I get a weekly "Religion BookLine" email from Publishers Weekly. I can't tell you how to sign up for it or even how to access the newsletter content on the web because, frankly, I can't remember how I did it and I can't find details on their web site.

This week's email has the following paragraph regarding Stephen C. Carlson's (Hypotyposeis) upcoming book on Secret Mark to be published by Baylor University Press:

A third debut exhibitor was Baylor University Press, there to hawk academic titles with trade appeal. The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith 's Invention of Secret Mark (Nov.) by Stephen C. Carlson is a real-life Da Vinci Code detective story set in academia. The mysterious gospel fragment purportedly found by American academic Smith has been fiercely debated since 1958, with academic dog-fighting over its authenticity and its homosexual innuendo. "This one is hot," said press director Carey C. Newman. "I get an e-mail a day about that book."

That prompted me to check out Baylor University Press' web site to see if they had further info. And they do. Check it out.

Looks like the PR machine is engaged. Enjoy the ride, Stephen!

Update (2005-06-09): Mark Goodacre (NTGateway Weblog) links to this post. Thanks, Mark!

Update II (2005-06-09): Wieland Willker posts a comment asking about email volume and wondering if "an e-mail a day" is a big deal. My guess is that the publisher isn't talking about simple inquiries as to book content, but instead is talking about distribution inquiries from booksellers or distribution agents, or reviewer requests — stuff like that. But that's just a guess on my part. Note also that Wieland has his own Secret Mark web page.

Old books are cool. I came across a copy of the Companion to the Greek Testament published by Cambridge in 1867. The author is A.C. Barrett. I think editions were published as late as 1887.

I've only looked over the (short) chapter on the text of the New Testament. It is short, concise and quite helpful as an introduction. The brief intros describing different uncial codices are interesting. Here's what they say about Claromontanus:

The Codex Claromontanus (D in the Pauline Epistles) was found in the monastery of Clermont, and is now in the Imperial Library at Paris. It is a Greek-Latin MS containing St. Paul's Epistles, and belongs to the sixth century. Bishop Marsh thought that the Epistle to the Hebrews was added by another transcriber; but Tischendorf, after a careful examination of the MS, has decided that it was written by the same person as the rest of the MS. Dr. Mill supposed it to be the second part of the Codex Bezae, but Wetstein and Bp. Marsh have proved that his opinion is erroneous. It was published by Tischendorf in 1852.

That's it. Short and sweet. Although in later portions of the book, Hebrews is grouped with the Paulines instead of the catholic/general epistles.

The ever-helpful Review of Biblical Literature has published a "review" by James Sanders (of the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center) of Biblia Hebraica Quinta Fascicle 18: General Introduction and Megilloth.

I place review in quotes because it seems to be less of a review and more of a short history of the development of modern editions (handbook editions or handausgabe, not critical editions) of the Hebrew Bible. As such, the eleven-page review is well worth reading. If you've ever wondered about the differences between the BHK editions and BHS, and what the differences will be in BHQ, then you should read this.

One of the footnotes in this review contained a reference to another review (by Sanders) of the Hebrew University Bible Ezekiel volume. This as well has a historical overview that may be helpful to read.

Hi folks.

This morning (Saturday, June 4) PastoralEpistles.com is having some problems. My host did some firewall upgrading, it caused me to have to change an IP address. Access may be sporadic as this change filters through.

Apologies, hopefully it'll be back to normal by Monday.

Update (2005-06-06): There were issues with both ricoblog and PastoralEpistles.com. I think both are back in fightin' form now, though.

When I came home from work today, I noticed a red flyer stuck in gate of the fence in front of my house.

Big bold letters: Are You Curious About Yourself?

Hoo-boy, I could take a "FREE" personality test. The "Oxford Capacity Analysis", to be exact.

And whom do I have to thank for this? Why, none other than the "Hubbard Dianetics Foundation Bellingham".

That's right, apparently the scientologists have taken a cue from the mormons and jw's and started a door-to-door campaign. Check out this fine print on the 200-question personality test:

(c) 2002 CSI. All Rights Reserved. Oxford Capacity Analysis, OCA and Dianetics are trademarks and service marks owned by Religious Technology Center and are used with its permission. Services relating to Scientology religious philosophy are delivered throughout the world exclusively by licensees of the Church of Scientology International with the permission of Religious Technology Center, holder of the SCIENTOLOGY and DIANETICS trademarks.

No thanks, L. Ron. My hope, by the grace of God, is in Jesus Christ my Savior and Mediator. Without His sacrifice, which absolves my sin and allows me to approach God through Jesus Christ, I have no hope. Scientology can't conquer sin. Only Jesus can conquer sin.

