For the camera buffs out there...

This is VERY cool:

A new idea for D-SLRs, the D90 offers a movie function, allowing you to shoot movies in three different motion JPEG formats: 320 x 216 pixels, 640 x 424 pixels and 1,280 x 720 pixels. Now you can capture life’s moving moments with added drama by using many of Nikon’s NIKKOR lenses, including the AF DX Fisheye 10.5mm f/2.8G ED and the Micro-NIKKOR lenses. The shallow depth of field can give your movies a more creative and emotional impact. An additional benefit is the D90 image sensor, which is much larger than a typical camcorder for higher image quality and exceptional high ISO performance during low-light shooting.

I have two reservations: (1) I wish it could record in a non-compressed format rather than motion JPEG, whatever that is. (2) I've used Canon cameras and lenses for my entire photographic life, and I don't know how I feel about switching. But it's certainly tempting.

[Via Daring Fireball]

A Trip to Beijing

I really shouldn't be posting at all, since I'm supposed to be on my way to dinner (which is obviously why I've posted three times in a day for the first time in what feels like forever), but I wanted to link to something I got by email earlier today. Apparently, the president of my seminary, Dr. Mark Bailey, accompanied President Bush on a trip to a state-sponsored church over the Olympics. The link goes to a report from the local Fox station on the trip along with an interview with Dr. Bailey (I'd embed, but it doesn't seem they're that technologically advanced...or that I'm not).

When I first saw the report earlier today, I wasn't sure what to think of it, and after some words with friends/fellow seminary students, I'm still not sure. On the one hand, I'm glad he delivered the gospel. On the other, I know that there were a few reports that the underground Chinese church was unhappy with the charade of religious freedom being put on. Any thoughts?

Jim Wallis has better grammar than I do

An Historic Speech (as opposed to a historic one).

James White has a serious misunderstanding about how the internet works

A few months back, James White wrote a diatribe on same sex marriage, calling out one couple in particular that had been mentioned in an AP article. Apparently, they didn't take well to his invective, and asked that he remove their picture from his website. Considering White was neither the photographer, nor a news publication website, it seems an innocent-enough request. Not to White! Apparently, he thinks he should be able to post whatever photograph he wants, because...

Note the use of this picture by such national online sources as MSNBC and USA Today. Google will provide you with lots of examples, such as this one.

The two individuals have likewise posted similar pictures on Facebook; even those without a Facebook account (such as yours truly) can see them.

Even Flickr has them as well.

I wonder if they wrote to The Ledger as well? That one even provides the very same image they have demanded I remove in a zoomable form.

Clearly, these two individuals are not camera shy, and they surely did not grant "rights" to all of these sources to post their pictures. No, the reason for this is clear: homosexuals use the cover of "tolerance" as a demand for "silence" on the part of those of us who still identify moral evil as moral evil.

In the first place, White clearly doesn't understand that you post your own images to Flickr and Facebook. Presumably, when posting images of yourself, your friends, and your family, you give yourself permission to do so (which I guess would go something like this: self, may I post this picture? Sure, go right ahead!). In the second place, those articles he keeps linking to, as if the couple gave permission each and every time? It's the same AP article over and over again. In other words, some AP reporter was writing a story, contacted this couple, got a picture of them, and filed the article. And in White's mind, every time that story was put in another news outlet (you know, the way AP works), it represented a separate instance of this couple granting permission.

Why am I posting all this here? Well, for one, apparently there is no commenting at the Team Apologian blog. Two, while I may not personally agree with this couple's decision, we don't live in a theocracy, and it's certainly not our job as Christians to attempt to persecute those with whom we disagree. And that's all this is: persecution. James White has deliberately and maliciously gone out of his way to post links to this couple's personal website (at Flickr and Facebook), when all they did was grant an interview to AP. They did not invite a bunch of hyper-calvinists into their lives to pass judgment.

