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A New Look and the Good Book
January 29, 2005 - 5:11 p.m.

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A wild hair (or was it a hare?) has lead to some major tweaks to the site...which you've probably noticed if you're a regular.

Special features include the new side bar, which gives me more room for books (because I'm always reading at least two) and brings some things up into view that had been buried at the bottom. The once-buried thing I'm thinking of is the update list sign-up, over on the left.

In case you ("you" meaning Amy's brother) think I'm neglecting my studies for this, I'll have you know I just finished an OT paper that's not due for another two weeks. So nyah.

Worst Priest Ever.

In completing this paper I used a load of books given to me by Fr. H. When I left Milwaukee and All Saints, he let me dig through his library for potential seminarian treasures. This generous act provided me with a Hebrew-English Lexicon, an Interlinear Hebrew-Greek-English Bible and a partial set of the Interpreter's Bible. These are all enormously useful for OT exegesis...thanks Fr. H!

I also used a computer program that is simply fabulous...Bibleworks 6 is a huge program that combines dozens of translations of the Bible, including Hebrew and Greek. (not to mention French, German, Spanish, Vietnamese, etc...) It's extremely searchable, allowing one to find all the various permutations of a single Hebrew root word that has been translated with different English words.

Example - the Hebrew root can mean various things...return, turn back, repent, renew, retreat. It's a versatile word, but even when altered for different meanings the root is visible and a reader or listener would recognize the repetition. In the book of Ruth, for instance, the word appears some 15 times. That's a lot of repetition in a book that's only four chapters long. Putting a single word root through its paces like that creates a unity, an emphasis on the deeper meaning of the word...it's a meaning that gets lost when the text is translated. The translators haven't done anything wrong, but the target language (in this case, English) just doesn't ave one word that carries all the same meanings as .

Oops...I diverged into a Hebrew lesson. Sorry. The point is, this program can search the OT for all the occurrences of a Hebrew word, and can display that word alongside a dozen different translations. This allows one to see a variety of ways in which a word can work, and opens new avenues for exegesis...and, thus, sermon writing.

It's a marvellous toy, and one which I'm glad the Toronto School of Theology has. It's enormously expensive, and every theological library on campus has a copy, so I don't need to get it for school. Still, it's on my wish list...maybe a graduation present? Anyone? Of course, by then it'll be Bibleworks 7 or 8, and it'll be even cooler...

Listen to me...I'm calling exegesis software "cool." Says a lot about me, eh?

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