Todd's Thoughts – Page 47 – The personal blog of Todd Bolen, written exclusively for friends and former students

Books from ETS

By Todd Bolen | November 23, 2009

I spent last week at the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society. One of the benefits to attendees is good prices on the latest books, usually at 50% discount. I’ve attended three times previously, but for various reasons I purchased very little. This year I bought much more, in part thinking ahead to next year’s study through the Bible and preparation for comprehensive exams. I like seeing what other people (whom I care about) buy, so I thought that some of you might find it of interest if I shared. This is not a complete list, nor is it a recommended list. Perhaps one day I ‘ll comment on some of these after I have read them.

Boyd, Gregory A. and Paul R. Eddy, Across the Spectrum: Understanding Issues in Evangelical Theology.

Hannah, John D., An Uncommon Union: Dallas Theological Seminary and American Evangelicalism. The flyleaf says “Dallas Theological Seminary is often stereotyped as a stronghold of fundamentalism, biblical inerrancy, and dispensational premillennialism. In this groundbreaking book, a graduate and veteran faculty member of DTS explains how the truth is far more complicated than such stereotypes would imply.” Uh-oh.

Meadors, Gary T., ed., Four Views on Moving Beyond the Bible to Theology.

Meyer, Jason C., The End of the Law: Mosaic Covenant in Pauline Theology.

Moore, Russell D., Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches.

Morgan, Christopher W. and Robert A. Peterson, eds., Suffering and the Goodness of God.

Mortenson, Terry and Thane H. Ury, eds., Coming to Grips with Genesis: Biblical Authority and the Age of the Earth. I’ve seen positive reviews on this book, but after I got it home I saw that it has a chapter defending gapless genealogies in Genesis 5 and 11. Good luck with that.

Oswalt, John N., The Bible Among the Myths: Unique Revelation or Just Ancient Literature? I listened to Oswalt give a survey of this book. I’m also enjoying his commentary on Isaiah.

Smith, Gary V., Isaiah 40-66 (New American Commentary). I also met and talked with Dr. Smith. I’m really enjoying his Isaiah 1-39, and he gave me a preview of his revolutionary thinking contained in the second volume.

Ware, Bruce A., Big Truths for Young Hearts: Teaching and Learning the Greatness of God. I may say something about Ware’s presidential address in the future.

Twelve Things I Like About Texas (#11 and #12)

By Todd Bolen | November 22, 2009

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11. Kids ‘ athletic fields here which are better than professional facilities in Israel. They are simply amazing. I don’t just mean that the fields have grass and lack potholes (yes, we ‘ve already surpassed the major leagues elsewhere), but the paths between the fields are paved with concrete, seating is provided with backs, and an awning keeps the shade off of you. I don’t have a picture of it, but once I went to a friend’s kid’s baseball game and I was absolutely floored at how nice the facilities were. They were honestly, no exaggeration, far better than the major league baseball fields in Israel.

Just the regular old soccer field in Plano, Texas

12. We live near a major airport that makes it easy for friends to visit. My parents live in the middle of nowhere, where you have to make six connections to get there. In contrast, it is hard to fly anywhere in the United States without flying through DFW (the third busiest airport in the world). Yes, that is a hint. Yes, you know I’m talking to you.

DFW Airport

Twelve Things I Like About Texas (#9 and #10)

By Todd Bolen | November 21, 2009

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9. Warm winters. One day in January we left Rockford, Illinois and it was zero degrees. By the time we arrived (by car) in Texas, it was warm. (I don’t remember exactly, but probably 60). There are colder days, as this photo attests, but they are rare. It may snow once a year and it may stick for a couple of hours. That’s a good thing.

Snow in our front yard, March 2008

10. Libraries here give you receipts for the books you check out. That is slick and helpful, especially when you have lots of kids who check out lots of books. Maybe they have this in other states, but I’ve never seen it. So this counts in Texas ‘ favor.

Twelve Things I Like About Texas (#7 and #8)

By Todd Bolen | November 20, 2009

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7. Sweet tea. This needs no explanation. I like it that every McDonalds, every Wendys, every-whatever has sweet tea. This is a taste of heaven. (And yes, they also have Dr. Pepper. Everywhere.)

8. Texas has no state income tax. That means no forms, no filing, and no paying. California, just to note one point of contrast, raises your withholding rate even though tax rates haven’t changed. Let me tell you this: you don’t need the 2010 census to tell you whether more stupid people live in California or Texas.

