Hi folks.

Just a little cross-pollination between my projects I thought y'all might be interested in.

I've spent the afternoon thinking through the generation of reference indexes for PastoralEpistles.com. Since I started the site, some posts have been associated with particular Bible references. Those references have not been utilized to date; they've just been sitting within post metadata invisible to the user/reader. Additionally, several posts contain clickable Bible references. On top of that, I also cite Apostolic Fathers references (using a groovy tool I wrote last year ... which you're welcome to use too).

So I wrote code today to gather those sorts of things and generate a reference index. That way, when someone arrives at PastoralEpistles.com, they can check out indexes of Bible references or Apostolic Fathers references just by clicking a link on the sidebar. So if someone wants to know if the site has content regarding, say, 1Ti 3.15, by using the Bible Index, you end up at this post (and this post too) which you may not have found otherwise.

At least, that's the hope. Sometimes I think I'm weird and that not too many other folks actually use reference indexes or subject indexes, or that they don't miss them when they're not available. And maybe I am weird. But I like to think of it as a good sort of weird.

Anyway, this will probably be one of the last major features implemented on PastoralEpistles.com, at least for awhile. Hope y'all find it useful!

Today (July 1, 2005) is Logos Chili Day. This happens every year around Independence Day; this year is our sixth.

We have 18 chilis 19 chilis 20 chilis entered. It's going to be an awesome day!

I have some pictures of previous years online:

• 2002 Chili Cook-off
• 2001 Chili Cook-off (at our old digs in Oak Harbor!)

Update (2005-07-01): Nope, my chili didn't win. I sort of followed this recipe. If I make it again, I'd do something to thicken it up a bit. I took several photos; when I'm able to upload them I'll post a link here.

Update (2005-07-02): Chili photos uploaded. My chili was named Don't Mess with My Chili, it was a Texas-style chili: no beans, chunks of beef, lotsa spice. Check out those habaneros floating around in there! Time for some chili notables:

• Best Chili: This year's best chili, as voted by Logos employees, was the last-minute entrant Chunky Chili with beans. This was some awesome chili and it was my hands-down favorite too. I liked it better than my own, and voted for it over my own chili!
• Best Chili Name: Free Chili, from Vincent Setterholm. Vince's entry last year, "Soylent Red", is the all-time best chili name ever.
• Best Chili Sign: As usual, this goes to Eli Evans and his sign for his creation, Pure Chili.
• Best Chili Serving Apparatus: Kudos to Bob Pritchett's egg carton idea, shown in two variations (here and here). I'm sure we'll be using these in future cook-offs!

As mentioned previously, I'm reading through the Pauline epistles and am currently in Romans. This isn't exhaustive reading/study, I'm just doing a surface reading working through a chunk of verses in the Greek each morning.

Today was Ro 6.15-23. And it was v. 19 that jumped out at me, again due to structure/repetition of phrases in the verse. Here is the Greek. The indentation is to line up repetitions; it is not necessarily indicative of any syntactic phenomenon in the sentence.

ὥσπερ γὰρ
   παρεστήσατε τὰ μέλη ὑμῶν δοῦλα
      τῇ ἀκαθαρσίᾳ καὶ τῇ ἀνομίᾳ εἰς τὴν ἀνομίαν,

οὕτως νῦν
   παραστήσατε τὰ μέλη ὑμῶν δοῦλα
      τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ εἰς ἁγιασμόν.

The bold phrase is almost exactly alike in both instances; the only difference is the mood of the verb. In the first instance, it is an aorist active indicative; in the second it is an aorist active imperative. The pattern in the phrases following the bold phrases is also the same: [dative noun(s)] + εἰς + [accusative prepositional object]. Here's the English of the ESV with respective portions bolded:

For just as
   you once presented your members as slaves
      to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness,

so now
   present your members as slaves
      to righteousness leading to sanctification.

We can see the difference between the aorist indicative ("you (once) presented") and the aorist imperative ("present"). We can also see that εἰς + accusative was (in the ESV) translated as "leading to".

In the past, says Paul, we "presented our members as slaves" to "impurity and lawlessness", which led to "more lawlessness". This is weird language to us today; it means essentially that prior to knowledge of our salvation in Christ, we pursued sin, and as we did this we were drawn into deeper into sin. It's a nasty circle, spiraling downward. Our fallen nature (what I'd call "sin") is evidenced by these impure and lawless acts (what I'd call "sins").

