Here she is, helping Mommy make cookies (of which I was the prime beneficiary!)

And again:

How cute is that? And the cookies were incredibly yummy, thank you very much.

BibleTech:2009 starts tomorrow (Friday) AM, and I’m ready. My paper is written, I have a reading copy (yes, I’ll be reading it) and I have PowerPoint ready to go too. My presentation is Saturday afternoon from 3:00-3:45 in Room 1. The title of the paper is “Stylometry in the Septuagint: Applying Anthony Kenny’s Stylometric Study to the LXX”. I’ll post a copy of the paper to may academic papers page sometime after the conference. Check the schedule page for more info.

Some folks will be live-blogging the conference, others will be twittering to their heart’s content, I’m sure, but I won’t be doing any of that. Perhaps a post on Friday evening sometime, but maybe not even that. Or maybe a post on Sunday after the whole thing is done; we’ll see.

Looking forward to it! If you’ll be there, make sure to catch up with me during a meal — I’d love to talk more about you with whatever sorts of Bible-techie stuff you’re working on or considering!

We’ve been working on Books.Logos.com for a long time, and a beta form of the site has finally been made live. Here’s the text from the site:

We have more than 8,000 classic works from seminary libraries, and we're still scanning more. During the beta period you can search and view all of the books for free.

Use the search box in the upper left to search the entire library. When you've selected a book, you can use the search box on the right side to search within just that book.

Use author:Wilkinson to find all the books by Wilkinson, or title:canon to find books with "canon" in the title. You can even search for Bible references!

Books are still being uploaded to the server; there’s a whole lot of data and it takes awhile. One of the best features of the site is the ability to search by Bible reference (try that, Google). Just type your ref in the search box and hit enter. No special code, it’ll figure out if it is a Bible reference.

The default display is black and white images (they’re smaller and faster), but you may need to view color images for some books or scripts. There’s a little icon by the page indicator to switch to color.

One particular favorite that I’ve run across is Edward William Grinfield’s Scholia Hellenistica in Novum Testamentum: Philone ed Josepho Patribus Apostolicis allisq. Ecclesiae Antiquae Scriptoribus Necnon Libris Apocryphis Maxime Depromta. Huh? It indexes cross references between the NT and several non-NT books (Philo, Josephus, Fathers). Pretty cool.

Check it out, remember it is still in development, and make sure to leave some feedback at the specified email address (books@logos.com).

J. Harold Greenlee, The Text of the New Testament (amazon.com). Hendrickson 2008. 130pp. ISBN 1598562401.

Thanks to Hendrickson Academic for sending along the review copy (amazon.com).

This is a slim volume (130 pp.) that gives a very basic, very general background to the practice of textual criticism as applied to the Greek New Testament.

First off, it is probably best to say what this book is not: It is not, from all I can tell, intended to compete with the similarly-named volumes from Metzger (now Ehrman/Holmes) or Aland & Aland (tr. Erroll Rhodes). Those are both more academic and comprehensive introductions to textual criticism. Greenlee is geared toward a completely different audience. In this, I think Greenlee’s book is unfortunately named because it will, I believe, be misjudged by textual critics. Actually, it already has been. It was reviewed by the Review of Biblical Literature by none other than Keith Elliott, and was not reviewed positively. After this, it was discussed on the Evangelical Textual Criticism blog (here for a comment by Greenlee on Elliott’s review, also here and here for Elliott’s response to Greenlee; check the comments of all posts too).

Despite all of that, to understand Greenlee’s book, one must understand the audience he intends to hit. He is not aiming at an academic audience. This much is obvious in the second paragraph of the book blurb (from Amazon.com, emphasis is mine):

Geared to the lay person who is uninformed or confused about textual criticism, Greenlee begins this volume by explaining the production of ancient manuscripts. He then traces the history of the development of the New Testament text. Readers are next introduced to the basic principles of textual criticism, the concept of variant readings, and how to determine which variant has the greatest likelihood of being the original reading. To illustrate the basic principles, several sample New Testament texts are examined. The book concludes by putting textual criticism in perspective as involving only a minute portion of the entire New Testament text, the bulk of which is indisputably attested by the manuscripts.

