I am about to begin work on my second semester of Aramaic under Dr. Brian Aucker. We had a lot of fun last semester diving into to two grammars and working through the material together. It was wonderful to finally get a deeper look at the Aramaic sections of the OT (see below). Previous work in these sections had been limited to full reliance on commentaries and stumbling through on Hebrew cognate awareness. Obviously, being able to translate well these sections are helpful for good exegesis and working with the text, but there are other (bigger?) benefits for me.
So as most know, Cheryl and I are both Lost addicts. After watching Episode 6 of Season 5 ("316"), here is my guess:
You can read the original article here, but the text is here for convenience. I had a fascinating conversation with the two law students from Taiwan that I regularly meet with at WashU. They were very enlightening about freedom(s) in China and what actually gets reported. The bottom line: China is not free.(12-20) 07:40 PST BEIJING, China (AP) --
China has blocked access to the New York Times Web site, the newspaper said Saturday, days after the central government defended its right to censor online content it deems illegal.
Computer users who logged on in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou received a message that the site was not available when they tried to connect on Friday morning, the paper said. Some users were cut of as early as Thursday evening, it said.
The Web site remained inaccessible from Beijing Saturday.
It was not clear if the move was meant to block specific content on the newspaper's Web site or if it was a return to stricter censorship of the Internet in general. Beijing loosened some media and Internet controls during the 2008 Summer Olympics — gestures that were meant to show the international community that the games had brought greater freedom to the Chinese people.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said they do not deal with Web sites. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which regulates the Internet, could not be reached for comment.
Earlier this week, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao defended China's right to censor Web sites that have material deemed illegal by the government, saying that other countries regulate Internet usage too.
During the August games, China allowed access to long-barred Web sites such as the British Broadcasting Corp. and Human Rights Watch after an outcry from foreign reporters who complained that Beijing was failing to live up to its pledges of greater media freedom.
The New York Times said Beijing had blocked the Chinese-language Web site of the BBC, and Web sites of Voice of America, Asiaweek, and Ming Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper, earlier in the week. But apart from Ming Pao the sites were all accessible Friday, it said.
Ming Pao's online site was still inaccessible Saturday in Beijing.
China has the most online users in the world with more than 250 million, but it has also put in place a sophisticated system to police Web sites for sensitive material and routinely blocks sites that support Tibetan independence or the region's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
A spokeswoman for The Times, Catherine J. Mathis, told the paper that there did not appear to be a technical issue. Users in Japan, Hong Kong, and the U.S. were also not experiencing difficulties, the paper said.
'I don't care about the colour,' the Tiger-lily remarked. 'If only her petals curled up a little more, she'd be all right.'
Alice didn't like being criticised, so she began asking questions. 'Aren't you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody to take care of you?'
'There's the tree in the middle,' said the Rose: 'what else is it good for?'
'But what could it do, if any danger came?' Alice asked.
'It says "Bough-wough!"' cried a Daisy: 'that's why its branches are called boughs!'
...think its funny that the acronym for "Preparation for Licensure and Ordination" is PLO?
So I'm working on charting valency for the verb SWB and am noticing that the ESV has done a less than consistent job of translating occurrences of the verb. Very often, I've already found, it is in ellipsis/ellision with another verb or translated as an English light verb. Such a practice may be acceptable for any number of other verbs, but SWB? Really? With 1035+ attestations and obvious thematic import (i.e. Covenant, repentance, etc.), shouldn't the English reader be given every chance to see this verb throughout the OT? I think so. So I say to the ESV: "you are naughty on this one (but so good in so many other places); I'll keep you, but take this as a whippin'! It hurts me more than it hurts you...."
Cheryl and I were graciously invited to attend the Chinese New Year dinner that WashU was involved in this year. I help two Taiwanese law students at WashU with English (but they really don't need my help; they are very proficient!). Here are some photos from last night.
Teaching 6th grade Sunday school this morning, I was explaining the force of Romans 6:1-2 and the optative that occurs there. I probably went a little far for the 12 year olds, but I felt it necessary to make sure they knew the difference between "ou" and "me genoita."
So, when I arrived home I was greeted with an envelope from OSU glaring at me from the mailbox. These were not to be sent out until mid-March, I understood, yet here it is; as I opened it I assumed that the early arrival was a bad sign.
`Boots and shoes under the sea,' the Gryphon went on in a deep voice, `are done with a whiting. Now you know.' `And what are they made of?' Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity.
