If you’re a WordPress.org user and you’re responsible for upgrading your WordPress install when a new version comes out, you’ll definitely want to check out the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin. If your web host includes cPanel with Fantastico De Luxe, which allows for simple upgrades, you should still consider using the WordPress Automatic Upgrade plugin. Fantastico is great, but one of my biggest frustrations is that it usually takes a couple of weeks or more to release the newest version of WordPress—not good when the new version fixes serious security problems. I’m not sure if this is an issue with cPanel, Fantastico, or my web host, Host Monster.
Books for Christmas
I put a few books on my Christmas list this year, and my parents and brother graciously purchased some of them for me. I’m enjoying digging into them a little already. Here’s what I got:
White, James. The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief. Minneapolis: Bethany, 1998.- Ware, Bruce A. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance. Wheaton: Crossway, 2005.
- George, Timothy, ed. God the Holy Trinity: Reflections on Christian Faith and Practice. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006.
- Giles, Kevin. Jesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity. Grand Rapids: Zondervan: 2006.
- Fee, Gordon D. Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2007.
The Nativity Story (2006)
I bought The Nativity Story for my parents for Christmas (along with Planet Earth and Blue Planet) and remembered that I had never posted about it here. Shanna and I watched it last spring when it first came out on DVD. It’s not fresh on my mind, so I can’t give a detailed review, but I do remember enough to know that I enjoyed it and would recommend it.
It was very faithful to the biblical accounts. While I wasn’t convinced that all of the ways they acted out the story were the best, those issues were minor and their interpretations were generally within the bounds of viable options. I was initially disappointed with how abruptly the movie came to an end, but then I remembered that it was a movie about Jesus’ birth, not His life. Though The Nativity Story isn’t my favorite biblical movie, it is one that I would recommend and will probably watch again.
Other Reviews:
Migne’s Patrologia Graeca in Logos
Users have requested Migne’s 161-volume Patrologia Graeca many times. It seems that Logos is now giving some serious thought to pursuing it. Bob Pritchett, President and CEO of Logos, recently wrote this in the Logos Greek newsgroup:
We’ve recently been talking about Migne’s Patrologia Graeca and hearing from some users how it could be a great addition to Logos Bible Software.
. . .
While page images are available in our own SeminaryLibrary.com and some other sources, as far as we know there is no full-text electronic edition. And at 161 volumes of Greek text, much of it with parallel Latin, Patrologia Graeca would be our biggest pre-pub project ever. (We estimate that the keyboarding cost alone would be 5 times that of ICC.)
“To Him Be Glory Forever”
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed in the Grammatical Relationships section of the Bible Word Study report for εὐχαριστέω an interesting pattern regarding the objects of εὐχαριστέω. I wrote this in a blog post at the Logos Bible Software blog:
Of the 23 complements or objects of the verb (i.e., who is being thanked), they are nearly all God. The only human objects are Prisca and Aquila (Rom 16:3). The rest of the references are God—and arguably, God the Father. (Jesus is the object one time [Lk 17:16].) I realize that God can refer to the Triune God, but the contexts and general pattern suggest that the Father is in view.
Thanks is given to
- the Father (Col 1:11–12; cf. Jn 11:41)
- God the Father through Jesus (Rom 1:8; Col 3:17)
- God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (Col 1:3–5)
- God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph 5:20)
- God [who is distinguished in the context from Christ] (Rom 14:6; 1 Cor 1:4, 14; Phil 1:3-6; 1 Thes 2:13; 2 Thes 1:3; 2:13; Phm 4-5; Rev 11:17?; cf. Lk 18:11)
- God [who is later identified as the Father] (1 Thes 1:2–4)
- God [undefined in the immediate context] (Acts 27:35; 28:15; 1 Cor 14:18)
This pattern reminded me of a similar pattern that I gave some thought to a couple of months ago.
[Read more…] about “To Him Be Glory Forever”The Trip to Bellingham
Well, we made it safely to Bellingham last Tuesday (11/6). Sorry for the very delayed update. We finally got internet set up with Comcast on Tuesday. Prior to that we had been connecting by using Shanna’s Verizon phone as a modem, which was incredibly slow! Anyway, we enjoyed our trip out here far more than we anticipated. We’re thankful to God for the safety and nice weather during the entire trip. Of course, it did start raining shortly after we arrived, but we had been warned that it would rain often, so we were mentally prepared. Our first Saturday here was absolutely gorgeous, though!
I want to thank everyone who came over to help us pack, load the truck, and clean. We appreciate your sacrifice and kindness immensely! Thanks to Josh McCarnan, Jason Cornwell, Dave Wike, Jim Gaston, Josh and Laurel Louk, Melissa and Bryan McKinnon, and Jordan Gons. Thanks as well to those who called and offered to come over. We should have taken more of you up on your offer to help! Thanks as well to all of those who prayed for our trip. We’ll certainly miss all of our friends from Greenville. Please come out and visit us. There’s lots to do in the Bellingham area, and we’d love to have you stay with us!
Moving to Bellingham & Joining Logos
Shanna and I are in the midst of a major transition. We are wrapping up things here in Greenville, SC (like packing and trying to sell or rent our condo) and preparing to move about 2,900 miles across the country to Bellingham, WA. I will be taking a job (in the marketing deparment) with Logos Research Systems, Inc., the makers of Logos Bible Software, and Shanna will be looking for work once we get settled in. I didn’t realize how big of a task preparing for a move like this would be! It’s good for us, though, because it’s making us rely upon God more than when we feel like we have things under control.
We’d appreciate your prayers. Here are some specific things you can pray for us:
Fonts Supporting Polytonic Unicode Greek
Rod Decker, Professor of Greek and New Testament at Baptist Bible Seminary, Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, recently blogged about how new Vista fonts Cambria, Calibri, Candara, Consolas, Constantia, and Corbel unfortunately do not support polytonic Unicode Greek. Be sure to check out the PDF where he evaluates them.
In a comment, I noted that another new Vista font, Segoe UI, does support polytonic Unicode Greek. I also mentioned some nice polytonic Unicode Greek fonts that come with Adobe’s Creative Suite: “Arno Pro (serif), Garamond Premr Pro (serif), and Hypatia Sans Pro (sans serif)—a free gift downloadable after registering the product.” Decker responded and asked if I would post a PDF with samples, so that’s what I’m doing.