Why Zionism is so Attractive—and Should be Rejected by Christians

With the summer of violence in the holy land, it dawned on me that these are the times when the rubber really hits the road in terms of theology and exegesis. We are no longer talking about things of the past or what I believe, but about war and people actually dying- and I think theology (specifically Christian theology) plays an important part in this. Do I believe that the Jewish people were promised and given that land by God? Do I believe that the people of God are only those who are in Christ? Do I think all this is part of the unfolding of prophecy in the Bible? Or is it just political circumstances?

These are not easy questions to answer, especially at a time like this. It is also hard, I think, in the branch of academia where Jewish and Christian scholars work together, learn from each other, and deeply respect one another. Yet, in matters such as these, there comes a clear dividing line – Christians believe the NT is scripture and Jewish people do not. Some Christians (Zionists) would understand the scriptures, particularly the OT, in the same manner as many conservative Jewish theologians: that God has promised the land of Israel to the descendants of Israel and the promise will be fulfilled at some point. Other Christians would not deny the Jewish people's right to exist or to be a nation that deserves to live in peace, but argue that Christ is the end/fulfillment (telos) of the law (Rom 10:4; 2 Cor 1:20; Heb 8:13), thus the OT cannot be used as any sort of support for the modern secular state of Israel (this does not mean we do not support that state of Israel on other grounds). And, even if we were to grant this sort of dispensational reading of the text, it is hard to ignore the OT teaching that fulfillment of God's covenant promises was conditional on the people's covenant obedience (read Deuteronomy).

Let me lay my cards on the table: I am really dismayed at the Christian Zionist movement that has supported Israel at any cost out of what I believe is improper interpretation of the text resulting in bad eschatology (please note again - this does not mean I don't think Israel should be supported). I can’t remember the exact figure, but millions of dollars have gone to Israel. Not to help their economy or aid the poor–but to help them build the temple again! (Heb 9:12, Heb 10:1-10) And why? Because it is a necessary precursor to the Tribulation – the Temple must be re-established for the End Times scenario to be played out (think Left Behind series). And all the while we have practically turned our backs on the Palestinian Christians. There are dozens of ministries, centered mostly in the States, whose sole aim is to aid Jewish people to get back to Israel, to pressure the government in the US to help Israel, and to send money for the re-establishment of the temple. Meanwhile, almost none of these Christian organizations discuss evangelism to the Jewish people. I’ve even read a piece in one of these newsletters that condemned evangelism to the Jewish people, because “God deals with them differently.” Do these Christians really follow the same Lord Jesus that I do? The one who said "no one comes to the father except through me." (John 14:6)

Now if you start to get the wrong impression, I’m not necessarily against political lobbying, nor am I averse to helping desperate and destitute people move to Israel. I think this stuff does need to be done for Israel as well as other people groups. We should be agents for peace. The problem is the goal of these Christian Zionist organizations. They do it because they believe that the OT prophets' words about returning to the land is for our future (though it is plain in the OT that the fulfillment happened already, Neh 9:23). They also misunderstand God's promise to the land and the fact that it was conditional (Lev 26:33, 42; Ezek 33:25-29). But above all, they do it because they think they are helping to fulfill prophecy to bring Jesus back quicker. It is this religious motivation that ends up blinding them- they forget about the other human beings, specifically Palestinians. Rather than actively seeking peace, some Christian Zionists are actually happy about wars and fighting! These tribulations in the Middle East, whichever decade you choose, simply excites them. Instead of seeing it as suffering and death and responding in love and with aid, many Christians just watch it happen passively, since it has been foretold.

Why is Christian Zionism Attractive?

What makes these people tick? I have wondered this for the past little while, and I have a bit of a unique view in that I used to belong to a Plymouth Brethren church and was nurtured in that context for some time (fyi, the Scofield Bible, from which so much of Dispensational pre-millenialism finds its origin, is one of the heroes of the Plymouth Brethren). I read Hal Lindsay, Grant Jeffrey, Dave Hunt, Rob Lindstead, Jack van Impe, and the Left Behind series. And I believed it all too. As I look back at my spiritual upbringing, I'm so grateful for many things, and I can't help at think at how much healthier today's church would be if evangelicals knew their bible as well as Brethren do. But classic dispensationalism is one of those things that I needed to unlearn. I would label myself as an amillenialist now. But, what made me want to buy into this back then? Reflecting on it, here are some things that made me tick:

1. The thought that the book that I held in my hand (the Bible, and specifically Daniel, Revelation, and Jesus' teaching in Mark 13, Luke 21, and Matt 24–25) predicted exactly what was happening around me was exhilarating. I could not understand Daniel and Revelation back then, and these Christian Zionist authors made (some) sense from the mysterious texts. The mark of the beast is a little microchip in Visa! The locusts in Revelation are actually blackhawk helicopters! etc., etc. This brought the Bible into the world around me.

2. It made my faith in Jesus real. He wasn’t just a guy who lived 2,000 years ago, he will be back any minute! I'm witnessing the stuff that will happen right before he arrives!

3. It made sense of the OT for me. As a new Christian, I did not know how to incorporate the OT (especially the prophets and the wars in the deuteronomic history) into my worldview. Dispensational premillenialism misreads the text, but at least they incorporated them into their worldview.

4. It legitimated violence - wars were normal, especially for that area of the world. Premillenialism normalized the wars of the OT as a regular cycle of history for that area of the world and in fact made it part of God's grand design for the future.

5. It gave you a foretaste of the fantastic in our seemingly mundane world. I don’t see miracles, and fantastic powers being displayed at my church. I just hear them preached about (and the occasional report from the mission field). The idea that I will finally be part of this miraculous disappearance of millions of people, and the coming of the two witnesses, and Jesus returning in the sky, connected me with the miraculous that I read and hear about during my devotions and from the pulpit.

6. I felt that I had stumbled into some specialized and secret knowledge that only a few knew or understood. I was absolutely tickled pink when someone would ask me to explain the end times to them. I would rattle it all off, complete with accompanying proof texts, timelines, and charts. (I still can!)

7. While we all want God's blessing, Christian Zionism locks onto God's promise in Gen 12:3 that he will bless those who bless Abraham, and by extension his descendants. (fyi, If we want to be blessed as Christians, look to the Beatitudes)

I have since grown in my faith and understanding of God's Word and recognize the errors of my old way of thinking. I recognize my previously bad exegesis. The reality is that it’s a lot easier to bring the Bible to my world in that manner. It is not as easy to bring Jesus’ message of radical love, to be a sacrificial giver, or to apply Sermon on the Mount ethics to my life. Christian Zionism provides a simple route to make the Bible applicable to life today — It's right in the news! This reality makes it that much easier to not let it affect my own way of living.

As scholars and pastors and teachers, I think we have a responsibility to continue to speak out against Christian Zionism. This theology should have fizzled out and died a while ago, but it seems to be as strong as ever. (this does NOT mean that I think Israel should not exist as a country. On the contrary, I believe Israel has a right to exist as a secular state and a right to defend itself). Hopefully, this post will do its part in the fight against erroneous eschatology. Talk to those people in your church or classroom that believe these things. Suggest books to read. Don’t support these types of ministries in your church. Unsubscribe from the Zionist magazines. Get the Left Behind series out of your church library. Pray for peace and be active peacemakers. And instead of looking at the headlines to see the Bible lived out, start actively working to live and love like Jesus in your own context.

If you are interested in reading more on this topic, here are a few great options:

• Burge, Gary M. Jesus and the land : the New Testament challenge to “Holy Land” theology. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2010.

• Sizer, Stephen. Christian Zionism: Roap-map to Armageddon? Downers Grove: IVP, 2006.

• Hanegraaff, Hank. The apocalypse code: find out what the Bible really says about the end times-- and why it matters today. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007.

• Edwards, Sean. The End of Days: The Shocking Truth About The Times In Which We Live. Edwards Publishing House, 2012.

I also recommend any of the lectures from The Cross and the Checkpoint, as well as the documentary With God on Our Side.

photo credit: Jonas Hansel via photopin cc

This Is How You Find the Right Sources For Theological Research

Finding the right sources for doing theological research can be difficult if you are not sure where to look. Fortunately for us, the information age has utilized some great resources out there to help us harvest good information.

For those who are serious about doing good research into this area, Google is not the right place to go. ATLAS (American Theological Library Association Serials) is the #1 database for academic theology studies. You can use it for Biblical Studies, Church History, Missiology, Practical Ministry, Theology, Biblical Counseling, and even World Religions.