A Historic Event

Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for President of the United States a little over an hour ago, and finished his speech about 20 minutes ago. I'm sure there will be forthcoming cynical reactions about how he had to do this or that, and how he's just a good speaker, and an empty suit, and a corrupt politician, and Jim West will be sure to document his every hypocritical misstep (whether real, perceived, or otherwise), so I'll just say this. It was an uplifting speech, and I'm glad to have heard it today. It will be one of those things you can tell your kids about someday.

Desert Island Albums

There's an episode of The Office wherein the staff are trapped outside and Jim organizes a game of 'desert island.' In Jim's version, the limitation is five books, which quickly switches to five movies when it turns out nobody reads books. In that spirit, I take up Drew's question (also taken up by Nick, and critiqued by Brian).

Building Nothing Out Of Something by Modest Mouse

Illinoise by Sufjan Stevens

Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lake State by Sufjan Stevens

Oh, Inverted World by The Shins

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco


It is with much trepidation and a sad spirit that I have to leave off anything by The Decemberists and Arcade Fire. Come to think of it, I like Brian's idea a lot.

Too On-the-Nose "Crossroads" Post

I tend to stay away from posts like the one I'm about to write (or try to anyway). I feel like "updates" are rarely more than filler posts, but since I haven't had much in the way of any posts at all lately, I figure it's better than nothing. I am starting a new (and hopefully my last) semester at DTS, and it looks to be a relatively easy one. While I will be writing my thesis, in reality it's already written and I'll mainly be reformatting it, cleaning it up, beefing up the secondary research, and tying up loose ends. I only need be on campus once a week (for an Apostolic Fathers class I'm looking forward to), and the rest of my time will be spent on independent study and work.

I've found the summer to be both relaxing and a bit taxing. Relaxing inasmuch as I did almost nothing school-related or academically-minded for 2+ months. Taxing in the amount I've been working. Earlier on in the summer, I felt my relative lack of posts were due to the lazy nature of the season, and a general lull across the biblioblogosphere. Since then, however, there've been plenty of good discussions, and I've missed most of them. I'm thinking, of course, of many of those highlighted in the BSCs, the perennial translations debates, the Todd Bentley back-and-forths, the evolution posts, and so forth. Nick's recent question on suicide particularly caught my attention, but by the time I got there, I found that the large comment thread pretty much covered anything I would've brought to the discussion. Unfortunately for my book-starved diet, it's not the only time I've been late to one of Nick's discussions. Anyway, the point being that I don't know what direction this blog is heading in, and I long ago stopped checking my Technorati rankings and Google Analytics page. At the beginning (somewhere around a year ago), I wanted this blog to be related to biblical studies, but not limited to them. Lately it's taken a turn in the political direction, which I suppose is to say that I've taken such a turn. For those of you still out there, enjoy.

P.S. For my DTS-alum and other commenters out there, if you're not in my blogroll, and would like to be, drop me a comment or email, and I'll be happy to place you there.

On roast beef

Is there a more useless, tasteless meat? I am, or course, speaking of the coldcut. If there is a blander sandwich meat, I don't know of it, and hope never to find out.

my fellow DTS students...

...never fail to disappoint. Today's mindless Obama-post:

In more serious news, last week Obama revealed an energy plan. Most people focused on his statement regarding the filling up of our tires. McCain and others made fun of this fact so Obama later said in a speech that those people "take pride in being ignorant..." Look, we should all be responsible and change our oil regularly and keep our tires filled. However I believe the true ignorance belongs to Obama in believing that a large majority of Americans would be responsible enough to follow through with that. Just a few of us doing it isn't going to solve the problem. Sadly, this isn't a 'what can I do for my country' nation. To his credit, he didn't rule out drilling for oil - after a poll came out stating a majority of Americans favored it.

