So, I wasn't going to blog about my birthday. Yes, it is on Saturday (tomorrow).

But I was reading the Fragments of Papias over my lunch hour today. They are excerpts about a dude (Papias, whom some say was disciple of John) who wrote five books on exposition of the sayings of Jesus. Today, we only know he wrote them, we don't have any remnants of the books outside of some few citations (primarily from Eusebius). Some say Papias may have been the scribe/amanuensis for John when John's gospel was composed. Anyway, here's something from one of those excerpts, this one from Irenaeus:

But that the age of thirty years is the prime of a young man's ability, and that this extends even to the fortieth year, everyone will admit; but after the fortieth and fiftieth years, it begins to verge toward advanced age. This was our Lord's age when he taught, inasmuch as the Gospel and all the elders who lived with John, the Lord's disciple, in Asia testify that John delivered this tradition to them. For he remained with them until the time of Trajan. And some of them saw not only John, but other apostles as well, and heard this same account from them and testify concerning the previously mentioned account. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 2.22.5; quoted by Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, p. 593)

I'll be celebrating my 34th birthday this Saturday. Until reading the above quote from Irenaeus, I'd never stopped to think that Jesus' disciples may have been roughly the same age as I am now when they walked with Jesus.

Can you imagine that these disciples, adult converts to Christ, are the ones who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, started preaching the message in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and even unto the ends of the earth? And that message has persisted down to us today?

Whoa. God is awesome. When I think, "What new things can God do in me, with me, and through me?"; when things start to seem old — he makes them new again. He's got plans for all of us; he's nowhere near done with us. Where is he leading you these days?

Tonight I'm doing some revision of some stuff I've written on 1Ti 3.14-16:

I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of truth. Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:

He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated by the Spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory. (1Ti 3.14-16, ESV)

In my reading of First Timothy, this section is the central focus. The letter has to do with false teaching infiltrating the church; false teaching that is both seemingly innocuous and deadly serious. The letter warns the church to get back on track; and to do that they need to know the truth. The false teaching -- all aspects of it -- must be expunged; the church must reclaim the truth and preach it anew, with vigor and haste.

This piece of Scripture clues the recipients in to what that truth is. While this is seen as the "mystery of godliness", it really isn't a mystery. It is pretty clear. The hymnic/creedal section describes Christ, and it describes what he has done.

Anyway, as I'm going through this, I start to ponder: What is the difference between belief and intellectual assent? That is, there are things that I can, logically, admit to being possible. But in my mind, that is somewhat removed from belief. If something is believed, it implies (to me, anyway) that one's actions will change to fit one's beliefs. Mere intellectual assent doesn't.*

Believing something does not necessarily imply that the substance of the belief can be logically proven. I can fervently believe something without being able to prove it. This is what faith is all about, and why it is so vital and necessary in the life of a Christian.

So I ask myself: These essentials listed in 1Ti 3.16 -- do I believe them, or do I only assent to them intellectually? That is, is this information that changes my life and causes me to act differently from those who are not Christian? Or do I simply say, "yeah, that sounds about right" and then go on in life with no resultant change?

This truth about Jesus Christ must be believed. It cannot exist only in the intellectual realm of one's mind. Belief is reflected in action. Jesus was God incarnate on this earth; He was crucified. He rose from the dead, and he sits at the right hand of God Almighty. Easy letters to type; but do I believe it? Is my life different as a result? Is this truth foundational to my way of living?

I like to think so, and I like to think that I do my best. But I know I fall short. I need to do better at believing what I believe I believe. (got it?). Praise be to God for the gift of His Son, my Savior and Mediator; for the gift of the Holy Spirit, my Comforter and Helper; and for his never-failing mercy and grace. I would be lost -- in every sense of the word -- without them.

* For example, I'll assent that you could determine an eight-case noun system in Greek. But when I'm reading Greek and declining nouns ... I'll use five-case every time. I'd say that while I'd "intellectually assent" to an eight-case system; I "believe" in the five-case.

You may have noticed the little "Random books from my library" thingie on the side of the page.

