From Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution; see item 3 which points to two posts. The first by Felix Salmon (Blogonomics 301 with Tyler Cowen), the second over at The Economist's blog, Free exchange (How to sell books). From Felix Salmon's post, you can download Cowen's talk (the talk is over an hour long, the linked *.m4u file is 250 megs, so watch out).

Lots of interesting stuff in Cowen's talk. I'm wondering, though, how what Cowen says applies to the biblioblogosphere.

In the biblioblogosphere, are blogs loss-leaders that basically promote a good of some sort (either a book or books by the blog author, or the author himself/herself)? Whether intentional or not, do they just serve to promote the author? (If so ... I guess I need to write a book soon)

On an unrelated side note, I'm more and more convinced that "blog reader" really isn't an appropriate term anymore. There may be people who actually read every word written on a particular blog (and therefore are blog readers; if you do that with my humble blog here, wow ... boy, do I appreciate you!) but I think the better label is probably "blog follower". That is, I think people follow blogs, they don't necessarily read blogs. They might read or skim an article that has a provocative title; but they certainly don't read everything. There's no way anyone can really read 200 blogs; but it is possible to follow 200 blogs.

... I'm still amazed at the differences between Greek editions of the NT in the areas of:

• paragraphing
• punctuation
• orthography (e.g. νγ vs γγ, moveable nu)

and that there is no standard tome on these items, apart from Westcott & Hort's Introduction [mentioned here], as far as I can tell. And you have to dig to find W&H's intro. Are they the only ones to even try to tackle this?

I mean, even if you just compare Westcott & Hort to NA27 — where the text is almost exactly the same — check to see where one uses emdashes and the other uses colons, or where one punctuates a list with commas and the other doesn't, or where sentence and paragraph breaks are entirely different.

Am I making a bigger deal of this than is necessary? Do folks just think this aspect of an edition is interpretive, so editors do what they do and we just gloss over it?

Maybe. But my guess is that most users of the Greek NT are just using it to zero in on a particular word for a study of a particular verse. Like: "Oh, [english word] is a translation of [greek word]; so I'll look that one up in BDAG." Does anyone who actually reads the Greek NT pay attention to paragraphing, punctuation, flow of argumentation? Or are we layering our own translation over things when we examine the Greek (OK, I admit I'm guilty of this).

And I'm also guessing that much of the paragraphing and punctuation in Greek NTs has to do with how the editors would translate the text themselves, thus I'm guessing it is influenced largely by the punctuation practices of their native language* — and not necessarily based on what the Greek is communicating.**

Of course, I know, the written Greek MSS don't have punctuation like modern languages (though there are some indicators). But it still seems like there should at least be some attempts at this area of study primarily because it is so important to understanding the text as a whole.

Is this area doomed to languish?

Update (2007-10-25): Tommy Wasserman over at the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog links back here, noting what I said earlier about subparagraphs in the NA27. Thanks! I posted a comment on his post about subparagraphs in Westcott & Hort:

I subsequently 'discovered' that Westcott & Hort has subparagraph breaks too; but at least they tell you what they are in §419 of their introduction: "In the subdivision of sections we have found great convenience in adopting the French plan of breaking up the paragraphs into subparagraphs by means of a space of some length."

The same section goes on with some more information about W&H's edition that I didn't know either: "We have been glad at the same time to retain another grade of division in the familiar difference between capitals and small letters following a full stop. Groups of sentences introduced by a capital thus bear the same relation to subparagraphs as subparagraphs to paragraphs."

I'm beginning to wonder how much of this sort of stuff NA27 just carries over without disclosing.

* Pure speculation and likely irrelevant and misguided, but I'm wondering how the punctuation in NA27 compares with how one would punctuate a somewhat literal German translation — and how punctuation in UBS4 compares with how one would punctuate a somewhat literal English translation.

** You can really see this in Hodges & Farstad's The Greek New Testament According to the Majority Text where they go so far as to use “quote marks” to denote spoken text and, as I recall, OT quotations. It's pretty irritating to see quotation marks in the midst of diacritics and some text-critical note indicators.

Yes, it has been fairly quiet in the corner of the blogosphere recently. Amy and I have been moving house; we're out of the old house (it sold quickly, thankfully) and into a new house (yay!). This past week was pack-n-move time; with the majority of actual moving happening this past weekend.

So, obviously, we're still settling in, but things are in good shape.

