What's In My Ears – The Podcasts I Listen to

I have earbuds in my ears a lot. I love reclaiming time, or multiplying my time, by listening to something while doing something that doesn't require my ear attention. Yard work, driving, watching my kids play soccer, walking to work, exercising – all of these are times when I can listen to podcasts without affecting whatever else I am busy with. Before I list the podcasts that fill my time, I'll also mention that you need to find the correct times for listening to podcasts, and when to turn them off. For instance, I started writing this blog post with a podcast on. Two sentences in and I realized that I hadn't really heard anything on the podcast. When you need to be paying attention and focused on what you're doing, don't distract yourself.

Biblical Studies (and other Academic)

Probably no surprise tha biblical studies podcasts are the ones I gravitate to the most. And there are some great ones out there that I can heartily recommend to you. There are probably more than this, and if you have a suggestion, please leave them in the comments.

Kingdom Roots Podcast: The Kingdom Roots podcast is a podcast by Scot McKnight. I find McKnight to be a great communicator, I actually find him most clear in speech over against writing. The podcast genre, with a host that asks him questions, really puts McKnight in his element.  

Naked Bible Podcast: Michael Heiser is a force of nature in my opinion – in fact I'd love to sit down with this man at some point to understand how he manages to produce so much. He works at Logos, he has a busy blog, a great podcast, and is publishing books and articles. The first dozen or so episodes are a little slower as it is strictly a monologue. But it becomes a little more casual and natural once the new format of having a host comes into play. Many of these podcasts are like audio commentaries on chapters of the Bible, and Michael is unapologetic in his desire to understand what the text meant. He eschews any theological or practical considerations. In short, he's my kind of guy!

The PaulCast: This is a new podcast but has already had some stellar episodes and I have no doubt the quality will continue. Kurt Willems is a pastor and a pauline scholar who really knows his stuff. The early episodes called "Entering the Convo" will help many to understand the state of discussion on Paul in scholarship today.

NT Pod: Mark Goodacre, as usual, was at the forefront of the new technology and has one of the first (perhaps the first?) podcast for academic Biblical studies. While I don't ultimately agree with Goodacre on all issues, he is a bright and articulate scholar whom I highly respect. A minor annoyance with the podcast feed is that the episodes are listed out of order (not sure why).

Reasonable Faith Podcast: WL Craig is the main apologist of our time and I appreciate that he covers a range of issues. This podcast also helps me stay somewhat current on apologetics in general, and the intersection of faith and science in particular.

Occasional Listenings

I subscribe and listen to every episode of the above podcasts. Here are some other biblical studies and academically related podcasts I cherry-pick from.

Theology in the Raw: A little shorter and a little less in-depth by nature, I nonetheless really enjoy Preston Sprinkle's podcast. His multi-part podcast on the issue of homosexuality (stemming from his book People to Be Loved) is quite good. However, and this is most unfortunate, the early episodes (including the ones I just mentioned) don't seem to be on the feed anymore. This kind of goes against the whole point of podcasts, but my guess is that the radio program that then publishes the podcasts doesn't want to pay for the storage space, which is very unfortunate.

History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps: A student turned me on to this one and I've enjoyed a few episodes of it so far and look forward to listening to more of them.

History of Christian Theology: This is a brand new one I've stumbled upon and so far I'm enjoying it. It may move soon to the "listen to every episode" list.

Church Leadership / Sermons

All of these podcasts sit in the "occasional listening" category for me, as I don't listen to every single episode of any of them.

Meeting House Sermon Podcast: Bruxy Cavey is a great speaker/preacher that is quite rich in content. I've listened to quite a few sermon podcasts, including all of the big names, and Cavey in my opinion seems to be the best read in the academic arena on the topics he preaches on. This is a breath of fresh air and I would love to see more preachers like this. He doesn't water down the content for his people, he provides a buffet and challenges them to go deeper.

Woodland Hills Sermon Podcast: Greg Boyd is another preacher who reads widely in academia and doesn't water things down in the sermon. I appreciate people like Boyd who stands in the old-school tradition of being a serious theologian/academic while also being active in ministry.

