Weblog

On the Web: Cliff Johnson reproduces, with permission, C. S. Lewis’s keen essay “Meditation in a Toolshed.” The Society of Biblical Literature releases Klaus Wachtel and Michael Holmes, ed., The Textual History of the Greek New Testament: Changing Views in Contemporary Research, about which Tommy Wasserman provides some additional information and links. Andy provides the tables of contents for this year’s Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters ( spring, fall). Courtesy of Broadman and Holman, the Evangelical Theological Society now has its own program apps available in the App Store and Android Market. The Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts has released a DVD of the recent Ehrman-Wallace debate (HT: Tommy Wasserman). Jim Davila comments on a recent article about the Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Project.

On the web: Larry Hurtado discusses historical Jesus research. Brian LePort notes that Kevin Vanhoozer has returned to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Jim Davila highlights a Jerusalem Post article on the significance of the Talmud for liberal arts education. The bibliobloggers decide on a time and place to meet for dinner during the SBL Annual Meeting. Through November 16, the Westminster Bookstore is offering Köstenberger and Patterson’s new Invitation to Biblical Interpretation(Kregel, 2011) for 50% off. A sample PDF containing, the endorsements, the table of contents, the first chapter, and part of the second chapter are available from the book’s product page.

On the web: David Croteau compiles a recent Liberty University symposium on Bible translation, featuring Ray Clendenen (HCSB), Wayne Grudem (ESV), and Douglas Moo (NIV; HT: Rod Decker). Michael Kruger discusses the Gospels’ authorship (HT: Brian LePort). Tim Henderson highlights a new German edition of Hennecke-Schneemelcher’s Christian Apocrypha. Charles Jones reflects on the first year of Ancient World Online.

Yesterday’s review of the Chronicle of Higher Education collects several interesting articles about distance learning. Among the open-access articles listed are: Robert Mendenhall, “How Technology Can Improve Online Learning—and Learning in General” Shai Reshef, “No Tuition? No Problem.” Burck Smith, “Let’s Deregulate Online Learning” Derek Bruff, “A Social Network Can Be a Learning Network” Ari Kohen, “From Homeric Writings to Cellphone Forensics, Some Favorite Online Resources” Although potential gains need to be weighed especially carefully in relation to potential losses in some of the applications Bruff describes (e.g., “Back channels”), from this list, Bruff’s thoughts about employing collaborative technologies seemed especially intriguing. ...

On the web: The Nomad Podcast interviews N. T. Wright (HT: Brian LePort). Michael Halcomb discusses “‘Appealing To The Greek’ or ‘How (Not) To Do A Word Study.’” Tommy Wasserman considers Bart Ehrman and intrinsic evidence. Michael Bird highlights a performance of Hebrews. Robert Holmstedt comments on biblical Hebrew diachrony. Charles Jones notes papyri images online at the University of Groningen.

On the web: Matthew Montonini locates an archive of C. K. Barrett lectures at Asbury Seminary. Robert Woods responds to Paul Gottfried, supplementing Jason Jewell’s earlier response. Tommy Wasserman argues for the originality of the phrase υἱοῦ θεοῦ (son of God) in Mark 1:1 (HT: Mark Batluck). Tim Gombis comments on Rom 3:27 as presenting different interpretive options for Torah and follows up by considering how Rom 3:21–31 relates God’s supremacy to the church’s unity. Larry Hurtado freshly commends James Barr’s Semantics of Biblical Language in its 50th anniversary year.

The latest issue of the Bulletin for Biblical Research arrived in yesterday’s mail and includes: Andrew Malone, “Distinguishing the Angel of the Lord” Richard Hess, “The Seventy Sevens of Daniel 9: A Timetable for the Future?” Craig Keener, " Otho: A Targeted Comparison of Suetonius’s Biography and Tacitus’s History, with Implications for the Gospels’ Historical Reliability" Jason Hood, “The Temple and the Thorn: 2 Corinthians 12 and Paul’s Heavenly Ecclesiology” Everett Ferguson, “Angels of the Churches in Revelation 1–3: Status Quaestionis and Another Proposal”

On the web: Larry Hurtado discusses the “staurogram.” Jason Jewell considers Paul Gottfried’s recent article on the “Death of the Classics.” Rod Decker notes an erratum in BDF. Mike Aubrey survey’s G. B. Winer’s Greek Grammar (English trans., 1825). LibreOffice announces a prototype web application version. Amazon releases some key updates for how Kindle 3 and 4 handle personal documents. Matthew Montonini considers some comments from Epictetus on the proper treatment of slaves.

