I've been looking into 2Pe 1.5-7 as part of a home-group study I'm taking part in. If you've read ricoblog for awhile, you know I love these repetitive structures because they drill concepts into my brain. And I think translations that dump this stuff into straight prose miss something. First, here's the English (from ESV):

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement 
    your faith with virtue,
    and virtue with knowledge,
    and knowledge with self-control,
    and self-control with steadfastness,
    and steadfastness with godliness,
    and godliness with brotherly affection,
    and brotherly affection with love. (2Pe 1.5-7, ESV)

Here's the Greek:

Καὶ αὐτὸ τοῦτο δὲ σπουδὴν πᾶσαν παρεισενέγκαντες ἐπιχορηγήσατε
    ἐν τῇ πίστει ὑμῶν τὴν ἀρετήν,
    ἐν δὲ τῇ ἀρετῇ τὴν γνῶσιν,
    ἐν δὲ τῇ γνώσει τὴν ἐγκράτειαν,
    ἐν δὲ τῇ ἐγκρατείᾳ τὴν ὑπομονήν,
    ἐν δὲ τῇ ὑπομονῇ τὴν εὐσέβειαν,
    ἐν δὲ τῇ εὐσεβείᾳ τὴν φιλαδελφίαν,
    ἐν δὲ τῇ φιλαδελφίᾳ τὴν ἀγάπην. (2Pe 1.5-7, NA27)

Even when you read this in the English, you get the idea of some sort of process with the next item building on the previous. But is that what is really going on here? Is Peter (or "the author", depending on your view of authorship here) really positing that there is some sort of cascading relationship/progress between all these qualities such that:

faith
 -> virtue
     -> knowledge
         -> self-control
             -> perseverance
                 -> godliness
                     -> brotherly affection
                         -> love

That is, is a strict progression/structure in mind? I can't supplement my faith directly with knowledge, but virtue has to intervene? Well ... I really don't think so. I don't think there are six qualities that I need to progress through to get from faith to love. That doesn't seem to jive with 1Co 13 which talks about faith, hope and love (where's hope in the above progression?) Some of these qualities are "fruits of the spirit" as seen in Ga 5.23, and there is no progression stated there, it's just a flat list.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Ga 5.22-24, ESV)

And some things in that list aren't directly reflected in 2Pe 1.5-7. Now, this is just me thinking out loud here; I haven't done any deep study and I haven't read any commentaries. But I think 2Pe 1.5-7 is saying that each of these qualities are things we need to pursue, and that we are not to pursue any to the exclusion of another. They are all to be on the increase.

Look again at how v. 5 starts: "For this very reason". This points back to vv 3-4. The basic conclusion of those verses is that as Christians, we are "partakers of the divine nature" and that we have therefore "escaped the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire". It is because we are partakers of the divine nature and have escaped corruption (in Pauline terms, we are no longer slaves to sin, we are now slaves to righteousness) that we instead pursue these other things. And that's what vv 8-11 reiterate:

For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2Pe 1.8-11, ESV)

Note the bold text, it marks areas that refer to the above list of qualities (faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly affection, and love). We're not to have a selection of these qualities, or even one of them (the seemingly ultimate love based on the structure of the list); we're to have them all. And they're all to be increasing.

Is that then what it means that these things are "supplemented" (ἐπιχορηγέω)? This is an important verb because it is the verb that (if you're diagramming this baby) all of the prepositional phrases hang from. The same word occurs later in 2Pe 1.11, with "will be ... provided" its translation in the ESV. In v. 5, ἐπιχορηγέω is a second person plural aorist imperative, hence "supplement". This is addressed to the hearers of the letter; they are to supplement or add to their existing qualities. To their faith, they are to add virtue. To their virtue, they are to add knowledge. And so on. Everything is on the increase. It isn't a recipe -- it is turning up the volume across the board.

Last question, then: What's up with vv 10-11?

Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2Pe 1.10-11, ESV)

Is this saying that "turning up the volume across the board" (as I put it above) results in not falling (πταίω, BDAG p. 894 be ruined, be lost)? I have my thoughts (in a word, "no"), but it is getting late so I'll hold off explaining them (indefinitely; I may never come back to finish this thread). But if you have thoughts, please feel free to leave some comments.

