[as I have a very busy weekend ahead of me (and most likely blog-free, at least until Sunday night), I thought it best to post this today, one day early]

It's true. One year ago (Friday, August 13, 2004) ricoblog went live on the internet to the world. Here's the very first post (I think!).

This past year has gone better than I expected. Last time I checked the ol' Site Meter, there had been over 22,000 visitors (and who knows how many pages actually served!) to my humble internet backwater. Then again, maybe that means I'm not really such a backwater anymore.

Anyway, thanks to all who visit. And thanks in particular to a few bibliobloggers who put up with my questions and even on occasion find something I post worth linking to. I'm thinking specifically of:

• Stephen C. Carlson of Hypotyposeis, who linked to ricoblog early and has encouraged me often.
• Mark Goodacre of the NT Gateway Weblog, who links frequently and is always complimentary and encouraging.
• Jim Davila of PaleoJudaica.com. I had the pleasure of meeting Jim in San Antonio and look forward to seeing him again in Philadelphia. I'm particularly jazzed to be presenting a paper in the same session with him, the CARG Biblioblogging session.

There are many I haven't mentioned; it would be tough to come up with a comprehensive list. But thanks for your encouragement nonetheless. I've learned a lot over the past year in my own areas of interest (NT Greek, Pastoral Epistles, Apostolic Fathers, Textual Criticism) and I think it can be directly correlated to the feedback and encouragement I get from the folks who read and interact with me through ricoblog. I can't say "thank you" enough.

Now, as seems typical for these sorts of posts, time for the retrospective!

[insert fanfare here]

Notable Posts of the Past Year

Favorite Post: Complutensian Polyglot Coolness. I had an entire series of posts on typography of early printings of the Greek New Testament. Click the "textual criticism" category, I think they're all listed in there.

Biggest News: New Project: PastoralEpistles.com. This soon morphed into a paper on biblioblogging that I'll present in November 2005 at the annual SBL meeting. I blogged about the latest title/abstract of the paper here: SBL Paper on Biblioblogging.

Most Popular Post: Balsamic Vinaigrette. Based on the frequency with which I see the search terms "balsamic" and "vinaigrette" show up in my referrals, this has got to be one of the most frequent search terms that brings folks to ricoblog. Come for the vinaigrette, stay for the musing! BTW, I still get compliments on this recipe from folks when they come over for dinner, so if you need a quick & easy salad dressing, this could be it.

Sentimental: The Scholarly Omnivore: Knowledge in the 21st Century. I've liked this one ever since I wrote it, so I just have to bring attention to it again.

If you have nominations, please feel free to leave them in the comments!

Epistle to Diognetus Posts

Finally, some of the longer-term ricoblog readers know that I've blogged off and on about the Epistle to Diognetus. I have two more chapters to blog about still, but now does seem like a good time to bring attention to the entire group of posts that I've written while superficially working my way through this work.

Maybe someday I'll write a book on it, and I'll look back here for inspiration ... and I'll conclude "what in the world was I thinking when I wrote that tripe?!!"

• Introduction
• Section 1
• Section 2
• Section 3
• Section 4
• Section 5
• Section 6
• Section 7a
• Section 7b
• Section 8
• Section 9
• Section 10

Update (2005-08-15): Thanks to all who have sent thier blog-iversary greetings to me, left a comment, or posted on their blog (Biblical Theology, NT Gateway Weblog, Hypotyposeis, and James Tauber's Weblog, at least that I've seen). It's been a fun year, and hopefully the upcoming year will be as fun if not more fun.

I was reading through the last three chapters of Second Corinthians this morning. I came across the following (in the ESV):

But whatever anyone else dares to boast of (I am speaking as a fool) I also dare to boast of that.

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. (2Co 11.21-23)

Paul is belittling the false teachers who are apparently wooing the Corinthians with tales of strength and "street cred". Paul says, essentially, "hey, if that's your measuring stick, check out what I've got!" He's been on this riff since the beginning of chapter 10, and it goes through the end of chapter 12, where it sets up Paul's conclusion in chapter 13.

The larger context is important, but it isn't my primary purpose in looking at these few verses. What I noticed about the verses is that the structure is obviously repetitive in the English if you stop and read it, even though the paragraph formatting used by most Bible translations don't convey it:

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.

By this time I was jonesin' to get into the Greek, but I had to leave the house and go to work. But I can take a little break now to look at this, so I hopped into the NA27. And the structure/repetition/pattern is even more evident there.

Ἑβραῖοί εἰσιν; κἀγώ.
Ἰσραηλῖταί εἰσιν; κἀγώ.
σπέρμα Ἀβραάμ εἰσιν; κἀγώ.
διάκονοι Χριστοῦ εἰσιν; παραφρονῶν λαλῶ, ὑπὲρ ἐγώ·

ἐν κόποις περισσοτέρως,
ἐν φυλακαῖς περισσοτέρως,
ἐν πληγαῖς ὑπερβαλλόντως,
ἐν θανάτοις πολλάκις.

