of the ESV resource as my "Resource Target" so that when I click on cited verses in BDAG (for example) this is the window the reference will display in. Since this is not linked with regions 1-3, those windows stay static when I'm clicking cross-references. It is, however, linked (link set 'C') to the AGNT in Region 4 (mentioned below).
4. LXX. I like to keep a copy of the LXX handy.
5. AGNT. I like to keep a copy of the Greek NT handy as well. This is linked (link set 'C') to the ESV in Region 4 mentioned above. This way, when I click on a reference in the NT, both the ESV reference target and this Greek NT move to the reference. If it is NT, I check it in English and/or Greek, if it is OT I check it in English or LXX.
6. OT Pseudepigrapha. This is the main text of the OT Pseudepigrapha, in the Charles edition. Sometimes reference works (e.g. BDAG) cite pseudepigraphal documents. When this happens, one needs a place to look them up. This is the place. It's true, this is the English edition, but this (plus the in-development Online Critical Pseudepigrapha) can help out immensely in checking out how words were used.
7. Works of Josephus. Reference works also frequently cite the Works of Josephus. Again, currently only available in English in the LDLS, this can still be helpful. You can often intuit the Greek behind the English and identify the portion being referenced by BDAG or LSJ in citations.

That's it, in a nutshell. Other texts float in and out of use in Region 4. Sometimes I have stuff like Louw-Nida, TDNT and Works of Philo open in there, but I'll usually close those after I'm through a section if I've used them.

I keep the save on exit/load on startup settings active so it always picks up where I left off. It is true, startup is marginally slowed down by doing this, but it's still faster than manually loading a workspace. In addition, I never have any notefiles active -- I use MSWord as I write, and that is typically open to receive content/etc. as I'm working through a verse or phrase.

At one time, I had my lexica (BDAG and LSJ) linked together with link set 'B', but I've since discontinued that practice. I find it easier to right-click on the headword in BDAG and do a keylink into LSJ if I desire to consult the LSJ article for the word under examination.

My method typically involves working word-by-word through the NA27 text in Region 1. I examine the word/phrase, looking at lexical evidence and writing notes/prose in MSWord as I work my way through a verse. I don't quite know how else to put it. An example of output from this workspace/method is available on PastoralEpistles.com.

So, that's it. Any questions? And, if you use Logos and blog ... how's about posting some notes on your primary workspace too? If you do, and if you notify me, I'll post a link here for others to use to check out your stuff.

Update: Wilson Hines blogs about his Logos Bible Software workspace (NB: link removed as it is now dead). Any others? C'mon, I know you're out there.

Update II (2006-09-22): Randy McRoberts also shares a workspace and details about how he uses it.

Update III (2007-05-22): Phil Gons blogs about his NT workspace. Check it out!

Update IV (2007-05-22): Mark Vitalis Hoffman blogs about his NT workspace too.