This is important to understanding what Greenlee is up to in this book. I’d highly recommend that any pastor/teacher keep Greenlee’s Text of the New Testament (amazon.com) on his short list (near the top, if not at the top) of books to recommend to parishioners who ask questions like: “Why is the KJV New Testament different in spots, and does it matter?” or “Why are there all of these footnotes about ‘other manuscripts’, and what do they mean?” Greenlee’s book is short, to the point, and is pretty much the anti-Ehrman. It will build up, not destroy, the faith of the one asking the questions. (For the record, I’d also put Comfort’s New Testament Text and Translation Commentary (amazon.com) on that pastor/teacher’s short list of books to recommend).

If Greenlee intended to write a book to make textual critics happy, to compete with standards like Metzger and Aland & Aland, then he surely failed, and Elliott’s review is spot-on. But Greenlee didn’t do that. He wrote a book for the average person, sitting in the pew, with some basic questions about the text. Greenlee paints in broad strokes and gives general answers to the questions, which is what his desired audience needs.

Academics and textual critics can continue to nitpick Greenlee’s book, but don’t pay attention to them. If you need something on textual criticism for a basic layperson audience, Greenlee is your go-to book.

A side note: Greenlee is no slouch; check out the range of topics he has authored on over the years.

In the “what have I been doing lately” column:

First, I’ve been doing a lot of blogging at PastoralEpistles.com. I’ve done a lot of work translating and evaluating 2Ti 1.1-2.7 (at present) and will continue to work on it until I’ve worked through the whole letter. You may want to check out the posts.

Second, I’ve been doing a lot of reading in Peter Lampe’s From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries (amazon.com). This is an awesome book, I can’t recommend it highly enough. I’ve learned more about the cultural milieu of early Christians, and more about Christians in early Rome, than I knew was possible. Just the few pages on Priscilla and Aquila are worth it.

Third, my friend Bobby Koduvalil at Hendrickson Academic set me up with a few books. First is J. Harold Greenlee’s The Text of the New Testament: From Manuscript to Modern Edition. This is a thin volume and from what I can tell is geared toward the guy who realizes that his NASB New Testament is inexplicably different from his KJV New Testament and wants to figure out why. It is most certainly not an academic introduction to textual criticism, it is an introduction geared toward the laity. As such, it will make most text-critics cringe. But that’s good. From what I’ve read so far, Greenlee hits his audience, and most of what he says is defensible in that context. Introduction, TOC and Sample Chapter are all online at Hendrickson’s web site, hit the book page and scroll to the bottom for links to those bad boys. Second is Steve Mason’s Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins: Methods and Categories, which is a compilation of several other articles Mason has written over the years, organized and somewhat edited into a new volume. Mason is a top-notch scholar and a nice guy to boot, and I’m really looking forward to reading this one — though it’ll be after Lampe (amazon.com) & Greenlee. I’ll blog about both of these books as I read more.

Fourth, in the past month I’ve installed the following Logos Bible Software and have already received benefit from most of it:

• Lexham Greek-English Interlinear Septuagint
• Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament
• Theological Lexicon of the New Testament
• Lexham Analytical Lexicon of the New Testament
• Socio-Rhetorical Commentary Series (7 vols from Witherington, one from deSilva)
• Old Testament Greek Pseudepigrapha with Morphology
• Ellicot’s commentaries on:
• Pastoral Epistles
• Galatians
• Ephesians
• 1&2 Thessalonians
• 1 Corinthians

Fifth, since it has been lighter later, I’ve been able to take a few walks with our nearly-two-year-old daughter Ella after getting home from work. It’s still cold, but we brave it for a little while. She like to pick up a rock right when we start, and hold onto it the whole way. She also likes to keep me informed of when she sees birds, dogs, cats, dirt, trucks, cars, and busses. All in all, a hoot of a time.

Here’s a groovy interactive map. And here’s some background:

In the Jan–Feb 2009 issue of Bible Study Magazine, Dr. Craig C. Broyles discussed the Greek Historian Herodotus’ account of Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah and the prophetic perspectives of Isaiah and Micah. This built upon his discussion in the Nov–Dec 2008 issue of the record of the events in 2 Kgs 18–19 and Sennacherib’s own account in a prism discovered in his palace. In this issue, Dr. Broyles tells us how we should respond to these diverse, discrepant accounts, and reflects on what these events tell us about the prophetic word of God.

The case of Assyrian King Sennacherib’s invasion into Hezekiah’s Judah in 701 BC is one of the best-documented and most controversial events in the Bible and in archaeology.