Now, on the way I've highlighted the repetition in the first four lines, the thing to remember is that κἀγώ is a crasis for καὶ ἐγω. And then Paul uses ὑπὲρ ἐγώ. In colloquial terms, it's like Paul is saying "So am I" three times, and the fourth time he says, "I am so that!" or "I am so much more (a servant of Christ)".

But we sort of got that in the English. It's the second part that is almost like Mad Libs (Remember those? Or am I dating myself too much?). Here's the template:

[PREPOSITION ἐν] [DATIVE PLURAL NOUN] [ADVERB] {4x}*

Not only that, but we have a similar progression to the first four lines. These last four lines progress in severity, from "labors" to "imprisonments" to "beatings" to "near death". And that matches up with the descending specificity in the groups/persons in Paul's questions: "Hebrews" to "Israelites" to "seed of Abraham" to "servants of Christ". Let's look at all of this in a table:

The effect of all of Paul's "boasting" in these short verses is to show the Corinthians that if they choose to measure Paul on some sort scale that has a positive correlation with suffering and persecution (more suffering == better score) then they have no choice but to score Paul as high as is possible. Paul breaks the curve.

And in these verses, he's only starting! He actually lists out several of the things he suffered as an apostle in later verses (2Co 11.24-33), serving to annihilate this argument against him.

These few verses (2Co 11.21-23) really do convey the point and serve as a reminder and example to us. This is the calling that we who are Christians must be willing to encounter. I know I forget about it in the relative security of the United States, working at a Bible Software company, with Christian friends and family who great and encouraging to be around. This reminds me that I need to be ready to encounter whatever for the gospel of Christ. Paul did. And I'm supposed to imitate him as he imitates Christ. (cf. 1Co 11.1 and previous verses, 1Co 10.23-33).

* After I typed the "{4x}", I thought: "I wonder if anyone has ever written a praise chorus based on this section of Scripture." Yes, I'm in rare form tonight, apparently. If such lyrics wouldn't be about the painful portion of Paul's apostolic career, I'm sure it would've been done by now.

Hi folks.

I just added another new entry to my blogroll that I've been reading for the past few weeks. The blog is Tyler Williams' Codex Blogspot. Tyler's range is awesome and the posts are good to boot. He's got stuff like:

Going Potty in Ancient Times

But seriously (and more importantly), he's got stuff like this:

New Picture of Leviticus Scroll Fragments
A Step-by-Step Reconstruction of the New Leviticus Fragments

How cool is that?

The Gutenberg Project has digitized a number of Doré's illustrations. UPenn has these editions online, the image quality is decent. Linking to the list of the books is a different problem. The below URL, copied and pasted to a browser address box, should work:

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/author?name=Dor%26eacute%3b%2c%20Gustave%2c%201832%2d1883

If you click it (from the blog; dunno 'bout aggregators), I doubt it will work.

Below is a sample illustration (I've decreased the size for presentation here) of Dore's from Dante's Vision of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, part 2.

Several bibliobloggers are making all different sorts of top-ten lists of books. I think Scot McKnight started the trend, and I think Stephen C. Carlson has had the best general statement to date. I won't link to others here; they're easy enough to find right now. Just go to the NT Gateway Weblog and do the clickie-clickie dance in the sidebar blogroll, and you'll find some lists.

I wanted to make a truly useful list, not some list attempting to reflect the form of platonic perfection in a particular area of theology or Biblical studies. And I've started a lot of books I need to finish, so what list could be better?

That said, here's my list. These are in no particular order.

• Arthur Vööbus, Early Versions of the New Testament: Manuscript Studies. Status: over halfway.
• Bruce M. Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission and Limitations. Status: not started.
• C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia.* Status: 3/7 of the way done.
• Stanley Porter, Studies in the Greek New Testament. Status: nearly complete.
• N.T. Wright, The Resurrection and the Son of God. Status: not started.
• George W. Knight III, The Faithful Sayings in the Pastoral Letters. Status: over halfway.
• J.M. Holmes, Text in a Whirlwind: A Critique of Four Exegetical Devices at 1 Timothy 2.9-15. Status: over halfway.
• Ray Van Neste, Cohesion and Structure in the Pastoral Epistles. Status: over halfway.
• Perry L. Stepp, Leadership Succession in the World of the Pauline Circle. Status: over halfway.
• Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion (Battles translation). Status: halfway.

Pretty sad, huh? Looks like I can only get halfway through a book before I get interested in a new one. The sad part? I have two books I really want to put on this list, but don't for fear that then I'll think that means I really can start them (and I've actually started one of them ... shhhh! don't tell anyone!)