Twelve Things I Like About Texas (#5 and #6)

By Todd Bolen | November 19, 2009

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5. These next few points are related to money, because, frankly, money is a reality of our existence, especially when I stay home all day, no one pays me a salary, and our health insurance is going up another 35% next month after it went up 40% six months ago. So, yes, the fifth thing I love about Texas is the price of gasoline. As I write, the cheapest price in Plano is $2.31 (via gasbuddy). By contrast, the cheapest gas in Santa Clarita (at Arco) is $2.91, and the cheapest gas in Jerusalem is $6.52.

Gas is even cheaper at Costco, plus a 3% rebate

6. An even greater price difference is to be found in the price of homes. My guess is that prices here are about 1/3 of what they are in California. We rent a house, and I think that for what we pay for our large home with swimming pool, in Santa Clarita we would get a 2 bedroom, 1200 sq. foot apartment next to the city dump. Maybe.

Twelve Things I Like About Texas (#3 and #4)

By Todd Bolen | November 18, 2009

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3. We really love our public school a block down the street. We love that it is close, especially in an age in which apparently parents are uncomfortable to let their kids play in their front yards, let alone walk to school. (I’ve had at least three people stop and come up to our door because they saw one of our kids playing in the front yard.) But far more than the convenient distance, our school (K-5 and we have four kids there now) has teachers who work hard, love our kids, and go the extra mile. The principal is wonderful. I’ve thought about writing a post just about her. This school is particularly blessed with a wealth of resources that benefits one of our kids who struggles more with school. We are absolutely convinced that the Lord led us to look at one and only one house in our city because this one is near to this school.

Our kids ‘ elementary school

4. We love our church. It took us a little while to fit in (well, we ‘re still working on it in some ways), but it really helped when I went on a 3-week trip to Israel and Kelli broke her ankle. Our Sunday School class got to know us real fast. The preaching is excellent (and this post is going up while I’m rooming in New Orleans with the pastor; I don’t really know him, and so I hope I like him as a person as much as I like his preaching; we are exactly the same age). We love our class and I love teaching our class (this coming week we ‘re in Isaiah 10). (By the way, if you thought I would illustrate this point with a photograph of a building, then we need to talk.)

Twelve Things I Like About Texas (#1 and #2)

By Todd Bolen | November 17, 2009

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Not long ago I was accused of being a Texas-hater. Evidence was even created to prove the case. Those who read carefully, of course, know that I expressed no such sentiment, but merely expressed the observation that every state that we visited on our summer vacation was beautiful, but that there was not one speck of beauty on the very long road that we drove from New Mexico to our house.

I have decided to counter the false charges that I hate Texas with a series of posts giving “Twelve Things I Like About Texas.” These are not the only twelve things I like, but they are all true. This is not a plea for you to come live here, nor is it a statement that we ‘ll be living here in more than 2 years, 8 months and 6 days from now. It’s a simple expression of some things that I like about life that, while not necessarily true of all of the state, is certainly true of our little slice of Texas.

1. I must start with the bike trail. We live about half of a mile from a creek along which the city has developed a nice recreational area, including a path for walking and bike riding. Since my knee injury nearly a year ago, I have taken up bike riding. I don’t ride that far or that long, but I do enjoy riding along this path next to the creek, which widens into a mini-lake at one point, with its gentle curves and scenic views. Unfortunately I do not have a good photo of this. It’s much more beautiful than you would know from this photo I grabbed as the sun was going down last week.

2. I like the motorcycle helmet laws in Texas. There are none. I don’t ride a motorcycle, but I appreciate the fact that Texas is smart enough to not violate my personal freedom. Now if they would only repeal the seatbelt law and sue the federal government for infringement of states ‘ rights. I might wear a seatbelt if it was not required, but I truly despise the mentality which thinks that such a choice is not a matter of personal freedom. (Two comments: don’t argue with me here about seatbelt laws; if you disagree with me, you are wrong. And I do wear a helmet while riding my bike, especially because there is no law that requires me to.)

November 16

By Todd Bolen | November 16, 2009

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Homosexual marriage: it only gets worse…

Here’s the world’s luckiest train track inspector…

All Piper audiobooks are $5 at ChristianAudio.com for a short time. A couple of Kelli’s closest friends here have never heard of John Piper.

I am off in the morning for five days in New Orleans at the Evangelical Theological Society conference as well as some time at the Bible and Archaeology Fest. My family would appreciate your prayers while I am away. I have prepared some posts for my absence. Tune in tomorrow for “Twelve Things I Like About Texas.”

