Just came across this story: Kraft's Maxwell House Cuts Coffee Price.

Now, I could care less about Maxwell House coffee. Their old slogan used to be "good to the last drop" and on behalf of coffee snobs everywhere (such as myself), I think it's too bad that they haven't reached that "last drop" yet.

But cheap coffee seems to be in the business news. Here's another story about the "Mountain Grown" alternative: P&G Cuts Folgers Coffee Price as Beans Get Cheaper.

I can see the next headline already: "Yuban Prices Spike, Spokesman Says They Can Actually Afford Beans Now!"

Prices were apparently high in March, but they're lower now. The article on the mountain-grown mud that rhymes with "bolgers" notes:

Since peaking at $1.4425 per lb on March 11, NYBOT's benchmark arabica contract for September delivery fell to an 8-month low of 96.15 cents per lb on July 19. The contract is now trading around $1.0180 a lb.

This means that beans are about 30% cheaper now than they were. I wonder if this carries over to premium purveyors of caffienated goodness? I wonder if the local coffee shops will notice the difference?

Side note: I live in the Pacific Northwest (Bellingham, WA). It takes me anywhere from 5-10 minutes to drive from my house to the office, depending on the traffic lights. On my route, I pass at least seven (yes seven, just counted 'em in my head) coffee shops. That doesn't count gas stations or fast-food establishments. And there are far more just off that beaten path. Offhand, I'd guess there are at least 5 coffee shops within easy walking distance from the office. In short: coffee is huge here. Lower-priced premium coffee would be awesome. Hopefully the decrease in commodity price sticks and the competition (which is pretty tight here) drives the price down a bit.

I like to keep the biblioblogger blogroll on this site lean and mean, reflecting the biblioblogs that I read regularly.

I've rearranged a little. First, I've added Jim West's blog Biblical Theology. Jim is a posting machine -- I've no idea how he does it. But the posts are typically short (well ... shorter than my marathon blather sessions) and more often than not are quite informative. And Jim is a big fan of Zwingli, which immediately means he's gotta be a good guy. I mean ... Zwingli died on the field of battle, in armor, fighting for the reformation!

You may also note that I've removed the Better Bibles Blog. This was tough to do, but I was simply not reading it because there was too much stuff going on. I just couldn't keep track of it all and fell out of the habit of reading it. Because I only want to list the blogs I actually read on a regular basis (otherwise the list would be well out of hand) I thought it best to remove the link. Wayne, keep it up -- I just can't keep up with your posting prowess right now.

You'll also notice I've added the Logos Bible Software Blog to my "other blogs" blogroll. Hey, it's my employer, and I write articles for the blog. I've got to link to it, right?

This song is on an Pakaderm Records (remember the Elefante brothers?) sampler from 1991 called "Portrait of a spirit". Good luck finding it. The song is based on Rev 15.3-4:

And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,

“Great and amazing are your deeds,
O Lord God the Almighty!
Just and true are your ways,
O King of the nations!

Who will not fear, O Lord,
and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come
and worship you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

Here are the words to the song, as composed by Scott Sellen ((c) 1992 Always an Adventure Music ASCAP):

[Verses 1, 2, 4]
Oh God, Your works are marvelous
Your ways are just and true
Oh King of saints, who'll not fear you?
And glorify, come glorify
Jesus, glorify in you.

[Verses 3, 5]
You are the only Holy One
Nations come and worship You ...
You are the only Holy One
Nations come and worship You

The line "Oh King of saints, who'll not fear you?" has been playing in my head for the past few days. It's a good lyric.

Now, I understand you can't get the full sense without listening to the music. The tune is simple. Instrumentation is sparse with just an acoustic guitar, accordion and harmonica (played by Darrell Mansfield). The primary instrument is Furay's voice. And every time I hear it, I think, "whoa ... "

Hi folks.

I've recently posted an article on the Logos Bible Software Blog about using the Graphical Query Editor. If you have ever wondered, "Now what in the world would I ever use that for?" then maybe you should check it out.

If that article butters your bread, you might also be interested in this post: Thinking through 1Ti 3.7.

Until I figure out exactly what the relationship is between the new Logos blog and ricoblog, I'll probably post notes like this here when I post longer articles over on the Logos blog.

Hi folks.