I'm close to finishing Vööbus and then I can put early versions to rest for a bit before I start Meztger. I'm not worried about Calvin; that's been on the back burner for the past two years; a guy can only chew on so much. N.T Wright -- well, I don't think I like where he's going in his magnum opus, so I'm not too encouraged to get back into it. That one can sit. Narnia will happen, it is good in-between reading.

Van Neste, Stepp and Holmes are the ones I'm worried about. I burned through the first half of each of them easily, but they've since moved off of my radar. I need to get back into them before I start the mystery book mentioned above (that I've already started, but remember, don't tell anyone). But the mystery book is so cool! I'll blog about that one for sure once I get through it!

Note: Aquinas is nowhere on my list.

Update (2005-08-10): Thanks to all the folks who have commented. A few notes:

Jim -- Thanks for the OK to pass on Wright for now. But that book is just staring at me, and I'm through two of the three published volumes, and feel like I should dig in and wrap it up. Still, I think I'll pass for now.

Brandon -- You speak much wisdom.

Murray -- Narina is before Aquinas because I want to read Narnia. Aquinas is something I should read, but am not motivated to. Hence, it is lower on the list. Plain and simple.

Loren -- The part I enjoy from Wright is his use of Pseudepigrapha and Dead Sea Scroll material to fill in some holes, though it largely has the effect of displaying my own gaps of knowledge in these areas. I typically have to read books like Wright's a few times before I really "get" what is being said, and I've only read the first two books once. And the series is a projected five books (right?) so I'm not even halfway into it. Which is why I want to withold judgement, for now. That said -- and I don't have any examples to hand -- there have been times when I've read a section and "done the math" predicting what certain statements might mean (either in the area of eschatology, or in the deity of Christ, or some other something) and not really liked the extrapolation. To be fair, though, such things are extrapolations and very well may not be the view Wright is promoting. Which means I need to read it and understand it. Which is why it is on my list. But it still gives me the heebie-jeebies sometimes.

* Yes, I'm counting the Chronicles of Narnia as one book, not seven. I'm just about to start the fourth book (in order of release), The Silver Chair.

The Bryn Mawr Classical Review has posted a review of:

J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Translated into Ancient Greek by Andrew Wilson.   London:  Bloomsbury Publishing, 2004.  Pp. 250.  ISBN 0-7475-6897-9.

Yes, that's right, the first Potter book translated into Ancient Greek. And it's been reviewed, so we know there is at least one person who has actually read it!

Now, I need to state for the record (and I'll probably get flamed for it): I haven't read any Harry Potter, nor do I plan to. I have nothing against the storyline or the books or the author, they just don't really interest me. No, I haven't seen the movies either.

The best way I can explain this is to relate/paraphrase a story I heard from a first-hand witness. Most names have been omitted to protect the innocent:

A friend of mine relates a story from his seminary days, when the Left Behind novels were really hot. One student asked the professor (whose name you'd recognize if I passed it along): "Professor [...] — have you read Tim LaHaye?" The professor responded, "Why would I do that when I haven't made it through Aquinas yet?!"

I'm about the same way with Potter, I think. If I ever make it through Aquinas (which I have to admit is low on the list) then perhaps I'll get to Potter. I'll certainly get to it before I get to the Left Behind books. But I've got too much other cool stuff to read in the meantime.

I just noticed that the NETS project has uploaded some new stuff, notably:

• Introduction to the Reader
• 1 Maccabees (their spelling is "1 Makkabees")
• 4 Maccabees (their spelling is "4 Makkabees")
• Jeremiah

I've no idea how long these have been posted, but there's a lot of stuff there. If you use the LXX at all in your studies (and if not, why not?) then you want to grab these while they're available.

Today was a very good day, but a busy one. After church, Amy and I went to Oak Harbor. My Dad has been salmon fishing for the past week and had some luck, so he invited us down. On the way there, heading onto Whidbey Island through Deception Pass State Park, here's what Amy and I saw:

Pretty cool, huh? This is taken from the Fidalgo Island side. I stopped and took a few pictures. It was pretty bright, so I couldn't really see how things came out until I got home. Digital cameras are cool.

But that's not all. We took off from Oak Harbor around 3:30 and drove back to Bellingham the long way -- Chuckanut Drive. A few months back, I took some photos of some railroad tracks running along the coast. I'd thought since then that it would be really cool to have a photo of a train on those tracks.

Today, as we were driving up Chuckanut, Amy and I heard a train whistle. I immediately thought we might have a chance to catch the train on the coastline tracks. Amy saw the train and said it was heading north, so we just had to beat it to the photo spot.

And we did. More good timing!

That's the back end of the train. I have some other pictures too; this was the last one I took. Thankfully, the train was long and I was able to take a minute or so and get the telephoto lense on the camera for the final few pictures.

Oh, and by the way -- the salmon was excellent, and it's just the beginning of the sport fishing season for pink salmon. I'm looking forward to more!

After that, it was to Amy's house for evening dinner with her family, which was fun too. A nice, relaxing end to a runabout day.