In the screencast below, I explain how to utilize ATLAS for theological Research. Take the time to learn to use ATLAS, and you will have one essential component in good essay writing.

Transcript

Hey this is Danny Zacharias, and thanks for checking out this video that explains how to utilize ATLAS for theological research.

ATLAS — which stands for the American Theological Library Association Serials, is an online searchable database of most major religion and theology journals. In addition, ATLAS houses a huge collection of full-text articles that are immediately downloadable for users. Every reputable seminary and Bible college will have institutional access to ATLAS. If you are not sure,  ask a librarian about how to access ATLAS through your library.

Let me show you how I access the database. Here is my library website, and in the list of databases I will find ATLAS. This is howIget to the database. And here is what ATLAS looks like.

So, searching a database is fairly obvious to those of us who use Google regularly. You are using keywords to try and find quality resources on a particular subject. But ATLAS does a lot more than this as well.

You will come to a page that looks like this – I will talk about this search page in detail in a few moments. First, I want to show you the "publications tab" at the top, so click on that. the publications tab shows you the vast amount of periodicals that are bibliographically indexed in ATLAS. If you are interested in a particular periodical, you can browse through that periodical by clicking on it. You will see information about that journal, including the ATLAS coverage, and on the right-hand side you will see the journal organized into years and issues. You can easily browse journals this way.  If you go back to the original publications page you will also notice RSS feed icons. You can choose to be notified by ATLAS via RSS when these particular periodicals have been updated in the database. ATLAS is 1-2 years behind publication on most active journals. In other words, about 1 to 2 years after an article is published in a journal, it will be indexed by ATLAS.
Let's go forward again to the journal info page that we saw earlier. Notice at the bottom there is a homepage URL. You can go directly to the homepage of that journal to see a list of its entire archive on the publisher's website. At this point you will need to find out if your library has access to the journal's homepage. Libraries have institutional access to the publication page of many journals, but not all of them. Again, Ask your librarian if you are unsure.

So let's go back to the "New Search" page, which is the page you will be using the most.

Again I remind you that this is a lot like google searching in that you are using particular keywords to find relevant search results. Like google, we can specify more than just one keyword. In this case we would use the other available fields. We can also search for phrases using quotation marks, like this. You can also use wildcard searches by using an asterisk. For example, typing in “bibl* theology*” will find “biblical theology” “biblical theological” and “biblical theologian."

Like google, you can also use Boolean connectors like “AND” “OR” and “NOT” by using the additional fields and changing the boolean connector in the drop-down.

ATLAS also makes it possible to further refine your search through other criteria. For instance, if I only wanted to find one author, I could place the last name of the author in the field, and confine that field to author. Or perhaps you want to confine the search to a particular date, just choose year published in the drop-down menu. This means that your search capability can get very specific.

I find that for the most part using keywords is sufficient enough, but it is nice to know that you can easily refine your search more if necessary.

I mentioned this before but it bears repeating, ATLAS is an extensive database. You can turn to it for biblical studies, theology, church history, practical theology, biblical counseling, and even research into other religions.

For this video, I am going to harvest some sources for an essay on the transfiguration of Jesus which we read about in Mark 9, Luke 9, and Matthew 17.

So let's type in transfiguration and do a search. You see that we have this many results. But because we made this a broad-sweep search, this is showing us items that have the word transfiguration anywhere in the data. Let's confine it to the title only. That gives us this many   hits. At this point, I want to show you how you can filter the results list using the left hand column. You can refine the results to peer-reviewed journals. You can also refine to those that have an abstract, and exclude stuff that is "in process.” You can also choose a date or a date range. If you are ONLY looking for journal articles (not books or book chapters), then you can click the first checkbox—I'm going to leave it as is.

The next layer of refinement on the left-hand side are the source types. Academic periodicals have a lot of book reviews in them—WAY more reviews than actual essays. Book reviews are great, but if you are looking for source material for an essay, book reviews are not going to be that helpful. So let's check off all of these except for reviews and then update our results.

I will say too that if you ARE indeed looking for a book review, then do the opposite of what we  did. search for the name of the book you'd like to read a review of, then refine your results to only reviews.

So now we are down to this many hits. It is quite possible that the word transfiguration may be used in an article that is not talking about Jesus' transfiguration. For instance, this hit is a poem called transfigurations!  If I were an academic author writing about the transfiguration of Jesus, I would be sure to put the word Jesus and transfiguration in the title!  So let's add "Jesus" as another search word, and refine that to title. Now we are down to this many results.  BUT — notice that whenever you hit that "search" button at the top again, the refinements on the left-hand side are wiped out. So let's choose all but reviews again. Now we are down to this many results. This is pretty manageable, but we could refine further if we wanted. First, perhaps our essay is only on the transfiguration in the gospel of Mark. So let's add Mark as another search word, and we’ll confine that to the subject area. Then choose the sources again. Now we are down to this many sources.

Now, remember how I said that if I were writing about Jesus’ transfiguration would put those words in the title - well guess what, every author is different. And that is why ATLAS has also taken the time to add its own keywords. You will find the ATLAS-generated keywords in the “subjects” area. This is an excellent way to find even more top-quality resources. Simply click on an item that you think is relevant to your topic, and you’ll now see that the list of subjects are live links. This item here has been specifically tagged with “Jesus Christ — transfiguration.” Click on that, and you’re now presented with evey single item in ATLAS that has that subject classification. One of the other great things about choosing to search in the subject field is that ATLAS does NOT add subject keywords to book reviews. So you’ll see on the left hand side that book reviews aren’t even a  part of the hits.

You’ll see that right now ATLAS has tagged this many items with Transfiguration. This is not entirely manageable. The best way to search is to use a combination of these types of searches. So, for instance, we talked about confining our study to the Gospel of Mark. So let’s add “Mark” as a search in the subject field. Now we’re at this many hits. Now let’s make sure that they are English. Notice how a few of our hits have Matthew in the title. IF we want to limit our sources so that they aren’t talking about Matthew, we can go back up to our search and get it NOT to include Matthew in the subject area. Now our hit count is pretty manageableOne more refinement to go. Notice that ATLAS has 3 search fields. But you can actually add more still! Use the plus button to add another field. Let’s add English again to the language. We weeded out Matthew, let’s also weed out Luke. So now we are down to this many   hits.

I think you get the idea. Take the time to search intelligently, using the right keywords and refinements, and you’ll be able to find just the right resources for the topic your studying. Let’s stick with the current list of hits we have for now, and talk about what we do once we have some hits that we want.

ATLAS has a nice feature called "add to folder" which sits beside each item in the results list. If you click "add to folder" the item will be listed temporarily into a folder for you. You will see that the folder icon at the very top now has an item, and a new column on the right is now showing items in your folder. The folder is particularly handy if you are researching more than just one thing in ATLAS and you need to do various searches. Just gather your sources into a temporary place.

Now that you found some good sources, all you really have is words on the screen. Further steps need to be taken to actually acquire the sources. So, let's talk about how you go about obtaining these sources. First, ATLAS has a lot of the periodicals stored right in the database. Whenever you see a PDF icon, that is a full-text version of the article that is free for you to download.

Obviously, books and book chapters will not be stored in ATLAS, and lots of journal articles are not in ATLAS either. So at this point you need to use your library catalogue to find the article or book. If ATLAS does not store the article, don't yet give up hope of getting an electronic version. Your library has many subscriptions to online services and many journals make back issues, and sometimes current issues, available on their website, and it is quite possible that an article is available to you electronically even if it is not in ATLAS.

There are two ways to search your library catalogue. If you are lucky like me, then your library catalogue is linked to ATLAS. So for example, the first item has an icon that says "find it" next to my university's crest below each listing. This is a direct link to my libraries database. So all I need to do is click that button. The result for me is this page. The item is not in my local library, and I myself have the option to request the item as an interlibrary loan.

Now, if you do not have this direct link to your library, you need to cut and paste the book title, and go to your libraries online catalogue to see if they have it.

Depending on your library's database, they may NOT have each individual article title in their catalogue — you should ask your librarian about this. IF this is the case, then you would not be able to take the title of the second item and search in your library catalogue. Instead, you would have to look at the source of the article - this one is from this journal. So you would look up the periodical title in your library's catalogue to see if they have that volume and issue.