Paul says "Stop it!"

Now that we know that God has saved us through Jesus Christ, we have to stop "presenting our members as slaves to sin" and do the opposite. Instead of pursuing sin, we must instead pursue righteousness. Paul earlier (cf Ro 6.5-14) writes that our "old self" was "crucified along with [Christ Jesus]" so that we'd "no longer be enslaved to sin". That was then, this is now. Paul says, basically, "You used to do that, now do this." He's telling us to change our action. He's telling us to stop sinning and instead start obeying, start doing what God commands. We're no longer bound to sin, so there's no reason to serve it. We need to change our action to reflect our allegiance to a new master.

The choice is clear; the pattern/structure of the text used by Paul here makes it even clearer. He's comparing two alternatives: One leads to impurity and compouding lawlessness; the other leads to righteousness and eventual sanctification. He recommends and commands the alternative he has chosen when confronted with the same choice -- righteousness leading to sanctification. This is pursued by becoming subject to righteousness, or (in English) stopping our sinful actions and starting to act in obedience to the will of God.

Is this easy? No. Will it happen overnight? No. But that doesn't mean that we don't try. That doesn't mean that we don't fight the battle and try to do our best to follow Him, despite the sinful fallen nature that we must daily contend with. Paul will discuss this later (cf. Ro 7.14-25). Paul knows this is a tall order because he knows that he can't live perfectly under the law. He needed Jesus too.

Update (2005-07-01): Responding to comments from Geoff Hudson, I should say that I don't see any reason to propose a redacted text here. I also don't see any evidence that Romans was originally a "Jewish document" that was later re-worked (redacted) for some reason, and that we have the re-worked (redacted) form and not the original. Geoff is, of course, free to consider and look into a redaction thesis such as this. I just don't think it is tenable and it requires today's reader to make a whole lot of unsubstantiated assumptions regarding the text; then it requires one to read those assumptions back into the text in order to make it work. From my perspective, that sort of approach is improper.

A few weeks back, a colleague at Logos informed me that he had a really old Bible. I mean really old. Then he proceeded to loan it to me for a few weeks. This is, in all likelihood, the oldest book I will ever personally handle.

The Bible (New Testament, actually) is H. Hammond's A Paraphrase and Annotations Upon all the Books of the New Testament, Briefly Explaining the Difficult Places thereof. And it is in beautiful shape for something that is 330 years old. Check it out (apologies, the images in this post are a little large):

That's right. It's in what I'm guessing is the original binding and everything. The binding is weak, but functional. Let's open this baby up and check out the title page. All of these pictures are clickable. And I've got a few more online on my photo page.

This is the only spot that has an engraving of any sort, though a few different folks along the way have left their mark. You can see that this is the fourth edition of Hammond's work. The first edition was published in the 1640's ... during the England's Civil War(s). Charles I got his noggin' lopped off in 1649. Cromwell was Lord Protector from 1653-1658. This book was published after Charles II re-ascended the throne.

How's that for historical context?

Let's check out First Timothy. Here's the title page to the epistle. It has a lengthy introduction. Also, don't miss the notes in the margin. It's a little different, but for all intents and purposes, much of the same sort of thing we'd find in a "study Bible" today.

That's all well and good, but let's get into it, shall we? Below is a two-page spread (I told you that binding was still functional) displaying the first chapter of First Timothy. Take a good look at it, we'll go into some detail on the structure next.

To start the detailed look, let's poke around in 1Ti 1.1-2. Note the red boxes on the below image:

You should really click the above image and view it in a seperate window or tab. There are three parts to the page. The primary translation (and I don't know which translation the English is, if you do please let me know) is in the middle, with the box around it. You can see the verse numbers. Inside the middle box, after the words "Apostle of Jesus Christ", you'll see an asterisk. This points the reader to the margin, which notes the reading "according to the appointment" instead of the text "by the commandment".

In addition, see the right square bracket ']' ending the verse? This tells the reader that the entire verse is paraphrased in the other margin. Here the "paraphrase" says:

1. I Paul that (Act 13.7) was sent out and constituted an Apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the designation of him, who being God incarnate is both our Saviour and Lord to rescue us from the power of sin, and to rule and reign in our hearts, even he on whom all our trust and expectation and hope of good is founded and built;
2. To my dearly beloved Timothy whom I first converted and so begat to Christianity. I send my heartiest wish of all good from God our careful and loving father, and Christ Jesus to whom he hath committed all power in his church unto the worlds end.