On the web: Michael Bird and Marc Cortez discuss comments from D. A. Carson and Tim Keller about confessionalism. Mark Goodacre discusses “The Walking, Talking Cross in the Gospel of Peter.” Brian LePort identifies some favorite scholar-bloggers and solicits thoughts about other academics who might be engaging to have in the biblioblogosphere. Tim Gombis comments on an excerpt from N. T. Wright’s 1978 Tyndale lecture.

[caption id=“attachment_8406” align=“alignright” width=“200” caption=“Image via Communio”] [/caption] Earlier this semester in Exploring Religion, we discussed Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods, and one paragraph particularly struck me as an apt illustration of Qoheleth’s advice that עת לחשות ועת לדבר ( Eccl 3:7b; there is a time to be silent, and there is a time to speak): ...

On the web: Larry Hurtado discusses scholarly amnesia in Pauline Studies. Charles Jones mentions Poorly Attested Words in Ancient Greek, the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, and Digital Medievalist. The Biblical Archaeology Review has launched a new website about the Dead Sea Scrolls, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Why They Matter (HT: Jim Davila). The British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts site now has ten new 13th–17th century manuscripts (HT: Julian Harrison).

As they have for some others already, most of my Perseus collection downloads for Logos have recently been processed. Below are a few particularly anticipated texts from these collections: [caption id=“attachment_8343” align=“aligncenter” width=“497” caption=“Click for the full-size image.”] [/caption]

After recently transitioning to Ubuntu, I found that my previous online backup solution had some issues running in Linux, even via a Windows XP virtual machine in VirtualBox. With some additional research, however, I came across Digital Lifeboat: ...

Over at the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeffrey Selingo discusses what might change in higher education if engineers were assigned to reinvent it from the ground up. Some points that emerged at a recent kick-off event for Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities were: ...

The Flammarion woodcut is an enigmatic wood en… Jim Davila has picked up a discussion about ancient testimony to the earth’s spherical shape. Cicero also, by way of his Stoic character Balbus, comments to this effect, saying, [T]he sea, which is above the earth, tends still toward the earth’s centre, and so is itself shaped in conformity to the globe of the earth and nowhere spills or overflows. ( 171; affiliate disclosure; italics added) ...

On the web: Peter Williams picks up Alin Suciu’s story about the British Library’s Coptic leaf that corresponds to the text of Jer. 21:14–22:20 (LXX). Charles Jones notes the Latin texts and database that the Packard Humanities Institute has newly made available. Michael Bird includes about a 47-minute lecture of N. T. Wright “giv[ing] a C. S. Lewis-style apologetic of a Christian society filled with good Christians as being one of the best apologetics there are.” Daniel Streett compares Greek curriculum requirements for MDiv students with modern language requirements for area majors at two other sample institutions. Today sees the release of Seth Ehorn’s Philemon commentary in the Evangelical Exegetical Commentary series.

[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“175” caption=“Image via Wikipedia”] [/caption] Tyndale House has done some wonderful work making very helpful resources available online, but today, I stumbled upon the following that I had forgotten or not noticed before: The Tyndale Bulletin is available in full-text from volume 1 forward, excepting the last three years’ issues. The Tyndale House library catalog will return search results that include works available online in full-text. The library’s periodicals section also contains a number of links to journals with full-text articles available online. ...

As noted earlier, Logos Bible Software is working on releasing over 3000 texts from the Perseus Project for free to Logos 4 users. Included here is Perseus’s substantive collection of Greek and Latin classics and their translations. This collection also offers access to Perseus’s dictionaries and lexica and integrated searching with the rest of a user’s Logos library. For further details, see here. ...

On the web: Mel Gibson is apparently planning a movie about Judas Maccabee (HT: John Byron). Google Docs adds a comment-only permission option for document sharing. Alan Bandy discusses the phrase ἐκ πίστεως εἰς πίστιν in Rom 1:17 and Augustine’s eschatology.

On the web: Daniel Streett comments on Gen 5:21–24. Logos Bible Software will continue Logos 4 upgrade discounts only through the end of this month. Jason Jewell comments on the open-source mindset and the virtue of charity. Larry Hurtado discusses PhD studies in North America and the United Kingdom. Holly pays tribute to Michael Hart, the founder of Project Gutenberg, who passed away this week. Cynthia Nielsen continues discussing Dialectic of Enlightenment and its proposal about the relationship between demythologization and remythologization.

