Acronyms and Spam Plugin Update

Since Kevin Wilson showed his, I thought I would show mine — of course I’m talking about my list of acronyms for the Acronym Replacer plugin for WordPress. My list is also incomplete, but feel free to copy and paste whatever you want! (see list below)

In regards to another WordPress plugin, I noted a bit ago that I added a plugin for spam protection on comments. Since adding “Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam Image Plugin for WordPress� I have not had a single spam comment get through. So if you are looking for a basic spam protection program that catches what Akismet misses, I can recommend this one.

Here’s my acronym list:

“NT”=>”New Testament”,
“SP”=>”Samaritan Pentateuch”,
“DSS”=>”Dead Sea Scrolls”,
“OT” => “Old Testament”,
“HT” => “‘Hat tip’, i.e., original source”,
“LXX” => “Septuagint”,
“MT” => “Masoretic Text”,
“Syr.” => “Syriac Peshitta”,
“Tgs.” => “Aramaic Targums”,
“Vulg.” => “Vulgate”,
“BHK” => “Biblia Hebraica, ed. R. Kittel”,
“BHS” => “Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (1977)”,
“BHQ” => “Biblia Hebraica Quinta (2004-)”,
“NA27” => “Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland, 27th ed.”,
“UBS4” => “The Greek New Testament, United Bible Societies, 4th ed.”,
“ASV” => “American Standard Version”,
“CEV” => “Contemporary English Version”,
“GNB” => “Good News Bible”,
“JB” => “Jerusalem Bible”,
“KJV” => “King James Version”,
“LB” => “Living Bible”,
“NLT” => “New Living Translation”,
“MLB” => “Modern Language Bible”,
“NAB” => “New American Bible”,
“NASB” => “New American Standard Bible”,
“NAV” => “New American Version”,
“NEB” => “New English Bible”,
“NIV” => “New International Version”,
“NIVI” => “New International Version: Inclusive Language Edition”,
“NJB” => “New Jerusalem Bible”,
“NJPS” => “Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text”,
“NKJV” => “New King James Version”,
“NRSV” => “New Revised Standard Version”,
“REB” => “Revised English Bible”,
“RSV” => “Revised Standard Version”,
“RV” => “Revised Version”,
“TEV” => “Today’s English Version (= Good News Bible)”,
“TNIV” => “Today?s New International Version”,
“Gen” => “Genesis”,
“Exod” => “Exodus”,
“Lev” => “Leviticus”,
“Num” => “Numbers”,
“Deut” => “Deuteronomy”,
“Josh” => “Joshua”,
“Judg” => “Judges”,
“1 Sam” => “1 Samuel”,
“1 Kgs” => “1 Kings”,
“1 Chr” => “1 Chronicles”,
“2 Sam” => “2 Samuel”,
“2 Kgs” => “2 Kings”,
“2 Chr” => “2 Chronicles”,
“Neh” => “Nehemiah”,
“Esth” => “Esther”,
“Ps” => “Psalm”,
“Pss” => “Psalms”,
“Prov” => “Proverbs”,
“Eccl” => “Ecclesiastes (or Qoheleth)”,
“Qoh” => “Ecclesiastes (or Qoheleth)”,
“Cant” => “Song of Songs (Song of Solomon, or Canticles)”,
“Isa” => “Isaiah”,
“Jer” => “Jeremiah”,
“Lam” => “Lamentations”,
“Ezek” => “Ezekiel”,
“Hos” => “Hosea”,
“Obad” => “Obadiah”,
“Mic” => “Micah”,
“Nah” => “Nahum”,
“Hab” => “Habakkuk”,
“Zeph” => “Zephaniah”,
“Hag” => “Haggai”,
“Zech” => “Zechariah”,
“Mal ” => “Malachi”,
“Matt” => “Matthew”,
“Rom” => “Romans”,
“1 Cor” => “1 Corinthians”,
“2 Cor” => “2 Corinthians”,
“Gal” => “Galatians”,
“Eph” => “Ephesians”,
“Phil” => “Philippians”,
“Col” => “Colossians”,
“1 Thess” => “1 Thessalonians”,
“1 Tim” => “1 Timothy”,
“2 Thess” => “2 Thessalonians”,
“2 Tim” => “2 Timothy”,
“Phlm” => “Philemon”,
“Heb” => “Hebrews”,
“Jas” => “James”,
“1 Pet” => “1 Peter”,
“2 Pet” => “2 Peter”,
“Rev” => “Revelation”,
“ABD ” => “Anchor Bible Dictionary”,
“ISBE ” => “International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia”,
“CE” => “Common Era (AD)”,
“BCE” => “Before Common Era (BC)”,
“SBL” => “Society of Biblical Literature”,
“RBL” => “Review of Biblical Literature”,
“MS” => “Manuscript”,
“MSS” => “Manuscripts ”


