Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Now, I know Paul has some lengthy lists of vices (cf. Gal 5.19-21). But I just came across the following in Philo, Sacr. 32:

Know, then, my good friend, that if you become a votary of pleasure you will be all these things: a bold, cunning, audacious, unsociable, uncourteous, inhuman, lawless, savage, illtempered, unrestrainable, worthless man; deaf to advice, foolish, full of evil acts, unteachable, unjust, unfair, one who has no participation with others, one who cannot be trusted in his agreements, one with whom there is no peace, covetous, most lawless, unfriendly, homeless, cityless, seditious, faithless, disorderly, impious, unholy, unsettled, unstable, uninitiated, profane, polluted, indecent, destructive, murderous, illiberal, abrupt, brutal, slavish, cowardly, intemperate, irregular, disgraceful, shameful, doing and suffering all infamy, colourless, immoderate, unsatiable, insolent, conceited, self-willed, mean, envious, calumnious, quarrelsome, slanderous, greedy, deceitful, cheating, rash, ignorant, stupid, inharmonious, dishonest, disobedient, obstinate, tricky, swindling, insincere, suspicious, hated, absurd, difficult to detect, difficult to avoid, destructive, evil-minded, disproportionate, an unreasonable chatterer, a proser, a gossip, a vain babbler, a flatterer, a fool, full of heavy sorrow, weak in bearing grief, trembling at every sound, inclined to delay, inconsiderate, improvident, impudent, neglectful of good, unprepared, ignorant of virtue, always in the wrong, erring, stumbling, ill-managed, ill-governed, a glutton, a captive, a spendthrift, easily yielding, most crafty, double-minded, double-tongued, perfidious, treacherous, unscrupulous, always unsuccessful, always in want, infirm of purpose, fickle, a wanderer, a follower of others, yielding to impulses, open to the attacks of enemies, mad, easily satisfied, fond of life, fond of vain glory, passionate, ill-tempered, lazy, a procrastinator, suspected, incurable, full of evil jealousies, despairing, full of tears, rejoicing in evil, frantic, beside yourself, without any steady character, contriving evil, eager for disgraceful gain, selfish, a willing slave, an eager enemy, a demagogue, a bad steward, stiffnecked, effeminate, outcast, confused, discarded, mocking, injurious, vain, full of unmitigated unalloyed misery.*

Whoa. There are some gems in there. I think I sense fodder for a "Philo Insult Generator" much along the same lines of the famous Shakespearean Insult Generator. Implementations of the Shakespeare generator abound; the linked version is the least junky-looking based on the few I poked at.


* Philo, Sacr. 32. From Yonge, C. D. (1996, c1993). The works of Philo complete and unabridged. Peabody: Hendrickson. p. 98.

Post Author: Rico
Tuesday, July 12, 2005 2:37:43 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00) 

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 Sunday, July 10, 2005

I've just read Michael Wade Martin's Summer 2005 JBL article Defending the "Western Non-Interpolations": The Case for an Anti-Separationist Tendenz in the Longer Alexandrian Readings. Don't worry, I'm not going to comment on the article.

But reading the article did bring up a question in my mind: What were copyists/scribes thinking? We've got manuscripts that are mostly the same, but have differences. Some differences can be ascribed to error (e.g. dittography). Other differences have to be intentional. And here, I'm thinking of the intentional differences.

I'm curious of the mechanics of interpolation or omission. Let's say there is a scribe in the middle of the second century. He's copying a gospel manuscript. What sorts of things cause him to make the decision to add or omit content? And then how does he go about actually adding or removing such content?

If he's adding content, does he just make it up as he goes along, adding bits here and there as he sees fit? Does he mark up his exemplar and then copy from the marked-up version? (and could such marking-up be one of the sources of marginal or inter-linear scribal 'correction' we see on extant manuscripts?) Could he simply be integrating 'corrections' made by a previous scribe or scribes into the text flow?

