Firefox 3.5 is Faster, Slicker, and Ready to Download

The latest version of Firefox is ready for download, and it will be worth the time.

There is a lot to love about the new release, but perhaps the most important improvement is speed. Speed matters now more than ever. We’re not talking about download speeds here, but more important things like application speed—how fast your browser can process Flash videos, or javascript applications. Why does this matter to you? Because most of the websites you browse every day, like Facebook or Hulu, use a lot of programming technologies that your browser has to process. Since we are all doing more and more computing tasks online, like reading email, updating our facebook accounts, or watching movies, browser speed takes on a whole new meaning, and Firefox 3.5 is noticeably faster.

There are a whole host of other important updates, which you can read about here.

You can download the latest version here.

Related posts:

1. Download Internet Explorer 8 (Please!)
2. Firefox 3.0 Released!
3. The Power of Firefox Extensions
4. Firefox 3 and the Colbert Bump
5. Add the Westminster Bookstore to your Firefox Search Bar

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The Phone Gets an Upgrade: Google Voice

If you haven’t already heard about Google Voice, now is the time to play catch-up, and this is an excellent article for doing so (complete with video). Long story short, it’s gonna be awesome, and you should make every effort to get a Google number as soon as it’s available to you.

Too lazy to read the article? Here are some features:

* transcribed voicemails: whenever somebody leaves a voicemail, GV will transcribe the message as best it can (this only works for English right now). These transcripts are then forwarded to your email account and you can also opt to receive an SMS notification.
* listening in to voicemails: whenever you receive a call and decide to let it go to voicemail, you can also choose to listen in and even pick up the call if it turns out to be an important message. This feels just like the old days when answering machines with tapes were still a novelty.
* call screening: one neat option in GV is the ability to screen calls. If you activate this feature, callers will be prompted to leave their name once they call, and once you pick up the phone, GV will play the name back and you can choose if you want the call to go to voicemail or if you want to actually speak to this person. You can opt to let all unknown callers who are not in your Google address book go through this procedure or just those calls from callers who have blocked their caller ID.
* recording calls: at any time during a call, you can press 4 and the call will be recorded. This only works for calls you receive on your phone for now, and doesn’t work for outgoing calls.
* conference calls: just ask participants to call your GV number and once more callers call in, you can just conference them in – this works for up to 4 callers.
* switching phones: if you want to switch phones during a call (say you took a call on your home phone and decide you want to take a walk and continue the call on your cell), just press * and all the other phones will ring.
* SMS: you can send and receive text messages from your GV account
* integration with Google Contacts
* it just works: the call quality is good, we didn’t experience any outages during the last few months, and calls aren’t dropped. GV does what it says it does, and it does it well.

Related posts:

1. Sync Your Cell Phone with Google Contacts and Calendar
2. Google reaches Settlement over Google Books/Scholar
3. Send Web Documents Straight to Google Docs
4. NTGateway Gets an Upgrade
5. BibleArc Gets an Upgrade

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Lawsuit against Zotero Dismissed

Good news! The lawsuit filed against the developers of Zotero (which I wrote about here) by the makers of EndNote has been dismissed. There are few details as yet–like whether or not the suit will be refiled–but hopefully this is a sign of things to come. From ArsTechnica:

Thomson Reuters, which makes EndNote, an academic reference management product, had filed suit against George Mason University, claiming that its support of the open source Zotero project, which imports EndNote files, was in contravention of the university’s license to EndNote. The suit, which requested an injunction against the distribution of Zotero, has now been dismissed. Depending on whether Thomson Reuters appeals or refiles the suit, this may leave Zotero in the clear.

Need a little more background?

Academic reference managers, which allow their users to keep track of the publications that they cite when writing up their own research, are a fairly specialized market. EndNote has a number of features that make it a compelling option, including a series of filters for online search queries and tight integration with document preparation software, notably Microsoft Word. It also offers one of the few cross-platform options on the market, and has a large library of reference styles to match the formats used by different journals. But there is also a degree of product lock-in, as many researchers have built up libraries of thousands of references over the years.

Zotero undoubtedly looks a bit threatening to Thomson Reuters, as it has a number of these features. It operates as a browser plug-in, which allows it to cross platforms easily and integrate well with online searches; it is also able to import EndNote reference databases. But the key feature that got it into legal trouble was the fact that it was able to import and use EndNote reference style files.

