Posted by Peter Kirby at 11:11 PM | Permalink | 2 comments

I am fond of the book by William Mounce titled Greek for the Rest of Us. The concept is that Mounce teaches the student enough Greek to understand the differences between translations and to read the better commentaries that interact with the Greek text. And Mounce does as good a job as could be expected in making this "baby Greek" possible for most people, who have limited time.

I have been wanting to revisit and really solidify my grasp of the basics of the Greek language. For this reason, I am going to read through Greek for the Rest of Us again and complete Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar. They say that you understand something if you can teach it. So I am leading a "group study" for those interested in learning Greek. This study also welcomes, of course, people more experienced with Greek, because it will need their presence to answer questions. The group study will be at an Ebla forum titled Greek Study with Mounce.

We will go through the book from beginning to end. For each chapter, a summary will be posted to the forum, plus any exercises in that chapter. The summary keeps everyone on the same page (including any auditing the class without a book) and reiterates the concepts vital to understanding the exercises. The exercises are reproduced so that everyone will be able to compare notes on their answers. In this way it will be possible to participate with a different textbook or as someone already versed in Greek. (Note: I have already transcribed all the exercises, and I have written summaries for the first four chapters. That should let you know that this group study will reach the end of the book.)

Please join us at Ebla for this exciting group study and tell anyone else who might be interested!

Posted by Peter Kirby at 3:58 PM | Permalink | 0 comments

See the entry in Jim Davila's blog about the newly recovered texts. Quite exciting!

Posted by Peter Kirby at 9:37 PM | Permalink | 3 comments

Check out the latest edition of the template for the Early Christian Writings webpages. Once again I call upon those reading this to submit their comments. Many of those made already have been incorporated into the design, some haven't--don't be afraid to make a similar suggestion. One thing that I know that I need to do is to make the dropdown categorical menu more obviously a menu.

I know that some people don't care much for the wooden frame and the general use of graphics in the current template. I am wondering what suggestions there might be for a less graphic-heavy look.

thanks,

Peter

Posted by Peter Kirby at 11:33 PM | Permalink | 5 comments

I have made several changes to the template for the redesign of my site, and I now am showing the new mockup for a normal document page. Instead of commenting on the changes I made, I would rather have people visit the mockup page and ask the questions, "Do I know what this thing does? Is it done in the most comprehensible and aesthetic way?" Also, ask yourself how you might do certain tasks and what kind of behavior you expect. For example, there is now just a textbox and a button called "Search" at the top of the page. What exactly do you think should happen when executing the search?

I greatly appreciate your feedback.

best,
Peter Kirby

Posted by Peter Kirby at 10:47 AM | Permalink | 7 comments

In Fall 2002, my essay "The Case Against the Empty Tomb" was published in The Journal of Higher Criticism. It is now appearing in a hardcover book edited by Robert Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder, titled The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave. Some people may have heard of the title "Jesus is Dead," but Prometheus edited the title of the book for being too provocative. There is a description of the book at the Internet Infidels already. The webpages have been created at amazon.com and bn.com also, making the book available for preorder. Here is the table of contents:

Acknowledgments
Introduction, Robert M. Price
1. Is There Sufficient Historical Evidence to Establish the Resurrection of Jesus?, Robert Greg Cavin
2. The Resurrection As Initially Improbable, Michael Martin
3. Why Resurrect Jesus?, Theodore Drange
4. Apocryphal Apparitions: 1 Corinthians 15:3-11 as a Post-Pauline Interpolation, Robert M. Price
5. The Spiritual Body of Christ and the Legend of the Empty Tomb, Richard Carrier
6. The Case Against the Empty Tomb, Peter Kirby
7. The Burial of Jesus in Light of Jewish Law, Richard Carrier
8. Historical Evidence and the Empty Tomb Story: A Reply to William Lane Craig, Jeffery Jay Lowder
9. Taming the Tehom: The Sign of Jonah in Matthew, Evan Fales
10. The Plausibility of Theft, Richard Carrier
11. Financial Aspects of the Resurrection, J. Duncan M. Derrett
12. By This Time He Stinketh: The Attempts of William Lane Craig to Exhume Jesus, Robert M. Price
13. Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli on the Hallucination Theory, Keith Parsons
14. Swinburne on the Resurrection, Michael Martin
15. Reformed Epistemology and Biblical Hermeneutics, Evan Fales
Bibliography
Contributors
Index of Ancient Sources
Index of Modern Authors
Index of Selected Topics