Also ... a little bird just told me that Siegfried Schatzmann's English translation of Hubertus Drobner's Lehrbuch der Patrologie (Fathers of the Church: A Comprehensive Introduction (amazon.com)), to be published by Hendrickson but long-delayed for many and sundry reasons, has actually hit the warehouse. That means ... well ... it is like, you know, done and stuff. And in paper. And ready to read. WOO HOO!!!!

When I get a copy (which should hopefully be soon; I've been waiting over two years!) I'll certainly mention it and blog about it somewhat.

Speaking of which, I'm about to wrap up Skarsaune & Hvalvik's Jewish Believers in Jesus (amazon.com). This is an awesome book; I can't recommend it highly enough. I was lucky enough to receive a gratis copy. I likely wouldn't have bought it, but I would've missed out greatly and kicked myself repeatedly had I found out what a treasure I missed. You should really check it out — when you're at SBL, cruise the Hendrickson booth and pick up a copy to browse (then buy!)

Found these mentioned in a footnote in Skarsaune & Hvalvik's Jewish Believers in Jesus (amazon.com); this is the proverbial "note to myself" so I can dig the references out again:

Kenneth Berding, Polycarp and Paul: An Analysis of Their Literary and Theological Relationship in Light of Polycarp's Use of Biblical and Extra-Biblical Literature (amazon.com) (VCSup 62; Leiden: Brill, 2002)

Paul Hartog, Polycarp and the New Testament: The Occasion, Rhetoric, Theme and Unity of the Epistle to the Philippians and its Allusions to New Testament Literature (amazon.com) (WUNT 2.134; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 2002)

That is all.

It has been far, far too long since I have posted pictures of our sweet little daughter Ella. So we'll skip the fanfare and go straight to the pictures (because that's what you really want to see anyway, I know).

And, ever since I saw this sign at the hospital (a few months before Ella was born) I've wanted to post a picture of it. This is a real sign, no photoshopping or anything. The 'receiving' part I get ... I'm still trying to figure out how 'shipping' applies ...

I'm curious to know if anyone can recommend resources (books, articles, web sites, whatever) on matters of punctuation, sentence/paragraph delineation, and orthography as they pertain to printed editions of the Greek New Testament.

If you ever compare editions of the Greek NT, you'll see these differences sticking out like sore thumbs. The words themselves (the order of the stream of letters) may not differ, but the other stuff does. Editions differ on paragraph placement, how to break up paragraphs (i.e. NA27's use of sub-paragraphs* within paragraphs?), sentence delineation, treatment of divine names (only upper-cased when also a proper name? or all upper-cased?), and orthographical issues.

The only treatment of orthography of an edition of the Greek New Testament that I know of (offhand) is in Westcott & Hort's appendix volume to their edition, pp. 148-179. I can't say I've read much on the other stuff (outside of discourse analysis/grammar approaches to determining textual units) and, frankly, it seems like more of an art than a science when you actually examine an edition.

Anyone have any references for such things? I can get to some decent libraries if I need to (Trinity Western University or the Vancouver School of Theology, for example).

Thanks!

Update (2007-10-05): There's also Westcott & Hort's introduction volume (actually, the intro & appendix are in the same print volume, though the page numbering starts again for the appendix — at least in my edition, dated 1896). Intro part 4, pp. 288-324 (§§375-425) cover W&H's approach on much of this material. §§393-404 cover orthography; §§405-416 cover breathings, accents and the like; §§417-423 cover punctuation and textual division as well as titles of books. Zounds! Now that's detail. But that's the only place I've found this sort of information. The NA27 preface/intro has no such information; Maurice Robinson's 2005 Byzantine (printed edition) has about a page. R.V.G. Tasker has about two sentences in the intro to his Greek New Testament being the text translated in The New English Bible (he basically says the his Greek follows the NEB NT English practice). Does anyone else have any other references?

* If you ever wondered why there are some longer white space breaks in portions of paragraphs (say, 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide like the space before Jn 1.18 in this screen shot) ... then you've found subparagraph breaks in the NA27. I didn't know about them myself until I asked a contact at the German Bible Society about them while I was working on creating the Logos Bible Software edition of the NA27 with critical apparatus markers found in the SESB. And yes, the Logos editions of NA27 do include visual subparagraph breaks in the text (as well as the paragraphing, casing, etc. of the printed edition).

This morning Scot McKnight (Jesus Creed) mentions two books I've mentioned before: Skarsaune & Hvalvik's Jewish Believers in Jesus and Bowman & Komoszewski's Putting Jesus in His Place.