The full article is worth reading, especially since some reflection is offered by the authors regarding the merits of the lawsuit.

Related posts:

1. Zotero Lawsuit
2. Zotero Gets New Partners
3. Zotero 2.0 Launches (What a Pleasant Surprise!)
4. The Second “Preview” Release of Zotero 1.5
5. Zotero 1.5 Preview Released

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Exegetical Insight: Luke 8:10

Every once-and-a-while I have an edifying experience in the course of grading. It’s rare, but it happens. In the course of reading over Luke 8:10, which my Greek students had to translate for their exam, I was forced to ask (and answer) a basic question. The question is begged by the Greek, but not by the English. Here is the verse:

Ὑμῖν δέδοται γνῶναι τὰ μυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ, τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς ἐν παραβολαῖς,

The question is: What has been left out of the second phrase, which is an incomplete idea? What has been elided from τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς ἐν παραβολαῖς? Or, to put the same question another way: what are Jesus’s parable about? Are they morality tales? Proverbial remarks? Timeless truths?

The answer lies in the parallel between the two clauses, and, in particular, between their prominent datives (notice that the datives come first in each clause).

So the first phrase is “to you”, that is, to the disciples (and those who trust in the traditions they teach: Jude 20-23). The second phrase is about “the others.” The first phrase lacks a propositional phrase, the second a direct object. So the disciples are given something, but the others, though given the same thing, receive it through an indirect medium, the parable.

So what are Jesus’s parable about? If you had to put the central message of Jesus’s parable into a few words, what would those words be?

The answer lies in the question posed by the second clause of our Greek sentence. What is given to the others ἐν παραβολαῖς? The answer: τὰ μυστήρια τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ.

Mysteries about God’s Kingdom.

Related posts:

1. Exegetical Insight: 1 Corinthians 15:26
2. Exegetical Insight, Lost Edition
3. Marcion, the NT, and God’s Care of His Church
4. Preach your Greek
5. Should you Capitalize the Word “Biblical”

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New Digital Greek Text Available

Copies of Westcott/Hort and Tischendorf have long been available online in digital form. Tragelles’s Greek New Testament predates both of these and is now available as a digital (Unicode!) text. Even better: the text is open licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license, which means you can use it, modify it, and distribute it to your heart’s content; just don’t try to make money off it!

You can download the digital text here. More information is available here and here.

Michael Hanel already has a Bibleworks version ready for download here. And this is a great candidate for an eBook, so I will begin working on that soon (hopefully).

Related posts:

1. New Unicode Greek Font with Text-Critical Glyphs
2. Which Greek Text?
3. How to Type in Greek Part II: Setting Up the Microsoft Greek Polytonic Keyboard
4. Greek Flash Cards
5. Reading Greek Online

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Multitasking Mondays: Sync Contacts with Funambol

It’s amazing how much your productivity increases when you have all the information for all your contacts on all your devices.

There is literally only one service that provides this functionality. And its free.

Try funambol.

There’s an iPhone app. Which syncs with Outlook. Or your smartphone. Or your Blackberry. And with some modern mobile phones.

And, of course, with Thunderbird.

No guide here; your on your own (Sorry—time constraints, but Google is your friend). I just wanted everyone to know that this is out there, and that chances are, it will help.

Related posts:

1. Sync Your Cell Phone with Google Contacts and Calendar
2. Sync Thunderbird Address Books using Funambol
3. Multitasking Mondays: Access Files on Your iPhone
4. Multitasking Mondays: New Features in Gmail
5. Multitasking Mondays: Use a Feedreader to Keep Up-To-Date

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Zotero 2.0 Launches (What a Pleasant Surprise!)

Get the latest from Zotero

Zotero has just released the beta of their 2.0 upgrade, and it looks awesome. Here is the announcement.

The most important upgrade is the promised addition of groups and collaboration.

Groups provide a powerful way to share collections with a class, work closely with a colleague on a project, keep track of conversations in your field more broadly, and keep tabs on what people at your institution or in your department are working on. To copy items into any of your groups just drag and drop items from your library into any of your group libraries and subcollections. Below you can see an image of your groups inside Zotero.

