NT Gateway Weblog

Over on Laudator Temporis Acti today, Michael Gilleland has a post on Liddell and Scott, a poem by Thomas Hardy "Liddell and Scott On the Completion of their Lexicon". The post gave birth to a nice thread on b-greek in which James Spinti offered an unattributed:

Scott knew Liddell,
And Liddell knew less

I noodled around for a source, found none, but did find this:

Two men wrote a lexicon, Liddell and Scott;
Some parts were clever, but some parts were not.
Hear, all ye learned, and read me this riddle,
How the wrong parts wrote Scott and the right parts wrote Liddell

The latter is cited in Kenneth F. Kitchell, Jr., "How the Wrong Parts Wrote Scott and the Right Parts Wrote Liddell", The Classical Journal 84/1 (Oct. - Nov., 1988): 47-52 (51-2). In a follow up to Kitchell's article, William Calder III notes that Kitchell's ultimate source is Henry L. Thompson, Henry George Liddell, D.D. Dean of Christ Church Oxford (New York, 1899), and he goes on to explain that there is an alternative version preserved by Liddell's distant cousin, Augustus J. C. Hare, as follows:

Two men wrote a lexicon,
Liddell and Scott;
One half was clever,
And one half was not.
Give me the answer, boys,
Quick to this riddle,
Which was by Scott
And which was by Liddell?

This is from Augustus J. C. Hare, The Story of My Life II (London, 1896), 10, cited in William M. Calder III, "In Response to Kenneth F. Kitchell, Jr., "'How the Wrong Parts Wrote Scott and the Right Parts Wrote Liddell,'" The Westminster Epigram on Dean Liddell (in Responses)", The Classical Journal 84/3 (Feb.-Mar., 1989): 265-266). Calder gives reasons for preferring Hare's version (the second one above). Kitchell then responds to Calder in the same journal, giving reasons for preferring the first version, Thompson's, Kenneth F. Kitchell, Jr., "In Response to Kenneth F. Kitchell, Jr., "'How the Wrong Parts Wrote Scott and the Right Parts Wrote Liddell,'" The "Liddell Riddle": Some Further Thoughts (in Responses)", The Classical Journal, 84/3 (Feb.-Mar., 1989): 266-268.

This is still not the end of the story, though. Back on b-greek, Stephen Goranson notes the following source which gives the boy author's name:

Recollections of a Town Boy at Westminster, 1849-1855 by Francis Markham (London, 1903) p.57: the poem "was recited before Liddell by Edward Waterfield, a town boy (the man who fought with Old Slade)." After hearing it "Liddell took it well, gave his usual scornful sniff, and presented Waterfield with his silver penny...."

It's a fascinating little bit of trivia, all the more so as it relates, it seems, to differing oral traditions circulating about the same rhyme, and its circumstances, for over fifty years. Markham's text is particularly interesting since it comes from almost the same period as the Hare and Thompson versions above, and it provides a slightly different version again:

Two men wrote a lexicon--Liddell and Scott;
Some parts were right, some parts were not.
Now come, all ye wise men, and solve me this riddle:
Why the wrong parts wrote Scott, and the right parts wrote Liddell?

Markham also gives a little context that makes good sense of the rhyme,

The joke was, that often when at work with the Sixth, Liddell would object to the translation of, or use of, some word. The boy would reply, "Please, sir, I found it used that way in your lexicon," when Liddell would reply, "Scott wrote that part." (ibid.).

Labels: b-greek, Laudator Temporis Acti, Liddell-Scott

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Over on Hypotyposeis, Andrew Criddle notes "how good a resource the text archive has become" and on b-greek Philip Maertens lists several online Greek resources of interest:

G.B. Winer, A Treatise of the Grammar of New Testament Greek (1870)

M.E. Thrall, Greek Particles in the New Testament Linguistic and Exegetical Studies (1962)

A. Buttmann, A Grammar of the New Testament Greek (1873)

Labels: b-greek, Greek Grammars, Greek tools, Online texts

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For those attempting to cope without Perseus, one can at least download Liddell Scott at the Internet Archive. Details:

A Greek-English lexicon (1883)

Author: Liddell, Henry George, 1811-1898
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN
Usage Rights: See Terms
Book Contributor: University of California Libraries
Language: English
Keywords: Greek language -- English

The specific downloads:

PDF
Flip Book
FTP

Thanks to Anh Michael on b-greek for the link.