Going back to ATLAS, there are two last things I want to show you before wrapping up. If you look to the top of the page, you will see a tab called scriptures. ATLAS does users a very nice service in tagging items with scripture references. So, for example, if you were researching an essay about Genesis 1:1, you can choose Genesis 1:1 in the scriptures list. Let's also restrict it to just English articles. And let's say we only want journal articles this time, and only published in the last 20 years. So as you can see, searching by scripture is also a handy feature, and ATLAS makes this visually accessible in the Scriptures tab.

To conclude, let's go to the folder view. If you recall, I saved one item to my folder. In your folder, you can decide what you want to do. I often collect my items in the folder all at once, and once I'm done my searches, then I'll go about obtaining the sources in the folder view. As you can see, you can also print your list, email it, save it as a text file to your computer, and you can also export it to to various formats that can be imported directly into Reference Management software.

Without going into too much detail, I will also mention that there are other search engines and databases that you can make use of to supplement ATLAS. 

If you are searching through your library, then there will be other general databases such as Academic Premier Search, JSTOR, Religious and Theological Abstracts, and Project Muse. And there will be more narrowly focussed databases relevant to the discipline for which you are searching: philosophy, classics, history, sociology, theology, biblical studies, and linguistics, to name just a few.

Google Scholar is also a nice free search engine for periodicals, and if you are a student or user of a library, access Google Scholar through your libraries website, as this enables some additional connections with your library.

Specific to biblical studies and theology a free online database is Index Theologicus. If you are looking especially for databases that have more non-English sources in Biblical studies, check out BILDI and BiBIL. Finally, I highly recommend you check out the family of websites that forms theologyontheweb.org.uk - which includes sites dedicated to biblical studies, theology, church history, biblical archaeology, and missiology. These sites makes freely available a huge amount of articles and book chapters. There has been many times when I have found an article on one of these websites that neither ATLAS nor my library had an electronic copy of.

So there you have it. As I mention in my book “Surviving and Thriving in Seminary", every good essay is built upon the solid foundation of good research and sources. Make regular use of ATLAS to obtain top quality sources and you will have one essential component for your essay writing in Seminary.

Pt 2- Why Academics & Students Should be Using a Reference Manager: app roundup

In my previous post I highlighted the six reasons every academic and university student should be using a Reference Manager. In this post I will highlight some of the top apps out there in this category. I have had hands-on experience with most of these apps at one time or another.

As I have taken some time to research these apps for this post, I have come to realize how level the playing field has become. At one time, Endnote stood out as being the best integrated with MS Word. At one time, Zotero was popular because it was free and could flawlessly pull in citation information from pretty much any website. At one time, Papers stood out as the interface to beat on Mac. At one time, Bookends stood out as having the most robust formatting (which is important for those of us enslaved to the Turabian method). At one time, only 2 or 3 of the apps had built-in annotation abilities for PDFs.

This isn't the case anymore:

• most are now fairly flawless when it comes to formatting.

  • This was not the case only a few years ago. A number of these apps arose out of the hard sciences scene that uses APA, which is a much simpler formatting style. This meant that a number of them weren't equipped for Chicago/Turabian/SBL formatting. This isn't the case anymore.

• most have built-in annotation abilities

• most can now effortlessly pull citation information in from the web, usually from within the app itself

• All of them now integrate with MS Word, and a few add other word processors into the mix as well

• Many of them now have collaboration abilities

In addition to what are now the staples for this category, we can add the cloud-syncing that is now the norm for most of them. The cloud-syncing has opened up both web access and mobile apps as well – I now carry my entire library around on my iOS app, and can read and annotate any PDF article I have on the go as well!  Academics have some truly helpful and powerful technology at our fingertips.

Below I spotlight 10 Reference Manager apps in no particular order. After a brief summary, I evaluate a few of them based on particular items (cost, platforms, etc). There are many more than 10 out there, but these seem to me to be the most popular and most-used. Hopefully you will find one of these useful. If you do decide to adopt one of these, I highly recommend taking the time to study the manual and watch video tutorials – become a master of that app, as it will pay rewards in your life later.

*full disclosure: I receive a small affiliate commission for some of the links below. If you do purchase through these links, thanks!

BOOKENDS

www.sonnysoftware.com    (AppStore link)

This is my current reference manager of choice after the demise of Sente. My very first Reference Manager was the now defunct RefCite on a PC. But just after starting to use that, I switched to a Mac and never looked back. Once on a Mac, I stumbled upon Bookends. Bookends was also the focus of my first academic-ish type article on the SBL Forum. Bookends is one of the fastest in terms of searching your own database, and its built-in web search is great. Bookends is also, still, one of the few Reference Managers that can do global changes like find & replace. Bookends has enhanced functionality with Mellel, which is my Word Processor of choice (why not MS Word? In addition to being clunky and slow as molasses with large documents, MS Word on Mac STILL doesn't properly handle unicode right-to-left Hebrew!) and handles SBL format well. I also appreciate the very responsive support by its developer. Bookends has continued to evolve, with built-in PDF annotation, syncing via iCloud, a mobile app, and great note-taking abilities.

• Cost: $59.99

• Platform(s):

  • Mac

  • iOS app

• Sync: via iCloud (and settings via Dropbox)

• Word Processor Compatibility: MS Word, Mellel, Pages, Nisus Writer, Open Office, RTF documents

• Formatting: Uses its own formatting interface. Comes with hundreds of format files.

• Document Annotation: Built-in annotation, saved directly to PDF. PDF notes are saved in the Bookends note-card system.

• Strength(s): very responsive developer. Excellent integration with Mellel. Very fast database searching.

• Weakness(es): No collaborative abilities. No collaborative features.

ENDNOTE

www.endnote.com

Endnote has been around the longest. I wasn't around when Reference Managers first made their debut, but I think I'm correct that Endnote invented the app genre. It has continued to evolve and is still the dominant player on the market – it continues to be the only app that is natively supported by MS Word and Apple Pages (fyi, I wish Apple would make this more open for other developers). Endnote works great with MS Word, and it has widened its reach to include Mac, iOS, and the web. Endnote also has collaboration abilities. While many decry Endnote's cost, student cost isn't that bad, and the apps that charge year to year actually cost much more in the long run.

• Cost: $249.95, $113.95 for students

• Platform(s):

  • PC

  • Mac

  • iPad app

  • Web

• Sync: Built-in cloud sync. Collaboration and sharing with colleagues enabled.

• Word Processor Compatibility: MS Word

• Formatting: Uses its own formatting interface, many pre-built formats available for users.

• Document Annotation: Built-in annotation and note-taking that is written to the PDF.

• Strength(s): MS Word integration. Multi-platform. Huge community.

• Weakness(es): Works with MS Word only.

PAPERS

www.papersapp.com

Papers popped up in the void of a good Mac PDF manager. Initially Papers was more about finding good references right within the app (mostly for the hard sciences) and enabling annotation and note-taking with the PDFs. Papers continues to have a great user interface and has evolved to be a full-fledged Reference Manager that handles citation and bibliography generation. It has also expanded its reach on to PC and the web, which enables collaboration abilities. Papers continues to have one of the best interfaces, and continues its aggressive development. I am unclear on how Papers handles journal abbreviations (us Biblical Studies guys need to use abbreviations in footnotes, not in bibliographies. Sente, Bookends, and Endnote do this well).

• Cost: $79

• Platform(s):

  • Mac

  • PC

  • iOS app

  • Web

• Sync: via Dropbox

• Word Processor Compatibility: MS Word, RTF documents

• Formatting: Uses the CSL repository - http://citationstyles.org

• Document Annotation: Built-in

• Strength(s): Ubiquitous. Aggressive development. Great interface and built-in searching. Particularly large hard sciences user base.

• Weakness(es): Limited word processor integration

MENDELEY

www.mendeley.com

Mendeley has made quite a splash in the Reference Manager area and has really raised the bar in terms of cloud-syncing and collaboration. It continues to stand out, in my opinion, as being the most collaborative and social of all of the Reference Managers. Its 2GB free policy really encouraged (forced) many of the other apps to add collaboration, cloud-syncing, web interface, and even a free option. For students who aren't necessarily going the academic route and don't want to spend anything, I tend to recommend Mendeley. Its interface is fairly simplistic and easy to understand for beginners, and what it does it does very well. As far as advanced features for research, I find it a little lacking – but I'm a bit of a tech junkie.

