(See Part I here, and an Overview here)

I've been examining Hans-Josef Klauck's Ancient Letters and the New Testament some more. It's fun stuff. I've made it through chapters 3 and 4:

• 3: Nonliterary and Diplomatic Correspondance
• 4: Poetry and Philosophy—Literary Letters

As you can see, the book isn't strictly about New Testament epistles. It is about the ancient letter form in all its major varieties. I'm most looking forward to chapters 6-8 as they are about Letters in Early Judaism (chapter 6) and then two chapters on New Testament Letters.

Chapter 3 offers some stimulating discussion of the importance of diplomatic correspondance in approaching Pauline epistles. Klauck has sections on the letter of recommendation and Hellenistic royal letters. The final section in the chapter is a serious examination of Claudius' imperial letter to the Alexandrians. He provides a translation of the letter, a full outline, and detailed analysis. The prescript of Claudius' letter sounds positively Pauline:

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus the Emperor, Pontifex Maximus,
holder of the tribunican power, consul designate,
to the city of the Alexandrians, greeting.

Chapter 4 offers a catalogue of authors that is really quite handy. Names I'd only seen as abbreviations in BDAG suddenly have new meaning to me as a result of skimming across the text. I say "skim" because it really serves as a brief handbook to authors of Greek and Latin letters.

I've begun chapter 5, which is titled Epistolary and Rhetorical Theory. Good stuff. Gets into topoi, examines some classical letter templates and "style" handbooks, among other things.

I'll blog more after I'm a bit further along in the book.

I'm in a home group Bible Study that's working through Colossians. Our passage this week is Col 1.15-20. I translated this morning and wanted to share it as it is a powerful statement of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Text

ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου,
He is the image of the invisible God,
   πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως,
   firstborn of all creation,
   ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα
   for by him all things were created,
      ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς
      in the heavens
         καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς,
         and in the earth,
      τὰ ὁρατὰ
      the visible
         καὶ τὰ ἀόρατα,
         and the invisible,
      εἴτε θρόνοι
      whether thrones
      εἴτε κυριότητες
      or dominions
      εἴτε ἀρχαὶ
      or rulers
      εἴτε ἐξουσίαι·
      or authorities:
         τὰ πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται·
         through him and for him all things were created;
            καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων
            and he is before all things
            καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν,
            and all things hold together in him,
            καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν ἡ κεφαλὴ τοῦ σώματος τῆς ἐκκλησίας·
            and he is the head of the body, the church.

ὅς ἐστιν ἀρχή,
He is the beginning,
   πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν,
   firstborn from the dead,
      ἵνα γένηται ἐν πᾶσιν αὐτὸς πρωτεύων,
      so that in all things he might be preeminent;
   ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ εὐδόκησεν πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα κατοικῆσαι
   for in him all the fullness was pleased to dwell
      καὶ δι’ αὐτοῦ ἀποκαταλλάξαι τὰ πάντα εἰς αὐτόν,
      and through it he reconciled everything to himself,
         εἰρηνοποιήσας διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ σταυροῦ αὐτοῦ,
         making peace through the blood of his cross,
         [δι’ αὐτοῦ]
         through him,
            εἴτε τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς
            whether things on the earth
            εἴτε τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς.
            or things in the heavens.

Notes

I broke the text into two groups with each group based on a relative clause. I thought the structure of Relative Clause -> πρωτότοκος statement ->  Subordinate Clause was interesting and a good thing to base the indentation on. Again, the indentation is just me — there is no real consistent basis for newlines and indentations. I'm sure if someone really wanted to, they could go to town in seeing chiasms in this text (and some folks probably already have).

Also, Col 1.19 is interesting. English translations (ESV and NET, anyway) presuppose that "all the fullness" (πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα) is really "all of God's fullness". Surely it is, but that is no reason to insert "God's" or "of God" into the text, is it? The subject is "all the fullness". So that's why I've translated it that way above.

Phil Harland, who blogs at Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean, has BSC:X up and ready for your perusal.