Labels: b-greek, Greek tools, lexica, Liddell-Scott, Perseus

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As many of you will know, one of the finest sites on the internet, Perseus, has been experiencing serious problems over the last couple of weeks. The latest announcement on the site is as follows:

On April 3, 2007, Perseus hardware was compromised. In order to protect our data and comply with university policy, a number of servers were removed from the network, making Tufts-hosted Perseus sites inoperable. Repairs are in progress to methodically restore services while improving their overall security. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I was chatting to one of my students the other day about her frustration at trying to translate portions of the classics without the aid of Perseus. The upshot was that although it is frustrating, it is a reminder of the importance of really trying to understand the text, and not becoming over-reliant on what can become electronic prompts. In the same spirit, I enjoyed reading Elizabeth Kline's posting on b-greek this morning, Travelling Alone and the Death of Perseus, from which this is an excerpt:

Reading the GNT with all the electronic tools at your fingertips and all the printed resources isn't going to tell you if you know greek. All of these resources are great and I use them regularly but at some point along the way it is healthy to pick up a Greek text you have never read in your native tongue and spend some time traveling alone with LS (intermed.), LSJ and H.W.Smyth. It certainly trims some of the fat from your ego if nothing else.

I agree, and the point is even more focused when it comes to reliance on the multiple electronic resources available as helps for the Greek New Testament. Useful as these are in teaching and research, and grateful as we are to their developers, perhaps we should all sponsor "electronic free April" every year and insist that everyone has a good month each year when they are only allowed access to print resources for Greek. Perhaps we could institute it as a kind of compulsory Lent abstinence for all NT scholars and students?

Labels: abstinence, b-greek, Greek tools, Perseus

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Over on b-greek, Alan Bunning has an interesting and troubling post about the multitude of inaccuracies in the on-line Greek NT texts many use so regularly:

I got tired of the myriad of inaccuracies, sloppy scholarship, and proprietary nature associated with the New Testament Greek texts and decided to start collecting my own accurate electronic versions. I have gone through hundreds of websites and several Bible programs collecting copies of the various Greek texts . . .

. . . . Common sources such as the Online Bible, Broman, Unbound Bible, and CCAT all had various errors. Not one single text for any version I examined was entirely correct, although a few were really close . . . .

. . . . I have since begun looking at the morphological parsings and links to root words, and am even more appalled at the magnitude of errors. It is far, far worse than I ever imagined . . .

The whole post is worth reading.

Update (23.52): James Tauber's comment is worth adding here as an update: "As I've just noted in an email reply, people continue to distribute very old versions of the morphologically tagged texts that have continued to be corrected and made available at MorphGNT.org.

It is a wasted effort to try to correct these older versions when much newer versions are available. They are still not perfect, but are a much better starting point."

Update (Wednesday, 7.36): See too the helpful comments from Rick Brannan, beginning "Wherever possible, Logos/Libronix uses texts and databases from known, reputable sources. Thus our editions of UBS4 and NA27 -- different editions, with paragraphing, casing, accent and punctuation representative of their printed edition -- have solid pedigrees; they're not simply downloads from some anonymous web site . . . ." But read the whole.

Labels: b-greek

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On b-greek, Bob Firth (see Archive searching for Firefox, Mozilla and Netscape) has come up with a nice b-greek archive plug-in for Firefox. It's located here and I've downloaded it and it's working very well:

http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html?name=b-greek&submitform=Find+search+plugins

Labels: b-greek

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I am happy to see Joe Weaks now posting some useful introductory material on unicode on his Macintosh Biblioblog

Unicode: A Bible Scholar's Introduction

I look forward to the future instalments. I took a session today in our Biblical Studies seminar on Greek fonts, and especially unicode, and pointed to some of my own links of choice on the Greek NT Gateway fonts page. I was stirred to do this having seen so many PhD theses struggling with fonts. I reckon that I have probably asked for major font corrections in the majority of theses I've examined.