• Cost: 2GB free (annotations not synced), 5GB at $55/yr, 10GB at $110/yr, unlimited storage at $165/yr

• Platform(s):

  • Mac

  • PC

  • Linux

  • iOS

  • Web

  • 3rd party Android apps

• Sync: cloud-based

• Word Processor Compatibility: MS Word

• Formatting: Uses the CSL repository - http://citationstyles.org

• Document Annotation: Built-in

• Strength(s): Collaboration abilities and paper-sharing community. Good document annotation. Free.

• Weakness(es): Recurring cost. Not as full-featured as others.

QIQQA

www.qiqqa.com

Qiqqa is not super well-known but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be. Qiqqa first stood out to me as I was looking for a PC alternative to DEVONthink (a great Mac research database). Qiqqa started out as simply a PDF manager, enabling great annotation, note-taking, and searching of the PDFs. Qiqqa continues to do this better than any program, in my opinion. Since I last looked at it, it has, like Papers, now become a full-fledged Reference Manager that can manage your in-text citations and bibliographies. If you are on a PC, I'd highly recommend checking out Qiqqa. If I were a PC user, I'm fairly certain this would be my Reference Manager.

• Cost: 200mb free (ad-supported). 8GB at $72/yr, 50GB at $240/yr

• Platform(s):

  • PC

  • Android

  • Web

• Sync: built-in cloud syncing

• Word Processor Compatibility: MS Word

• Formatting: Uses the CSL repository - http://citationstyles.org

• Document Annotation: Built-in

• Strength(s): PDF handling and note-taking. Collaboration abilities.

• Weakness(es): Recurring cost. Platform limited. Works with MS Word only.

ZOTERO

www.zotero.org

Zotero is a favorite for many, and for good reason. Zotero started out as a Firefox plugin, and this origin highlights one of its main strengths - it seamlessly integrates with your web browser and flawlessly pulls in information. It was Zotero that really pushed the others to start pulling in information from the web too. Like Mendeley, it is free for a certain amount of space. I never really warmed up to Zotero's interface and don't like that it doesn't have PDF annotation built-in – but given the playing field, this may change soon.

• Cost: 300mb free. 2GB at $20/yr, 6GB at $60/yr, unlimited storage at $120/yr

• Platform(s):

  • Mac

  • PC

  • Linux

  • Web

  • 3rd party iOS apps

  • 3rd party Android apps

• Sync: cloud-based

• Word Processor Compatibility: MS Word and LibreOffice/OpenOffice/NeoOffice,

• Formatting: Uses the CSL repository - http://citationstyles.org

• Document Annotation: none

• Strength(s): Web importing. Collaboration abilities. Huge user base and community.

• Weakness(es): Recurring cost. No mobile app. No document annotation. Works only with MS Word and OpenOffice.

CITAVI

www.citavi.com

Citavi is quite popular in Europe, not as much in North America. Citavi focuses a lot on the knowledge organization side of things, with task management and note-taking. Citavi is unique in that its formatting is all built-in and if you need a new format, the developer makes them. You can collaborate with a special version of Citavi.

• Cost: $156

• Platform(s):

  • PC

• Sync: no

• Word Processor Compatibility: MS Word, OpenOffice, RTF documents

• Formatting: 3,000 Built-in formats. Developer-built only.

• Document Annotation: none

• Strength(s): note-taking and knowledge organization. Task management.

• Weakness(es): No mobile app. No document annotation. No sync.

BIBLIOSCAPE

www.biblioscape.com

Biblioscape is another PC-only option. Like Citavi, it has a strong emphasis on knowledge organization and note-taking. Its interface, like Citavi, is pretty dated with that Windows 98-type feel. You can collaborate with an upgraded version.

• Cost: $149

• Platform(s):

  • PC

• Sync: no. But Biblioscape can run as a server on your network, and allow others to view your database.

• Word Processor Compatibility: MS Word, RTF documents

• Formatting: Uses its own formatting interface, many pre-built formats available for users.

• Document Annotation: Built-in.

• Strength(s): Strong emphasis on note-taking and research. Task lists and chart-making abilities.

• Weakness(es): No mobile app. Poor interface. No syncing.

REFWORKS

www.refworks.com

Refworks continues to be web-only, which is good for some and not-so-good for others. This allows for some collaboration abilities and has a mobile-friendly web interface.

• Cost: $100 / yr

• Platform(s):

  • Web (mobile friendly)

• Sync: no

• Word Processor Compatibility: MS Word, RTF documents

• Formatting: Uses its own formatting interface, many pre-built formats available for users.

• Document Annotation: Built-in.

• Strength(s): Strong emphasis on note-taking and research. Task lists and chart-making abilities.

• Weakness(es): No mobile app. Poor interface. High cost.

I have tried to be as accurate as possible. Please let me know if I have made any errors and I will update the post. As I said in my previous post, a Reference Manager can be one of the most important tools for an academic.

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Pt 1 - Here is Why Academics & Students Should be Using a Reference Manager

Books. Journal articles. Essays. Conference papers. Websites. The job of the student and academic is to swim through and manage a sea of reference material. And the waves of information and material has increased. Lucky for us, technology has indeed kept up with this need. Word processors are better than ever. Computers are faster. More is available online. In this post I want to introduce you to the one type of app that I think every academic and student can utilize to help manage academic literature: the reference manager.

There are quite a number of reference managers out there, all of them quite good. You may have heard of Endnote, or Mendeley, or Zotero. But you're not quite sure what they do. In this post, I will explain exactly what a Reference Manager does. Once I do, you will immediately see the value. In a subsequent post, I will briefly list and describe some of the reference managers out there.

Here is the six main things a reference manager does for you:

1. One place to keep all of your info. Previous to the advent of the reference manager, a well organized academic kept a massive text document of all of their books, essays, journal articles, etc. Within the document they would make sure it was properly formatted for the bibliographic style of their discipline. A reference manager provides a convenient place where all of this citation-type of information (i.e. metadata) can be stored. The prevalence of Reference Managers has made the collection of this information exceedingly easy. You rarely need to type in the information manually anymore.

2. Organize the info with groups, folders, tags, keywords, etc. Building off of one consolidated place to store this citation information, a Reference Manager now allows you to add your own data to this information. Tags/keywords can help you to quickly find information on particular subjects, and groups/folders can help further organize into categories, projects, etc.

3. Keep PDFs with its Info. The majority of journal articles are now online and many of us choose to download a PDF copy of the articles. In addition, it is easier than ever to create a PDF scan of book chapters, or create a PDF copy of a webpage. A Reference Manager allows you to keep a PDF of an article together with its information. No need to have complicated folder structure, or go searching through your documents folder.

4. Take Your Reading Notes in One Spot. Back in the days when all I read were print books, notes on the back pages or sticky notes were the norm. But even then, this style of note-taking was limited and stuck on my shelf. Now, with so much material being consumed on our computer screen, Reference Manager's have made it easy to take notes and highlight information right alongside our PDFs. Your notes are now attached right to your citation information. Many Reference Managers also provide a way directly within the app to take notes and highlight a PDF directly.

5. All of This Stuff Above – Search It! Now we're getting to the "power" of the Reference Manager. Not only has it provided you with a convenient place to store and organize your citation data and documents, but all of this information is now searchable. Your library's usefulness has been super-charged!

6. Automatically Generate Your Footnotes & Bibliography. Read that sentence one more time, and let it sink in – REFERENCE MANAGERS WILL WRITE YOUR FOOTNOTES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR YOU! I remember well the day I was sitting in the study room, frantically trying to properly footnote all of my citations in a major paper, and my OT prof Glenn Wooden walked by. Perhaps seeing my agitation, he asked what I was doing. Once I told him, he said, "you know there is software that can do that for you, right?" This actually marked a huge turning point for me. I wasn't tech savvy before that moment - now I'm a tech ninja! And it was because I realized how using computer apps could actually make my life easier. Every Reference Manager works with word processors (like MS Word) so that with a few clicks of the button, you will be properly citing your sources and creating perfectly formatted footnotes and bibliographies. You manage the data and make sure it is in your Reference Manager correctly, and let it worry about the formatting.

There are your six main reasons you should be using a Reference Manager. Perhaps there are other great reasons I haven't thought of – if so, let me know in the comments. If you aren't using a Reference Manager yet – now is the time!