OK, not so many notes but I did want to combine two things in this post.

First, Loren Rosson's The Busybody blog hit 10000 visits. Excellent. You should contribute to that number and visit the site; particularly his posts about the C.S. Lewis book Perelandra and his post on Dangerous Ideas.

Second, Happy Birthday Joe Cathey! If you haven't read Joe's blog before, you should. It is a mix of interesting stuff (particularly material dealing with Hebrew Bible, archaeology, etc.) that you're not likely to find elsewhere.

I've mentioned my little manuscript transmission experiment in the past. I've begun practicing copying Greek text from an exemplar. I've noticed a few things as I've been practicing.

1. I copy Greek word by word as an exercise, I don't stop to read and comprehend the text. That is, I don't read the Greek, translate it, understand it, then write it out. I read the word in my head, then I write it down.

2. Larger or unfamiliar words take longer to process. This stands to reason but I hadn't thought of it before. It also means these words end up written more stretched out because I devolve into letter-by-letter copying instead of word-by-word copying.

3. Smaller and common words are easy to copy. Again, this stands to reason. But it bears mentioning.

4. The letters zeta and xi are hard to write. At least for me they are. But I'm thinking through the mechanics and, at least for my handwriting style, I think I have an easier way to write them. But because they occur relatively infrequently I just don't get practice with them in words.

5. Upsilon and nu end up looking the same when I write quickly. That is, I tend to not point the bottom of my nu when I'm writing quickly; this makes my nu look like an upsilon at times. And that could be confusing to read (e.g. του and τον).

6. It is easy to mis-copy similar sounding words. Since I read the words and hear them in my head then write the word I hear, I find myself making mistakes (itacism, typically) because I mis-copy the word phonetically.

There's more, to be sure, but I need not go into it here. I will, however, swallow my pride and put up a couple of graphics that show my horrible, horrible penmanship. I will say that I'm just writing, not worrying too much about shape or form of the letters (as is evident, to be sure). The first effort was done a few days ago with a fine-tipped roller-ball style pen (a uni-ball Signo).

On my second attempt I used a wider pen (a Bic Mark-it fine point permanent marker) and played around with color. I realized that it will be easier to mark things I'd like to color (e.g., names of God/Jesus in red in this example) on the exemplar than to try and catch it mentally as I copy.

The other brain-dead thing I realize is that a wider nib means I need to write bigger and, likely, less hurriedly. Also: Can you spot the variant inadvertently introduced in the second graphic? The exemplar is Second Timothy in Westcott/Hort without accents and punctuation. I know there is at least one spelling variant and one casing variant, though there are likely more things I've introduced that I haven't stopped to notice yet.

I'll likely play around with a few more copies of things before starting on the copy I'll make for the project.

Update (2006-01-28): Suzanne notes a link with a sample of her handwriting along with further commentary. Sounds like we're running into the same things. That's encouraging. Also, I realized I have another handwriting sample I can link to -- that of P.N. Harrison's Problem of the Pastoral Epistles, which has a handwritten edition of the Pastorals in an appendix. (See 2Ti 1.1-2.1 here) Two years or so ago I scanned the pages and put them online. Check 'em out.

No, really, it's cool. Here's a site where you can create your own graph paper as PDF files. All sorts of styles. Spec your stuff, save to PDF, use over and over and over and over again.

(Thanks, Bob, for the pointer!)

For those interested, Publishers Weekly is running an interview with Bart Ehrman on his recent book Misquoting Jesus.

The interview is really short, so don't get your hopes up. FWIW, I blogged briefly on the book back in July when PW had a preview of the book.

Since Murray left a comment on the original post asking about the status, I thought I'd take a minute to blog an update.

The experiment is a go. Three people have contacted me with interest and I've sent them some materials to get started. At least one has started. I fully intend to do some copying, but haven't had a spare moment to get going yet. I figure four samples is enough to at least look at. As samples come in, and as I collate them, I'll keep y'all informed as to what's happening.

If you're interested in copying out, by hand, Second Timothy please let me know. More details here.

Update (2006-01-24): Just took a spare moment to get started and whipped out most of chapter 1. Hoo-boy is my MS hand bad. Well, my handwriting in my native language is bad, so I guess it is no surprise my Greek handwriting isn't the most legible. Collation should be a hoot!