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include: Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Studies A. Graeme Auld and Erik Eynikel, eds., For and against David: Story and History in the Books of Samuel, reviewed by Frank H. Polak Christa Schäfer-Lichtenberger, ed., Die Samuelbücher und die Deuteronomisten, reviewed by Graeme Auld New Testament and Cognate Studies ...

On the web: Mike Aubrey notes Daniel Streett’s new blog and his comments on reading Greek, and Daniel comments on this question also. Charles Jones notes that Scripture Bulletin is openly accessible online. Rod Decker ponders Mark 14:37.

Apparently, the article that Brian Tucker recently mentioned is part of a series of articles appearing in Bibliotheca Sacra this year, which look like they are providing the written corollaries to Klyne Snodgrass’s earlier lecture series at Dallas Theological Seminary. ...

On the web: Bob Cargill highlights Eric Kansa, Sarah Kansa, and Ethan Watrall, eds., Archaeology 2.0: New Approaches to Communication & Collaboration, which is now freely available online through the University of California. Steve Runge discusses discourse continuity and cohesion. Evernote maintains its existing maximum attachment sizes but lifts file type restrictions from their free accounts.

[caption id=“attachment_8056” align=“alignright” width=“80” caption=“D. A. Carson and Douglas Moo, ed. Andrew Naselli”] [/caption] A while back, the kind folks at Zondervan forwarded a survey about their Textbook Plus website, and in return for some feedback there, D. A. Carson and Douglas Moo, Introducing the New Testament, edited by Andrew Naselli (2010), arrived in yesterday’s mail. The text is “a condensation of [the] longer and more detailed . . . An Introduction to the New Testament(D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo [2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005]) ( 7). ...

On the web: Charles Jones notes that Exemplaria Classica, a journal for classical textual criticism and codicology, is open access online for all but the most recent volume. Cynthia Nielsen discussess Dialectic of Enlightenment and its proposal about the relationship between demythologization and remythologization. Robert Woods reflects on some selections from Heraclitus. Steve Caruso highlights Tom Verenna’s video about the Jordanian lead codices. The Center for the Study of Christian Origins has some links to new Roman-era finds near Edinburgh, some of which are relevant to the study of Mithraism in Britain ( part 1, part 2). Brice Jones has the newest article in the Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism: “The Bodmer ‘Miscellaneous’ Codex and the Crosby-Schøyen Codex MS 193: A New Proposal.”

NT Blog turns eight today, and Mark Goodacre also notes that the German Bible Society has made the main texts of BHS, Septuaginta (ed. Hanhart), and NA27 available online.

Through its Academic Bible website’s homepage, the German Bible Society is offering a free download of the brochure Textual Research on the Bible: Introductions to the Scholarly Editions of the German Bible Society. The Society envisions that the brochure will provide insight into this fascinating field of research. We have particularly in mind the interests of first-year students, who might benefit from a basic introduction like this. Thus we invite lecturers of exegesis and textual criticism to make use of this brochure in their classrooms. (Letter from the German Bible Society and Nida Institute) ...

On the web: Google Docs can now display page numbers in documents themselves and not just on a printed or PDF copy. Google Chrome Frame now has a beta version that does not require administrative privileges to install. The third edition of Emmanuel Tov’s Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible should be available around November 1 (HT: Peter Williams). Ben Witherington’s Is There a Doctor in the House? is apparently now available on Kindle (HT: Mark Stevens), although the printed text from Amazon is still forthcoming. Steve Caruso continues discussing the Jordanian lead codices. Zotero releases some significant updates to their 3.0 beta. Peter Head reports that the Green Collection at Bethel University has acquired a new 1 Corinthians manuscript in addition to the Hebrews manuscript that had already been announced. Logos Bible Software adds The Babylonian Talmud: Original Text, Edited, Corrected, Formulated and Translated into English (19 vols.) to their community pricing program.

[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“300” caption=“Image via Wikipedia”] [/caption] Today, Google has released an Offline Gmail web app, which uses HTML5 in place of the now-deprecated Google Gears. Similar offline access for the Calendar and Docs apps is available through these apps’ settings, but offline editing in Docs is apparently still in the works. ...