Hi folks.

First, a big thanks to all who read or aggregate this blog. Thanks for your support.

PastoralEpistles.com has always been a merging of personal interests of mine: technology/programming and study of the Pastoral Epistles. I actually wrote the code that makes this site work.

However, things are changing. I've always thought it would be good to have multiple contributors, and in the past week someone has approached me about becoming an blogger for the site, and I'm sure he'll make a great addition.

This is good, but it means many changes. First, the way this site works on the back end is a bit byzantine. I wouldn't want to subject anyone to it, and I don't have the time (or desire) to really make it something that people who aren't me could use.

That means the whole site will be changing. I'll be installing new software (dasBlog 1.9) that supports team blogging. It means some of the interconnectedness that the site used to offer (e.g. the indexes in the sidebar) will go away, but it also means that people who aren't me can use the site.

So now it's time to make a call for participants. Are you interested in blogging regularly about the Pastoral Epistles? I'm not concerned about your perspective. I'd love to have contributors/authors here who see the PE as Pauline, and those who see them as pseudepigraphal, and those who see them anywhere in the spectrum. I think the resulting dialogue will be fun and instructive.

Posts can be book reviews, mentions of or interaction with articles or conference papers, pointers to web sites or blog posts that you think are somehow relevant, exegesis of particular passages, articles on larger topics related or ancillary to the PE ... really, as long as you can somehow work it back to the PE, then it can likely be posted.

If you're interested in making regular posts — minimum of one per week, let's say — then please contact me via email. Tell me a bit about yourself, point me to anything you've written (be it on the PE or not).

And keep your eyes on the site. Thanks again for those who regularly read the blog and correspond with me.

I have no idea why I didn't do it sooner, but I've added comment and trackback capability via HaloScan. Since I added the magic juice to the code that generates articles and such, this means that any post from the past can be commented upon or tracked back, as well as any future post.

I think it would be great if folks who have experience with books that I've listed in book bibliography posts would jot a thought or two about a book's worth (or lack of worth) in the comments. Or, if you're a blogger and you've blogged about a book I've listed, add a trackback to the book's post.

Apologies for taking so long to do this.

I'll be experimenting with HaloScan to add comments and trackbacks to posts. Strange things may happen as I dig in and add the necessary stuff to make it work. Apologies for any disruption.

As I've mentioned before, since I began this site to blog about the Pastoral Epistles, I've associated some posts with Bible references. Also, within posts themselves, I have a number of links to the Bible and also to the writings of the Apostolic Fathers.

One feature I've had in mind since then was reference indexing. I was finally able to think through some issues and write the code to do it today.

There are currently two reference indexes, links are in the sidebar. These are:

• Bible Index. This is an index to all cited Bible references and all Bible references associated with posts within non-visible metadata. The references are sorted in canonical order.
• Apostolic Fathers Index. This is an index to all cited references to the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. Sure, it only has one reference right now. Don't worry. It'll grow.

If you have any thoughts on these sorts of features, I'm very interested in knowing about them. Feel free to drop me an email at pe | pastoralepistles | com.

As I've mentioned in the past, PastoralEpistles.com articles carry metadata that isn't necessarily utilized by the system. For example, I've added key words as topics to many articles at the time of post composition, but I have never had a subject index page.

Well, today I wrote some code and now I generate these pages. Actually, I generate a few different types of indexes:

• Topic Index: These are key words I've assigned to the articles at the time of post composition. I also consider categories as topics, this fills out the index a bit.
• Person Index: I can also denote people mentioned within posts. These are combined with authors listed in bibliography-style entries to fill out the index.
• Greek Index: This is an index of all Greek words and phrases in all articles.
• Latin Index: This is an index of all Latin words and phrases in all articles.

All of these are available on the sidebar. Click away and see what you find. Yes, I'm aware that the articles listed aren't visibly sorted. They're actually sorted by post type, then by date of post — not alphabetically. I may change the article sort to alphabetical at some later point, but that will take some time.

Note also that I also have accounted for a place index; I simply haven't denoted anything as having topics of this sort. Yet.

Do you find this sort of stuff helpful in the context of a blog? If so, please let me know. I often wonder if I'm the only one who thinks of these types of features. Drop me a line at pe | pastoralepistles | com (I'm guessing you know what to do with that to make it into an email address) to let me know what you think.

Next up, when I have time to write more code, are reference indexes for both the Bible and the Apostolic Fathers. Not quite sure when that'll be.

If you want to search through the posts and bibliographies of PastoralEpistles.com, you can do so using the search box in the sidebar.

The search box uses Google's "Free Web Search with Site Search" feature. I've adjusted the HTML to fit in the sidebar and not look too outrageous.

Note that Google's index may be slightly out-of-sync with PastoralEpistles.com's most recent posts.

Enjoy!

Confused about where to find something on the PastoralEpistles.com site? Then use the PastoralEpistles.com Site Map. The site map is a bibliographic-style listing of each of the different types of posts that are found on PastoralEpistles.com. Clicking on the [more detail] link after the citation will fetch the post in question.

As always, any feedback on the site structure/setup, be it positive or negative, is appreciated.

Enjoy!

I've added support for a new post type: Journal Article Bibliographies. I've wanted to do this since I started the site, I just hadn't got 'round to it. The cool part: after adding the proper XML stuff for the post type, the bibliography-style index view just simply works.

I'll most likely add a few article entries today.

