Category Archives: Old Codex Blog Posts

Posts from my old Codex: Biblical Studies Blog

Top Ten Highlights from “U2 Week”

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Codex Top Ten LogoI decided to dub this “U2 Week” in honour of U2 releasing their new album, No Line On the Horizon, on Tuesday 3 March 2009. You probably also have heard that U2 was on Late Show with David Letterman all this week and that they even had a street in NY temporarily named “U2 Way.” They were also guests on Good Morning America this morning.

The “Top Ten” highlights from “U2 Week” for me were the following:

10. Larry Mullen, Jr’s brief interview at the NY Knicks Game (4 March 2009)

9. Street being renamed “U2 Way” in NY

8. U2’s Late Show “On Hold Music”

7. U2 on the Tom Snider Show from 1981. OK, I know this isn’t from this week, but I did watch it this week. It is quite a blast from the past with The Edge with almost a full head of hair. This is during U2’s first US tour for their first album, Boy.

6. U2’s interview on Good Morning America

5. Breaking news that U2 already has another album release planned. According to @U2, the band is planning on releasing “Songs of Ascent” in 2010. Here is an excerpt from the post on @U2:

Bono tells Rolling Stone magazine that U2’s next studio album will be called “Songs Of Ascent,” it’ll be released in 2010, and that “Every Breaking Wave” will be the first single — a “surging anthem.” And here’s a choice Bono quote about the next album: “Songs Of Ascent will be quieter than No Line in many ways, it’s that ghost album of hymns and Sufi singing. We’re making a kind of heartbreaker, a meditative, reflexive piece of work, but not indulgent.”

4. Paul Connolly’s news article “Why U2 really are better than The Rolling Stones AND The Beatles.” I’m glad someone finally had the guts to put this in print! The primary reason Connolly finds for the creative longevity of U2 is their punk origins:

They [80s bands like U2] were all born out of the embers of punk and new wave and they’ve retained that restless, adventurous, questing spirit. Punk may have become a debased cultural currency now (and it was responsible for some terrible bands at the time) but its enduring ideals have been responsible for some of the finest music of the last 30 years. Bands from the most ridiculed of decades are still pushing on, unafraid of change and trying something new, making some of the best music of their creative lives. The Rolling who?

3. U2’s performance of “Magnificent” on the Late Show. I Really, REALLY, like this song.

2. U2 band members doing David Letterman’s “Top Ten” List on Thursday night (5 March 2009). I especially liked The Edge’s dig on Sting.

1. The Release of U2’s new album, No Line on the Horizon. There is no question that this has to be number one!

NLOTH

The album is available in a number of different packages:

Finally, as a “fun Friday” bonus, here is a video of Bush singing, Sunday, Bloody Sunday:

Have a great weekend!


Electronic Edition of the Göttingen Septuagint Announced by Logos

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Logos Bible Software has announced a project that will make all Septuagint scholars’  mouths water: an electronic edition of all of the Göttingen Septuagint volumes, including the entire critical apparatus.  The LXX will be morphologically tagged and fully searchable; and if you own the texts found in the apparatus you will be able to just click and view the text. To make this all the more appealing, you can order the electronic edition at a fraction of the price of the print editions.

While the advent and availability of electronic texts has advantages and disadvantages, in the right hands tools such as these can revolutionize scholarship.

For more information on the Logos Göttingen Septuagint, see here.  For more information on the Septuagint, check out my “Resources relating to the LXX” pages.


German Translation of the LXX Published

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The very first translation of the Septuagint into German has now been published: Septuaginta Deutsch: Das griechische Alte Testament in deutscher Übersetzung (Martin Karrer and Wolfgang Kraus, eds.; Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2009).

The “LXX.D” project has been on the go for about a decade, so it is nice to see it come to completion. Here is an excerpt from the press release:

It is said concerning the genesis of the Septuagint that 72 Jewish translators in ancient Alexandria translated the Hebrew Bible in 72 days into miraculously identical Greek. To this day, the very name “Septuagint,” which in Greek means “70,” evokes the legend surrounding the creation of the Old Testament in Greek.  The Septuagint was the standard Bible used by first-century Christians.  A knowledge of the Greek version of the Bible is necessary in order to comprehend many theological pronouncements, for example the virgin birth of Jesus. Moreover, it is still today the Scripture of the Orthodox churches.  However, it has never been published separately in German translation.

That situation has now been remedied. The first edition of the Septuagint in German will be presented to the public at the residence of the plenipotentiary of the EKD Council in Berlin (Charlottenstrasse 53/54) on 28 January 2009 at 3.30 pm.  Persons cordially invited to attend the presentation include Präses Nikolaus Schneider (Evangelical Church in the Rhineland), Bishop Johannes Friedrich (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria) and Jan Bühner (general secretary of the German Bible Society), as well as the two principle editors, Professor Wolfgang Kraus (Saarbrücken) and Professor Martin Karrer (Wuppertal). Greetings will be pronounced by Bishop Joachim Wanke (Erfurt) and Metropolitan Augoustinos (Bonn).