Browsing about, I happened across this cool thing called LibraryThing. I've been considering writing my own library organization database for awhile now, but when I came across LibraryThing, I figured I'd give it a shot.

Man, is it cool.

I entered some books -- which is very simple and almost addicting. Then I saw this "Similar Libraries" feature. Clicked the link. I saw that Brandon Wason's library (Novum Testamentum) is similar to mine. I ask myself, "what, didn't he blog this?". Used Google's blog search and found out that he did. Too bad I missed it. Bryan Cox (Biblaridion) and I also share some titles.

If you're a bibliophile -- if you're reading this blog, and you've read this entry this far, then you probably are -- check out LibraryThing.com.

I'm making curry tonight (Eli's Rajah Chow curry, man is it tasty!) and entering books while I let stuff simmer. Now that's multitasking!

We'll see if LibraryThing ends up on the list of web services/tools/things that I actually use (along with RealRhapsody and SharpReader). But for now, I'm completely enamored.

Update (2005-10-02): Brandon Wason and Loren Rosson comment about the coolness of LibraryThing. Loren's comment reminds me that I need to be a better citizen of the biblioblogosphere and make sure I keep up with other blogs at least semi-regularly, particularly if they've interacted on ricoblog in the past. So, I headed to bloglines and now have an extended blogroll for the site on the sidebar, which I'll be able to use to catch up on things every so often. Check out a few of the blogs, particularly if you're not familiar with them.

I'm going through some articles I've frittered away in hopes of using them in the paper I'm working on for the session.

However, they're just not going to really fit. I'm going to keep them in the bibliography and may even allude to them, but I won't be able to discuss them.

So, since they are (as far as I'm concerned) relevant to the discussion, I thought I'd post citations and links here. That way folks could start to poke through them and they might even prod some discussion during the panel session.

Here they are:

• Carter, Joe. Notes on Blogging: The 5/150 Principle. No pages. Cited September 8, 2005. Online: http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/001584.html.
• Mazzocchi, Stefano. Data First vs. Structure First. No pages. Cited July 29, 2005. Online: http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/93/.
• Sifry, Dave. State of the Blogosphere, August 2005, Part 3: Tags. No pages. Cited August 6, 2005. Online: http://www.technorati.com/weblog/2005/08/37.html.
• Tauber, James K. The World Wide Web as an Academic Forum: A Case Study of the Hellenistic Greek Linguistics Pages. No pages. Cited August 11, 2005. Online: http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw95/education4/tauber/.

Of particular interest to me are the articles by Mazzocchi and Carter. I still may fit Mazzocchi in somehow, but not to the degree I'd like.

I don't blog about economics often,* but now is the time.

Steve Antler, whose blog is Econopundit, has an interesting idea on a new approach toward oil and our national energy policy.

Check it out.

Also check out this post Antler links to that discusses what oil shale is, and how it might be processable. Speculation? Sure. But we can dream, can't we?

Hey, I'm not an expert on any of these issues (economics, oil development) and I am certainly not advocating tax increases ... but it bears some thought, no? And Antler's method for stabilizing US oil import prices and providing some funds for domestic exploration is alluring, to say the least.

Note to potential commenters: I'm not ruling out or advocating against renewable energy resources (solar, hydrogen, wind, wave, whatever). I say bring 'em all on. But we're stuck with oil for the forseeable future, so we've got to do something.

* BA, Economics, Northwestern College, Class of '93.

The Fall 2005 Catalog from Baylor University Press includes a new title from Scot McKnight, Jesus and His Death. His primary blog is Jesus Creed, though there appears to be a blog for this book too. Here's the book blurb from the publisher:

Recent scholarship on the historical Jesus has rightly focused upon how Jesus understood his own mission. But no scholarly effort to understand the mission of Jesus can rest content without exploring the historical possibility that Jesus envisioned his own death. In this careful and far-reaching study, Scot McKnight contends that Jesus did in fact anticipate his own death, that Jesus understood his death as an atoning sacrifice, and that his death as an atoning sacrifice stood at the heart of Jesus' own mission to protect his own followers from the judgment of God.

