It's true. Soul Brother #1, a.k.a. The hardest working man in show business, a.k.a. The godfather of soul, the one and only James Brown has passed away.

The obituary on Slate is a decent read, complete with links to YouTube for some of Brown's best work. The best paragraph?

Brown's showmanship merged the fervent emotionalism of the black church with pure showbiz—flashy clothes, vaudevillian theatrics, sweat-drenched movement, and a pompadour flamboyant enough to inspire Al Sharpton (and countless pimps). He was the model for all pop performers who followed him. After Brown, even the whitest white boy felt compelled to shake it a little onstage.

I've blogged twice about JB so it is only appropriate to point to those entries today.

• March 11, 2005: The "James Brown - Semeia Funkadelic Discourse" Rhapsody Playlist. Blogged upon finding out that the SBL's Semeia journal (entire journal series available for Logos Bible Software) actually interacts with James Brown song titles from a theological perspective. I'll never think of the song "It's Too Funky in Here (Open up the Windows)" in the same light.
• July 20, 2006: Shamanah! Blogged upon realizing that JB's common epithet "Shamanah!" is likely Brown-speak for the phrase, "Show me now!"

It was five months ago today (on July 22, 2006) that Amy and I entered into the state of wedded bliss. And bliss it is. I love you, sweetie!

Here are a few pics since I haven't posted any from the wedding yet.

Signing the wedding license to satisfy the guv'mint

Smoochin' my sweetie ...

This from an email I wrote yesterday to a longtime friend who asked me about use of the OT in the NT. I'd just referred him to a recent BiblicalStudies.org.uk posting:. The "there" below refers to the URL that I placed above this paragraph.

There is an article on Jesus' use of the Old Testament in PDF that is downloadable. I've not read it, so I can't say too much, but it sounds along the lines of the sort of thing you're looking for.

In re-reading the first sentence this morning (my friend responded to my email) I thought the following:

"Yet another example as to why reading the NT epistles is fraught with peril."

Why would I say that? Why, the prepositional phrase "in PDF", of course. What does it modify? We know because we know that "PDF" is the Portable Document Format and it refers to an electronic representation of a paper page. But what if I didn't know that, or if I didn't have the cultural wherewithal to put it together? Then my options are:

• "in PDF" modifies "the Old Testament", so I'm referring to an article about Jesus' use of the OT in something called 'PDF'. Maybe it represents a tri-consonontal Hebrew root, maybe it represents a subsection of his teaching and how he uses the OT in it ... hey, it could be anything.
• "in PDF" modifies "an article". That's what I intended, of course. I mean, it's obvious. Right?

Even worse, you can't disambiguate based on the second sentence. Some disambiguation is possible based on the URL that was above the paragraph (though the URL was to a .html page, not a .pdf page) and the further clarifier "that is downloadable" (all the more reason to ensure we have as much context as possible when reading epistles!). That could be enough of a cue to prevent someone from thinking that I was perhaps referring to Jesus' Palestinian Desert Forays, but with some of the exegetical method practiced out there these days, I can't guarantee it.

I agree. Come, Lord Jesus!

In my hot little hands: The Logos Bible Software edition of Max Zerwick & Mary Grosvenor's A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament, 5th Edition.

A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament presents a verse by verse analysis of the original Greek New Testament. Breaking down the significant Greek words, it offers parsing, including cross-references to the author’s Biblical Greek, notes, glosses, and other relevant information. Grammatical Analysis also provides a succinct interpretation of figures of speech and other explicit or implicit information within the Greek text. The analysis is preceded by a glossary of grammatical terms.

Just got the weekly email scoop from Publishers Weekly.

In the "Books Written by People Who Should Know" department, we have (I excerpt this directly from the web page):

Jesus for the Non-Religious
John Shelby Spong. Harper San Francisco, $24.95 (288p) ISBN 978-0-06-076207-0
In this impassioned work, Spong, the iconoclastic former Episcopal bishop of Newark, details in this impassioned work both his "deep commitment to Jesus of Nazareth" and his "deep alienation from the traditional symbols" that surround Jesus.

