Software certainly can’t replace expertise when filtering through text-critical data. But it can provide some useful assistance in pulling that data together.
For an overview of some of the text-critical tools available in Logos Bible Software ( affiliate disclosure), check out the overview in this video for how to use the textual criticism section in the exegetical guide.
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The notorious statement, “The party (or the Leader) is always right” is not wrong because it claims that a certain leadership is superior, but because it serves to shield the leadership, by a dictatorial decree, from any criticism that might be true. ( 389n22)
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Software that supports biblical and theological scholarship can be pricey, but Mark Hoffman has helpfully collected links to trial versions.
Matthew Bates argues that faith or believing is not mere assent, not easy believism, but covenantal loyalty to the God who saves his people through the Lord Jesus Christ. Bates forces us to rethink the meaning of faith, the gospel, and works with a view to demonstrating their significance for true Christian discipleship. This will be a controversial book, but perhaps it is the controversy we need!
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Larry Hurtado has recently uploaded the published version of his inaugural lecture, “New Testament Studies at the Turn of the Millennium: Questions for the Discipline.” For the lecture file, see his “Selected Published Essays etc.” page.
My Logos Bible Software homepage recently popped up this helpful overview of the “collections” feature.
Over at Becoming Minimalist, Joshua Becker offers some personal introspection on a paradigmatic case of forgetting a couple’s names. In part, Becker narrates,
I was sad that I wasn’t able to remember something as simple as the names of two people I very much enjoyed meeting.
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And suddenly it struck me.
I entered the conversation—as I do so often—with the desire to be known rather than to know. I was trying so hard to say something impressive or witty or intelligent that I entirely missed what they were saying on the other side of the conversation.
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Kirk Lowery has recently rebooted his blogsite, The Empirical Humanist, with entries thus far on topics including manuscript transcription, Google indexing, and (of course) language.
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March’s free and reduced-price companion volumes from Faithlife include:
Logos: Paula Gooder, This Risen Existence: The Spirit of Easter, and for $1.99, Dennis Ngien, Fruit for the Soul: Luther on the Lament Psalms Verbum: Bonaventure, The Life of Saint Francis, and for $0.99, Bonaventure, Mystical Opuscula
...Peter Gurry has recently shared the video recording provided via the Leverhulme Project of the Copper Scroll’s opening.
Discussion of the recent Qumran-vicinity cave finds since the previous post tracking the story here includes:
What seems to be shaping up as the key question about the status of this new find’s designation as “Cave 12” is the question “What makes a cave worthy of inclusion inside the numbering?"—actual textual finds tied to the location or simply a strong possibility that ancient texts were once located in the cave? Barring additional news about thus-far undisclosed contents from this cave, the apparently blank parchment showing text under multispectral examination, or known texts’ being re-provenanced to this cave, it seems more in keeping with the criteria applied to derive the existing 11-cave scheme not to include this new cave as a twelfth in that sequence. But, of course, the new find remains quite significant and reopens important questions about possible issues of provenance for texts currently classified as deriving from the standard 11 caves.
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To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Logos Bible Software, Logos is giving users $25 of credit toward orders at Logos.com before 1 March. Originally, the offer had been limited to credit toward a select number of resources but has since been expanded to “any order on logos.com.”
Since September 2013, I’ve had the privilege of serving the Faulkner University community as the director of Faulkner University Online. Over that time, the effort has blossomed, and the university now enrolls about a quarter of its total student body in online degree programs, ranging from associates- to doctorate-level.
The SBLHS blog has a helpful discussion on the use of “and” or “but” at the start of a sentence. And they are permissible. But one should use them sparingly.
For the full and very helpful post, please see the SBLHS blog.
[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“175”] 
Justin Martyr presents a book to the emperor, paper etching, print made by Jacques Callot, published by Israël Henriet, 1632–1635 [ PD-1923][/caption]To date, one of this site’s more popular posts has been this one about W. Trollope’s Greek edition of Justin Martyr’s Dialog with Trypho.
Overlining is comparatively straightforward in Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice. But, for Microsoft Word users, overlining still isn’t a default formatting feature, as is its companion underlining.
Sometimes inserting a symbol or special character will work if you can find one that matches the overlined character you need. In other cases, Word’s cache of symbols and special characters simply isn’t large enough to cover everything (e.g., when discussing nomina sacra). Sometimes, creating a character image might work, but inserting an image can create issues with text flow and line spacing.
