Musings of a Snickerdoodle

This is quite an eclectic collection of works by J. B. Lightfoot.  It includes two (both to some degree incomplete)commentaries , one on 2 Corinthians and the other on 1 Peter,  and five lectures/sermons/essays by Lightfoot as appendices.  You get quite a bit of content in this volume. The Commentaries in this book are unfinished/incomplete, but you still get a good deal to work with. There is an editor's introduction at the beginning of the book that presents an interesting look at the production of this book and the discovery of the 'lost' writings of Lightfoot, as well as bit of info on Lightfoot's life, scholarship and some of his method of writing commentaries.  I particularly liked to see it pointed out that Lightfoot was a stickler for context, James D. G. Dunn is quoted in the book as saying, "time and again Lightfoot 'clearly demonstrates the importance of reading a historical text within its historical context, that the meaning of a text does n...

A Syntax Guide For Readers of the New Testament by Charles Lee Irons is a nice addition to one's NT Greek tools library.  It is not a stand-alone tool, but meant to be used with  other lexical aids.  Irons notes that,  "This Syntax Guide does not duplicate the help provided by such tools.  Rather, it picks up where these other tools leave off"  and  "presupposes their use…"    The introduction explains that in this guide, "select cases, glosses and parsing are not the focus".  Rather, in some places it gives specific explanations of "syntactical, clause-level features". There is a chapter for each book of the New Testament, and each book is divided into chapters and each chapter has a list of select verse references from that chapter and next to the reference there may be  a section of the Greek wording of the verse and some comments .   Some of the verses only have a brief...

Martin Luther by Simonetta Carr i s a nice overview of the life of Luther for children.   It starts with Luther's birth and moves on through his life as a child in schooling and then on to his college days, where the thunderstorm happens that scares him into a monastic life where perhaps he could earn his way to Heaven.  As a Monk we learn that Luther was very meticulous and very much into examining his own thoughts and motives for sin; his ritualistic confession of his sins grew so frequent (sometimes happening just moments after he had  confessed other sins) that it irritated his superiors who then "told him to confess only big sins."  Luther ultimately is promoted to higher positions, moving on to the city of Wittenberg to be a professor of Bible studies. Ultimately he also ends up preaching in the city church as well as "supervising ten monasteries".  Tetzel comes into Germany with his indulgences and as a consequence Luther writes his "ninety-...

Greek for Everyone by A. Chadwick Thornhill presents a unique book on New Testament Greek.  His  stated goal is to have those reading this book learn  "Greek in order to become better students of the Scripture rather than students of Greek."  The aim of the book is not to  "gain reading proficiency but rather are working to establish the ability to use various tools to study the text in Greek".    And I think that Thornhill accomplishes his goals with this book, he   takes you through a basic (though it still seems quite thorough) overview of the various parts of Greek so that you may then use lexicons, parsing guides, and other Greek tools in your Bible study without having to become an expert Greek scholar.  Thornhill starts out by explaining that one of the most important things to do in acquiring a knowledge of Koine Greek that is useful to Bible study is to remember to keep looking for the 'big picture' in a text/pas...

I often sense a tendency in myself to take having an English translation of the Old and New Testaments for granted.  But, as Harry Freedman demonstrates in his book, The Murderous History of Bible Translations: Power, Conflict, and the Quest for Meaning, I shouldn't take it for granted and should appreciate all the more the effort and sacrifice that went in to getting the written Word of God into a book that ordinary people could read.  In this book Freedman does an excellent job at writing, he grasps and keeps one's attention, and it flows nicely.  He takes you through history, beginning with the translation of the Old Testament and then goes on to include the New in the focus as well.  Translating God's Word into the common vernacular of any people was often very tumultuous and controversial, and we see this down the passage of time that the author takes us through and we also see this as we look through the viewpoint of different translators who took many r...

The Tunnels by Greg Mitchell is a book about escape tunnels that were built under the Berlin wall during the Cold War.  Though many tunnels and tunnel escapes are looked at, the focus of the book is on one particular tunnel that was funded by NBC in exchange for filming the construction of the tunnel and any escapes that would happen by means of the tunnel. I picked this book to review simply because I thought that it sounded rather interesting, I didn't realize how absolutely riveting it would be.  I started reading it to myself, got a little way into it and then started reading it out loud to one of my sisters. By, probably the middle of the book, several of my siblings were listening in with fixed attention.  This book is very well written, Mitchell really seems to give one the perspective of the people involved in these escapes so that you feel along with them as they attempt their dangerous work.  We all got pretty tense with every tunnel...

