Here's a post on the blog Campus Mawrtius offering hints and clues on remembering your Greek numerals.

[Apologies to those who follow ricoblog primarily for my semi-informed blathering on about Greek stuff; this post is of a more personal nature. And I've been on holiday this past week (It's been awesome; thanks for giving me the time off, Bob!) so it is only fitting that my normal blog posting should take a holiday as well. If you want Greek blather, check this out.]

The time away from the office has been good. Outside of the obvious fun times that Christmas festivities provide, Amy and I were able to (finally!) get to Port Townsend for a day. Port Townsend, for those who don't know, is a small little town on the Olympic peninsula of Washington state. It is at one end of a Washington state ferry run, which makes it easy to get to from Whidbey Island (where I grew up). I know Port Townsend for artsy-type stuff and also for antiques; I also know there are a few bookstores in town. Until now, I've only been interested in one of those three things, but Amy has seen fit to educate me and expand my horizons.

So we parked on the Whidbey Island side, and hopped on the ferry as walk-on passengers. On the way over to Port Townsend, we were able to see a massive US Navy submarine (Trident nuclear sub? I dunno. Maybe.) with two Coast Guard escorts plowing its way through the sound, likely to Bangor or Bremerton.

Once in Port Townsend, we headed right down the main street, ducking in just about every door we could find, whether we were interested in the store or not. We stayed away from clothiers and restaurants, but went in just about everywhere else. One place we stopped -- and where Amy let me linger for a goodly portion of time -- was William James Bookseller. I found an awesome commentary on First Peter: The First Epistle of St. Peter: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes and Essays by Edward Gordon Selwyn. And it was only $12.50!

After that we hopped in some more shops; most of them artist co-operatives with things far too funky or spendy for any sane normal person to want to put in their house. Then it was lunch at a Chinese food place. That was yummy.

Then we proceeded back down the main street, enjoying ducking into about any door we found. And then back up the next block, but it started to rain. So we went into a massive antique mall. I had no idea these things existed! There are a bunch of stalls; each likely rented out to an antique dealer, each stall full of all sorts of things. I mean there are tons of stalls. Here is where I received my education for the day. I learned all sorts of stuff; it was awesome. Have you ever noticed how when someone you care about is interested in something, you can take on that interest as well? I'd never really experienced that before, but now I see that it is true. Futzing about that antique store with Amy was some of the most enjoyable time of the day.

Then it was time to brave the rain (thankfully Amy had brought an umbrella so we both stayed relatively dry) and head back to the ferry. While at the terminal waiting, it was time to take a few pictures to prove we'd really been there.

And then we boarded the ferry. While on board, we learned that the dock in Keystone (Whidbey Island side of the ferry run) had been bashed by the ferry (the Quinalt) on previous landing. We rode an alternate ferry (the Klickitat) and by the time we arrived, the dock had been inspected and approved by the Coast Guard, so we had no problems. We hopped in the car (we'd lucked out with a primo parking spot) and went back to Oak Harbor to talk with a friend for a bit. Then we had some dinner; then we boogied on back to Bellingham.

All in all, a fun day. Who'd've (is that a word?) thought antiques could be so fun?

Sometime, perhaps even before the new year, ricoblog will log its 40,000th visitor.

That's about 39,995 more visitors than I'd anticipated.

Thanks to all who happen by this place, on accident or on purpose. And thanks even more to those who come back.

Cheers, and have a happy and blessed new year!

Update (2006-01-01): Visitor 40,000 arrived at 2:58:55 PM PST from a yale.edu IP address via Google searching for information on homoeoteleuton. Excellent. Hope you found what you were looking for!

I'm just about to head to Amy's house and spend some time there this evening. Saturday and Sunday are fully booked with Christmas events in Bellingham and Oak Harbor.

So don't expect too much blogging from me. Maybe after Monday.

Merry Christmas to you and yours as we celebrate the glorious fact of the incarnation. God became man. It blows my mind. Praise be to God for his love, his mercy and his grace.

And this one isn't for a programmer. It is for Project Manager, Electronic Text Development. Check it out if it sounds interesting to you.

I posted last week about Comparing Text Editions to Determine Common Errors. At the end of that post, I was brainstorming/blathering (the line is fine; I cross it often) about a project/experiment to start with a known text and have a group of folks copy it. Folks would return their copies to me. Then I'd examine the copies to see what sorts of errors cropped up.

I realize some folks have done this sort of thing in classroom settings; others have approached the problem backwards — starting with an intentionally corrupted text and attempting to reconstruct the textual basis.

I'm thinking of something a little different. I have a general interest in manuscript transmission and scribal habits (hence the title of the post). I've read some about this — various articles as well as the standards from Metzger and Aland/Aland — but know that I learn best when I dive in and do stuff.

So, I'd like to think seriously about a project that starts with a known vorlage and copies it. And then it collates the copies against the original. If participation warrants, further generations of copies can be made and then even more fun can be had (MS reconstruction, anyone?); but that would not be part of the original project.

I'd like to offer these general thoughts and guidelines.

First: Only folks with some knowledge of the Greek language are candidates. I'd like to set the bare minimum at one year of instruction in the Greek language and relatively active use. That is, if I took one year of Greek ten years ago and haven't used it since, I'd be ineligible. But if I took a year of Greek ten years ago and still refer to the Greek NT when studying, I'd be eligible. If I've used Greek a lot but typically through Strongs numbers ... well, I wouldn't be eligible. If my only experience is with interlinears ... well, I wouldn't be eligible. I'm willing to make exceptions to those who plead their case, however, so if this interests you please be sure to inquire (see Eighth point below).