Ok ... don't they have an editor check these things? Or is there some dittography going on in the transcription here? (cf. repetition of "in this impassioned work")

Dearest Friends —

Christmas is upon us.

Advertising circulars are circulating. Christmas trees are available for purchase in grocery store parking lots. Happy music can be heard just about everywhere; some of it even proclaims the truth that lies behind the ages.

For some (including myself) this year has overflowed with blessings. For others, tough times have been the norm. For many, the year has been lived within the happy middle; nothing too exciting and nothing too scary.

Yet we come to this time of the year when many celebrate Christmas with cards, gifts, smiles and parties. Extended families that rarely see each other gather for merry times together. Yet how many who claim our faith actually stop to consider the wonder and blessing of the hopeful event we proclaim?

Hope pervades the event of the birth of the Christ. Have you considered this?

The Apostle Paul points us to this in his letter to the Ephesians (2.1-10). The two words at the start of verse 4—“But God”—are some of the sweetest words I know.

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (ESV)

Prior to Christ, we were dead. Upon the advent of Christ, we have hope. Prior to Christ, salvation was inaccessible. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. But with Christ, we have hope of life eternal.

This is the gospel. And this is the truth proclaimed by the incarnation of the Son of God, that day some 2000 years ago. And I praise God for supplying this hope, for providing the faith by which I have hope, and the love by which I love Him.

During this Christmas “season”, I must ask myself: Does the hope get lost in the hustle and bustle of card-sending, gift-buying and party-going? And outside of this season, does the hope get lost amidst the blog-writing, book-reading, paper-writing and busy-ness of each day?

So many times, particularly when interacting in the circles of Biblical Studies, we forget about the forest because we concentrate on the trees (and branches, and bark). I know this happens to me. I read the first chapters of Luke and think about the synoptic problem and Q, not the wonder and glory of my Lord and Saviour.

May the hope of Christ our salvation strike us all anew this year as we remember the accounts of Christ's birth and realize that he arrived to give us hope, to save us from sin.

If you have not yet heard of this hope, if you have not understood the necessity of it, may the Holy Spirit proclaim it to you this Christmas.

Blessings to you and those you love as we celebrate Christ's birth.

— Rick

I live and work in Bellingham. The city owns a parking garage that happens to be across the street from Logos, so that's where I park (thanks again to Logos for footing employee's parking bills!).

The parking garage (called the Parkade) is a five-story concrete structure. Each floor is divided into two parts (north and south, let's say), and the floors spiral (er, sort of) up.

Ever since Logos has been in Bellingham, I've had problems remembering where I park inside the parkade. It led to establishing the practice of always parking on the north side of the building, whether I was on floor 2, 3 or 4. I could generally remember which floor I was on, but not the side of the floor.

Am I getting old? I don't know, but I think intelligence lies in realizing one's limitations and working within them.

In the past month or so, I've realized that I can remember both floor and garage side I park in if I go home for lunch. That is, I can remember floor and side (say, 3 south, where I just parked) for either the time of morning to lunch, or lunch to evening — but I have problems remembering both items all day long. As I go home for lunch on most days to see my sweetie, this means I have effectively been opened up to park in the whole parkade instead of just half of it!

This was driven home (pun intended) to me in the past week when I didn't go home for lunch. At the end of the day, I had forgotten which floor I parked on. I went up one flight of stairs too many and had to backtrack downstairs to the previous floor.

By the time I'm to the office, my mind has usually started on a problem or two so I don't think too much about where I parked, specifically. I guess the marginal utility of parking location decreases because, if I forget, I can always figure out where I parked with a little effort up or down the stairs.

Of course, if I start forgetting that I actually parked in the garage, then we know things have gotten real bad. Hopefully that's a long way off.