litter with impunity!
I spotted this sign on a local field:
I’m somewhat surprised not to see it knee-deep in litter, given that no fines apply!
“shields-up”
variegated expatiations
valentine’s day
Once again Eisenbrauns is running their annual Valentine’s Day competition inviting original expressions of love in an ancient Near Eastern language.
A shame that the entry I’d like to post has already been created by another, as you can see here where the late Ronnie Barker interprets hieroglyphics:
job’s perfection and paul’s objection
Job, we are told in the opening verses of the book which bears his name, was תם וישר וירא אלהים וסר מרע — “blameless and just, fearing God.” Much of the point of the book rests upon the veracity of this assertion. Job did not deserve to suffer as he did.
David Clines claims that this presents a somewhat difficult conundrum to Christian readers of the book. I’ll let him explain:
Read more
the verb ברא in genesis 1
It appears that Ellen Van Wolde’s article about the meaning of ברא in Genesis 1 has appeared in JSOT (link to the reference is here). There has already been some discussion over her claim on other blogs, so I’m hoping to get a copy of her article soon (if anyone feels motivated to send me a copy please let me know!).
The abstract at the above link provides the summary (here reproduced in unicode rather than using the BFI method adopted at Sage):
Read more
the shape of the ark
A recent article in the UK paper The Guardian reports that a newly translated by Irving Finkel (although not, apparently, newly discovered) tablet of Atra-hasis makes reference to the Mesopotamian ark as being “circular” (I assume it means more cylindrical than spherical). Although the provenance of the tablet seems unclear, there has been no doubt cast upon its authenticity that I’ve seen.
The relevant portion of the text is translated thus:
Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed wall!
Atram-Hasis, pay heed to my advice, that you may live forever!
Destroy your house, build a boat; despise possessions And save life!
Draw out the boat that you will built with a circular design;
Let its length and breadth be the same.
As I’ve noted previously, the Mesopotamian conception of the ark recorded a vessel with equal width, breadth, and height, and so it has been widely assumed to have been cubic (a shape with significant cultic connections), but a cylindrical vessel would also easily fit these dimensions.
There are, however, a couple of notes of caution worth raising.
First, I have only seen Finkel’s translation. Without seeing the tablet itself it is difficult to judge how certain the translation “circular” is for whatever term was used on the tablet. The semantic range of the term could be less precise or script on the tablet itself could be unclear and allow some room for movement.
Second, the reports that this was the original shape of Noah’s Ark are simply wrong. The Bible records clear dimensions for its conception of the Ark and they simply cannot be circular (whatever that means in 3D). The biblical account is not merely a retelling of an older story, and hence it cannot be “corrected” by reference to older versions.
Nonetheless, I may need to go back to the drawing board for my lego Ark…
where’s jim west?
Well, Jim West’s blog appears to have disappeared. Last time this happened it was the result of an attacker, but there are reports that this time it is Jim’s own decision which has led to the closure and deletion of the blog.
Perhaps a clue can be found in one of his last posts, his New Year’s resolutions for 2010:
So here are my New Year’s Resolutions:
1- I resolve to stop holding back when it comes to sharing my point of view.
2- I resolve to mention Zwingli no less than once a week. At least.
3- I resolve to poke fun at dilettantes with a regularity that will make the Swiss rail system look inept.
4- I resolve to be as charming and adorable in 2010 as I was in 1965.
5- I resolve to resolve.
6- I resolve to find the most horrifying photos I can and label them with the names of various bibliobloggers.
7- I resolve to remain the #1 biblioblogger (according to Alexa’s rankings) for the entire year.
8- I resolve to drive 5 miles under the speed limit everywhere I go.
9- I resolve to post book reviews in a timely manner (unlike the folk who are given free books by publishers and then never bother to review them) just as I always have.
10- I resolve to break all these resolutions as soon as I can (except for #’s 1-10).
Of course the problem is #10. If Jim did resolve to break 1–9 as quickly as possible it may be an indication that he was indeed planning to close his blog. However, since he included #10 in the list of resolutions to break, he has introduced an element of uncertainty, because if he breaks #10 then he cannot break #1–9!
What else can we say? Jim was among the most prolific of bloggers, and frequently posted book reviews (as indicated in #9). It seems probable that Jim had books yet to be reviewed, so surely he is morally bound to review them as #9 indicates, yet closing his blog would seem to undermine his ability to fulfil this obligation.