To God alone be the glory.

It's true. Logos Bible Software (my employer) is looking for another programmer. Here's the job listing.

The basics (this is taken directly from the job posting):

The most important characteristic we are looking for in this position is a passion for writing great code. We would like to find someone with experience in professional software development, but we will also consider a new graduate. The key issue is your coding experience and skill — not education or certification.

The ideal candidate will have:

• 3+ years experience with C++
• Experience as part of a multi-person software development team
• Experience with most of a bucket-load of important technologies, including: XML, JavaScript, web services, regular expressions, SQL, and DHTML

The really, really ideal candidate will have:

• Familiarity with the Bible and biblical languages (Greek and Hebrew)
• Experience in the field of information retrieval
• Fluency in a second modern language
• A fantastic recipe for chicken curry

This position is at our offices in the wonderful city of Bellingham, Washington.

Interested? Don't contact me, go directly to the job posting and follow the instructions there.

Yes, there are other jobs listed too. Check them all out. You know you'd love working at Logos ...

Over Memorial Day weekend, I did a decent amount of reading. One of the essays I read was Detlev Dormeyer's The Hellenistic Letter-Formula and the Pauline Letter-Scheme in Stanley E. Porter's The Pauline Canon.

In what is either a sure-fire sign that I'm addicted to blogging, or an insight that I should save for my SBL paper instead of squander on a blog post, the first thing I thought of while reading the article was that the practice of writing epistles (as described by Dormeyer) may really have been nothing more than the equivalent of blogging in ancient Greece.

First, recall some of the more mundane items I personally have blogged about:

• Broken toes (watch out for the picture!)
• How to use a French Press
• Horrible Christmas Music

I could find more, but I'm in a merciful mood. There's no need for you to relive my navel-gazing.

Now, compare that inanity with this excerpt from a letter from Cicero (with salient bits italicised):

I have no doubt that my daily letter must bore you, especially as I have no fresh news, nor can I find an excuse for a letter. If I should employ special messengers to convey my chatter to you without reason, I should be a fool but I cannot refrain from entrusting letters to folk who are bound for Rome, especially when they are members of my household. Beleive me, too, when I seem to talk with you, I have some little relief from sorrow, and, when, I read a letter from you, far greater relief. (Cicero, Att 8.14.1, quoted by Dormeyer in Porter, Pauline Canon, 60)

Basically, Cicero finds relief in writing his thoughts, no matter how insignificant, with a correspondent. And we thought James Joyce centered on the mundane!*

More importantly, check out what Dormeyer says about this sort of letter-writing:

The daily letters of Cicero do not transport 'fresh news' (nova de re aliqua), but serve to console and maintain a personal relationship. Because the writer has no 'definite subject' (nullo argumento proposito) he composes a literary form of talk (ut quais tecum loquor). (Dormeyer in Porter, Pauline Canon, 60).

Dormeyer continues:

Letters have an influence on other, more complex situations in writing: they can include legal questions, advice and honouring all at once. One aspect might dominate. But the fictitious form of the letter does not take on the features of an oral speech genre. ... That is why Deissmann suggested it would be worthwhile to distinguish between letter and epistle: a letter is private and written to an individual congregation or an individual person, whereas epistles are tractates with fictitous addressees. [Deissmann 1923: 157-72, 193-208] However, an objection could be raised to the effect that private writing is also fictitiously shaped, and, depending on the actual situation, can deliberately be designed that way (1Th 5.27). By the same token, epistles can have specific congregations as addressees (Eph 1.1-2). (Dormeyer, in Porter, Pauline Canon, 61)

Now, to be completely fair to Detlev Dormeyer, I am removing his writing entirely from its context, that of dealing with ancient epistlography. But the "ficticious written speech" of blogs could be analogous, in some way, to ancient epistles, couldn't it? Think about this additional quote from Cicero:

But as a sick heart not only robs me of sleep, but will not allow me even to keep awake without the greatest pain, I have begun to write to you something or other without a definite subject, that I may have a sort of talk with you [is] the only thing that gives me relief. (Cicero, Att 9.10.1, quoted by Dormeyer in Porter, Pauline Canon, 60)

How many bloggers can identify with the line, " ... I have begun to write to you something or other without a definite subject ... "? Several blog posts I've written have begun as unfocused notions regarding what I've read, seen or done. Writing about them clarifies; the subject or post title only comes after the post is composed.

That is, the act of writing itself is the discipline, the content is incidental. Well, not quite. The blog post content is a consequence of what I'm reading and experiencing — at least for me; others are most likely more disciplined.