Pretty cool huh?

But that's not all. Scroll down in the two-page image to get a peek at verse 4. You'll note a letter 'a' by the word "genealogies" along with a larger "a" out in the left margin. This refers the reader to further notes at the end of the chapter. I've reproduced the note below:

To get an idea of how longer passages work, I've provided an image of 1Ti 2.4-7 below. Keep an eye out for asterisks and daggers, and also check out the paraphrase along the way. Note that because this passage is on the opposite page, the paraphrase is on the right (outer) margin, the notes are on the left (inner) margin. You'll need to click the image to get the larver version, but the larger version should be readable.

The extended notes in this edition are really cool. Below, a note dealing with 1Ti 2.1 on "types" of prayer goes through the Greek words and even makes a reference to Pirke Aboth 3.2, providing both the Hebrew (with wide final mem!) and a translation of the Mishnah quotation. If you look at the bottom of the image (right column) you'll see he says "see Josephus", but he doesn't really give any help in finding the particular citation.

But still ... that is very cool. How'd we fall away from including this sort of stuff in our "study" Bibles?

Outside of this, there are a few indexes in the back, none of them very extensive. All in all, a very cool book. And it makes us, with our computers and word processors, look very weak indeed when it comes to researching, typesetting and publishing Bibles. Sure, it's not perfect. But almost every verse has the "paraphrase"; almost every chapter has several of the extended notes. There are a lot of good ideas in here (structure and feature-wise) that folks in Bible publishing today (print and electronic) would do well to examine and consider.

So there I was, minding my own business. A colleague just received his Mohr-Siebeck catalog. "Look", he says innocently, "a Mohr-Siebeck catalog". We both knew we were in for it. We both share the same sickness: Bibliophilia verging on bibliomania.

Another colleague laughed. "That's just like givin' drugs to a junkie" he said. The scary part: He's not far from the truth.

My first colleague quickly paged through the catalog. We both know Mohr-Siebeck means one thing: premium books at premium prices. I've already got one Mohr-Siebeck title on my to-buy-at-SBL list, it clocks in at 149 euros. Yeesh. Hopefully the discount at SBL will be significant.

I didn't want to look at the catalog because I only knew I'd find something else I would want. So I resolved to myself mentally: Look, but don't touch. Sure, you can look at the books in the catalog, but the chances of finding something that you'd read cover-to-cover are slim. Then my colleague casually tossed the catalog onto his bookshelf. My chance was staring me straight in the face. I had to make a decision, right then and there.

I'm a weak man.

Little did I know. Little was I prepared for what I was about to encounter.

Then I saw it.

"Innocent enough", I thought. The title was From the Lost Teaching of Polycarp: Identifying Irenaeus' Apostolic Presbyter and the Author of 'Ad Diognetum'.

Uh oh. This is serious. Of the works included in the corpus known as the "Apostolic Fathers", Polycarp and Diognetus are my favorites. I enjoy reading them. I've blogged extensively about Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians, the Martydom of Polycarp, the Life of Polycarp and the Epistle to Diognetus -- including how I happened to buy Meecham's critical edition of the Epistle to Diognetus while on a business trip to South Africa.

Then I read the book description. Whoa. This is getting serious. 'Dangerous' might actually be the appropriate word. "This sounds like something I need to read". But, I remembered my resolution: "Look, but don't touch".

Then it happened. I saw the author's name.

The author of the book is Charles E. Hill. He taught me classical Greek and a another religion class on Johannine literature when I was an undergrad at Northwestern College.

I put the catalog down. I couldn't look any further, the danger was too great. How can I not buy this book? Can't you hear it calling to me?

Bottom line: When this book is published (which looks to be soon) I'm out 49 euros (60 bucks?) unless I can hold out until November. I haven't ordered it yet. I think I can hold out. I really hope I can hold out.

Unless I can convince someone somewhere that the book needs to be reviewed, and that I'm the one to review it. But I think the chances of that happening are slim to none.