I'm sure the answer to all of the above questions something like, "yes, sometimes". If anyone has any references (online or print) to share on how scribes/copyists of NT manuscripts did their thing* -- the mechanics of the process -- please feel free to post a comment with a pointer or send me an email. Thanks!

Another question, perhaps more difficult to answer: If scribes made changes to early manuscripts to address particular controversies (as some claim) this sort of action seems to implicitly acknowledge that the NT documents were appealed to as authoritative in such circumstances/contexts. Yet scribes/copyists still (apparently) felt some freedom to enhance the authority to which both sides of the argument appealed. Why is that? How could the documents that would become the New Testament be at the same time authoritative yet in need of enhancement?

OK, I'm done for now. Move along, nothing to see here.

Update (2005-07-12): Wieland Willker responds with some citations from a Maurice Robinson article:

  • James R. Royse, "The Treatment of Scribal Leaps in Metzger's Textual Commentary," NTSt 29 (1983) 539-551.
  • ———, "Scribal Tendencies in the Transmission of the Text of the New Testament," in Ehrman and Holmes, Text of the NT, 239-252.
  • ———, "Scribal Habits in the Transmission of New Testament Texts," in Wendy D. O'Flaherty, ed., The Critical Study of Sacred Texts (Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union, 1979) 139-161.
  • Peter M. Head, "Observations on Early Papyri of the Synoptic Gospels, especially on the 'Scribal Habits,'" Biblica 71 (1990) 240-243.
  • ———, "Re-Inking the Pen: Evidence from P. Oxy. 657 (P13) concerning Unintentional Scribal Errors," NTSt 43 (1997) 466-73.
  • Maurice A. Robinson, "Scribal Habits among Manuscripts of the Apocalypse" (PhD Diss., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1982).

Next I'll have to locate some of them. The Royse essays sound most interesting (based solely on title). If anyone else has read these and can make recommendations, please feel free to do so.

Wieland also pointed me to an article in Biblica (which I didn't know was online, but that's my fault) by Peter M. Head: The Habits of New Testament Copyists: Singular Readings in the Early Fragmentary Papyri of John. This is available as HTML and PDF.

Thanks for the info, Wieland!


* I'm already on the hunt for Ernest Cadman Colwell's essay "Scribal Habits in Early Papyri: A Study in the Corruption of the Text" (from Bible in Modern Scholarship: Papers read at the 100th meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, 1965). Abebooks (how could I live without them!) has several copies priced at $15 and under.

Post Author: Rico
Sunday, July 10, 2005 4:19:44 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00) 

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 Saturday, July 09, 2005

While we're on the topic of morphological editions of non-canonical Greek texts (see below post), check this out:

I'm so excited about this one! I've been lobbying internally for a morph edition of the Apostolic Fathers in Greek for awhile, and I just couldn't keep quiet any longer. We'll do it if we get the interest, so tell your friends & neighbors!

Update (2005-07-09): The illustrious James Tauber posts a comment asking about the source of the morphological analysis for both Philo and the Apostolic Fathers -- wondering if we're using existing analyses or doing our own. The short answer is "yes". The long answer is below.

For the Philo project, we contacted the Norwegian Philo Concordance Project.* We've entered into an agreement to use their database (thanks, guys!) as a basis for this resource. Their database is morphologically analyzed and lemmatized. It also has casing information, punctuation, citation milestones and some text-critical markers (similar to brackets/double-brackets in NA27/UBS4), among other things. We're converting the database into a running text (that's my job, you can see some advance pics  in the screen shots on the bottom of Logos' Philo Page) so that it will be readable, searchable and usable within the LDLS.

The primary contributors to the Philo Concordance Project -- Peder Borgen, Roald Skartsen and Kåre Fuglseth (and perhaps others of whom I am unaware; no slight is intended) -- have done a tremendous amount of work on this project for several years, and should be thanked for their effort and contribution. We're happy to be working with them.

