Bob MacDonald hosts this month’s Biblical Studies Carnival here. What, you thought blogs were so 2008? Well, they were. But they’re pretty 2012, too. Bob compiles a long list of blog posts in the field of Biblical Studies from the month of November.
I’m hosting the carnival next month, so if you know of good links I should include (anything that will be posted in December), please feel free to let me know.
If you are a parent (and even if you’re not), Aslan’s Library will nourish your soul and the soul of the children in your life. I went to school with, and had the great privilege of serving in youth ministry alongside with, one of the blog’s co-authors. Here’s from the Library’s introductory post:
When we became parents and started thinking about how we wanted to raise our children, meaningful interaction with great literature was a top priority for each of us. Wonderful children’s books are available in abundance, and we have delighted in exploring the world of kids lit.
However, when we began to search for Christian children’s books that were on the same par as our favorite nonreligious titles, we were disheartened. More often than not, the Christian books we encountered were theologically sloppy or artistically mediocre – or both. Since such books don’t do justice to the beauty and truth of Christianity, we were unwilling to share them with our young ones.
We believe that the literary and artistic qualities of all types of childrens’ books matter – and we believe that the quality of Christian books matters even more because those books attempt to reflect God to their young readers. Children’s ideas about God’s character, his creation, and the story of redemption are important, so we care about how those stories unfold in literature. The religious books our children read will deeply impact their spiritual imaginations: what could be more important?
Check out their children’s book list, which I especially appreciate for its focus on Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter. And let this recent post restore you–“When Advent is Neither Quiet Nor Still.”
There is much to explore at Aslan’s Library; it’s a site to refer to often.
That’s right, Theologian Trading Cards.
Click on the image to see the product page on Amazon.
Zondervan is giving away a set, for which you can enter today and tomorrow. Go here for details.
I’ve received a set to review, and expect to post that review in the not-so-distant future. They’ve already been a great conversation piece (and geeking out piece) in my office.
Okay, some lessons from three beachside runs, actually. Because I’ve had three wonderful ones in the last seven days, one at dusk/sunset, and the other two shortly after sunrise.
As I ran along the beach a couple times this week, here were some things I thought about, in no particular order:
The ocean is awesome. Duh. But, really, look at it, if you can, for a long, long time. Just watch. It’s amazing in its vastness. It both sustains life and can completely destroy life in a second.
It changes constantly. I still can’t get over how different a beach looks at low tide versus high tide–it’s like a different landscape altogether. Those rocks that my 5-year-old son and I climbed up on the other day at low tide? Almost completely submerged this morning when I ran by them.
There are lighthouses where you didn’t notice them before. Yes, this could be on one of those cheesy motivators posters. But in the last week, with each run, I’ve noticed a new lighthouse off in the distance that I hadn’t seen before. The application to the life of following and trusting God has been quite clear to me.
There are more lessons. But I’ve got to go to bed now, so we can get up early in the morning. Tomorrow is my wife’s turn for a beachside run. (I get the kids.)
Daniel R. Streett has some good thoughts on reading Greek, summarizing some information presented at the Society of Biblical Literature meeting last week:
For proficient reading, automaticity is necessary. In SLA [second language acquisition], automaticity means automatic recognition and understanding of a word or phrase. It actually happens involuntarily, without intervening analysis. It is not subject to introspection.
He continues to note that “reading is hearing.” He says:
Of course, the only way you can “hear” the words in your mind is to have heard them before in real-life, communicative situations where they were used in a comprehensible context.
I don’t disagree with this post (read the rest here). I do find it interesting, though, that one of the tenets of speed reading is to silence that inner voice you would otherwise hear when you read. Streett is not talking about speed reading, but wouldn’t it be great to get to the point of speed reading even in another language? It’s hard enough for me in my first language!
In the meantime, I’m getting stoked to start reading through Greek Isaiah (slowly) in less than a week and perhaps the Greek New Testament (at a bit of a quicker rate) starting January 1.
Anybody out there proficient in speed reading in a second language?