Meanwhile, the interesting discussions on unicode continue over on b-greek which last night included a particularly notable contribution from Peter Kirby who has released a beta of a programme called Greek Pad, available at http://www.peterkirby.com/greekpad.zip. It's a great facility and allows you to type in Beta code and get unicode output, which you then copy and paste into your document. One of the things it has over the Unicode Classical Greek Inputter is that you can see in three columns, first the beta code keystrokes you are typing in, then the unicode that is coming out, and then the code points. Peter has also done some clever stuff to allow you to type in unaccented Greek, then hit the enter / return key and get some accenting based on stored dictionary entries. I'm not yet clear quite how the latter will pan out since it will not, presumably, be able to distinguish between different forms of given words. For example, I typed in εν αρχη ην ο λογος, pressed return and got ἐν ἀρχὴ ἣν ὁ λόγος and not Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος. But it is a beta, and it's another cracking resource.

Labels: b-greek, Unicode

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I have finally got round to updating the following:

Greek New Testament Gateway: Greek Fonts

I have introduced a fresh (and much overdue) section on unicode, which I have prioritised. I have also tried to provide a little more than just a series of annotated links and have drawn special attention to the useful guides supplied by John Schwandt and Rodney Decker, both of which I have found very helpful.

One of the resources I had been using for some time myself is also linked on my updated page, the Unicode Classical Greek Inputter, but at the encouragement of Randall Buth on b-greek and Stephen Carlson on Hypotyposeis, I have begun using a proper Greek keyboard myself for inputting unicode Greek. And there's no better guide on how to get going on that on the PC than John Schwandt's previously mentioned.

Labels: b-greek, Unicode

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On b-greek, Wieland Willker puts together samples of unicode Greek fonts to compare the "looks" of each, and compares with the non-unicode Bible Works:

Unicode Fonts samples [PDF]

It reminds me that I really must update my Greek fonts page; it's looking horribly long in the tooth.

Labels: b-greek, Unicode

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This was posted today on b-greek by Carl Conrad and is a fine new resource, with lots of potential for further development too:

GNT Browser

This is how Zhubert describes the resource:

Complete GNT online - source text is from jtauber, based on Nestle Aland 26
Parsing - available for every word, just hover over the word with your mouse
Word Detail Page - click on a word while reading and see detailed information about that word
Word Study - from the detail page, you can conduct a study on every use of the form or the root
Graphical Occurrence - from the word detail page, shows occurrences of both root and form by book
Basic Root Definitions - simple lexicon entries, right now very woeful, from Perseus...soon you will be able to correct these!
Grammar Reminder - a simple reminder as to the most basic grammar via your sidebar

And more to come...suggestions welcome! zhubert at zhubert dot com

This site is well worth a visit and already does a lot of interesting things. Because the CMS is set up blog-style, you can also subscribe to its feed, and I've added it to my blogroll. I'll be keeping an eye on the promised developments.

I have added a link to my Greek New Testament Texts page and with the promised additions, I can see this one moving up the page as time goes on.

Update (20:03): enthusiastic endorsements from James Tauber and Rubén Gómez.

Update (22:31): Tim Bulkeley also enthuses.

Labels: b-greek

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On b-greek, Maurice A. O'Sullivan notes the following review in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2004.08.13:

Dennis R. MacDonald, Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003)
Review by Manfred Lang

Labels: b-greek

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One of the links on David Capes's web page (see previous post) is to this remarkable piece of work:

Visual Greek
By Peter Coad

This is a 200+ page coloured book in PDF format which aims to make learning New Testament Greek a lot of fun:

Yes! A way for visual learners to learn how to read and enjoy the Bible in Greek!

Devour these cartoons—and you will be equipped to read
4 out of 5 words in the Greek New Testament!

Introducing the Visual Greek™ System

I have not yet had chance for a careful read-through, but at first glance this looks like a really useful tool. Do visit it -- you'll enjoy it.

Update (14.12): Rubén Gómez comments in Bible Software Review Weblog; Carl Conrad comments on b-greek (and follow thread).

Update (6/8/04): Peter Coad comments on b-greek.

Labels: b-greek

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Wieland Willker sends over a reminder that he has set up a new e-list on Textual Criticism on Yahoo!Groups:

Textual Criticism

His hope is that this will simply be a temporary group while TC-List is on hiatus. Both Jim Davila and Jim West have also posted notices of the new list.

