While at SBL in New Orleans this year, my friend Bobby Koduvalil at Hendrickson handed me a new book by Michael Bird (who blogs at Euangelion) called Crossing Over Sea and Land: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (amazon.com). Bobby said he thought it would be right up my alley.

Bobby was right. I’ve not read the whole book yet, but when I wasn’t snoozing on the plane(s) on the way home, I was engrossed in Bird’s work. There were times where it seemed like I’d only read three pages, but when I looked at the page number, I’d really read about eight pages. This happened more than once, and it’s the sign of a well-written book.

The book is just over 200 pages, with index, but don’t let that fool you. It’s worth reading if you’re at all interested in the subject, or in tangential subjects such as (as I am). Bird works over the available sources (primary and secondary) with economy and precision. No long, drawn-out, yawn-inducing diatribes.

Hope to blog about it at least once more when I make it through the main text of the book. But even now, I’d say it’s worth your time to read.

Advent is swiftly coming upon us. Earlier this fall, I spent some time to write a short daily devotional for use during the advent season.

It is organized by the readings of the Revised Common Lectionary (Year C). Each week’s readings are broken into daily portions, and each day has a short series of questions along with short answers.

My purpose for doing this was to have something for my family to start to read through as a family devotional during the advent season. The questions and answers are hopefully appropriate for such a setting. In reality, the questions (and moreso the answers) are just guidelines — training wheels, if you’d like to think of them that way — the hope is just to stimulate some sort of advent-centered discussion around the day/week readings.

My church (Grace Church Bellingham) is actually publishing copies of this via Lulu.com for families who would like to use it during the advent season. So if you attend you’ll be able to get a copy soon (hopefully before advent starts!)

Otherwise, for everyone else — or if you just wanted a preview — I wanted to post it on the blog. I’d love to have any feedback, good or bad. Just remember it isn’t written as a theological tome, but rather to provoke reflection during the season of advent, where we anticipate the return of our Savior!

Here it is: Advent Devotional

This is a bit of a tag-along to my previous post on Mt 17.8.

No extended discussion, just text. First, the Greek from the NA27 for Jn 5.19. I’m interested in the second half of the verse.

19 Ἀπεκρίνατο οὖν ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς· ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, οὐ δύναται ὁ υἱὸς ποιεῖν ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ οὐδὲν ἐὰν μή τι βλέπῃ τὸν πατέρα ποιοῦντα· ἃ γὰρ ἂν ἐκεῖνος ποιῇ, ταῦτα καὶ ὁ υἱὸς ὁμοίως ποιεῖ. (Jn 5.19, NA27)

Next, from the NIV:

19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.  (Jn 5.19, NIV)

The only difference in the TNIV is “Very truly I tell you” instead of “I tell you the truth”.

Here’s the same verse in the present draft of John’s gospel for the Lexham English Bible (LEB) which is being published electronically by Logos Bible Software (my employer; further disclaimer that I’m deeply involved in the project). The draft of John isn’t public yet, but Romans-Revelation has been released (and is in Logos 4!) and a little birdie told me that Matthew and Mark may be released in the next few weeks, at which point an auto-update will distribute the updated resource and reverse interlinear to all who have it.

Anyway, here’s John 5.19 in the LEB:

19 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, the Son can do nothing from himself except what he sees the Father doing. For whatever that one does, these [things] also the Son does likewise. (Jn 5.19, LEB [draft])

So, the NIV supplies “the Father” as the demonstrative pronoun. OK. That’s fine (though I would prefer keeping the demonstrative). The kicker is in the end of the verse: NIV has “the Son also does” which conveys the basics; a more literal approach like the one taken by the LEB kicks it home: “these things also the Son does likewise.” The repetition is important, and it just kind of gets lost here in the NIV (and TNIV). For comparison, here’s the ESV (which conveys some of the repetition):

19 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. (Jn 5.19, ESV)

And here’s the NASB, which does better:

19 Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. (Jn 5.19, NASB95)

And, to round it out, here’s the NET, which is very close to the ESV:

5:19 So Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, the Son can do nothing on his own initiative, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. (Jn 5.19, NET)

OK, so you know, I’m not going to be one of those guys who only complains about a particular translation. Translation is hard work. Good translation is even more difficult. And the NIV is a good translation. (There, I said it, and I stand by it). But one of the things I look for in a translation (for my own purposes, which may not align with everyone else’s) is transparency. That is, transparency to the underlying text. It doesn’t have to be word-for-word literal; sound like Yoda it must not. But it should also be somewhat transparent to the underlying text. What, like it wasn’t somewhat repetitious to the Greeks reading it and hearing it initially? Of course it was. That’s the point, and that’s why I like to see stuff like this come through in a translation as well.

It’s stuff like Matthew 17.8. Here’s the NIV:

“When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.”

While this does communicate the basics, it completely blandifies the underlying text. Yes, I verbed “bland”. And you completely understood it.

Here’s the context: Jesus has just been up on the mountain with his three primary dudes, Peter, James and John. While they were up there, Moses and Elijah show up, and Jesus, Mo’ and Eli get to talkin’. The disciples are freaking out. Then a cloud surrounds them, and a voice shouts out from the cloud (it’s God) and it says that Jesus is his son, and he’s pretty daggum awesome, and that everyone should listen to Jesus. The disciples are more freaked, they fall face down to the ground, and are probably pretty sure they’re gonna die.

After this, we have vv. 7-8. The NIV, again: “but Jesus came and touched them. ‘Get up,’ he said. ‘Don’t be afraid.’ When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.”