No Rico links this month, I've been busy getting ready for the November conferences (ETS and SBL) along with keepin' the home fires burning.

BSC:XI is set for Michael Pahl's the stuff of earth blog in November. Keep an eye on the biblioblogosphere (and here at ricoblog, too!) for posts you may think worthy of submitting. Oh, yeah, Michael is the Biblioblogs.com "Blogger of the Month" too, so do make sure to check out his interview.

[This is part of a running series on the Didache. See the introductory post for more information — RWB]

Phrasing/Translation

Περὶ δὲ τῆς εὐχαριστίας, οὕτως εὐχαριστήσατε·
Concerning the Eucharist, Eucharistise* in this way.
   πρῶτον περὶ τοῦ ποτηρίου·
   First, concerning the cup:
      Εὐχαριστοῦμέν σοι,
      We give thanks to you,
         πάτερ ἡμῶν,
         our Father,
         ὑπὲρ τῆς ἁγίας ἀμπέλου Δαυεὶδ τοῦ παιδός σου,
         for the holy vine of David your son,
            ἧς ἐγνώρισας ἡμῖν διὰ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ παιδός σου·
            which you made known to us through Jesus your son;
      σοὶ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας.
      glory to you forever.

   περὶ δὲ τοῦ κλάσματος·
   Next, concerning the broken bread:
      Εὐχαριστοῦμέν σοι,
      We give thanks to you,
         πάτερ ἡμῶν,
         our Father,
         ὑπὲρ τῆς ζωῆς καὶ γνώσεως,
         for the life and the knowledge
            ἧς ἐγνώρισας ἡμῖν διὰ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ παιδός σου.
            which you made known to us through Jesus your son;
      σοὶ ἡ δόξα εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας.
      glory to you forever.

ὥσπερ ἦν τοῦτο τὸ κλάσμα διεσκορπισμένον ἐπάνω τῶν ὀρέων
Just as this broken bread had been scattered over the mountains,
   καὶ συναχθὲν ἐγένετο ἕν,
   was brought together and has become one;
οὕτω συναχθήτω σου ἡ ἐκκλησία
likewise bring together your church
   ἀπὸ τῶν περάτων τῆς γῆς
   from the ends of the earth
      εἰς τὴν σὴν βασιλείαν.
      into your Kingdom.
   ὅτι σοῦ ἐστιν ἡ δόξα
   So yours is the glory
      καὶ ἡ δύναμις
      and the power
         διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
         through Jesus Christ
      εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας.
      forever.

μηδεὶς δὲ φαγέτω μηδὲ πιέτω
But none shall eat or drink
   ἀπὸ τῆς εὐχαριστίας ὑμῶν,
   from your Eucharist,
   ἀλλ’ οἱ βαπτισθέντες
   but those baptised
      εἰς ὄνομα κυρίου·
      in the name of the Lord;
   καὶ γὰρ περὶ τούτου εἴρηκεν ὁ κύριος·
   for concerning this the Lord said:
      Μὴ δῶτε τὸ ἅγιον τοῖς κυσί.
      “Do not give what is holy to dogs”.

* “Eucharistise” simply verbs the noun to keep the Greek wordplay in the English. It could also be translated partake in the Eucharist.

Notes

First off, the structural consistency of the section regarding the cup and the section regarding the bread is obvious, moreso in the above indented view.

Also interesting is the seemingly inverted order of the Eucharist. The cup is given thanks for first, then the bread. Today, Communion/Lord's Supper/Eucharist services (that I'm aware of, anyway) typically take the bread first, as the gospels (Mk 14.22-25 || Mt 26.26-29 || Lu 14.14-23) and First Corinthians (1Co 11.23-34) testify.

The opportunity to pray for the unity of the Church is also refreshing. This isn't unity in the way we hear of today ("can't we just all get along?") but unity in end: We are saved, and we will enter into his Kingdom. The Eucharist points toward this, reminding us of the sacrifice of Christ and of the redemption his blood purchases for us. This redemption is powerful and sacred; it glorifies Christ as he assembles his own, building his kingdom.