Part 2- Reference Manager Round Up

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Email Does Not Have Permission to Interrupt You: 9 tips to gain control

Email is part of our world and an awesome communication tool. So much of business is still done via email, and many of us get a lot of education (newsletters, subscriptions, etc) from our inbox. But the convenience, speed, and necessity of email has come at a price – we have given  electronic communication permission to interrupt us all of the time! This is not good for us. We have given any person with our email address (or on our Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat, etc) to tap us on the shoulder and interrupt our day. Over the last year I've taken control of my email, rather than it letting it control me.

 Here are some steps you can take to calm the email madness:

1. Quiet your mobile device. If you want to be hardcore, you can disconnect your email entirely from your mobile device, but that isn't realistic for most. But, you can tell your phone to stop notifying you every time you get an email, Facebook message, twitter mention, etc. Turn off the updates! Another thing you can do on your mobile device is choose the option to fetch email rather than have it automatically pushed to your phone. That way, it will only retrieve your email when you open your email app.
2. Quiet your computer. Notifications aren't just on mobile devices anymore, they are on our desktops as well. Adjust your settings so that you don't automatically get notified every time an email comes in.
3. Utilize mail filters. Anyone who works or is a student at a university probably gets a lot of university email like I do. It is a veritable avalanche! While you shouldn't necessarily delete these, they don't need to be in your inbox. I create a filter to move these mass-type of emails to a separate folder, which I quickly review and delete every week or so.
4. Unsubscribe! I have friends who have the best of intentions with keeping up with lots of different organizations, newsletters, etc. But you can't do and read everything. If you are getting emails that you have subscribed to, but over the last few months you haven't actually read them, hit the unsubscribe button! If you are thinking you'd still like to somehow maintain contact with this organization, see if they have a Twitter feed you can follow instead.
5. Check your email only twice a day. This requires discipline, but you can do it! Unless your job requires constant email checking, you don't need to check your email every minute. If you don't have the discipline, you can utilize software like anti-social which I've blogged about before. When you're not checking your email, close the app and keep it out of sight. Batch-tasking email in this way makes processing your inbox go faster, and allows you to concentrate on the task at hand.
6. Don't use your email inbox as a To Do list. If an email results in a task, move it to a task list (there are tons of great todo apps, or you can just use paper). Don't let an email sit in your inbox to remind you to do something. This is frankly, the one thing I struggle with most. The times when I'm most in control of my email, it is because I'm diligently following this rule.
7. Act on it, Archive it, or Forget it! When it comes time to process your email, think A–A–F.
   • Act on it. When you are processing your email that needs action you can choose to (1) do it immediately, or (2) record your action in your todo list and assign a date to do it. I recommend doing it immediately ONLY if it will take you just a few minutes (or if it is an emergency). If it is a larger task, resist the urge to start doing it and plan with your todo list to do it later.
   • Archive it. Is it just information that you need to keep? Drop it in an archive folder (Resist the urge to have a complex folder system, just rely on searching). Act on emails still may require archiving.
   • Forget it. Some email just isn't important to keep. If that's the case, be ruthless and hit that trash button!
8. Choose a Better Communication medium. One of the problems with email today is that it has become a catch-all communication medium. But there are often better options that won't clog up your email. It is often hard to move out of the email communication ring, but if you get an email that requires a conversation, don't have a 20-message back and forth—just pick up the phone! While others should probably be picking up the phone to call you, the reality is that you need to take the initiative and just move to the phone. Another option that is ideal if you are in constant team communication, use an app like Slack or Asana and you'll cut down your email significantly (read one testimony here). Slack is being raved about by several leaders I read, and Asana is quite popular as well, though Asana moves beyond just communication into group projects and tasks.
9. Aim for Inbox Zero! I love the satisfaction of having an empty inbox. I aim for inbox zero every week, and you can do it too! Here is how you can do it. The above six points (#3–8) will help you achieve inbox zero.

Stop letting email and other communication interrupt you. Use the 9 tips above to regain some semblance of sanity in your life. You can do it!

Any other tips? Put them in the comments below for others!

How to Maximize Supper Time with Your Family

One of the things my wife has taught me is the importance of sitting down together as a family for supper. This wasn't easy for me – I grew up watching television during supper. Not only did we have a TV in the kitchen, but sometimes I would just grab my food and sit in the living room. Our family didn't make any concerted effort to sit and converse besides the larger gatherings for holidays. This had some negative consequences for me once I started dating my wife.

Once we started dating, I found myself sitting at a table for supper with my parents-in-law as well as her extended family quite often and I wasn't used to it. I learned then that I wasn't great at engaging in conversation with those I didn't (yet) know very well.

Supper time difficulty continued once we got married. My wife wanted regular supper practice to be sitting at the dinner table, while I wanted to balance our plates on our laps while we watched TV. This took time and adjustment for me.

By the time we had children, I was sold on the importance of sitting together for supper. Especially now that our children are beyond the infant and toddler stage, I think it is doubly important. Too many children today don't know how to carry a conversation, and I'm so happy that my children can carry a conversation and does not take off as soon as they are done.

Below are some points to keep in mind as you work to have a good supper routine:

• Have your children help set the table.
• Clean up after supper as a family. Kids can put (at least their own) dishes in the dishwasher, put condiments away, etc.
• Give thanks to God for your meal.
• Ask each person at the table what the best part of their day was.
• If you need more conversation, ask each person what the least favorite part of their day was, and what they learned from it.
• Normal practice should be for everyone to sit at the table until everyone is done. If children need to do something, they should get in the habit of asking if they can leave the table.
• Mom is the meal-maker in our house. Make sure the children thank mom out loud for their meal at some point. And if you are a dad, lead by example.
• If you are the "conversation co-ordinator" like I am, share something about your day as well. Your children will particularly like to hear about something funny that happened, and they will also value hearing about how you have learned from your mistakes.
• Depending on your family schedule, this may be an ideal time to read the Bible or do a family devotion. I have found this the best time for our family. I am typically done eating first, so as the rest are finishing up, I will begin reading the Bible. Make sure to take some time to discuss what you read. We shouldn't assume that our kids can listen and comprehend everything they are hearing.
• If you need to discuss something as a family, supper time is an ideal time as long as there is no chastisement involved. I have made this mistake of bringing something up at the table that should be a one-on-one conversation.

Do you have any other supper time practices? Tell me about them in the comments.

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I Have a Desk Job but Stand a Lot. Here's How and Why

Two years ago a blog post from Michael Hyatt came through my twitter feed that convinced me to act. The post was about sitting and how it isn't good for you. At the bottom of this post you'll see the infographic that formed the meat of the article from 2 years ago.

Most of us who have desk jobs know that sitting so much isn't good for us, but we also tend to do nothing about it. I certainly didn't do anything. But once I read the aforementioned blog post (and was sufficiently alarmed by the infographic below), I decided to start being proactive. Not only did it make more sense to me that sitting too much wasn't good for me, but I have struggled with a lower back problem since I was 22 and threw it out while working at a warehouse.

The first thing I did, and which I'd recommend to all those who have a desk job, is to put yourself on a timer. In my case, I purchased a nice little Mac app called BreakTime. I set this handy little app to 55 minutes. I then began getting up for 5 minutes every hour. Typically I would just get up and walk around the hall, or more often I would go an do the few little things I needed to do around the building. The 5 minutes soon expanded to 10 minutes every hour, and I began to add a little bit of easy exercise to get my blood flowing – running in place, jumping jacks, etc.

While this improved my day considerably and continue the practice to this day, I wanted to take the next step by trying to stand for most of the day. I had heard about standing desks and decided to request a new desk from my boss – and was very happy he said yes. I purchased my standing desk (the picture is my standing desk 😊) from updesk.com and have been totally satisfied. Buyers can get a manually cranking desk, or an automatic desk. I chose the automatic, and it has three height settings on it. I do have lazy days, but on most days while in the office I stand for 70% of the time.

Another good offshoot of my standing desk is it results in standing meetings. When people come to my office and I'm standing, we just continue to stand. This tends to make meetings briefer and to the point. And if I feel like sitting with my guest, the chairs are right there.

So this is how and why I stand a lot, even though I have a desk job. I'd encourage those of you out who have a desk job to consider a standing desk. Here is a Lifehacker article on some of the top standing desk sellers. If you like the idea but can't swing the cost, you can build one yourself for much cheaper (see this, this, or this). Good luck and keep standing!