Leadership Momentum Podcast: I am not one who follows any one mega-church pastor religiously, but I'm also not one to bash these people and think they don't have anything worthwhile to say. The podcasts interacting with these people is enormous. So I've chosen one to subscribe to that has these big-named pastors on as guests.

Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast: Similar to the above podcast, but longer and published more frequently. I really respect Nieuwhof and I cherry-pick episodes on this podcast.

Parenting

There aren't a ton of parenting podcasts from a Christian perspective. The first one is newer and I listen to all of them, the second one I cherry-pick.

Parenting Great Kids: I got turned on to Meg Meeker when I read her book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. So I was happy to see her new podcast on parenting.

Growing Leaders Podcast: I've called Tim Elmore at times my at-a-distance parental mentor. I really enjoy his blog and his podcast. This is a bit of a blend between leadership, youth, and parenting. I cherry-pick the episodes more related to parenting and teens.

Productivity (and Business-type-stuff)

Readers know I'm a bit of a productivity and lifestyle junky. I've learned a lot from these podcasts, been inspired, learned skills, and have received tips on blogging and advertising (for things like my courses).

This Is Your Life: I'm not sure how I stumbled upon Michael Hyatt, but I've enjoyed his blog and podcast for a long time. A mix of business, leadership, and productivity, I'm subscribed to this one.

EntreLeadership Podcast: This is a lot like the above in that it has a wide range of topics, but mixed in with this is talk on stewardship that I enjoy (It is under the David Ramsey brand after all). I'm subscribed to this one as well.

Related more directly to online business-type stuff, I also cherry-pick from the Freedom Fast Lane podcast as well as the Smart Passive Income podcast. Related more to life-coaching and productivity, I cherry-pick from the Tim Ferris podcast and the School of Greatness podcast.

By way of conclusion, I want to mention that if you use an iOS device for podcasts, I'd recommend Overcast as your podcast app. While I love apple, the apple podcast app doesn't hold a candle to Overcast (which is free, but is happy to take a donation as payment if you want to). Lastly, you see that I listen to a lot. One way I get through a lot of listening is by speeding up the podcast, usually to about 1.75x speed. Your brain can process listening faster than most people speak. And with Overcast, you can set a speed for each podcast (if a speaker is especially slow or fast). It also has a setting that analyses the podcast and skips dead-air space.

There's my list! Let me know if I'm missing any stellar podcasts, particularly in the Biblical studies area.

photo credit: iPhone Headphones via photopin (license)

A Digital Supplement to the SBL Handbook of Style, 2nd Ed.

I am launching a new product today for my fellow colleagues in Biblical Studies and theology called A Digital Supplement for the SBL Style Guide, 2nd Ed. $5

I have continued to provide the full SBL Series and Journals Abbreviations list free of charge here.

Purchase Below

This digital supplement complements the SBL Style guide, second edition. This file contains the following:

 

1. Primary Literature Abbreviations

The main component of this digital supplement is an excel sheet with multiple tabs, which contains all of the serial and journal abbreviations contained in the second edition of the SBL Handbook, as well as popular alternative abbreviations. The remaining tabs cover all of the primary literature:

• Hebrew Bible

• New Testament

• Apocrypha

• Targums

• OT Pseudepigrapha

• Dead Sea Scrolls

• Greek and Latin works

• Apostolic Fathers

• NT Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha

• Philo and Josephus

• Mishnah and Talmud

• Rabbinic Works

• Nag Hammadi

All of this is, of course, is fully searchable and usable for your needs, and conforms the 2nd edition of the SBL Handbook.

 

2. Serial and Abbreviations List in Word

While the serial and abbreviations list is in the main excel file, for many it will be more usable to have the abbreviations in a tabbed Word document file, again to use as one sees fit.

 

3. How To Create A Scripture Index on a Mac

I've learned a thing or two while I was a TA for Craig Evans, and now an editor of essay collections. In this PDF I offer a step by step process for creating a scripture index on a Mac. This is a detailed (and long) process, but this process significantly cuts down the time it takes.

 

4. Screencast Tutorial for Creating an Abbreviations List

Another common job for authors and editors is to create an abbreviations list. Using the abbreviations list in this digital supplement, I show you how to quickly create an abbreviations list for your published work.

