Come hear Dr. Tom Schreiner at Founders Baptist in Spring, TX this Fri/Sat/Sun! FREE Spurgeon Conference.
http://foundersbaptist.org/conference/
I cannot take credit for the following; my MA student (at HBU) 
Benjamin Summers forwarded these to me months ago. But they *are* enjoyable.
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Q: Why don’t Bible translators ever buy matte paint?
A: Because they’re always looking for a good gloss.
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Q: Which Hebrew letter is nothing to sneeze at?
A: Allergic nun.
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Q: Which Old Testament authors found the most gems and nuggets of wisdom?
A: The miner prophets.
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Q: What kind of machine would Siskel & Ebert use to determine whether a film gets a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down?
A: Their critical apparatus.
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Q: What story did the Hebrew professor tell around the campfire?
A: The tale of the headless relative clause.
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Q: What flavor gum does a rabbi chew?
A: Tar gum.
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Q: How is an exegete different from a submarine captain?
A: One searches through a periscope while the other searches through a pericope.
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Q: If you don’t practice using a lexicon, why will your translation stink?
A: Because not brushing up gives you HALOT-osis.
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Q: The sentence topic that was just here – where did it go?
A: It left dislocation.
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Q: Why couldn’t the overly humble student tell a direct object from an adjunct prepositional phrase?
A: He just didn’t know how to take a complement.
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Q: What moral lesson can we learn from identifying verbless clauses?
A: What’s right isn’t always copular, and what’s copular isn’t always right.
Just posted this today at the HBU School of Christian Thought blog. Reblogging for those who don’t catch the SCT site regularly.
Nice illustration from Derek Rishmawy about how good modern insights on the text have often already found their way into the life of the Church. Calvin is still insightful, after 500 years.
One of my favorite things about reading the Reformers, or the Fathers for that matter, is finding that the best insights I’ve loved in modern scholars aren’t really that new at all. Take the concept of ‘new creation.’ For many of us, N.T. Wright is probably the modern scholar who brought our attention to the theology of new creation. At least for me he did. In his many works on Paul, the Resurrection, and Christian Origins, again and again, he calls us to hear the proclamation that in Christ’s life, death, and resurrection all things, the cosmos as a whole, have been renewed. God wasn’t simply concerned with saving souls off to an ethereal heaven, but rather faithfully rescuing the world from the decay into which it had fallen. Resurrection isn’t just for people, but the universe as a whole. This is bracing and beautifully good news.
As great as learning…
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Back several months ago I preached a sermon at Magnolia Creek Baptist Church for my friend and colleague, Pastor Brett Dutton. I’ve just now figured out how to save the audio file so that I can re-post it here (yes, sometimes I’m technologically challenged). If you’re so inclined, feel free to have a listen and/or pass it along to those you think it will encourage. Please be aware that the introductory voice on the mp3 bumper says that “Brett Dutton” will be preaching, but it really is me! 🙂
Click here to listen to “Jesus, A Thirsty Savior for Thirsty Sinners”
ANNOUNCEMENT: I’m teaching Turbo Hebrew and Turbo Greek at Southwestern Seminary-Houston starting Monday, May 13 (Hebrew starts May 13; Greek May 14). We will cover a full year of Biblical Hebrew or Biblical Greek in 10 wks. The Hebrew course meets Mondays/Thursdays from 8am to noon each time; the Greek course meets Tuesdays/Fridays from 8am to noon. In order for the course to make we need enough people committed by the end of the day tomorrow–Tuesday, May 7. Please email me (psmarshall AT gmail DOT com) if you need details and I’ll get you set up.
Also, you could contact the following about enrolling ASAP:
Hudson Hanks (hhanks@swbts.edu)
Director of Business & Student Services
713.634.0011 ext. 222
Please spread the word if you know anyone who is interested!
Just posted this link to my recent message on Psalm 121 to our HBU School of Christian Thought blog. Hope it gives encouragement to someone out there!
Thanks, Cheryl, for reminding me of the sustaining grace of God in our lives.
One of our MABL (Master of Arts in Biblical Languages) students is showing a set of skills I had heretofore not seen in full blossom–he’s very nearly a stand-up comedian! Today he passed along some language jokes that would make any elementary Greek and Hebrew professor very proud, and thankfully, he has permitted me to post them here. Enjoy! And if you don’t smile, then please take it as definitive proof that you *need* to come study Greek and Hebrew here at HBU! Merry Christmas!
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(1) Q: What kind of poker do Hebrew cowboys play?
A: Texas Cholem.
(2) Q: Where did extremely sick adjective go?
A: The adjectival intensive care unit. (He himself went, by the way.)
(3) Q: What Hebrew vowel is so rare it only occurs in texts once every 75 years?
A: Halley’s Qamets.
(4) Q: What kind of airplane do Greek pronouns fly in?
A: The Pronominal Concorde, of course.
(5) Q: Which Hebrew vowel has also starred in several extremely violent action movies?
A: Steven Segol.
(6) Q: What’s the best app for studying Greek grammar?
A: Angry Verbs.
(7) Q: Why do so many young Hebrew farmers move to the city after their first crop?
A: How can you keep them on the farm once they’ve seen פְּרִי?
(8) Q: How do you know you’ve been studying Greek too hard?
A: At Christmas you see “‘Tis the season” and start trying to parse the “τις”.
(9) Q: How are many aspiring comedy careers like tsere, qamets, and chireq?
A: They’re not historically long.
From Language Log: Here’s an example of why it’s important to understand the basics of syntax, structural ambiguity, and proper punctuation. The first line of the New York Times piece has seemingly added to Mitterrand’s sins! Interesting commentary at the Language Log link’s combox. –psm
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“François Mitterrand crash blossom”
Under the heading “the benefits of paired em dashes, part 57″, Mark Swofford sent in the following screen shot from yesterday’s New York Times:
The main part of the caption under the most prominent photo in the screen shot reads:
“Mazarine Pingeot, the daughter of François Mitterrand, the former French president, and his longtime mistress, has published a diary.”
As Mark says, “It took me several readings before that stopped sounding incestuous.”
December 2, 2012 @ 11:09 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Crash blossoms, Punctuation
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BIBLICAL LANGUAGES 