Nice video on Matthew

This is inspiring - Particularly I want to see the Beatitudes in Hebrew or Aramaic to get a sense of their verbal compactness. 



I wonder if I will ever get to the New Testament. Thanks to Mark Goodacre.

Sheep may safely graze

Kurk Gayle has been exploring some Matthew texts here and Joel Hoffman here.

Some day I must do a diagram on these patterns.

In case you get here

If you get here and are searching for stuff - do visit the Biblioblog list here and this is a list of my personal blogs St Barnabas Sunday School where we do 5 minutes of Hebrew a week and some under 11 can read it as a result. Bob's Log - including my translation of the psalms in pictures and words Sufficiency - with a concentration on Job, some work on Romans, a little on the Song, and the Gospels via story and coloured parallels from years ago

Matthew in my limited blogosphere

I am not going very far very fast - but the time is right - this is a fascinating article and so refreshing compared with the analytical complexity of what I eavesdropped on 10 years ago.

Sea of Galilee

Steven Notely has an intriguing article 'The Sea of Galilee: Development of an Early Christian Toponym' in the Spring 2009 JBL (Matthew 4:12b-16). Considering just the words describing the region: ὁδὸν θαλάσσης דרך הים, the way of the sea; πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου עבר הירדן, along the Jordan, Γαλιλαία τῶν ἐθνῶν גליל הגוים - is that Galilee or region of the Gentiles? Is this a lake (fresh water) or a sea (salt water)? He points out how the 'Sea of Galilee' as a name carries Isaiah's prophecy forward in a unique way.

The tripartite topographical combination by Isaiah, "Way to the sea", "Gelil Haggoyim" and "Beyond Jordan" was intended by the prophet to define the frontiers of Israelite settlement in the north that stood in imminent danger before the Assyrian threat. ... Isaiah's intentions notwithstanding, the LXX's translation of גליל with Γαλιλαία signals that by the Greco-Roman period the Jewish community understood Isaiah to mean Galilee. ... the term θάλασσα - which is the LXX's rendering of ים in Isaiah 8:23 was still intended for the Mediterranean Sea - was transferred to another body of water, namely, the lake of Gennesar.

This is a fascinating introduction to Matthew for me - showing the great barrier presented by the Hebrew-Greek divide and creative Matthean exegesis.

A rhythmic start

This week we have been invited to sing this with the symphony - it is really quite fun. And it's from Matthew. Enjoy - and do listen to the MP3. My link is to a different performance than the link on the words with translation.