Alan Bandy of Cafe Apocalypsis posts a link to note and updated version of Andreas Kostenberger's web site, BiblicalFoundations.org.

Of most interest to me are the essays and the articles, many of which have PDF editions supplied. A fair proportion of the stuff relates either directly or indirectly to the Pastoral Epistles.

I thought it would be appropriate to interact briefly with feedback specific to the paper I presented that described a bit about PastoralEpistles.com.

First, I'm aware that the small amount of critical feedback (I use the term 'critical' loosely as no criticism was really derogatory or unfounded) was that I was a bit too technical, or that my proposed solutions are a bit technical for the average Biblical studies blogger to implement on their own. This is a valid observation.

However, I'm less interested in interface/ease at this point, and more interested in exploring the problem and potential ways to go about handling it. That is, I'm more interested in the plumbing of the house and not in the faucet that turns on the sink. I think the interface will come later and be easier if the underlying problems are considered first. And my paper was an initial look at what I see as some underlying problems. Hey, it was a CARG session, after all.

Second, thanks to the folks who took the time to read the paper and respond on their blogs, or were in the session and listened to what I had to say. It was a fun time, and I look forward to (hopefully) presenting additional papers (CARG or elsewhere) in the future.

I've posted a copy of my paper for the 2005 SBL conference in Philadelphia. I'm presenting in the CARG (Computer Assisted Research Group). The paper has to do with "biblioblogging". My subject is this web site, PastoralEpistles.com. I've used it to experiment with things I see as shortcomings with existing blog software. The paper examines those shortcomings and the approach of PastoralEpistles.com in addressing them.

Session Info:

• S20-12, Computer Assisted Research Section
• Sunday, November 20. 9:00-11:00 AM

Paper Title: Biblioblog Problems and Solutions: PastoralEpistles.com as a Sandbox.

Biblioblogs have come to serve a valuable role in the academic community: they disseminate information throughout the academy while serving to humanize their authors. But the information produced by bibliobloggers, while searchable via Google and able to be displayed upon request, is locked in an environment that stores content as a sort of lowest common denominator. Salient bits of information, ranging from discussions of particular Biblical passages to impromptu book reviews, are unable to be easily retrieved unless one happens to fortuitously stumble upon them. Most biblioblog content is first-rate, but the blogging software that typically generates and archives the content could be better. This paper further defines some of these “lowest common denominator” problems and explores methodology used by PastoralEpistles.com to address them.

You may download the paper. I won't be reading it word-for-word at the session; but it will serve as my basic outline and content guide. If you link to it from your own blog please use the trackback functionality and post a trackback so that other folks (myself included) will be aware of any further discussion that may occur. Otherwise, as always, feel free to use the comments on this post.

The 2005 meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society is scheduled to take place on November 16-18 in Valley Forge, PA.

There are at least two sessions having to do with the Pastoral Epistles that I can find in my perusing of the schedule. The first session:

• Thursday, November 17
• Open Session: New Testament / Radisson Keystone
• Theme: Paul and His Epistles
• 4:40 - 5:20 pm
• Malcolm J. Gill, Dallas Theological Seminary
• Jesus as "Mediator": Politics and Polemic in 1Ti 2.1-7

The second session may or may not directly deal with the Pastoral Epistles, but the title certainly refers to 1Ti 3.2 and 1Ti 3.12:

• Friday, November 18
• Open Session: Church History and Historical Theology / Radisson Mt. Davis
• Theme: The Early Church in North Africa
• 9:45- 10:25 am
• John C. Wecks, Multnomah Biblical Seminary
• A Church Leader Who Is μιᾶς γυναικὸς ἄνδρα

For the record, I'll be at the ETS meeting as my employer (Logos Bible Software) is bringing me along this year. I'll be presenting a paper at ETS as well, though it will have nothing to do with the Pastoral Epistles:

• Thursday, November 17
• Open Session: Biblical Languages / Radisson Mt. Laurel
• Theme: Bible Software
• 3:00-3:40 pm
• Rick Brannan, Logos Bible Software
• New Developments in Computer Tools for Teaching and Research in Hebrew and Greek Syntax

I'll be covering tools developed to utilize syntactic databases of the Greek New Testament. I might even make sure some of my examples come from the Pastoral Epistles. If you're going to be at ETS, feel free to find me at the Logos booth right by the front door or at a session.

I just received the weekly(?) email from Eisenbrauns about New and Noteworthy titles. On title mentioned is from Ray Van Neste: Cohesion and Structure in the Pastoral Epistles. I've not read this title, but the description piques my interest.

Van Neste examines 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus to determine the boundaries of each discourse unit using cohesion shift analysis. The cohesion of each unit is then analyzed, noting common devices from the ancient epistolary genre, rhetorical devices, lexical and semantic repetition and symmetrical patterns. He also focuses on connections between the units in the letter — connections between contiguous units, semantic chains, and the grouping of units into larger sections. Thus the variety of connections across and throughout the letter are highlighted.

The bad news, of course, is that the book is $135.00 (though $95.00 on sale currently at Eisenbrauns). I think my tax return is going to disappear quickly ...

I need to make a quick note on the bibliography entries.

I realize they're not too useful when they are unsorted. My plan is to eventually write some code to do a seperate view of bibliographic items, sorted by title or author or key word (yes, I add key words/subjects to each bibliographic post — I'm just not displaying them currently).

That way, the blog-style posts on bibliography items will serve as updates of something new added, but the bibliography view will serve as an index to the annotated entries.

I just want to get a decent amount of content in the bibliography pipeline before writing the code to do the bibliography view. It's always nice to have real data to play with when writing that sort of thing.

After a few weekends of work, it's live.

For more info on what this is all about, check out this link: Introducing PastoralEpistles.com.

I have more work to do under the hood, but the site is serviceable as-is.

So poke around, and drop me an email when something breaks. The address on the sidebar should do the trick.