Tag Archives: Writing

Rick’s End-of-2023 Roundup

OK, y’all, 2023 was an exceedingly strange year for me. I’ve had four different employers (two full-time, two contract) and it’s been weird. But good. (Very good, in fact).

So I wanted to post a “stuff I did” this year post. It’ll be different, though, because I’ll mention written stuff but I’ll also point you to Github repos with open data (CC-BY or CC-BY-SA) that you can do whatever you’d like to with. I guess I really have been busy.

Publications

Only one publication this year:

“The Memorial of John: A New Translation and Introduction” in New Testament Apocrypha: More Non-Canonical Scriptures, Volume 3. Edited by Tony Burke. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans.

In addition to the conference paper, I had a blog post published at Text and Canon’s web site on Bible versification issues:

How Bible Software Solves Differences in Versification for You

I do have a forthcoming publication from Lexham Press, with a group of three other editors, that I’m really hoping is published in 2024. It is a collection of Pseudepigraphal writings translated from the Greek sources, each with short introductions and bibliography. Hoping it happens soon.

Since we’re here, I suppose I should give an update on the Hermas project as well. To date I have a draft of the Visions together (chapters 1–25) that I’m doing an editing pass on (50K words, about halfway through the edit/review); after that I’ll hopefully start on the draft of the Mandates (chapters 26–49).

Conference Papers

As well, only one conference presentation this year, at the Bible Translation conference in Dallas, Texas:

“Ambiguous Pronouns and Names: Tracking Participants in Biblical Passages using Referent Analysis.” Presented to the Exegesis and Biblical Languages group at the Bible Translation Conference in Dallas, TX, October 17, 2023.

Public Open Repos

And here’s where most of my work this year will show up. As mentioned, I’ve had four different employers this year, two full-time and two contract. I worked for Logos/Faithlife full time through the end of September, 2023. Not able to share the work I did at Logos; it was largely in service of in-development stuff. From October 2023 I’ve been employed with the BiblioNexus Studio. In addition to my full-time work, I’ve been under contract for up to 15 hours per week by Clear Bible, who in the middle of August 2023 was acquired by Biblica. I still work up to 15 hours per week for Biblica.

Stuff I did for Clear/Biblica in 2023:

  • Speaker Quotations: An analysis of various English Bible versions to determine quoted material and the speaker of the material, mapped back to the underlying Greek and Hebrew. As well, a “Clear” form of this data that provides an (automated) consensus view of the quotations in the Hebrew Bible and Greek New Testament and their speakers.
  • Various updates, enhancements, and corrections to Biblica/Clear’s Macula Hebrew and Macula Greek syntactic analyses, particularly in migrating a bunch of data into the SBLGNT form of Macula Greek to make it publicly available.
  • NT Conditional Statements: An analysis from Steve Nicolle at CanIL (Canada Institute of Linguistics) of the conditional statements in the Greek New Testament as well as statements that use conditional conjunctions but do not adhere to the formal pattern/rules of conditional statements. I converted this data from some spreadsheets into JSON (and some Markdown) to make it easier to integrate in other solutions (e.g. Bible software platforms and other solutions).
  • Textual Alignments: I did some work to migrate textual alignments of various Bibles to openly available sources. Notably, there are alignments of the Lexham English Bible and Young’s Literal Translation to the SBLGNT (for NT, specifically the Macula Greek edition of the SBLGNT) and to the Westminster text of Macula Hebrew for the OT.

Stuff I released via my own Github account in 2023:

Rick’s 2023 Research and Writing Schedule

Here it is, the last day of 2022. So I guess it’s time to review the past year’s research / writing, and make plans about what might happen in 2023.

So how’d I do in 2022? Here is my 2022 Research and Writing Schedule post. I hit the big notes and missed pretty much all of the bonus material. Specifically:

  • Lexham OT Pseudepigrapha: Submitted my portions on 12/30. I have a few loose ends to tie up, but this is in great shape.
  • Baylor AF Handbook volumes on Hermas: I’m through 12 chapters of a draft; only 102 more to go. Honestly, this project slipped this year; I’d hoped to be further along. Not sure how to pick up the pace in the next year.
  • Latin: I took one Latin class and learned a lot, but also learned I didn’t have the bandwidth to take a Latin class.
  • Greek Reader for Protevangelium of James: I did virtually nothing regarding this.
  • Outline a vol. 2 of Fragments: Absolutely no work done.

What accounted for the slippage? Life. Also, in September I started working part-time on a contract basis for Clear Bible, a group that uses linguistic data to provide tools and services for the accelleration of Bible translation. Most of my spare time has been taken up in doing work for Clear; both because it is interesting and compelling and, honestly, because it pays better than research and writing. I’ll need to adjust that balance a bit in 2023 to allocate more time for work on the Hermas volumes, though.