It would be most wonderful if this aspect of "unity" was preached more frequently, and if the other aspect ("let's just agree to be tolerant look the other way on topics we disagree on") were preached on far, far less frequently.

Because the Eucharist is sacred, it is only to be celebrated (yes, celebrated!) by those who have been redeemed; only by those who proclaim Christ as their Saviour. Mt 7.6 is quoted in support of this practice.

Next up: Didache 10

Just thinking out loud here. The following are the adscriptions in the Pastoral Epistles:

1Ti 1.2: To Timothy, my true child in the faith

2Ti 1.2: To Timothy, my beloved child

Titus 1.4: To Titus, my true child in a common faith

Paul is bolstering the rep of the recipient to those who hear the letter. "I'm writing to Timothy (you know, the one whom I consider my son?) ... "

I'm wondering if there is some allusion here to the parable of the wicked tenants (Mk 12.1-12 || Mt 21.33-46 || Lu 20.9-19), specifically Mk 12.6 || Mt 21.37 || Lu 20.13:

He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, 'They will respect my son.' (Mk 12.6)

Does Paul's specification of Timothy (and Titus) as his true/beloved son have similar force, the sort of "Timothy (and Titus) represent me and my interests" vibe of the parable?

Just thinkin' out loud. I have some other thoughts on prescipts in the Pastorals that I need to mull over a bit before posting them.

The Logos Bible Software Blog announced the Logos Bible Software/Society of Biblical Literature Technology Paper Awards. Here's the scoop:

Logos Bible Software and the Society of Biblical Literature announce two sets of awards for papers that creatively use technology in exploring questions of grammar and syntax in biblical studies: one focusing on the Hebrew Bible, the other on the Greek New Testament. The contests are open to all those engaged in the study of those disciplines, and prizes will be awarded in both areas for student and faculty/professional categories. A total of twelve awards will be given.

These are serious prizes, but they'll require serious work. The deadline is May 1, 2007 with award notification during 2007 International SBL in Austria. More details on the Technology Paper Awards page at Logos.com.

Note -- Logos and SBL employees are not eligible. That means I can't submit a paper (drats!)

Update (2006-09-28): Check out the page on the SBL's site which also is the home of the URL http://www.sblawards.com. Also note mention of the prize in the SBL Forum. And the press release reproduced on Logos' web site. We're really interested to see what sorts of topics folks delve into and how they use the annotation(s)!

Just some random thoughts here based on the paper I'm wrapping up for the SBL meeting.

How does one go about quantifying and measuring style? Style seems to be a very organic thing, hard to pin down. Efforts to quantify it normally fail, on the whole, because there are no real rules to follow.

Some detect style based on word usage patterns (common or infrequent words). Others look into other grammatical features such as morphology. Still others look at sentence lengths and sentence length distribution. Some have posited authorship traits dealing with the part-of-speech of the last word in a sentence.

A trend of some sort is noticed, that trend is tested against a larger corpus, data on the trend is analyzed, and that analysis becomes the basis of some posited rule or even conclusions about authorship of a document.

The bottom line is that trends do not a rule make. Correlation does not prove causation. But that isn't to say trends aren't useful. It only means we need to consider an expanding amount of such trends in evaluation of style. (Note well: I didn't say authorship, I said style.)

Also, I think that, at least as regards the Pauline epistles and perhaps the New Testament, stylistic studies have unfortunately been conflated with authorship studies. That is, the goal seems to be to isolate an author's style for purposes of authorship attribution—not necessarily to better understand the document content and structure so as to better comprehend the document(s) in question.

Why is this? Why can't style be examined outside of the bounds of the authorship question?

Why can't we be content to analyze what is being communicated and how it is being communicated; why do we (myself included!) get bound in the larger and likely unresolvable authorship question?

This just came through the internal company mail, though it is also up on the Logos Jobs Page. It is for a Full-time Web Developer. Must relocate to Bellingham, no telecommute/remote employment options.

See the Logos jobs page for further requirements/etc.

(Don't forget that we're looking for a Chinese Marketing Manager as well!)