I wonder if TC-List has gone for good? The last that was heard of it was this message from Jimmy Adair, the coordinator, on 26 February this year:

When the tc-list started in 1995, we used free software called majordomo to run the list. After a few years, we switched to a Web-based program called Lyris. One of my previous employers purchased the software so that they could host other lists, and the tc-list piggybacked on their license. Since the founding of the Religion and Technology Center (RelTech) in 2001, we have been using the same software, but two factors are affecting current performance: (1) the total capacity for the lists hosted on the site is supposed to be 500, and we're right at--or over--that limit; (2) the version we're running is so old that it is no longer supported; we're running 4.0, and the current version is 7.8. It's apparent that we need to upgrade. Whether that will solve all the problems people experience on the list is questionable, but it can't hurt!

As some of you know, the tc-list is associated with TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, and both are hosted by RelTech and made available on our servers free of charge. I'm the director--and currently the only full-time employee--of RelTech, which is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation. In the past we've always funded upgrades, disk space, etc., ourselves, and I've done the majority of the maintenance work myself. I'm happy for RelTech to continue hosting the list as in the past. However, at the moment RelTech doesn't have the money to pay for an upgrade to the new software, so I have a proposal for the members of the list. The cost of the upgrade is $350, and I think that members of the list can raise this amount without any problem. I will donate a small amount myself, and I invite others to do the same. If you want to donate, please send a check to the address given in my signature line, below. $10 or $20 from several people will add up quickly. All donations to RelTech are tax deductable, and I'll be glad to send everyone a receipt for tax purposes. If we raise more than $350, I'll use the extra to have a former colleague do the upgrade (he is the one who installed Lyris in the first place), and if there's any left over, I'll apply it to the Biblical Manuscripts Project (http://purl.org/BibleMSS).

Make checks payable to "Religion and Technology Center," and write "tc-list" in the memo field. Thanks for your help and your support of the tc-list!

I have written to Jimmy to ask if there is any further news about the list. It would be a shame if it has finally gone to ground since it is one of the oldest of the Biblical E-Lists on the net. Only b-greek, as far as far as I am aware, is older. I wonder whether anyone did stump up some cash to try to rescue it? My guess is that people would be generally unwilling given the free availability of either advertising based e-list software (like Yahoo!Groups) and university based majordomo software (like that we use for Synoptic-L). If I hear any more, I'll post here. In the mean time, it looks like Wieland's list is the place to go, with 77 members so far and counting.

Labels: b-greek

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Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2004.03.53 has a glowing review of Bart Ehrman's new Loeb Apostolic Fathers:

Bart D. Ehrman (trans.), The Apostolic Fathers. Vol. I: I Clement, II Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Didache. Loeb Classical Library, 24. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Pp. 464. ISBN 0-674-99607-0. $21.50.
Reviewed by Benjamin Garstad, Brooklyn College/Columbia University

E.'s edition of the Apostolic Fathers is useful and engaging. I can whole-heartedly advise its purchase to all those interested in the literature of the second century and the development of the Christian church, even those who already own earlier editions and translations.

Spotted on RogueClassicism and Carl Conrad on b-greek.

Labels: b-greek

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This announced by Wieland Willker on b-greek:

The Acts of the Apostles: A Handbook on the Greek Text
by Martin M. Culy, Mikeal Carl Parsons
List Price: $29.95 / Amazon Price: $20.97
Paperback: 580 pages ;
Dimensions (in inches): 1.23 x 7.44 x 6.32
Publisher: Baylor Univ Pr; (February 2004)
ISBN: 0918954908

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Editorial Reviews
A. K. M. Adam, Associate Professor of New Testament, Seabury-Western Theological Seminary "Their work instantly moves to the front rank of necessary reference books for all readers of Acts . . ."

About the Author
MARTIN M. CULY is an associate professor of New Testament at Briercrest Biblical Seminary. Culy earned an M.A. in Linguistics from the University of North Dakota, the M.Div. from Grace Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D from Baylor University. MIKEAL C. PARSONS is a professor of religion at Baylor University. Parsons earned his Ph.D. from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of The Departure of Jesus in Luke-Acts (1987); Rethinking the Unity of Luke and Acts (1993); and, with Heidi J. Hornik, Illuminating Luke: The Infancy Narrative in Italian Renaissance Painting (2003).