This photo was taken earlier today.

An Evening of Research

By Todd Bolen | November 12, 2009

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Yesterday I finished research and then wrote a paper on the historical background to the acclamation of Herod Agrippa as a god (Acts 12:20-23). That was the last of seven short research papers/projects of the semester. This afternoon I started research on my major one. The assignment is to produce an article of publishable quality not longer than 8,500 words dealing with primary sources related to a background issue in the New Testament. My topic is Jesus’s cleansing of the temple.

I started today and the paper is due in a month. Since I’m losing nearly a week to a couple of conferences in New Orleans and since there are other things to do in that time, I know I’m in a bad place. There was no way I could have done any better than I have, so I will make the best of it.

This afternoon I started research, and as I wound things up tonight, I was reflecting on how different research is today than it used to be. I thought that those who hadn’t done much research in recent years might be interested to get a glimpse of the process in 2009. When I wrote my first masters thesis, I spent a lot of agurot at the library across town xeroxing sections of books. They had the catalog on computer, but it was quite primitive and you had to write each call number down and then go search through the stacks. I had a computer, but everything was done manually.

I started this afternoon by reading a 50-page chapter written directly on my subject. It’s from an unpublished book that one of my professors is editing and he graciously (I think) shared it with me. It has a lot of references that I copied into a Word doc. I read another article, the one that provoked me to write on the subject, and I copied some more references. Both of these articles I have in electronic format, so I didn’t type anything; just copy/paste.

I sorted the 5-page list into sections: Books, Journals, Josephus, Rabbinic sources, Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha/Pseudepigrapha, and Other. This is to facilitate gathering these sources. I’m in a particular rush since I hope to have several hours tomorrow in the library, and I’d like to avoid an extra trip to the library during the next two weeks when I don’t have classes. The more sources I have in hand, the more likely I ‘ll be able to make it through.

Finally, we get to the interesting part, or at least the part I thought might be of most interest to those who have researched lately. I first went to work on the book list, with the goal of creating a list that I can take to the library in the morning for books to copy (portions thereof) or check out. I did this by searching the school library’s catalog using my bibliographic database software (Endnote). You can quickly type in the author’s last name and a book title and the record will be automatically imported into the software. This includes the call number. I did this for about 30 books and I would guess it took about 30 minutes. Soon I ‘ll print off the list, ready to take in the morning. This doesn’t tell me if the book is checked out, but if I don’t see it on the shelf in the morning, I ‘ll do another search on my computer and any books that are checked out, I ‘ll put a hold on them (with the press of a mouse button).

Now to journals. I have a list of 17 journal articles. I logged into ATLA, a journal database, and searched for each in turn. When I found one, I would first save it as a pdf file (if available), and then save the citation in Endnote format. Of the 17 articles, 10 were available as pdf. All 17 of the records are now saved in my database. That took just over 30 minutes.

In short, in less than two hours, I have:

1) A list of 30 books, sorted by call number

2) 10 journal articles in electronic format (no copying required)

3) 7 journal articles in a list, which I will pull from the library in the morning and scan directly to pdf. Copying is a thing of the past. I can scan using a copy machine (=fast) and it saves it directly as a pdf file. If the book is real big, there’s no need to turn the book around again and again, as the copy machine handles 11×17.

4) About 50 sources already entered into my database program. They ‘ll require some minor editing, but otherwise, they ‘re ready be inserted as footnotes and bibliography.

Pretty slick, eh? We ‘ve come a long ways, even in my short lifetime. If I was conducting this research in 1993 when I did my thesis, it would have taken, well, about the same amount of time, given that most of these sources had not even been written then.

2010 Calendar

By Todd Bolen | November 11, 2009

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I haven’t had any calendars with my photos in a year or two, but I’m back in print in 2010. This calendar is produced by Lamb and Lion Ministries and the theme is “Churches of Israel.” The photos are all exterior shots, of buildings such as the Church of All Nations (Gethsemane), Dominus Flevit, Primacy of St. Peter at Tabgha and the Greek Orthodox Church at Capernaum (aka the “Barbie church”).

They are selling these through the website for $10, but the ministry was nice enough to give me some to give away to my friends. The only problem is that all of my friends stack vertically on shelves. Except for you, my virtual friends.

So, if you want a calendar, send me an email with your mailing address. If you want more than one, let me know, and in a week or two when I go to mail them, I ‘ll honor that request if I have enough.