Understanding Matthew's Genealogy and His "Creative Counting" in 1:17

Have you ever wondered why Matthew and Luke's genealogy of Jesus is different? It is clear to most scholars that Matthew is not intending to create and exhaustive genealogy of Jesus (or more specifically Joseph), but rather a dynastic genealogy. Matthew is using the genealogy to show how Jesus is in the line of dynastic succession. As such, the evangelist is not focused on an exhaustive list.

As some of you know, I am in the final stretch of my PhD dissertation. My study has focused on Davidic tradition and typology in the Gospel of Matthew.

Last week Craig Evans and a few of my friends (Greg Monette, Jesse Richards, Brian LePort) were at Bristol and told me about a presentation on Matthew's genealogy by the awesome NT scholar Francis Watson, as part of a forthcoming monograph on the Gospels. They were kind enough to pass along some of his handouts.

My first dissertation chapter is on the incipit and genealogy of Matthew and so I was interested to see what Watson thinks about Matt 1:17 and the 3 x 14 structure of Matthew. If you're quick at math, you'll see that Matthew counts 42 generations and herein lies the problem – there aren't enough names to get to 14 for the 3rd set. I argue in my chapter, along with other commentators, that Matthew was utilizing gematria (letters equalling numbers) on the Hebrew name David, which adds up to 14. But where there has been a wide range of opinion is how to understand Matthew's "creative counting." Here is a list of options:

• Matthew miscounted
• Textual corruption or scribal error. E.g. perhaps Jehoiakim or Abner was a name that got missed in early transmission. (Schonfield)
• Matthew "rounded up" the third grouping to stress the 3 x 14 pattern (Davies and Allison)
• Jesus counts as 2 (Jesus is one, Christ is the second) (Stendahl)
• Matthew counts Jechoniah twice. Augustine argued this. From the handouts I received I see that Watson also takes this position. And I noted a while back that Michael Licona stated this in a nice little YouTube video about the genealogy. (He explains gematria in the video quite nicely too!)
• The Holy Spirit is counted (Nolan)
• Mary is counted (Gundry)
• Jesus' "real" biological father is counted (Schaberg)
• Jehoiakim is present in the count but not Matthew's genealogy (Brown)
• The exile is counted as a generation (Chrysostom)
• David is counted twice (Schöllig)

All of the options assume two things: First, Matthew used a name to represent a "generation." Second, all of the options assume Matthew counted "creatively" by either double-counting one person, adding someone without naming them, or rounding up.

The last option was presented by Johann Bengel in 1858, by Hugo Schöllig in 1968, and was also presented by Stephen Carlson in 2009 at a SECSOR regional meeting (see his post). To this list you can now add Zacharias. And trust me, I'm right !  😏

In a nutshell, David and David alone should be counted twice because Matthew emphasizes David and Jesus as Son of David throughout the Gospel. In addition, David is the 14th name in the genealogy (remember Matt 1:17 and its 3 x 14 structure), and Matthew adds additional focus to David by utilizing gematria and calling him "the king" in the genealogy. But more important than any of that is this point: Matthew himself tells us exactly how to count the genealogy:

“Therefore all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ are fourteen generations.” (Matthew 1:17)

It can be visualized in this way:

View fullsize

This way of counting, Matthew's way, gives us 14 names in each division, with David being counted twice, just like Matthew tells us to.

So to sum up,  this is the best option available because:

1. It doesn't assume error by Matthew or later scribes
2. Doesn't assume a missing name
3. Doesn't arbitrarily choose to double-count a name (Jechoniah or Jesus) just to make the scheme work
4. Fits Matthew's continual emphasis on Jesus as the Son of David through the Gospel
5. Counts the "generations" exactly how Matthew tells us to

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment below!

And finally, my favorite book on the genealogy is with fellow Highland PhD student (and now graduate) Jason Hood's published dissertation The Messiah, His Brothers, and the Nations. If you're interested in Matthew's genealogy, check it out!

Here is How You Can Harness Google Books in Your Academic Study

Google Books is an awesome resource to help you in your study. I am on the site constantly and have found it invaluable in my academic studies. Let me tell you how.

When I first learned many moons ago that Google had begun a major initiative to scan pretty much every book in existence, I was over the moon with excitement. If by chance you don't really know what Google Books is, Google has scanned almost every book in existence. They now sit on their servers and, depending on the publisher, you have a certain amount of access to the content of the book. For most books, you can do a full text search within the books, although how much of the book you can view is different based on publisher preferences – either full view, limited preview, snippet view, or no preview. Books that are in the public domain in your country are not only full view, but can be downloaded. All of the metadata is there for the books as well, so Google Books is a good place to import data about a book for bibliographic software.

So here is a list of the 5 ways I've used Google Books in my academic study.

1. Search and Find Relevant Resources. The first and most basic use of Google Books is to find resources for your study. The best way to do this from the front page is to use keywords for searching. Google Books uses the same kind of boolean searches as regular google. So quotations provide exact matches for phrases, you can use AND between keywords so that both words occur, as well OR to say "find either X or Y." You'll find lots of great stuff.
   While this is a post on Google Books, I would actually recommend that users use Google Scholar for this step if you want to look beyond just books. Google Scholar searches not only Google Books, but periodicals and journal articles that are available on the web. Using Google Scholar for this step will help you find both books and articles.
2. Search a book on your shelf. Because Google has scanned every book and made it text-searchable, Google Books is a great place to go in order to do a full-text search of a book you have on your shelf. If you ever remember something from a  book, but can't remember what page it was on – Google Books to the rescue! Google makes it easy to see your search results by highlighting the hits right in the book and all of the hits in a book can be navigated.
3. Search a collection of books (or your whole library!). An expansion on the first usage is to actually search a collection of books. Google Books has a feature called "My Library." It is a grouping of books that can be searched in isolation from the rest of Google's collection (You can also sub-categorize your "My Library" list in virtual shelves). In my case, I added to my library books of my shelf (I have most there but am working to get them all there). Depending on my current area of research – right now it's my dissertation – I create a shelf. Now all books in My Library can be searched, and I can further refine my search based on any shelves created.
4. Read snippets of "peripheral books". Google Books has been invaluable for checking out sources cited in footnotes. As I have been reading for my dissertation, on pretty much every page a book is cited that I don't have. Sometimes it is quite obvious that I need to get the book from the library, other times it is not so obvious. This is where Google Books has been invaluable – it has allowed me to browse books within seconds without leaving my office! This has yielded some great resources as well as pointed out some obvious flaws in how and why people footnote!
5. Cross referencing!  Google Books has allowed me to "peer in" to the academic conversation that surrounds articles in a whole new way. Let me give you a quick example. A chapter of my current dissertation is on the death of Judas in Matthew and its typological connection with the death of Ahithophel. Beyond brief mention in commentaries, I found no significant work on this. But all commentaries references two articles by L. Paul Trudinger and T. Francis Glasson called “Davidic Links With The Betrayal Of Jesus." These articles, though, were short critical notes only two pages in length. I had found nothing else. This is where I turned to Google Books. I wrapped the title of the article in quotations and did a search (quotations in google searches for the exact phrase). This resulted in a list of books that had these articles in their bibliography. I then went to each book, and within the book looked for the author's last name (so that I can find any footnote, including short-form footnotes). This helped me find a couple of significant works that discussed the issue in more depth. I simply would not have found these works if I hadn't used Google Books to do this type of cross-referencing.
   As in point #1,  Google Scholar is valuable here as well, as it will highlight journal articles in your cross reference search.

You may have more ways that you use Google Books that I haven't thought of – I'd love to hear about it! Please share in the comments below and spread the knowledge!

photo credit: FutUndBeidl via photopin cc

How to Set a Productive Mood on Your Computer

I’m not a fan of silence, particularly when I’m in my office working. But I’m also an easily distracted person. For awhile, I tried to multi-task my mind by listening to podcasts while working. While I enjoyed the podcast content, it didn’t take me long to figure out that this was bad for productivity. I then moved to just putting iTunes on random. While this was better, I would start to sing along or focus a little too much on the lyrics. I then tried to make a playlist of more ballad-type songs or hymns. Still not great. But I knew that what you listen to while you work can either help or hinder your productivity.

what you listen to while you work can either help or hinder your productivity —Tweet That!