Comment Spam Protection — Please Test

Since switching to WordPress a number of months ago, I have been getting quite a bit of spam in the form of comments on posts. Most of the comments have been innocuous enough, but some are rather x-rated. It hasn’t been too difficult to delete them, since I get a notice of all comments emailed to me. That being said, I have been thinking of adding some extra spam protection to my blog for a while. (Note that my spam filter — Akismet — has also caught 5,425 spam since switching over to WordPress! These are comments that I don’t even see).

I have decided to add a plugin called “Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam Image Plugin for WordPress.” This plugin makes users identify a random word displayed as an image in order to block spambots that cannot read the image. This means that there is an extra step for you to leave a comment on my blog, but I think it is worth the effort! What I liked about this plugin is that I get to choose the words that you have to identify! So I decided to add a bunch of words that relate to the content of my blog (and no, I did not include “useless trash” as one of the words!).

Feel free to test out the comment feature on this post and PLEASE let me know if it didn’t work for you! Thanks in advance to any testers!

Speaking of spam… check this out.


60,000 Visitors and Counting!

Codex60Served.jpgI just noticed that by blog counter hit the 60,000 mark. I just want to say, “Thank you for visiting!” I added the counter on July 7th last year, so it has been just over one year. I am a bit humbled that 60,000 people have visited my blog (and that says nothing about my companion Codex website).

What is even more amazing is the number of visitors I get from all around the world. Case in point: the 60,000th visitor was from Minsk, Belarus. Privet Belarus! I sure hope it was worth the trip!

My average visits sit at about 230 per day, which means in the next year I may have 84,000 visitors. Gee, I guess I better start writing about more than ancient toilets and tattoos!

Thank you for visiting and making blogging an enjoyable and meaningful experience.


Thanks, Jim West!

Jim West held a contest of his own today, and guess what? I actually won something. I don’t win things very often, so I am pleased as punch! (OK, what does that mean, “pleased as punch”? How can a liquid be pleased?).

At any rate, I happened to be Jim’s 170,000th visitor at his site, and because of that I get a free book — to be more accurate, I get free “books.” Jim, who will now be known to me as “Jim the Generous” will be posting me the Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls edited by Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam (Oxford, 2000; Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com). With 450 articles by an international team of scholars, this two volume work offers the most comprehensive critical synthesis of current knowledge about the Dead Sea Scrolls — and their historical, archaeological, linguistic, and religious contexts. Written in non-technical language this reference work provides authoritative answers and information for all readers. This is a pretty expensive set — at least up here in the Canadian hinterlands. All I can say is, “Sweet!”

Thanks, Jim!



50,000th Visitor Who Are You?

OK, OK, I know I said I wouldn’t have any more contests for a while. But I was grabbing some books from my office today and noticed that I had duplicate copies of a couple books. I also noticed that I hit the 50,000 visitor mark this evening. Then I combined those two insights and decided to give away a book to lucky number 50,000.

So here it goes. My 50,000th visitor was from Thornhill, Ontario, and is running a Macintosh computer with OSX. S/he visited my blog at 9:17:11 pm.

If you think you are the lucky visitor, then send me an email at codex [at] biblical-studies [dot] ca with some revealing information about yourself (like your ISP or IP address!) and you can pick one of the two books below and I’ll send send it to you for absolutely nothing! Here are the books:

  • Robert Alter, Genesis (New York: Norton, 1996). This is a superb literary translation of the book of Genesis with an introduction and insightful commentary.
  • Frederick Buechner, The Son of Laughter (New York: HarperCollins, 1993).  This is an absolutely amazing novel that retells the story of Jacob in a way that is both profound and well-researched. You will never think about the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in quite the same light after reading this book!

Congratulations to the winner!