Just checked the referrer logs and noticed that I've been linked to from daveblackonline. Dave has written a lot of cool stuff (check his book list), so I'm happy to find that he's linked here. I'd link back to the exact article, but it has no link anchor. So find the section for September 17, 2005, then find the paragraph that was entered at 7:53 AM. 

Thanks, Dave!

He linked to this entry I wrote about Erasmus' edition of the NT. If you're visiting from Dave's blog (or elsewhere!) and dig that sort of stuff, check out what I've written on Textual Criticism and Greek stuff in general. And be sure to pop ricoblog into your feed reader (use the RSS/ATOM links on the right).

Mark Goodacre (NT Gateway Weblog) posts a press release from Fortress Press about George Nickelsburg's updated book, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah.

The press release briefly mentions that the book comes with a CDRom containing the material in the book and more stuff.

I'd like to note that the CDRom uses the Libronix Digital Library System and is thus fully Logos Bible Software compatible. You can pick up this product from Fortress Press, in bookstores, or from Logos Bible Software — where we like to think the electronic version comes with a free paperback edition of the book!

For a list of more electronic titles published by Fortress Press that come with a free paperback edition of the book (19 of 'em!) check out this list (they're available in this collected group, or individually).

Some of this stuff is pretty cool: Brueggemann's Theology of the Old Testament? Danker's Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study? Check out the full list for more gems.

Update (2005-09-22): In the comments, Ben asks about linking within the Logos version of Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah. I don't know if I'm really supposed to do this, but since I have access to a version internally, I took a screen capture. Hopefully this will answer Ben's question:

Through a post on B-Greek, I've become aware of SIL's Journal of Translation. Articles for 2005 (two issues, four articles per issue) are online as PDF files. The Editor's Forward to Issue 1 Notes:

Welcome to the long-awaited launching of SIL’s Journal of Translation. In one sense, this is a replacement for Notes on Translation, as it provides an outlet for academic writing and research in this field. But JOT is truly different. It is a peer-reviewed, academic e-journal which incorporates recent investigations and discoveries not only in translation but also in related areas of study. We initially plan to e-publish the Journal three times a year, April, August, and December.

The site is set up with excellent indexes so that all articles are indexed by title, author and subject. And the content looks pretty good too.

Now, if they just had an RSS feed or email announcements when new issues come out ...

I'll let you decide, but to let you know: In the past month or so, I've noticed some incoming links from Wikipedia here at ricoblog.

I followed the link back to Wikipedia and found out that this blog entry of mine is cited in a "stub" article for Martyrdom of Polycarp, under the heading "analysis".

I'm flattered (really!) but at the same time I wonder if I really want to be part of a club that would have me as a member. There has got to be better, more complete information out there than my off-the-cuff ramblings.

Oh, if you are looking for more of what I've written regarding Polycarp, try this link.

This looks pretty cool.

http://blogsearch.google.com

Info on how it is set up is available too. Looks like it indexes RSS/ATOM with Google's engine. Unsure what it does with categories or "tags". But this is interesting:

What search operators are supported?

All of the standard Google Search operators are supported in Blog Search. These include:

• link:
• site:
• intitle:

Additionally, Blog Search supports the following new operators of its own:

• inblogtitle:
• inposttitle:
• inpostauthor:
• blogurl:

For example, a search such as [mandolin inpostauthor:Graham] will show you posts about mandolins written by people named Graham. Note that you can also use the Advanced Search option to achieve the same effect.

The operators to seach in post title or author could come in handy when trying to remember a post that has slipped from the aggregator (which happens often). Or for a post on a particular blog. Try [Paul inblogtitle:ricoblog inposttitle:corinthians] for some fun. Note that indexing goes back to June 2005.

A ricoblog reader emailed a question about syntax, asking about how he could think about "syntax" to help inform his study.

I'll be the first in line to say that I'm not an expert here. So please take the below with a grain of salt and realize that it's pretty basic and not intended to be a complete statement on the issue (or even perhaps linguistically correct).

That said, here's my best shot.

Syntax is deep and complex. The biggest (and quickest) help I think I can give is to look at the text under study using the following heirarchy:

Book
   Section/Pericope
       Paragraph
           Sentence
               Clause/Phrase
                   Word

Start from the top down. The area of "syntax" involves stuff at the "sentence" and "clause/phrase" level (and, to some degee, the "word" level through morphological relationships and "paragraph" level through clauses connected by conjunction).

