Christmas leftovers

Some ill-health through Christmas and the new year and even into the beginning of the new term (nothing awful, just flu and fatigue etc.) have kept me away from the blogging machine more than I like and I have a backlog of interesting bits and bobs I had wanted to comment on. I'd still like to get to Geza Vermes on the Birth Narrative, so will be keeping that in the pending tray.

I have long wanted to comment on Stephen Carlson's reflections on Hypotyposeis concerning Luke 2.2, Luke 2:2 and the Census, Parsing Luke 2:2 and Putting Luke 2.2 in Context. If you have not yet read this fascinating new proposal, then let me recommend it. It appears to me to make sense both of the grammar of the passage and of the history, something that other explanations struggle with. I have one thought that occurs and it is something I always want to ask in the face of any new proposal on a text that has been read, re-read, translated, re-translated, interpreted on and commented upon over centuries. The questions, all related, are these: (1) Has this proposal ever been made before? (2) If so, why have others ignored it or found it unsatisfactory? (3) If not, why not? (4) Given that many, on this hypothesis, have been mistranslating this for years, did Luke fail in his attempt to convey his meaning clearly?

Also in my pending tray are posts in the threads on unicode, on how to read a scholarly paper, on BC/AD and some other bits and bobs too, some of which are even colder than the Christmas leftovers. But I'm quite excited by the evolution of the biblioblogs at the moment. The proliferation of biblioblogs both in range and quality is going to enable me to be feel somewhat freer to post on the particular topics that peak my interest, even if it is already taking me much longer to read through my blogroll every day. Happy 2005!

Update (19.45): Stephen Carlson offers some useful reflections in Hypotyposeis, largely to the effect that my questions fall into the zone between blog entry and published article, which is quite right.