So, what are my plans for 2023?

The primary writing focus will be the Baylor AF Handbook volumes on Hermas. It has to be; there is a lot left to do, and time is limited.

I’ll need to give some attention to the Lexham Press OT Pseudepigrapha volume. As mentioned, there are loose ends to tie up. And there will also be proofs to review and correct, front matter, and (ugh) indexes.

But that’s it. As much as I’d love to get a reader of the Protevangelium together, I don’t think it is happening.

This will all be balanced with regular contributions to Clear Bible. And, remember, all of this happens on top of my full-time day job with Faithlife / Logos Bible Software.

Rick’s 2022 Research and Writing Schedule

I’ve posted writing schedules in the past (2016 through 2019 and 2021). For some reason, I didn’t do it for 2020. But it’s time again to try and sketch things out and make some plans for how to spend my research and writing time in 2022. For those unaware, this is how I plan to spend my own personal time, there is no connection here with my day job for Faithlife, makers of Logos Bible Software. That’s a totally different set of priorities and responsibilities.

First off, I’m super pumped to have finished and published Fragments of Christianity in July of 2021 (Amazon $24.95; Logos $12.99 preorder). I have some ideas for a follow-up (i.e. more “early” papyri, several of which are transcribed and translated already), but I don’t know that I’ll get to that in 2022, but maybe I’ll find time to sketch an outline or something.

Second, in early 2021, I was invited to contribute the volumes on the Shepherd of Hermas for the forthcoming Baylor Handbook of the Apostolic Fathers. After thinking and crunching the numbers a bit, I decided to do it. I started in earnest on that in the summer and fall, working through variations in the Greek texts. I’m currently examining intertextual references with the LXX and NT as well as topical and lexical cross-references (about 1/3 through) and hope to have that pass complete in early 2022. My next step will be reading a bunch of literature and integrating necessary references in my textual and intertextual notes to have it all in one place when I start to write, which I hope will be sometime in 2022 (summer, maybe?) Hermas is huge, and I only have 160K words (two volumes) which includes Greek text and translation, so it will definitely be a handbook on the Greek (and Latin!) text, not an exhaustive/comprehensive commentary proper. I’m going to be working on this one for awhile; my goal at present is to have the whole thing submitted and accepted by the time my daughter graduates high school. She finishes her freshman year in July 2022.

Which brings me up to my next bit of news: I’ll be taking a Latin class starting at the end of January, pending enough people register. The class goes for 10 weeks. I’ve been in fake-it-til-you-make-it land in Latin (and other languages), and it seems it is time for me to just dig in. In a perfect world, I’ll have a few classes of Latin in (3-4?) by the time I need to write the Latin portions of the Hermas handbook.

But life will not be all Hermas and Latin in 2022. Nope, I’m also under contract to Lexham Press, along with three other editors, to produce translations of various Old Testament Pseudepigrapha works for a collected edition. My focus is mainly on fragmentary items (e.g. some Orphica, Theodotion, Ezekiel the Tragedian, Fragments from Epic Poets, Artapanus, Eupolemus, etc.) plus the Testament of Solomon (which is WILD) and some of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. And other stuff. I’ve done the basic work on translations, so in 2022 I’ll be reviewing/revising that, working on bibliography stuff, revising and updating some introductions, and edit/review passes on the stuff the other editors have done. I’ll probably take a break from Hermas in the spring (before starting actually writing, after working through tons of literature) to focus on this project.

The year seems pretty full. But I’m guessing I’ll also need a diversion, particularly in the fall and winter. So if I do, at least at this point, I’m thinking about starting work on another Greek reader edition. Which writing? This time I think I’ll do the Protevangelium of James. It is a great story, tangential to lots of canonical material, and has perpetual interest. I’ll need to establish an edition of the text (likely Tischendorf’s but I’ll have to see what other textual evidence has become available) and then work on a translation, likely revising the translation from the Ante-Nicene Fathers. These reader editions (currently I have readers for the First Apocryphal Apocalypse of John and the Acts of Pilate with the Descent of Christ to Hades) are priced low ($9.95) and are perpetual sellers for me. Not huge or anything (I’m definitely not getting rich on these) but maybe if I’m lucky I can take my wife out to lunch every few months (at least while the kids are in school and we don’t need to worry about childcare).

It’s possible I might have an SBL paper in there (thinking about something probably Hermas related, which in my experience is a tough section to get a paper accepted in). If that actually happens (and if I can do it virtually, because as much as I’d like to be in Denver in 2022, I’m not sure I’ll be able to), then I’ll need to eek out the time.

That’s all I can forsee about my 2022 research and writing schedule at this point. I have one other “maybe” project in there, but it is too tenuous to even mention. I’ll let you know if for some reason it jumps up in priority.

Thanks, all. Happy New Year!