The "section/pericope" and "paragraph" levels (and, to some degree, the "book" level) could be called "discourse" levels. We can talk about discourse later. Much later.

So, areas of syntax deal with how words form clauses/phrases and how those units form sentences.

An example can be seen in 1Ti 1.1:

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, ...

The words are easily identifiable. You can pick out names, you can pick out some nouns, and you can start to put things together. Syntax starts to look into how these larger groups of words come together, and what they communicate as a whole. One might even gain a better idea by inserting newlines and tabs into the flow of the sentence to work through the first bit:

Paul,
   an apostle
      of Christ Jesus

So here, paying attention to syntactic relationships helps us see that "an apostle" further describes or modifies "Paul". Paul is the one who is an apostle. And "of Christ Jesus" further qualifies the apostleship that Paul holds. He is an apostle of Jesus Christ.

We do this innately when we read in English; it's our native language. With Greek, though, we end up looking at the text for cues (conjunctions, articles, word order, sentence flow) to help us put the puzzle together.

Or something like that, anyway. Basically, instead of seeing each word as a unit, move up the tree to clauses/phrases, and examine how those units interact. Don't just say, "oh, 'apostle' — I know what that word means". Look at the larger units and start to put it together, determining the meaning of the larger parts, and how these larger parts relate with each other.

You don't need to know Greek (or Hebrew) to do this, assuming you have a good translation in your native language (I like ESV, NASB is good for this stuff too). Don't worry about labels for all of these things (at least, when you start). You don't need to know if it is a subordinate clause or an adveribal phrase. You don't identify all of that stuff with your native language to understand it, do you?

Make it easy and start breaking things up based on the punctuation in the text you use. If you see further unpunctuated units (i.e. phrases like "of Jesus Christ" that act to modify words or other units), then break there too.

But have a method to your madness. When I've done this sort of thing on this blog (e.g. here and here) I don't really have a linguistic theory in mind, but I do know why I've inserted breaks and tabs where I do. You should too. If you have Gordon Fee's New Testament Exegesis, he discusses something similar (but much more defined) in his section on "Structural Analysis". Maybe you want to give that a look-see if you have access to the book (in print or electronic).

I've said far too much in an area I'm very interested in but still learning about. Hopefully it's been helpful, and I haven't made any statements that are too erroneous ... please feel free to offer corrections/clarifications in the comments (or via email). Thanks!

One of the "benefits" of working where I do is that I am occasionally made aware of some crazy things.

Witness this press release that a colleague sent my way. I should note he sent it to make me react, not because he thinks there's something to it.

My response? The title of this post, of course. "Syncretism run amok".

This morning, I was looking into 1Ti 4.14:

Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you. (1Ti 4.14, ESV)

Specifically, I was looking into the word "neglect". The Greek word here is ἀμέλει, present imperative 2nd person singular of ἀμελέω. One cross reference (among many) led me to Polycarp's Epistle to the Philippians:

The presbyters also should be compassionate, merciful to all, turning back those who have gone astray, caring for all who are sick, not neglecting the widow, the orphan, or the poor, but always taking thought for what is good before both God and others, abstaining from all anger, prejudice, and unfair judgment, avoiding all love of money, not quick to believe a rumor against anyone, not severe in judgment, knowing that we are all in debt because of sin. (Poly 6.1, Ehrman)

This, of course, led me to the Greek text, and a further question. Here's the Greek text, indentation is mine (I'll explain in a bit, and no, I'm not gettin' all chiastic here):

Καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι δὲ εὔσπλαγχνοι,
  εἰς πάντας ἐλεήμονες,
  ἐπιστρέφοντες τὰ ἀποπεπλανημένα,
  ἐπισκεπτόμενοι πάντας ἀσθενεῖς,
  μὴ ἀμελοῦντες χήρας ἢ ὀρφανοῦ ἢ πένητος·
    ἀλλὰ προνοοῦτες ἀεὶ τοῦ καλοῦ ἐνώπιον θεοῦ κ̓αὶ ἀνθρώπων,
  ἀπεχόμενοι πάσης ὀργῆς, προσωποληψίας, κρίσεως ἀδίκου,
  μακρὰν ὂντες πάσης φιλαργυρίας,
  μὴ ταχέως πιστεύοντες κατά τινος,
  μὴ ἀπότομοι ἐν κρίσει,
εἰδότες ὅτι πάντες ὀφειλέται ἐσμὲν ἁμαρτίας.