Book Description
While the commentary tradition has, with some notable exceptions, shifted away from philology to take up questions of the social values, rhetorical conventions, and narrative strategies, this volume provides the textual, philological, and grammatical essentials to any act of interpretation. By working through this text systematically, readers will not only gain a firmer grasp of the peculiar shape of Acts' grammar, but given Acts' length and complexity, they will also become better equipped to approach the other New Testament documents with increased confidence, particularly other narrative literature.

Labels: b-greek

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On b-greek, Carl Conrad recommends several blogs of interest, including this one, for which thanks. If, as a result of that message, there are any fresh visitors here, let me explain that the last couple of weeks has been a bit unusual in this blog's six month history in featuring about ninety per cent of its posts on the new film The Passion of the Christ. I know that my interest in Jesus films is not shared by all readers of the blog and I suspect that some are heartily sick of the whole thing. Some readers have joked with me about the sheer volume of posts on the topic. But even if you are not interested in the topic of Jesus films, you may be interested in some of the debates that have been spawned by it, and the Biblical scholars who have appeared in the press in connection with this (Paula Fredriksen, John Dominic Crossan, Amy-Jill Levine, Joe Zias, Krister Stendahl, Geza Vermes to name just a handful of the many). In due course, the blog will look a little more balanced again and will continue to cover all the areas of interest to users of the NT Gateway, including -- of course -- the Greek New Testament. Indeed that day may come sooner than expected. I am going to see a preview of the film tomorrow and if the reports of the violence are anything to go by, it's entirely possible that I will not manage to sit through it all!

Labels: b-greek

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Carl Conrad announced on b-greek today that he has now has the following ready in PDF format:

Robert W. Funk, A Beginning-Intermediate Grammar of Hellenistic Greek² (Missoula, Montana: 1977) Volume I, pp. xxv-xxxii, 1-30

Conrad explains it like this: "an extract from Robert W. Funk's 3-volume textbook of Koine greek, first published in 1973 and long out of print. The materials here extracted set forth the rationale of Funk's method and sketch the linguistic framework on which the textbook and teaching program are organized. I have long thought that these are the principles that ought to govern the teaching and learning of ancient Greek at any level, whether Homeric, Classical Attic, or Koine."

Labels: b-greek

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Ken Penner on b-greek draws attention to the following web site which reviews Memorisation Software including several of those linked on my Greek NT Gateway: Computer Software page:

Memorisation Software Reviewed

FlashWorks and VocabWorks both get four pencils (good).

Labels: b-greek

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Carl Conrad, guru of the b-greek email list and professor emeritus of Classics at Washington University, has published on on-line commentary on Mark, with his own translation in the top frame and commentary on the text in a bottom frame. A very useful new resource:

A Brief Commentary on the Gospel of Mark

I've added a link on my Gospel of Mark page.

Labels: b-greek

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This just announced on the b-greek list. Carl Conrad, Associate Professor Emeritus at Washington University, has posted a very useful new pedagogical introduction to ancient Greek voice entitled, "Active, Middle, and Passive: Understanding Ancient Greek Voice." In his own words "it is an 8 pp. brief introduction intended (a) as an introduction to ancient Greek voice for students, (b) as a demonstration of how I would go about teaching voice to English-speaking students if I were still in the active teaching profession":

Understanding Ancient Greek Voice (PDF)

Labels: b-greek

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Just announced on b-greek, Rod Decker has posted a beta of the unicode version of his Galilee font. You will find it here:

Galilee Unicode Greek Font

Rod has provided lots of useful information about how to download the font, design features and so on. If you don't yet know anything about unicode and you work with Biblical languages, then you need to know this: it is the future. Rod has one of the best pages available for explaining to scholars and students about unicode and it is here:

Biblical Language Fonts and Unicode

Labels: b-greek, Unicode

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This link just posted on b-greek:

Biblical Greek Words and New Testament Greek Grammar

The author, Jim Darden, says that it's "just for simple look-ups". I've tried a few searches on it with mixed success rates. It looks like it could be useful. A few suggestions: I had to go to 1024 x 768 to see it properly, which should be unnecessary with such a simple design. I'm not sure either why there's no neuter under gender. Tony Fisher's search is at the moment better but that could change.

Labels: b-greek

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