It was then that I came across a little website which swiftly turned into a little app: Coffitivity. Coffitivity is a website, but is also a Mac app, iOS app, and Android app. Coffitivity creates white noise that replicates a busy coffee shop – which many find to be a great atmosphere for work. This set the right mood for me to be productive. It took away the silence that I dislike but didn’t distract me. This is a jewel of an app!

After using Coffitivity for awhile, I heard about Focus@Will. This web app creates several different tracks to listen to, and were created in partnership with a leading neuroscientist to try and help increase focus (read the sciency stuff here).

Focus@Will is free to use for a 60 minute session per day, or you can pay yearly fee of just of under $50 a year. I used Focus@Will for three weeks and liked it so much that I subscribed to it. I have not regretted it one bit. The only thing I didn’t like was that on my desktop, Focus@Will runs through the browser - it would be nice for them to have a Mac app that could run in the menu bar so that I don’t need to run the browser. But I took matters into my own hands and used Fluid to make the Focus@Will web app into a desktop app.

Once in awhile I go back to Coffitivity, but Focus@Will is now my main mood setter for a productive day. I would encourage you to check both of them out, as they are both great apps that may help you the way they help me.

How do you set a productive mood for yourself? 

jaronbrass via photopin cc

Demo Video for FlashGreek Pro

Most of you know that I publish mobile apps for learning Greek - one of them being FlashGreek Pro. If you have ever wondered exactly what FlashGreek is all about and how it might be able to help you, this demo video will explain it all. Please pass the video along to any Greek students, seminary students, and Bible College students that you know.

Mentoring Memories: my first big TA assignment for Dr. Craig Evans

A while back I was listening to a podcast about mentors by Michael Hyatt (one of my favorite podcasts) and it had me reflecting on people that have had an influence on me. One of the things Hyatt talked about was finding mentors and learning from people you don’t necessarily even know - learning through podcasts, books, etc. There are a number of people I would point to as being mentors in my life: people I try to continue learning from. From time to time on this blog I want to take time to reflect on some things I’ve learned from my mentors.

I have been privileged to have as one of my main mentors New Testament scholar Dr. Craig Evans. Being mentored by Craig was no accident. Near the end of my undergrad studies, I knew that I wanted to pursue graduate and PhD studies in New Testament. I also knew that I wanted to try and stay in Canada; I wanted to find a top-notch scholar; and I wanted a believer. Dr. Evans fits all of those criteria - and in my opinion he is a cut above top-notch. I originally planned to head to Trinity Western University, but after talking to Dr. Evans via email I learned he was moving to Acadia Divinity College, so I came here instead, and haven’t left!

Once I was here, I was very methodical. Not only did I want to learn from Craig, but I wanted to understand his work ethic and tricks of the trade. If you know NT studies at all, you know the name Craig Evans and you know that he is prolific. I’ll share about some other things I’ve learned from him, but today I want to focus on one thing in particular.

So, as soon as I arrived, I asked if I could be his TA. The spot was taken, so I TA’d for another professor for a year (which was great, as I was TAing for Greek). The following year I jumped into the TA spot for Craig. Two months into this new position, my baptism by fire came.

I remember it very clearly because it was so comical. I was sitting in one of our small classrooms with a few students, having just finished Greek class with Craig. Craig left the class and then swiftly came back. He had in his hand a 576 page manuscript for a book he had edited with Bruce Chilton called The Missions of James, Peter, and Paul (great collection of essays by the way). This behemoth paper stack was tied together with some string. He dropped it in front of me (almost cracking the table), and said: “Danny, here’s the manuscript we talked about. Brill really wants to have it ready for SBL. They would like the index to be done quickly. You have 72 hours."

After a bit of a chuckle, the reality sunk in that the next 72 hours of my life would be just this manuscript. I was shocked at the timetable (that was news to me), but fortunately I had mentally prepared – in particular I had figured out a way to do the indexing a little more quickly using a spreadsheet (I’ve since worked out an even quicker way - check out my guide, Scripture Indexing on a Mac).

I set to work immediately. Fortunately this didn’t set me back homework wise, as I generally worked ahead (check out my homework tips in Surviving and Thriving in Seminary). I worked on this non-stop. The first night, I went to bed pretty late. The next day I felt I was really behind and not going to make it - but I kept pushing. At home I sat at my desk and got to it. While I sat at my desk working on this, Craig was in his home office working as well. We were emailing back and forth every half hour or so. He encouraged me along. By 4am he decided to get a few hours of sleep. At 7:30am, I finished the index. I felt pasted to my desk chair. I got up, took a shower, and headed to class. As I sent it to Craig, I got an email back from Craig. He said that I was a mensch, in German a “real man."

I learned something about myself and Craig that day. First, I learned that sometimes you just have to burn the midnight oil. There are times when you just need to keep working. Craig knows how to work hard and long hours - that’s part of the reason why he is so prolific. And I also learned that when I’m focused and under the gun, I can work very fast. I know I have the fortitude to get stuff done when I need to. Craig really taught me the value of hard work.

From that assignment, I also learned the value of utilizing technology. I had talked to some previous students who had done similar work. They talked about days and weeks of doing these indexes. I got it done by myself in 72 hours. It wasn’t because I necessarily worked harder, but because, as soon as I learned I had to do this, I thought to myself “there’s got to be a better way beyond copying and pasting into a Word document.” A little bit of planning went a LONG way.

One other thing I learned is that it is good to “pay your dues.” No one likes to do indexing, but it is part of the publishing business. It builds character to “start at the bottom” so to speak. I did more indexes after that - I taught others how, and now I edit books and write them. Scripture indexing a book is a huge labor with little reward - but somebody’s got to do it. It makes the book much more usable for users.

So there you have it. My first assignment taught me 1) the value of hard work, 2) the value of utilizing technology, and 3) that it builds character when you “start at the bottom." 

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

Recommendation: The Critical Thinker Academy course

Full disclosure: I receive a small affiliate commission for all purchases of this course

I am a fan of video courses, and given my use of Udemy.com for my own courses it should be no secret that I’m a big fan of that platform. Over the next little while I will be recommending some video courses which will appear on my recommended courses page. The first recommended course that I want to recommend today is the Critical Thinker Academy.

I audited a critical thinking course in my undergrad and really enjoyed it. I made a mental note at that point to educate myself some more on the subject. That time came two years ago when I was driving to New Brunswick to teach a course. I wanted to find an educational podcast I could listen to and stumbled upon the Critical Thinker podcast from the Critical Thinker Academy. I listened to all of those podcasts and really enjoyed them. Once I got home I consumed more of the content from the website. The Critical Thinker Academy has 6 video courses in all.

Last week as I was browsing Udemy, I was really excited to come across Critical Thinker Academy and immediately purchased it. The teacher in this course, Kevin deLaplante, has bundled all 6 of his courses into this one Udemy course, which means it is full of great stuff. Here are the 14 sections of this course:

1. Introductions
2. Why Critical Thinking is Important
3. The Five Pillars of Critical Thinking
4. Cognitive Biases and Critical Thinking
5. Special Topics
6. Basic Concepts in Logic and Argumentation
7. Basic Concepts in Propositional Logic
8. Common Valid and Invalid Argument Forms
9. Introduction to Fallacies
10. Reasoning with Probabilities: What is Probability?
11. Reasoning with Probabilities: The Rules
12. Fallacies of Probability and Judgment
13. How to Write a Good Argumentative Essay
14. How to Cite Sources and Avoid Plagiarism

There is a whopping 141 lectures in all. But what is great is that these are all in bite-size portions: they range from 3 minutes to 25 minutes long, which are very manageable. I also like the range of videos - there is plenty here for someone coming to critical thinking for the very first time as well as some more advanced work. Finally, I was so happy to see that deLaplante included his courses on essay writing and citing sources - these are very valuable sections for students.

I highly recommend this course to anyone interested in argumentation and critical thinking, as well as for students who are looking to learn more about essay writing and citing sources. 

Getting Anti-Social to Ramp Up Productivity

One of the biggest impediments to my own productivity are the time wasting sites -– in particular Facebook and YouTube. I enjoy both sites, so I do not want to totally ditch them. Not only does Facebook keep me connected, but as I mentioned before, it is how I keep up on reading interesting articles.