Your group can be published as a web page, either public or private. I am really looking forward to trying this out (and reporting back here at Nerdlets). The promise for teaching is extraordinary! It could provide a whole new level of interaction in the classroom, not to mention among colleagues and fellow researchers.

Other features are also in the works:

As we refine this beta release, the Zotero team will roll out its recommendation engine, a storage solution for sharing attached files, more ways to navigate through collections online, and the ability to view feeds from public groups and libraries.

Stay tuned for updates. I look forward to posting a full review and guide in the near future.

You can get the latest release here. I have a quick-start guide posted here.

Related posts:

1. Zotero 1.5 Preview Released
2. Zotero Gets New Partners
3. Zotero 1.5 Beta Released
4. Zotero 1.5 and OpenOffice 3.0: Getting it all to Work
5. Publish your Zotero Collections Online

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Exegetical Insight, Lost Edition

Though perhaps not as significant as yesterday’s exegetical insight, I put myself to the task of translating Jacob’s tapestry from last night’s lost (that pause button is wonderful, isn’t it!).

So here goes. First I transcribed it into miniscules:

θεοι τοσα δοιεν οσα φρεσι σησι μενοινας

So it’s two clauses:

θεοι τοσα δοιεν
οσα φρεσι σησι μενοινας

The latter clause is a relative clause, with μενοινας as the main verb. It’s a standard progressive active indicative, 3nd singular from μενοινάω, “to desire eagerly, be bent on a thing” according to Middle Liddell. The adjective σησι is just a possessive, with φρεσι as its head noun. So the phrase is something like “whatever/as much as you desire for your heart.”

Now to the main clause. δοιεν took me awhile because it’s an optative (not used to those in the NT). But the root δο is your clue, and it’s listed in Great Scott: Aor. act opt. 3rd plural from διδωμι. I think τοσα is nueter plural, the antecedent of οσα.

So here is my translation

May the gods give [to you] as many things as you desire for you heart.

Or more idiomatically (removing the repetitive relative pronoun and treating the dative of advantage as idiomatic):

May the gods give to you all your heart’s desire.

Or you could just search on the transliteration in the Perseus Project (I assumed it was a quote from something). It’s from Homer, Od. 6.180. Here.

Update: The bottom line, by the way, is the following

θεοι δε τοι ολβια δοιεν

This one is much easier. ὄλβιος, α, ον, used substantively here, means “blessing,” or “riches”. This line is actually listed in Middle Liddell as an example, and is also from the Odyssey. So the translation:

And may the gods give you riches/blessing.

Related posts:

1. Exegetical Insight: 1 Corinthians 15:26
2. Exegetical Insight: Luke 8:10
3. Lost (and Gained) in Translation
4. Reading Greek Online
5. Politics and Technology

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Nerdlets Makes the Biblioblog List

The good folks over at Biblioblog have added Nerdlets to their list of Biblical Studies Blogs. Sure we’re just “related blogs” (under the “techie” category) for now, but maybe someday we’ll be upgraded!

Every month Biblioblog posts the Top 50 BiblioBlogs based on their specified constraints.

A blog is included in the rankings if it contains substantial content related to biblical studies or closely related fields, evidences a scholarly approach to biblical studies (not requiring academic qualifications, but excluding blogs with mainly homiletic or devotional content, unscholarly approaches, or a primarily theological focus), and is currently active and posting.

Ranking is based on information supplied by Alexa for the current month. Blogs are ordered by the monthly traffic rankings provided by Alexa, a website which provides traffic rankings for each website or blog. In the occasional event that only the 3-monthly results are available in any particular month (not the monthly results), we will use the 3-monthly results as a proxy for the monthly results.

The Inspiration for almost everything about Nerdlets...

I have found this to be a great site to find new content—perhaps youre favorite author or professor has a site you don’t know about—so check out the complete list. For a competing list try here.

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4. Free Books
5. The Open Scriptures Project

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Exegetical Insight: 1 Corinthians 15:26

In the course of preparing for their Greek finals I have received a number of wonderful questions from students about this or that passage of Scripture. And since Nick Batzig has been hounding me for over a year to include some kind of Greek exegetical comment on my blog, I thought it might be appropriate to share one with you, though it is a significant departure from my usual posts (I really try to steer clear of theological stuff here).

The question revolves around translating 1 Cor 15:26:

ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος

Don’t let the brevity fool you. I found it very difficult to bring out the force of this in sensible English. The Greek syntax actually made me teer up a little. Here are some considerations.