From Heaven:   A 28-day Advent Devotional with excerpts from the works of A.W. Tozer, is one of the strangest devotionals I have ever encountered (though I haven't looked at or read many).   Strange in a good way though.   When I think of devotionals, I think of generally light portions of readings per day, with a verse of Scripture that is contemplated at a high level and that is then meant to be applied to oneself in an extremely personal way.   Tozer's devotional, like any devotional, has a small reading for any given day, but the content of the reading is anything but small and goes much further than provoking one to mere introspection, it provokes one to contemplate the true awesomeness of our God and His love and grace. There are things in this devotional that I was delightfully surprised to see in a Christmas devotional (or any devotional for that matter), like, " Put the emphasis where the Bible puts it, on the Christ at the right hand of God, not on the...

Discovering the Septuagint - A Guided Reader - by Karen Jobes is a very nice resource for those looking for an introduction to the Greek of the LXX (The Septuagint).  There are chapters dealing with selected passages from 9 books of the LXX, in each chapter there is an introduction telling you about that particular book and its translation techniques.   Then follows the  Rahlfs-Hanhart Greek text of an excerpt from that particular book and a brief examination of certain key words and phrases in each verse, notes on vocabulary and syntax. Then comes another excerpt of the Greek text and the notes on the various verses…etc.  After all of the selected texts are done being examined, then comes the NETS (New English Translation of the Septuagint) version of the passage(s) so that one may read the whole thing in English. And then finally, if verses from the chapter are cited in the New Testament, they have a table showing where in the NT the passage is referred t...

The Reader's Bible (this one is the NKJV) is designed as a single column, "paragraph style" Bible, with no verse or chapter numbers, just the names of the Books.  This makes it so that you read the Bible more along the lines of how it was originally put together in a codex, which did not have all of the numbered chapter divisions in the books of the Bible that we have today. This Bible is definitely reader friendly, it is easy to read through without the potential distraction of verse numbers (though they are handy) and it is a unique experience to have the historical narrative filling the whole page as one column rather than as two, more like how a regular book of history book or biography is put together.  You can keep a general track of where you are in any given book by looking at the bottom corners of the pages which tell you which chapter is on the page you are reading.  The only thing that I don't like is that they kept the chapter breaks (without ...

The Cultural Background Study Bible is a Bible that contains a lot of information about the times in which the various sections were  written.  It has many pictures, maps and diagrams, and of course, commentary.  The Bible is pretty large and heavy, but that is to be expected with so much extra content being added to it.  I must say that this Bible, or rather the extra content of this Bible, had a lot of unnecessary things, and even absolutely indecent things.  First, the pictures.  I don't remember if I've ever reviewed a Bible that had so many indecent pictures in it. There's the obligatory Adam and Eve (as usual, depicted before the fall of man with conveniently placed leaves), there are ancient artistic depictions of women exposing various body parts, including the lower half of the body,  there are ancient depictions of men being circumcised…and so on.  And get this, there's even a clay depiction of a...

Tillie Pierce:  Teen Eyewitness to the Battle of Gettysburg by Tanya Anderson gives a very interesting perspective of the battle of Gettysburg.  As the title indicates, Tillie was a teenager at the time the Confederates invaded her state (Pennsylvania) and thence ended up at her hometown of Gettysburg.  As the danger grows Tillie's parents allow her to go with a neighbor who desires to flee, with her two children to a safer spot at her own parents farm.  Ironically, their refuge ends up being a not-so-safe place with war taking place around them and nearby on the Round Tops. Tillie and her friends accept the situation in which they are placed and end up helping with the wounded and helping give water to active soldiers and in so doing she meets various soldiers participating in the battle (including General Meade) all the while worrying about her own family back in the main town.  The book is filled with interesting facts about the Civil War and many ...

The Illustrator's Notetaking Bible has a nicely bound bible, with a very handy lay-flat design, making it easy to write or color in it.  On the inside each page has only one column of text with large margins on either side.  Some of the margins have lines for writing in, many of them have pictures that one may color in (the Illustrator part).  I like to doodle sometimes while listening to sermons, sometimes it helps me think and stay focused, so I thought that this was an interesting concept.  But upon examination it was rather disappointing.  In a way, it is reminiscent of the illuminated manuscripts of the past, except that in the illuminated manuscripts I've noticed that the text didn't seem to have as dwarfed by the illustrations as this one appears to me to do on many of the pages (perhaps they did, I just don't remember).  If the text of the Bible itself weren't so small or if it were more…I don't know, 'fancy' I guess, it would seem more fitt...