A big thanks to my TA Evan Colford for helping me finalize this product and get it ready for distribution.

Some Geek-Talk On Organizing Your Library

The simple truth is that most scholars and pastors are bibliophiles. We like to build our library. We like having lots of books. We jump at the chance for free books. And we're pretty regularly spending money on new books. While I personally now prefer to have my books in Logos format, not every book makes it into the Logos library, so there will always be books on my shelf. Lots of books in fact.

It was a few years ago that I was getting increasingly frustrated with scanning my shelves and not being able to find a book I knew I owned. So I decided to geek-out and organize my library according to the LOC (library of congress system). The other option is the dewey decimal system, but as I was more familiar with the LOC system, and my university library uses the LOC system, I went with that.

Why would this be helpful you say? Well, if you read my blog you know that one of my favorite apps is my reference manager (Sente). Every book and article I have is catalogued in Sente. Part of that catalogue of information is (now) the LOC number.

I am lucky enough to have a TA in my position. So a number of years ago I had my TA (and now friend) Roy Medeiros fill out my database with any missing LOC numbers. We (mostly he) then used a label maker to begin printing off all of the LOC numbers and placing them on the spine of each book. Finally, they were all placed in order on my shelves. Once the backlog was done, it has not been difficult to continue this process of labeling each new book and putting it in its proper place.

So now, the frustration is gone. When I need to reach for a book, I don't spin my chair and scan my shelves. I bring up Sente, type a few words of the title, get the LOC number, and quickly locate it on my shelf. And every time I do that, the geek in my rejoices at the organization of it all!

Utilizing Logos 6 for Academic Research, pt. 1: Ancient Literature Connections

With the advent of Logos 6 comes some great new features for both pastors and scholars. Over the next little while, I want to highlight some features that I feel really stand out for scholars in particular. The first is the new Ancient Literature Dataset, which is accessible in the passage guide (or any customized guide you create).

This dataset was created by Ken Penner (a former colleague at Acadia Divinity College) and Rick Brannan (whom I hope to be working with on a new Logos product soon!). I have so far been really loving this new feature of Logos 6. This is, in essence, an extensive cross-referencing system of non-biblical sources. But it goes above and beyond a simple list of potential cross-references, by also categorizing them.

To help introduce this great new dataset, I’ve asked Ken and Rick a few questions.

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1. First guys, thanks for this product! It is probably my favorite new feature of Logos 6. I want users to appreciate how much time a project like this must have taken. How long has this project been in the works?

[Rick]: You’re welcome, Danny! Wow, I really don’t know in actuality as far as exact time. It was in January 2013 or earlier when Sean Boisen asked me about the Cascadia Syntax Graphs of the Apostolic Fathers (which was and still is languishing on pre-pub), and why it was valuable. In thinking about that, I realized what people really want instead of a syntactic analysis like that is to be able to know when something in the Apostolic Fathers is relevant to the verse or passage they’re studying in the Bible. The connection between Isaiah 54 and 2 Clement 2 is a great example of this, and finding that sort of stuff is really only possible if you’re a search ninja that already knows the material.

Once the connection of relevant ancient reference for the Bible passage one is studying was made, the floodgates were opened. There is all sorts of ancient material related to the Bible that you might want to know about for a given verse or passage. So making a high-quality index of it seemed natural. The other thing that seemed natural was to classify the relationship between references as best as possible. It’s one thing to have a reference associated, it is another (very useful) thing to know what the relationship is between the Bible reference and the ancient reference. Once I got there, I wrote a lot of code to analyze all sorts of stuff, and was able to isolate some references. At that point, it was obvious there would need to be qualified human intervention to classify references (or rule them out altogether), and that is when I started talking with Ken because this stuff is right in his wheelhouse.

[Ken]: This one was pretty quick and intense. Rick pitched the idea to the company on April 15, 2013. I started on it in May; that was my summer and “research/publication” time for the rest of the year. We estimated:

• Dead Sea Scrolls Sectarian: approx. 230 hours
• Josephus: approx. 440 hours
• Philo: approx. 180 hours
• OT Pseudepigrapha: approx. 650 hours

2. The product page says this dataset catalogues “relevant passages from the Apostolic Fathers, Philo, the Talmud, Mishna, Judaic literature, Josephus, and more.” Can you fill out the “and more” part for us. And were there any major bodies of literature that were not included or perhaps will be in the future?