The Apostolic Fathers project is a bit different. We are starting fresh. The Greek text(s) will be mechanically analyzed. This analysis will then be revised/corrected by scholars with whom Logos has established working relationships** to do this sort of work.

That's about all the detail I can give, but it should be sufficient to answer the question.

Update II (2005-07-10): Stephen C. Carlson (Hypotyposeis) blogs about the Apostolic Fathers and mentions this post as well as a previous blog entry of his that I commented on. For the record: My copy of Loeb Apostolic Fathers vol I by Ehrman bit the dust as well. That is, about 9 months ago, it slipped off of my book-laden kitchen table, and when it hit the floor (less than a 3 foot drop) the binding promptly split from the book cover. I've been handling vol II with kid gloves ever since, like it's incunabula or something, to ensure it stays intact. Hopefully the quality control folk at Harvard University Press have already addressed this issue -- I'm leery of purchasing any more Loeb vols (and there are a few I have my eyes on; I'll likely blog about that later) because I don't want them to fall apart on me.

Update III (2005-07-12): Hoo-yah! The Logos pre-publication page says that the Apostolic Fathers project is "Under Development". That means we've received enough initial interest to begin the project! Thanks, folks. This one's gonna be fun to do. And make sure to spread the word to folks that you think might be interested.


* If you've been working on morphologically analyzed original language corpora in the area of Biblical studies; or early versions; or church fathers; or inscriptions; or material in cognate languages; or heretofore unavailable manuscript transcriptions; or other stuff dealing with languages important to Biblical studies such as Syriac, Aramaic, Akkadian, Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Greek, Hebrew, Latin or whatever and have thought, "Gee, this stuff would be way cool if it was available in Logos Bible Software" ... well, we want to talk with you. I can't promise anything, but it's always good to dialog about this stuff and then see what happens. If you want some further information, send me an email (address is in the sidebar) with details about your project (or database, or whatever) and I'll direct it to the folks you need to deal with.

** If you're a well-qualified scholar, have never met a verb you couldn't parse and are interested in this sort of work -- we also want to talk with you. Again, I can't promise anything at all. But if you have interest, send me an email (again, the address is on the sidebar) with your qualifications and language education/skills, and I'll forward it along to the folks at Logos who need to be made aware of your interest.

Post Author: Rico
Saturday, July 09, 2005 2:55:44 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00) 

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Over the past few days I spent some time looking at 2Co 10.1-6. The ESV is below; note the bold portions:

I, Paul, myself entreat you, by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!—I beg of you that when I am present I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete. (2Co 10.1-6, ESV)

There's a lot going on here, and I won't mention everything I looked into when I reviewed the passage. But one interesting aspect was Paul's use of the phrase “to destroy strongholds”. The “strongholds” Paul is speaking of are in the realm of ideas — arguments and philosophies that war against the “knowledge of God”. Any of these sorts of arguments or opinions that are contrary to the “knowledge of God” will, Paul says, be destroyed.

Anyway, the Greek phrase translated “to destroy strongholds” is πρὸς καθαίρεσιν ὀχυρωμάτων. Apart from the preposition, these are uncommon words in the NT. ὀχύρωμα (“stronghold”) only occurs here in the NT. καθαίρεσις (“destroy/destruction”) occurs three times in the NT, and all three of these are in 2 Corinthians (here, 2Co 10.8 and 2Co 13.10). The translation “to destroy” is the similar verb καθαιρέω (occurs 9x in NT, only here in 2Cor)

Got it?

Now, check out Philo,* Conf. Ling. §§129-130:

129 And the name is, as the Hebrews say, Phanuel, which translated into our language means, “turning away from God.” For any strong building which is erected by means of plausible arguments is not built for the sake of any other object except that of averting and alienating the mind from the honour due to God, than which object what can be more iniquitous? 130 But for the destruction of this strong fortification a ravager and an enemy of iniquity is prepared who is always full of hostility towards it; whom the Hebrews call Gideon: which name being interpreted means, “a retreat for robbers.” “For,” says Moses, “Gideon swore to the men of Phanuel, saying, On the day when I return victorious in peace, I will overthrow this tower.”