I have never reviewed a game before, but this one caught my attention as some of my brothers and sisters love to pun and I wanted to see if it would make a good Christmas present for one or all of them.  I wasn't disappointed. The object of the game is to collect 10 pairs of pun prompt cards.  You win prompt cards by coming up with the best (or sometimes the lamest) puns.  The Prompter draws two prompt cards reading the prompts and the players have 90 seconds to write own a single pun that combines the prompt word topics and then they give the paper on which their punning creation is written to the prompter who chooses which he likes best.  The winner of the round becomes the new prompter and the game continues until someone has ten pairs of prompt cards.  There are a few other aspects of the game (like a pre-pun-prompt round and also prizes one can set up for the end of the game) that I have not described but the main fun was trying to come up with puns to...

I often sense a tendency in myself to take having an English translation of the Old and New Testaments for granted.  But, as Harry Freedman demonstrates in his book, The Murderous History of Bible Translations: Power, Conflict, and the Quest for Meaning, I shouldn't take it for granted and should appreciate all the more the effort and sacrifice that went in to getting the written Word of God into a book that ordinary people could read.  In this book Freedman does an excellent job at writing, he grasps and keeps one's attention, and it flows nicely.  He takes you through history, beginning with the translation of the Old Testament and then including the New in the focus as well.   Translating God's Word into the common vernacular of any people was often very tumultuous and controversial, and we see this down the passage of time that the author examines, and through many different translators who often took many risks to make the translation.  Thou...

Saving the Bible From Ourselves by Glenn R. Pauuw is a book about people's misuse of the Bible, how it has  come to be used as a book that is a collection of isolated propositional statements that are written specifically for me and for my special encouragement.  Overall this book is argument against those views of the Bible (it critiques  other views as well) and I believe it is a rather good argument.  I mainly listed those two things because they are the things that captivated me most in this book. Then I will give my critique. First, Pauuw does an excellent job at attacking the rather modern approach to the Bible that takes the form of hunting for individual verses that seem relevant to us, "…find the fragments you need at the moment.  If you are looking for your daily inspiration, then find a devotional fragment.  If you are arguing with the local heretic, find a doctrinal fragment.  If you are facing an ethical question, find a moral fra...

The Knight's Map by R. C. Sproul is an allegory for children and is very much like the Pilgrim's Progress.  Its focus is on the tale of a Knight without loyalties to any king who receives a mysterious letter, and also a map, from a King (whose existence is doubted by people), the King invites the Knight to follow the map to find a Treasure that will not fade away.  The Knight encounters many obstacles along the way, mainly these obstacles take the form  of the Knight being misled by other people like Mr. Skeptic and Mr. Liberal who try to draw the Knight's attention away from trying to read the map correctly (and even discouraging any attempt to read it at all).  The book has many nicely drawn (or rather, painted) pictures that I am sure would have captured my interest as a child. The story is well-written and would hold the interest of adults as well as children.  There is a question and answer section at the back that could be helpful to parents in pr...

Jefferson's America: The President, The Purchase and the Explorers Who Transformed A Nation by Julie M. Fenster is well written and very interesting.  I have heard of Lewis and Clark and knew a tiny bit about their exploration but I have never heard of others who were equally important at the time such as: Dunbar, Hunter, Forest or Pike.  And yet perhaps I had heard of them in school but I didn't keep any memory of them or their expeditions in my head.  This book is a very intriguing account of how and why Jefferson initiated the exploration westward of what was then a comparatively small U.S., how he made the Louisiana Purchase (and the controversy around the purchase)and how he made it secure and justified his purchase by courting public interest in the expeditions he had sent out.  It mainly focuses on the men whom Jefferson sent out to do the exploring, and their adventures are quite intriguing. Most of the men Jefferson picked for the task of exploring and f...

Understanding the Congregation's Authority by Jonathan Leeman is a short and yet quite thorough explanation and defense of what Leeman calls, "Elder-Led Congregationalism".  He does not advocate congregationalism nor Elder-Rule, rather he presents the concepts of 'congregational authority' as 'responsibilities' and the role of the pastors/Elders he presents as the God-given 'trainers/councilors' of the congregation.  Each member of the congregation is responsible to prod one another to love and good works, building and discipling their brothers and sisters in Christ (which may involve correction) and coming to be discipled as well, to attend church regularly not making a habit of forsaking the assembling of their church family, and the congregation is also responsible to submit themselves to the elders of the church(the Elders do not make them submit), which Elders are to train up the congregation to fulfill their responsibilities by preachi...