I've added a few new blogs to the blogroll over the past few days.

First is Yasmin Finch's blog, yasminfinch. This has been discussed a bit in the biblioblogosphere, so it seems appropriate to add it and make mention. Be sure to check it out.

Second, I've received email from Dr. Claude Mariottini (as has Christopher Heard) announcing his blog on topics related to the Hebrew Bible. I've added his blog to my blogroll. Dr. Mariottini appears to write longer entries every few days. He is also working on a commentary of 1 & 2 Chronicles to be published in Hendrickson's NIBC series.

As for me: Time to dig back into the Pastorals. SBL is over. The Thanksgiving holiday has passed. And I've got a decent amount of work to do still.

First, it's back to business. Enough biblioblog navel-gazing; let's do some work! In an effort to move the conversation from existential queries and criticisms, I point you to PastoralEpistles.com and some non-canonical citations relevant to 1Ti 4.16 that I've compiled since the conference. There's a seven page PDF file. The phrase "you will save both yourself and your hearers" is the subject. Similar phrasing/concepts occur in other early documents. So what does it mean? What does it point to? How should this be exegeted? That's what I'm looking into. Check out the citations; if you have further items to add please send along the citations.

How's that for "open scholarship"?

Now, since I was at the biblioblogger session at SBL, I feel I need to weigh in on the latest conversation regarding male and female in the biblioblogosphere. I'm not planning to say more on this, so here it goes:

I think I'm proof that what has been called "biblioblogdom" isn't an exclusive club of some sort. I'm not a professor or instructor at a university, college or seminary. I hold no graduate degrees. I am not currently purusing a graduate degree.

I'm just a guy interested in this stuff who likes to write, who finds value in blogging as a method to work out thoughts. The "biblioblogosphere" is a bonus for me in that folks who have degrees, and who teach, and who know much more than I do actually read what I write, offer feedback, and gently guide me along if I'm off the track -- or that I can interact with if I think I'm right and they're wrong.

I think that to "make it" in the biblioblogosphere, one has to have some shameless self-promotion going. I really don't think it is a male/female thing.

When ricoblog had just started, nobody but friends of mine read it. Every now and then, however, I'd write something that I thought would fit in the discussion on other blogs. So, I'd (hesitantly) send an email to that blog's author pointing them to what I'd written. If they linked, great. If not, that was fine too. At least they'd check it out.

Stephen C. Carlson (Hypotyposeis) linked to some early stuff of mine on the Apostolic Fathers after I sent him an email. I notified Mark Goodacre of some later posts, and then later Jim Davila found me from there, I think. It wasn't anything magical, it was just making folks aware of work I'd done that I thought was relevant to what they were doing.

Also, if you read biblioblogs and have a blog -- don't be afraid to comment and leave a link to your own blog in the comment. If someone likes your comment, they'll check out your stuff. If I think a commenter adds something to the conversation, I like to update the post to point folks to the comments, when I do this I typically link directly to the person's blog in question.

Additionally, keep a blogroll. Use a service like Bloglines (or whatever) to manage it. List the blogs you like to read. Many bloggers also list blogs that they know have linked to them. That's what I try to do. If you've linked to me or would like to have your blog listed in my generic blog roll, please send an email. I zap through the list a few times a week to see what's going on and to see if blogs I don't regularly read have any interesting posts. Getting in these blogrolls increases your chance of traffic stumbling upon your site (not to mention higher Technorati rankings ... )

In short, there's a lot of information and links floating around out there. If you're blogging and lamenting the fact that your posts aren't magically picked up by other blogs, try either emailing the blog author or commenting or trackbacking. Announce your blog via email to bloggers you like to read and ask to be placed on their blogrolls if they see fit. They may ignore you, but most (that I know) will check out the link and see what's up.

A final caveat: when commenting on a blog post, be sure to add something to the discussion. If you just say, "yeah, and see my blog too, it's really good!" you will probably not be mentioned further or highlighted for further linking.

Ok, that's it. Now, let's get to work. Who's doing what? And when do we have to have abstracts submitted for SBL International and for the 2006 meeting in DC?

Update (2005-11-28): Rick Mansfield (This Lamp) adds a comment on the 1Ti 4.16 bit above. Additionally, Eric Sowell (The Coding Humanist) blogs some thoughts. Thanks for the input, guys. I should say, however, that I'm less interested in the Greek grammar/syntax and more interested in the phrase itself as similar phrases are found in other writings, both before and after the Pastorals. I'm curious as to use of the "both to yourself and to your hearers/readers" and similar sorts of things. Was this common? Was Paul using a catch-phrase of some sort to score rhetorical points? Or did later writers (e.g. homilist of 2Clement) pick up on Paul and use similar phrasing for similar reasons? (Don't mind me, just thinking aloud ... )

It's Thanksgiving day here in the states, which means I have a nice, lazy morning. I'm sipping coffee and will shortly dig into some background work on a study I'm working on before heading to Amy's for a massive dinner.