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Registration for the 2017 Stone-Campbell Journal Conference is now open. The 2017 meeting will be hosted by Johnson University in Knoxville, TN, and will focus on the theme of “Communicating the Old Testament.”
This year’s conference marks the meeting’s 20th anniversary. The plenary lineup includes Ellen Davis (Duke Divinity School), Chris Heard (Pepperdine University), and Jason Bembry (Emmanuel Christian Seminary).
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Annually, the St. George’s Centre for Biblical and Public Theology sponsors three seminars at SBL: Scripture and Church, Scripture and Doctrine, and Scripture and Hermeneutics (in partnership with the Institute for Biblical Research). Registration is now open for these seminars’ 2017 meetings in Boston, as well as for the accompanying dinner. The lectures and discussion are always quite stimulating.
Nijay Gupta introduces 1–2 Thessalonians via video, with some comments about what new readers can anticipate in his NCCS volume on the letters.
James VanderKam, via University of Notre Dame](http://news.nd.edu/assets/226451/james%5Fvanderkam%5F300x350.jpg)
In a short interview published by the University of Notre Dame, James VanderKam urges caution about labeling the recent Dead Sea find as “Cave 12.” Comparisons have previously been drawn between the new find and Cave 8, which comes inside the numbering but contained no scrolls.
...In a recent First Things essay, Peter Leithart shares a transparent and good-humored five-stage taxonomy for writing a non-fiction book. Although some elements are tongue-in-cheek, the normalcy of the kinds of feelings about the process as it progresses should be encouraging to those of us with much less writing under our belts.
HT: theLAB
...The new Judaism and Rome project “aims to:
Several interesting resources have already been made available with the promise of more to come.
...Since my previous post about Qumran Cave 12, a few other noteworthy articles have cropped up, including on:
Much of what is in these articles about the new find is also in other reports. But, the Times piece confirms that
...David Allen, via Twitter](https://pbs.twimg.com/profile%5Fimages/731239654658281473/bzOryuFu%5F400x400.jpg)
If you’ve never read David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity (Penguin, 2001), a recent episode of the EntreLeadership podcast has a sit-down with Allen and crash course in the fundamentals of what he thinks makes for effective time management self-management in time.
...Working under the auspices of Operation Scroll, archaeologists have discovered what is being numbered as the twelfth scroll cave in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran.
Work in the new cave has produced no new texts, but both linen (characteristic of scroll wrappers found elsewhere) and blank parchment fragments suggest that texts probably were stored in the cave at some point. Since no [scroll-type] texts were found in this cave, as with cave 8, the new cave’s designation will likely be Q12 rather than 12Q. [Updated 15 February 2017. For explanation of this correction, please see Qumran Cave 12: Update 2.]
...SBL Press has clarified its guidance about citing J.-P. Migne’s Patrologia Latina based on the discovery that various year’s printings of certain volumes within Patrologia Latina have differences. Among these differences are variations in the column arrangements for the texts contained in Patrologia Latina. The Press’s initial recommendation was that
authors always check a PL volume title page to ensure that the printing is dated 1865 or earlier. If the publication or printing date is 1868 or later, we encourage authors to find an earlier printing of PL to cite.
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In the Chronicle of Higher Education, Maren Wood suggests that institutions should be more intentional about preparing PhD students for the possibility of non-faculty or non-teaching careers. Maren’s first suggestion is especially salient and recommends, in part,
While there are graduate students who decide that an academic career is not for them, most say their first objective is a faculty career. There is no way to know who will or won’t be successful on the academic job market, so all students should be encouraged or required to take professional courses.
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Some time ago, Larry Hurtado posted some thoughts about how Jesus is characterized as ἐκ δεξιῶν or ἐν δεξιᾷ. Recently, he’s followed up with “another possible factor” for how the language coalesces and a “bonus” post on the importance of being data-driven in developing hypotheses about such phenomena.
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This month, Logos Bible Software’s free book is N. T. Wright’s Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Christian Discipleship (SPCK, 1994). The book falls into two parts:
Part one outlines the essential messages of six major New Testament books—Hebrews, Colossians, Matthew, John, Mark, and Revelation. Part two examines six key New Testament themes—resurrection, rebirth, temptation, hell, heaven, and new life—and considers their significance for the lives of present-day disciples.
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On 30 June–1 July, Tyndale House is set to host a workshop on Greek prepositions that focuses on cognitive linguistics, lexicography, and theology. Registration opens 1 March.
For further discussion and background, see Septuaginta &c.