@Dan FYI: I agree with Joel here. Even really basic questions could add value if given some editing love.

But we don't want a question for each word in Strongs or somesuch.

Hey, congratulations to @FrankLuke, newest earner of Strunk and White!

Yet another one. What can we do about this tendency of newcomers to assume we're a Christian site? I've written a lot about this on meta already; clearly that's not making any difference. Where do we need to put how prominent a clue on the main site???

BTW, this ^^^ is the poster whose two posts I marked for review here. It doesn't look like anybody else has voted. Do y'all think those answers are really ok, or are people just not around and reading these days?

@MonicaCellio To be fair, on the first question I didn't vote on any of the answers because the whole question seemed off-topic to me

The other question about the "tree of intelligence" struck me possibly the same. Seemed more like a theology question, so I didn't even read any of the answers.

@Soldarnal that makes sense. Now that the issue has been raised I'd like to encourage you to review both; do you think close votes or downvotes are called for? I've already cast my DVs and will review the questions again for possible VtC.

@MonicaCellio Thanks.

@MonicaCellio I've been in and out so much lately, I haven't been checking the review queues. That's my fault.

Hey, a review of a new conspiracy theory gospel book! Looks like the author does the same thing that Mattias' guy does: anything in the gospel against his theory was made up, everything that supports it is God's own truth.

@FrankLuke no worries -- people have the time they have, and summer tends to be vacation season. Despite what the metrics say it's been feeling to me like site activity has been down for a couple months -- as measured in response times, votes (a) at all and (b) promptly, and general visibility of the "regulars".

Except this guy comes to exactly the opposite conclusions about which passages were added and which were true.

@MonicaCellio I've noticed a lot of people gone.

@FrankLuke oh hey, that's the book Ali was pushing recently (I forget in which room). I didn't look at it, considering the source, but I can't say I'm surprised by your find. :-)

It seems like we have more drive-by visiters but not as many are staying.

@FrankLuke yeah, lots of one-post new accounts. So I guess we're doing better with Google and, as a result, surfers want to "add a comment to the forum they found", not understanding that that's not what we do here. Part of why I want us to deal with problem posts (both these and from established users user who should know better) is that they're broken windows, giving the impression that that's ok to other people who come across us.

(I have to drop off for ~30min; back later.)

@MonicaCellio Wife and I were discussing this last night. Why so many drive-bys? What makes it difficult to understand what H.SE is? She thinks the name is a big part of it. She likes bibilicalstudies.SE.

One other thing that is big to her is that we stop at application. If someone has a text and application question, they have to start here for the meaning and then go to C.SE or MY.SE for the application.

So she asks why not do application here also?

@FrankLuke well, one issue is that application only works if participants agree on the core axioms, which will never be true on a site without a doctrinal foundation. And I'll fight pretty hard to keep this site doctrine-neutral; we have other sites for that and at least on MY the text questions are also on-topic. If they're not on-topic on C.SE, that's a matter for them, not us, to resolve.

@FrankLuke I agree that the name is confusing. I also suspect that a lot of Googlers don't really even notice the name; they're looking for the answer to an application question (usually), they land here, and they don't stop to read before jumping in. That's probably true all over Stack Exchange, but lots of people have opinions about the bible compared to, say, those who have opinions about Java code. (Not that programmers aren't opinionated, but the bar to entry is higher on SO.)

The Workplace has this problem too, though severity varies (currently I think we have it worse than them, but that's not always true). Any subjective-seeming site is going to have this issue.

@FrankLuke and here's another one, hot off the pressses. I...don't even know what to say to that, beyond flagging as NAA. Really? Somebody thought that belonged here?

Later today I plan to either edit this down to an answer without the preaching (it'll be much smaller) or vote to delete it. Anyone have opinions on which is the better path?

@MonicaCellio I agree on doctrine-nuetral.

@MonicaCellio Little editing done. Flagged as NAA. VtD.

@MonicaCellio It at least answers the question of when did Jonah die in the narrative with "he was alive throughout." When it goes into the part about Jesus was therefore alive, it goes off topic. X the first paragraph. Leave the second. X the paragraphs after it.

@FrankLuke yeah, basically -- there is an answer in there, but it's dwarfed by the other stuff.