[Rick]: Apostolic Fathers is a small subset of the wider patristic literature. Another set of data included are “Church Fathers” which is more wide ranging. Think of the superset of ECF and Fathers of the Church (and, when we can do it, Ancient Christian Writers) as the basis for this stuff, minus the Apostolic Fathers stuff.

• New Testament Apocrypha
• Dead Sea Scrolls Sectarian Material
• “Judaic Literature” includes stuff like the Mekhilta and Pesikta as well.

Not included: I’ve considered some references with the Rule of St. Benedict and other early monastic rules, (relevant Logos product is the Benedictine Studies Collection), but there are so few users of that collection, we need to consider it a bit more before allocating resources to do it.

[Ken]: Nag Hammadi, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, Context Of Scripture, Ugaritic material, and the Amarna letters as well.

3. Something that I think is very unique to what you’ve done is the additional categorization/tagging. To help users understand what these categories are, could you please provide us with a brief definition of the tagging that is used, as well as any other comments you might feel is necessary for users to understand these designations:

[Ken]

• citation – Introduced by a citation formula such as "it is written." Does it have a citation formula? It doesn’t matter whether or not the wording exactly matches.
• quotation – Intention to quote a phrase of this canonical passage. Is the wording intended to reproduce verbatim this specific scripture for at least three words?
• allusion – Intention to paraphrase the words of this canonical passage. Is the wording a paraphrase of at least a clause of this specific scripture? Does the relationship appear to be intentional?
• echo – Reader who has read both would be reminded of a similar scriptural passage. Does the verbal parallel evoke or recall this scripture (and possibly others) in a reader's mind, without apparent authorial intention to reproduce the exact words?
• topical – Similarity of subject matter. Is there a general referent in common with this scripture, without using the same word? Is its meaning similar? This is like Lexical, but for ideas rather than words.
• historical – Reference to the same specific event or situation, whether historical or fiction. Is there a specific referent in common with this scripture, whether or not the event is fictitious or in real history?
• lexical – The same or cognate word is used. Is there a word in common that is useful for lexical studies, but without evoking (even unintentionally) this particular scripture?
• phrase – Similarity of subject matter AND the same or cognate words are used. Is there a combination of words in common with this scripture, without being the same specific referent (which would be Echo or Historical)? This is like Lexical, but for phrases rather than words. Examples: verb & subject, verb & object, noun in genitive relation with noun.

[Rick]: These definitions are actually coded within the resource used by Logos, it just isn’t visible (yet). It may be available in some future version.

There are a huge number of references (over 180,000 at present, but that will increase with the next round of Church Fathers data I’m working on). Ken reviewed the references for Dead Sea Scrolls Sectarian Materials, Works of Philo, and the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. I reviewed the references for Apostolic Fathers, New Testament Apocrypha, and Works of Josephus. Other datasets were classified algorithmically. The material classed as ‘Judaica’ was fairly explicit in the way it interacted with the Biblical text, so most references were classed as quotations. The material for Nag Hammadi was similarly explicit, so a classification of allusion was preferred. Outside of a few possible examples, Ancient Near-Eastern Materials have no direct intertextual relationship when you are dealing with intertextuality in the direction we were (so, does the material use the scriptural material directly in some way) so those references were largely topical, and classified as such. The Church Fathers has been the hardest nut to crack because there are so many references in so much material. After considering and working the problem for awhile, I was able to make some guesses about contexts of occurrence and thus assign relationships of either topical, allusion, or quotation. These aren’t exact, but presently there are over 100,000 references in the Church Fathers material, so all we can really do is make educated guesses and hope we’re close. I think we’re close on these, but fully expect examples of miscategorization — probably a lot of stuff that are allusion or topical but should really be quotation.

4. Given these designations, please give some suggestions for how users can best utilize this feature and make good use of the tagging designations.

[Ken]

• Category ⇒ Use
• Citation ⇒ Canonical studies
• Quotation ⇒ Textual Criticism
• Allusion ⇒ Historical Interpretation
• Historical ⇒ History
• Echo ⇒ Theology
• Phrase ⇒ Theology
• Topical ⇒ Theology
• Lexical ⇒ Word studies

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Thanks very much Rick and Ken!