It was three years ago today that Amy and I sat on the beach at Semiahmoo, and I asked her to marry me. I still praise God today that she said "Yes!"

I love you, Amy, and life with you is incredible. I wouldn't trade it for anything, and I can't wait to see where God is leading us!

Before I start this, I should say that I greatly appreciate Bill Mounce and all of the work he's done. It's not easy to write a first-year grammar that anyone besides yourself can productively use. And have you ever really dug into his Morphology of Biblical Greek book? While not my cup of tea, there's an astounding amount of work and understanding distilled in there. So Bill, if you ever read this, know I greatly appreciate your efforts.

But did anyone else skim the Koinonia blog "Mondays with Mounce" this week and find themselves saying "huh?" after the first few paragraphs? Here's the text I'm talking about:

In Mark 5:7 the demon says to Jesus, "I adjure you by God (horkizo se ton theon), do not torment me" (ESV). The TNIV says, "In God’s name don’t torture me!" There are two issues here. The accusative ton theon is an accusative of oath, the name by which the oath is taken. That is why you can translate an accusative with "by," an idea normally connected with the dative.

The other issue is horkizo. BDAG lists its meaning as, "to give a command to someone under oath, adjure, implore." It is more than just a command or a strong request from the demon. The demon wants Jesus to take an oath not to torment him. This explains the "adjure" and "In God’s name." Pretty bold of the demon—asking the Son of God to swear an oath in the name of God.

The bold part is the part that threw me. An "accusative of oath"? Now, I have to admit, I don't have Wallace's grammar handy, so I don't know if he actually lists that one in his accusative categories. But the translation logic, at least as written and briefly argued here, astounds me: We are permitted to translate the accusative with "by" in this instance because τον θεον is an "accusative of oath"? Actually, I guess we're permitted to translate the accusative article τον with "by" because of this label?

Funny, I thought the verb ορκιζω had something to do with that. There's nothing about τον θεον in and of itself here that would cause one to label it as "accusative of oath". We know oaths are involved here because ... well ... the verb ορκιζω is put in the mouth of the demon. In other words, it's the context, not just the accusative.

While we typically wouldn't use "by" to put a Greek accusative structure to English, for some reason the Greeks did use accusatives in such contexts. The Greeks used one particular structure to accomplish this; in English we use a different structure. It doesn't mean we need to give it a fancy label to clue us in to "English" it as if we are translating a standard Greek dative into English; like we need to appeal somewhere for permission or something. We just need to understand the whole structure.

True, BDF §149 describes "Accusative with verbs of fearing, etc., and of swearing", including Mk 5.7 as an example (though in a section on "The Simple Accusative of the Object", not as double accusative, which is discussed in §§155-158). Robertson (p. 483, XI.VII(i)), at least at the point cited by BDAG, takes the causative route here and notes the double accusative in that context.

But all of that stymies me. I'm really supposed to know (and recall?) all that hooey before I can translate ὁρκίζω σε τὸν θεόν as "I implore you by God"? The label doesn't help me understand the Greek any better, it gives one shorthand to English it (lemma + parsing/declension + force labels == English translation). Actually, I may even be understanding the Greek less because I'm relying on the label to tell me how to English something instead of actually understanding the Greek itself. Doesn't the occurrence of ορκιζω along with the double accusative (σε + τον θεον) clue me in to something different going on without having to label the blasted thing "accusative of oath"?

You know, I'm liking some aspects of Robertson's grammar more and more each time I pull it off of my Logos Bible Software bookshelf.

But I don't begrudge BDF for including §149; it is very useful for the information it provides. I do, however, begrudge the notion that I need to have a label in order to justify a translation, because the labels quickly move from explanation of translation to prescription for translation. It's not, "Oh, oaths and stuff, particularly ορκιζω, are "causative" verbs, and they typically take double accusatives — so they get translated like so-and-so" (and yes, I'm not even really a fan of calling the verb "causative"); it is "well this is an accusative of oath, so we translate it using 'by'". Assigning the label becomes the task, with understanding (and translation) following; when the reverse of that process should really be what's going on.

So, in closing, I'll again say I appreciate Bill Mounce's work. And I'll end the post with some words from (near) the end of his post:

The point is this: languages are not codes. You can’t go neatly from one into the other. Words don’t have exactly the same meanings, and neither do grammatical constructions. All translation is both science and art.