Update II (2006-01-25): Wow, just got two more folks interested in playing the scribe. Sweet! Anybody else? Feel free to email me.

Update III (2006-01-26): Suzanne, one of this experiment's most enthusiastic participants, leaves a comment below with an update to her status. I appreciate Suzanne's contribution and I appreciate her blogging. Yep, she blogs for the Better Bibles Blog but also has her own unique corner of blogdom in Abecedaria (which I've recently listed in the blogroll at the right). If you like ancient language and are generally interested in writing systems, check out Abecedaria! And ... if I get my act together and swallow my pride, I may actually take a digital photo of a practice page I copied of the start of 2 Timothy and post it on the blog! So stay tuned.

Loren Rosson is on a tear. He's now blogging Perelandra, my favorite of the C.S. Lewis space trilogy. Rosson writes:

Perelandra serves an evangelical purpose like anything else Lewis wrote, but it works for the secular reader as much the Christian, reading like mythology or science-fiction. It's a fascinating and intense examination of how a person from an unfallen world processes thought, and what she is capable of doing as she struggles to think for herself. Try and imagine it: a world where everything is good -- there aren't even words for "bad" or "evil" -- its (two) people so in touch with their deity that stepping outside his will is impossible to conceive, at least on their own.

Check it out. And read the book, too -- it is relatively short and shouldn't take to long to get through.

Perhaps I'll bust out my copy and give it a read to keep up with Loren as he goes.

Update (2006-01-24): Loren makes his first post. I'm already behind! But his post touches on why I so enjoy reading Perelandra: It makes me think about the depth which sin affects us. In our day-to-day comings and goings, things and perspectives we can't even fathom have been touched by the depraved nature we carry. The very idea that, as Loren puts it, "not all events are pleasing or welcome" is foreign to me. We live in a world where disappointment, deception and death are the norm. Yet in Perelandra, the Green Lady has little to none of this; or at least she doesn't see situations as disappointing. We'd say she's naive because she seems so innocent and unknowing; in reality it is an indictment on us and our sin that prevents us from experiencing the purity of the experience as the Green Lady does. If you have read Lewis' Screwtape Letters and enjoyed the dialogue of letters between Screwtape and Wormwood regarding their attempts to infiltrate the lives of humans for nefarious purposes, I'd say you'll enjoy Perelandra exponentially more because it deals, via dialogue (almost Socratic), with explaining concepts taken for granted in a sinful world to one who is innocent and pure. In so doing, it causes the reader to re-evaluate these concepts and even understand their influence in our lives to a greater degree.

Update II (2006-01-26): Loren's second installment is up. Go read it. He's walking through the progression of Weston's (who is devil-possessed) argument to the Green Lady; attempting to walk her mentally from obedience and reliance to disobedience. The argument is subtle yet powerful (one gets the sense that Wormwood or one of his cohorts could be at Weston's helm) with, as Loren describes, the idea that to disobey when obedience has no ground or common sense may actually be intended by the Maker. That is, when obedience to a given command makes no sense, Weston's/the devil's argument is that perhaps that command is meant to be broken, that the act of disobedience in that one nonsensical area is actually liberating — like tasting new fruit. Loren captures this fairly well when he writes:

There must, according to the devil, be a specific reason why God gave a commandment so different from his other commandments. In all other matters, obedience to God amounts to doing what seems good in one's own eyes (such as loving and not killing). But one cannot see the goodness in a prohibition against dwelling on the Fixed Land. The reason, he suggests, is that it is a commandment given for no other reason than to be broken — to empower God's creatures to think and act for themselves.

Stated bluntly to a Christian who understands that one is either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness, this seems a bit absurd. We obey because we are His, not because we happen to agree with His commands at a particular point. But Lewis' progression of the argument in Perelandra is an incredible thing to behold; at times one finds himself reacting similar to the Green Lady: It sounds all wrong but strangely makes sense. How to counter? That's up next for Loren to examine.

