A Budding Bibliography

I have been working on a bibliography that will encompass many of the works I hope will be included on my comps. The list is nowhere near complete. I've only been able to work on it as I have time. I hope to divide the bibliography into subsections as it grows, but here is what I have so far:

Working Bibliography for the New Testament

Aune, David Edward. The New Testament in its Literary Environment. Library of Early Christianity. 1st ed. Vol. 8. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987.

Bultmann, Rudolf Karl. Theology of the New Testament [Theologie des Neuen Testaments.]. Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2007.

Carcopino, Jérôme and Henry T. Rowell. Daily Life in Ancient Rome; the People and the City at the Height of the Empire [Vie quotidienne à Rome à l'apogée de l'empire.]. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968.

Collins, John Joseph. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. The Biblical Resource Series. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1998.

Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. 1st ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996.

Hurtado, Larry W. Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. Grand Rapids, Mich.; Cambridge, U.K.: W.B. Eerdmans, 2003.

Klauck, Hans-Josef. The Religious Context of Early Christianity: A Guide to Graeco-Roman Religions. Studies of the New Testament and its World. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000.

Kümmel, Werner Georg. The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of its Problems [Neue Testament.]. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972.

McDonald, Lee Martin and James A. Sanders. The Canon Debate. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2002.

Metzger, Bruce Manning and Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Millar, Fergus and American Council of Learned Societies. The Roman Near East, 31 B.C.-A.D. 337. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Neusner, Jacob. From Politics to Piety: The Emergence of Pharisaic Judaism. 2nd ed. New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1978.

Nock, Arthur Darby. Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.

Parker, D. C. The Living Text of the Gospels. Cambridge, U.K.; New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Price, S. R. F. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge Cambridgeshire; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Robinson, James McConkey and Helmut Koester. Trajectories through Early Christianity. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971.

Sanders, E. P. Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE. London; Philadelphia: SCM Press; Trinity Press International, 1992.

Schürer, Emil, Schürer Emil, Géza Vermès, and Fergus Millar. The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.-A.D. 135). Edinburgh: Clark, 1973.

Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. 2nd. ed. London: SCM Press, 1995.

Schwartz, Seth. Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Smith, Jonathan Z. Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity. Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion. Vol. 14. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.

Justin

Jacoby's Reading

Books and balls interest Jacoby most right now. He especially loves three books. He loves the farm book his Aunt Megan and Uncle Mark gave him (pictured below), a small children's picture book, and especially the Ultimate Visual Dictionary. I've had to hide the latter because he will sit for 45 minutes or more thumbing through its pages and won't take "no" for an answer if the book is in his view. The benefit, I hope, is that Jacoby is learning the names of lots of things. He now recognizes nouns used for sports, travel, animals, and human body parts. I'm interested in getting him another picture book in another language at some point (French, German, Greek, or Latin?), but for now at least, English provides him with plenty of new words. Perhaps he'll grow up to be a bibliophile.


Justin

On (Re)Learning French in Less than a Week

In two days and seventeen hours, I will be taking my French exam. It's always fun to see how my strategy changes as the exam approaches. Tonight I am (re)learning the entire French verbal system. In my experience, the verbal system is the most difficult element of any Romance language. This is my first priority. After this, I will focus on learning a 75-page vocabulary list. We'll see how that goes. There are no guarantees on these sorts of exams! Back to studying . . .

Justin

The Latest Movie We've Seen

Not too long ago, Erin and I saw Juno, a wonderfully touching comedy. We both enjoyed the movie very much. Ellen Page successfully brings the viewer into the awkwardness of the teenage experience. Juno shows how a pregnant teenager comes to understand herself better. I think this is probably the best movie that I've seen in the last year.

Granted, Erin and I don't get to see too many movies anymore. Other recent movies that we've seen include Love in the Time of Cholera, 300, Ray, The Great Debaters (me), and The Departed (Erin). Love in the Time of Cholera presents an image of love quite different from, and in no way preferable to, Gone with the Wind. 300 plays off our fascination with the "other" (particularly the Persian, but also the Spartan to some extent). Ray had a marvelous moment of discovery near the end, but Ray's numerous indiscretions and downward spiral went on interminably, it seemed to me.

Justin

Nine Days to Relearn French

I have nine days left to relearn French. At this point, I'm focusing on prepositions, verbs, and logical connectors. I'm a bit stressed over the test, but I hope that I will pull through with a satisfactory score. I only need a 70 percent, and I get to use one dictionary and one verb book. I guess I know what I will be doing this weekend!

Je dois étudier!

Justin

Park Time Again

We're visiting the parks again!



Justin

On Writing Well

I was recently perusing Bryan Garner's Garner's Modern American Usage (Oxford, 2003) for some editing that I was doing, and I ran across his entry entitled "Superstitions." (Bryan Garner also wrote the section on grammar in the most recent edition of the Chicago Manual of Style.) He lists some of the usual superstitions, like the following:

1. "Never end a sentence with a preposition."

2. "Never split an infinitive."

3. "Never begin a sentence with because."

I very much appreciate Garner's demonstrative quotations from past grammarians and highly respected writers that show statements like those listed above to be false. But when it comes to breaking the superstitious rules listed above in my own writing, I think twice before I do it. People that have usually read my work are people who learned writing in a different era, so they sometimes view rules like those mentioned above as errant. Moreover, if I did need to correct such readers on a matter of grammar, they might think that I am nitpicking.

As a result, I've taken on two styles of writing in the past: one writing style for the work in my discipline and the other style for work outside my discipline. I am trying more and more, though, to write the way I feel is best.

Justin

Introduction

I've decided to give blogging another try. I've started two other blogs, but they quickly vanished for lack of attention. This time I intend to be better about it, although my entries will be sparse until my spring quarter is over. I have my 13-month-old son to take care of, my wife to spend time with, an imminent French exam that I feel unprepared for, and two classes that carry heavy reading loads. In spite of my busy schedule, I feel like I need a place to chronicle the happenings of my journey through my Ph.D. program, to share a bit about my family, and to express myself. Feel free to read, and leave comments if you'd like!

Justin