Anyway, whether hacked, closed by choice, or just undergoing a temporary hiatus for a complete Zwinglian makeover, I expect that the truth will out in time.
junk mail carbon sequestration
Well, Christmas has passed for another year. Has it helped the climate? Well, perhaps it has: in the 8 weeks prior to Christmas we received over 6kg of junk mail. Here is our weekly allotment:
How has this helped the climate? Well, assuming that most of the junk mail is paper, and most of the paper is cellulose (i.e. (C6H10O5)n), then we could suppose that the junk mail is about 40% carbon. So our junk mail before Christmas amounted to about 2.4kg of carbon. Now in Sydney there are over 1.5 million households. Now if each of those averaged the same, that’s 3,600 tonnes of carbon safely stored away in junk mail ;-).
lamentable christmas carols
Yes, there are many lamentable Christmas songs and carols (“Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly” anyone?). Too many to mention. Nonetheless, since ’tis the season, and we’re subject to carols at every corner, I’m going to avail myself of the opportunity to complain a little.
Perhaps my biggest gripe is with the common tendency for Christmas carols to portray Jesus as an eternal baby, as exemplified in the following:
O holy Child of Bethlehem!
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us to-day.
Or perhaps,
O Jesus, dearest babe of all
And dearest babe of mine,
Thy love is great, thy limbs are small
O flood this heart of mine
With overflow from thine!
And, of course, the carol we love to hate, from which I sample the following words:
The cattle are lowing
The Baby awakes
But little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes
I know some people try and justify this by saying that it was possible that on one occasion Jesus awoke and didn’t cry. But the impression the words of the carol give is that Jesus was exceptional in his behaviour at this point. I’m personally of the belief that Jesus, as a baby, cried. But as I said, I find the whole thing irritating!
So I hope you’ve all had a holy Christmas and managed to enjoy singing worthwhile songs in praise of God’s incarnation!
luke 2:14
Jim West has posed a yuletide quest to uncover the “right” translation of Luke 2:14 (does anyone else get a Google ad inserted into that page for the “United Church of God”?). So here I’ll get into the spirit and have a go!
First, for reference, Jim suggests the following:
Glory to the highest God; and on earth, peace to men of good will.
The Greek text reads as follows:
δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας.
There is one significant textual issue in the verse, where some manuscripts read εὐδοκία rather than εὐδοκίας, that is a nominative (although dative is distinguished from nominative only by the iota subscript and so would also have been indistinguishable in uncial MSS) rather than genitive.
A close parallel exists in the LXX in the Odes 14:1-3 which reads:
δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκία
This is probably sourced from Luke 2:14, although it further attests to the nominative (or possibly dative) reading of the word εὐδοκία. This all means that a faithful translation (as far as such is ever possible) is going to be more difficult because there will remain some question over the precise text.
For the purposes of the discussion, I’ll go with the genitive εὐδοκίας.
The first clause, δόξα ἐν ὑψίστοις θεῷ sets up a contrast with the second clause — ἐν ὑψίστοις “in the highest places” vs. ἐπὶ γῆς “on Earth.” As such, I think Jim’s rendering “the highest God” is perhaps not the best we could achieve (I’d be happy with that were the Greek ἐν ὑψίστῳ θεῷ; cf. Gen 14:19–22). So I’ll go with “Glory in the high heavens to God” for that clause.
That leaves the remainder, ἐπὶ γῆς εἰρήνη ἐν ἀνθρώποις εὐδοκίας. Perhaps the most interesting part is the final part, in particular how the genitive εὐδοκίας relates to “among people.” I think it reasonable to read εὐδοκίας as adjectival, thus restricting the people upon whom peace is wished. So I would go with “on Earth, peace on favoured people.”
So, putting it all together:
“Glory in the high heavens to God, and on Earth peace with favoured people.”
bible software: what’s missing
OK, I’m not going to give a comprehensive list of what’s missing in the various incarnations of Bible software currently available, but there’s one feature I’d like to see which does not currently exist in any Bible software that I’m aware of — the ability to customise the morphological (and, when/where available, syntactical) tagging of texts.
Better still would be the ability to create multiple taggings for individual units. Then, in instances where the morphology of a word (for example) is ambiguous, that word could have multiple tags so that it gets caught in searches for either possibility.
I think that this becomes more important as Bible software moves into the realm of syntactical tagging, largely because syntactical analysis of texts can often be open to some degree of debate and so the ability to change clause boundaries, vary clause and phrase functions, and so forth, would be very useful.
For example, I’d like to be able to right-click on any item and have an option to edit the tagging. Select a ה and change it from the definite article to an interrogative ה, or if it is ambiguous, tag it both ways so that it appears in searches for either usage.
Calendar
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Aug | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | ||
books of interest…
recent posts
Recent Comments
Incoming links
- good will, again Tuesday, 29th December, 2009 Jeff
- Round-up of posts on Luke 2:14 Sunday, 20th December, 2009 JohnFH
- Luke 2:14 Saturday, 19th December, 2009 Suzanne McCarthy
- Bible And Creation Around The Blogosphere Tuesday, 17th November, 2009 James F. McGrath
- Searching for the Idiom Friday, 7th August, 2009 Bob MacDonald