What I didn't know is that Jewish Believers in Jesus (amazon.com) has a web site at something called the Caspari Center. You can find more information there. Also, you can find more information on Putting Jesus in His Place (amazon.com) at http://www.deityofchrist.com.

I'd recommend them both, particularly Jewish Believers in Jesus (amazon.com).

One of the points that came up frequently in the discussion about both the so-called "James Ossuary" and the so-called "Jesus Tomb" was that the name "Jesus" was very common in the first century. It's a valid point. There are a few places to look for name occurrances, and ossuaries are a valuable source. But there are others.

I'm sure many have done this already, but have you ever searched the English translation of the Works of Josephus for the word "Jesus"? And then have you tracked down to see how many potential Jesuses are referred to therein?

Whiston's translation has 73 instances of "Jesus", though some of those are in footnotes so they don't really count. According to the index in Niese's critical Greek edition (the index is volume 7 in the print and can be very handy — and it will be included in the Logos edition of Josephus, which strives to reproduce Niese in its entirety) there are 20 different Jesuses in these 73 instances.*

Huh? 20 Jesuses? That's right. On the right side of this post you can see the index entry (Niese vol. 7 p. 41 cols 1-2) straight from Niese. Jesus Christ is #9 in the list. The citations are weird; straight roman numerals without a prefix indicate references to the Antiquities; the others use minimal italicised Latin-based prefixes (e.g. B for Wars, Vit for Life, etc.) for work names.

The primary instance that most NT scholars are interested in is the Testimonium Flavianum, found in Ant. 18.63-64:

(63) Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works—a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; (64) and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
Josephus, F., & Whiston, W. (1996, c1987). The works of Josephus : Complete and unabridged. Includes index. (Ant 18.62-64). Peabody: Hendrickson. Emphasis added

One of the more interesting non-Jesus Jesus examples is Ant. 20.213:

This made him more than ordinarily hated by his subjects; because he took those things away that belonged to them, to adorn a foreign city; (213) and now Jesus, the son of Gamaliel, became the successor of Jesus, the son of Damneus, in the high priesthood, which the king had taken from the other; on which account a sedition arose between the high priests, with regard to one another; for they got together bodies of the boldest sort of the people, and frequently came, from reproaches, to throwing of stones at each other; but Ananias was too hard for the rest, by his riches,—which enabled him to gain those that were most ready to receive.
Josephus, F., & Whiston, W. (1996, c1987). The works of Josephus : Complete and unabridged. Includes index. (Ant 20.212-213). Peabody: Hendrickson. Emphasis added.

Another interesting one is found in Ant. 11.297-303, which Whiston's edition numbers as Ant. 11.7.1-2 (so, a separate chapter in Whiston). Whiston's chapter title? "HOW JOHN SLEW HIS BROTHER JESUS IN THE TEMPLE; AND HOW BAGOSES OFFERED MANY INJURIES TO THE JEWS; AND WHAT SANBALLAT DID". Read on:

(298) Now Jesus was the brother of John, and was a friend of Bagoses, who had promised to procure him the high priesthood. (299) In confidence of whose support, Jesus quarrelled with John in the temple, and so provoked his brother, that in his anger his brother slew him. Now it was a horrible thing for John when he was high priest, to perpetrate so great a crime, and so much the more horrible, that there never was so cruel and impious a thing done, neither by the Greeks nor Barbarians.
Josephus, F., & Whiston, W. (1996, c1987). The works of Josephus : Complete and unabridged. Includes index. (Ant 11.297-299). Peabody: Hendrickson. Emphasis added

There were lots of guys running around with the name Jesus. Heck, there were lots of Johns (17 according to Niese), a few Jameses (five) and even lots of Judases (13!).

Update (2007-10-03): Responding to John Augusten in the comments: of course I understand that the statistical argument was on the compilation and juxtaposition of names. (On refuting Jacobivici's statistical arguments, see here, here and here). My primary point here is not to argue about the ossuaries or validity of the so-called "Jesus Tomb" (though I do think Jacobivici is, to put it technically, full of hooey), or to argue statistics. My point was to show that in addition to ossuary evidence (Rahmani, et. al.) corpora from the era also have onomastic data that can be extracted. And, secondarily, that indexes with sense disambiguation are valuable even when one can do a comprehensive concordance search of a corpus.

* I did a lemma search of the in-development Logos edition, so results might not be accurate, but I located 124 instances of the lemma Ιησους. Why the discrepancy between the Greek and Whiston's translation? I'm guessing Whiston translated Ιησους as "Joshua" where he deemed appropriate (e.g. in OT historical sections).