One more week until more than 50 folks and I start a read-through of Greek Isaiah! There’s an already active Facebook group page for the endeavor.
One of the readers has been working on the Isaiah volume in the Brill Septuagint Commentary Series. He’s graciously shared links with the group to some of his notes on Greek Isaiah, which he posted in the “B-Greek” Biblical Greek group last year.
Look here and here to see what Ken Penner has compiled. I’m really looking forward to his input and guidance as we work through Isaiah.
When I had a chance to ask N.T. Wright one question in January, I asked him how to improve my Greek. His reply: “Read the text. Read the text. Read the text.”
I decided not long ago to read through the Greek version of Isaiah in a year, starting one week from today. Amazingly, more than 50 people have already joined the corresponding Facebook group; we will be reading together.
On a related note, there are just 260 chapters in the Greek New Testament. This means that, even cutting the longer chapters in half, one can read through the New Testament (in Greek or any other language) with just a chapter a day.
That seems doable. Already in the Greek Isaiah Facebook group and through this blog, I’ve been able to correspond with folks who have read the Greek New Testament in a year. All of them have described it as a rich and rewarding experience.
So I’m not sure I’ll commit to reading all of the Greek NT in 2013, but I’m at least going to give it a shot. For anyone interested in doing the same, Lee Irons has a helpful two-page briefing on how he goes about it. He’s posted reading plans in years past, too (see here for 2012). He recommends using the Reader’s Edition of the Greek New Testament in the image above, which is my favorite Greek Bible for reading.
If anyone reading this post wants to leave a comment as to your experience with reading through the New Testament (Greek or otherwise) in a year, I’d love to hear about it. I do know that if I take it on, it will be to improve my Greek, yes, but primarily it will be a devotional exercise in which I seek to more fully immerse myself in God’s Word.
A bedtime lullaby I wrote for my two boys tonight.
Amazement is a common crowd reaction to Jesus’ teaching and to his miraculous powers of healing and exorcism in the Gospel of Mark.
Mark uses the Greek words ἐκπλήσσω, θαμβέω, ἐξίστημι, θαυμάζω to depict others’ amazement at Jesus. In Mark 1:22 the people are “amazed by his teaching.” In 1:27, they reiterate their amazement at his teaching and at his command of unclean spirits. 2:12 shows the people amazed at the healing of the paralytic. In 5:20, “All were amazed” (πάντες ἐθαύμαζον) after Jesus healed the Gerasene Demoniac. 6:2 shows the people amazed again at his teaching.
Then in 6:6, whereas the subject of the verb “amaze” has been the people, Jesus is amazed (ἐθαύμαζεν) on account of the lack of faith (ἀπιστία) of the people. The prior verse has said, “And he could not do any miracle there, except to lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them” (AKJV). This is odd. Just as Jesus’ miracles lead to amazement, now his lack of miracles in 6:5 lead to a lack of belief on the part of the people, and this leads to Jesus’ amazement at the people’s lack of faith.
In 6:51 the disciples are amazed at Jesus’ walking on the water, and in 10:24 and 10:26 at his pronouncement that it is difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. In 7:37 the crowd has gone back to being amazed at Jesus’ curing of a deaf man. In 11:18 and 12:17 they stand amazed (ἐξεπλήσσετο) at his teaching.
In 15:5 there is a new subject who is amazed: Pilate is amazed at the lack of a reply from Jesus in his own defense at his trial.
The theme of amazement is significant in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus in Mark is the divine Son of God who has authority to teach, heal the sick, and cast out demons. Because of this the crowds and his disciples are amazed. (Except in 6:5-6, where they are not.) And yet Jesus is not the political Roman empire-conquering Messiah that many Jewish people expected, so there is amazement even on Pilate’s part in 15:5 when Jesus does not respond.
Though no “amazing” words are used, the centurion in Mark 15:39 seems to have the final word of amazement in the Gospel. Having watched Jesus die, he utters in astonishment, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
Words on the Word 