Threads from Henry's Web

Tag: David Alan Black

  • Dave Black on Philippians

    Matt Capps has collected links to Dave Black’s online writings on Philippians. As one of Dave’s publishers, I’m glad to see the list.

  • Dave Black on Translations

    I was thinking of quoting this comment from Dave Black myself, but Rod Decker beat me to it. We should give translators more respect!

  • An RSS Feed for Dave Black

    Dave Black discusses RSS feeds, of which he has none:

    12:18 PM Yes, yes, yes, let’s hear it for RSS feeds!

    You may have bookmarked this blog, and/or other blogs and webpages. But you have no idea when new content is posted. So every now and then you click your bookmarks to see what is new. Sometimes nothing is new, and you’ve wasted a click.

    Impeccably good logic. Unless, of course, when you click on a bookmark and the site you visit is always publishing something new!

    But you can get an RSS feed of Dave Black’s blog. Really you can! Here’s how you do it:

    1. Got to http://page2rss.com
    2. Enter the URL for Dave’s blog, (http://daveblackonline.com/blog.htm)
    3. The site will give you back an RSS feed that will follow updates to that page
    4. Put that feed URL into your RSS reader

    For example, my reader currently shows the selection I quoted above as the latest update.

    I do update the Energion Publications (my company) book pages for the three of Dave’s books that I publish (with Dave’s permission), Why Four Gospels?, Christian Archy, and The Jesus Paradigm with relevant material from Dave’s blog, but that only gets a limited selection.

  • Dave Black: Ten Best Books for Studying New Testament Greek

    David Alan Black has posted a new essay, Ten Best Books for Studying New Testament Greek.  The majority are books I have read and/or are on my shelves, but there are a couple that are just on my “need to read this list” and a couple more I’m going to add.

    I note that when I teach Greek classes locally, usually to a couple of people at a time, I use the #1 and #2 books on his list.  I know that as one of his publishers I should perhaps use one of his books as my text, but I will plead historical reasons–I picked the textbooks before I was his publisher!

    If I might underline a couple of books on his list:  #5. Peter Cotterell and Max Turner, Linguistics and Biblical Interpretation, and Dave’s related book, Linguistics for Students of New Testament Greek: A Survey of Basic Concepts and Applications. I take a small risk in recommending books I haven’t personally read. My introduction to linguistics started with my graduate advisor, Dr. Leona Running at Andrews University, and continued with some graduate work in linguistics at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle. Those linguistics classes did more for my understanding of translation and exegesis than did many of my exegesis classes.

    I always spend time talking about linguistics with my Greek or Hebrew students.  It makes a great deal of difference to how valuable one’s technical language knowledge will be.  When I studied Greek, I found that even syntax was neglected to some extent.

    Finally, #10. Rodney Decker, Koine Greek Reader: Selections from the New Testament, Septuagint, and Early Christian Writers.  In particular note the “Septuagint” and “Early Christian Writers.”  In my opinion, if your reading is limited to the New Testament, you cannot claim to really understand New Testament Greek.  I include the LXX in my regular reading, and I’m including more and more literature from the early church.  It will be well worth your while to do so.

  • Boldness to be Fools

    Sometimes even when I’m way to busy to be blogging, at least on my personal blog, I just see so many things that point the same direction that I just have to write. This post didn’t start with this quote, but it says something I like to read:

    If our denomination has lost the boldness to be fools, then we do not need new initiatives or new advertising campaigns. We need to recapture our lost zeal.

    That’s from John Meunier, a United Methodist local church pastor and blogger.

    This follows on some discussion of radical discipleship over on GenXRising, who says:

    If we, as Christians, are really worried about declining numbers of the faithful in this land, we should practice a more robust form of discipleship.

    Ouch! You mean we have to mean what we say? Say it ain’t so!

    This all relates closely to a book I’m publishing, The Jesus Paradigm by Dr. David Alan Black, a professor of Greek and New Testament at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Indeed, it does appear that there are things on which Methodists and Baptists can agree. [Cue the shock and amazement.]

    To go back to the question, however, here’s what I wrote on my company’s blog right after contracting to publish Dave Black’s book, my third of three points:

    Finally, this book hit the spot because I’m frustrated with the professional church. Practically every pastor I know is frustrated as well. They are wondering why church members don’t get to work, why they don’t serve one another, why they don’t share their faith, and why they fill pews (occasionally, even!) rather than getting involved.

    I like to call myself a passionate moderate–just look at the blog header. I’ve discussed before what I mean by combining those two terms. I never mean that we don’t need to really be who we are called to be. That’s going to take some willingness to get radical on at least one point–faithfulness to what we know is right.