It's that time of year.

The Economist released their list of "Books of the year 2006". Not much sounds interesting to me, save the de Tocqueville biography, and that won't even be published in the US until March 2007 ... though you can buy it from Amazon today. If you're really interested, get it from Amazon.co.uk and have it shipped to the states.

But hey, I've got an armload of books (and then some) that I bought at ETS and SBL. I'll probably blog that list later since I've yet to do that.

No, I'm not starting some "Quote of the Day" feature. But here's a good excerpt from Robertson's Grammar (did you know it is available from Logos?) that I had to post:

It is not necessary to give in detail many examples of the articular inf. in the N. T. I merely wish to repeat that, when the article does occur with the inf., it should have its real force. Often this will make extremely awkward English, as in Lu. 2:27, ἐν τῷ εἰσαγαγεῖν τοὺς γονεῖς τὸ παιδίον. But the Greek has no concern about the English or German. It is simply slovenliness not to try to see the thing from the Greek standpoint. But we are not to make a slavish rendering. Translation should be idiomatic. It is hardly worth while to warn the inept that there is no connection between the article τό and the English to in a sentence like Ph. 1:21, ἑμοὶ γὰρ τὸ ζῆν Χριστὸς καὶ τὸ ἀποθανεῖν κέρδος. Here the article τό has just the effect that the Greek article has with any abstract substantive, that of distinction or contrast. Life and death (living and dying) are set over against each other. See further Mt. 24:45; Lu. 24:29; Ac. 3:12; 10:25; 14:9; 21:12; 25:11; Ro. 4:11, 13, 16, 18; 13:8; 14:21; 2 Cor. 8:10 f.; 9:1; Ph. 1:23, 29; 2:6; 4:10; 1 Th. 3:2 f.
Robertson, A. (1919; 2006). A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (1065). Logos.

Update (2006-12-08): Really, this isn't going to be a daily feature. I just read another good one and need to blog it. This is from Donald Guthrie's essay, "The Development of the Idea of Canonical Pseudepigraphy in New Testament Criticism" (available online at BiblicalStudies.org.uk):

... The fact is that Baur's literary criticism was dominated by his dogmatic presuppositions and since these had to be maintained at all costs, it was no embarassment that pseudepigraphic writings became more normal in the extant Pauline Canon than genuine works. (Guthrie, p. 46)

Jim West did it, so did Stephen Carlson. Loren Rosson did it too. I figured I had to do it as well. So I took the quiz.

Turns out that I'm an "Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm". I'm described as:

You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.

Fairly accurate, apart from the bit about being in the final stages of a Ph.D., though I suppose I have found a way to make a living from my tastes in reading.

The blog hyperekperisou has published the first Patristics Carnival. It is patterned after the Biblical Studies Carnival (on which see Dr. Jim West's installment for December ... excellent job, Jim; apologies for not mentioning it sooner).

I was actually mentioned on the Patristics Carnival, for my current look at the Didache. This was a mixed blessing, however, because it painfully reminded me about the languishing of that particular series. Yes, I do need pick that one up again. December is always a busy month, but I'll see what I can do.

Apologies again for the quiet. I haven't stopped blogging, really.

I have been working on getting the all-new PastoralEpistles.com up and running, though. The good news is that the blog is now a "team blog". Participants at present include:

• me
• Perry L. Stepp
• Lloyd Pietersen
• Ray Van Neste

More info has been posted at PastoralEpistles.com. So check it out. And at least be sure to update your feed reader to the new address of the feed, http://pastoralepistles.com/SyndicationService.asmx/GetRss.

If you've read Metzger's Early Versions, then you've heard of the Sogdian version of the NT. And likely that's all you've heard.

If you want to know more about the language called Sogdian, now you can! Check out the Sogdian Primer. The intro notes that most Christian texts found in the Sogdian language are translations from Syriac.

More intros to Iranian languages are available at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~iranian/.

Just a few updates since I haven't made any real posts for awhile. Apologies for that, life has been busy.

You may know that I dabble with another blog at PastoralEpistles.com. That site will undergo some major changes in the next few weeks. I'm installing different software and another contributor will come aboard. So keep your eyes peeled there. Other regular contributors are welcomed, so if you have a hankerin' to blog about the pastorals (directly or indirectly) then please contact me.

Also, if you visit the site instead of just read in an aggregator, you may have noticed the Amazon.com links on the side. It is a small experiment to see what happens if I actually recommend a book and provide a link to Amazon. Or if I recommend a gift of some other sort. [you know, the perfect gift for any bibliophile on your holiday shopping list (including me, perhaps?) is surely a gift certificate to Amazon.com]. I'm interested to know what you think about the Amazon links. Is it tacky? Dumb? Just fine? Drop a comment or send an email to let me know what you think if you have a strong opinion.

Since SBL, I've been thinking about allonymity. Michael Bird posted recently about Wayne Brindle's paper at SBL on the topic (Brindle's paper was on the evangelical response to Marshall's proposal of allonymity). Bird uses Hebrews as a counterexample, but I don't think Hebrews has anything to do with it due to it's anonymity (no author claimed, at least in MSS that we have today). Whatever one might posit about authorship, one surely has to weigh what the text itself purports. Hebrews says nothing explicit, so-called allonymous texts make explicit claims that appear to be deceptive. And that seems to me to be a completely different ball o' wax. My position aligns better with that of Witherington and Towner. Anyway, I have a post on the topic brewing, but I'll probably post it at PastoralEpistles.com once the revamping is complete. So you'll have to wait.

Please note that the software that runs this blog, dasBlog, has been updated (to v1.9). Therefore I'll likely be attempting an update of the server later today (Tuesday). If strange things are afoot, that is likely the culprit.

I'll post again when the update is complete ... or when I've reverted back to v1.8.

Update: I think the update to 1.9 stuck. If you have problems, please drop me an email (address on sidebar ... ) Thanks!