Paul and Philo are using the same language. The “strong building/fortification” are both ὀχύρωμα. The word translated “destruction” is καθαίρεσις. In both passages, the “strong building/fortification/stronghold” refers not to a physical building, but instead to ideas that war against God. These strongholds will be destroyed.

Now, for the question: How did I find this? Simple. Conf. Ling. §§129-130 is listed as a citation in the BDAG article for ὀχύρωμα. I just hovered over the reference in the LDLS edition and the English of Yonge's edition popped up (you may need to adjust your keylink preferences for Philo). I guessed on the English based on what BDAG implied the Greek would be. Then, when I got to the office, I looked it up in the Greek edition that we're working on and confirmed the presence of the words in question and their translations in Yonge.


* Remember, The Works of Philo: Greek Text with Morphology is under production as a Logos Bible Software resource ... don't be the last one on your block to get a copy!

Post Author: Rico
Saturday, July 09, 2005 2:18:13 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00) 

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 Thursday, July 07, 2005

While surfing the web last night looking for information on the "Bulletin of the Bezan Club" (from a citation in a footnote in Vööbus' Early Versions), I stumbled across Cambridge's web site for the SNTS.

Cambridge have long published the Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series (SNTS). This page has a complete list of the series along with information on each of the titles. Several of the books have extended excerpts as well.

I was unaware that there was a complete listing, sortable by title, author or volume number. Additionally, several of the book have extended sample excerpts. For example, Maurice Casey's book, Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel (a subject of discussion on Ralph the Sacred River as of late) has an 82 page PDF (the front matter plus the first 72 pages). Not all excerpts are as extensive, but the feature is a good one. Check it all out. 

I still don't know anything about the Bulletin of the Bezan Club; maybe I'll find out about that later.

Update (2005-07-09): Thanks to Pete for his comment with further info on the Bulletin. He informs us that Bulletin of the Bezan Club was 12 volumes, published in Leiden from 1926-37. Now I know.

Post Author: Rico
Thursday, July 07, 2005 8:33:31 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00) 

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 Wednesday, July 06, 2005

So, one of the newer features in the Libronix Digital Library System (the platform that runs Logos Bible Software) is the "Find" feature. It works pretty much like CTRL+F in either IE or FireFox. You hit CTRL+F, you type in your word or substring, you hit enter. Then you find it.

This is different than doing a concordance-style search. The "find" just starts at the current point in the resource and searches forward, looking for the next string match.

Just used it for the first time ever. Found exactly what I was looking for. Very cool.

Update (2005-07-07): Checked the beta release notes, this feature was added in March with the release of 2.2 Alpha 19. The release note says:

  • Added Incremental Find feature (Find-As-You-Type) to the Edit > Find dialog. This feature works in LLS Resources, OEB Resources, and Reports.

 

Post Author: Rico
Wednesday, July 06, 2005 5:03:48 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00) 

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Mark Goodacre (NT Gateway Weblog) responds to a question on deinde from Danny Zacharias regarding Scripture indexing of books.

Danny, if you're using Word (or some other word processor) to edit the sorted data exported from Excel, you can try your hand at MSWord's "wildcard" matching to turn "Ge{tab}1{tab}1-3" into "Ge 1.1-3". You can use metacharacters like '^t' to match invisible stuff like tabs, and replace everything at once instead of the tedious hand-hacking of the lines. I just played around with this and forgot how much I dislike Word's "Wildcard" or "Pattern Matching" capability. Anyway, if you search the help for "wildcard" you'll find some scant documentation, but assuming input like:

Ge{tab}1{tab}1-3
Ge{tab}2{tab}3

Where {tab} is an actual tab character. Assuming that, you can get text like:

Ge 1:1-3
Ge 2:3

With "wildcards" like this and the "Use Wildcards" box checked:

Find What: (<[a-zA-Z0-9 ]@>)^t([0-9]@)^t([0-9-]@)^13
Replace With: \1 \2:\3^p

This assumes that the second field only ever contains numbers, and the third field is only ever numbers and the '-' character. You may need to modify if your data has other requirements.