In the meantime, though, I realized I haven't listed the books I bought at the conferences. I mentioned some of them in days past, but haven't listed them in aggregate. Here's the list, in no particular order:

• H.B. Swete, The Gospel of St. Peter: The Text in Greek and English with Introduction
• Francis Xavier J. Exler, A Study in Greek Epistolography: The Form of the Ancient Letter
• Craig A. Evans, Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies: A Guide to the Background Literature
• Claudio Moreschini and Enrico Norelli (tr. Matthew J. O'Connell), Early Christian Greek and Latin Literature: A Literary History (2 vols)
• Bruce W. Longenecker, Rhetoric at the Boundaries: The Art and Theology of New Testament Chain-Link Transitions
• R. Alastair Campbell, The Elders: Seniority within Earliest Christianity
• Andreas J. Kostenberger and Thomas R. Schreiner, Women in the Church: An Analysis and Application of 1 Timothy 2.9-15
• J. William Johnston, The Use of Πᾶς in the New Testament

I have a few order forms. There's a Mohr-Siebeck title I want (no, not Treblico, but one by Charles Hill on Polycarp and Diognetus) and I want to pick up Schneemelcher's NT Apocrypha volumes from Westminster/John Knox.

A side note: Kostenberger's book is the recently published second edition, the first edition was published in 1995. While at SBL, I went to a session of the Disputed Paulines section and heard papers by a few folks. Linda Belleville presented a paper there dealing specifically with the difficult word αὐθενέω in 1Ti 2.12 and did not mention or reference Kostenberger's work on the syntax of that clause or Baldwin's work looking into classical citations of the word. As Belleville was doing essentially the same thing that Baldwin did (Baldwin's is seemingly more comprehensive, yet Belleville arrives at the opposite conclusion) it seemed weird not to even mention the work. Yes, I should've piped up and asked the question, but things were running late and I'm still rather squeamish when it comes to asking questions of presenters, especially when I haven't read their papers at all. I'm sure she cites relevant things there and will interact with Kostenberger/Baldwin (and others who have written in this area) in the article she apparently plans to publish based on her work.

Ok, enough from me. Gotta go. Enjoy your day, and if you're celebrating Thanksgiving -- remember it is a day of thanks, not gluttony. (I will do well to remember that myself ... )

Update (2005-11-28): Tim (SansBlogue) writes to remind me to notify Dr. Belleville of what I mention above. Duly noted. I've actually already emailed her; apologies to all parties invovled if I've somehow trampled upon the normal process for this stuff.

And James writes to remind me that gluttony would be Thanksgiving-sized meals all the time. Well ... he's correct, of course. Though I did eat a whole lot (the turkey was awesome, Emily's potatoes were incredibly yummy, and it was hard to say 'no' to Amy's delectable pumpkin pies! [yes, pies]) I don't do that every day. But I don't need to do it on Thanksgiving, either. I can enjoy and give thanks without stuffing myself into discomfort.

While I enjoyed my time at both the ETS and SBL conferences and was able to see a few sessions of personal interest, the fact remains that my employer paid for my trip (thanks, Logos!) because they wanted me there to talk about issues of Greek syntax at both conferences.

You may have seen this signage on the back of the Logos booth:

That bit about Greek syntax on the left? That's one of the (seemingly many) major projects I've been working on for the past year. We've made a whole lot of progress implementing syntax databases inside of Logos Bible Software. One of our primary guidelines in working on this stuff has been, simply, "you've got to see it to understand it". So we've been concerned both with visualization of syntax information and searchability of syntax information.

A colleague and I have been blogging about syntax and Logos' implementation over on the Logos Bible Software blog. Check out the syntax category for a review of what we've been working on and how it functions in the system. We'll be blogging more about syntax in the coming weeks as well as this stuff gets closer to public release.

This same colleague and I presented papers at the ETS conference on the issues of Hebrew and Greek Syntax within Logos Bible Software. Those papers will be available on the Logos web site (and the blog) hopefully early next week; I'll post a notice here as well to keep y'all up to date.

Here I sit on the floor outside the exhibit hall, writing my last blog entry from Philadelphia. Last year was my first SBL conference, this year seems to be much so much busier than last year. I haven't found time to do the touristy things; I haven't even had time to grab a Philly cheesesteak! Oh well. I think the crispy duck Eli and I had in Chinatown last night was a better choice than the cheesesteak.

I've had a great time, though. At the top of the list was meeting several bibliobloggers. I won't do a round-up of the session. For that, see Tyler Williams' round-up; I think he covers all the bases.

(Just saw Jim West walk by -- so now he's a visual witness to this post!)

I did get to meet an awful lot of bloggers, and they were all polite and encouraging. Here's the quick list — apologies if I forget some. I don't have a whole lot of time, so I'll type the basics now and add the links later. Or hit the blogrolls on the side to check out individual blogs.

Jim West (Biblical Theology) — Since I just said hello (and goodbye) to him, it seems he should top the list. I'm still astounded by the sheer number of posts that Jim gets out.

Joe Cathey (Dr. Cathey's Blog) — Joe a genuine, polite man. I enjoyed our conversation before the biblioblogger session and look forward to catching up with him again at future meetings.