I woke up this morning to find 243 trackbacks magically appear, all linking to the same place. In other words, trackback spam.

One the one hand, it's nice to know that I've reached a threshold where I'm an attractive trackback spam target. On the other hand, it's spam.

So I've disabled trackbacks. Again. Trackbacks are such a cool idea, I hate to do it — but I also hate to schlep diet pills.

In other news: Ricoblog passed the mark of 20,000 visitors sometime on Tuesday. Woo Hoo!

Hi folks.

Most of you know that I work for Logos Bible Software. Internally we've thrown around the idea of having a corporate blog for a few months now. We finally decided to give it a shot.

So head on over to the Logos Bible Software Blog and check it out. Put it on your aggregators. Post links on your blogs — tell the world! Not much is there now (and there will likely be introductory posts for a bit to introduce the "Logos Bloggers") but we hope that it will be a place where we can let our users know what's going on in an informal way.

As a result, I'll probably start to post the more Logos-oriented items over there instead of here at ricoblog. And if you have any suggestions for stuff that we should explore on the Logos Bible Software Blog, send me an email (email link is on sidebar).

Update (2005-08-02): Finally, we're out of the default template. I'm sure more will be changing, but the Logos Bible Software Blog looks significantly better. Phew.

As everyone should do time to time, I've been thinking about 1Co 13. I'm in the process of reading through the Pauline epistles in larger chunks (a couple of chapters at a time, though I repeat sections frequently) and this past week I was in the middle of First Corinthians. On Thursday, I found myself in chapter 13, and I just had to camp out there for awhile.

The first thing I learned is that one really needs to read chapters 12 and 13 together. The end of chapter 12 leads right into chapter 13. And when you hit chapter 13, here's what you find in the first three verses in the ESV:

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels
but have not love
I am a noisy gong or clanging cymbal

And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and knowledge
and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains
but have not love
I am nothing

If I give away all I have
and if I deliver my body up to be burned
but have not love
I gain nothing

Now that's poetry. Let's check it out in the Greek (UBS4), and work with that:

Ἐὰν ταῖς γλώσσαις τῶν ἀνθρώπων λαλῶ καὶ τῶν ἀγγέλων,
ἀγάπην δὲ μὴ ἔχω,
γέγονα χαλκὸς ἠχῶν ἢ κύμβαλον ἀλαλάζον.

καὶ ἐὰν ἔχω προφητείαν καὶ εἰδῶ τὰ μυστήρια πάντα καὶ πᾶσαν τὴν γνῶσιν
καὶ ἐὰν ἔχω πᾶσαν τὴν πίστιν ὥστε ὄρη μεθιστάναι,
ἀγάπην δὲ μὴ ἔχω,
οὐθέν εἰμι.

κἂν ψωμίσω πάντα τὰ ὑπάρχοντά μου
καὶ ἐὰν παραδῶ τὸ σῶμά μου ἵνα καυχήσωμαι,
ἀγάπην δὲ μὴ ἔχω,
οὐδὲν ὠφελοῦμαι.

You can start to see the structure a bit better now. Each verse (or 'stanza', that they match the NT versification is a happy coincidence) has three elements: The "If ... ", the "but ... " and the result. I'm sure that English Lit majors and poetry buffs have the terminology for such things down, but I really don't. I can spot it when it is obvious (like here, at least to me), but my terminology is surely incorrect. That's why I use the simple labels of "If ... ", "but ... " and result -- because even I can understand them.

The first verse only has one "If", regarding the use of the gift of tongues. In the other verses, the pattern is more evident: Two "ifs", one "but" and the result. The effect of all three verses is to consider one's actions and motives to arrive at a result. The pattern is basically:

If I do stuff
but have not love
I am [negative result]

In Greek, the pattern could be:

Ἐὰν / καὶ ἐὰν / κἂν [do stuff]
ἀγάπην δὲ μὴ ἔχω,
[negative result]

[For a few text-critical questions on this structure, see below]

What is the overall theme of 1Co 13.1-3? If my actions aren't fueled by love, then I am doing nothing. My actions have no effect and are useless.

And "love" here isn't some soft, touchy-feely warmness or goodwill that we feel toward others. It isn't the quality that situation ethicists proclaim to have as a motive when they're really justifying sin. It isn't love like that old Coca-Cola commercial, you know, where the "whole world" is singing in perfect harmony, running around on a grassy hill on a perfectly sunny day, with everyone all smiles and happy.

