It’s funny when you notice things that scribes noticed as well.

I was reading through Acts and came across Acts 9.23-25:

23 When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.  (Acts 9:23–25, ESV)

I thought, “huh. Didn’t realize Saul had disciples.” Here’s the Greek of v. 25:

25 λαβόντες δὲ οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ νυκτὸς διὰ τοῦ τείχους καθῆκαν αὐτὸν χαλάσαντες ἐν σπυρίδι. (Ac 9.25, NA27)

Then I looked at the NA27 apparatus to see if there were variants here. Other people have thought the same thing I did, and figured they needed to fix it.

Some MSS simply remove αὐτοῦ thus removing the issue with “his” (“and the disciples took him by night”). Others change οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ to αυτον οἱ μαθηταὶ, thus making explicit the formerly implicit object “him” in “took him by night” and removing the “his” from “his disciples”). Note that the text behind the KJV follows this latter option: “Then the disciples took him by night”.

Ain’t this fun?

It’s up, and it is excellent. Check out Doug Chaplin’s blog Clayboy for the details. Thanks for putting it together, Doug, and thanks for the links (to some Logos4 posts [here and here] , a post on the NIV, and a link to my new Didache translation).

In other news, in “The Biblioblog Top 50” for November 2009, ricoblog zooms up the charts from 128 to squeak just inside the top 50 at 43. That’s 85 spots. I guess I got some traffic from that Logos4 post. I’m sure I’ll be out of the top 50 next month.

One of the coolest, sweetest, daggumest features of Logos 4 is presently in beta. It is a search result view called “datasheet” that allows you to sort/filter search results with all known data about a word.

An example: Working through the text of John, I recently noticed his affinity for qualifying an item/idea as “mine” or “yours” using an article with the possessive pronoun. Jn 18.36 is probably the easiest example:

36 ἀπεκρίθη Ἰησοῦς· ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου· εἰ ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου τούτου ἦν ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμή, οἱ ὑπηρέται οἱ ἐμοὶ ἠγωνίζοντο [ἂν] ἵνα μὴ παραδοθῶ τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις· νῦν δὲ ἡ βασιλεία ἡ ἐμὴ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐντεῦθεν. (Jn 18.36, NA27, bold added)

So, I ran a syntax search to find these. Cool. But I wanted to get a better picture of the data and play with it. So I ran a morph search (syntax search results are not supported *yet* in datasheet view, but I hear that’s on the development schedule) for “@D BEFORE 1 word @RS” limited to John (article directly before a possessive pronoun). Datasheet view of the results gives me an Excel-like grid that I can manipulate/sort to my hearts content. With data for each word like previous/next context, lemma, morphological categories, louw-nida info … you get the idea (try it with a reverse interlinear some time).

Click on that thumbnail. Have fun. Here I have a hierarchical sort of the results going by lemma, then by part of speech, then by case of the item. The grouping is then sorted by previous context so I can get an idea of what is being modified by the article/pronoun phrase.

This is serious coolness.

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)