However, during times of stress I tend waste even more time by checking Facebook way too often or getting lost down the black hole of amusing YouTube videos. This is why I now use an awesome app called anti-social (Mac or PC). Antisocial tells you to choose an amount of time, then choose URL domains to block during this time. It can also block you from email during that time. For me, it is Facebook.com and YouTube.com. I started with antisocial's suggested 45 minutes, but am increasing the blocks of time to one hour or more. This is about being intentional in using your time to be productive.

If you need even more restriction, you can purchase Freedom, which blocks all internet access. This doesn't work for me, as I am often doing academic research online. But this may work for you.

If you’re like me, sometimes you lose a little self-control during high stress periods. Using these types of apps can help you stay on target, keep focused, and be productive. 

Why and How I ditched my RSS Reader

For a long time I read blogs using Google Reader. Even before its unfortunate demise I found myself frequenting Google Reader less and less. And when I did go to it the feed list was so long I didn't end up reading much of it at all.

Once google Reader closed down I moved over with the rest of the world to Feedly. Then I had a thought - what if I just didn't bother? So I tried it out for awhile.

This choice coincided with my late adoption of Twitter. I decided to use others as funnels for interesting articles, rather than sifting it all through for myself. On Twitter I follow:

   * For leadership stuff I follow Michael Hyatt on Twitter
   * For productivity I follow Time Management Ninja on Twitter
   * For parenting and leadership I follow Tim Elmore on Twitter
   * For finance and debt stuff I follow Dave Ramsey and CanadianFinance
   * I follow others too, but these are some of the main funnel-type tweeters

In addition, lots of my Facebook friends are, naturally, interested in a lot of the same things I am. Plenty of my friends post good stuff on parenting. Lots of my students and colleagues share good posts on the Bible, Christianity, Biblical Studies, and Theology. And even my atheist brother posts good science and atheism stuff too :-) Because I am friends with numerous bloggers and scholars, my Facebook newsfeed keeps me well informed.

Moving to this type of method over an RSS reader also means that the better stuff is what I end up reading – the cream rises to the top, since at least one person has recommended it over the other stuff out there.

The last step in my system is using a Read Later service called Pocket. It saves articles for me to read later. It can waste a lot of time to read everything as soon as you come across it. Instead I batch it together at convenient times. Pocket is free and it is very simple to save articles (or anything else) directly from my browser or my twitter client of choice (Tweetbot for Mac and iOS).

This approach may not work well for you, but it has been great for me. About the only place I need to be careful is in the number of tweeters I follow. I try and be diligent to prune the people I follow if I'm not getting much good stuff from them but they post a lot.

I'm also careful to batch my Twitter scanning time. I've never had the temptation to check twitter more than once every day or so (not so with Facebook - I'll be posting about this in the future). Twitter, for me, is mainly about scanning through to find interesting stuff to throw into Pocket or to answer the occasional question that comes my way.

So there it is. Have you ditched your RSS Reader? If so, leave me a comment - and any suggestions for improving my system are welcome too.

andyi via photopin cc

Why We Limit Screen Time For Our Kids

Maria and I try our best to be intentional parents. We think about what we do and why we do it. We don't always get it right, and there are a few places I feel we need to improve. But one place I feel we got it right is in the area of screen time.

We limit screen time more than most parents. By screen time I mean TV/Netflix, movies, Wii, non-game computer usage, games on computer, games on mobile devices. Our kids have screen time on the weekends, and even then it is limited to only a few hours. In addition, we consider just looking at a screen to be screen time for our child - in other words if Jack wants to play Wii, he should not waste a lot of his time just watching Lex play because that counts!

Before I list some of the reasons and benefits of doing this, I'll also state some of the exceptions. When a kid is at home sick or when one or more of the kids get to go out to do something special, the remaining kids usually get screen time (which usually falls on the weekends anyway). The kids all know it works this way and we're happy to let them veg on the couch while nursing a flu. The other exception is if they are with friends - but even then screen time will only be a portion of their play time.

So, here are the reasons we have limited screen time, and why you should consider doing so as well:

• We see changes in behavior if our children get too much screen time, and I see it in other kids too. They often become more whiny and complain more. And a phrase that seems to become a favorite in kids with too much screen time is “this is boring.” I HATE when kids say that.
• There is only so much time in a day (especially school days!). If your children are spending hours on a screen, that is hours NOT doing something else. If you had to choose - wouldn't you rather they be playing outside, playing sports, doing a puzzle, reading, etc.? There's no better way to stifle kids creativity than too much screen time.
• Children are losing the ability to entertain themselves, and are instead continually seeking to be entertained. Don't let that happen to your kids! It is a joy to see that my oldest son Lex (the artsy one) grabs his drawing book or his notebook with the stories he's writing, instead of reaching for a mobile game device. But I know without a doubt that if there was no restriction, he'd be playing video games before and after school. 
• We have gotten to the point in society when we choose screens (games, social media, etc.) over live people around us. I want to teach my kids to value and interact with those around them. I heard a story of what is now a common scenario: a pre-teen or young teen girl's mom bowed to the pressure to get her daughter a smart phone so that she could fit In with her friends who are always on their phones texting others. What a shame that kids can’t just enjoy the friends that are around them!
• Many kids are lacking in the ability to carry on sustained conversations with their peers or older people. I'm proud that my kids can carry a conversation. This social awkwardness can be exacerbated by screen time and is not going to help our kids in the future.
• Unrestricted computer and smartphone access can be particularly harmful. There is so much garbage on the net and chances are lots of your children's online friends will share lots of crap with your kids that they think is "funny."
• Unrestricted smartphone and tablet access has resulted in children (and adults!) having addiction-type behavior. They can't seem to function without regular access to it.
• Because of how we limit screen time, it feels more like a treat for our kids rather than the norm. This means that it can be used as reward and actually feel special.
• Because we limit the screen, it often becomes entertainment we engage in together. We have family movie night and it actually feels special, we enjoy certain shows together (Cosby show is a favorite) and even video games become something often done together.
• We're fairly strict when it comes to tv and movie content - probably more than most. But I figure that as they grow up and have more freedom, they'll often be choosing those types of movies anyways. Restricting violent movies does not fall under the definition of depriving your children.
• Aim at making memories with and for your children. While I have a few good memories involving games or movies from my childhood, it was always because of the people I was with, not the content of the game/movie. Aim at making memories.

Whatever you decide about screen time, be intentional and stick to the plan —Tweet That!

I want to stress that we're not anti-screen - there are good things they can learn from videos and games. But make-belief play and outdoor play is always better. Some may think we're too restrictive. Whatever you decide about screen time, be intentional and stick to the plan. We talk openly with our kids and they understand the reasons, and they have begun to own the reasons for themselves. They can articulate why we do this as a family.

You may come to a totally different decision than we did - but as parents it is a decision you need to make for your family.

Photo Credit: The UMF 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

My Own Site and My Own Blog (again)

Hey, thanks for checking out my new little corner of the web.

I've actually been on the internets for quite some time. It was now many moons ago, but I (and my friend Paul Nikkel) were among some of the first bibliobloggers (i.e. folks blogging about biblical studies) around. Now there are hundreds. But I remember the time when there was only about a dozen of us (Goodacre, Davila, Carlson, Heard, etc.) It was actually kind of fun being an M.Div. student and having conversations with these scholars. The blog and website was called deinde.org (still sitting there but not really maintained anymore). What made it really fun for me as a junior scholar was going to SBL for my first time – people knew who I was!

My blogging slowly wound down as I got busy with life, but I started focusing on other things like creating free content (check out the freebies page for some examples) as well as starting to work on creating apps and even publishing.

Once I launched my first mobile app ParseGreek, I started www.NTGreekResources.com to house all of my Greek related resources. Once I did that, though, I realized that it wasn't really scalable in that it was specific to Greek stuff, and not necessarily the other content I was creating as well as some of my other interests. And I have thought about blogging again for a little while now.

Then it happened. The server holding www.NTGreekResources.com crashed. The server is owned by a friend, and I can't seem to get a hold of that friend. Given that I'm trying to promote all my stuff, not having a website isn't a great idea. So that pushed me to get this website up and going. So NTGreekResources.com will now point to this site, and I'll have a place to promo any stuff I'm doing, plus start blogging again (which I've been thinking about for awhile).

The topics will be varied, as the sidebar states. I'm obviously interested in Biblical Studies. But if you know me, you know I'm a bit of a tech geek too. I'm also interested in productivity as well as parenting and leadership. This blog will reflect all of that, plus I'll try and point out interesting stuff I find from time to time.