You should probably read this article by Roger Sperberg at the group blog Electric Forest. He works through a few of his thoughts on ebooks, and in the comments section mentions a follow-up article. I'll reserve comment until I see the follow-up article and I have a little time to think about this in more depth.

Quickly, though, I wonder if he's aware of Logos Bible Software. That is, if he has seen it and not just heard about it. Logos strives to reproduce the printed page as much as it makes sense in an electronic environment while adding features appropriate for an electronic environment (the Libronix Digital Library System, in this case). These enhancements are primarily in the realm of hypertext referencing (so, click on a Bible ref, or a Josephus ref, or a reference to 'page 347' and go there), topic indexing, and (increasingly) in distinguishing different fields of information for searching purposes.

Some resources take this quite far. The morphologically tagged editions of the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament have all sorts of data stuffed in there, associated with specific words. This would never work in print, it only works electronically — much like Mr. Sperberg's chess example only works electronically and doesn't work in print.

Other resources have a relatively high degree of interaction. One recent example is Moody's AM Bible Courseware (be sure to check the video at the bottom of the page) which is powered by the Libronix Digital Library System. The books are delivered as books, they are cross-referenced with the larger Logos Bible Software library. And yes, there are tests. The realm of distance education is one area where great strides have been made in the area of ebooks (even 'free on the web' stuff — check out MIT's OpenCourseWare).

There are many things that could be done electronically that don't occur in Logos books. I like to describe these sorts of things as a sort of "multimedia extravaganza". It is all in accordance with Brannan's First Law of Electronic Book Design:* Just because you can doesn't mean you should.** Just because one could make an edition that animated page-flips doesn't mean that one should do it, no matter how cool someone might think such a thing would be. Instead, the goal is a usable edition familiar to those who use printed reference books with enhancements that fit the platform and the data — not clickie-clickie eye-candy or projects that attempt to convert publishers into movie producers.

And I'm not saying that Mr. Sperberg is advocating clickie-clickie eye-candy. His examples are reasonable, for the most part.

Anyway, I'd better stop now. I'll see about posting more after Mr. Sperberg's follow-up is posted.

Update (2005-05-16): Roger Sperberg has his follow-up posting online: Can our libraries be digital if the books are not? Be sure to check it out.

Update II (2005-05-16): I've been having a good email discussion with Murray Altheim and Roger Sperberg from Electric Forest since posting this article. Thanks to the both of them for their interest and willingness to discuss these things. I know I'm enjoying it. I hope to post some more information about books/ebooks and reading platforms based on some of the discussion in the very near future, depending on the time I have available in the next day or so.

* No, I'm not going to list out all of my Laws of Electronic Book Design. That would require me to actually codify them.

** Let's not forget the corollary to this law: Just because you should doesn't mean you can.

I remember back in 1996 when Third Day released their self-titled debut album. That disc rocked.

It wasn't in Rhapsody last time I looked, but it's there now. And I've been listening to it for most of the day. I'd forgotten how good it is (better than the two albums that followed it).

Here's the link to an album playlist in Rhapsody: Third Day.

 ... this is not me. Not even close.

First, a little background for newer ricoblog readers.

I also run/post to a blog called PastoralEpistles.com. I'll let you guess the subject. Yesterday, on PastoralEpistles.com, I posted a link to a dissertation that discusses issues in Bible translation and applies principles discussed in the dissertation to the epistle of Titus.

In my email this evening, I received an email from Wayne Leman, who also happens to run the Better Bibles Blog (which you should check out if you haven't already). Wayne thanked me for posting the link and also provided a link to a general repository of papers and articles dealing with the issue of Bible Translation: Bible translation files available for downloading

I can immediately recommend Dooley & Levinsohn's Analyzing Discourse: A Manual of Basic Concepts; the PDF is available on the above site. I actually have the print for that title, it is available from SIL if you'd rather have bound paper. I'm also interested to read Christoph Unger's Introduction to Relevance Theory, provided I can understand it.

While I'm on the subject of SIL, I need to plug their helpful (though incomplete) series of Exegetical Summaries. These books are awesome, if you're working through a serious exegetical study of an NT epistle or other book, you probably want an Exegetical Summary if one is available. The volumes on Second Timothy and Titus have been helpful to me in my work on the Pastorals.

Update (2005-05-16): Regarding Wilson's question on SIL's Exegetical Summaries in LDLS format, one of them has been available for awhile: An Exegetical Summary of Philippians by J. Harold Greenlee. I can't speak as to the balance of them.

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.