Up to more than 80 persons worked at one time on the project, which had been coordinated since 1999 out of a specially set-up office.  According to Wolfgang Kraus, “Without the generous support of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, in particular, we would never have been able to complete the translation.”  However, the translation which is being presented is not the only positive result of the nearly ten-year effort. The translation process included academic symposia organized in Germany, France and the United States.  “In terms of international Septuagint research, Germany is now on the map,” declared Martin Karrer with visible pride.

The translators included Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christians, who consulted with Jewish scholars on questions of translation.  The result was a collective effort uniting various Christian denominations and Judaism.  For the first time, Orthodox Christians living in Germany have at their disposal a Bible in the German language.

The newly published translation, which comprises 1,500 pages in one volume, will be followed by a two-volume version which includes scholarly commentaries based on the Greek Bible.  The editors plan further publications, which testifies to the standing of the Septuagint as a source of important insights regarding the textual transmission of the Old Testament and as one of the cornerstones of European culture.

For more information on the German Septuagint project, you can check out their website: septuagintaforschung.de.

With this publication, new translations of the LXX have now been produced for English (New English Translation of the Septuagint – NETS), French (La Bible d’Alexandrie; this project includes introductions and commentary on the text and is almost complete), and German. Translation projects are also underway in Italian, Modern Greek, Modern Hebrew, as well as Japanese.


U2 – No Line on the Horizon: My First Impressions

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NLOTHI have had a chance to listen to U2’s new album, No Line on the Horizon, a number of times. I’m not sure if this will be my favourite U2 album, but I quite like it. Some songs remind me of All That You Can’t Leave Behind, while others could be off of U2’s more experimental albums like Pop or Zooropa. Here are some of my initial impressions on the individual tracks:

  1. No Line on the Horizon (U2, Eno, and Lanois; 4:12). I really like sound and feel of the title track — especially Bono’s soulful raspy voice (although the refrain is a bit awkward).
  2. Magnificent (U2, Eno, and Lanois; 5:24). This is perhaps my favourite song of the album. It is a faith-filled rock anthem that will no doubt become a U2 classic. “Only love / Only love can leave such a mark
 / But only love / Only love can heal such a scar.”
  3. Moment of Surrender (U2, Eno, and Lanois; 7:24). The haunting lyrics and soulful sound of this song will make it grow on you, as it has me. “I was speeding on the subway / Through the stations of the cross / Every eye looking every other way / Counting down ’til the pain will stop.”
  4. Unknown Caller (U2, Eno, and Lanois; 6:03). This song is kind of catchy, though the lyrics are a bit banal.
  5. I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight (U2; 4:14).  A light-hearted song; kind of catchy.
  6. Get on Your Boots (U2; 3:25). As I said in my previous post, this song is a fun romp with Bono taking a break from his political activism (”I don’t want to talk about wars between nations”) and calling us to live in the joy of the moment together (“here’s where we gotta be / love and community / laughter is eternity /if joy is real”).
  7. Stand Up Comedy (U2; 3:50). This song starts out as if it could have been on Zooropa, but then quickly becomes  something that would be at home on How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
  8. Fez – Being Born (U2, Eno, and Lanois; 5:17). No quite sure what to think of this one yet.
  9. White as Snow (traditional, arranged by U2, Eno and Lanois; 4:41).  This quiet and intimate song stands out from the rest of the album. According to Bono it is supposed to elicit the feelings of a soldier dying from a roadside bomb in Afganistan. A very moving song.
  10. Breathe (U2;  5:00). No sure what to think of this one.
  11. Cedars of Lebanon (U2, Eno, and Lanois; 4:13). This Pop-eque ballad grows on you.

All in all there is much to like about this album. Like most U2 albums, some songs resonate with you right away, others grow on you as you ponder their lyrics and appreciate their sound.  As I mentioned, the album is being released in a number of different packages:

If you are in North America you can pick up your copy today.


Cain and Abel: A Cameo from Year One

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My previous post on Cain and Abel reminded me of a somewhat funny (OK, it is funny — just a little dark) trailer for a new Harold Ramis film, The Year One:

The film follws the adventures of two lazy hunter-gatherers (Jack Black and Michael Cera) as they travel the ancient world. It appears that they not only encounter Cain and Abel, but also Adam and Eve,  Abraham and Isaac, and Sodom and Gomorrah. Hmmm… I don’t think it is trying to be biblically accurate!  The film is scheduled to be released 19 June 2009 according to IMDB.

If you are interested in more films based on the Bible, check out my “The Old Testament on Film” pages.