As with a few other Baylor University Press titles,** I was granted a sneak peek at this new book from McKnight (Amazon lists the release date as Sept. 30). Page proofs arrived in August; I set the goal of finishing it before September ended, and ... it looks like I've just barely made it.

The subtitle of McKnight's tome says it all: "Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory". That really does sum it up. After setting the scene in the first chapter, McKnight delves into things like:

• What did Jesus know about his death?
• When did he know it?
• How did his understanding of his death develop?

This leads into the primary discussion of the book: What can be concluded regarding the concept of atonement based on the conclusions we can make regarding Jesus' statements and actions?

Not being one who has followed synoptic studies that much, I did feel like I was stepping into the middle of a conversation, especially at the beginning of the book. McKnight interacts with other material published in this area to a large degree. But, to McKnight's credit, he does a good job of orienting the reader with the necessary background material, authors and their material (the footnotes are excellent in this regard, ignore them at your peril!).

That said, realize that this is not a casual read, though I found McKnight more readable than, say, N.T. Wright. Chances are you'll want to have a Bible available to look stuff up as you work through major sections. The work is worth it; the section working through the Last Supper was highly illuminating, at least for me.

All in all: worth the read. If you have interest in Historical Jesus studies, synoptic studies, and stuff like that -- you should probably read this book.

** Other Baylor Press titles I've written about: Stephen C. Carlson's The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of 'Secret Mark' and Bruce W. Longenecker's Rhetoric at the Boundaries.

Ed Cook (Ralph the Sacred River) got the ball rolling with a post asking about what sorts of topics might be discussed at the CARG Biblioblogger session at SBL.

Jim West (Biblical Theology) followed it up with a post of his own. For the record, Jim, if your 80 minutes on Zwingli includes a life-size, full-scale, History-Channel-style re-enactment of Zwingli, complete with armor, falling on the field of battle (followed by requisite moment of silence), I'd be up for it.

Since I've already got 20 minutes all to my lonesome (I plan on 15 minutes for presentation, five for questions relating to the presentation so as to not take away from panel time), I'm just along for the ride -- ready to add my two cents for whatever comes up.

But I'll happily suggest a few areas that would be of interest, at least to me:

• Role of Biblioblogdom in the realm of "Open (source) studies" (whatever those are).
• How has biblioblogging had an effect (positive or negative) on scholarship?
• How can the biblioblogosphere contribute to the starting, development and completion of academic projects?
• Are there projects (e.g. in-progress commentary series, translation projects like NETS, Digital Nestle-Aland Prototype, Compehensive Aramaic Lexicon, etc.) that could become a bit more transparent via blogging the trials, successes and status of the project? And would such transparency be productive or merely a distraction for project members?
• How can biblioblogging help authors (aspiring or otherwise) in their work on new manuscripts? Or, better, is there a role for biblioblogging in the development of material for publication (articles, monographs, dictionary entries, essays, whatever)?

Ok, that's about all I've got. Besides, I've already got 20 minutes of time, and I'm already running long.

Not much time to blog, but I did want to make a few notes:

First, Biblioblogs.com interviews Stephen C. Carlson. Read the interview. It's quick and good — good questions, good answers. Especially the one about which biblioblogs Stephen finds most interesting.*

Second, if you're into Greek and syntax, you've got to see this. If you're wondering why I'm not blogging much, that's one of the things taking up my time.

Third, worry not Hebrew syntax dudes (and dudettes). Check this out.

Fourth, if you've read ricoblog for awhile, you may recall some of my episodes in the realm of plumbing. Well ... more plumbing. Had a leak in a pipe in my front yard. Well beyond my skill, so I had to call in the plumbing ninja. I went with Favinger Plumbing in Bellingham, though Sullivan Plumbing seemed nice/capable, they were too busy (a not altogether bad sign). But kudos to Sullivan's for great customer service -- they directed me to Favinger knowing that I probably couldn't wait for them to get a plumbing ninja available. Plumber dude from Favinger did the trick quickly, professionally and with a smile on his face. All systems are go!

* And thanks for the mention, Stephen! Looks like I'll have to get busy and start back in with more interesting questions. I'm brewin' a few, hopefully I'll get one of 'em posted in the next week or so.