For the past week or so, my morning devotional time has consisted of reading through the Pauline Epistles. I decided that since I'm studying the Pastoral Epistles, I need to get familiar with the Greek of the other Paulines. So I'm fumbling my way through them. Today was time for Rom 5.1-11. This, of course, includes Rom 5.6-8. The indenting below is mine; it is not (directly) based on any syntactic or grammatic theory.

The similarity between the end of v. 6 and the end of v. 8 grabbed me this morning. I've made those parts bold.

ἔτι γὰρ Χριστὸς ὄντων ἡμῶν ἀσθενῶν
   ἔτι κατὰ καιρὸν
      ὑπὲρ ἀσεβῶν ἀπέθανεν.

μόλις γὰρ ὑπὲρ δικαίου τις ἀποθανεῖται·
   ὑπὲρ γὰρ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ τάχα τις καὶ τολμᾷ ἀποθανεῖν·

συνίστησιν δὲ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀγάπην εἰς ἡμᾶς ὁ θεός,
   ὅτι ἔτι ἁμαρτωλῶν ὄντων ἡμῶν
      Χριστὸς ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἀπέθανεν.

The statement is basically the same, substituting "us" for "(the) ungodly". Here it is in the ESV:

For while we were still weak, 
   at the right time 
      Christ died for the ungodly.

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person— 
   though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—

but God shows his love for us 
   in that while we were still sinners, 
      Christ died for us.

Imagine you're reading this text for the first time. Perhaps you are. Isn't it incredible?

The first bit states that "Christ died for the ungodly", alluding to the fact that we are the ones who are ungodly but not explicitly saying it. A short interlude about how dying on behalf of someone good is thinkable, implying that dying for the ungodly (something Christ has done) is unthinkable.

Then Paul brings it home: Christ did the unthinkable. Christ died for us.

While we were weak, Christ died for us.
While we were ungodly, Christ died for us.
While we were not good, Christ died for us.
While we were sinners, Christ died for us.

We're the ungodly ones he died for. We're the ungodly ones God shows his love to in this incredible way.

To end this post, let's not forget Rom 5.9-11, again in the ESV:

Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

As typically happens, I was searching for information on one thing and ended up hopping down a rabbit trail to something completely different. This time, the trail turned to Armenian resources.

I'm interested in Armenian because of the relatively early translations of the Bible (especially the NT) that were produced in Armenian. Metzger writes:

It is not generally realized how abundant are the manuscripts of the Armenian version of the New Testament. Contrary to a rather widespread impression of their rarity, more manuscripts of this version are extant than any other ancient version, with the exception only of the Latin Vulgate. (Metzger, Early Versions, p. 157).

Metzger, on that same page, provides this footnote:

Erroll F. Rhodes, An Annotated List of Armenian New Testament Manuscripts (Ikebukuro, Tokyo, 1959). Several years ago the Academy of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic began moving manuscripts from outlying districts to its central repository at Erevan, which now has more than 1,500 Gospel manuscripts and 100 complete Bible manuscripts. inasmuch as Rhodes lists 267 manuscripts in the Erevan collection, it will be seen that there is room for a revised and enlarged edition of his useful catalogue. (Metzger, Early Versions, p.157 note 3)

Now, I realize that modern Armenian is different than the Armenian used in these documents. For an introductory grammar to Classical Armenian, see Thomson's An Introduction to Classical Armenian. But these sorts of links could help one get at least minimally familiar with the basics of the writing system (my primary interest). Here are a few links:

• Armenian Language Support. This is a very basic introduction to the writing system, including short examples of Armenian punctuation and ligatures. It also contains a few mappings for keyboards and discusses some unicode issues.
• Armenian Language entry on Armeniapedia. Other helpful entries include the Armenian Alphabet entry and the Armenian Lessons entry. And don't miss the Books on Armenian Language page which has some cool stuff listed, including this one.
• SIL's Ethnologue entry for Armenian.
• Armenian Church Library Online. They have the Bible in Eastern Armenian and the Bible in Western Armenian. The Western Armenian is translated from the English (according to the site), I'm unsure of the vorlage for the Eastern.
• Versions of the New Testament: Armenian at the Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism.

I don't know that I'll ever learn the language, but learning the writing system and how to move from text to lexicon could be fun to do at some point.