So true! Why would I want to elect a politician who believes in personal responsibility? Or someone who gives, you know, useful information to the electorate? I much prefer John McCain, fronting an energy strategy which involves, let's see, drilling here, and, um...drilling now. What's that you say? We wouldn't benefit from such a strategy for a decade or more and the benefit would be to the tune of paying three cents less per gallon and it would last for only two years? Balderdash! Let's keep burning oil. Los Angeles and Houston could use a few more hues of smog in their sunset tonight.

look how fast those cups move!

you can't look here, though, 'cause i'm setting a record for laziness. check out pisteuomen.

p.s. this is my 500th post. happy 500th post to me!

Now THAT'S an extended metaphor

"In terms of the conservative constituency of the Republican Party, Sen. McCain is an opportunistic infection that threatens to ravage and destroy its defenseless body. Tragically for America, in the larger context of our national political life he still plays the role of the AIDS virus, masquerading as a republican while opening the way for Barack Obama, the opportunistic infection that will ravage the defenseless body of our republic. If we accept the McCain/Obama choice, we resign the republic to its demise. I guess the "lesser of evils" crowd will take comfort in the notion that though infected with HIV, the patient actually died of pneumonia. Unfortunately, this is false comfort, since the choice they make increases the virulence of the opportunistic infection" - Alan Keyes.

[Via Andrew Sullivan]

want to get rid of stress?

take your car to one of those places where you wash it yourself and vacuum it and whatnot and spend a good hour and a half on it. i promise you it will be worth it.

Another Favorite Quote

I don't know why these are all coming today...they just are.

One of the few interesting things about Tim Duncan is that he was supposedly a competitive swimmer before being forced to become one of the greatest basketball players ever.

NBA Experts Blog

All tied together with a neat little bow

Soon, Posses were sprouting across the country, attracting veterans of the 1960s-era tax protest movement, Second Amendment absolutists, Christian Identity adherents, and ardent anti-communists who had abandoned the John Birch Society because they felt the organization wasn’t extreme enough. Local groups would meet to share literature, listen to tapes of Gale’s sermons, and discuss preparations for the approaching End Times. This extremist stew produced exotic amalgamations of paranoia, such as when Posse members would explain the need for local militias to stockpile weapons in order to defend white Christians from blacks in the coming race war sparked by the inevitable economic collapse caused by the income tax and a cabal of international Jewish bankers bent on global dominance through one world government, for Satan.

- A Washington Monthly article on recent legal maneuvering by Baltimore drug dealers that echoes the illegitimate "flesh and blood" defenses of some white supremacists.

Things you learn at the auto store

People really love keeping their tires clean.

Three Questions

Kudos to Roger for the latest meme:

Q1. If you were to be in ministry 10 years from now (whether you're in ministry now or not) what would you like to be doing and where?

Q2. If you could wake up tomorrow with a degree and all the learning that would have gone with it from any seminary which one would you pick and why?

Q3. What's your poison: donuts, beer, wine, pizza, chocolate, twinkies, key-lime pie?

1. If I am in ministry in 10 years, I'd love to be teaching in a church. Sunday school class, occasional sermons, just some setting where I get to teach. God has blessed me in Dallas with a job where I get to be in front of a classroom multiple times per week, and it has only confirmed my love of teaching.
2. Oddly enough (since there's next to no way I will stay here in Dallas), I'd love a PhD from DTS, spending my time on textual criticism. As I said, there's almost no way I'm going to stay here in Dallas and abuse my resumé with such incestuousness, but if getting a job down the road didn't matter, and all I wanted was the opportunity to learn under people I respected, I would probably stay here.
3. So difficult to answer. It used to be frozen pizza. I would eat them almost constantly. Nowadays, it's a Reese's peanut butter cup Sonic Blast, one of which I am actually about to eat right now. If you'll excuse me...

I tag:
Scott Grace
Ryan Smith
Josh McManaway
Chris Heard
and...Brian.

Favorite Quotation Today

"Basically, Disney seems guilty of nothing other than producing an election comedy featuring Kelsey Grammer — a grievous crime, to be sure, but not copyright infringement." - Vulture

CSNTM Update

Following their colossal Michigan trip (whose results you can view right here), CSNTM has updated its website. Make a donation here!