Yeah, that’s a great ending to the story. Not. That is super bland, and while it communicates the basics of what happened, it has no soul. There is no life to it. Here’s the Greek (the Greek the NIV is based on in this verse has no variations from the NA/UBS text):

7 καὶ προσῆλθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς καὶ ἁψάμενος αὐτῶν εἶπεν· ἐγέρθητε καὶ μὴ φοβεῖσθε. 8 ἐπάραντες δὲ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτῶν οὐδένα εἶδον εἰ μὴ αὐτὸν Ἰησοῦν μόνον. (Mt 17.7-8)

And a rather wooden translation, but you get the gist. Pay particular attention to the end of v. 8:

7 and Jesus came, and touching them he said: “Get up, and do not be afraid!” 8 and lifting up their eyes, they saw nobody except him: Jesus alone.

So, in vv. 1-6, Peter, James and John basically thought they were gonna die and were scared out of their wits. They hid, they shook, and they covered their eyes, likely hoping it would just end. They were freaked. If you read vv. 1-6 carefully, even in the NIV, you can tell that this is somethin’ mighty strange and fearful going on. Moses and Elijah chattin’ with Jesus; this funky cloud surrounds them and the voice of God booms from it? I’d cower on the ground and hide my face too! But in vv. 7-8, all of a sudden all that stuff is gone. Verse 8 underscores this, and that’s why it makes it so plain that only Jesus (no cloud, no Moses, no Elijah) is there. They’re gone. Only Jesus is with them.

There’s no reason to not include the “alone” in the translation. Is it technically redundant in the English, communicating information already known? Yes, but that’s the point. That’s why it’s in the Greek: to highlight this information so you know it is important. It also (and perhaps more importantly) keeps the sense of wonder that is present throughout the passage — you get the sense, even at the end, that Peter, James and John still really don't know what's going on even though the cloud and Mo' and Eli are gone (vanished, even).

To be fair to the NIV-folk, you can find stuff like this in every translation in every language ever done. (Even translations I’ve done!) But when I happen to see it in cases like this, it just makes me wonder what the translation committee was thinking.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

I never realized that both Matthew and Hermas use αλλην παραβολην (or some form thereof) to indicate a shift to a new parable.

• Matthew: Mt 13.24, 31, 33; 21.33
• Hermas: Sim II; III; IV; V (Hermas 51-54 in the BCV scheme)

Current Epigraphy reports a new blog started up at Oxford’s Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents (CSAD).

The CSAD blog reports “First Texts from MAMA XI Available”:

The first sample texts from the MAMA (Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua) XI project have been posted online. The project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), will publish approximately 600 new inscriptions recorded by Sir William Calder and Dr Michael Ballance in Phrygia, Lycaonia and Cappadocia. The first two inscriptions come from Akmoneia in central Phrygia and Brouzos in the Phrygian Pentapolis.

Monuments, epigraphs, etc. are a very important source for understanding ancient cultures, particularly Asia minor (aka the Mediterranean). This was driven home to me when reading Peter Lampe’s From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries. There’s not much on the MAMA XI site yet (two texts, complete with Epidoc source) but any contributions in this area are very welcome.

I know, like the world needs yet another translation of the Didache. But I wanted to do it, so here it is: The Didache: A Translation with Notes.

Now, I’ve worked through the text of the Didache before, and have placed a translation on my web site before. This, however, is a new translation (albeit influenced by previous work). Here’s the preface.

I've worked through the text of the Didache before (see my Phrasal Interlinear) but that work was done over one year, in fits and starts, and it shows. I wanted to work through the text again, only this time in a much shorter time period and, hopefully, with a bit more consistency. Thus, in August 2009 I once again worked through the text of the Didache.

While this translation is indebted to my earlier work on the Phrasal Interlinear, the translation is new and not a simple revision. I have consulted existing translations (Lake, Lightfoot, Holmes, Ehrman and Varner) and lexica (BDAG, Louw and Nida, LSJ, Spicq) along the way and they have been most helpful. Additionally, several notes on matters of translation, textual criticism and cross references to the New Testament have been added. Much like myself, this translation is a work in progress. It will be revised, particularly with an eye to matters of punctuation and paragraphing.

On translation philosophy, my hope is to be readable yet somewhat transparent to the underlying Greek text. Thus some places may be awkward to the reader, yet this awkwardness hopefully points to phrase, clause and discourse structures in the original. I have used [square brackets] to indicate where English words are supplied to assist in the translation. Similarly, {curly braces} indicate either an idiom or where a series of Greek words was smoothed into something not immediately transparent. In all {curly brace} instances, the underlying “literal” text is provided in a footnote.

It is my prayer that those who read this translation will find it useful, and will be able to get a glimpse into the thought and practice of those earliest days of the Christian church, and be encouraged by the steadiness and grace of our Lord.

Once again, the link: The Didache: A Translation with Notes. I’d love to know what you think about it. Interested in any other writings of the Apostolic Fathers? I’m thinking of doing the Greek portions of Polycarp to the Philippians next.

The Nov/Dec issue of Bible Study Magazine has the following:

Brannan, Rick with John D. Barry, “The New Testament Didn’t Drop Out of Heaven” Bible Study Magazine 2, no. 1 (November/December 2009): 30-31.

It’s in the “What They Don’t Teach You In Church” column and is a very short article (heavy on graphics) that introduces the concept of NT manuscripts and their numbers, particularly in comparison to available MSS of other corpora.

If you already have Logos 4, you can already see the primary graphic in the Logos Bible Software Infographics resource. [NB: Link is to a video on YouTube displaying the infographics resource]