Second: The text copied will be an entire epistle as I'd like a large chunk with plenty of opportunity for error. I have to admit alternative motives for the epistle I've chosen. I hope to next year begin an in-depth examination of Second Timothy. Since I will be reading (and re-reading, and re-reading) the copied passage, it makes sense to select Second Timothy so that I will get intimately familiar with the Greek of the letter in the process.

Third: The text copied will not have verse breaks, chapter breaks, accents, breathing marks or punctuation. It will use the characters we're all familiar with, however. I won't be up-casing the text and removing spaces. I'll supply the canonical PDF copy (which will be the Westcott-Hort edition with accents/etc. removed) to those interested.

Fourth: I'll be copying too, don't worry. But I should say that participants will be expected to copy the text; no fair playing scribal tricks on Rico and emending the text. If a text is deemed sufficiently corrupt as to have been submitted in bad faith, I'll simply exclude it from the sample.

Fifth: All copying is to be done by hand (no typing) on clean unruled paper. Ink (any color) is required. Paper size is at your discretion. If you are familiar with scribal habits, you are free to employ such as you see fit (e.g. adding light margins and/or rules in pencil to your paper to assist with the copying process). Manuscript illuminations are optional. Also optional: Make a palimpsest by copying something in pencil first, erasing it, and then writing the Second Timothy passage in ink over the erased portion. Or vice-versa: Second Timothy in pencil, erase, and copy something in ink over the top. (I'm only half joking).

Sixth: All original copies are to be sent to me. I'll provide further information on the expectations and process as well as my mailing address to those who express interest.

Seventh: By returning a copy you are giving me your work. You'll be credited, of course, but I will be free to publish images or excerpts thereof online, in print or wherever I see fit. Conference papers, books, articles, or blathering along on the internet somewhere. If this project commences, I can fairly much guarantee that anonymous images of your copies will be put on the internet. Your name will likely be cited in associated material but not directly with a given MS copy so as to keep the copies themselves somewhat anonymous.

Eighth: If you're interested in taking part, contact me at text geek at g mail dot com. The address is also in the sidebar to the right if you are unable to munge the above into an address. If there are ten (10) respondants willing to take part in this project, then I'll consider it a go and get materials together for distribution.

I'll post more on the project status if there is sufficient interest. If you've made it this far and have a suggestion for the project name, please leave a comment with your suggestion.

Thanks!

Eli pointed me to the Wulfila project after he saw a blog post on Abecedaria. We'd looked at Wulfila a few years back, but they've been doing a lot of work in the interim.

Most interesting to me is the encoding and analysis of the available Bible fragments, from Argentus and Ambrosianus to other smaller fragments. The upshot is relatively decent coverage of the New Testament.

Check it out. Click around. You can get into dictionaries from the text rather easily. The text itself is transliterated and aligned with English and Greek versions at the verse level. There is preliminary morphological analysis and even some lexical form tagging. Links are to a dictionary that is image-only, so you jump to a page that you need to scan to find the article (and the Greek sigmas are lunate in the dictionary, so make sure to take that into account). But still — it makes rudimentary work with the Gothic early version much easier than it would otherwise be.

This brings to mind a quote from Charles Ellicott (c. 1860), from the preface to his commentary on the Pastoral Epistles:

"I have at last been enabled to carry out, though to a very limited extent, the long cherished wish of using some of the best versions of antiquity for exegetical purposes. ... The Latin, the Syriac, and the Gothic, have been somewhat carefully compared throughout these Epistles. ...

"In thus breaking ground in the Ancient Versions, I would here very earnestly invite fellow-labourers into the same field. It is not easy to imagine a greater service than might be rendered to Scriptural exegesis if scholars would devote themselves to the hearty study of one or more of these Versions. ...

" ... the study of the ancient Versions for exegetical purposes may be very earnestly recommended. The amount of labour will not be very formidable, and in some cases we have fair, if not good, literary appliances. There seems good reason for not going beyond the Syriac, the Old Latin, the Vulgate, the Gothic, the Coptic, and the Ethiopic. ... For the present, at any rate, the Syriac, Old Latin, Vulgate, Gothic, Coptic, and Ethiopic are all that need demand attention."

Update (2005-12-22): I forgot to mention that Eli made his own groovy Gothic font called Gotisch a few years back. Of the font, Eli says:

Gotisch is a Gothic font, and by that, I mean a font representing the Gothic alphabet, as written by Wulfila and presumably as used by the Goths. I do not mean “Gothic” as in sans-serif typefaces or black-letter or fraktur typefaces, nor as in architectural forms with tall, skinny windows, nor as in painting your face up all circus-like and wearing tatted leather clothes.

Check it out. 

Awhile back, Bob and I were doing a lot of reading about the founding fathers. Guys like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Gouverner Morris. But our favorite was John Adams. If you're into history and biography, you should get a copy of David McCollough's John Adams. This is what historical biography should be like.

Adams was a prolific letter writer. And just yesterday, I noticed that the Massachusetts Historical Society's Adams Family Papers site has made the correspondence between John Adams and his wife Abigail public.

There are images of the letters as well as transcriptions. Letters from John to Abigail and from Abigail to John are there.

One letter (from Oct. 4 1762, during the Adams' courtship, apparently) gives some insight into the sort of guy that Adams could be.