I posted a good while back that an English translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch was on its way to the publishers. For a long time, the only thing available was Von Gall’s Der hebräische Pentateuch der Samaritaner, which was practically useless since it didn’t represent any actual Samaritan manuscript and was harmonized throughout to agree with the Masoretic text. Then there was the more excellent The Torah: Jewish and Samaritan Versions Compared; A Side-By-Side Comparison of the Two Versions with the Differences Highlighted by Mark Shoulson, based on a single manuscript with differences in the Hebrew bolded. And now, at long last, comes the first ever English translation in history! It is being published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company with an expected ship date of June 29, 2011 and is available for pre-order at Amazon.com. This is a rare, perhaps once-in-a-lifetime moment. Books like this often get published once in a limited amount and then when they’re gone, are gone for good.
Most articles in the monumental Chicago Assyrian Dictionary are now available online. This is a wonderful resource. And it is even more wonderful that it is freely available. However, there have been several times when I’ve come across references to CAD in the footnotes of various works and I just don’t understand how to trace that back to the dictionary’s articles. For instance, if I see a reference to CAD 1:158, how do I locate this? I would assume that 1 refers to the volume (the letter A) and 158 refers to the page number. But this is obviously incorrect and, further, doesn’t seem like a useful way to reference material that is organized entirely differently in the dictionary online. Anyone care to shed some light on this?
The Patriot Act scares the living shit out of me. Here’s an example why it does: Mom Says Patriot Act Stripped Son of Due Process. Basically, it gives government the ability to supersede your INALIENABLE rights as declared in the Constitution based on the government’s own arbitrary whims. As this poor mother and son found out the hard way, far from making America safer, the Patriot Act puts America at the risk of the kinds of fascism and tyranny that have held sway over the rest of the world since the beginning of human history. Even YOU could be taken in the middle of the night and held hostage indefinitely by your own government without the ability to defend your innocence.
I want to welcome all the IE 8 users that can finally see the site as it was designed. Since this site was launched I’ve had to hide the style sheets from IE users as the CSS engine just wasn’t able to render the design at all, even though it could be rendered 98% perfect by Netscape 6 (released November of 2000. The 2% of rendering issues, were that the fonts look bigger in Netscape 6 and the drop down menus are finicky. Netscape/Mozilla fixed the out standing issues in their CSS engine by Netscape 7.1 [aka Mozilla 1.4], and thus rendered this site 100% perfect since June of 2003). Hey at least you can say your browser of choice finally joined the party of being able to view our site as it was designed, even if it took Microsoft about 9 years to catch up with it’s CSS 2 support?
Today, the California Supreme Court hears arguments by both sides on the constitutional or non-constitutional nature of Prop 8. It may take some time before we hear the official judgment, however. As a Christian, I cannot easily condone homosexual union, but this is not a question of Christian faith, this is a question of natural liberty. Are we or should we be free to follow our personal convictions and beliefs in terms of matrimonial union or should our choices rather be coerced and controlled by outside forces such as government or majority opinion? As a Christian, I love this land, because it allows me the right to follow my religious convictions and belief instead of being coerced and controlled by someone else’s, and so I cannot but stand alongside the homosexual community in one accord and say yes, they should not be coerced or controlled and denied the ability to follow their beliefs and convictions either–even if I may disagree with those convictions or beliefs as a Christian. This is a unique opportunity for our country to either officially affirm or officially deny the nature of the liberties and freedoms protected and affirmed by our Constitution. It was only 40 years ago that black and white couples challenged laws in this country saying they could not marry and the uniquely historical Constitution of these United States is what ended the oppression, segregation, and racial bigotry of those who fought to deny blacks and whites the freedom to marry each other. May our Constitution, by God’s grace and mercy, once again shine brightly in this land today in the California courts.
LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!