With all of that said time for the tangent/self-promotion:

Over on my single-topic blog PastoralEpistles.com, I just wrote some code that evaluates posts for cited references (hyperlink text to an online edition of the ESV at ESV.org) and generated a sorted reference index. Reference indexes are handy things, to be able to jump into blog posts (and other things like bibliography entries) based on a Scripture reference can, at times, be even handier.

On the post entry side of things, I've made it very easy to "tag" these sorts of references (i.e. {esv|1Ti 3.1-7} does this: 1Ti 3.1-7). The indexing code searches through posts, looks for particular sorts of tags that indicate a tagged reference of some sort, and compiles a list. There's more to it — one has to account for alternate forms of canonical book names in some manner. Once the list is generated, it is sorted according to a sort key (numeric string generated for sorting purposes based on the reference itself) and saved as an XML file on the server. When the index is displayed, the XML is converted into HTML and dumped to the screen in the site template. 

You can see it on the Bible Index page at PastoralEpistles.com. I see I have a small problem with the entry for 1Ti 3.1-7 duplicated; I'll have to look into that. Not quite sure what would cause that ...

 

Post Author: Rico
Wednesday, July 06, 2005 8:54:09 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00) 

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 Tuesday, July 05, 2005

About a year ago, I found myself in the library at Regent College in Vancouver B.C. While there, I happened across Arthur Vööbus' Early Versions of the New Testament: Manuscript Studies. I paged through it and knew that someday I'd like to have a copy of it.

So, I've been searching for it off and on. A few weeks back, I finally saw a copy listed by a used book seller in the states. I snapped up the copy. It arrived today.

This is, quite simply, a cool book. I'm looking forward to (slowly) working through it. And the book has a story: Vööbus fled Estonia after the Soviets took over the country. In the Preface, he writes:

In my refugee's bag I have carried this present work. In that moment when I could give one last look at my study and had to make the difficult decision of putting what I could into my bag and seeing what I had to leave, there was no question about this work. It had taken too much of my life and work.

But it was not in a complete form, and I could take nothing from the materials which were in the process of incorporation. It was very difficult to go on with this study when I had no access to my own library and collected materials. And so the work appears later than it was planned. Regardless of what theperiod of delay has meant to the author, this delay has been a gain for the study, for it has grown constantly in perspective.

As I send if forth from my hands, I think with deep gratitude of my teachers and colleagues and of all the rich spiritual atmosphere at the University of Tartu, to which I owe so much. That amosphere gave me the courage to lay plans for a long-range work and to tackle difficult tasks, including all the prepatory work and equipment required for the investigation of areas which seldom attract scholars. This inspiration has been so strong that this has remained with me in all kinds of experiences. All this I could receive before the destruction of the spiritual life in Estonia by the Soviets — for this spiritual floration is now replaced by idiocy, all cultural values trampled underfoot by the Russian boot, and a great number of the bearers of this spiritual atmosphere have perished along with a great part of the nation drowned in an ocean of blood. (Vööbus, p. vii).

Wow. Note also that this book, published in 1954 in Stockholm, is volume 6 in the series: Papers of the Estonian Theological Society in Exile.

Also, if anyone can inform me how to phonetically pronounce "Vööbus", I'd appreciate it. Send me an email; I'll post here so others can know too.

Update (2005-07-07): Thanks to Stephen C. Carlson (Hypotyposeis) for his note regarding the pronunciation of 'Vööbus'.

Post Author: Rico
Tuesday, July 05, 2005 10:49:04 AM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00) 

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