This was interesting to me because I immediately had a question upon evaluation of the Greek: What are the parts of the sentence? The above is what I concluded, but I saw a few viable options. The primary thing I had to understand had to do with the lines having to do with widows and orphans, and what the ἀλλὰ line was contrasting. Was the ἀλλὰ acting as a hinge for the whole sentence? Or was it only contrasting widows/orphans/poor?

I concluded that it was directly contrasting the previous line. Instrumental in making this conclusion was some reading/examination I've been doing in section 5 of the Epistle to Diognetus. Here are the verses in question:

⁶ γαμοῦσιν ὡς πάντες, τεκνογονοῦσιν· ἀλλ ̓ οὐ ῥίπτουσι τὰ γεννώμενα.
⁷ τράπεζαν κοινὴν παρατίθενται, ἀλλ ̓ οὐ κοίτην.
⁸ ἐν σαρκὶ τυγχάνουσιν, ἀλλ ̓ οὐ κατὰ σάρκα ζῶσιν. (EpDiog 5.6-8)

Here we have similar goings-on, though not quite the same. In Diognetus, the pattern is [something] but not [alternate thing]. In Polycarp, the pattern seems to be not [something] but [alternate thing]. Or, with Greek words in the templates, [something] ἀλλ ̓ οὐ [alternate thing] or μὴ [something] ἀλλὰ [alternate thing].

But that brings up a further question: Do  [something] ἀλλ ̓ οὐ [alternate thing] and μὴ [something] ἀλλὰ [alternate thing] really indicate the same sort of contrast despite different negative particles used? In English, "this but not that" or "not this, but that" are logically similar; the difference in phrasing would be due to the content of the comparison and/or the speaker/writer's prerogative. Is the same thing basically true in Hellenistic Greek depsite the use of a different negative particle?*

FWIW, I searched the NT for "μὴ [before] ἀλλὰ" (in the same verse) and retrieved 100 hits, many of which seem appropriate (e.g. Mt 6.13 and 1Ti 5.1).** The kicker for me (as far as similar structure goes) is in 1Ti 3.3:

 ... not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

Here, the structure is the same, and contrast is in the immediate context. That is, ἀλλὰ doesn't hinge the whole sentence, but just contrasts the previous phrase. I think the same thing happens in Poly 6.1.

Thus — back to my original inquiry about "neglect" — I think Poly 6.1 helps us understand what is expected in place of neglect. That is, the contrast in Polycarp offers us a picture of what is to counter "neglect" (ἀμελέω), and we don't get this contrast from NT examples.*** From Polycarp's perspective, attending to the needs of widows, orphans and the poor involves "always taking thought for what is good before both God and others" and then doing it.

Working back to the text in First Timothy, perhaps Timothy attends to his particular gift(s) by considering how to properly utilize his gifts before God and others, and then making sure that this is what he does. This is why Timothy is urged to exhort (preach, encourage) and to teach the Ephesians (v. 13) and why Timothy is again reminded to practice and be devoted to being an example (v. 12), using his gifts (v. 15) as he ministers to the Ephesians.

* (added later): I remembered some stuff I read in BDF about the use of these two negative particles in Greek, but my BDF is at the office, and I'm at home. Consulting the ever-wonderful BDAG, I find:

negative particle, ‘not’: ‘μή is the negative of will, wish, doubt. If οὐ denies the fact, μή denies the idea’ (Rob. 1167). For the Koine of the NT the usage is simplified to such a degree that οὐ is generally the neg. used w. the indicative, and μή is used w. the other moods (B-D-F §426; Rob. 1167). (BDAG, p. 642)

** For a complete picture, the words ἀλλὰ οὐ occur together 30 times in the NT, but ἀλλὰ μὴ does not occur at all in the NT. These were phrase searches, so I was searching for adjacent words. In the LDLS, this means I put the Greek lexical forms in double-quotes. This effectively searched for where lexical forms (lemmas) were adjacent, not only for where specific inflected forms were adjacent.

*** The only NT instances are Mt 22.5; 1Ti 4.13; Heb 2.3; Heb 8.9.