This love is the love of Christ and it is defined in 1Co 13.4-7. We are to practice the love that Jesus practiced when he offered himself up for us -- Sovereign God for sinful man. Paul is saying that we are to do the same here. He's just finished talking about the Lord's Supper (1Co 11.17-34), how we have fellowship with the body of Christ. He's just finished talking about spiritual gifts and how the church is like a body, a single unit, that works together with each part exercising different gifts in obedience and to the glory of God. 

Paul's point? I think it has something to do with keeping our focus on God. When we exercise the gifts we have been given (and we all have gifts so we need to exercise them regularly and frequently, cf. Ro 12 and 1Co 12) we must do so with our focus off of ourselves. For me, that means when I teach, or when I write, I can't be thinking or focusing on the benefits I receive from the preparation or the teaching. I need to focus on acting with the love of Christ to glorify God. God will use it for his purposes, not mine. And I need to be about his purposes, not mine.

Now, a few observations that didn't fit up above. These are questions I don't really have answers to, if you have thoughts please feel free to email me,  or comment on your own blog (with a trackback or notify me so I can add a link) or simply comment on this thread. Note that NA27 has no variants listed in either instance mentioned below. Where Tischendorf has variants, I've listed them below.

1. Why does the text have κἂν (crasis for καὶ ἐὰν) in the first line of the third verse? I understand that these are equivalent in meaning, but what would be the reason for having the crasis only once and the expanded form elsewhere? Wouldn't καὶ ἐὰν make more sense? Tischendorf (if I'm reading it correctly) notes that uncials A B and C each support the crasis, but Sinaiticus along with D E F G K and L (and some citations from the Fathers) support καὶ ἐὰν. Tischendorf actually goes with Sinaiticus, so he is at variance with UBS/NA. I'll grant that agreement between A and B is meaningful, but the variant doesn't make sense to me. It may be insightful to see where the word occurs on the line in each of the MSS -- could the MSS that support the crasis have had a scribe who used the crasis because the line was running short? Any thoughts?

2. Why does the text have οὐθέν εἰμι at the end of v. 2, but οὐδὲν ὠφελοῦμαι at the end of v. 3? Again, I understand that these are equivalent, but is there a good reason for the different orthography? Does it have to do with the verbs the word occurs with? The two letters in question (theta and delta) sound very much alike and I'd think they could be easily confused, either in a scribe's head as he was copying the exemplar, or mis-heard if a text was copied based on an oral reading. Any ideas? FWIW, Tischendorf cites D* F G and K^sem as supporting οὐδὲν in v. 2. Sinaticus, along with A B C D^c and L support the NA27 reading; I can see why on uncial evidence one would agree with the NA/UBS reading. But does it make sense that a (seemingly needless) orthography difference would take place in text like this?

Update (2005-08-01): Cheers to Stephen C. Carlson (Hypotyposeis) for yet another very insightful answer via blog comment. Stephen, I can't thank you enough for putting up with my questions and giving a concise and informative response. I hadn't thought to examine the consistency of MSS as reported by Tischendorf for the other instances of καὶ ἐὰν. Someday, when I get my junior text-critic merit badge, you'll be one among others that I'll have to thank.

Update II (2005-08-02): I completely forgot, but I have a copy of Reuben Swanson's New Testament Greek Manuscripts for First Corinthians on my desk. Talk about the perfect resource to fully examine the problem. It addresses the have κἂν / καὶ ἐὰν issue and the οὐθέν / οὐδὲν issue. Short answer: Manuscripts are all over the place here. Some consolidate, some split. I don't have time to post more now, but perhaps I'll get to that tomorrow. 

If you've ever used a textual apparatus in a critical edition of an ancient text (e.g. NA27, UBS4, Rahlf's LXX, Vulgate, etc.) then you need to read Ed Cook's post, Latin for the Judgin'.

Now go on. Read it. Don't hang out here (I'm not going anywhere, really).

I'm unfamiliar with the routine/text. But the apparatus (and various statements/conclusions) are destined to become a biblioblogosphere classic.

Thanks, Ed.

"Peter Cook Seminar". I'm still laughing from that one!