Update (2005-06-27): Jim Davila of PaleoJudaica.com links to this post, noting that Armenian is also an important witness for some Old Testament pseudepigraphal works and also for portions of the Works of Philo that only survive in Armenian. Thanks for the link! While I'm thinking about it, please remember to check out the Philo of Alexandria blog for blogging on all things Philo.

For the past week or so, I've been looking into the concept of "folksonomies". These are, essentially, grass-roots classification systems. The taxonomy is flat, undefined and ad-hoc; the emphasis is on increasing numbers of "tagged" sources which will in turn provide authority despite inconsistency in tag usage. The emphasis is most definitely not on consistent or structured "tag" usage.

I've been thinking specifically about how this sort of thing could be utilized in realm of exploiting biblioblog content.

One very interesting service is, of course, Technorati. Technorati have followed the lead of del.icio.us and Flickr, incorporating this concept into their site that monitors blog post inter-linking via RSS analysis. For example, check out the Technorati page on Books. Technorati are actually pulling data via tags from Flickr, del.icio.us and Furl. They've added the ability for bloggers to add tags to posts; these are then aggregated. Technorati also (based on a brief read of their documentation on their tag usage) assume that blog categories are the equivalent of tags. So if your blogging software automatically submits your RSS feed to Technorati upon an update (most do, including dasBlog! Technorati just takes a ping and then grabs the feed), you're effectively using this service of Technorati. You can, of course, add tags (Wayne Lehman of Better Bibles Blog has begun this in the past week or so). As folks who tag their posts see which categories are most popular, they can tailor their tag usage to mirror the accepted form of the topic being discussed. For example, if there are tags like "Greek", "Greek Grammar", "Grammar" and such; perhaps one tag will win out in a "majority rules" sense. Those more popular tags are then used to describe content (hopefully accurately). Sort of an Adam-Smith-like "invisible hand" effect.

There are a few services that attempt to aggregate folksonomy categories from a more academic perspective. One service is CiteULike. Check out the CiteULike category for semantics. Even though these are somewhat narrowed down from the masses, you'll note that "semantic" is more from the perspective of folks thinking about the "semantic web" -- and not primarily works on semantics from a linguistic perspective. Also, most of the articles linked on CiteULike (at least that I've actually followed up on) link into online services that assume a connection from within an institution. Most of the links I've followed end up at something called ingentaconnect (here's an example from the semantics tag, Multigrade Predicates) which is unavailable outside of subscribing institutions.

Another service similar in nature is Connotea. My initial impression is that CiteULike has a broader base but that could be due to simply doing a mass include of bibliographic information from existing services (such as ingentaconnect). I was unable (with a few clicks, I haven't really banged on it) to find an article I'd actually want to read from Connotea. Both of these services are more like del.icio.us/Furl for scientists or academic users.

I'm wondering two things. First, is there something similar to either Connotea or CiteULike designed for biblioblogdom? I don't think so. Heck, I don't even know if that would be a good idea. But I thought I should ask the question in case I'm missing it.

Second, are there any views of tags/categories from biblioblog posts? Seems like a natural thing for Zeth (is that the person's name?) over at biblioblog.net (which seems to be dead as I write this post) to play around with since that site aggregates biblioblog content already. He could grab the categories and use those as a basis to keep track of topic counts/etc. Though that does imply growing indexes over time and supporting such things, which he may not want to do.

Anyway, just a few thoughts as I think through these sorts of issues. If you actually use sites like CiteULike or Connotea, drop me an email or post a comment about your experiences with them.

Update (2005-06-24): Joe Weaks from the Macintosh Biblioblog posts a comment reminding me that he discussed CiteULike a few months back. How quickly I forget these things.

Update II (2005-06-24): I really am late to the game here. Bob Pritchett blogged folksonomies just over a month ago. Bob points to an article by Clay Shirky that is worth reading if the topic interests you. The comments thread on Bob's post point to an article by John C. Dvorak. If Dvorak writes on it, it's usually worth at least skimming.

Update III (2005-06-24): And, of course, while we're on the topic — let's not forget ISO's Topic Maps. This is defined in ISO13250, released in 2000. Topic Maps: Information Technology -- Document Description and Markup Languages. (link is to a PDF doc). Here's the Reference Model. On ease-of-use (meaning users/authors marking up things with tags) informal folksonomies beat topic maps just about every time. But that doesn't mean topic maps aren't useful. If you google 'Topic Maps' you'll find some cool stuff.