I want to end this post with  1 tip on how to utilize this new feature. If you are a Logos user, you know (or should know!) about the Passage Guide and how it works. But what you might not know is that you can create your own guide templates. For the ancient literature dataset, what I did was create a new template (Guides>Make a New Guide Template) called “xrefs” in this guide I added to sections: 1) Ancient Literature, and 2) Cross references. After that, I open in a side panel this new guide, and link it to my open bible panel in a link set. Now, whatever verse you are on, the panel will fill with the cross references from biblical and non-biblical sources. See my screenshot below and try it out for yourself!

View fullsize

Your Intro Greek Teacher Was Wrong: deponent verbs don't exist

Where Did The Greek Deponents Go? Answer - they never existed in the first place.

I learned Greek from David Alan Black’s book Learn to Read New Testament Greek. But over the course of teaching introduction to Greek and developing mobile apps to learn Biblical Greek, I have become familiar with all of the major intro Greek grammars and have now written my own too. For your information, Mounce’s Basics of Biblical Greek remains king, but Black’s grammar remains in heavy usage, followed by Croy’s Biblical Greek Primer. (This is not an official ranking - rather I rank it by the sales of my FlashGreek apps which I think provides a pretty good picture of adoption in the the US)

All three of these top-used grammars teach about the Greek deponent - a verb that is middle/passive in form but active in meaning (*but see my update note at the bottom*). The word most often used as the example in the grammars is ἐρχομαι. Daniel Wallace’s Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (a book the sits open a lot during my study) teaches deponency in this way as well.

Up until a few years ago, I also taught this since I was at the time using Gerald Stevens’ New Testament Greek Primer, and it was even in my initial drafts of Biblical Greek Made Simple. But scholar Tim McLay pointed out a number of articles to read about deponency. These readings caused me to change my mind on deponency. If you are interested, I recommend the following articles:

• Pennington, Jonathan T. “Deponency in Koine Greek: the grammatical question and the lexicographical dilemma.” Trinity Journal 24/1 (2003), 55–76.

• Pennington, Jonathan T. “Setting Aside ‘Deponency’: rediscovering the Greek middle voice in New Testament studies,” Pages 181–203 in Linguist as Pedagogue . 2009.

• Taylor, Bernard A. “Deponency and Greek Lexicography,” Pages 167–176 in Biblical Greek Language and Lexicography: Essays in Honor of Frederick W. Danker. Edited by Bernard A. Taylor. 2004.

Stanley Porter, many moons ago now in Idioms of New Testament Greek (pgs 70 ff.), had already discussed this issue. This is reflected in his new intro Greek grammar Foundations of New Testament Greek as well as my own grammar. But neither my grammar nor Porter’s grammar are yet in heavy usage.

What’s the Issue?

As I mentioned, deponent verbs are taught as verbs that are middle in form (i.e. take middle/passive endings) but are active in meaning. This is not actually the case. These verbs identified as deponent actually are middle in meaning – they are regular old middle verbs. But in the process of English translation they sound active. Here is a quote from Porter’s intro Greek grammar:

“Some verbs do not have all three voice forms in every tense, and some older grammars label such verbs deponents. Deponency is understood to mean that the middle voice form (or sometimes the passive voice form) performs the function of the active voice, Some grammarians, however, have questioned the category of deponency, as do we. In our view, every verb expresses the meaning of its voice form, even when other forms — such as the active voice — may not exist. That is, in interpreting the meaning of a verb form, we should try to understand its voice. Often in English an active-voice translation is used for a Greek middle-voice form (e.g., “I became/become” translating ἐγενόμην), which does not mean that the Greek voice itself has left no nuance of its presence. The Greek middle voice is still being expressed, even if the English translation does not cap- ture its complete sense in Greek.”

What have been identified as deponent verbs are middle verbs after all, the proper designation being lexical middle. They are usually verbs which the subject does to or for oneself - like ἐρχομαι which means “I come/go.” You come or go somewhere based on your own self interest.