[Via Archaic Christianity]

as i slowly wade back into school and biblical studies

As you may or may not have noticed ('you' in this case referring to the 12 of you who have stuck around as I post about politics, rainstorms, and how much Airtran sucks) I haven't posted a whole lot of "somewhat related to biblical studies" stuff in a while. I suppose this is the product of a number of confluent circumstances: being out of the country for a significant period of time, the semester ending and not being in class for the first time in three years, lots and lots of work as I try to pay off student loans and save up for future coursework and other fun stuff, and generally avoiding much thinking at all. So perhaps it's fitting that the first thing I've written in months having to do with the Bible was a comment I posted at Feministe regarding the virgin birth. I've reproduced it below, and hopefully it will be moderated onto the original page soon and we'll see what kind of responses it gets.

Of course, this discussion is one of the odd side effects of reading ancient texts from a modern viewpoint. To us now, this appears to be merely an issue of mistranslation, therefore pulling the rug out from under an orthodox Christian doctrine. From the viewpoint of the ancient, however, no such thing was necessarily going on. There are a few steps we can take along with the ancients to demonstrate what is probably a more likely scenario than mistranslation limping its way into orthodoxy.

(1) We have to recognize that at this point in Isaiah, the prophet was having a discussion with the king, not actively prophesying the coming of the Messiah. When he was speaking and later writing the text in question (7:14) it was in reference to an actual woman (probably his own wife), and, as Sam pointed out, was certainly not meant to refer to a virgin.

(2) A few centuries later, as the Greek translation was being produced, the Hebrew term ‘almah was translated with the Greek term parthenos. While I don’t disagree with Sam’s discussion that this was a bit of a mistake, it may still be too strong to label it a mistranslation. Both terms can refer to virgins (see, e.g., Gen 24:43) and both terms generally refer to “young women of marriageable age.” The Greek term does, however, emphasize virginity, an emphasis not present for the original referent of Is 7:14, and therein lies the mistake. However, the Septuagint’s translation of Is 7:14 is actually of little importance because…

(3) Matthew was certainly familiar with both the Septuagint and the Hebrew text of Isaiah. This is particularly where the disconnect between the ancient and modern comes in. We tend to think of the biblical writers (and the ancient population in general) as having been sitting around, waiting for someone to show up to fulfill all these prophecies. But it was actually the other way around. Matthew was a disciple of Christ, and then later, as he was putting together his gospel, made the connections from Jewish scripture to Christ (in order to make the case that Christ was the Messiah). His choice to use the term parthenos was not an “inspired correction” but a conscious decision to take what Isaiah originally said (likely about his own coming son) and mold it to fit the situation of Christ’s birth (as he understood that situation).

i'm 98% man, baby

Use your browser history to estimate your gender.

[Via hilzoy]

Textual Criticism updates

If you haven't been reading it already (what's wrong with you?), Tommy Wasserman has been conference-hopping, and is currently posting summaries of sessions at the Münster Colloquium on the Textual History of the Greek New Testament. Of particular interest to me were the first two, presenting David Parker's view of the quest for the original text versus the more traditional view of Holger Strutwolf. Check out the ETC blog for more.

"It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant."

[Via Ezra Klein, from whom I also stole the headline]

my girlfriend hates mornings

i didn't pick up when she called several times this morning. a few minutes later:

me: hey

Sent at 9:29 AM on Tuesday

her: y36 banswer you phone

McCain was for being a celebrity before he was against it.

It turns out that John McCain and his campaign once thought that being a "political celebrity" was a good thing. Then it turned out that Obama was a much bigger "political celebrity." So now, that's a bad thing. Makes sense to me!

i'm not dead, i'm just hibernating

in the meantime, john hobbins releases bsc 32 in three parts (1, 2, and 3).

also, my money's on the great steven l. anderson. he may be an underdog, but he's feisty.