Anyway, I couldn't shake this thought of ancient-day epistlography as an equivalent to modern-day blogging as I read Dormeyer's article. It probably is a sign that I'm addicted to blogging. Oh well. I suppose there are worse things one could be addicted to.

Update (2005-06-01): Jim Davila links from PaleoJudaica.com. Thanks for the link!

Update II (2005-06-02): Rogueclassicism comes through (via Paleojudaica.com) with a link as well. Thanks!

Update III (2005-06-02): The Rogueclassicism post is picked up on a linkblog called "robot wisdom" with the link title "Cicero's defense of blogging".

Update IV (2005-06-06): Perpendere posts a link as well. Thanks!

* No slight to Joyce's Ulysses, which was an amazing literary achievement. But that doesn't make it any less boring. 

Hi folks.

I'm back. I was going to wait to post until tomorrow (Tuesday). But then I got up to date on Mark Goodacre's NT Gateway Weblog ... and notice that he announced that he's coming to America! I'm sure those in the blogosphere are already aware of this, but I just had to express my congratulations here. Apparently Duke is lucky in more than basketball.

Congratulations, Mark!

As for me, it was a good time away with family, friends and (of course) books. I was able to read a chunk of stuff, including:

• Chrisoph Unger. An Introduction to Relevance Theory. Available from: Bible translation files. Scroll to the bottom of the page, available in PDF, HTML or RTF.
• Kevin Gary Smith. Bible Translation and Relevance Theory: The Translation of Titus. (Doctoral dissertation, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa). 2000. 260pp. I was able to read the first 100 pages of the dissertation, which works through relevance theory as applied to translation, to be applied to the book of Titus. I have not read the actual translation/notes on Titus. But I know a whole lot more about relevance theory now, and it seems to make sense. The application, however, is a different question. I'll need to work through some areas of Titus to grok that part.
• Stanley E. Porter and Matthew Brook O'Donnell. The Greek Verbal Network Viewed from a Probabilistic Standpoint: An Exercise in Hallidayan Linguistics, in Filologia Neotestamentaria vol XIV, pp. 3-41. 2001. Finished this one up. I'll need to read it again, though.
• Stanley E. Porter. Studies in the Greek New Testament: Theory and Practice. (New York: Peter Lang). 1996. 290pp. I read the first two essays: Greek Language and Linguistics and In Defense of Verbal Aspect. I'm itchin' to get to the lexicography article, but all good things will come in time.
• Stanley E. Porter (ed). The Pauline Canon. (Leiden: Brill). 2005. 254pp. I read a few articles in this one, including:
  • James W. Aageson. The Pastoral Epistles, Apostolic Authority, and the Development of the Pauline Scriptures.
  • Robert W. Wall. The Function of the Pastoral Letters within the Pauline Canon of the New Testament: A Canonical Approach.
  • Detlev Dormeyer. The Hellenistic Letter-formula and the Pauline Letter-scheme.
  • Mark Harding. Disputed and Undisputed Letters of Paul.

In Porter's Pauline Canon, nobody argued for Pauline authorship of the Pastorals (the seven genuine / six disputed perspective seemed dominant in what I read). I can't say that I'm surprised. But Wall's article was notable in that he specifically mentioned that one cannot simply brush aside the Pastoral Epistles when they are tough to interpret/exegete. Actually, his exact words are:

Sharply put with the particular interest of the present essay in view, the interpreter must steadfastly avoid the current practice of setting aside the three-letter collection of Pauline Pastorals as 'inauthentic' and accept their teaching as complimentary for a holist Pauline theology that is, in fact, authorized by the church's Scriptures. (Wall, in Porter, Pauline Canon, 37).

Harding's article takes a similar line, noting that even if the six disputed Paulines are not "genuine", they should stay in the canon and continue to be authoritative. Harding writes:

It would be fruitless, I believe, for the church to re-draw its canon today on the basis that had the early church known it was dealing with documents many scholars today regard as pseudepigrapha it would have rejected them. Pseudepigrapha were accepted because they bore a confirmin testimony to the significance of the Christ-event as that was interpreted, and as such were believed to be authentic. Anonymous books were erroneously attributed lest thier witness be lost to the church. These books enhanced the apostolic witness to the tradition articulated in the church form early times. That tradition had been accepted unquestionably as apostolic and was now inscripturated and in the process of being canonized. (Harding in Porter, Pauline Canon, 167)

Anyway, as I have time over the next few days (heh ... if I have time, that is ... things are going to be busy this week) I'll probably blog about some of these articles both here and on PastoralEpistles.com as I mull over them and think about them some more.