• The position of ὁ θάνατος makes it difficult to bring out the “surprise” of the passage. It is appositional with ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς: “the last enemy… namely, death.” Translating as appositional in English seems overly formal to me, though. Paul makes his point with a bit of rhetorical flair, a flair that is removed in the “literal” English.
• The verb καταργεῖται is both passive and progressive. The combination makes translation difficult, but the big problem is the force of the progressive. Most English versions regard it as futuristic, which would indicate the surety of the outcome described. I think it better to regard it as having a durative or tendential force.
• Futuristic idea: either “the last enemy to be destroyed” (most translations) or “the last enemy that will surely be destroyed is death” (focuses on the surety of a future outcome). This is possible, but it is not the best explanation. Remember we are driving to a main point in all this discussion of resurrection: the (present!) stinglessness of death (1 Cor 15:55-6).
• Tendential idea: “the last enemy is being destroyed” (that is, Christ is currently in the business now of destroying this enemy). This is my preference. See Thiselton’s 1 Cor commentary, p1234. The difficulty here is the passive. It’s really difficult to get (1) the tendential idea, (2) the passive idea, and (3) the pithiness all in one go.
• Durative idea: “the last enemy has begun to be destroyed” (that is, Christ began destroying this enemy in the past and continues to do so. This is possible, but durative progressives are usually associated with a temporal adverbial clause, which we don’t have here.
• Paul is all over the temporal and aspectual map in this section (1 Cor 15:23-28); progressives are bracketed by Aorists, which in turn are bracketed by progressives again. The whole constitutes a redemptive-historical description of the resurrection. We start with the broadest eschatological orientation: ἀπαρχὴ Χριστός, ἔπειτα οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ (15:23). One resurrection harvest in two parts (see Gaffin). So Christ’s resurrection starts the process, and the whole thing will be completed when his many sons (Genitive of relationship) will be raised ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ (temporal prepositional phrase (”when”) with a subject Genitive (”when he comes”). Within these two bookends we have a whole slew of activity, described with whole slew of progressives and Aorists and related temporal conjunctions, all of which is then described under the umbrella of Jesus’ βασιλείν. Sorting when each activity occurs can be difficult, and goes beyond the abilities of what started out as a simple post.

So the question is: can we bring all this content out with the same economy and forcefulness of Paul’s original? Here are my attempts at a translation.

Respecting the passive, though adding an adverb to bring out the tendential/durative force:

“Death, the last enemy, is already being destroyed.”

Or, avoiding the passive for the sake of clarity (our little girl has made me appreciate the NLT more than I had in the past):

“Christ is already destroying death, the very last enemy.”

Or, alternatively:

“Christ has already begun to destroy the last enemy, death.”

All of these are significant syntactic departures from the original, though.

In any case, here is my (loose, preliminary) translation of the entire passage, 1 Cor 15:22-27a:

ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ πάντες ἀποθνῄσκουσιν, οὕτως καὶ ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ πάντες ζῳοποιηθήσονται. Ἕκαστος δὲ ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ τάγματι· ἀπαρχὴ Χριστός, ἔπειτα οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ, εἶτα τὸ τέλος, ὅταν παραδιδῷ τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί, ὅταν καταργήσῃ πᾶσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν καὶ δύναμιν. δεῖ γὰρ αὐτὸν βασιλεύειν ἄχρι οὗ θῇ πάντας τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ. ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος· πάντα γὰρ ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ.

For just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in its own proper order. Christ as firstfruits, then those who are sons and daughters of Christ when he comes, then the end, when he will hand over the kingdom to His God and Father, after he has destroyed ever authority and power. For it is necessary for him to continue to rule until every enemy has been placed under his feet. The Last Enemy, Death, is already being destroyed, for all things have been placed under his feet.

What do y’all think?

Oh, and I have found Thiselton’s commentary on 1 Corinthians to be a very helpful handling of the Greek text. He consistently appeals to Paul’s overarching theology in its eschatological/redemptive-historical emphasis.

Related posts:

1. Exegetical Insight: Luke 8:10
2. Exegetical Insight, Lost Edition
3. The Centrality of the Gospel
4. Lost (and Gained) in Translation
5. Preach your Greek

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