Brandon Wason (Novum Testamentum) — I think Brandon was the first blogger I met here, here happened by the booth on Friday morning and we were able to talk a bit there. His level of excitement for blogging and concerning the things he blogs about is encouraging to me.

Mark Goodacre (NT Gateway Weblog) — It was great to shake Mark's hand and speak with him in person. And Mark, I really do appreciate the gracious intro you gave me before the paper; and the encouragement along the way with early drafts and such. Thanks again.

Jim Davila (PaleoJudaica.com) — What can I say about Jim? His paper was enjoyable to listen to. As I've said before, it is probably the only time I'll present a paper alongside Jim and for that I'm happy and grateful. I met him originally at 2004 SBL, and I'm already looking forward to seeing him again in 2006 in Washington DC.

Torrey Seland (Philo of Alexandria Blog) — I enjoyed my time with Torrey too. On Sunday night, Logos hosted a dinner for folks involved in projects we have under way or have released. Since Torrey has had some involvement with the Philo Concordance Project in Norway, he was invited to attend. We sat next to each other, and it was nice to have an extended conversation. He asked me about my view of authorship of the Pastorals (to sum up my view: Paul is the least worst option). He sounds like he's really busy teaching. So, Torrey, remember to make time to golf and relax!

Christopher Heard (Higgaion) — Like Chris mentioned about my blog, I don't read his daily (check it weekly, I guess) but it was a pleasure to meet him. Knowing a little more about him makes me think I should read it at shorter intervals. It was a pleasure to meet you, Chris.

There are so many other people to mention — and that's just the bloggers I met! I was able to talk with a bunch of other people too. And that's the great part about these conferences. You can catch papers by people whose books you read, ask them questions and interact with them.

Cheers to all, and best wishes for safe travel home to your families. If you're in the states, enjoy your extended holiday weekend!

Update (2005-11-23): Made it back home, no problems or issues. Was in bed at 2:30 AM (5:30 AM Philly time!). I mentioned earlier that I was sure I'd forgotten some people. Here are some I've remembered in reviewing this post, apologies again if I've skipped over my conversation with you.

Michael Pahl (Stuff of Earth) — I think Michael and I saw each other in transit between sessions more often than not. It was a pleasure to chat in those in between times. Best wishes on the dissertation, it sounds most interesting!

Peter Williams (Evangelical Textual Criticism) — I have this poor stereotype of textual critics as old, bearded and stodgy people. I mean, think of any picture you've seen of Westcott, Hort, Swete and Lightfoot. Imagine my surprise when I saw Peter present his paper for the Textual Criticism section. It was very good. I had the opportunity to sit next to him and chat a bit over a dinner we were both attending as well, and his charisma, charm and wit were more than evident. Also, sorry I didn't make that meeting at the Oxford booth on Monday afternoon; I had a lunch that ran really late.

Stephen Carlson (Hypotyposeis) — I actually noticed I was standing next to Stephen on an elevator in the Marriott on Saturday night. I was with Matt O'Donnell, Randall Tan and Catherine Smith. He was with ... well, I forget now. But there were like 10 seconds between the time I noticed and the time we got to our floor (had to install some stuff for the OpenText.org stuff Logos is working on) so I didn't bother introducing myself knowing I'd see him the following day. And I did, a few times. Thanks for your work, Stephen. I'm looking forward to reading more in the years to come.

As I said, I'm sure there are more. If/when further conversations and meetings come to me, I'll update this post.

After much build-up and much writing/revising on my part, it's over. I gave my paper on biblioblogging this morning and I think it went well.

It was really cool to meet other bloggers, hear some voices, shake some hands, and interact in real time and space. What a treat.

Thanks to all the folks who participated: Mark (fearless leader and moderator), Jim (probably the only academic context I'll be able to present a paper alongside Jim Davila), the balance of the panel and the folks in the audience. And to folks at home who helped with the paper, encouraged, and prayed (Mom, Dad and Amy and her family, particularly). And thanks everyone for the kind words of feedback.

To those who were at the session -- don't worry, I'll change that 'i' to a 'cite' when I get back.

I'd write more, link some more, and review some things, but others have done that and I have to get back to my room, drop some stuff off, and then make it to dinner tonight.

Oh, and watch out -- Brandon Wason (Novum Testamentum) has a digital camera with him; who knows where those photos will show up.

So, I probbly won't be making daily posts, but I figured since I was sitting on the floor outside of the exhibit hall mooching off of convention center wireless that I should at least write something.

I was able to attend papers from the New Testament textual criticism seminar this morning, and that was very cool. Good stuff, for the most part.

Bought another book -- this one from Peter Lang, "The Use of PAS in the New Testament." Has some stuff specifically on 2Ti 3.16 as well as other areas of the Pastorals. Should be helpful in the Pastoral Epistles project.

Meetings filled the afternoon, as well as booth duty. And there's dinner on the schedule tonight and hopefully sleep after that (after reviewing the paper for tomorrow morning's session, of course).

Gotta go -- if you're in Philly, drop by the Logos booth (in the 900 aisle, across from Eerdmans) and say "hi".