So by now you can see the issue. The top used intro Greek grammars teach about deponent verbs, a category of Greek verb that does not actually exist. Only the two most recent intro Greek grammars, which have not been widely adopted, teach (or don’t teach as the case may be) the middle voice properly. Which means that every year, seminaries and colleges continue to churn out students with this understanding. In the grand scheme of things, it is of course a minor point. But one which I and others hope to remedy.

Have any questions? Ask in the comments!

UPDATE: David Alan Black's blog type webpage (June 21st section) mentions my post and notes that I have not fairly represented him. He does use the term deponency, but nuances it. I take your correction Dr. Black! And thanks for your textbook – it is the textbook I learned Greek from!

photo credit: Kim Scarborough via photopin cc

How to Keep on Top of New Journal Articles

Those of you in the field of Biblical Studies know that it is important to keep your eyes out on the latest journal publications. Even if you don't read every article, you want to keep an eye out on the articles coming out so that you can keep on top of areas of your own interest. Even for those articles that aren't in your area of interest, reading the abstracts quickly on new articles is a great practice to cultivate.

The reality is that for most of us, the art of browsing in the library is no longer a practice (something I do lament from time to time). But you can digitally browse periodicals by keeping alert as to when new ones come out. But there are lots of journals coming from lots of different publishers.

Enter me.

All you have to do is follow that blog to be alerted when new Biblical Studies periodicals are published —Tweet That!

For the past few years I've been organizing a simple blog that publishes the TOC of new Biblical Studies periodical volumes. It is built on a blogger site so that I can automate it a little easier. Check it out and subscribe to its feed here.  All you have to do is follow that blog to be alerted when new Biblical Studies periodicals are published. The service isn't foolproof - I can only post TOCs from journals that electronically publish their TOCs. That said, I do cover a lot of them and hope you find it useful.

Photo Credit: Thomas Geiregger via photopin cc

How to Find a Great Commentary

During my final year in seminary I watched a video that interviewed Dr. Andrew MacRae and several of the ADC alumnus. I don't remember the class I was in, and I don't even remember why we were watching the video. But there is one thing that stuck out in my mind, and it was a question they asked the alumnus they talked to: "what are some of the most important books on your bookshelf." Every single one of them said it was their commentaries. They said that they were continually going to their commentaries. We live in an age of a lot of NY times best sellers and lots and lots of hit Christian authors. Yet the reality is that when you are in the trenches of ministry, it is the Bible and books that are designed to shed light on the Bible that will be the most well-worn on your shelves (or virtual shelves if you're like me).

"Invest in good commentaries because they are the books you'll keep going back to in ministry" —Tweet That!

So yes, go ahead and read the next Driscoll/Chandler/Warren/Lucado whatever book, but don't forget to invest in good commentaries because they are the books you'll keep going back to in ministry. The key is to choose a good one, and there just so happens to be an awesome website that I tell all of my students about called bestcommentaries.com. You'll want to bookmark this one.

Lots of us tend to just jump on amazon or goodreads and read some reviews and look at the ratings. In the case of spending your money on a commentary, this isn't always a great idea. You don't know who rated that book or wrote that review or if they have any sort of qualification to adequately assess a commentary. That's why bestcommentaries.com is so great. It is run by Evangelical scholars who have degrees in the field of Biblical Studies. Some of the contributors are even commentary authors themselves.

Kinds of Commentaries

Not all commentaries are equal, nor should they be. Some are more technical than others. Some work on the finer details of the original language. Some focus more on the theology of the text. Others are more devotional in nature. Odds are a devotional commentary isn't quite going to satisfy a student working on an exegetical paper, but it may provide some good thoughts for someone preparing a devotion or doing their own devotions. Some critical commentaries avoid theology and practical matters all together – these ones will tend to have a lot of the original languages in their pages.

bestcommentaries.com helps you to make the right decision by tagging each commentary as:

• Pastoral
• Technical
• Devotional

In addition to tagging each commentary, they are given a rating. If you are like me and prefer digital over printed, the website will also identify if the commentaries are available through any of the major Bible Software companies.

If you want to do good and deep exegesis - your Bible's study notes are not going to cut it. Spend your money wisely by finding a good commentary to help you dig deep into God's Word.

photo credit: Ozyman via photopin cc