Blog

In yet another loss to the field of Biblical Studies, C. K. Barrett passes away (HT: Michael Halcomb).

Alison Babeu has a new ebook freely available in PDF format: “Rome Wasn’t Digitized in a Day”: Building a Cyberinfrastructure for Digital Classicists (Washington, D. C.: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2011). According to the publisher, The author provides a summative and recent overview of the use of digital technologies in classical studies, focusing on classical Greece, Rome, and the ancient Middle and Near East, and generally on the period up to about 600 AD [ sic]. The report explores what projects exist and how they are used, examines the infrastructure that currently exists to support digital classics as a discipline, and investigates larger humanities cyberinfrastructure projects and existing tools or services that might be repurposed for the digital classics. ...

Image via CrunchBase Yesterday, I stumbled upon Nevernote, built especially for Linux users as an open source clone of Evernote. Despite what are, perhaps, the slightly ominous connotations of Nevernote’s name, the software seems to working reasonably well. It successfully downloaded all the notes in my Evernote account, and it allows searching and change syncing from a desktop client. The software seems like it can be a bit slow and memory intensive, but this performance issue may simply be a function of the size of one’s Evernote account. Also, nevernote doesn’t appear to have a built-in screen clipping tool, but there are several other methods of accomplishing this task. ...

The latest publications from the Society of Biblical Literature include: Yitzhaq Feder, Blood Expiation in Hittite and Biblical Ritual: Origins, Context, and Meaning Itamar Singer, The Calm before the Storm: Selected Writings of Itamar Singer on the End of the Late Bronze Age in Anatolia and the Levant Alan Lenzi, ed., Reading Akkadian Prayers and Hymns: An Introduction

On the web: James McGrath reflects on the value of liberal arts education. Emily Runde comments on the British Library’s ongoing exhibition of “illuminated” manuscripts from the “Dark” Ages, providing several stunningly vibrant page scans.

Eugene Nida has passed away. For the official press release from the United Bible Societies, see here (HT: N ijay Gupta).

Logos releases a new collection for medieval historical theology, which includes: Aidan Nichols, Discovering Aquinas: An Introduction to His Life, Work, and Invluence and Lawrence Cunningham, Francis of Assisi: Performing the Gospel of Life. For more information, please see the product page.

Logos 4.3 (SR2) is available. The release notes contain details for the update.

Van Til’s perspective resembles Kuhn’s. One major difference is that, where Kuhn has mutable paradigms, Van Til has a reality-constituting mind of God.

On the web: Alan Bandy discusses faith and scholarship. Tim Henderson discusses the possibility that σωτήρ was a late-developing nomen sacrum ( part 1, part 2). Dirk Jongkind highlights some of Philip Davies’ recent comments on the Jordanian lead codices. Robert Woods reflects on reading Cicero’s On Old Age with college freshmen.

Christian Book Distributors now has Hendrickson’s facsimile edition of Codex Sinaiticus on sale for $499.00. For more information, see the the product page.

James Tucker considers Timothy McLay’s comments regarding memory and textual variation in the use of Septuagintal texts, particularly 2 Kgdms 7; Amos 9:11 in conjunction with Acts 15:16. ...

James Garland has an insightful article, “The Value of Humility in Academe (No Kidding)” at the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Zotero 3.0 beta is now available. This beta release represents an exciting step forward in the Zotero Everywhere project. Included in this release are: Zotero 3.0b1 for Firefox, Zotero Standalone 3.0b1 for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and Zotero Connector Betas for Chrome and Safari. For more details, see the original announcement and the change log. ...

Steve Runge has a good introduction to the question of contrast and conjunctions’ relationship to it. Overall, conjunctions “do not create contrast that wasn’t already there, they simply amplify it. If there is no contrast present, using a contrastive conjunction is infelicitous as the linguists say. It comes across as wrong.” For more, see Steve’s original post. ...

Recently, on the web: The Centre for Public Christianity has a three-part interview with Lynn Cohick about women in the Greco-Roman world (HT: Michael Bird, John Byron). Brian LePort discusses the future of seminary education. Tim Henderson comments on a selection from Justin Martyr’s Dialog with Trypho. Joel Willitts discusses elegance in writing.

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include: Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Studies Joshua Blau, Phonology and Morphology of Biblical Hebrew: An Introduction, reviewed by Jeremy M. Hutton Daniel C. Snell, Religions of the Ancient Near East, reviewed by Gert T. M. Prinsloo New Testament and Cognate Studies ...