@Dan thanks for the compliment :D

@swasheck seeing that question and your answer was a breath of fresh air

@Dan hence my relative infrequency

@swasheck for the most part, those are the questions I think we should see more of. They are fun to answer/educate, and the question is all about the text itself

@Dan couldnt agree more

@swasheck I'm going to be teaching a Greek course at my local church starting early September!

Very excited

very cool

have you selected a style?

@swasheck I'm going to use Mounce's Grammar

@swasheck 5-case system

@swasheck that will cover most of 101 and 102

@Dan that's what was used when i studied

@swasheck if there are any stragglers left who want to do 201 I'd use Wallace's Intermediate Syntax (the abridgement of the big book)

@swasheck I had to use the big book in 201, but I wouldn't do that to anyone else haha

@Dan honestly, at that point why not move to Black's It's Still Greek To Me (feel like we've had this conversation before)

@swasheck the first time I took it we used Black's Grammar and the second time we used Machen - so this book is new to me

@swasheck I think we have discussed this before - perhaps I should just use that

@swasheck what I like about Wallace's abridgement is that there is a clear reference path. Want to learn more about this? Want to find out the few exceptions? Check out this chapter of the big book

@Dan smaller. cheaper. and so much more engaging

@Dan i see. black does a really good job

@swasheck ok good to know - I'll buy it and read it for myself

Wallace tends to be very wordy

@Dan ah yes i remember my comment now :D

with the foundation of koine basics, i find black to be so much more helpful (e.g. my aorist + participle comment)

@swasheck yes and having used Black's introductory Grammar in the past, I found it very easy to follow

@swasheck I just bought his intermediate grammar online - I'll enjoy reading it

@Dan which is that?

@swasheck does he use similar terms/categories as Wallace?

@Dan basically. wallace has more exceptions and subcategories than black.

@swasheck I used this one but this is the updated version

I'm glad they switched because they used to use this one (which I think is still used by Princeton)

this is the one i'd recommend ... for intermediate. it also requires an instructor with a deft touch

amazon.com/Its-Still-Greek-Easy-Understand/dp/0801021812

@swasheck I just purchased it on Amazon, it will ship soon :)

nice

he's a smart guy

@swasheck yes indeed

@swasheck I'm going to take another Greek course at the local seminary next semester, so teaching will be a good review for me

@swasheck I am using Mounce's videos, but they are very high-level and just skim the tree line of the material

i liked the teknia site

@swasheck I saw that DTS has their courses on iTunesU, so maybe I'll use those for my own prep haha

@swasheck yes I kept hearing from other seminarians that had used Mounce that it was the best

@swasheck because no one liked Machen.

wallace is clearly smart

but has the gift of verbosity

@swasheck haha yes - I have the same problem

I'm working on my own translation of James right now, and I'm doing it in LaTeX format. Someone is going to hate me haha

@Dan i'd like to see that ...

But I hate MS Word and Apple Pages

@Dan i made a resume in latex

@swasheck I won't publish it because I'm sure it is going to be very similar to existing translations

@swasheck very cool

@swasheck I was trying to get two columns of footnotes, and Word and Pages convinced me that LaTeX would be the way to go

@Dan that's fine. i'd still like to see it

@swasheck sure, I'll send later if I end up getting on my computer this evening when I go home

username [at] gmail

@swasheck not sure if I will or not, though - the Catholics have Theology on Tap tonight and I plan on enjoying some free beer and pizza

@Dan totally fine. just noting that at some point in time it'd be interesting to see. i had to Tx James in class

@swasheck ok cool - don't expect it to be earth-shattering or anything. It's moreso for my own commentary purposes. You will notice they are heavily influenced by NET notes and other existing commentary - I never intend to publish it or anything like that

@Dan no worries. just curious.

as an aside, since nathan beat me to the POS-tagged SBLGNT

treebanks and some sort of syntax/grammar tagging are kinda interesting too

soooo like my answe

@swasheck perhaps we should post some of those here too :P

@swasheck gotta run

@swasheck plus I need to find a better font for TeX that supports PolyTonic Greek

erm ... ok ... sorry @dan ... work went crazy

so like my answer ... sometimes the article is used as a pronoun and sometimes it's the article for another word. i'd be interested in figuring out a way to tag the NT with not only POS tagging but also grammatical tagging unless you already know of such a thing, @Dan.

unless you think you/we could create treebanks based off of nathan's POS-tagged SBLGNT

that'd be fun

@Dan yes. please stay away from betacode