Update III (2006-01-27): Loren's third installment is up. He even cites and links me in his discussion (cheers for that, Loren). Ransom's response to the sorties of Weston/the devil is similar to mine above (and I haven't re-read the book yet — that's comforting). Loren quotes Ransom on this:

It's true that the commandment against living on the Fixed Land is different from other commandments, but this isn't because God secretly wants it to be broken. It's because there must be one commandment obeyed for the sake of obedience alone, in order to taste the joy of obeying. Obedience must amount to more than doing what seems good anyway. (101)

The counter to this argument offered by Weston/the devil is one of pragmatism; to say that the goodness and blessings of Christ — cherished, loved and valued by Christians — would never have happened had man not disobeyed. This, of course, is true; but it presupposes that salvation in Christ (which I cherish deeply; praise and glory to God for His goodness!) is better than if man had not sinned.

Stepping away from the context of Perelandra for a moment, this is the crux of the issue for me: Who is God? Is God? Or am I? If I am sovereign and in control, then obedience to a rule about fixed land (or which tree not to eat from) is silly. I make the choice. If, however, God is God, then obedience to his commands, whether they seem silly on the surface or not, is to be done. Christians largely realize that obedience requires effort and that our obedience cannot be perfect. Our goal is no less, we run the race with no less vigor, but our ability cannot reach the goal. Thus the need for Christ, our Mediator and Savior.

Stepping back into the context of Perelandra, we can see some of what Lewis is doing: He's causing us to think about the issue of obedience from the perspective of the Green Lady; the one who knows nothing other than obedience to His will. We see that she is innocent and rational, capable of learning and assimilating new ideas and concepts. She is offered a choice between Ransom and Weston. Weston says that freedom for the Green Lady and her children lies in, as Loren puts it, "truly awakening" by transgressing the command of God? Ransom says that's rubbish; that "... there must be one commandment obeyed for the sake of obedience alone, in order to taste the joy of obeying". (101)

Loren, thanks for blogging about this; it is good for me to remember the book (which I still need to re-read) and to consider these issues. I'm looking forward to your next post.

Update IV (2006-01-30): Loren's fourth installment (apparently in a series of five posts plus introductory post) is up. Go check it out. I won't be able to comment further on his post as time is tight right now. Perhaps later.

Update V (2006-01-31): Loren's fifth and concluding installment in the series is up. Again, not much time to interact with Loren's stuff. And, since I have not seen and am not familiar the the movie Pleasantville which he references, I don't know how much I should comment. From Loren's description, it sounds like Pleasantville isn't all that pleasant or perfect — but I wouldn't expect a proper and true conception of edenic paradise to come from the mind of anyone, C.S. Lewis included. None of our conceptions of a perfect, sinless world/land/state will be adequate — though Lewis' portrayal of Eden-on-Venus in Perelandra is likely as close as we'll get.

Several others have mentioned this, but it bears mentioning. The Call for Submissions to the next Biblical Studies Carnival has been made by Tyler Williams of Codex Blogspot.

For the uninitiated, the idea of a 'Carnival' style post is to grab a bunch of good/quality/representative/whatever posts for a given time frame (usually a month or bi-weekly) and post links and a short narrative describing them. It is a pretty neat way to highlight good posts and — for bloggers — to do a little shameless self promotion (one of the secrets to any successful blog!).

So please check out Tyler's post, and please take a few minutes to nominate a few of the better posts you've read recently. It just takes sending an email to the carnival address. And, of course, feel free to nominate anything I've written recently. (See how easy shameless self promotion is? Go ahead, try it yourself!)

Any other children of the 80's out there have an insatiable urge to call it "Biblical Studies Carnival II: Electric Boogaloo"?

Update (2006-01-24): It's official. ricoblog will be hosting Biblical Studies Carnival III. So after you're done feeding Tyler all of your awesome-wicked-cool Biblical Studies blog permalinks (you can even use a groovy submission form!) keep an eye out in February for cool stuff to send my way for the March carnival. FWIW, the list of forthcoming carnival hosts is up at the Biblical Studies Carnival page. [Blogging newbies note: This is an excellent opportunity for more shameless self promotion! See, you get a link out of the deal from the carnival page (which Tyler has done an excellent job setting up); and even better you'll get a bunch of links and traffic when the carnival you host runs, introducing all sorts of folks to your corner of biblical-studies-blogdom. All for the price of a little blog-trawling (which you're likely doing anyway) and some clever prose to wrap it all up in one post. How cool is that?]