C. S. Lewis’s introduction to Athanasius’s On the Incarnation has since been reprinted under the title “On the Reading of Old Books” as, for instance, in Walter Hooper’s edited collection of Lewis miscellanies, God in the Dock. This introduction’s text is, however, also available at Silouan in HTML format (HT: Michael Hyatt). ...

According to Ancient World Online, InscriptiFact has just added “approximately 5700 new images of 296 new texts from the Persepolis Fortification Archive. The majority of Aramaic texts from the archive are now available.” From this archive, the InscriptiFact database also includes several anepigraphic and Elamite tablets.

Recently, on the web: Tim Henderson discusses what information Celsus provides about heresy and orthodoxy in early Christianity. Libby Nelson summarizes the state of financial aid after the removal of federal student loan subsidy for graduate students.

[caption id=“attachment_7680” align=“alignright” width=“80” caption=“Marcus Tullius Cicero”] [/caption] In his classic on The Nature of the Gods, Cicero identifies the key problem facing him as being “the question whether the gods do nothing, care for nothing, and take their ease detached from all concern with the care and government of the world: or whether on the contrary all things have been created and formed by them from the dawn of time, and will be ruled and governed by them to all eternity” ( 69–70). ...

Logos 4.3 (SR1) is available. For details about the release, see here.

[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“150” caption=“Image via Amazon”] [/caption] Now at number 8 on the list of Amazon’s top 100 free Kindle books is Anne Stilman’s Grammatically Correct: The Essential Guide to Spelling, Style, Usage, Grammar, and Punctuation (2nd ed.; Writers Digest, 2010). According to the publisher, “this guide covers four essential aspects of good writing: ...

[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“200” caption=“Image via CrunchBase”] [/caption] Over the next couple weeks, Zotero users will see some major updates and new tools released, including: A new, read-write enabled website, Beta versions of Zotero standalone and its browser connectors, and A redesigned interface for integration Microsoft Word and OpenOffice.org. For more details, please see the Zotero Blog. ...

[caption id="" align=“alignright” width=“100” caption=“Image via Wikipedia”] [/caption] Since May 2007, there has been a pretty healthy discussion among Ubuntu Linux users about installing and operating Logos Bible Software under that operating system. About a month ago now, I finally switched from Windows XP (SP3) to Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty), and since then, I’d been running Logos 3 (Libronix) inside a virtualized Windows XP machine using VirtualBox. ...

Christian Askeland briefly responds to today’s Associated Press piece on Hebrew Bible textual criticism.

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include: Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Studies Ehud Ben Zvi and Diana V. Edelman, eds., The Production of Prophecy: Constructing Prophecy and Prophets in Yehud, reviewed by Bob Becking Joel M. LeMon, Yahweh’s Winged Form in the Psalms: Exploring Congruent Iconography and Texts, reviewed by Jeremy M. Hutton Daniel O’Hare, “Have You Seen, Son of Man?”: A Study of the Translation and Vorlage of LXX Ezekiel 40–48, reviewed by Francis Dalrymple-Hamilton New Testament and Cognate Studies ...

Ancient World Online has added La Base d’Information Bibliographique en Patristique to its listings.

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include: New Testament and Cognate Studies Cornelis Bennema, Encountering Jesus: Character Studies in the Gospel of John, reviewed by Nijay K. Gupta Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit, reviewed by Kevin McCruden John Paul Heil, Colossians: Encouragement to Walk in All Wisdom as Holy Ones in Christ, reviewed by Rodrigo J. Morales Heikki Räisänen, The Rise of Christian Beliefs: The Thought World of Early Christians, reviewed by Gosnell Yorke Robert Titley, A Poetic Discontent: Austin Farrer and the Gospel of Mark, reviewed by Mark A. Matson Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Studies ...

The latest reviews from the Review of Biblical Literature include: Jewish Scriptures and Cognate Studies Scott A. Ellington, Risking Truth: Reshaping the World through Prayers of Lament, reviewed by Philip E. Satterthwaite Andreas Hahn, Canon Hebraeorum-Canon Ecclesiae: Zur deuterokanonischen Frage im Rahmen der Begründung alttestamentlicher Schriftkanonizität in neuerer römisch-katholischer Dogmatik, reviewed by Mark Elliott Michael G. Wechsler, ed., The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ‘Eli the Karaite on the Book of Esther: Edition, Translation, and Introduction, reviewed by John Kaltner Timothy M. Willis, Leviticus, reviewed by Christophe Nihan New Testament and Cognate Studies ...