`Soles and eels, of course,' the Gryphon replied rather impatiently: `any shrimp could have told you that.'
`If I'd been the whiting,' said Alice, whose thoughts were still running on the song, `I'd have said to the porpoise, "Keep back, please: we don't want YOU with us!"'
`They were obliged to have him with them,' the Mock Turtle said: `no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.'
`Wouldn't it really?' said Alice in a tone of great surprise.
`Of course not,' said the Mock Turtle: `why, if a fish came to ME, and told me he was going a journey, I should say "With what porpoise?"'
Adamic Dominion
In Jeremiah 1:9-10, a strong taste of the dominion mandate exists: “Then the LORD stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me, ‘Behold, I have put My words in your mouth. See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.’” These are the words of the Lord spoken to Jeremiah. It seems evident that Jeremiah, in the office of a prophet, is about to embark upon his mission of serving as a new Adam. Like Adam, he is given the word of God, made a ruler, given powers of judgment, and restructuring role.
Adamic Multiplication
A tension builds in
Reversing Sin
At the beginning of chapter 4 of Jeremiah, there is a pattern set forth. That pattern is what occurs in repentance and what occurs because of it. In 4:1-2 it is said that returning to the LORD involves the removal of anything God finds detestable (i.e. sin, idols, etc) and the subsequent blessing and glorifying which comes through such repentance. So, there is here simply the familiar “Obey and I will (continue to) bless you” (cf. Gen
More “clues” about reversing sin are in verses 3-4 of chapter 4, spoken to
Interestingly enough, there too is the Covenant identity preceded by a reference to working the ground. The pattern is then this: Covenant membership introduced by cultivation of the ground. Jeremiah 4:3-4 follow this pattern: “Break up your fallow ground [. . . and] circumcise.” We should not be surprised that there is a difference in the content and lexical elements. In Genesis, it is “cultivate the ground.” In Jeremiah, it is “break up your fallow ground and do not sow among thorns.” “Fallow” ground? Thorns? Where are those in Genesis? The presence of thorns is reminiscent of Genesis 3 curses, and because the whole of Jeremiah has its historical context in the post-lapsarian age, fallow ground is a reference to the almost expected state in a lapsed covenant. Jeremiah here is then not only speaking of covenant renewal, but also of a reversal of sorts—going back through the cultivation mandate (which has seen neglect, hence its fallowness) and arriving yet again at a covenant theme, which is here circumcision.
Reversing Creation
Moving now further into the fourth chapter of Jeremiah, a different sort of reversal begins to develop—that of what sin and disobedience really is. It is not so explicitly set forth in the words that we may read an ontology of sin, but the general framework, in my opinion, is there; we may set our understanding of sin on that. In
Looking at
In those verses, there is a more than just an undertone of reversal—it is explicit. The “earth is formless and void,” the heavens “have no light,” there was “no man,” and “the fruitful land was a wilderness.” My goodness, it is as if time had been turned backward and Creation itself had been un-created! This is exactly what is being communicated here. Look at the flow of 4:22-26: Children which are not faithful judges, they do evil, and creation becomes desolate. Sound familiar? It should, it’s also the flow of Genesis 1-3. It is a failure and reversal of APPKA! But what does it tell us?
It tells us that the Fall—in all its disobedience, evil, and unfaithfulness—was a reversal of Creation. This is key for understanding sin (and by extension, repentance). Sin exists not in and of itself as a competing entity of evil, but only as that which opposes righteousness by seeking to reverse or undo righteousness. There is no great ball or package of sin out there and that is what we drink from or stain our souls with when we disobey God. Sin is not real. Yes I said it—sin is not real. Only righteousness is real, only righteousness and truth and goodness exist in any real sense. There are not two bars on the ontological spectrum—a righteous bar and a sin bar…and they are both racing ahead to beat the other bar to the “finish.” There is one path, one bar. Sin has only a real consequence, it is not real in and of itself, and it only has that real consequence because it is related to the realness of righteousness. Otherwise, sin would not be fundamentally ridiculous.
Righteousness is moving forward on that path, sin is moving backward on that path. To move backward, though, presupposes that there is space and direction in which to move; it presupposes previous forward movement (righteousness). There could be no sin without righteousness. There can be righteousness without sin, though. A lie is meaningless and not a lie without the truth it contradicts, yet a truth is true regardless of any lies contradicting it. Why is our God supreme? Because He is righteous. Why is He righteous? Because He is supreme. Why are we sustained by God even in our occasionally backwards living? Because, as we are told in Jeremiah