In other news, I believe I've also fixed a long-standing bug in the way that dates were specified in the RSS file. Due to my extreme laziness, the date was not in the standard format that RSS expects, so most readers (I'm guessing) simply used the date that the entry was read for the entry post date. Hopefully this is fixed now.

I'll be making some changes (hopefully improvements) as I work on issues related to my SBL paper on biblioblogging.

One of these changes was implemented this weekend. Now each post style has a bibliography-style index. For example:

• Bibliography Entries (Books)
• Blog Posts

There is actually more to it under-the-hood than a bibliography view; the support is a little more generic. But this is the easiest way to display it, for now.

More to come in later weeks as I work through things. If you have suggestions, feel free to zap me a message: pe | pastoralepistles | com.

It's true. PastoralEpistles.com is the subject of a paper I'll be presenting to the Computer Assisted Research Group (CARG) at the 2005 SBL Annual meeting in Philadelphia.

More information is available in a post in my personal blog.

Once again, I'll take the opportunity to solicit feedback from PastoralEpistles.com readers.

• If you have any suggestions for site improvements or functionality (don't mention comments, they're on the list of stuff to evaluate) please drop me a note.
• If you know of online or print resources that deal directly or indirectly with issues related to the Pastoral Epistles, please drop me a note.
• If you've written articles dealing with issues in the Pastoral Epistles and would like to put them online at PastoralEpistles.com (in PDF, submitting author retains all rights/copyright, of course) let me know.

You can find me at pe | pastoralepistles | com.

I believe all is well in the land of RSS. Specifically, you should be able to subscribe to this site's RSS feed now.

The link is located in the sidebar to the left under the submissions address.

Don't know what RSS is or why you'd want to know about it? Check out Feed Readers by Eric Sowell of The Coding Humanist for more info.

Enjoy!

I've received a few emails about site navigation and also about becoming a "user" of the site.

The login box below is basically for me (and anyone else whom I feel is qualified to post articles or bibliography entries). You don't need to login at all to use the site. All content is browseable by anyone who happens across this oasis for the Pastoral Epistles.

Perhaps this Site Document that discusses site navigation will clear up some questions some folks out there may have.

Basically ... just click if you're curious. Almost all of the text on the sidebar (headings and bullet points) will take you somewhere.

First of all, thanks for the enthusiastic reception you've all given to PastoralEpistles.com.

Some folks have asked about an RSS feed. Yes, that is actually next on the to-do list. It shouldn't take a whole long time to do (famous last words), I just need to find the time to do it. Perhaps Monday night, if all goes well.

I'll post an announcement here and on my personal blog when the RSS feed is live.

Navigating PastoralEpistles.com should be pretty simple once you grasp the basic setup. The key to navigating invovles the sidebar and also the category headings. Here are a few quick pointers:

• The PastoralEpistles.com logo (top left corner) will always bring you back to the home page.
• Headings in the sidebar (apart from the Categories head) will let you view all posts in that category. So, if you click on BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTRIES (BOOKS) you'll get all of the entries of that type, not just the most recent entries shown in the list.
• Clicking on major headings (e.g. BLOG POSTS) in the main window will do the same thing.
• The Permalink at the end of each article is a link that will navigate to the specific article. So if you want to link to an item on PastoralEpistles.com from your own site/blog (please feel free to do this), that's the link you want.
• The category listings at the end of each individual post will, when clicked, generate an index of all posts on that category for you to examine. The same thing happens when clicking an entry in the sidebar category listing.

Those are the basics. Have fun clickin' around!

You've put your heart and soul into a study on some aspect of the Pastoral Epistles. You've posted it on your web site.

But how will anyone ever know about it?

If you'd like to submit a link to something you've written concerning the Pastoral Epistles, just use the submission email address in the sidebar. We'll review the information and if it fits our tastes (typically meaning it isn't heretical or overly polemical) we'll write an abstract and post a link in our annotated bibliography.

Thanks!

Welcome to PastoralEpistles.com.

This site hopes to serve as a respository for information on the Pastoral Epistles. Whether the information is in print or online, we hope to eventually catalogue it here.

In addition, this site is a blog. It uses custom-written software that allows authors to post blog entries, links to articles on PastoralEpistles.com and bibliographic entries of all sorts.

The software that serves up PastoralEpistles.com should be considered under development and in beta form. A few essential bits still need to be written (RSS support, for one), but the basics of composing, submitting and viewing articles seem solid enough.

Who Runs This Thing?

My name is Rick Brannan. You can read a little more about me on my personal home page. I've always liked the Pastoral Epistles and for the past two years have spent much of my personal study time in these three books of the New Testament.

I've been keeping notes and generating all sorts of data along the way. My own personal home page has been updated piece-meal along the way, and it was just getting too difficult to maintain.

In addition, I wanted to start an annotated bibliography of books that come in handy when studying the Pastoral Epistles. Not just books, but journal articles and internet sites as well. So I decided to write the code to make all of this happen. Hopefully the code stands the test and is able to serve up data for those interested.

So, this site is a bit of a mongrel. Part blog (I'll still be keeping my own personal blog, don't worry), part annotated bibliography, and part ... well, part something else.

I'm very interested to know what you think of this concept. Drop me an email using the address posted on the side.

If you'd like to write an article, or if you've written something on your own web site that you'd like me to point to, please feel free to send an email to the listed submissions address.

Thanks! And enjoy PastoralEpistles.com!